A Continuing Experiment in Democracy: Sri Lanka’s Experience

It was with great fanfare that the Island republic of Sri Lanka celebrated in the latter half of 1981 the fiftieth anniversary of the granting of universal adult franchise. This indeed was a unique celebration in that this tropical Island of 24,000 square miles with a population of 14.5 million lying dwarfed at the southern tip of the mighty Indian land mass with an equally overwhelming population had won something none of the other British colonies had won. This began a unique process in the development of representative government as a continuing experiment in democracy.

It was unique in the sense that in 1931, when none of the other Asian or African colonies of the British Empire had even contemplated it, all adults in Sri Lanka, men and women over 21 years of age, regardless of wealth, property, educational or residential qualifications, were given the right to vote in the elections that were held to usher in yet another unique experiment in democracy — government by association and not by party. The concept of democracy that Britain bequeathed to her colonies when independence was granted in Asia in the late 1940’s and in Africa in the 1960’s was parliamentary democracy on the Westminster model with different parties vying for the popular vote and with one or more parties ruling with the others in the opposition.

What happened in Sri Lanka in 1931 was not only unique but also innovative even though this was abandoned in 1948 when the Party System came into operation with independence. Champions of democracy would be intrigued by the fact that the grant of universal adult franchise was not the result of any sustained campaign by the people of Sri Lanka at that time. In fact, a motley group of propertied, educated Sri Lankans who were the powers-that-be of the time had banded themselves as the Ceylon National Congress. This powerful elite actually opposed the granting of universal franchise and favored the continuation of the educational and property qualifications for voters. The fledgling Labor party (which alas, in later years was to become submerged in the right-wing United National Party), representing the working class although led by the wealthy educated class, found an answering chord in the members of the Donoughmore Constitutional Reform Commission appointed by Britain’s first Labor Government in the late 1920’s.

This, then, was the first bold experiment that was tried out by a British Government that tried to be different from the Conservatives attempting to put into practice some of its Labor principles. The fifty members elected by constituencies which were not trammeled by considerations of wealth or education were also unique in yet another way: none of them owed allegiance to a political party. All contestants at the polls stood on their own individual personalities and did not owe allegiance to a political leader.

Here, again, the Donoughmore Constitutional Reform Commission, true to its Labor principles, decided to be different in that the Parliamentary system of parties would have tended only to perpetuate communal or racial political parties, as they existed in Sri Lanka. The Commission decided that it was worth conducting an experiment of government by association and by consent, particularly because the Sri Lankans were permitted by the Constitution only to govern themselves in their internal affairs. The Public Service, foreign affairs, defense, law and finance were reserved for the colonial power represented in the person of the Governor assisted by three colonial officers. The administration of home affairs, agriculture, local administration, health, labor, industry and commerce, education and communication and works was left in the hands of the fifty elected Sri Lankan Councilors.

This, indeed, was a bold experiment — the fifty Councilors elected one among them as the Speaker of the State Council (as the elected Legislature came to be known), the other forty-nine divided themselves into seven executive committees of seven members each in charge of the subjects mentioned. The chairman of each committee was given the highly prestigious designation of Minister — all seven ministers together with the official British “watch-dogs” (as they were called), formed the Cabinet or Board of Ministers. It was, however, an experiment that was doomed to fail. The fact that members had to jockey for position to be elected into committees of their choice made the weaker members dependent on the wealthier, more powerful members. The system also precluded the silent, unknown member from becoming a Minister simply because he could not swing the votes in the committee to ensure his election as Minister. By the same token, the more powerful, ambitious for the post of Minister, could not take even the lowliest member for granted. Politics, then, became not national politics but “parish pump” politics. This experiment in democracy sadly could not generate that momentum that could have generated still another vehicle for democracy.

With the formation of Marxist parties in the second half of the 1930’s, also led by the educated elite but catering to the working classes, all those in the State Council formed themselves into the United National Party (UNP) — anybody who was somebody (except the Marxists) belonged to this party, so that on the eve of independence in 1947 with the restoration of a Parliamentary constitution with a party system consequent on the recommendations of yet another constitutional reform commission, the Soulsbury Commission, the same ruling clique continued into independence the policies of the preceding colonial era.

But there were significant developments — the provision by the State of free education and free health services from the early 1940’s ensured the emergence into articulation of the underprivileged. In fact Sri Lanka has long enjoyed a literacy rate of 80%. But, even here, ironically, it had to be given birth by a scion of the earlier ruling class, Mr. S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, the son of a prominent, propertied, wealthy aristocrat, knighted by the British monarch, who had his only son educated in Oxford where he made a name for himself as an outstanding orator. It was this son who gave the farmer, the worker, the Buddhist monks and the indigenous teachers and physicians a place in the sun. To the extent that he and the party he founded, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), gave expression to the hitherto suppressed voices in Sri Lanka, the Marxist parties declined.

This fortunate development did not come too soon to Sri Lanka which now had a choice between two democratic parties the UNP and the SLFP. The proof of success of this experiment in democracy is seen in that the mature electorate of Sri Lanka in general elections held openly and fairly, ensured the return of the party in the opposition to power in 1956, 1965, 1970, and in 1977. Thus the UNP ruled, with policies right of center, in the period 1947 to 1956, 1965 to 1970 and from 1977 to date while the SLFP, with policies left of center, was in power from 1956 to 1965 (except for a brief period of about five months in 1960 when the UNP formed a minority government and had to go to the polls) and from 1970 to 1977.

The experiment still continues. While all Western countries committed to democratic government would applaud the success in a classical way, as it were, of democratic parliamentary government, the practitioners themselves have not been so enamored of a system which practically meant that there was hardly sufficient time for the economic development of the country: the first year after victory at the polls was spent in savoring the taste of victory. By the time a definite grip was taken in the second to fourth years, it was time to think again of the forthcoming elections, much in the same way th6t arguments have been used in the USA against the four year term for the President who wishes to seek re-election. It is not surprising that there are advocates for just one six year term for the President to have a meaningful presidency.

It is, therefore, not without significance that the experiment in democracy in Sri Lanka is continuing, for the question at issue (which takes for granted the existence of political parties) is whether the contest at the polls is wasteful and at the expense of the economic development of the country. The President of Sri Lanka has gone on record: even at the time he was in the Opposition, that a national government of all parties is the best for Sri Lanka in this stage of her political and economic evolution. He has not been able to convince the SLFP of this but he has indeed succeeded in pushing through a Constitution that is now modeled more on the American and French patterns of an Executive President with a largely subject Parliament ‘under him. Late last year he also succeeded in winning an unprecedented second term (unprecedented for Sri Lanka) and the same Parliament re-elected on a referendum. Six years hence how will democracy reflect itself in Sri Lanka?

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