Birth of Post-colonial South Asia:

Sri Lanka and Nepal

November 29, 2010

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Main questions

• What was the nature of the political and institutional developments in Sri Lanka and Nepal?

• How are these histories reflected in contemporary events in the countries?

• Both countries experience conflict. Are these conflicts similar or different?

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Sri Lanka:

What do we know and what do we don't know about Sri Lanka?

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• Literacy rate: 92 %. Male: 92.3% female: 89.1% (2001 census)

• One of the highest rates of gender equity in income and education in the world (including in professions like law and medicine).

• It used to be a strong welfare state: universal health care, social programs, progressive redistributive policies.

• Sri Lanka is the world's largest tea exporter.

• But we usually only here about ethnic conflict, terrorism and tsunami. Why?

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Basic facts

• Capital: Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte (not Colombo)

• Sinhalese 73.8%, Sri Lankan Moors 7.2%, Indian Tamil 4.6%, Sri Lankan Tamil 3.9% (2001 census)

• Buddhist 69.1%, Muslim 7.6%, Hindu 7.1%, Christian 6.2%,(2001 census)

• Sinhala (official and national language) 74%, Tamil (national language) 18%, other 8%

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Colonial History• Became a crown colony in 1802. Not part of British India.

• 1830s: Recommendation for the formation of a new legislative council. One seat reserved each for one community member from Sinhala and Tamil communities.

• Hindu Tamil minority flourished well in business and the colonial bureaucracy.

• British imported thousands of Tamil labourers from India to work on tea plantations, as Indentured labour.

Independence

• 4 February 1948: Independence as the Dominion of Ceylon.

• It was regarded as a model colony – with an English-educated elite, universal suffrage, and an elected assembly – deserving of self-government.

• After Independence, power was still in the hands of the feudal elite, the landed aristocracy.

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Postcolonial History I

• D. S. Senanayake, ‘the father of the nation’, disenfranchised the ‘plantation Tamils’, thereby establishing a Sinhalese electoral majority in the upcountry areas.

• Followed by colonisation schemes that settled Sinhalese peasants in the predominantly Tamil-speaking north-east – thereby changing the ethnic demography of the area.

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Postcolonial History II

1956: Oxford-educated SWRD Bandaranaike came to power on the platform of making Sinhala the official language and restoring Buddhism to its ‘rightful place’.

• Language policy: all government servants would know Sinhala. Became the medium of instructions in schools.

• Created structural disadvantages for the Tamils, as they were over-represented in administrative services and professions.

• He was shot by a monk, as he became less “nationalistic”.

• In 1972, new consitituion instituted: the country became republic and named Sri Lanka. Buddhism became the national religion. Mandated positive affirmative action for Sinhalese.

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1983: Black July

• Immediate catalyst: Begins with a killing of 13 soldiers by the LTTE

• Spreads to systematic and targeted anti-Tamil riots

• Several thousand Tamils are killed and several hundreds of thousands rendered homeless and refugees.

• Jaywardene quote

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LTTE• Tamil Tigers: millitant

armed force. Developed their navy and airforce.

• Prabhakaran: no sacrifice was too great for the objective of “Eelam”

• LTTE attacked all perceived enemies, internal/external.

• '91: Indian PM Gandhi, '93 Sri Lanka President Premadasa.

• Branded as a terrorist group by US, Canada, India and others (not that this really matters!).

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More on the conflict:

* Mass migration of Tamils. Initially middle class professionals and later poorer segments of the community. 800,000 Tamils displaced since the beginning of the conflict.

* Many wealthy Tamils fled to the west and their contributions, not always voluntary, played a large part in funding the Tigers.

* Tamil Eelam, unfortunately, was like any other nationalism, Tamil nationalism seeked to erase diversity, masking social inequality, diversity and dissent.

* After 2 decades of fighting, 4 failed peace talks, unsuccessful deployment of the Indian Army, a ceasefire agreement was signed with Norwegian mediation in 2002.

* In late 2005 the conflict began to escalate again. The govt launched number of military offensives against LTTE.

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Critiques of the mainstream interpretations of the conflict:

• Primordialist interpretations: This approach presumes the existence of ancient enmity between ethnic groups.

• Terrorism: Terrorism is not the most important aspect of the conflcit.

• Internal Issue: It not an internal problem only. International donors and ethnic diasporas played a major role in the escalating the conflict.

Keep in mind:

• How multiple precolonial identities were compressed over time into stagnant categories? How Sri Lanka gets painted as a bipolar ethnic nation? What role did colonialism play in this conflict?

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Current situation I• 2009 January - Government troops capture the northern

town of Kilinochchi, held for ten years by the Tamil Tigers. Huge atrocities by the state are reported. More than 10,000 people were killed between January and May.

• 2009 May – LTTE leader Prabhakaran is believed to have been killed. Rebels agree to lay down arms.

• Still thousands of Tamilians are in refugee camps.

• President Mahinda Rajapakse calls it an unparalleled victory.

• 2009 November – Rajapakse announced elections, two years earlier, to capitalize on his huge popularity post-war.

• 2010 January - Rajapake won.

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Current situation II• IDPs: 460,000, both Tamils and non-Tamils, displaced. More

than 100,000 killed in the war.

• Sri Lanka's defence expenditure has gone up consistently since the end of the war and amounts to about 5% of GDP, nearly double that spent by India and Pakistan.

• The process of ‘winning the peace’ yet to begin. Tamil civilians’ plight continues.

http://english.aljazeera.net/video/asia/2010/11/2010111010021857352.html

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Why is Sri Lanka's conflict important for Canada?

• Canada has the highest number of displaced Sri LankanTamils, outside of Sri Lanka (around 200,000). Toronto has about 100,000.

• Massive protests in Canada, especially in Toronto and Ottawa between January- May 2010.

• Gardiner Expressway was blocked off. • Downtown core, outside of US consulate. http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=V95sGJz_Rto&feature=player_embedded

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Reactions to the Protests:• These people are terrorists and frankly they don't deserve the

privilege of living in and calling themselves Canadians. We have bent over backwards to give you people a chance to have a good life but all you want to do is push your baggage issues on us.

• There is a need for some baracade control to mow these people down and get them the hell out of the streets with this nonsense. No Canadians that don't come from your country give a shit about your cause.

• This really burns me up. These people come to Canada to leave behind all the fighting and horror - yet now they are here, living comfortablly and having the nerve to bring the war HERE? What the hell are they thinking? Why don't they go back to their country and clean up the mess there. Don't bring you war to my country.

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Refugees:• 500 refugees arrived on the MV Sun

Sea in August 2010. Public is against having “more” refugees. They have been called terrorists.

• For the month of September, the acceptance rate for Sri Lankan nationals applying for refugee status fell to 47% from 75% in August. Every other month in 2010 had acceptance rates above 80%.

• “Canada is becoming an international target for human smugglers, human trafficking and phony refugee claimants These are crimes and cannot be tolerated.  Not only is human smuggling illegal and dangerous, it also victimizes refugees who seek to come to Canada by legal means” Vic Toews, Cabinet Minister.

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• Stephen Harper has just introduced Bill C-49. The "Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act " , allows the minister of public safety to declare any group of migrants coming in to Canada, a 'smuggling incident.'

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Solution?• “seperate states”―creation of

either a federal Sri Lanka or two separate states― will not necessarily result in peace. True pluralistic democracy within a unitary state is the best option for peace in Sri Lanka.

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Indian population 2009

1,198.0 billion

UN Population Fund Report 2009

http://www.unfpa.org/swp/

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Nepalhttp://ncthakur.itgo.com/map.htm

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Nepal 2006: Unprecedented mass movement

• Throughout 2006, protest march and civil disobedience movements with mobilizations ranging from

• April 24, 2006: Reinstitution of the parliament• May 18, 2006: Nepal’s Democracy Day: The

parliament unanimously votes for: The abolition of the monarchy; stripping all

royal powers; declaring the state a secular state; renaming the army; taxing the wealth of the royal family etc.

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How does such massive change come about?

Familiar story lines: • The king “listened to the people” and voluntarily

gave up power• ‘the Maoists’ threatened the king• People got tired of the civil war

Possible argument: mass mobilization which brought together the Maoist movement plus every faction of civil society against the continued abuse of power by the monarchy

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Developments leading to 2006

• Immediate developments: civil society uprising of 2006

• Longer term factors: The Maoist “People’s War”

• Even longer term structural factors: poverty and inequality, resistance to the monarchy, and various struggles for justice

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Long history of resistance against hereditary rule

• 1800s: Conquered and ruled by the Gurkha monarchs. Rise of a hereditary system of rule by Chief Ministers who come from the same family (the Ranas)

• 1900s: Rebellion against the Ranas, establishment of the rule of King Mahindra

• 1959: Adoption of multiparty constitution; emergence of the Congress Party as the leading political entity

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Uneasy relations between the monarchy &

constitutional politics• The Nepali Congress Party (NCP)

emerges as the major political party

• Left groups also begin to emerge

• Successive kings deny these political entities their right to lead politics

• 1991: Finally, a democratic majority win for the Congress (Note: your Whelpton reading begins from here)

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Nepal since 1991: two major trends emerge (1)

(1) Increasing factionalization of political entities, resulting in the 7 leading parties

• Nepali Congress • Nepali Congress (Democratic) • Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-

Leninist) • Nepal Workers and Peasants Party • Nepal Goodwill Party (Anandi Devi) • United Left Front • People's Front

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Nepal since 1991: Trend (2)Emergence of the ‘People’s War’ • The main actor: Communist Party of Nepal

(Marxist-Leninist) (CPN(ML). • Main (stated) goal: uproot “the power of

big landlords through armed struggle”.• Main strategies: Increased participation in

parliamentary politics where it had started to do well. Its initial successes led to the formation of an even larger groups of united left parties.. but

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PW(2)

• But eventually there was dissent amongst the party members who felt too many compromised were made for the sake of retaining political power

• A new Maoist party CPN(Maoist) emerged and embarked on a full-fledged People’s War since 1996.

• This is the party that is currently in power

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People’s War (3)

• In April 2006, the Seven Party Alliance (SPA) and the CPN(M) both agreed for the dissolution of the monarchy and constitutional elections

• In April 2008, the CPN(M) elected in what was called an ‘electoral thunderbolt’

• Which way now?

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Current situation

• Development indicators

• 80% living below $2

• Share of the poorest 20% in national income 7.6%

• Agricultural labour 93% of total labour force

• 25% own no land, 65% (of the 26 million) survive on subsistence farming