What was supposed to be a meeting scheduled for an hour stretched for 90 minutes, as visiting Indian Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla met President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Tuesday. A visiting Foreign Secretary is not usually granted a meeting with a Head of State, but given the importance of bilateral relations between India and Sri Lanka, all protocol was set aside for a meeting fixed when the President had hardly the time to unpack his bags from a visit to the United Nations and an extended visit to the United States of America.
The discussion, which occurred on the final day of Shringla’s own whirlwind three-day official visit to the island, would have lasted even longer had the President not had to chair the meeting of the National Security Council scheduled for that afternoon. Still, the meeting between India’s topmost diplomat and the President saw them cover a wide range of issues.
“The President was very gracious and generous with his time,” Shringla told the Sunday Times just before he headed back to New Delhi, adding that they discussed the entire range of the relationship between the two countries during the meeting. He was complimentary, too, saying the Sri Lankan President has “great vision and great plans” to take the relationship between the two countries forward. “It’s very reassuring to know that it involves forward momentum in many areas that are there and at the same time, I think the two sides are closely engaged in ensuring that we reach the conclusions we want to reach for the mutual benefit for the people of both our countries,” he added.
That was diplomacy oozing out of the Delhi University’s St. Stephen’s College graduate. He set the stage for his visit by telling this newspaper in an exclusive interview prior to his visit that “We have full confidence in the depth of our mutually beneficial millennia-old multifaceted relations with Sri Lanka, and also in the wisdom of Sri Lanka and its people to take decisions in the best interest of our shared ethos and values”.
The position on 13th Amendment
The media statement issued by the Indian High Commission at the conclusion of the visit buttressed the Foreign Secretary’s position stating that during his meeting with the President, the Foreign Secretary “underscored the importance India attaches to expeditiously taking forward mutually beneficial projects, including proposals to enhance air and sea connectivity between India and Sri Lanka.” It added that Shringla thanked the President for his guidance and close cooperation in the defence and security sphere. “Further, he reiterated India’s position on complete implementation of the provisions under the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, including devolution of powers and the holding of Provincial Council elections at the earliest”.
The statement issued by the President’s Media Division (PMD), however, had a different take of the meeting. It did not contradict the Indian version of the talks, but it gave the Sri Lankan version, which the Indian release missed out. Taken side by side, it pointed to a considerable gulf between New Delhi and Colombo regarding the “complete implementation” of the 13th Amendment. It noted that the President “pointed out the urgent need to understand the weaknesses as well as the strengths of the 13th Amendment and act accordingly”. The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) led Government has always been steadfast in its insistence that ‘complete implementation’ of the 13th Amendment (13A), especially with regard to devolving land and police powers to the Provincial Councils (PCs), is not something it is prepared to do. Indeed, some hardline sections within the SLPP coalition would rather abolish the PCs altogether, echoing the sentiments of a mass majority of the country that believe the PC system serves neither man nor beast and is a ‘white elephant’ as an administrative tool.
Tamil political parties had pressed for India to prevail on the Government to hold the PC elections and commit itself to the ‘complete implementation’ of 13A. Shringla held separate meetings with delegations of the northern-based Tamil National Alliance (TNA) led by the veteran MP for Trincomalee, R. Sampanthan and the more Colombo-based Tamil Progressive Alliance (TPA) led by Mano Ganesan.
On Sunday, Shringla headed to Jaffna as part of his scheduled visit to four districts across the country. The other districts included Trincomalee, Galle and Kandy.
In Jaffna, he inspected the Indian Cultural Centre, constructed adjacent to Jaffna Public Library under a generous Indian grant of Rs 1.2 billion. The state-of-the-art multi-complex consists of an auditorium, a cultural museum and a learning centre.
After his brief inspection tour, Secretary Shringla told the local media that the cultural centre would be declared open soon and the Indian Government will bear the cost of the maintenance for five years. The announcement came after concerns were raised in certain quarters as to who is going to maintain it since the Jaffna Municipal Council lacked the resources and cadre force.
Officials attached to the South Block of India’s Ministry of External Affairs where separate desks are maintained for South Asian matters is working towards facilitating the visit of Indian Premier Narendra Modi for the opening ceremony of the complex. The groundwork for this development is already underway with TNA Leader R. Sampanthan recently extending an invitation to the Indian Premier to visit the North. One wonders if that is the usual protocol because an invitation to a foreign Head of Government, one might think, ought to go from his counterpart.
Thereafter, the visiting Secretary attended a dinner organised at Thinnai Hotel with a select group of twelve individuals. They included the outgoing Northern lady Governor P.S.M. Charles, senior administrative officers, political leaders and academics. The list of attendees was prepared by the office of the Consulate General of India in Jaffna.
Among them was also Ahila Ilankai Thamil Congress (AITC) leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam who was critical of the 13th Amendment and India’s role during the final phases of the war. Mr Ponnambalam, however, stressed that “we will not give any space that would jeopardise the national security of India”. This assurance came in the wake of the increasing presence of China in the North and East with road development works and other infrastructure development activities in recent times.
As other political leaders went on with the usual rhetoric of pressuring the Government for the full implementation of the 13A, going beyond i.e. 13+ to reach a lasting solution to the ‘ethnic conflict’ and the pending Provincial Council elections, Ponnambalam refrained from raising any issues related to 13A but highlighted another political development.
In the past, the AITC repeatedly maintained that it could not consider 13A as a solution to the ethnic conflict and had even rejected it outright. The party also refused to contest PC elections.
He said the current Government which came to power on a nationalist platform is not interested in building an inclusive, multicultural society but it is becoming more exclusively focused on one particular community while drawing examples of India’s experience of accommodating minority communities in its state governance.
However, in Colombo, the Tamil parties were in for a rude shock when Foreign Secretary Shringla all but told them to take their arguments to the Government of Sri Lanka. He stopped short of telling them not to keep complaining to India, in what political analysts have noted was a rather lukewarm approach by New Delhi to arguing the TNA’s or even the TPA’s case for PCs leaving the issue to be worked out by Colombo without so much as India’s pressure. Delhi has found itself in a difficulty in devolving powers to the periphery, especially in the state of Kashmir where it revoked Article 370 of its own Constitution stripping the local politicians of the state autonomy. To promote devolution elsewhere while cramping it at home was to be accused of duplicity.
As Shringla was meeting the President, Public Services, Provincial Councils & Local Government Minister Janaka Bandara Tennakoon was telling Parliament that he did not personally believe that the prevailing environment was conducive towards holding PC elections. He said this in answer to a question raised by Samagi Jana Balawageya’s (SJB) Anuradhapura District parliamentarian Rohana Bandara.
Mr Bandara told the Minister that while the Government was claiming on the one hand that it lacked funds, it was also calling for proposals from people’s representatives regarding large scale development projects to be undertaken in their respective areas. He asked whether this meant that the Government was intending to hold either PC or Local Government elections next year. The Opposition MP asked the minister to clarify which poll would come first and under which electoral system. While saying he did not believe the current environment was conducive for PC elections, the minister said all parties should get together to decide on when the polls (whichever one) would be held, and under which system.
The Sunday Times reported late last month that MPs presiding over District Development Committees and their deputies, former provincial council members and sitting local council members were to be allocated funds for development projects in their respective electorates. The funds would be allocated for projects which could be completed within a year. This gave an indication that the Government was preparing for a PC or local council election.
While the Provincial Councils Minister may say the environment was not conducive for PC elections, Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa told the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) on Election Law Reforms on Friday that the polls would be held under the proportional representation (PR) system in the first quarter of 2022. This corroborates the decision to distribute a decentralised budget mainly to ruling party members to prepare for an election come early 2022.
TPA Leader Mano Ganesan tweeted that the Minister had agreed to this at the PSC meeting that afternoon. Both, Basil Rajapaksa and Ganesan are members of the PSC. Whether the Finance Minister’s comments to the PSC are a direct result of the Indian Foreign Secretary’s visit is unknown, but given that India has been at least for the record pushing for the conduct of PC polls at the earliest opportunity, there can be no doubt that the Government choir was singing in different tunes.
While the Finance Minister has now seemingly given a commitment to a parliamentary committee on behalf of the Government to hold PC elections next year, there are still some issues to be addressed. For starters, Parliament will have to amend the Provincial Councils Elections (Amendment) Act, No.17 of 2017. This is because Parliament rejected the report of the Delimitation Committee for the delimitation of electorates in Provincial Councils in 2018. In the division that was taken, no votes were cast in favour while 139 votes were against it. The report was required to be approved by a majority of two-thirds voting in its favour.
Given this situation, legal opinion is clear. The polls cannot be held unless the relevant sections of the Act are amended to allow PC elections to be held either under a new system or the old system at least as an interim measure. Election Commission Chairman Nimal G. Punchihewa says the Attorney General’s Department is also of the view that Parliament will need to amend the Act to remove legal obstacles that stand in the way of holding the polls. “The EC stands ready to hold the polls, provided that the legislature acts to remove the legal obstacles,” says he.