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Roots of post-independence socio-political crises by Shashikala Perera, Daily News correspondent Half a century has elapsed since Sri Lanka gained political independence. It has a history of landmark achievements, pitfalls and eruptions of ethnic and political violence. Prof. S.T. Hettige, Dean Faculty of Arts, University of Colombo, is a keen observer of the changing times. In an interview with the Daily News Prof. Hettige analysed this process of change and dealt with a range of issues from the ethnic conflict to education, critically. He describes the ethnic conflict as the country's biggest challenge and impasse. "It has claimed lives, resources and the strength of youth on both sides of the communal divide. The future prospects of the country depend to a larger extent on the resolution of this conflict." Devolution is "just part of a solution" and the ethnic conflict didn't arise merely due to lack of devolved power, he says. "It has several other contributory factors. He argues that centralised power, authority and decision making should be devolved to local governments ensuring adequate regional autonomy and power at the periphery. It's necessary to promote greater pluralism in terms of decentralisation of authority, ironing out forms of discrimination, marginalisation and segregation. He feels that "all the issues relating to the conflict should be addressed simultaneously and not just constitutional changes on devolving power". Turning his attention to other issues confronting the country, he observes that the gap between the rich and poor has "continuously widened" with a substantial majority struggling to survive. With unequal distribution of resources, poverty alleviation alone does not provide adequate cover. He laments that "Sri Lanka still lacks a proper system of taxation and rationalising social expenditure." Help should be given to those who deserve it, not to everyone. But on the other hand, the poor do not try to break away from poverty and continue to suffer from the dependency syndrome. Though the rapid expansion of formal education helped loosen up the traditional, rural structures and churn out educated youth with higher aspirations in large numbers most school leavers and university graduates receive a liberal arts education with no specific life skills or productivity assets and look for white collar jobs in Government institutions. Prof. Hettige says the expansion of the private, corporate sector largely took place at the expense of the state sector and the monolingual Sinhala educated youth find themselves at a loss since prominence is given to those who can speak English even though they lack educational qualifications. But he sees a positive trend in some social conditions caused by free education. "Free education and land alienation helped many lower caste persons to move away from traditional caste occupations. This is an important factor influencing material and social relations in both rural and urban areas". Though the economy before 1977 was dominated by plantation and peasant agriculture, the launching of the open economy brought a 'dual' economy. The open economy and globalisation has exposed a large part of the local population to new ideas and socio-cultural practices. Peasant agriculture has become less attractive to the educated youth who clamour for white collar jobs. Another obvious change is the increased female participation in the labour force and the migration of women to the Middle East for employment. In more recent years the relative significance of the private corporate sector and the non-governmental organisations has increased enormously. There have been attempts in recent years not only to explain why the state sector institutions have become more inefficient, indifferent, and corrupt, but also to offer certain remedies to correct the situation. What about the escalation of violence in society? "Escalation of political violence, ethnic violence, erosion of democratic values and practices, development of the ethnic conflict into a war are some of the obvious manifestations of this heightened turbulence." Violence also takes other forms - abuse of children, break-up of families, drug and alcohol abuse and intra- family violence. He sees political violence, intimidation of voters, election irregularities, abuse of power, corruption, lack of transparency in business transactions, favouritism and political interference as factors that gradually became significant features of the political landscape over the last two to three decades, leading to a deterioration of political moral values. Ordinary people try to influence ruling party politicians to secure personal benefits such as jobs, transfers, promotions, lands, houses and income support. Prof. Hettige ideally envisages "a democratic political culture where the politicians are not led by few opportunists that rally around them and their interests, but by committed party members and those interested in public welfare". Politicians should be guided by the grievances experienced by the ordinary people. Politicians and voters should commit themselves to values like democracy, justice, equality, social responsibility and freedom of expression. As it stands today centralised ad-hoc development planning and implementation of development projects have proved to be inefficient, neither meeting their targets nor benefitting the target groups. Policies that matter to the public should be rational, democratic and be able to be pursued by the vast majority of people. Policies should not be guided by the private interests of a 5% of the populace. "This polarisation of
private and public interests has contributed to crisis in transport, education, health and
criminal justice. The current opportunity structure is not sufficiently open and it tends
to marginalise the weak and the powerless, effectively restricting their participation in
the larger process of social and economic advancement."
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