Tamils have rejected the unitary constitution for over 50 years; yet they tried to work within it on four occasions. They failed.

The Federal Party (FP) was founded on December 18, 1949 to oppose the unitary constitution. Its leader S.J.V. Chelvanayakam told the inaugural meeting that the unitary constitution helped the Sinhalese leadership to discriminate against the Tamils.

FP’s 1952 Trincomalee Convention passed a resolution calling for the replacement of the unitary constitution with a federal constitution.
In 1956 April general election, Tamils of the northern and eastern provinces gave the FP a massive mandate to demand a federal constitution. In four subsequent general elections- 1960 March, 1960 July, 1965 March and 1970 May Tamil people endorsed the 1956 mandate.

Tamils backed FP’s non-violent agitation during that period, 1956 to 1976.

In 1976 May, the FP opted for separation. The Vaddukiddai Resolution transformed it into a liberation movement. It altered its name to Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) and won in the 1977 July election the mandate for a separate state.

Yet during this period, the FP and then the TULF offered on four occasions to work within the unitary constitution. In 1957 the FP accepted the Bandaranaike- Chelvanayakam Pact (B-C Pact).
The pact accepted Tamil as the language of the national minority and the language of administration in the Northern and Eastern Provinces. It provided for the establishment of Regional Councils, one for the Northern Province and two or more for the Eastern Province. Provision was made to enable two or more regions to amalgamate even beyond the provincial limit subject to ratification by Parliament.

The pact provided for the delegation of powers by parliament which included agriculture, cooperatives, lands, land developments, colonization, education, health, industries, fisheries, housing, social services, electricity, water schemes and roads. The central government was to provide block grants. The pact was torn.

In 1965, the FP signed a pact with UNP leader Dudley Senanayake who agreed to implement the B-C Pact under the name District Councils. On the subjects of language and colonization it made extensions. Tamil would be the language of administration, court and record of the Northern and Eastern Provinces and Tamil speaking persons living outside those provinces could transact business with the government in Tamil.
In the colonization schemes in the Northern and Eastern Provinces priority should be given firstly to the landless persons in the district, secondly to the Tamil speaking persons resident within those provinces and thirdly, to the other citizens in Ceylon, preference being given to the Tamil citizens in the rest of the island.

FP joined the Dudley Senanayake government to help it implement the pact. At the end of 1968 Dudley Senanayake told Chelvanayakam his inability to implement the pact and FP left the government.
In 1981, the TULF which had obtained a mandate for a separate state, opted to work the District Development Councils (DDC) scheme introduced by President J.R. Jayewardene. The militant youths dismissed the scheme as “glorified municipal councils” and SLFP strongman Felix Dias Bandaranaike said it had lesser powers than Dudley Senanayake’s Regional Councils scheme.

DDCs which were established in the country’s 25 districts comprised members elected by the voters of the districts, District Ministers appointed by the President and Members of Parliament of the districts. The members elected their chairmen who headed the DDCs. Each council had an executive committee which comprised the chairman, district minister and two other members appointed by the district minister in consultation with the chairman.

The subjects assigned to the councils were similar to those listed in the B-C Pact and had Development Funds into which the revenue collected by the councils were deposited. The powers given to the district minister and the Finance Minister made DDCs appendages of the centre.

The TULF contested the DDC elections on June 4, 1981, despite the opposition by militant groups, and captured the control of Jaffna, Kilinochi, Mullaitivu, Maannar, Vavuniya and Batticaloa councils. The Jayewardene government did not devolve the agreed powers and failed to make available adequate funds thus making them inoperative.
The next attempt to work under the unitary constitution was the Provincial Council Scheme. It functioned only for a short period in the northeast.

These failures have completely disillusioned the Tamils about the possibility of working within the unitary constitution.
(The writer is a retired senior journalist.)