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NECW FR
IDEOLOGY AND THE CO CONSTITUTIONAI
Radhika Co
The collection of essays on Constit to understand the process of constiti action from a framework of human
Con
The Uses and Usurpation of Consti The Constitution and Constitutiona The Civil Liberties and Human Rigi LegitiInacy and the Sri Lankan Con To Bellow Like a COW - Women, El Civil and Political Rights - Some F Devolution, The Law and Judicial C Let Fools Contest - Parliamentary
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NEWS BACKGROUND
P. A : MOUNTIN
Mervyn de Silva
hree stunning blows in quick SLJCC9SSIOm hawe inCreased the
pressure on President Chandrika Kumaratunga's "Peoples Alliance" (P.A.) administration. In the heart of Jaffna, capital of the island's northern province, a woman suicide-bomber killed 27 but failed to assasinate her principal target, Mr. Nimal Siripala de Silva, the Housing Minister, who was on an official visit. He was injured. A senior army officer and several policemen were among the casualties. In December, the P.A. had boasted that the army had taken full control of the Northern Peninsula.
-
T.V. in Colombo took pride in showing the Sri Lankan national "Lion" flag flying from the tallest building in Jaffna, the bastion of the separatist "Tamil Tigers". Jaffna had been liberated. The claim Was fair. Not since the departure of an eighty thousand (80,000) strong Indian Peace-keeping Force (I.P.K.F.) in 1990 did Colombo's Writ run in the northern province, virtually L.T.T.E. territory.
President Kumaratunga had special reason to be proud. For several months after she took office, first as prime minister and then as a popularly elected President in late 1994 she had made every effort to reach a negotiated settlement of Sri Lanka's harrowing 13 year ethnic conflict and L.T.T.E. insurgency. In doing so, she had won the admiration of the Tamil community, the respect of the large Tamil population in neighbouring South India (the state of Tamilnadu), the Indian government and the U.S.-led donor COm
munity.So the ir been attracted by policies of the co Would now remair Wardene's U.N.P. Asiam govemment cialism" and pin i enterprise and for
The UNPhOWs TaTiS. AI te T had abandoned t struggle and SUCC the parliamentary ready to support th then claim a stab National assembol fides Were beyor she ordered the air the L.T.T.E., tak northern province a civilian administ
Some two to th sand Tamils fled Sri Lankan army of the northern Ca Norther PerSu publicity exerci hearts-and-minds thousands of Tar to their homes outskirts. An a President Kumar an official Wisit te Wasseen asthefi Thorale. Jafna, tr leaflets and radic safe and secure. that President K Visit the north if perhaps Would Colleagues of Mr Silva, Who Was attack by a LTTE

G PRESSURES
Westors who had the free Tarket servative U.N.P. President Jayawas the first South to abandon "sois faith in private sign investment.
veralienated the Lmil parties Which he path of a Tied essfully contested polis im 1994, Were eP.A. which could le majority in the y. So, her bona Id question when med forces to fight e control of the
and re-establish TatiO.
Teh Lurdred thCOLU- .
Jaffna when the seized full Control pital, and later the a. But a massive se (a classic operation) saw mil refugees i returTn in Jaffna, and sts nouncement that tunga Would make o "pacified" Jaffna allow to L.T.T.E. he army claimed in broadcasts, Was But now it is unlikely umaratunga Would or sometime. Nor many ministerial Nimal Siripala de lucky to escape an E assasin.
TRADE UNIONS
The P.A. leadership had hardly recovered from the shock of the womans suicide-bomber in Jaffna when it received a bruising blow from a totally unexpected quarter - the trade unions. Since the Marxist Left has traditionally controlled the trade unions and all the Leftist parties are now accommodated in the Peoples
LANKA
| || Wol. 19 No. 6 July 15, 1996
Price Rs. 10.00
Published fortnightly by Lanka Guardian Publishing Co. Ltd.
No. 246, Union Place
Colobo - 2.
Editor: Mervyn de Silva
Telephone: 447584
Printed by Ananda Press B25, Sir Ratnajothi Sarawaramuttu
Ma Watha, Colombo 13. Telephone: 435975
CONTENTS
The Great Devolution Dabale 3
Japan: The J.R. Factor The Public Distribution
System in India 7 Theological Bases of
Social Injustice 많
Pranadas:
The Wision. Thing 1모
Books

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Alliance, the larger, long established companies the foreign included have looked forward to "peace" on the "labour front". Right now the P.A. has locked horns not with separatist Tamil insurgents but Sinhalese Workers in trade unions, at least one of which is affiliated to a long established political party the LSSP Which is a constituent member of the P.A. What is more the leader of that party, is a Minister in President Kumaratunga's cabinet. An employer conversant with the Marxist theory on "the contradictions of capitalism" is now raising a few laughs in Colombo's posher clubs by identifying "the contradictions" in the socialist Peoples Alliance.
The iTThediate outcome of the present dispute is the closure of Bartleet Microdevices Ltd, one of the few large-scale high-tech industries in the island. It specialises in the production of "electronic hardware". A statement issued by the Presidential Secretariat accuses a U.N.P. member of parliament, Dr. Rajitha Senaratne of instigating the strike. Dr. Senaratne is President of the Independent Employees Union, "Independent" meaning it is not affiliated to any political party.
It was not Dr. Senaratne but Mr. Wasudeva Nanayakara also an M.P., Who - Chose - to tans Wer the government. "We have to protest against the Secretly produced document on the Bartleet dispute. The Independent Employees Union led by Dr. Rajitha Senaratne M.P. and the Democratic United Employees Union led by us, jointly conducted the strike at Bartleets. The strike was based on the legitimate demands of the Workers and not out of any disruptive or Vengeful motives". Almost casually, Mr. Nanayakara makes another remark which throws more light on what's really wrong with the P.A. "After the dispute was referred to an arbitrator
2. ܝܒ ܼ
by the Labour employees Went is the usual labou arbitrator newer part in settling the
The P.A.'s Wh G. L. Pieris, t Chancellor of University, Wasl for the P.A.'s elect probably, its more Among these Wa Transparency aп ance". It is now it that the P.A.Sut top-brass has a se "governance".
Finally, a deva an unlikely quarter dominant force it founded by Mr. S." naike, President father, assasinate ΠΠΟΠΚ Π 1959. Sirima Bandarant World's first Woma She is . Presiden prime minister to is in India. On ACCOmpanying | Bandaranalike M.P Bandaranalike is - E U.N.P. and sits in the Opposition. W politics gets curiou the P.A. seems to on national politics.
LETTER
A Cry For S
Wolumes have b the ethnic confli different angles those Writers. Poll hawe lost no time out of such Writ reference to the quoting the scri National Questio intractable.

Department the back to Work as practice. But the
ppeared or took
issuel'.
zz-kid, Professor le former = Vice
the Colombo rgely responsible On manifesto, and attractive slogans. s "Accountability, Good Governansparently clear }riy inexperienced ious problem with
stating blow from The S.L.F.P., the the P.A., was W.R.D. BandaraKumaratunga's by a demented His widow, Mrs. like became the in prime minister. t Kumaratunga's 1. Right now she a pilgrimage. her is Anura her only son, Mr. member of the the front roW of While i Sri Lankan Ser and CuriouSer be losing its grip
anity
een Written about :t from various is perceived by clans and media in making capital ngs by quoting like the dewi tures. Yet, the still remains
Rule of law, democracy and human rights absolutely reject all forms of discrimination between man and man irrespective of caste, creed, race, religion andideology However the framers of legislation and constitutions have been utilizing their talents to find some sort of subtle but invisible, discrimination between man and man on the grounds of religion, caste and race in order to satisfy the vain glory of an articulate religious section (a small minority) at the expense of the vast majority of the people. They pretend to be blind that such belief despite its transient nature, has promoted division and produced dissension among the people resulting in the unwanted and unavoidable War bringing death, destruction and ruin to the entire nation.
The present political package (its timing and the nature of its passage) is the latest example of such an exercise. Obscurantism апd obsequious attitudes resulting from 450 years of colonial rule have obstructed - the Creation of a healthy and just constitution from the Donoughmore days. This instransigence and obduracy still persist in the minds of the present framerS.
Unless We are all prepared to rise above all petty, narrow and selfish consideration. We will have no alternative but to perish. Religion is meant to be practised and realised and i mot used as an instrument to dontinate Or harm those of other faiths.
In this пеw era of transpareпсу the legislators (framers of the basic law) should be able to see and discover their own faults and correct them as the last hope of devising a solution based on unity in diversity,
T. S. Kumaresan
Jafna

Page 5
The Great Devolu
A. J. Wilson
ICES. Colombo needs to be warmly Congratulated for its consistently high quality productions thus living up to more than the expectations of its benefactors, Ford and CIDA. The Volume to be discussed here is Sr. Lanka: The Devolution Debate put together by Neelan Tiruchelvam and his colleagues with valuable contributions from G.L.Peiris, Lakshman Marasinghe and thoughtful pieces by Bertram Bastiampillai, Sumanasiri Lyanage, Sunil Bastian and Sasanka Perera, as well as the insightful Foreword by Regi Siriwardene. After such knowledge, what abysmal ignorance displayed by fringe groups of the extreme Sinhala "Intransigentsia". The Vital question is. Is this "the great devolution debate" or "the great devolution debacle"? If this does not pass, nothing will pass and the island is destined to become a vast cemetery.
G. L. Peiris has become the harbinger of the decentralised state structure. Drawing pointed attention to the recommendations of India's Sarkaria and Rajamannar Commissions or centrestate relations and the need for "the powers of the Centre to be circumscribed", he stated "it is our intention in preparing this Constitution to go some Way further than India..." (p. 9). In doing So, Professor Peiris has anticipated the trend in most postindustrial states, to distance themselves from an overconcentration and press the pedals on decentralisation thus striking a blow at the powerful wested interest of the Colombo bureaucracy. Once this fo
rtress of reaction is demolished it can
well be stated that Sri Lanka will be on its Way to becoming the truly democratic socialist republic that it claims now to be. Peiris is also alive to the methodology of decentralised administration as practised in India and the Dominion of Canada. "We hawe
no devolution at modern day Abbe sation yes, local go' upholding what aWOWed in the h philosophy When h government is no government. It la place" etc., etc. A the Witnesses to the "bastille", the destr table citadel of b. the tentacles of the It b0dĖS – WEII fo Lnversa adult fra
Lakshman Mari reflections on "Sor Devolution Packag insights into what Alongtime stude exerciSBS, Marasin whole gamut from South Africa to the Units in a modern where power is sh Takes Sense to sh; regions or units. Th concludes that:-
it is difficult to Conflicts could b War. At the end government is W de a Constitution Would provide th the social and po goals which the through War (p.
Sumanasiri i Liya tory essay "Towa Solution" urges the tion and a middle conflicting demand nity's intransgents gests wery sensit might be asked in only be called the fyіпg ones. Thus

al" deplores this Sieyes, "decentrali. Wernmento..." thus John Stuart Mill Byday of utilitarian estated that "good
substitutė, för Self cks the genius of re We going to be 3fall of the Colombo uction of that redouIreaucratic reaction, 2. Colombo octopus. r the legatees of
Chise.
asinghe's informed ne. Thoughts on the e” çContain Waluable ails our body politic. nt of federalizing ghe has Studied the
the Bantustans of
more sophisticated ederal constitutions ared and therefore are sovereignty with Ierefore Marasinghe
erceive that ethnic e resolved only by
of the conflict the ell advised to prowia settleTelt Which a Tamil Community litical and economic ly tried to achieve 19).
Image in a Concilla"ds a Compromisę a need for moderal path solution to the
s of each commu
la. Liyanage sugi ble questions tha stead of What can
present self-stultihe states "Instead
of posing the question whether there Wasis a Tamil homeland lettus ask the question where do the Tamil majority live in continuity? What is the geographical space that the Tamils occupy today." (p. 48). Liyanage Suggests. Various pragmatic constructive approacheS. -- Some of Liyanage's Suggestions are eminently reasonable but politically they may not be feasible. Bastian's analysis of the land question is more an extrapolation of how this complex problem can be resolved. Sasanka Perera's examination of the education question is full of rich insights. He places his finger righton the spot where trouble lies ahead,
The essays by Bastian pillai, Thiruchelwam, Llyamage, Guhan, Bastian and Perera deal with a host of sensitive issues. Bastian and Perera deal with the difficult subjects of state land, the structure and content of education, etc. They suggest Ways and means of overcoming or by-passing the almost entrenched position in these areas. It is possible that if the obstacles are OWercome, the island state is: Welo the Way to being an ordered polity. Thiruchelvam and Guhan really deal briefly with specifics and how impediments can be removed. In effect the Debate is a guide to restoring sanity and a Welcome Wade recur for all men of goodwill
Th burning question is whether the Chandrika Proposals are a throw-away to federalism. The answer is definitely in the negative. A fundamental question is which branch of government is Supreme, the Centre or the Regions? The Centre is definitely at an advantage. It is possible for the Centre to bypass the regions and deprive the
-latter of their powers. To achieve this,
the Colombo Parliament (the Centre) would doubtless have to secure a
two-thirds majority in Parliament and
3

Page 6
or win a referendum. The Regions will in no way be a component of the amending process so that they could lose all their autonomy if two-thirds of Parliament and a majority of voters in a referendum vote for such a change. Likewise there are the two important controlling mechanisms, the Constitutional Council and the Devolution Commission. If sovereignty is to be located in this what might be defined as a new species of constitution, it might be said that it resides in these tWOne Winstitutions. The Centre is Wested with the responsibility of constituting the Constitutional Council. It is this body which in the ultimate instance is Wested with the final responsibility. The Whole exercise is reduced to a nullity if in a bi-racial country, the Centre which has always acted ethnically is empowered to choose the majority of the Council's members. As things stand this is the position and it is against this kind of clawing back, that the Tamil people have been fighting for 13 years against Sinhala majoritarianism. These same = arguments apply to the composition of the Devolution Commission and the construction and composition of the
Supreme Court which at the Worst of times will be the handmaiden of the
I acting alone, to alter the Constitution
executive. Thus the Chandrika Proposals ab inillo are devoid of any content of federalism. Neither the Tamil people nor their leaders can be expected to lead the Tamil people into a cul-de-sac which gives them with one hand and takes away with the other, Sir Kenneth Wheare might be the ultimate authority to give us a working definition of the terms "federal" and "unitary". Writing in 1951 and subsequently reaffirming his views in 1966 in his Modern Constitutions, Sir Kenneth stated
...In a federal Constitution the legilatures both of the whole country and of its parts are limited in their powers and independent of each other. Consequently they must not be able,
so far at any rat of powers betwe пned. They are Bäch Other But subordinate toth Congress of the example, could a as it chose, it pOWers at the ex To that Extent i subordinate to th Constitution Wot federal. So also flot bei SLubordirl
In the case of Sr is Supreme and c. the Constitution. S stion of federalis merely Parliament nal Council, the D sion and the SL Supreme and haw Regions. It is up the Tamil people pigina pokeandri nCBS therefrom or and try and Work decision that needs
Elsewhere in his flor15, Sirt i Kerrheth same question of is a Constitution fel it not (p.86).
...The principle ( rnment is that p between a goverr Country and govel and that these independent of their own sphere this that the armer be SO = designed Central governme the constituent g Carn alter the div the Constitution. I red best that so dment. Which in by the Central go constituent gover adopted.
 

as the distribution en them is concemot Subordinate9 to they must all be Constitution. If the United States, for ter the Constitution could increase its bense of the states. estates Would be Congress and the ld be unitary, not the Congress must te to the States...
Lanka, Parliament in unilaterally alter o there is по quein arising for not but the ConstitutioeVolution Commisргепе Court are epower over the to the leaders of to either buy this skall the consequehope for the best it. It is a political
to be made.
Modern Constitugrappled with the determining when ideral and When is
of a federal goveOwers are divided Tent for the Whole Timents for its parts governments are each other within 2s. It follows from ding process must that neither the nt acting alone mor Overnments alone rision of power in is usually consideThe for TT of armeWolves joint action Wernments and the nments, should be
Under the Chandrika Proposals, it is clear beyond all reasonable doubt that the Parliament of Sri Lanka is the supreme legislature and that it can proceed to alter the entire structure of government without the cooperation of the Regions making it absolutely clear that Sri Lanka is a unitary state and that the Regions need not be taken into consideration when the Constitution is amended.
Then there are other provisions in the proposals which make it clear that the Centre is pre-eminent and has not taken regional sensitivities into consideration.
Subject 47 in the Reserved List (List 1) Which is as follows:
National Archives and Museums, ancient and historical monuments, archaeological sites and records declared by law to be of national importance
is Wested in the Centre to the exclusion of the region. As is well known, archaeological matters have been the subject of controwersy and hawe been used as evidence to affirm the Sinhala postulate that the Sinhalese were the original settlers while the Tamils were the outsiders, interlopers and intruders. If the Centre is so insistent on having Control over this subject there are alternatives for a compromise. The subject can be placed in the charge of a joint Commission comprising an equal number of representatives from the Northeast Region and Colombo. This could be the only way to avoid a deadlock on this sensitive question.
Likewise Subject 22 in List 1 is a reserved subject. This relates to airports, harbours, ports with international transportation, etc. On the face of it, this important subject is by and large in the control of the Centre in any federal system. But Sri Lanka has its own peculiar problems. Ports for example like Kankasanturai, Palaly

Page 7
ad TriCOTlala2 Carl be declarad free zones and be utilized as another way for the peaceful penetration and colonization of Tamil areas With Sinhala labour. When this subject is taken in conjunction with Subject 62 in List which is "Industrial Development", then the implications for the free movement of labour are far-reaching and open ended. Again the device of Joint Commissions or joint control could be a Way Out.
Paragraph VII which deals with the subject of the Regional Attorney-General leaves much to be desired. Why is this officer appointed by the Goverfor 10t even in Cor Sultation With the Chief Minister? Will this officer be used by the Centre to interfere with the constitutionality and legality of regional administration and legislation? Why should not the appointment be wested in the Chief Minister and the Board of Ministers? Is there not a limit to the Centre demanding insidious opportunities for interfering in regional
matters?
If the new system is to work without friction or deadlock, it is best that the flashpoints cited (above) be muted with acceptable compromises. It is better TICit to bE WiSET, HftET the EựETht tham to think of the danger points before the exercise gets Towing.
Thus there are four options available to the P.A. government
(1) rewise the Chandrika proposals in the lights of the criticisms made
(2) remain with the same proposal and expect hopefully that these will pass through Parliament and in a referendum
(3) accept the Thondaman PropoSal to Cede Control of the Northeast Province to the LTTE and Work Out the TOdalities
(4) utilise the text of a proposal drawn up by a firm of London solicitors, Bates Wells and Brai
thWait at the of concert E Lankain Bri Was titled "A Ce With a | Constitution Ceylon", D: 1995 it was dent Kumar date by a further has
ard the alŠ. is being con сапt advапк is that it has Tiger High
Could Wel||bo tiations. Th contains porc
(a) for a confec prising "two internally a ding to the state of its o' tion as e.g of the legisl elections
(b)fora Centra of aпa equa Sentatives of
SEWE ES E C Cation and tween the Council Will affairs, extE Security oft policies incl of a COTTI Central Ba
In short, the Confederated union pendent states whe ant powers of g. policy, defence ant are wested in a sup Cil. It is Such a Subs state of Tamil Eel
High Commandha
The Chandrika: of Bates, Wells an Well provide the ba

request of a group In the end, once a constitution is
ld Citizens for Sri taln. The proposals A Proposal for PeaFramework for the of the Unior of ited 20 December delivered to Presiatunga around this Mr. Peiris. Nothing So far been heard sumption is that it sidered. The signifiсеріп this proposal the okay from the Command and it e a basis for negoe Proposal briefly
Wisions
leral structure comstates each being Lutor of OUS...exter
adoption by each Wrth internal COinStitusize and structure ature, freqшепcy of
Council consisting number of reprerort each state to harhrhel Of COrTırmUrhi
coordination betwo States. This deal with foreign erTal defece and he Union, monetary Luding maintenance On currency and a k.
proposal is for a of two nearly indeare the most importovernment, foreign di monetary policies ra-sovereign Counlitute for a Sovereign lam that the Tiger LS postulated.
Proposals and that di Braith Waite Could
sis for negotiation.
adopted, it will gather a life and momentum of its own and may indeed transform itself into an institution which its framers nBWBr intended It to be. In Sri Lanka it has become an axiom of politics that neither Sinhalese man nor Tamil man trusts the other so that a constitutional framework designed to provide autonomy and devolution could Well adapt itself to the prevalent political Culture and end up as a tightly krit arld CErtralised instrumEnt. GOOd and richly insightful as the Devolution Debate might be, it is a matter for regret that no attempt was made to look into the implications of the Constitutional Council, Devolution, Commission and the Supreme Court.
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Page 8
JAPAN :
By Nihonjin
The J RF
"Nahiverena varani— "Sammanfi' dihar Kudalcanan, Haired never ceose through haired in this world; hire
r. Tokihiko, President Japan Sri Lanka Business Cooperation ComTittee referred to the "historicinitiative in advocating the renunciation of war reparations by Japan after second World War".
H. E. J. R. Jayawardene in 1952 at the San Fransico Peace conference quoted the Words of the Buddha as above, and appealed to the victors to treat the Japanese nation magnanimously. Nordidit fall оп deaf ears.
This incident was referred to many a time during Her Excellency's visit to Japan. The unfortunate part is that our delegation had straight faces, and maintained astoic silence, when Our Japanese friends referred to H. E. J. R. Jayawardene's plea in 1952. In Confucian circles Our attitude Would have been considered "lese majeste'.
The President's Visit Was aimed at attracting investment and increased assistance from Japan. A gesture in the direction of accepting the noble sentiments expressed in 1958 would have gone a long Way in breaking the ice with the Japanese.
Japan since 1976 has given Sri Lanka the highest per capita aid disburserment in Asia. This is the result of Sri Lanka's historic renunciation of reparation paymentatthe San Fransico peace conferemce. When President Kumaratunga wisited Japan, and had her Foreign Minister sign grant aid and loan aid agreements Worth 2,245 million Yen and 38,438 milllion Yen the act on the part of Japan was a continuation of the positive effort made SimCE 1976.
In 1994 when the UNP was in office, the loan package was 36,415 million Yen. At that time the exchange rate was 90 Yen to the Dollar. To day it is 105 Yen to the Dollar. Therefore Japanese aid effort has been consistent. In fact if one Were to look at the Jayawardenepura Hospital grant aid in 1979 to Sri Lanka, when H.E.J. R. Jayawardenepaidastate
Wisit to Japan the gra Yen, four times the hospital in Kandy. Tr a comparative study Kumaratunga was a pared to President J. to emphasise that Ja at the back of her Tin Country Such as Sri
When Orie Of ther le Superpowers to be le mation, and at the SË claims to reparatio attacked by Japanes
This lack of ackno FA Baders of an im Sri Lanka-Japan rel, been noted in Tokyo ie. government, busir Work as an organic Culture de Tards a cli it CONTES to the CoLutsid understands the Wor se, and the Tessa Јарапеѕв пnind thвп to tems with Japa appreciation of "Nem to prepare the gгошr broached, was certai raction between Jap Our side. This is What
ducks and drakes with mies that had loaned here, and to be haul law, is One aspect ol ciaty, the Japanese Understand, nor app a dispute is settled b round a table, far from cularly commercial ( When Endo the Parii; ster of MITI in his spe Cooperation meeting "further effort may be Lankaside, and hope side would attempt to stment climates in speaks Wolutes as f are comсеппеdiп геg Sri Lanka.

actor
Averend coI sarmrndnf7 - esa dhommo sanafcIno". ough love alone they cease. This is an eternal low.
rt Was 8,500 Tillion
COSt Of the det is is not in any way What President ble to get as comR. Jayawardene, but pan has always had d the attitude a small Lanka had in 1952, aders pleaded with nient on a defeated ar The time Walwed all ns, despite being e War planes.
(wledgement by the portant landmarkin ations, would have . Japanese society eSS, Cultural SeCtOr, : Whole. Japanese osing of ranks when e World. Unless one d"gaijin"іпЈарапеge it i Conveys to a one would not get 1. The lack of a
aWashi", the reed d, before a plan is nly clear in the inteanese leaders and happened recently. Inkans were playing Japanese Compaпопеy for projects ed before courts of far adversarial So3 . Certainly do mot reciate it. In Japan ehind closed doors, п the judiciагу, partiisputes. Therefore amentary Vice Miniechat the Business told our President, Frequired on the Sri ld that the Sri Lanka o improve the inveDur Country", this ar as the Japanese ard to investment in
To begin with the Hilton dispute, then the effort by the PA government to hand over to P&O, a British firm parts of the Port of Colombo, which Eversince the QE quay Was built, was consistently financed and built With Japanese aid. I am sure the Japanese Would have appreciated some discussions With them, before We went for Fortune 500 companies, with less than favourable terms.
The Wice Minister would certainly hawe hadin mindthe powercrunch in Sri Lanka. Ikeda the Chairman of Nippon Koei in 1993 warned Sri Lanka of the impending power Crisis, and advised the building of a coal fired thermal generation plant. The labour scene is far from satisfactory for Japanese investors. On the one hand a Minister promises to pass as law the Workers charter, and on the other BO sources contradict this. These discordant Voices from the governmental ranks, will send signals to the Japanese, that all is not Well, and good strong governance is not the strength of the Sri Lanka side.
Then above all, the NE conflict, would have been uppermost in their minds. The Japanese people abhor wiolence. After the Second World War, the peace lobby in Japan is very strong. Japanese business men cautious as they are, will wait. If one observes how Japanese investments are pouring in to ASEAN countries, and today Vietnam, one of the main reasons given by them is political stability. Therefore a statement that we will settle Our dispute ourselves, will not make the Japanese businessman to change his mind, and as Endo said "Japanese companies gave a priority to a guarantee of profits, when planning their investments". The Instability both in gowernment policy making, where decisions are chopped and changed, and Ministers Contradict each other on policy positions, and general inactional around, with doubtful statistics on inflation, and a restive labour market, can we expect Japanese inwestorsto come here, |fl:Werea JapaneSe, I Would Ot COrme.
子

Page 9
ECONOMICS
The Public Distributi A Few Key issues
Neeraj Kaushal
question has been asked time
and again by policy makers and social scientists: Is the public distribution system (PDS) serving the objective for which it was set up? The question becomes Tore important at a time. When foodgrains stacks in the godowns of the Food Corporation of India (FCI) are swelling: with a record 31 million tonnes in store and more being procured. There are reports of stocks rotting in the open or in stores. According to one estimate, Over five million tonnes of Wheat and rice have either got rotten or stolen from the FCI godowns during 1991-92 and 1993-94,
While the stocks are rising, ration shopkeeprs are lifting much less from the FCL godowns than before. Off-take through the public distribution system has fallen by at least 32.3 percent during 1991 to 1994. The irony is while the government has revamped and expaded PDS to backward tribal areas since 1992, the demand for ration appears to hawe fallen. The government has also allocated 3.12 million tonnes OffOOdgrains for these blocks. Assuming that the revamped PDS is Working and the additional allocations are actually being picked up, off-take by ration shops in the rest of the economy would be even lower, over 47, per Cent less tham ln 1991.
What is even Thore ironical is that the public is paying far more for the reduced quantity of ration in the form of direct or indirect taxes. The food subsidy bill of the government has increased by 82 per cent between 1991-92 and 1994-95.
This has raised two important issues, One, why aren't people purchasing from ration shops? Why are they buying from the market at a higher price, instead? TWO, why is the government adding to the existing stocks, When the demand for PDS grains is declining? The present stock, without any additional procurement Will Teet the next two and a half years of PDS requirements. So why does
the government not foodrains in the T least bring down c StockS?
According to th offtake from ration because the gap be market price of food The explanation, Weak. In normal consumer will buy long as ration pric lower then the Unless, of course, grains is so poorth some extra Toney
The real explan elsewhere. Narrowi between the two s a major leak from shop owner, who diverting PDS grain and pocketing the find it Worthwhile ir activity if the differe is low.
Another factor res. off-take is that last of the country, the Was lower than the happens at harvest When the Tarldi: foodgrains. But ear urban markets too, in Delhi, the op foodgrains fell belc other Words, far grains at a low pris public distribution raised the price quantities of whea releasing them in higher prices.
Several research that benefits from reach the really p Parikh shows that four states, Punja UP, the number O

on System
release the EXCESS arket, which Will at arrying cost of food
e government, the shops has declined tween the ration and grainshas narrowed. however, is rather circumstances, the from ration shop So is even marginally penmarket price. the quality of ration at it is Worth paying to get better quality.
ation, perhaps, lies ng doWm of the gap iets of prices closes the PDS. Thé ration is often accused of s to the open market, difference, may not dulging in an ilegal Ce between the tw0
ponslbleforlow PDS year,in several paris 2 open market price PDS price. This often time in the rural areas are flooded With ly this year in several ncluding a few places an market price of w the PDS price. In from providing foodCe to Consumers, the system artificially by hoarding huge t andrice and theп rationed quantities at
studies hawe shown the PDS hardly ever oor. A study by Kiri
in the rural areas of b, Orissa, Bihar and f people who do not
in India:
buy from the ration shops at all is as high as 98 per cent. That is, less than two percent of the people in the rural areas of these states buy foodgrains from ration shops at all. In the rural areas of Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan less than 10 per cent of the people buy foodgrains from ration shops. The two groups together account for around two thirds of the rural population in the country.
The situation is only slightly better in the urban areas. In six states, Punjab, Bihar, UP, Haryana, Rajasthan and Manipur, the number of people buying anything from ration shops is less than 10 per Cent.
According to Parikh's study, which is based on information collected from various National Sample Surveys, two states most extensively covered by the PDS are Delhi and Kerala, AS mamy as 87 per cent of the people in Kerala buy part or the Whole of their quota from ration shops. Seventy four percent of the pampered Delhiites also avail of the ration facility,
What do the poor get from PDS? A study by S. M. Jharwal shows that the public distribution system accounted for only 17,5 per cent of the rice consumption and 11.8 per cent of the wheat consumption of the poor. So who does the public distribution system actually serve apart from a few fortunate people in a couple of states? Is there a nexus between the Food Corporation of India and ration shop owners?
Besides, providing food security at affordable prices to the consumer, the government carries out Tassive procurement operations to give remunerative returns to farmers. The huge procure: ment of foodgrains at pré-determined prices, almost always above the Open market price, by the government keeps the open market price of foodgrains artificially high. The biennial exercise of fixing procurement price of Wheat and

Page 10
rice has been used as an important weapon by most political parties in power to Woo farmers through hefty unwarranted increases. Thus, although a small number of poor get to buy cheap foodgrains from ration shops, the PDS indirectly hurts them by keeping foodgrain prices artificially high. This is yet another way to subsidise the farming community, who being Well off, is expected to mobilise rural votes for the party in power.
Even among farmers, it is the rich cultivators of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, the three surplus states which contribute to over 85 per cent of the food procurement by the government, who get the real benefit. Most farmers in the rest of the country in any case have to sell their crop in the market.
It is true the that the policy of high procurement prices is partly responsible for the conversion of India's food deficient есопопny to a surplшs one. It is also true that the existing pile of foodgrains with the government will get depleted in case of two successive years of drought. So there is no scope for complacency. However, comfortable size of food reserves and reduced off-take does provide an opportunity to rewartip the public distribution system.
The government has made an attempt to revamp PDS since 1992. It has launcheda Tassive programmeto create additional infrastructure for the public distribution systern in 1775 blocks in backward and remote areas afflicted by poor infrastructure. The official meaning of revamp is an additional 50 paise subsidy per kilo for both Wheat and rice in the revamped blocks. If official statistics are to be believed, over 14,000 new ration shops have been opened in these areas. As many as 38.64 lakh The W ration Cards hawe been issued in the revamped blocks. Schemes to deliver ration at the doorsteps of ration shops in these blocks have been initiated.
However, despite low price and the so called improved infrastructure, offtake through ration has reduced. This raises an important issue: was it worthwhile spending so much on revamping the PDS? Although it is too soon to discard the revamped PDS a failure, evaluation Work on the effectiveness of PDS in the selected blocks indicate that it is not too effective. A field report by Madhura Swarminathan on the rewamped PDS in a backward Willage in Thane district shows that 20 per cent of the
people Surveyed d Cards. For rosth from the fair prices and insufficient in needs. In the mon only one seventh rice Cor. Wheat fror average purchase person in the rewart 9.5 kg: far less thal of 24 kg рег pers the substantial pric the ration and the in the village durir the Survey was un reason for the poco by the consumer Supply, specially a Tlan Lual daily Worke is the situation in
revampedргоgramп can imagine what
be in other areas,
This shows that public distributions not very effective. T normal public distri appear to be diminis a mere 30 per cen wheat and 19 per is actually passed ( The rest of the mon and distribution offo rather inefficiently by tion of India. So revamped, but not rnment has attempt
To begin with, the take the following st allow private sector thus ending governs this important econd sent, Lunder the i ES: Act the private sect store more than a government will, armed the Act.
Two, as storing f пеy, the governmer upper limit on the a it should store, wh 15 milliO1 t0rhne5. O stocks Cross 15 m rnment should star in the open marke food subsidy bill sub damage of stored f
Three, goverппе Se PDS. At present, sed. There are a actively participate procure foodgrains.

ld not possess ration USeholds purchases hops were infrequent comparison. With their thbefore the survey if the people bought T ration shop. The of fo0dgrains per ped Village was only the state's average son. This is despite з difference betweеп open market price ng the period when dertaken, The main roff-take expressed S Was: insufficient to a time. When the rS had money. If this a block. Where the neisin progress, One the situation Would
e Wen the rewa Tiped WSterT1 as it exists is he rele Wance of the bution system also hing. Specially when t of the subsidy for of the rice subsidy 2nto the consumer. ey goes into storage Odgrains, carried out W the Food CorporaPDSneeds to be the Way the goveBdito do So.
government should eps: One, it should to store foodgrains nent monopoly over mic activity. At preential Commodities or is not allowed to
Certain level. The herefore, hawe to
odgrains costs not should impose an mount of foodgrains ch may be around Ce the government lion tonnes, gove
Selling foodgrains . This will cut the tantially and reduce Odgrains.
should decentralit is entirely centralifeW states which | PDS. SOTE BVer The Centre should
involve all state governments in this operation. More particularly, panchayats should be involved in this programme. Panchayats can monitor the functioning of PDS and ensure that the leakage İS minimal,
Fourthere should be a closer monitoring of the PDS. Consumer organisations should be asked to do the monitoring.
Five, special emphasis should be placed on implementation of revamped PDS in the selected blocks. This would be a test case of whether targeting of PDS is fBasible Dr not
Six, it is mostly left to the ration shopkeeper to lift foodgrains whenever convenient to him. Such an arrangement encourages him to pick up fooodgrains at irregular periods so that the public have no alternative but buying foodgrains from the market. The ration shop owner then gets an easy opportunity to divert foodgrains to the open market and eam a higher margin. The government should increase the commission of ration shop owners, which is really a pittance at the moment, and impose high penalty if he is caught diverting foodgrains to the market. Also, foodgrains must reach the shops on specified dates every month to ensure regular delivery to card holders.
Notes:
1. Dasai, Ashok: A Destabilisation policy, Business Standard, December 6, 1994.
2. It has been pointed by several economists, including Dantwala that procurement has the effect of raising the market price of wheat and rice. See: W. M. Rao: Beyond Surpluses: Food Security in Changing Context; EconoInic and Political Weekly, January 28, 1995.
3. Parikh, Kirit: Who gets how much from PDS: How effectively does it reach the poor? Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, April, 1993.
4. Jharwal, S. M.: Public Distribution System
in India: An Empirical Study.
5. Brief. For Economic Editor's Conference 1995, Ministry of Civil Supplies, Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution.
6. Swaminathan, Madhura: Revamped Public Distribution System: A Field Report from Maharashtra, Economic And Political Weekly, September 9, 1995.
7. Union Budget 1995-96.

Page 11
Theological bases of
Tissa Balasuriya
Since Just World Trust (JUST), give the struggle for a just world, we ha commentary which examines the q Christian theological perspective.
T露 suggest even the theme theological bases of Social injustice would seem at first sight a contradiction in terms. For theology being the study of the diwire-hur Tan relationship Tust necessarily foster justice andlowing care for all, as God in Jesus is love. Yet history bears witness to a long unholy alliance of religion and Social injustice.
Jesus is a rTlost kind lowing and lowable of persons, a prophet Cuctified for his stand for truth, justice and respect for the human person. How is it then that Christians, claiming to be his disciples and propagators of his message, hawe been among the most intolerant, гарасіошs, шпjust aпd cгше! of peoples during the past 1500 years of human history?
ASiarS ard AfricanS haWe Witnessed over 500 years of exploitaiton by the European and North ATerican Christian реoples. They were conquered by arппs, ruled despotically, their wealth plundered by Christian victors, their economies transformed to further enrich the dominant, their religions despised, their places of worship destroyed - all that With a feeling of triumphant self-righteou
STESS.
How did this sense of self-justification and ewangelizing mission Come about? It Was due to the spiritual notivation and Sustenance by the prevalent theology of the times. After the 4th century, Augustinian Christian anthropology taught that all humanity was fallen due to the original sin of the Universal first parents, Adam and Ewe. Their sin, communicated by human generation, bar Ted the gates of heaven to all except the baptised. Eternal salvation was possible only through Christ and by membership of the Church. The Christian
mission - WaS thLUS ir sawing the souls of Christians (mostly therefore the Sacre all Corters of the W others to Christianit purpose and Servic the pagans be rul пeed be bу сопсlue. CTLSaded. Other TI false, had no rights be destroyed. Thus, had a theological f, Tiation.
Spirituality Suppo
As the Salvation supreme goal of th important in spiritua of the gospel. For COLuld be tolerate benefited from, Sinc tians were Whites, th White domination racial oppression W. gender discriminati Was in obedience to ard a WS. ThLIS fel. Were long tolerate capitalism and CO Seriously opposed f theologians and chi
Since males Wer in society, they affi their superiority in too. Theology was a Way that the m; closer to the diwin Woman was presen treSSardinferOrto and anthropocentric neglected Nature t existence on earth.
This paradigm of gy and spirituality

social injustice
is a lot of importance to religion in ave decided to publish the following uestion of general injustice from a
terpreted as one of fallen humanity. The Westerners) had di duty of going to (orld and converting y. For this supreme e, it was fitting that ed by Christians, if st. Hence holy wars, eligions, considered 5. T. Bir İdol 5 had t0 religious intolerance Dundation and legiti
rting linjustice
of Souls was the Church, What was lity was the spread this social injustice I, SOmėtimos gwer e the powerful Chrishis meanta Sanctified of other races. To as added Social and Dr. Holiness of life the Church authority Idalism and slavery d. The injustices of |lonialism Were mot or centuries by most urch leaders.
Ee da facfČD dormirant Tmed and confirmed the religious sphere
developed in such ale Was Considered E "; thiar the fETlalE. led as Weaker, tempTam. AmandroCentric WeW of the universe at supports human
a domination theoloprevailed and was
Enforced in the Christian churches to our times from the 4th century Constantinian conversion of the Church and the Roman empire to each other. Even in Todern times the thinkers Who tried to rethink Christianity in relation to the original Tessage of Jesus were repressed by the theological establishment of the Catholic Church. Thus, almost all the great theologians who led in the renewal of the Church at Watican II had previously been suppressed or silenced by the Romam authorities.
RemeWall
Thanks to the initiative of good Pope John XXIII, the Second WatIC COUCI (1962-1965) endeavoured to change this thinking and practice in the Catholic Church towards a more oper, tolerant and participative communion and community. The mission of the Church was rethought as the transformation of human Society to be more faithful to the values taught by Jesus. The goal of the Church was interpreted as the bringing about of the kingdom of God on earth by a rule of righteousness. Social justice was deemed integral to the gospel of Jesus and the Church's mission.
During the 1960s and 1970s, efforts Were made throughout the world to bring about a transfortation of the Church towards this renewed understanding of the gospel. Many Christiansparticipated in the Towerments for social reform in all the continents. Theology itself was developed in Europe and North America towards a more tolerant framework of freedom and justice.
Liberation theologies were developed particularly in the Southern Continents. The Blacks, beginning from North America, reflected on the gospel in terms of Black liberation from White domination.

Page 12
The women's movements took their struggle for equal dignity and rights to the theological sphere also. Asian theology searches further for inter-religious understanding and global justice.
All these groups questioned the earlier dominant paradigm of theology and its assumptions and consequencses. They built up new syntheses of Christian thinking that could be in open dialogue With other religions, and related actively to issues of gender and social justice. Thus, Christians participate actively in liberation movements as in Nicaragua, South Africa and the Philippines, as well as in the liberation movements of Blacks and Women.
The spread of such teaching and praxis was seen as a danger to the ruling establishment in society and the church. Hence from the mid-1970s or so there has been a counter effort to prevent the spread of such trends. A sort of restoration was attempted from the later years of Pope Paul VI (1963-1978). This trend gained ascendancy in the Catholic Church in some areas of Church life during the present pontificate. Pope John Paul II took a strong stand against Communism, especially in his native Poland, and supports justice in his uniwersal messages. However, there are conservative trends being affirmed concerning the need to convert the whole world to Christianity. Some authorities in the Vatican are trying to stem the tide of reform in the Church. They have the advantage of the арpoitert Of bishops throughout the world.
Changing Fortunes of Christianity
In the Western Countries, the growth of secularism is leading to a progressive unchurching of people. The numbers who frequent the church services in most of Europe is less than 10% of the population considered to be Christian. The clergy is aging; their number is declining rapidly; seminaries are being closed down or regrouped in clusters due to a severe drop in vocations. The mainline churches have very few new foreign missionaries from Western countries. Even traditionally Catholic Poland and Ireland are manifesting that they no longer take their politics and even
1[]
moral norms from t dS recent electora show,
On the other F. churches or Christia in SEVeral Asian ar They are developing more respectful of that inspire social equality and the ci Work with peoples' in analternative appro, is presently dominat the international ag World Bank and the ' zation (WTO).
Asian Christia diE religions is leading to of the presuppositi dominant Christian re-sourcing themsel the original Jesus,th Church tradition. Thi the main thems of the Cal pradigm such as ment and original redemption, the pers role of Jesus the CF Church in Salvation. Centrality of love and legality and external The South - Asiam C India and Sri Lanka, the ConservallWe chUI epicentre of such tre
Internal Conflicts
All these are leat theological debate v Ch Lurch- and even c in some churches. the Church sometime Sanctions to suppres raising of uncomfortal tion may be suspel Sometimes ecclesias invoked in order to persevere in What is
EOLUS.
Spirituality is also this quest. It is argue should accept the dor correct because it is th if it is questioned the si be Scandalised. st is

2 Church hierarchy, ands and referenda
Lnd, the renewing | groups are vibrant di African Countries. theologies that are he other religions, ustice and gender re of nature. They ovements that Want ch to economy that ld by the TNCs and ricies like :: the IMF, World Trade Organi
logue with the other a radical rethinking ons of the earlier theology. They are Pes by a return to egospels and early 2y are reassessing dominant theologthe human predicasin, the mature of onality, identity and rist, the role of the
They reaffirm the justice above mere "eligious conformity. puntries, especially
are considered by sch forCES to be thB Inds.
ing to an intense within the Catholic onflictual situations Those in power in s use ecclesiastical is dissent and the ble iSSUES. Innowacted of disloyalty. tical sanctions are "epress those who Considered erro
invoked to contain that all Christians Tinant theology as le Church tradition: imple faithful would
contended that a
Christian must be humble, obedient to authority, conserve the unity and communion of the church, and not give room for others, especially the fundamentalists, to point an accusing finger at us.
Reformers Inay consider that their spirituality demands loyalty to one's lights, fidelity to the search for the truth in our circumstances, and even bearing any suffering for such a cause.Authenticity demands faithfulness to one's conscience. To traditionalists such standing for one's convictions may seen as being StubborTl, obstinate, duped and estranging one from the Community, The guardians of orthodoxy may judge that such views are erroneous and should be squelched in one way, or the other.
Yet, invoking of Canon Law sometimes even without the due legal process, and threatening or imposing ecclesiastical penalties may not be productive of faith and goodwill. Dialogue within the chur
inter-religious dialogue. The latter seems not likely to progress far without the former. Or inter-religious dialogue may generate issues that need dialogue Within the Chu TChēs.
Those concerned with social justice have to recognise the nature of these issues and help bring about understanding in the process of commitment to social justice and the development of Christian theology and spirituality. There is a growing Credibility gap between the more radical and traditional groups within the Church. Some are socially radical and conservative in expression of belief and Worship. Asian churches particularly require a renewed more Christ-like Christian theology, but how is this to be brought about in this conflictual situation?
Social Justice while advocating Social transformation for justice, has to include the rethinking of the bases of our religious beliefs and practices that would contribute towards a store just, peaceful and egalitarian society. The Sri Lankan
background of many lively vibrant reli
gions, social awareness and growing gender consciousness can help in this. We EndeaWOLlur to Contribute towards this cause by Our discussion of intra-religious and inter-religious issues.

Page 13


Page 14
Premadasa: The Visio
G. Mahendran
Hat is it hat made Premada Sa
gravitate to the United National Party, as opposed to the revolutionary left? The answer lithinkies in his upbringing. Buddhist mores and Catholic schooling, groomed him on a spiritual bent, that could not accept a pure materialist explanation of cause and effect.
Moving as he did amongst the down trodden in Kehelwata early in life, inaugurating Sucharita, following Goonesinghe in the labour movement, Would one think anything but pull PETlada.Sa. t WardS the the Walt left, No. He decided otherwise. The same happened to Lee Kuan Yew, a socialist when he was at the University. When the latter came into office he believed only the free market could
deliver the goods, Premadasa was
Conwinced earlier on, it was So, having associated with Dudley and J.R., but he was troubled by the paradox of free enterprise in a developing econormy, neglecting the poorer Sections of society, which amounted to the majority in the population, Sri Lanka and South Asia Were full of this dichotomy. Premadasa Wrestled with this problem. He had to seek away out. His heart went out to the poor, who in his manner of thinking had no escape. The Vicious cycle, whether one be an urban Worker or a poor peasant,
miserable World. How does one get out of the poverty trap? Is there a way? If so how can one lick this problem? These questions Were uppemost in his Thind. Thus on assuming office as Minister Housing and Local Government, he got his select band of officials to work on this problem. Being well aware of problems of governance, he was careful not to tread on others toes. So the experiTent began with Housing. The million
LL LLCCLL LCCSC LCTT LLL LMMCmLL0LLMe In apar and China before he relied fratII he foregri servicg.
houses of prograr Premadasa fought Cabinet to fUIld tils a full-fledged experi participation.
Here, Was a sect Trent had to el catalyst to identify a nity to face a p housing program E. deepening an awar of Community orgar one keep the in flagging?
Thereafter to g; handle problems si Credits, Tethodolo done, and getting th to Work with govel synbiotic relations since Premadasa closely were amaz
TE UNFP || St. and Dudley Senar organisational skili tered him, and With rewamped the UNI Party machine. In Won the Colorbo thus began his Ca of Parliament.
Premiada Sa felt human beings in civilization, but this necessarily follow Marx and the mari eyes did not mix. Mahatma Gandhi, gore, John Ruskin had made up his forward, Was to SECtions to actión rtures, but in Free Speaking on 200 і said "this growth W With the accelerat the Janasawiya Tr in complete harm

n Thing
n, Was the result. tooth and rail in
i incipient, and later ment, in community
or where the Goveter thE field as a nd assista COTITUroblem. ThLUS :: the began a process of
hisations. HOW does litial interest from
at a community to uch as sawings and gy, getting the job Le propoor activists, "mment Cadres in a пір, These aspects, looked at thern ingly SUCCe55ful.
he 1956 elections. hayaka, seeing the if Premadasa, TusI J.R. Jayewardene, Porto a Well oiled | 1960 Prellada5a Central seat and reer as a TherTiber
that Concert for he Corner Stone of Concern need not
the Marxian Way. ket im Premadasa's
A man who read Radhakrishnan, Taand C.E.M. Joad mind that the way nobilise the poorer rÖt in Marxist CorTMarket Enterprise. dustrial Centres he will go hand in hand io of the Work of ust Fund. It Will be lony with the big
investor - Small producer inter relationship".
His friendship with J.R. Jayewardene and Dudley Senanayaka, influenced his political thinking, wherein he saw the strength of the free market in building the economic foundations of a country. But he was troubled with the abject powerty, of the rural and the urban poor, constituting as it did the Wast majority of our population. First as Deputy Minister and then as the Minister of local government, he honed in all that he had mastered during his formative years, and pushed through his ideas in developing the Colombo Central area. Infrastructure Was developed to help the poor to become productive agents in a free environTherit. With the defeat of the UNF in 1970, Premadasa got another opportunity between 1970-77 to learn, and fine tune his thinking on the paradox of economic progress in developing countries, wherein, it led to the rich getting richer, and the poor had more children. Wher Eir1 did lie ar arlSWEr to his question? He himself admits that he and the UNP did their homeWork between 1970 and 77, thus when J.R. Jayewardene with the able assistance of R. Pretadasa Won the 1977 election for the UNP, and ideology was in place to push the economic upliftment of the poorer Sections of society, into gainful elements in an economically integrated whole.
As Minister of Local Government, Housing and Construction, and then as Prime Minister, he had his turf, and from the word "go" he got his chosen Then, to implement his vision from August 1977. "Walking om two legs". "If I can become the Voice of the Wolceless millions". "What We need is not so ITuch answers to OLIr old questions, We must start to question our old answers". "Poverty does not have the luxury of leisurely solutions". "considerit a crime to tolerate poverty in the economic life of the country".

Page 15
These Words. Were the clarion call for action, and Premadasa the great communicator, was able to sell these ideas, packaged as they were in, simple, earthy, and digestible form. From 1977 to 1993 Premadasa had the exceptional gift of an unbroken political regime; with a full scale opening up of the economy, and the Executive Presidency, within which he made use of his ability to Sella product that was in his eyes the Way out for a country to practice what the government preached, in economic terms, without destabilising the political machinery, in coming to grips with poverty alleviation.
From 1977 the ideas he articulated were looked upon as a marketing professional would look at a "brand" that had to be sold. Thus his programnes such as housing, Gam Udawa, mobile secretariat, Janasawiya Were packaged and marketed to the people. The Premadasa image too Was packaged and marketed, which was acceptable to the wast majority of the people.
He began his program in implementing his dream with housing, From 1977-88 Premadasa used the housing program, and then poverty alleviation, as the key to have есопопnic growth, with equity and national unity. The macro econostic picture where the private sector had free rein in increasing total output, had to be matched by governmental inputs to help those Who Were most Wulnerable. The trickle down syndrome did not appeal to Premadasa. It was slow, and fraught with danger. The million houses program was an innovative support based housing program, where the poor builder farmilies, Were at the Center of their own development process. The government supports, strengthens and complements the mainstream. It will intervene only when individuals and communities cannot solve problems on their own. The government was the
facilitator, and the family was the doer
and decision Taker.
Basic to this policy was the correct appreciation of the role of the poor, in their own development. The poor were being made subjects, unlike the earlier policy of treating them "objects" of the "dole". The proofs that the
Premadasa vision in implementation
was working was seen that While incipient insurgent and terror Were
manifesting itself
development Wor among the urban a themselves being people. With an OW of trust and credib
The question did dasa, What next?" the housing progra and kicking, and policies, Were part process, and Wou any successor reg party. As Prime N was able to bring leaders of the COmr the UN, whereby the International the Hortheless,
It Was 1988 and Sai Was to feel th ad Will bēl a tot: concept of Janasa
te "At FPI Alleviation" throug velopments. He se mot a Wert it, the the untratelled bereft of safety in 1988, 1989 ampl Worst fears he ha
It was in NOVE next significant ev phase took place.
tert of a COTI |eWel officials, Ch Governor of the prepare within on Program on Power People-Based De port was prepare Its role is quite : to subsequent dev thing, it further clai gical principles by the participatory cc experience for t poverty alleviation ptualised under the Dewelopment, whi fundamentally difl content from c. pment.lm essence
- put people first and the poores
- Cor Sidered HU
primary resourc
- Was self-reliant

all ower from = '86, kers - imhousing, nd rural poor, found
received by the erwhelming degree
ility,
arisЕ "after PremaYou areaWare that This i Still the realiWe the support based of the development ld be sustained by ime "irrespective of Minister PrBTadasa ghis ideas to the monwealth, and later 1987 Was declared fear of Shelter for
thereafter Premadaat his Vision Was, alreality, when the wiya was enunciated "ogram on Powerty h people based deIW, though he could crisis developing in free market policies, ets. The e Went:Sir y brought out the d.
E.
TOT 1987 that thB ent of the pre-1988 That Was the appoiTittee of eight high aired by the then
Central Bank, to emonth, an Action y Alleviation through Velopment. The reWithin six Weeks. strategic in relation 'elopments. For one ified the methodolocritically generalising intent of the housing he larger issue of I. This Was concelabel People-Based ch, Was defined as er erthir for T12 ar 10 on Wentional de Welco);-
it;
especially the poor it of the poor;
man beings as the :E
and bottom-up;
was culturally harmonious;
could realize truly national scale and stability;
This Was the nucleus of his cam
paign Tanifesto "A new Vision, a new Deal'.
It is useful to remind ourselves of the richness and variety of the pro-poor policy package. There were the 1.5 Million houses program which had a naturalkinship to the Jana Sawiya. Program. There was the Presidential Task Force. On National Land Utilisation and Distribution, set up in October 1989. This was an implementing commission. The Presidential COT. Tission on Youth was also appointed in October 1989. The Presidential Commission on Finance and Banking, which artıong other key issues addressed that of Credit for the poor, started Working in February 1991. The Janasaviya Trust Fund, an organisation to complement the Janasawiya Commissioners; Departtlet Was started in 1991. There Were the programs for restructuring sub-district lewel administration Called Divisional Secretariats, and the 200 Garment Factories programs. The former Was major attempt at administrative restructuring where the object was to devolve all administration - development as Well as routine maintenance - to 301 Divisions. The idea Was that citizens Would:Cot hawe toilea Wa thBir di WiSlO to get any of their needs looked after,
be they infrastructure requirements,
birth certificates, land matters or penSiOS, The Garment Factorie:S – Were targeted to absorb the sons and daughters of the poor, mainly in remote гural areas, into регmanent: faclогу employment.
Not only did this fire his imagination as the Fಳ್ಗಳ್ಗಿ a new 'Social Contract" i Sri ka; the existence of men and women who thought like him, led to his laying hands on the IGSAC document entitled SAARC Mowing Towards Core Areas of Cooperation September 1991. The Report contained three messages and one recommendation to the Heads of State;
Poverty and Setting - Poverty in the region in the year 1991, based on the conventional "powerty line" estimates in courttries, Would be between 330 to 440 million. It is more likely to be in the higher range. There was a need
13

Page 16
to take a critical look at the methodology of poverty assessment and the available statistics and assess its Weaknesses in reflecting the real picture of the magnitude of the problem.
- Given the present trends in population and economic growth and in the absence of a concerted effort at powerty alleviation, the numbers are likely to increase substantially.
The problems of poverty are further aggrawated by Warious other social deprivations and discriminations from which the poor suffer as well as by the spatial inaccessibility of outlying, remote and distant terrain which prevent the delivery of social goods and services.
- The structural adjustment policies, Which accompany the open-есопоmy industrialisation strategy currently being adopted by most SAARC Countries, are likely to put further strains on the poor, particularly in the Shorter term.
- The conclusion was inescapable that the magnitude and complexity of the problem of powerty in South Asia is staggering. When coupled With the multifaceted crisis currently facing South Asian countries, the problem is becoming unmanageable. It not only puts democracy at risk, but also poses a threat to the Very fabrics of South Asian societies.
inadequacy of Past Development InterWertions
- The conventional development inter wentions over the past fifty years, has resulted in a growth rate too low to hawe an impact on the lewels of living and human development of the large number of poor. Though South Asia has achieved an average growth rate of 3.1% over the past tem years, While Several other regions in the South have had negative growth, such growth has failed to "trickle down" or to be administratively redistributed to the poor, except in a limited manner.
The magnitude of poverty remains
unacceptably high.
- Excessive dependence on the State for every lead in development curtailed initiatives of the people. Obses
14
sive preoccupati organised Priva accumulation, as in econonic prc neglecting the ci themSelvES Conti mulation process tratiOm for indu: nisation, as the ( of development, the system and v Tural and urban
Well as further
these areas. Th they lived, faced quences of thes
In making ano of the results Thade to "COTW pment wisdom
Countries, howev nce of a positives One, as far as th ned. These posit
a) Some of the
down to thep there was as Sis on agricul and food pro
b) in a few Soul Or States. Withi there Was cor in Social dewel a significant development even by the of income; ar
c) Where massiv FCÉS WEITE 8 bureaucracy w efficient, powe ted through inputs" to the SECtOTS ET 3
However, mere c COTVentional dev With marginal v efficiency in achie gains and ad-hoc the poor in the na Would not be adı the process of po The sheer magnit ty of the task she estir Tlated.
A closer look it on the groundpc. of common and s

With State and e Sector capital the driving force gress, resulted in pacity of the poor bute to the accudirectly. Concentrialisation/moderominant paradigm :reated dualities in ide gaps between evels of living as Jolarisation within a poor, wherever the Worst Conseprocesses.
erall assessment f the adaptations entional" develoby South Asian Br, there is Evideide, albeita limited a poor are conceriwe effects are;
benefits did trickle oor im areas Where systematic empha|tural development iuctions;
h Asian Countries, in Countries, where Isistent in Westment lopment programs, level of human was achieved, loor, at low levels
d
e financial resouVailable and the as committed and Irty was ameliorathe "delivery of 'poor in selected
fES.
ontinuation of the relopment pattern ariations, greater wing these limited : Consultation With me of participation equate to reverse erty reproduction. ude and complexiuld not be under
the experiences ints to a number pecific lessons on
what has been achieved through social mobilisation and participation of the poor in development. The lessons and achievements include the following;
a) Building organisations of the poor is an essential prerequisite for poverty alleviation. Through these organisations, the poor can save and invest efficiently.
b) Empowerment of the poor is the means to poverty eradication. Through empowerment, the poor can also assert the right to resources intended for thern and enhance their dignity and self respect,
c) Poor women can effectively overcome their double burden through the same process.
d) The need for sensitive support mechanisms to catalyse the process of social mobilisation. A new kind of animator/facilitator Who is identified with the poor and committed to poverty eradication need to be a part of these support mechanisms.
e) Participatory monitoring and eValuatiom i hawe to be built into the process, so that self-correctiwe action can take place as the process evolves.
Having read this document, Premadasa made it his own, and began a Crusade in SAARC Summit to appoint an independent South Asia Commission on poverty alleviation. The terms or reference required the members of the commission, to clearly diagnose what went wrong with past attempts at poverty alleviation, draw the positive lessons from the ground, where the poor have been mobilised to contribute to economic growth, and humam development, and finally to identify the Critical elements, in a coherent overall strategy of poverty alleviation in South Asia. There was a realisation that just as powerty eradication was a sine quo om to build a market in a country, the same held good for the SAARC region. Premadasa became the guiding light behind this program in SAARC circles. While executing Janasawiya at home, he coaxed his South Asian colleagues that the billion mass market in South Asia would be a reality, if

Page 17
powerty alleviation, in the way he had accepted it was implemented.
At the Dhaka Sutrit Pretadasa had his colleagues accept the action plan. The SAARC Heads of State decision, made a major "political" Cormittent and established the "ownership" of a culturally relevant strategic thrust for moving towards growth, sustainable human development and greater equity in the South Asian Region.
It was recognised that the two parallel strategies — the Pro Poor and the Open Economy - which hawe shorter and longer time frames respectively, would need to be harmonised as far as possible right from the beginning, as the two processes eVOve. Both strategies would need to be equally vigorously pursued if these countries were to respond to the multi-faceted crisis facing them.
The implementation of these strategies would require drawing on the many stocks of knowledge-traditiona and modern-which was available to South Asian Countries and gawe greater technological choice. A great deal of research support, using innovative inter-disciplinary social science, giving modern scientific validation to traditional technology, action research methodologies, capacity building and the effective i utilisation Of Existir research results Would be required, the goals of growth, human development and powerty eradication are to be achieved within a reasonable time frame. This more complex development response was also a pre-requisite
for the multi-cultu Societies which are geable, and fort tederTiOCratic tra are underway in
specifically, the SAARC Heads of
- Each SAARC
mational PTO-P with the Open at the Tacro Social Mobilisa ThiCTO level, foi Worst forms of year period. Th based om the poor are efficier to growth. The poor do not in recipients of rel safety nets.
- As the parallel
Powerty Eradic: WE OWer differer la We to be ha mutual reinforce further sharpe dictiorS irn, SOC
- The experienc gress achiewed
ring and the MobilisatiOt BE Slargd arlo
tries in a proc learning. Progr at subsequent
- A newidial 00au
with "donor" rnments, so th an enablingi
BOOKS
Colombo: A Novel
By Carl Muller. Delhi: Penguin Books, 1995,481
Reviewed by Robert Siegle
Department of English, University of Peradeпуа.
C: Muller's big novel about the city of Colombo lives a life akin lo that of its first chapter's protagonists, a pair of struggling young people who meet "Under the UT borella" to kiSS ad pet. The hawkers, perWerts, children, and
miSCellameOUS pas their very public Green, each thin dgrTent, no doubt, double focus upon the World Watching Muller sitting on
publically "under til city he clearly low who pass thгошgh

rall and multi-ethimic becoming unmanahe consolidation of Lnsformations. Which
South Asia. More action plan of the State required that;
Country draw up a por Planin paralel Fಣ್ಣ' Strategy level and initiate a tion proceSS at the r eradication of the powerty within a ten SPTO-POOT Prois assumption that the tard Can Contribute greater part of the Ieed to be passive ief Welfare or Social
Open Economy and ation strategies evol
iITE DIEDTS t monised, to permit ament and to prevent ning of the contraiety.
e gained and proWith Pro-Poor PlanTicro level Social it goes with it, should ng the SAARC couness of experimental ess Will be reviewed SAARC Suurimits.
e should be opened Organisations/Goveat they could create International atrTmOS
phere that is supportive of this powerty eradication strategy in South Asia.
Premadasa was deeply troubled about the way the animators were losing enthusiasm in the entire poverty alleviation program. The bureaucratization of the program, and the dominance of government in this pro-poor efforts. His vision Was to create the exact opposite, where the poor would be the subject, and not the government. Thus by 1993 he was Wrestling with ideas, on bringing back the early enthusiasm Et årliITEEd tle Millid HDLSE5 FIDgram. He thought of involving SAARC in our national program would be a way out. But he had to contend with the establish Tent, used as it Was to accepted norms of behaviour oblivious of Premadasa's phrase "What we need is not so much ansWers to our old question, We must stand to question Our old answer". Just as he found Out that there were superhuman hurdles in the political field, to have his ways of thinking, and Governance accepted, he found that the Well to do in Society Were mot i committed im making the proper policy Work. It was useless talking of big investor, small producer, unless the SIT all producer, produced a product that was saleable, packaged and presented for a market. That input was lacking. The man who had Tastered the art of selling a political product was being stumped by inflexible attitudes and Thatérial T10reS.
HOW does one harness the collective genius of a people. If we do, We will blow the competition Way.
pp.
sers-by see them in Jerch Or Galle Face king a different juas they maintain the each other and upon them. And I imagine
these pages, S. Wery eurella'. With the BS aWare that thOSE its pages as readers
will have any number of say about his passionate collage of Colombo's past and present realities.
And Tear"passionate" in both its sexual registers - Muller insists his city has a sex life even if it isn't always pretty to portray - and its metaphoric Sense. Muller has raided the storehouse of books, cards, posters, and advertising
15

Page 18
for this city, gathering its most intense moments over the last few centuries and Lusing them to tellus where the city carme from. These materials are the historical Complement to the portrayal of "Colombo Nights,' the longer section of the novel with its twenty-two chapters of contemporary life resonating against its historical and social contexts. Not much is spared in these chapters - Muller has little reticence out of respect for the sensibilities of the prudish, the chauvinistic, or the self-important among the city's rea
d.
And so it is easy enough to complain about Colombo. Its sensationalized sex, pessimistic politics, and histrionic history might Well put off the pious, the loyal, the booster - any personality that believes in speaking only with kindness, charity, and forebearance, Colombo is not for such readers; it is more for those who can relate to the final line of a chapter about current problems, a line that follows a quotation of several pages from a 1994 letter to a newspaper chronicling the lower middle class gripes of the day. "Oh, oh, Colombo," the line reads.
The second "Oh"functions to introduce both irony and agony to the subject, a dual attitude that overly earnest readers may miss in too easy an offense at Muller's free-ranging portrait of "their
city."
The irony? The line sounds like a pop Song, marking the hopeless gap between anything like a song or novel and the hopeless complexity of reality. The irony marks the measure of futility in lamenting the human impact in any westernizing Asian capital. It recoils from the pathos of so eloquent a letter, knowing how Unfixable are its disappointments about Sri Lanka's capture by a moneyed and none-too-principled elite. Muller endorses the letter-writer's sentiment, apparently, by letting it stand With only the ironic awareness of how much Worse the reality is than even this letter can report.
Hence the agony in "oh, oh Colombo" - that flinch, which irony is meant to maska bit. For Muller finds Colombo also a city of beauty, of human energy,
of so marny dues : So many ordinary Centuries of the cri teeth of Social forC One nation or leade
think the author the horror of childs is emblematic of th: Muller's attitude. It's prurience or pande dges the thrill of unr is the "klick" to sexuality and physi Muller also places Context of a World Sources of self-Walid, are desperately circ promised...... so in power over a replic can become the Or pensation for som thẽ lWentỉEth CErfur
Wher the willai abusers, pimps, and the effect is to reg Which the more Wu Sri Lamkan society h by the neocolonial and ecoloric dor "developed" nations are foreigners, res. list's national level the Incident serves fable of cancerous ( Then, perhaps, We of an urban underc SSed rural immigrat TaWS of Tultirati Orth: can get through Mull the crime reports wit brutally physical ex representative Cases
Muller's fuSiO of and a journalism of : sed to sensationalize WêS the realization COrCOctio - "an E Calls it (413) - a te pen of outside pow into the blank text Coast, its heart beir Kandy, or Kotte, or J O Lught not expect tc some authentic origi пеvегапуthing but Trade : Of Sri Lanka demonstrates beyon strously complicatec

of suffering paid by
humans, and for ulch of lives in the es bigger than any
.
ial energy drawn to eX and childTurder complexity of Carl too easy to call it ring. it acknowleastrained power that Oedophiles' mix of Cal do Tirnarice. But Such abuse in the In Which indiwidualS" ation and Well-being JimSCribed ard COmJCh. So that sexual a of One's Childself Ily imaginable com* Wictirrls of life In W.
S T are Sri Lamika
delinquent parents, lister the extent to Inerable sectors of awe been disfigured era of local elites minance benefitting ... When the abusers art. With Coloniaof rape and murder, to generalize this laritage to the soul. approach the saga lass and disposseits Crushed in the all capital. No reader er's scrapbook from hout finching at the perience of these
historical chronicle sensation (as oppod journalism) achiethat Colombo is a artificial city" as he Xt Written. Wher the er haS Cut ils lingS of the Sri Lankan Igelsewhere - in affna. A Corth-COction I have its roots in n. It Colombo, Was
What Others hawe
and Carl Muller d doubt the disanature of such
CO-Created alirTipo Sests, When 02 CLültLUre after another rewrites the page until their scripts jumble together into something like a frenzied abstract, the chaotic hashmarks or ethnic shrapnel.
Which is a way of saying that Muller's Colombo isn't a problem with a solution. Or that it is a miasma of problems with too many solutions, ones that satisfy only one of a thousand interests or perspectiWes. ColorTbo - doesn't see the city's problems as a function of ethmic divisions, though perhaps it takes a Burgher to imply, even, that Sinhalese-Tamil differETICBS, TTlatter lESS tham E.Con0/TĩC dislocation and the social disruption it Creates. Muller cares more about the self-interest of politicians than their ethnic label, more about greed and the collectiWe Withering of compassion than about the intricacies of devolution's details or parliamentary jockeying,
Perhaps, that is, Muller is really taking his lead from the old Testament prophets who made themselves unpopular for the Sa The reasons I've heard this book Criticized. Namely, for exposing the collective loss of a people's finest sense of the Tselves and their values, and for reminding listeners of the history by which their fragile state has come to be. Colombo's history is that of a rough, hostile, usually exploitative collaboration among peoples, nations, and classes, and the city took shape during the transformation of the World from a Collection of emerging nation states into the present day reintegration of us all into one global market of dubious COn Thri:Oditie S.
Muller has distilled into Colombo all that he finds disturbing about the effects of that transformation. I suspect one has to read his poem, Sri Lanka: a lyric (Kandy 1990), in order to know first hand the specifics of his great love for Sri Lanka. But the city's energy and vitality is un mistakable in Muller's novel, even if both its humane and perverse sides are clearly evident, even if equally evident is Muller's conviction that much is lacking in the quality of leadership the city has known - in its colonial masters, in its postcolonial leaders, its citizens, its visitors. We must all of us use this book to remind ourselves of the more wholesome chapters yet to
be Written in Colombo's history.

Page 19
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Page 20
THOMAS MERTO
Jeanne Thwaites
homas Merton of towering
international fame is the most profound of the writers. He expresSes himself, as always, With no-nonsense honesty and often poetic insight. When he visited Sri Lanka it was om his last journey -- one that Would end in Bangkok where he was found dead by electrocution. The visit to Ceylon was an important one because it provided one of the many factors that might have contributed to that death now usually considered to have been a murder though it is officially declared an accident, Merton's death Was Curiously convenient for he had made three powerful enemies.
First, the United States Gowerment. Merton's stand against the Vietnam War was affecting the country's youth and had not made him friends in Washington D. C. When his Trappist Abbot forbade him to Write on anti-war topics, he did Sounder another name-and everyOne kleWi Who iti Was because he Was the only person saying those things that Way. The C.I.A. is more than capable of dispatching such a dissident.
Second, the Catholic Church. Merton's Critical religious Writing had been so influential that Pope Pius XII had changed some tenets of the Catholic Church (Hidden Grounds 651/52). To some of his readers Merton was the Church. But now the monk was examining Asian religions and had become delighted With Zen buddhism,
Merton continued to make waves that Were rapidly hitting gale force. At the age of fifty-four he fell in love With a young Woman he met when he was a patient in a hospital. He did not see how that such a love could have come from anywhere but
B
God. While he dic the relationship ( up his life as a ". did not awoid ti thinking about suc Wrote her passic sought her compa
He was therefc Catholicism much had done i so mu people, also beca their is latter Mafia are Catholic stantial Contributic which is not to say openly or even p its activities. If the for Merton's death been the first tim caused the abrupt wen of an earth lyr
Third, and the Buddhists. Buddh but its practitioner SO and OWhere Lanka has this b MErtor Wert frOT and the Tibet. W. the Dalai Lama promptly namedh Buddha." As he W sobriquet did notar Buddhists Outside
lmages quotes f ries on his visit he further embarr by having his is experience beside hara Buddhas in at Some more app St. Peter's in Rot
was suddenly, jerked clean ou half-tied vision an inner clear if exploding-f themselves, b

N
 ܼܲܒ
not consummate pr expect to give solitary" monk, he alking, Writing or h a possibility. He nate letters and іпу.
re a nuisance to
as Gandhi, who ch to liberate his me a nuisance to years. The Italian card Takes SubbΠS tΟ RΟΠΠΕ -- that their Church rivately condones mob responsible it Would not hawe he it : WOLuld hawe elevation to heanuisance to Rome.
least likely, the Smis non Tilitant S are not always TOTE :: thir i Sri een der Th0Strated. Ceylon to India here he met with
igt im “the American as a Catholic, the TmUSe the marrower
that country.
ron Merton's diato Ceylon where assed his church Supreme spiritual One of the Gall WilPolonnaruwa not ropriate place like le. He Wrote:
almost forcibly, t of the habitual,
of things, and less, clarity, as rom the rocks IeCamme eWident
and obvious. The queer evidence of the reclining figure, the Smile...... now have seen what was obscurely looking for (388).
Merton's Ceylon diary entries include a Zen comment: "What if the mind becomes one-pointed and the 'one point' is then removed;" humor: "I am afraid, I am afraid, art afraid of silences said the Vicar General, "I Was afraid of those Trappists;" and inappropriate monk thoughts while looking out of a train Window on the Way to Kandy: "Girls is beautifully cool and Wet........ (381).
A curious fact about the choice of writers for Images is that only John Henry Barrows from Michigan, and Ella Wheeler Wilcox from Wisconsin, are not from the north east and eastern United States." It is possible, of Course, that all the early 19th Century travelers were only from the East Coast, but after World War I it is not, and the later omissions seem Outrageous. In the mid-20th Century, California was booming, and after World War II, air travel joined the Whole World. Sri Lanka was no longer an obscure island South of India, if only because the TOWieproducers had discovered its cheap labor. Elephant Walk (1954), Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and several other famous Tovies Were made there. Californian Writer Mike Wilson who won an academy award under another name for Place in the Sun, because he had been blacklisted for being a communist, was in Sri Lanka for months working on Bridge on the River Kwai,
蕾
Harry Frank is mentioned as "returning" to Seattle (256), but it is not clear if Washigton Washis home state or whether he was headed there.

Page 21
Wher i Tethir The Stalked about meeting other American Writers while here. Did nOne Of thern Write about the Island? Where also are the Works of the many West-Coast Americans who are openly homosexual and who visit and/or live in Sri Lanka. Where they have gone because there is no discrimination against them?
After talking to lan Goonetileke about my thoughts in this regard, and sending him this manuscript in progress, he reiterated that he had only four months to put the book together and that I had missed its point. He chose those Writings which he felt best described the affect of travel on the mind.
In my own context - that of colonization - a problem also have with Images is that there are so many glowing descriptions of the physical beauty of the Island, that there ia a feeling that they have Won Out ower i conversational exchanges, people-descriptions and political changes that were influencing many World tra VelerSfTOT the Tid-tWertieS on. A repetitious quality to the descriptions invariably leads to skimming the text and when you skin you frequently mis-read. For example, a Sri Lanka English student in the University of California in Berkeley told me she found. Mark Twain's excerpt racist. I explained that the beginning of Twain's description is Written tongue-in-cheek, as I shall explain later, and it was obvious the student had not read Thore than his beginning. If a student of English Wont read every Word of a text I don't know Who Wilso Was surprised. I asked her if she had been skimming and she replied with a grin, that she had: "I got bogged on the descriptions."
The editor calls Lucian Kirtland "refreshingly free of gossip" (332). Gossip would have served my purpoSes better. It also Seems, from these accounts, that those Writers Who
Werre ir ar irti about flora and fa nalized people they BCOLIntere first, animals-Sec seems their sub My own bias in n Tents is obvious, to hear how th themselves in ju Sinhalese, Tarnis the shrubs.
Additional Writi graphy's long list liked included a "Buddhist Wisdor ved beyond a CC the West" (1925) gharty's "The Wed (1963). I was alsc FrakS tite "Cli Circus" (1909) bl interesting than a say. He gawe nC experience.
An American E
Almost all the sented in Image: university degree of the Women husbands had. S job to do, Some Curious about the WETE Er route Countries. Wher Way of life in Cey seeing it's powe counterpoint with affluent ArTerican sets. This is trl Michigan gradu (1905) who spe circling the globe his Kodak Cartner: Eugene Wright ( to shore When Which he was a: was quarantined
Harry Franks Orientalism. Was i can youth a CE treated kindly by t

arminable ecstasy Luna also deperso
(the Ceylonese d) - “sceneryond, people - third" Conscious choice. naking these com. I am more eager eSe WriterS SaW xtaposition to the and English, than
ngs in the biblior Which II WOLuld hawe are Jane Alden's of the East perceilour-barrier set by
and Angela : Dau|dhas Of Dambara" intrigued by Harry own in a Ceylon ut that title is Tore anything he has to details about the
Education
Americans repreof Sri Larka had is or, in the case who did not, their SOThe cate. With a because they Wеге island, and some to jobs in other they looked at the rlon they Were thus rty and luxury in Blf OWI TOre lifestyles and mind Ie , eWen of young ate Harry Frank int fifteen months with only $104 for a expenses - also, 1928), who SWam the cargo ship on Ssistant boatswain, in Colombo harbOT.
hows how deeply ngrained in Amerintury ago. He is he poorest Sinhale
se and accepts their gifts as his duE: “a White man, Whatever his Station in life, is a tin godin Ceylon. Try as I would, I had not succeeded in making my daily expenditures more than ten cents" (261 and 164). Frank does not see hospitality given except as an honor to his white skin and makes cheaply cruel remarks: "prehensile coolies armed with heavy knives... a scrawny driver grinned cheerily and mumbled strange Words of greeting" (260).
Eugene Wright arrived twentythree years after Frank - that is in the late twenties when motor transport was available all over the Workd and Tore and better-informed young liberals were globe trotting. A Sinhalese shop-keeper becomes Worried about him Wandering around Colombo so fearlessly, invites him in, feeds him, and teaches him some Sinhalese Words. Wright says, "He was throughly charming... escorted The Outside the bazaar, politely refuSed to accept any money, and wished me the happiest kind of a Voyage" (344).
Goonetieke is, however, much more critical of Wright than Frank Whom he describes as "full of Warm exuberance" (257). Wright, he says, "displays a great gift for embellishing a tale" (340).
Two Self-Made Men - Henry Heusken and Andrew Carnegie
The only two first-generation American immigrants Henry Heusken (1856) born in Holland, and Andrew Carnegie (1878) born in Scotland, had experienced Working-class poverty. Heusken was on his way to Japan as part of the new American Legation (99). Carmegie, the millionnaire industrialist and philanthropist, Was already one of the most famous men of the Western world. Both came to Ceylon well-informed about its geography, culture and religions. They were relentlessly curious about
9

Page 22
What Was actually going om and When they looked at and spoke to the Sinhalese it was without sniggering asides. For example, like almost every other traveler, they comment on the latWe Costute of the SinhaleSE male. HoWEVer, neither refers to the Sarong as “feminime." To Carnegie, a Scot, it would probably have been no more so than the kilt, but he does not laugh at what is unfamiliar. Other Writers Chuckled at the curved tortoise-shell hair Co Tibs worn by many Sinhalese and particularly the loin cloth worn by fishermen and other outdoor Workers. The Sinhalese were and are physically modest and when Writings carelessly describe then as going "naked" it is if they are entirely uncoveredthus reinforcing the missionary image of uncivilized sub-human jungle creatures. Heuskens and Carnegie also do not dismiss the local languages as "mumbling" or "chattering."
Carnegie, however, always a businessman points out how money could be made in Ceylon. Forty years earlier, William Ruschenberger (1835), had also looked at the Ceylonese and seen them not as funny Savages but as thousands of people waiting for Americans to sell things to: "a new and extensive mart must be opened for our manufacturers of all kind" (311). In 1994 was to see his vision in action only it Was the Australian manufacturers who were filling the Colombo Supermarket shelves not the United States.
lr l Ore el CO Lurter With a Sinhale Se guide, Carnegie mischievously quotes a famous but dreadful little American protestant hymn:
What though the spicy breezes Blow soft o'er - Ceylon's isle, Though every prospect pleases, And only man is wille. In Wain With lawish Kindness
20
The gifts of Go The leatheir BOWS doW to (139),
which Words are re other Protestants
Frances Scott Key somewhat Contrite grandmother who the hymn (312), C: se guide is irate
Writer Was a fool" no American Would Саппеgieassшгes and promises that
COrmeto America to a meeting whe that for himself (1 millionaire seems attetiolto the di their fortunes heg addreSS – a friel zing gesture, indee hear Self-tade C “Well, I got out ol guide really Wants he'll find a way." concept of hoW mL tOtra VelaTaCVe class Scott Would
working-class Sril
Americans' Me Colonials
The first ATeric there was open a the United States: Rev. and Mrs. Nev While the COL untries' ries in the War of America and Brita against Germany Century and a mos of Image of Sri L this gradual chang the same time or does today, that th idea that their color not being taken Wisitors ewen thos entertain. Images : reWarded by polit

idare StreWn;
his blindness Wood and stone
2called by several in the Collection, 'es (1926) admits ly that it was her was the author of arnegie's Sinhaleand Snaps, "the (139) and says believe such lies. him they would if the guide would le. Would takehir ire he could see 4). Although the to be drawing fference between lives the Than his dly, non-patronid. You can almost arnegie thinking, * Scotlar. If this to get to America 'He shows no Ich more freedom nturous workinghaWe had than a - arkar.
title: British
ans arrived When nimosity between and Great Britain. well (1813) did so Were still adversa1812. Eventually, in became allies in the TWentieth t intriguing aspect anka is watching ge in attitude. At he sees, as One e English had no nial posturing was seriously by the e they chose to shows they were eness but inner
Criticisrn. Non of the Writings show a budding friendship between an Arnerican and an Englishman/woman and One Ser Ses that this Was the choice of the Americans rather than of their English hosts.
Townsend Harris (1855) who stopped in Ceylon on his way take up the position of the first U.S. ConsulGeneral to Japan receives particularly generous English hospitality but Comments, "The Indian officers are, many of them, much better informed than those of Her Majesty's service. The latter talk only of horses, dogs, billiards and cards" (89).
Affluert globe-trotter Margaret Mordecai (1924) is as cynical after Watching the young English at play up-Country:
In all other countries youths and maidens love to be together ...their best amusement is just to be together. In England om the contrary, the moment youths and maidens meet, they must play Some game. At no matter what time we passed the tennis court, they were jumping and battling in perfect silence. I always thought how different it would be if they had been Americans... the girls and boys would have been sitting in couples engaged in the old 'game for two", which began in the Garden of Eden (303).
Mordecal thus aligns herself with "all other countries." Always, the Americans are conscious of their "American"-ness. E. Jackson (1869) is the most smug about What being an American is all about. He shrugs off a German Prince or French Count as an Ordinary sight but "the presence of a live yankee - a citizen of the Great Republic - Would assuredly be a noteworthy circumstance" (123).

Page 23
WI privatization mean the end of the union
represent How Wille interess of my members be protected
Trade Unionist
 

Privatization will in no way dilute or reduce the powers and rights of your union. British Airways was privatized in 1987, and the unions remainto protect worker interests just as before. Some of the world's largest, most powerful and vocal Unions exist in the private sector. For example, the United Auto Workers (UAW) represent over 100,000 workers at the three biggest American car Companies, none of which are state owned. In fact, there is every likelihood that working conditions will actually improve in privatized companies, since there will be substantial investments made to upgrade facilities and training You can look forward to representing a considerably more
prosperous union.
It is important to realize privatization is a means to an end. It is a means to improve our living standards, foster technological progress, create employment and take our nation into a more prosperous tomorrow. In order to achieve these aims, privatization has to be executed in the
appropriate manner,
That is the task of the Public Enterprise Reform Commission (PERC). Its mandate is to make privatization
work for Sri Lankans today, and for generations to come,
Every privatization is a carefully considered decision that takes into account the interests of all sectors of society, the general public, the state employees, the consumers, the
Suppliers, as well as the country's overall economic vision.
PERC's mission is to see that privatization works. In doing so, your interests are always being well looked
after,
With privatization everybody has a stake.
919 WATCH FULIN THE PUBLIC INTEREST
PUBLIC ENTERPRISE REFORM COMMISSION, Bank of Ceylon - 30th Floor, Mo4, P.O. Bax. 20), ank of Ceylon Muwathi,

Page 24
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