Literacy, Democracy and the Role of Intellectuals

By Dr. Sarath Gamini de Silva-July 12, 2020


Sri Lanka is given much credit for providing free education up to the university level. We hardly meet anyone who has not had studied at least up to Std. 5 at school. The Vast majority of the youth have passed the GCE ordinary level and, large numbers qualify for university education. Of those, quite a number cannot be accommodated in universities and university colleges and hence seek higher education abroad or in the local fee levying educational institutions, affiliated to foreign universities. Many of our citizens, who have gone abroad, or have not returned after post graduate studies, contribute immensely to those societies, doing much acclaimed work and research.

Thus, we boast of one of the highest literacy rates in the developing world. But, of course, this means only the ability of anyone over 10 years of age to read and understand a simple message. The literacy of women is mainly responsible for high indices of health the country has achieved, specially in the fields of maternal and child health. A better index, if available, would have been the average IQ of the people. The casual discussions, I have had with young ones who have passed the ordinary level exam, mostly the non medical staff at the private hospitals, clearly expose their lack of any knowledge of history. Recently, I found that many of them have not heard about Lincoln, Hitler, Mandela, world wars, slavery or the assassination of one of our own prime ministers and a president. Only a few knew that we had been colonized by the Portuguese, Dutch and the British! Their knowledge of history is confined to the ethnic conflict and winning the war against the LTTE. Even that knowledge is acquired by listening to utterances of politicians and others and not by reading documents on the subject. No wonder they keep for ever venerating those who claim full credit for winning the war. Many were totally unaware of the current turmoil in the West about racial issues. The excuse given is that they are too busy at work that they could not remember the last time they read a newspaper. However they spend several hours daily on social media! In fact, recently I looked for a short text book on history, at a leading bookshop, to be given to them. I could find only books with questions and answers to prepare candidates for examinations, just catering to the market demands. Of course, there are authoritative text books of thousands of pages costing thousands of rupees, of little use to the average reader.

Handicapped by ignorance of history, disabled by a lack of analytical skills and common sense, the youth are incapable of projecting the possible outcomes of past and present events to the future. Thus, lessons from the past are not learnt and history keeps repeating itself and dragging the nation downhill.

Sri Lanka is hailed as one of the oldest practiding democracies in the world. Representative governments have ruled the country for 72 years since Independence in 1948. With the level of education in the population already referred to, we would have expected the elected representatives to have done wonders in developing the country. But they have failed miserably and we are languishing as a debt ridden country on the verge of bankruptcy. It is claimed that at least 90 percent of the parliamentarians lack even the GCE Ordinary Level qualifications.

The ability to spend vast amounts of money has been the main criterion for electoral success in the present system of proportional representation, As such those with unlimited resources, mostly earned through illegal and often criminal activity, find their way into the representative bodies. While in power, their main aim, naturally, has been to recover the costs of the election and then go on to make a fortune to last generations. Party leaders, while asking the voters not to elect crooks, keep nominating them, leaving, little room for the electors to act. Thus convicted offenders of all kinds, and those with serious allegations of fraud, find themselves permanently entrenched in positions of power.

It is said that the best case against democracy is a five-minute conversation with an average voter. They are easily duped by the claims made and the promises given by the politicians on mundane issues, like the cost of living. History has not taught them that these claims are often false and the promises will never be kept. They fail to realise that the leaders’ sole aim is to keep them and their families in power, covering up the frauds and corruption committed over the years.

There has been a call for having more professionals in parliament. A handful of intellectuals, like professors of law, lawyers, doctors, accountants and the like have been elected at every election. The National List, originally meant for such intellectuals who are unlikely to succeed at the elections, is abused by party leaders to accommodate defeated candidates. Unfortunately, the performance of so called intellectuals, in the legislature, has been no better than the rest. As long as there is a constitutional provision empowering the party leaders to expel their members from the party, thereby removing them from the parliament as well, none can provide any constructive criticism. It is pathetic to watch the sorry plight and intellectual paralysis of professors and the like who have become mere compliant spokesmen for policies formulated by less qualified minions. It looks very unlikely that they had any role to play in drafting the policies.

We find many educated people writing at length in newspapers, dealing with various aspects related to politics.

Among them are medical consultants, leading lawyers, bankers, journalists, diplomats and the like. Naturally, we would expect them to give an impartial analysis of events and issues that could help others less informed to understand the issues better.

This has not been the case. I fail to understand how such "learned" people could find everything done by one party 100% right and the opposing party always 100% wrong. They are obviously serving their political masters and in the process using their credentials to mislead the public, losing their dignity and integrity at the same time. In fact, I have advised some of my associates that they should not align themselves openly with politicians unless their advice is sought on policy matters and they are in a position to point out the mistakes made. Otherwise, such silent alignment, or open expressions of biased opinion, will encourage the self seeking politicians to go down an erratic path, with the assumption that their learned friends have approved the act. We know very well only a few, if any, politicians would encourage or tolerate such criticism. The actions of many politically aligned lawyers, during the constitutional crisis of October 2018, are a case in point. They were exploring all loopholes in the law to justify what to an average person with common sense and ability to understand the meaning of a document looked clearly unconstitutional. In their day-to-day practice in the courts of law the lawyers are quite rightly supposed to defend the indefensible as they have been retained to do so by the litigants for a fee. Why they have to stand up for illegal actions of petty politicians on matters of such public importance is beyond comprehension, unless, of course, it is for personal gain.

Democracy is arguably the best form of governance as long as it is practised in the real sense of the word with a well-informed electorate blessed with common sense. The intelligentsia has a great responsibility for guiding the people to arrive at reasonable conclusions without using their credentials for personal gain by supporting errant politicians. Otherwise, democracy would forever remain an impediment to the progress of a developing nation.