[lg policy] Reflections on Issues of Language in Sri Lanka: Power, Exclusion and Inclusion

[Harold Schiffman]

Reflections on Issues of Language in Sri Lanka: Power, Exclusion and Inclusion
24 Oct, 2011 Prof Sasanka Perera Colombo, Features, Identity, Jaffna,
Language, Peace and Conflict, Politics and Governance, Post-War



Keynote address delivered on 17th October 2011 at ‘Language and Social
Cohesion: 9th International Language and Development Conference,
Colombo co-organized by the Ministry of National Languages and Social
Integration, Ministry  of Education, GIZ, AusAID and British Council.



Approach

Language is never a simple issue of communication; in contemporary
social and political practice everywhere, language goes much beyond
its basic utilitarian purposes. In this sense, Sri Lanka is no
exception. By now, Sri Lanka has ended an immensely destructive
military conflict that had much to do with a crisis of identity linked
as much to language as to ethnicity and contested notions of
binary-nationalisms and competitive interpretations of history. In
this context, this is a crucial time to seriously consider the
politico-developmental position of language in imagining the future of
the country.

Today, I will briefly focus on the historical development of the
politics of language in Sri Lanka and explore the dynamics of the
specific political process that has emerged out of privileging and
de-privileging language use in the country. This necessarily has to
focus on the policy discourse that has enhanced language regulation
and legislation in Sri Lanka as well as political impediments that
have retarded the comprehensive implementation of the provisions of
these legislative provisions and regulatory frameworks. For me,
heading for the future and imagining the future after a catastrophic
and very painful recent past and without the hindsight of the larger
history that has molded our collective personality is a recipe for
future instability.  And it endlessly disturbs me that often we as a
people seem very reluctant to learn from our own history.

History of Politics of Language

Both Tamil and Sinhala politicians espoused the idea of swabasha (or
‘native languages’) during the colonial period in the early 20th
century aimed at promoting Sinhala and Tamil.  So contrary to popular
belief today, politics of language have not always been a reflection
of inter-ethnic rivalry.  In its initial stages, the demand for
swabasha reflected class connotations even though blurred outlines of
Sinhala aspirations could also be detected.  But such aspirations were
not clearly articulated, and did not receive popular support at these
stages.  Demands for swabasha was a protest against the privileges
enjoyed by the English educated elite, privileges not open to the
masses educated in the local languages.

In 1944, J.R. Jayawardena moved a resolution in Parliament to declare
“Sinhalese as the Official Language of Ceylon within a reasonable
number of years”.  An amendment was proposed by V. Nallaiah, a Tamil
state councilor, for providing both Sinhala and Tamil the status as
Official Languages, which was seconded by R.S.S. Gunawardena, a
Sinhala state councilor.  The resolution in this form was approved by
27 to 2 in the Sinhala-dominated legislature, another sign of the lack
of ethnic overtones in language politics at this stage.  The
resolution specified that Sinhala and Tamil would become the languages
of instruction in schools, examinations for public services and
legislative proceedings.

In 1946, a committee under the chairmanship of J.R. Jayawardena
strongly recommended the establishment of local languages as Official
Languages replacing English while recommending that the transition
take place over a period of ten years.  But there was no serious
movement in the language front despite these official conversations.
S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike left the UNP in 1951 citing the government’s
inaction in implementing the new Official Language Policies, and
launched a concerted attack on the UNP claiming to see “no difficulty
in the way of the early adoption of our languages.” Soon after his
resignation, Bandaranaike organized the SLFP and began mobilizing
forces supporting the swabasha movement within Sinhala society to form
a broad-based coalition to wrest political power from the UNP in the
upcoming general election.  However, the language issue had not become
a divisive ethnic issue even at this stage as exemplified by the SLFP
manifesto which claimed that “it is most essential that Sinhalese and
Tamil be adopted as Official Languages immediately so that the people
of this country may cease to be aliens in their own land….”.

By the late 1950s however, this cross-cutting interest in empowering
local languages diminished in the context of emerging and divisive
ethnic politics. It is in this context that  S.W.R.D Bandaranaike was
elected as Prime Minister in 1956.  His main election promise to
establish Sinhala as the Official Language of the country replacing
English was fulfilled soon after the election, giving no status of
parity to Tamil. This is the manner in which language politics as we
know it today was introduced into the Sri Lankan political discourse.
All of us are quite aware where these politics have lead us since that
time.

Language Policy History

Let me take a moment to briefly reflect upon the policy formworks that
have impacted the language situation in the country.  In 1966, ten
years after the passage of the Sinhala Only Bill, the use of Tamil as
the language of administration in Northern and Eastern provinces was
begun after the implementation of the provisions of Tamil Language
(Special Provisions) Act No. 28 (1958) mostly due to pressure from
Tamil political parties.  In 1987, through the 13th amendment to the
Constitution Tamil was also decreed an Official Language of the state
and the legal basis for parity between Sinhala and Tamil was clearly
established by law.  In addition, both languages were also defined as
‘national languages’ while recognizing English as the ‘link language.’

Section 21 of the Constitution under the 16th Amendment offers
extensive provisions and rights for the language of administration to
be available in both Sinhala and Tamil.  In addition, Section 23 of
the same amendment provides that the language of legislation will be
Sinhala and Tamil while a translation of these legislative enactments
and laws must be available in English.  Further, Section 24 of the
same amendment provides that the languages of the courts in the
country will be Sinhala and Tamil.

Chapter IV of the Constitution and the 13th and 16th Amendments in
particular, formally recognize the earlier mistakes of language
politics, and provides for extensive and legally binding solutions.
In effect, Chapter IV as it appears today provides for the equitable
use of Sinhala and Tamil in all areas of social and political
activity.  In that sense, the Constitution is both a historical text
of mistakes and also their correction, and a point of departure for
the implementation of the Language Policy that has been so
exhaustively articulated.  When it comes to language rights, the issue
is no longer with the Constitution or with regulations, but with their
practical implementation.

In 1991, the Ministry of Public Administration, Provincial Councils
and Home Affairs issued a circular under the title ‘Implementation of
the Official Languages Law – Trilingualization of Forms,’ and made the
following directive: “It was decided that forms of all government
institutions should be made available in the three languages, Sinhala,
Tamil and English printed in the same paper.  All old forms not
satisfying these criteria should be withdrawn.  Secretaries of all
Ministries and Provincial Councils should be responsible for
implementing this decision”.

This was a conscious attempt at implementing some of the most basic
provisions in exercising language rights that affect people in routine
circumstances.  In 1992, the same Ministry issued another circular
under the title ‘Preparation of Infrastructure for the Implementation
of the Official Languages Law.’  It stated that the government’s
objective was to implement the language legislation as laid down by
the Constitution, and urged heads of government agencies to recognize
and address these issues.  More importantly, the circular requested
Secretaries of Ministries to investigate and report the lapses in
implementing the Language Policy in departments and institutions under
them.  Further, the circular categorically stated that lack of
language skills and lack of equipment would no longer be entertained
by the government as excuses for the delays in implementing the
Official Language legislation.

The repeated issuing of these circulars point to a number of
realities.  The constitutional changes made were serious and these
circulars indicate numerous attempts made over the years to implement
the provisions in the Constitution.  They also point to the failure of
the Official Languages Policy at the level of practice due to sheer
lack of capacity, mechanisms, skills and the recognition of such
lapses as well as a pronounced absence of political will and interest
at the ground level.  The narratives emerging from these circulars
suggest that the government’s interest was the speedy implementation
of the Language Policy rather than first establishing a long term and
robust framework for its implementation.

On 30th June 1998, President Chandrika Kumaratunge writing to her
Cabinet of Ministers also made a clear statement regarding concerns
over the failure of implementing the Official Languages Policy:

    Several Instances of failure on the part of Government
Institutions to comply with Constitutional provisions relating to
Official Languages have been brought to my notice.  These are serious
omissions as they cause immense inconvenience and hardship to members
of the public who are not conversant with Sinhala.  Besides, it also
amounts to a violation of the law.  I dread to think of the plight of
citizens who receive letters in a language which they do not
understand.  This is tantamount to denial of that citizen a
fundamental right.

However, despite good intentions and various attempts outlined above,
the overall damage caused by the initial phase of politics of
language, and the suspicions these politics created in the minds
Tamil-speaking people remain un-addressed at the level of both
country-wide practice and felt experience.  In other words, the vast
gap between the official recognition of Tamil as an Official Language
and the practical implementation of the provisions and conditions it
entails, is yet to be bridged.  As recently as 2005, the government’s
Official Language Commission made the following crucial observations
with regard to the implementation of Language Policy in a wide-ranging
document titled the Memorandum of Recommendations:

    The facilities for communicating with the central government in
obtaining its services in Tamil are minimal.  This situation amounts
to a violation of constitutional rights of the Tamil speaking citizens
of the country.  Apart from the indignities they are made to suffer,
they are put into innumerable inconveniences in transacting business
with the government.  The provincial administration including that of
the North East miserably fail in serving citizens inhabiting those
areas who are not proficient in the language of the administration of
the respective province in their own language which has Official
Language status.

These statements summarize the social and political repercussions of
the politics of language in this country as they exist today despite
numerous attempts taken to address them.  On the other hand, some
significant measures adopted seem to have been formulated in an ad hoc
manner despite the articulation of a language sensitive ideological
commitment resulting in their state of unsuccessfulness.

The Present

Through that rather turbulent road with too many blind corners we come
to the present; and the question is what does the present hold? Quite
literally, if we had followed the road signs that we ourselves had
established in the form of rules and regulations, our politics, at
least with reference to language, would have been quite different; if
so, we would have been discussing very different things in this
conference today.

Last year (2010), about one and half years after the conclusion of the
war, at the invitation of the Ministry of Official Languages and
Social Integration, I visited Vavuniya and Jaffna between 1st and 3rd
December to undertake a quick assessment of what the language
situation was at ground level in two primarily Tamil speaking areas.
Without going into details, I will only offer a summary of my
experience which will place in context, the prevailing situation. The
Divisional Secretariat for Vavuniya where the GA is based, services
mostly a Tamil-speaking population. While government circulars
received by this office as a rule come in all three languages and
sometimes in two, a great majority of routine communication from
government agencies continues to be in Sinhala. This includes
communications from the Ministry of Public Administration, Ministry of
Heath, Pensions Department, Samurdhui Authority, Widows and Orphans
Fund and the Ministry of Economic Development. A cursory survey of the
daily ‘in-try’ of mail for the GA for the 1st of December 2010
indicated that the majority of the mail was in Sinhala, a few regional
letters in Tamil and almost no Sinhala language letters were
accompanied by either Tamil or English translations.

The Vauniya Police has a similar situation with regard to language of
service. In a force of about 300 officers and constables attached to
the Vavuniya Town Police, only about seven are competent in Tamil. The
police acknowledge that with the end of active war, the numbers of
people coming to police stations in the region have increased
considerably, and that their ability to serve the people in their own
language needs to be vastly improved. At present, all complaints are
only recorded in Sinhala; a Tamil-speaking person can relate his or
her compliant in Tamil, and if one of the handful of policemen
competent in Tamil is available, the narrative is translated into
Sinhala which is recorded. None of these are trained translators and
the possibility of errors and inaccuracies seeping into the recorded
statements are significant.

Structurally, the situation in Jaffna is quite similar to Vavuniya
suggesting the existence of a pattern in similar ethno-cultural
conditions where the official languages policy is faltering seriously
in the process of implementation. The Jaffna Hospital receives most of
its instructions and correspondence from state agencies in Sinhala in
a situation where it does not have formal mechanisms to translate
these documents. It is clear that Ministry of Health is one of the
most consistent violators of the official languages law. The great
majority of correspondence from this Ministry comes in Sinhala which
includes letters of appointment, salary increments, and above all,
disciplinary inquiries.  The police in Jaffna Town has a force of
about 600 officers and constables; out of this only about 7 are
competent in Tamil though serving an overwhelmingly Tamil majority
population. As in Vavuiya, officers have to take procedural detours to
manage with what is available and depend on informal systems when the
formal structures are dysfunctional.

This state of affairs poses a series of problems which seem to crop up
regularly in other central and local government bodies in the north
which indicates a consistent pattern and deeper malaise.  That is,
despite the constitutional and legal right of the people to receive
information and services from central and local government agencies in
their own language, this does not happen on a routine basis. So,
despite the existence of an ideal legal and constitutional framework
for the implementation of the official languages policy, it is
consistently violated as these examples and people’s experiences
indicate. While this has lead to a situation of frustration and lack
of trust towards the state, people also seem reluctant to take legal
remedies to rectify the situation though such procedures exists, for
fear of reprimand.

It is in this context that we finally come to the attempted ban of the
Tamil version of the national anthem which is entrenched by the
Constitution. The Minister of Housing quite loudly and without wisdom
called the Tamil version of the national anthem a ‘joke,’ while the
proposal received considerable support from some of the top leaders of
our political spectrum, based on spectacularly false information and
assumptions. Naturally, if the direct translation of the original is a
‘joke’, then so must be the original. But as we know quite well, our
national anthem in Sinhala, Tamil or any other language is a fine and
exemplary text that defies divisiveness in all its forms, and upholds
the value of a collective identity.  The fact that the ban was not
carried through is another matter. I find it extremely unfortunate
that such an unenlightened political debate emerged in the first
place, barely one and half years after the conclusion of the an
immensely destructive war, and while our collective sorrow over the
losses in war was still quite painful, and ‘reconciliation’ had become
a free floating word in the local political discourse.  Perhaps that
word has lost its meaning just the same way our post-independence
language policies have lost their direction. It is in this context
that I would like to reiterate a point I made at the very outset. That
is, if we do not learn from our history, from our collective past,
from our mistakes and from our strengths, we will be the architects of
our own future destruction just the same way we have been of our
recent past.

I would like to conclude my reflections with a few not so well known
words from one of the greatest political leaders of our time, Nelson
Mandela: “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes
to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his
heart.” My wish today is that our political leaders would somehow find
the wisdom to be guided by this simple logic. I also wish that wisdom
would come to govern our politics in general and our politics of
language in particular.

(The speaker is Professor and former Head, Department of Sociology,
University of Colombo)

http://groundviews.org/2011/10/24/reflections-on-issues-of-language-in-sri-lanka-power-exclusion-and-inclusion/

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