Primacy of development in North and East

Besides being timely, the Indian Parliamentary delegation's current visit to this country has helped in advancing mutual understanding on a number of issues between sections of the polities of both India and Sri Lanka. In fact, it would accrue to the good of both countries that there is a general consensus between the sides that Indo-Sri Lanka relations must continue to thrive.

It is also of significance that the Indian side had expressed satisfaction over Sri Lanka's efforts at rejuvenating the Northern and Eastern Provinces. These initiatives and their beneficial results for the populace of the North-East must be made known to the Tamil Nadu polity and public, the Lankan side was reportedly told. In other words the factual condition of the people of the Northern and Eastern Provinces, which is not at all disheartening and hopeless, must be made known to the world outside.

These suggestions, we believe, should be acted on. Permitting a veil of ignorance to persist in particularly Tamil Nadu, over the true state of the Tamil populace in this country, could be to the detriment of the conflict-resolution process of this country. A process of normalization is on in the once conflict-hit areas of this country and this must be clearly and cogently conveyed to the world outside. There could very well be a reduced tendency on the part of hard line political opinion in Tamil Nadu to exploit Sri Lanka-linked issues to their benefit if it is crystal clear to the world that a development process is in place in the once conflict-affected areas of Sri Lanka. Besides, the positive outcomes of these initiatives must be amply showcased.

We have often dwelt on the nuances of the term 'development' in this commentary and the current issues in the North-East, very significantly, help to focus on them once again. It is personal and group empowerment that are the best evidences of development and it is our belief that the realization of these aims would make any further discussion of questions usually seen to be at the heart of the conflict-resolution process utterly superfluous.

Some of these, such as, land and police powers and other questions seen to be at the centre of the devolution debate, have proved to be of a highly controversial nature and are prone to generate more 'heat' than enlightenment or 'light' and it should be realized that these and many more issues are essentially also at the heart of what could be described as the development debate. For, these reportedly outstanding issues in the devolution debate basically revolve around empowerment.

Accordingly, development, correctly conceptualized and implemented as empowerment of people, could enable the polity and the public of this country to speed ahead with normalization without having to sidetrack into wasteful and futile debates which do not mean much in terms of concrete material progress.

Therefore, our focus should be on the means through which equal empowerment of persons and groups could be advanced. The nomenclature and descriptions of institutional mechanisms which could advance these purposes would be of little relevance as long as the main aim of empowerment is achieved. What all this boils down to is that a spirit of pragmatism should be the country's guide.

Ethnicity usually springs from a sense of unaddressed grievance on the part of a country's cultural groups. In other words, the inability of the state to equally empower its social groups could pave the way for the explosive emergence of ethnicity. However, if empowerment is made real and that too on an equal basis, ethnicity could be satisfactorily contained and managed. This is the task before Sri Lanka.

Accordingly, it is the development frontier which must receive the close attention of the state from now on. Mega development drives have been launched in almost all parts of the country but these must be made to translate into concrete benefits for the mass of the people if the cancer of conflict is to be curtailed.