A referendum to
repeal the 13th Amendment?
July 14, 2013, 8:44 pm
By R. M. B. Senanayake
The government seems to be toying with the idea of
holding a national referendum on the abolition of or changes in the 13th
amendment. But can an ethno-religious majority decide against the rights of a
minority by a majority vote? A certain institutional structure has been
fashioned to resolve the grievances of the Tamil minority and to protect their
rights with regard to their language, religion, culture, land and personal
security of the minority. They have for long protested at what they called
discrimination against them by the Sinhala dominated State. There is a UN
Declaration called the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms
of Racial Discrimination.
The Tamil minority has been complaining that they have
been disadvantaged and discriminated against since 1956. They say their
language and cultural rights have been denied and point to past attacks on the
Hindu writers Conference. They say they have to deal with the State in Sinhala
even in the areas where they are in a majority. They also say they have been
deprived of personal security of life and limb and point to violence against
them in 1958, 1977 and 1983. They point out that the Sinhala majority State
failed to protect them from such violence. So they ask for police powers in areas
where they constitute a majority. They say they cannot trust the Sinhala
majority Police to act impartially. They also have been pointing out that there
has been discrimination against them in the alienation of State land and want
land powers to protect themselves from encroachments on their lands by the
Sinhala dominated State. They also allege that there is settlement of Sinhalese
in their traditional areas of occupation to make them a minority in their areas
of habitation- something not permitted in UN Declarations. It is to resolve
these problems and prevent discrimination that they want some measure of self
government while being subject to the over-all sovereignty of the national
State. They have also alleged in the past that they were discriminated against
in entry to universities through the unscientific standardization of scores
which was later altered to district quotas for admission to the universities.
The 13th Amendment was a solution to these problems of
the Tamil minority. They were to be given some measure of self government
through a Provincial Council.
The shortest available definition of democracy
according to Abraham Lincoln is government of the people, by the people, for
the people; in other words, political self-government. Direct democracy means
the right of all citizens to directly vote on political subjects. According to
modern political scientists there are Five Principles of Democracy which are
1. Basic human freedoms and rights.
2. Political equality/equal political participation.
3. Open power structure.
4. Rationality (transparency, efficiency).
5. Effectiveness
Of these principles, political equality is the most
"democratic" one; it means that each citizen is the source of all
legitimacy and has the right to participate in decision-making. If his vote
doesn’t count because there is a permanent ethno-religious majority which
decides against his interest it is not a democracy.
The ‘people’ in the definition of democracy includes
everybody and includes the minorities. Majority decision making is only a
convenient device for decision making but it does not give the majority the
licence to deprive the fundamental rights of the minorities. Direct democracy,
that is to say, the opportunity for the total citizenry to determine issues on
the basis of voting for or against specific measures, is a product of modernity
although it existed in ancient Athens where it collapsed. It is grounded in the
principle that political sovereignty resides in the people and therefore they
may choose to determine certain policies directly rather than relying on their
chosen representatives in government.
The original founders of modern democratic
republicanism in the eighteenth century did not look kindly on direct democracy
through referenda or plebiscites because they believed that governmental
decisions of that kind required deliberation. The people are known to be swayed
by demagogues and to be incapable of rational discussion and informed
judgments. So the Republicans did not think the fundamental values of democracy
like freedom and equality among all citizens could be safeguarded in a direct
democracy. They thought direct democracy would lead to tyranny.
As in any political system, democracy needs
institutions and structures to act effectively in the political interest of all
people. These can be institutions of direct democracy or representative and
responsible institutions to ensure the minority has a say at least in matters
affecting them. The 13th Amendment provides for this.
Of course referendums have been held on devolution in
UK, and Canada. But the referendum was conducted only for the minorities- the
Scottish in UK and for the citizens of Quebec in Canada. It is meaningless to
hold a national referendum where the majority is 70% of the people and known to
be no respecters of minority rights. The right to freedom and equality of the
Tamil people cannot be denied by a majority. Referendums cannot be used to deny
fundamental rights of a segment of the people. The Government will no doubt
campaign for the abolition of the PCs and it has the whole paraphernalia of the
media and the public money at its disposal. But it does not give the majority
the right to deprive the rights of the minorities. The abolition of the PCs without
putting in place alternative structures to safeguard the rights of the Tamil
minority is not a measure of democracy. It will only open the way for endless
discussion of the grievances of the Tamils with an invitation to India and the
UN to intervene.
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