The Northern and Eastern provinces were merged under the 1987 Indo-Lanka agreement signed by President J. R. Jayawardhana and Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. The judgement was the unanimous decision of a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court, which examined a petition by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), challenging the legality of the merger of the Northern and Eastern Provinces on the grounds that the LTTE had not relinquished their weapons. The Supreme Court held that the Emergency Regulation made in 1988 merging the Northern and Eastern Provinces was not in compliance with law.

Sources
North East merger illegal, BBC Sinhala, 16 October 2006; The importance of two provinces, BBC News, 17 October 2007.

Quotations

“The judgement knocks the bottom out of the peace process as a merged north-eastern province must be the basis for any peace negotiations.” R Sampanthan, Leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA).

“The SLMC had always taken a view that Muslim political strength had been weakened by the merger of the north and eastern provinces. But it would be wrong to assume that the court decision had ended the ethnic issue.” Rauf Hakim, Leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC).

“The executive, judiciary, legislature or any other powers cannot change the future of the people in the east. Their destiny can only be decided by themselves. According to the Indo-Lanka agreement, the future of the eastern population has to be decided by a referendum.” President Rajapakse, SLFP.

Related events
7 November 1987
7 September 1988
24 January 2008

Sources
Constitutional Reforms since Independence, Official website of the Government of Sri Lanka; A. Jeyaratnam Wilson (1988): The Break-up of Sri Lanka: The Sinhalese-Tamil Conflict, Marianne Heiberg (2007): Terror, Insurgency, and the State: Ending Protracted Conflicts.

Extracts from the Constitution
“The Constitution of the Republic of Sri Lanka (Ceylon) adopted and enacted by the Constituent Assembly of the People of Sri Lanka on the 22nd of May 1972. …

CHAPTER I – THE PEOPLE, THE STATE AND SOVEREIGNTY …

2. The Republic of Sri Lanka is a Unitary State.
3. In the Republic of Sri Lanka, Sovereignty is in the People and is inalienable.
4. The Sovereignty of the People is exercised through a National State Assembly of elected representatives of the People. …

CHAPTER II – BUDDHISM
6. The Republic of Sri Lanka shall give to Buddhism the foremost place and accordingly it shall be the duty of the State to protect and foster Buddhism while assuring to all religions the rights granted by section 18 (1) (d).

CHAPTER III – LANGUAGE
Official Language
7. The Official Language of Sri Lanka shall be Sinhala as provided by the Official Language Act, No. 33 of 1956.
8. (1) The use of the Tamil language shall be in accordance with the Tamil Language (Special Provisions) Act. No. 23 of 1958. …

CHAPTER VI – FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS
18. (1) In the Republic of Sri Lanka
(a) all persons are equal before the and are entitled to equal protection of the law;
(b) no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or security of person except in accordance with the law;
(c) no citizen shall be arrested, held in custody, imprisoned or detained except in accordance with the law;
(d) every citizen shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include the freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice, and the freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching;
(e) every citizen has the right by himself or in association with others, to enjoy and promote his own culture;
(f) all citizens have the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association;
(g) every citizen shall have the right to freedom of speech and expression, including publication;
(h) no citizen otherwise qualified for appointment in the central government, local government, public corporation services and the like, shall be discriminated against in respect of any such appointment on the ground of race, religion, caste or sex;

Provided that in the interests of such services, specified posts or classes of posts may be reserved for members of either sex:
(1) every citizen shall have the right to freedom of movement and of choosing his residence within Sri Lanka.
(2) The exercise and operation of the fundamental rights and freedoms provided in this Chapter shall be subject to such restrictions as the law prescribes in the interests of national unity and integrity, national security, national economy, public safety, public order, the protection of public health or morals or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others or giving effect to the Principles of State Policy set out in section 16.

Opinion
“The coup de grace came when the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and its Marxist allies in the United Front of 1970 pledged at the general elections in that year to remove section 29 (2) and replace the 1947-72 Constitution if elected to power. This was accordingly implemented when the Republican Constitution of 1972 was adopted. … In the name of this blanket provision [Section 18 (2)] the state could, without difficulty violate the rights of ethnic minorities; to violate the rights of ethnic Buddhist majority would be difficult because the governments’ dependence for their sustenance on the Sinhalese Buddhist electors”. Source: The Break-up of Sri Lanka: The Sinhalese-Tamil Conflict, A. Jeyaratnam Wilson, 1988.

“Among the most contentious provisions, from a Tamil perspective, Buddhism was given the “foremost place” among the religions and the states entrusted to protect and foster Buddhism. Sinhala was made the official language, this in one interpretation, enshrining the 1956 Sinhala Only Act, as an inviolable and nonnegotiable constitutional principle. And Section 29 of the Soulbury constitution was deleted and not replaced by explicit judicial protections for minorities. Last, the 1972 constitution subjugated the judiciary to the control of the legislature by eliminating appeals to the British Privy Council on constitutional issues. This measure was a response to a Supreme Court finding against the 1956 Sinhala Only Act …” Terror, Insurgency, and the State: Ending Protracted Conflicts, Marianne Heiberg, 2007.

Related events
September 1944
1947
November 1948
4 February 1978

A Tamil public servant, C Kodeeswaran, a senior officer in the executive grade of the Government Clerical service and President of the newly formed trade union – Arasanka Eluthu Vinaignar Sangam – refused to sit the Sinhala proficiency examinations which resulted in his losing his annual salary increments. In 1962, Kodeeswaran sued the Government in the Colombo District Court on the grounds that the regulation under which his increment was stopped was illegal and unreasonable. His argument was that the Official Language Act of 1956 which made Sinhala the sole official language was in violation of Section 29 of the constitution which prohibited discrimination. The trial judge, O.L. de Kretser, upheld the plea and ruled that the Official Language Act and the regulation was ultra vires and contravened Section 29 of the Constitution. In 1967, the government appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court set aside the judgement on the ground that a government servant had no right to sue the government in a court of law for salary or increment; the Supreme Court did not address the constitutional issue and state that if it became necessary to consider it, the matter would be placed by the Chief Justice before a bench of five judges of the Supreme Court. Kodeeswaran subsequently appealed to the Privy Council which set aside the Supreme Court’s decision and directed that the Supreme Court should rule on the constitutional question.

Sources
Attorney-General of Ceylon v Kodeeswaran, Supreme Court S C. 408/64-D. C. Colombo, 1026/Z, Lawnet, Sri Lanka; Kodeeswaran v Attorney-General of Ceylon, Privy Council Appeal No. 38 of 1968, Lawnet, Sri Lanka.

Extract from the judgement of the Supreme Court
“A public servant in Ceylon has no right of redress by action in the Courts for a breach of any of the covenants and rules governing the salaries and conditions of service of public officers. This principle is operative except in respect of terms laid down by statute, and is unaffected, either expressly or by implication, by the provisions of the Ceylon Constitution.” Source: Supreme Court S. C. 408/64-D. C. Colombo, 1026/Z, Lawnet, Sri Lanka.

Extract from the judgement of the Privy Council
“A civil servant in Ceylon is entitled to sue the Crown for arrears of salary which, have accrued due, by the terms of his appointment, in respect of services which he has rendered during the currency of his employment. In such a case the fact that his appointment as a Crown servant is terminable at will, unless it is expressly otherwise provided by legislation, is not relevant. …

“Although in their Lordships’ opinion a civil servant in Ceylon does have a right of action against the Crown for arrears of salary which accrued due during the currency of his employment, this answer to the preliminary issue does not dispose of the Crown’s appeal to the Supreme Court from the judgment of the District Judge. There are the other important constitutional issues to be decided upon which neither the Supreme Court nor their Lordships have heard argument. As already indicated, their Lordships would think it inappropriate to enter upon any of these matters without the benefit of the considered opinion of the Supreme Court of Ceylon thereon. They accordingly express no opinion upon any of the other issues as to the constitutionality of the Official Language Act or the effect of Treasury Circular No. 560 of 4th December 1961, or of any other material facts upon the plaintiff’s contract of employment. The case should be remitted to the Supreme Court for further consideration of these other issues and their Lordships will humbly advise Her Majesty accordingly.”

On 14 October 1959, Mapitigama Buddharakkita, chief priest of the Kelaniya Raja Maha Vihara, is arrested along with two other prominent supporters of Bandaranaike’s party.

After a prolonged trial that lasted until May 1961, Buddharakkita and Somarama are sentenced to death, the former’s sentence later commuted to life imprisonment by the Court of Appeal. On 6 July 1962, Somarama was hanged.

Source
Keesings Contemporary Archives; Witness to History: A Journalist’s Memoirs (1930- 2004), S. Sivanayagam, 2005.

Extract from Witness to History: A Journalist’s Memoirs (1930- 2004)
“The country had seen the first of many political assassinations that were to follow in later years. The prime minister was 60 when he was killed. If thew assassination of a prime minister was enough to send shock waves around the country, the identity of the assassin produced gasps of disbelief among the Sinhalese buddhists. As was to be expected rumour mongers in the city had spread a story that it was a Tamil who had shot the prime minister. Fortunately for the Tamil people, the government acted promptly in revealing the true identity of the assassin, which credit must go again to Governor General Sir Oliver who took quick command of the situation. …

“Somarama Thero was identified as the assassin. He was a lecturer in the College of Indigenous Medicine and had sought an interview with the prime minister at his private residence. The prime minister as was his practice in receiving members of the Buddhist clergy bent low in obeisance and the man in yellow robes responded by firing four shots from a revolver he pulled out form his robes.” S. Sivanayagam, 2005.

Extract from Emergency ’58: The Abrogation of a Pact
“On the morning of April 9 a police message reached Mr Ban­daranaike warning him that about 200 bhikkus or monks and 300 others were setting out on a visitation to the Prime Minis­ter’s residence in Rosmead Place to demand the abrogation of the Pact. They would arrive at 9 a.m.

“The Prime Minister left the house early that morning to attend to some very important work in his office. The bhikkus came, the crowds gathered, the gates of the Bandaranaike Walawwa were closed against them and armed police were hurriedly summoned to throw a barbed-wire cordon to keep the uninvited guests out. The bhikkus decided to bivouac on the street. Peddlers, cool-drink carts, betel sellers and even bangle merchants pitched their stalls hard by. Dhana was brought to the bhikkus at the appointed hour for food.

“In the meantime, the Prime Minister was fighting off the opposition to the Pact among his own party colleagues with desperate fury.

“At 4.15 p.m. the B—C Pact was torn into pathetic shreds by its principal author who now claimed that its implementation had been rendered impossible by the activities of the Federalists.

“The Prime Minister had gone home that afternoon accom­panied by half a dozen Ministers who stood on the leeward side of the barbed-wire barricade while Mr Bandaranaike lis­tened to the shrill denunciations of the monks. The Minister of Health sat on the Street facing the monks and preached a ser­mon, promising them redress if they would only be patient. The Prime Minister consulted his colleagues. The monks had won. The Magic Pact was no more. But the monks insisted on getting this promise in writing. The Prime Minister went into the house and the Health Minister, hardly able to sup­press the look of relief on her face, brought the written pledge out to the monks. Yet another victory for Direct Action had been chalked up.”

For a full account of the events leading up to and following the 1958 communal riots, we recommend Tarzie Vittachi’s award winning Emergency ’58: The Story of the Ceylon Race Riots, 1959 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts.

Related events
‘Anti-Sri’ campaign launched
Campaign in response to the ‘anti Sri’
Communal riots spread across the country
Emergency declared
‘Senanayake-Chelvanayagam pact’ is signed

Source
Blowback: Linguistic Nationalism, Institutional Decay, and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka, Neil DeVotta (2004), Stanford University Press.

Extracts from the Official Language Act, No. 33 of 1956
An Act to prescribe the Sinhala Language as the One Official Language of Ceylon and to enable transitory provisions to be made.

1. This Act may be cited as the Official Language Act, No. 33 of 1956. Sinhala Language to Be the One Official Language.
2. The Sinhala language shall be the one official language of Ceylon Provided that where the Minister considers it impracticable on the coming into force of this Act, the language or languages hithereto used for that purpose may be continued to be so used until the necessary change is effected as early as possible before the expiry of the thirty-first of December, 1960, and, if such change cannot be effected by administrative order, regulations may be made under this Act to effect such change.

Regulations
3. (1) The Minister may make regulations in respect of all matters which regulations are authrorized by this Act to be made and generally for the purpose of giving effect to the principles and provisions of this Act. …

Quotations

“We are completing by this [Sinhala Only] Bill an important phase in our national struggle. The restoration of the Sinhala language to the position it occupied before the occupation of this country by foreign powers marks an important stage in the history of the development of this island.” Phillip Gunawardene, Sri Lankan Cabinet Minister, Hansard, 14 June 1956.

“I pointed out that the result of forcing Sinhalese as the sole state language for official purposes on an unwilling minority brought with it great dangers. … If a minority feels deeply that an injustice and a great injustice has been done it is likely to embark upon forms of resistance and protests. The possibility of communal riots is not the only danger I am referring to. There is the graver danger of the division of the country. We must remember that the Northern and Eastern Provinces of Ceylon are inhabited principally by Tamil speaking people and if those people feel that a grave and irreparable injustice is done to them, there is a possibility of their deciding even to break away from the rest of the country.” Leslie Gunawardene, Opposition Member of Parliament, Hansard, 8 June 1956.

“Do you want two languages and one nation or one language and two nations? Parity Mr. Speaker, we believe is the road to freedom of our nation and the unity of its components. Otherwise two torn little bleeding states may arise from one little state. … Do we want a single state or do we want two? Do we want one Ceylon or do we want two? … These are the issues that in fact we have been discussing under the form and appearance of the language issue. … If you mistreat the [Tamils], if you ill treat them … if you oppress and harass them, in the process you may cause to emerge in Ceylon, from that particular racial stock with its own language and tradition, a new nationality to which we will have to concede more claims than it puts forward now. … If we come to the stage where instead of parity, we through needless insularity, get into the position of suppressing the Tamil [federal demand] there may emerge separatism.” Dr Colvin R de Silva, Opposition Member of Parliament, Hansard, June 1956.

“[By passing the 'Sinhala Only' Bill] against the unanimous opposition of the entire Tamil people who wanted a place of honour for their own language, [this] Government has struck a grievous blow at the unity of this country, which stands divided today. The members of this Government on the other hand have charged the Federal Party with endeavouring to divide the country/. … A federal solution within proper limits, and subject to proper safeguards, far from dividing a country which is already divided, is one of the best known methods of bringing about unity in a divided country. If democracy means anything, if human rights mean anything, no national minority proud of its language and culture can ever subscribe to the proposition that it should in respect of matters affecting its vital interest accept the dictates of a majority nationality merely because it is a majority. If this were so, it would amount to the tyranny of an impersonal majority … since this question affects the Tamil nationality vitally – I do not say the Tamil-speaking nationality – the Government cannot seek to impose anything, which is the result of a unilateral decision by the representatives of the Sinhalese people, on the Tamil people without doing violence to the elementary principles of democracy.” Senator S. Nadesan QC, Sri Lanka Senate Hansard, 26 June 1957.

Related events
5 June 1956
25 July 1957
9 April 1958
4 August 1958
24 March 1965

Sources
For the estimated 150 deaths: B.H. Farmer (1963): A Divided Nation, London Institute of Race Relations, OUP; Witness to History: A Journalist’s Memoirs (1930- 2004), S. Sivanayagam, 2005.

Opinion
“While making Tamils virtually illiterate overnight in the transaction of public business, the bill proved to be a millstone round the neck of the country as well, dragging it into ultimate tragedy and ruination. … The Tamil Federal Party under the leadership of that gentle Christian, Samuel James Velupillai Chelvanayakam believed in the philosophy of non-violent action as a way of protest against injustice. Tamils had traditionally come under the influence of the Indian Gandhian movement for independence from the time of he Jaffna Youth Congress of the 1920s and 30s. The value of the concept of satyagraha was, unlike in the case of the Sinhalese, ingrained in the Tamil mind. It is this that led them to organise what they believed was a peaceful satyagraha at the parliament end of the Galle Face Green (but disallowed) on that momentous day.” S. Sivanayagam, 2005.

“The moment the volunteers and leaders reassembled at the hotel end, a waiting mob of more than a thousand Sinhalese toughs ell on them like a pack of wolves in a most inhuman and cowardly attack. [The satyagrahis] were thrashed at felled prostrate on the ground. Their placards were seized and the wooden poles used as clubs. Some were trampled upon, kicked, beaten and spat upon. Not a single satyagrahi raised his hand in retaliation, except Dr. Naganathan. Five ruffians singled him out and chased him to the end of the promenade. He turned and met them alone with his fists and legs, satyagraha or not. Naganathan by nature was one who would never brook an insult to his manhood. … The police stopped the satyagrahis at the northern end of the Galle Face Green and blocked their way to the precincts of Parliament House. The volunteers sat down peacefully where they were stopped and remained there for the rest of the day. A prominent Sinhalese lawyer of Colombo, Mr Paranavitane of the law firm of De Silva and Mendis, and a Roman Catholic pries, Father Xavier Thani Nayagam, the famous Tamil scholar, emerged out of the crowds and sat down with the satyagrahis . The gesture did not pass unnoticed by the press.” V. Navaratnam, then Member of Parliament for Kayts, Rise and Fall of the Tamil Nation, 1995.

Related events
15 June 1956
25 July 1957
9 April 1958
May 1958
24 March 1965

“I strongly believe that this country belongs to the Sinhalese but there are minority communities and we treat them like our people. We being the majority of the country, 75%, we will never give in and we have the right to protect this country. … They can live in this country with us. But they must not try to, under the pretext of being a minority, demand undue things,” Army Commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka, in an interview with Stewart Bell of the National Post newspaper of Canada, 23 September 2008.

PACT’s overall purpose is to examine the root causes and contributory factors of conflict in Sri Lanka and to promote discussion on these themes. In the coming months, the PACT team will invite various individuals, including academics, journalists and historians, to give their perspectives on these topics and in turn we’ll ask you to give your reactions.

PACT’s overall purpose is to examine the root causes and contributory factors of conflict in Sri Lanka and to promote discussion on these themes. Many commentators are calling for the root causes of conflict to be addressed in a meaningful way. They argue that even if the LTTE is defeated militarily, the underlying conflict will continue until the addressal of these critical issues. Indeed, these issues existed long before the LTTE emerged as an armed militant group.

What are these root causes, are they still relevant and what should be done about them? This feature seeks to unpack some of these issues.

The controversial statement above made by Army Commander Lt. General Sarath Fonseka raises issues of origin and a supremacist ideology that has roots, according to our first commentator Lakshman Gunesekara, going back some 500 or even 1,000 years. The former editor of the Sunday Observer talks to the PACT team about his views on the historical and contemporary causes of conflict in Sri Lanka and about racism in Sri Lanka, past and present.

Dr. Farzana Haniffa is an anthropologist and senior lecturer at the University of Colombo. She talks to the PACT team about how the roots of conflict in Sri Lanka have impacted upon the Muslim polity, and on Muslim nationalism and identity.

Dr. Pradeep Jeganathan is a social anthropologist whose research interests range from subaltern nationalism, to the perpetration of violence and its survival. He has published extensively on these subjects. The second edition of Unmaking the Nation: The Politics of Identity and History in Modern Sri Lanka (1995) ), which he co-edited with Qadri Ismail, was published in April, 2009. Dr. Jeganathan has held professorial appointments and fellowships at the Universities of Chicago and Minnesota, The New School’s Graduate Faculty, Delhi University and the International Centre for Ethnic Studies. He talks about the importance of examining Sri Lanka’s colonial past when looking at the roots of conflict in Sri Lanka.

Sunil Bastian is principally a researcher whose central focus of study is political economy, with a broad interest in the political economy of the state. Sunil also works as a consultant for various donors, more recently on their programmes on conflict. In our interview with him, he examines Sri Lanka’s conflict through the lens of the nature of the state.

Earlier features
Feature: Assassination of an activist
Feature: 18th anniversary of expulsion of northern Muslims by LTTE
Feature: “Black July”, 1983