Had the provisions of the 1957 Bandaranaike-Chelvanayagam Pact been implemented, several problems that reared their ugly head in later years in Sri lanka, would have been resolved; and the terrible violence averted
Union Minister of State for External Affairs and former Chief of Army Staff General VK Singh recently remarked that the decision to send the Indian Peace Keeping Force to Sri lanka in 1987 had been “a high level policy failure”. Perhaps it was, and perhaps there would have been no occasion to commit that mistake had both Colombo and the lankan Tamil representatives not allowed an opportunity to slip by in 1957, and had fate not intervened in a tragic way. This was some two decades before the militant movement began to gain ground and nearly five decades before it was decisively crushed and its tallest and most brutal leader Velupillai Prabhakaran eliminated. In between came the India-Sri lanka accord of 1987, which led to the disastrous deployment of the IPKF.
In 1957, the first serious attempt was made by the Government of Sri lanka and the lankan Tamil representatives to find a solution to the vexed issue of addressing the emotional call of Tamil nationalism. Terrorism had then not become a tool to achieve the goal, nor was there rigidity on the demand for a Tamil Eelam. But there were strong reservations among the lankan Tamil community over what it saw as a continuing effort by the Sinhala-dominated Government to sideline their concerns and grievances.
The fear was heightened by political developments in 1956, when SWRD Bandaranaike’s newly formed Sri lanka Freedom Party romped home in the general election, riding on a strong wave of Sinhala nationalism. Despite his hardline image, Bandaranaike had reached out to a prominent lankan Tamil figure and leader of the Federal Party (committed to the cause of lankan Tamils), SJV Chelvanayagam, to explore a middle ground. The Federal Party had cut its political teeth by vociferously opposing the ‘Sinhala Only’ policy of the Bandaranaike regime, which mandated proficiency in the Sinhala language to qualify for the country’s civil services. The two hardliners arrived at an agreement to check the escalation of emotions and consequent violence. The deal, inked in July 1957, came to be known as the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayagam Pact.
While this deal was different in scope and language from what got envisaged 30 years later, in what came to be known as the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of Sri lanka, the spirit was similar and the goals were much the same. Had the provisions of the 1957 pact been implemented even partially, in letter and spirit, many problems that reared their ugly head in the coming years, would have been resolved. Interestingly, the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayagam agreement refers to very similar matters that found their way in the 13th Amendment, seen to be a key document in attempting to bridge the gap between the Sinhalas and the Tamils.
The 1957 pact was a good first step. Although Prime Minister Bandaranaike had stated bluntly that it would not be possible to amend the Official language Act to include Tamil as one of the official languages of the country, he did agree, as part of the deal, that Colombo would recognise Tamil as the language of the national minority and that it would be the language of administration in the Northern and the Eastern Provinces. looked at from the perspective of those decades, it was a significant concession. The agreement also provided for the creation of Regional Councils and a direct election of Regional Councillors to the Tamil-majority Provinces. The Regional Councils would have powers over specified subjects such as education, industries, health, agriculture, and also land development. Interestingly, the two parties agreed that, on the issue of colonisation, the Regional Councils would have the right to decide to whom the land would be allotted in their region. This was done in a bid to protect the ethnic Tamil composition.
Given that we are talking of 1957, those were significant gains and building blocks. Thirty years later, the 13th Amendment, a far more elaborate document, had, even if inadvertently, only improved upon the earlier effort. It provided for the inclusion of Tamil as an official language, the establishment of a Provincial Council (remember the 1957 Regional Councils), and the appointment of Governors and Chief Ministers to Provinces, armed with considerable executive powers.
Interestingly, similar to what existed in the 1957 pact, the 13th Amendment included subjects such as agriculture, education, health, land development to be within the jurisdiction of the Provincial Councils (list 1 of the Ninth Schedule).
Why did the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayagam pact fail at a time when militancy had not yet reared its head, when Prabhakaran was all of three years old, and when he was still 18 years away from announcing his arrival on the stage of terrorism by masterminding the killing of the Jaffna Mayor, a moderate lankan Tamil leaderIJ The agreement collapsed because Bandaranaike could not face the political onslaught of the hardliners within and outside his party over what they alleged were ‘concessions’ to the Tamil community.
He was assassinated in 1959 by a person adorning a Buddhist robe. That put paid to any breakthrough. But before that, he tried to backtrack and dilute the growing criticism against him by a symbolic gesture: The Government’s insistence on the use of the Sinhala letter ‘Sri’ on the number plate of vehicles. The Tamils responded by using their own character for the word, in defiance. That set the stage for yet another confrontation
Bandaranaike’s assurance of greater regional autonomy to the Tamils, as part of the pact, became a non-starter also because his rival, JR Jayawardene, launched a massive protest movement with the help of a disparate group of Buddhist leaders. Agreement copies were placed in coffins and put to fire. Eventually, the pact that, had it been implemented, could have saved Sri lanka three decades of bloodshed and deep social disharmony, out of which the nation is still struggling to emerge, was effectively buried in 1958.
Not coincidentally, the confrontation between the Sinhala majority and the Tamil minority communities began to escalate thereafter. No prominent leader of that time, either from the Sri lanka Freedom Party or from the opposing United National Party, had the courage to save the situation. The rise and consolidation of the hardline Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna in the 70s and the 80s, made it further difficult for the two major parties to walk the peace path, together or even separately.
In the eventuality, as terrorism gripped the country, every political party paid the price for the absence of statesmanship in its leaders over the turbulent decades. But it were the lankan people, both Tamils and Sinhalas, who suffered the most. Physically, yes, but more so psychologically, since the scars of the dreaded decades will take many years to heal.