Colombo:February3 , 2012: D evolution has taken centre stage in the Sri Lankan drama now. Despite the fact that the key minority Tamil party the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has been talking about devolution of powers for the Tamils for some time, the past two weeks witnessed a devolution-climax.As the TNA made one demand after another (first powers over land, then police and finally finance), the government stalled talks calling it an “LTTE tactic”. TNA’s conduct in the recent past was quite reminiscent of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) who would come to the table for “Peace talks” and walk when their ridiculous demands went unmet. The government refused land, police and finance demands and instead proposed to set up a Parliamentary Select Committee — a senate of sorts — to resolve the prevailing ethnic issues. The TNA in turn has refused to participate in the senate. That the government has accepted the TNA, who were backing up the Tamil Tiger terrorists during the war years for a separate state, into parliament, is a good deal as any. Yet, what good is devolution for Sri Lanka really? The TNA says that it does not want a separate state — just separate Tamil powers where land, police and finance matters are concerned — for now. It’s a deadlock situation. On Monday the president stated that it is only some members of the TNA pushing for a rift, while a few are agreeable for a lasting solution. A much quoted illustration of TNA where devolution of powers is being successfully exercised are India and Canada. What has been overlooked though is the relative sizes of those countries against Sri Lanka, as well as the distribution of ethnicities. Tiny Sri Lanka is made up of just 65, 610 square kilometres in comparison to 3.2 million square kilometre India and almost 10 million square kilometred Canada. Unlike India and Canada, Sri Lanka does not contain a single isolated area belonging to one single ethnic group — the Sinhalese, Tamils or Muslims. Even through the winding British built roads it takes just more than half a day’s car journey from one end of the island to another, whereas a train journey from Dibrugarh in Assam to Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu, India, takes 16 days. What the TNA has also conveniently forgotten is the existence of the other minority group — the Sri Lankan Muslims, who are as Sri Lankans as it comes. If the government gives control of the North and East exclusively for the Tamils, what happens to the Muslims ? There are other means of power devolution. For instance, increasing the number of Tamils in the police force as the government is currently doing is just one such way. The same courtesy and rights should be extended to Muslims too to maintain an ethnic balance. For a multi cultural, multi ethnic nation that has lived in peace for centuries, and is once again trying to reach that balance, TNA’s demands of devolution remains a recipe for disaster.
