Anura suspends social and ethnic contracts; Mamdani presents new socialism

If a doctor keeps a patient deliberately, open-endedly in a coma when it is safe to revive him/her, it is criminal negligence. Furthermore, it dooms the patient to atrophy. Similarly with the Provincial Councils.

- By Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka

The Ethnic Contract, that between the State and the Tamil people, and between the Sinhala majority and the Tamil minority, has been publicly abandoned by the president (as evidenced by his Budget 2026 speech). This is one of the most retrogressive and dangerously myopic things that any Sri Lankan leader and ruling party have done since 1948.

What was that ‘contract’? Given that the Sinhala Buddhists comprise the island’s overwhelming majority and that massive demographic fact produces political domination whether the electoral system is first-past-the-post or proportional representation (PR), the Tamils sought from 1949, fought for and finally attained a measure of self-governance and self-administration-- of autonomy-- within the Sri Lankan state in those areas with a Tamil/Tamil-speaking majority.

Anura and the JVP-NPP have openly placed that ‘contract’ or political charter in suspended animation. They make no reference to the 13th Amendment or commitment to devolution of power to the provinces.

The subsystem of elected provincial assemblies is crucial to:

■ The horizontal relations between the centre and (geographic) periphery of the political system.

■ The vertical relations between the centre, i.e., executive plus national assembly, and smaller municipal units further down in the political system.

■ Both ways, the provincial councils are the crucial intermediate tier.