Daily News Editorial

The SLFP and communal politics

21st October 2015

Labour and Trade Unions Minister and SLFP stalwart W.D.J. Seneviratne has called for the party to be cleansed of those peddling the communal line. In an interview with Daily News Minister Seneviratne who is known as a moderate voice within the SLFP said anyone who is prepared to shed communal politics is welcome in the Party adding that the SLFP wants to rid itself from the communal line being peddled by certain political parties in the UPFA.

The SLFP certainly fulfilled a need of the time when in 1956 it ushered in the common man's era. It was a time when the brown sahibs had taken over from our colonial masters and nothing much had changed. Everything was in English (even a telegram to the villagers was sent in English) and the plumb jobs secured by the English educated, with the sons of the soil marginalized. Hence the Swabasha slogan of SWRD, who marshaled all the indigenous forces that brought about the 56 revolution, had a ready resonance with the masses. This was also a time when the winds of change was blowing even in India which was trying to free itself of the colonial hangover that saw the emergence of a new political and social order.

However while India managed to free itself from its nationalist mindset and embraced secularism with the passage of time, unfortunately this country continued with its nationalist politics, fanned by politicians greedy to stay in power by exploiting the sentiments of the masses. The Sri Lanka Freedom Party thus got itself into a strait jacket to be identified as a communalist party. Not stopping at that, it set up structures in the administration that alienated the minorities, standardization being one such example. If the governments before 1956 favoured the minorities in the allocation jobs, the reverse was true under the SLFP led Governments. Measures were craftily devised to leave out the minorities by such means as making it compulsory for them to learn Sinhala to qualify for Government jobs. To further strengthen its vote base the party also set in motion an indigenous economy banning imports, taking over the sterling companies and built up an image as an anti capitalist party to make it more attractive to the masses. These measures devised to remain popular with the masses no doubt had it's negative fallout, with the mass exodus of qualified professionals both among the Sinhalese and Tamils, not to mention planting of the seeds for the ethnic conflagration that was to set the country in flames decades later.

A course correction was made somewhat under CBK who wooed the minorities which was alienated from the party since her father's time. In fact she even apologized for wrongs committed under both her father and mother and set out repairing the damage. The speech made in Parliament by Lakshman Kadirgamar after being appointed Foreign Minister that "let no one say any more that the SLFP is a communal party" was an indication of this change. She also went to the extent of drafting a constitution that offered extensive devolution and had no compunction in setting up a mechanism (P-TOMs) to share Tsunami relief with the LTTE.

Mahinda Rajapaksa put paid to all the good work done to offer the olive branch to the Tamil minorities by once again resurrecting the communalist image of the SLFP. The 2005 Presidential election was virtually made a battle cry to save the nation. The campaign rhetoric was full of 'dangers that will visit the country from the UNP-LTTE combine'. Rajapaksa may have been directing his fire at the LTTE, but the message was not lost on the Tamils. The sense of alienation was reinforced after the war victory with Rajapaksa assuming an aura of triumphalism with regular military parades denoting the supremacy of one community over another. When he won reelection in 2010 his acolytes went on to boast that it was the first time in post independence elections in this country that a leader had won, solely on the majority vote, sending the message that the minorities were no longer in the equation. Where Rajapaksa failed was in assuming that the status quo would prevail forever. That is why he turned a blind eye to the attacks on Muslims and was not shy of being seen in the company of the attackers.

While welcoming the sentiments expressed by Minister Seneviratne it has to be said that it would be a herculean task to change the mindset of the minorities just yet. What is needed is a complete overhaul of the SLFP policy and its outlook. It can take a leaf from the UNP in this regard. That party always had as its chairman a member of the minority community and barring rare exceptions the post Colombo Mayor always went to a member of the minority community. A perusal of the UNP nominations list at the recent election would show sizable numbers representing the minority community in almost all electorates.

The war is now a distant memory and there has been a realignment in the voting pattern. No party or leader will ever succeed any longer without the minority vote as Mahinda Rajapaksa learnt to his great cost on January 8.