Constitution Making, Global Warming & Incorporating E-Governance

By Chandre Dharmawardana –JANUARY 9, 2021

Dr. Chandre Dharmawardana

Several authors have recently discussed constitution making and governance. A constitutional committee is working hard. While the unpopular Yahapalanaya government  delayed elections as far as possible, others seem to rush for provincial elections.

Dr. Nirmala Chandrahasan, and the veteran constitutionalist Neville Ladduwahetty  in their Island articles discussed  the unit of devolution – Province versus the district. Professor G. H. Peiris had also discussed these questions recently. They examined the constitutional and politico-legal issues,  paying attention to the “lessons of history”. However, perhaps history is  moving into its proverbial dustbin due to rapid technological change. Looking towards the resources of the 21st century, and to the new threats of the new age may be more important.

Many of the insoluble political questions of humanity got solved or became irrelevant due to developments in technology. The elimination of slavery due the mechanization is a well-known example. Unfortunately politicians and constitutionals theorists tend to ignore what is technically possible and actually necessary. Sri Lanka, even with a high level of education hasto deal with uneducated politicians, while the educated politicians parrot past glories, and borrow their “vision” from ancient kings, Ravana  and Arasu myths. Re-affirming old ethnic identities is not enough to face face rising sea levels, rising temperatures, environmental catastrophes and shortages in energy and employment, food and water.

The call for a devolution of power, or the so-called Ethnic question of Sri Lanka goes back to the separatist aspirations of the Colombo-Tamil leadership who were land owners of the North, and wished to retain their power in the face of Donoughmore reforms granting universal franchise. The subsequent Soulbury constitution of a unitary Ceylon rejected the call for a 50-50 ethnic division as a travesty of democracy. The 1949  Ilankai-Tamil-Arasu-Kadchi  narrative of “Tamil aspirations” became mainstream only after the 1956 Swabasha policy that led to language riots and the Eelamist wars. Even today, a continuing complaint is that Tamil language services are not available to Tamil speakers, even though Tamil has become “more hegemonic than Sinhala” in holding sway over all nine provinces.

Unlike in 1956, or even in 1976  (the year of the TULF-led Separatist resolution),  today mobile-phone browsers provide good computer translation for most languages. “Apps” for voice outputs are available. So anyone can use his preferred language. In articles written some years ago I outlined how all this simply solves the “language problem” that has plagued Sri Lanka since 1956 (Island. 22-11-2011).  Instead of implementing such avenues via ICTA and the Universities, the government embarked on a quixotic plan to make everybody tri-lingual! Constitution makers should legislate that language services provided electronically via cell phones, browsers and voice synthesizers are legally acceptable.

In 1905, when the Jaffna-Colombo rail link was opened, well-to-do Northerners moved to Karuvakaddu (Cinnamon Gardens), while the more affluent even had homes in London or Chennai. Instead of prioritizing  highways, we need  to prioritize high-speed trains. They typically run at 200-300 km/h. So Jaffna or Point Pedro will become mere suburbs of Colombo, given that it takes two hours even to get to Mt. Lavinia from Colombo in typical daytime traffic! Given a network of electrified high-speed trains, “devolution” becomes irrelevant.

The Eelamist wing  of Tamil nationalists demand territorial separation “in order to preserve their language and culture”. However, their own brethren in the Trans-National Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTA) have demonstrated a complete electronic model of a Tamil cyber-state without even having a territory! Furthermore, bibliographyic studies show that more Tamil literary and cultural creations have come from  multi-cultural Colombo than from the Jaffna province.

Sri Lanka is a country with a mere two-third  the  population of Tokyo, and occupying a land mass smaller than Hokkaido, one of the islands (not the biggest) comprising Japan. I mention these not because I wish to discuss Japan’s Governance structure, but to emphasized that Sri Lanka is a SMALL, compact  country by any standard. It needs NO devolution of power what-so-ever, either to districts, or to provinces, as e-governence is the way of the future.

Sri lanka is within a typical single “area code” for cell-phone communication, and it will shrink even more when 5G networks with huge bandwidths arrive. So, forget about devolution of political power, and study how best the needs of a fully centralized, electronically instantly linked e-governance can be enshrined in the constitution.

The Sri Lankan Parliament met in an electronic session mediated by webinar technology. This would never have happened if not for the Pandemic. But it already proves that e-governance with the whole country as the unit, with MPs sitting in Bintanne or Batakotte (Vaddukkoddai) is a fait accompli.

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