DJ’s responses miss the following points and forgive my brevity but not all of us do this sort of thing for our primary livelihood.

i) Yes there are democracies around that are not liberal, but they are not ideal, and include many countries verging on the label of ‘failed state’. Zimbabwe, Syria and a host of other nations are on paper democracies. There are also those that are democracies and not failed states, but their illiberal nature is often unexplored or only arises when conflicts with the government arise – e.g. Turkey, Russia, Argentina. As for the Eastern European states by signing up to the EU accession programme they are tying themselves to various dictates from Brussels, including the human rights oversight, something domestic nationalists have rallied against since the EU’s inception. The issue is, what other type of democracy other than a liberal democracy can accommodate sizeable minorities within their borders in a manner that is acceptable within the universal human rights that these minorities enjoy.

ii) The second more important point which DJ ignores in Sri Lanka, is the Tamils are not a minority. Sri Lanka isn’t a Buddhist state to which other peoples recently migrated. It is an island that is the historical homeland of a people with homogenous language, culture and religions. Thus, there is no reason for the Tamils to accept a solution that deems them simply a minority, and worse a minority in an ‘illiberal’ democracy. DJ would basically ensure the Tamils are the equivalent of the Roma of Romania or the Kurds of Turkey. That is why his views, whilst he claims he is more liberal are infact on the same spectrum as the Rajapakses’ and their ilk.

iii)As to his study of politics he is wrong. In the modern day there are three end-games for these processes and Sri Lanka has already seen the third implemented. The third is of course external intervention. It is the only solution that can restructure the Sri Lankan state into one that accommodates Tamils, and we have already seen one attempt at such an intervention with the 13A. This time round the solution may have to go further.

A long reply by Asanga, to which I have three substantive yet short points to make in response.

1. Contrary to Asanga’s position that the majoritarian character calls seriously into question the very definition of Sri Lanka as democratic (except in the thin sense), I hold that the majoritarianism is a byproduct of precisely that democratic character and is one of the complex problems that Sri Lanka’s democracy faces. Ironically, this is precisely why the Tamil elite was opposed to universal franchise. The Soulbury commissioners recognized the problems and complexities that majority-minority relations introduced into the actual working out of democracy, but did not question either the desirability of electoral multiparty democracy or the definition of Sri Lanka as democratic. The history of the evolution of liberalism and democracy (not identical but eventually convergent phenomena ) in the west, in which 1848 was a nodal point, demonstrates that ethno-nationalism, linguistic nationalism, and religious majoritarianism were often accompaniments which were shed much later. The new democracies of former eastern Europe continue to be troubled by such questions, which have not prevented their membership of the EU. Going by Asanga’s criteria, there would be very few ‘thick’ democracies on the planet!

2. On the question of pluri-nationalism, the vehemence verging on incivility, of Asanga’s counter-assertion functions as does the cloud of ink released by a squid. It serves to cover a sleight of hand. He re-brands states which have chosen to define themselves officially as unitary, as federal. He conflates states that do not define themselves as pluri-national, with those that do. He chooses to omit from his list those many states that have territorially-based ethno-national questions and refuse to redefine themselves either as federal or pluri-national, but limit themselves to non-federal forms of autonomy. In fact his typology either has no such states and solutions ( non federal provincial/regional/local autonomy) or these are conveniently classified as de facto federal and de-facto plurinational. He drops my point about the distinction between Asia and Europe–a most basic distinction of formation and strategy, for any reader of Lenin, Trotsky and certainly Gramsci. He seems ignorant of the debate on federalism at the dawn of liberation in South Africa and the reasons for the decisions against it by Nelson Mandela. He fails to take on board my point about the geopolitical specificities of Sri Lanka and therefore departs from the insights of Montesquieu and his own preferred Edmund Burke. He eschews the approach of historical realism which takes account of a protracted war and a decisive victory (in short he fails to understand how wars change things).He writes as if federal India and unitary China have not decidedly set their faces against any self-definition as multinational. He ignores the decidedly non-ethnic critique of federalism which Karl Marx and those of the Marxian school such as Prof James Petras and Samir Amin continue to make. He and those of his school of thought, ignore the example of a pluralism which accommodates diversity and difference within the notion of a single, united rainbow nation, which does not recognize multinationalism/bi-nationalism. In short, Asanga is conceptually confused or afflicted by unintended intellectual dishonesty.

3) As a student of politics I know of only two endgames for politicio-historical processes and problems: the ballot or the bullet. (Egypt and Iraq continue to prove this). Therefore I concentrate on the realities of the dynamics of democratic politics and those of power and its balances, national, regional and global. Asanga’s discourse seems to address neither reality and thus strictly limits the utility of this debate.

Lol! Thanks very much. Will certainly give it some thought, but may not be in the immediate future. I think there are a lot of texts on the liberal world order – I am simply keen on its application to Sri Lanka for the benefit of all its nations.

Wonderful ! I suggested this before but you were too modest but I urge you again to consider a longer write up. Would be a welcome change to reading the same regurgitated stuff over and over again !

Asanga, Sorry to intervene in this. Just a clarificatory question. If i have understood you right, it is your analytical realist approach that leads you to a) treat seriously the Tamil claim to nationhood/self-determination and b) accept that the national question can’t be solved unless a moderate majority agrees to a solution. But the latter, it appears to me is (also) tied to your commitment – as you call it – to the “ideal” of a single Sri Lankan state. This ‘ideal’ – please correct me if i am wrong – cannot be functional normativism right?. Hence (B) above, drawn from your realist perspective is further reinforced by your commitment to the ideal of a single Sri Lankan state. But is it also possible that this commitment to the ideal might have also influenced your realist conclusion as well. Thanks.

To begin with Asanga, is always so much clearer and more logical than most, and in particular when contrasted to Dayan. So again great piece and thank you. I think, as you may expect, where we diverge is the idea of ‘realism’ and the need to get the consent of the Sinhala majority. From a moral perspective I am not sure that’s right – campaigns in Catalonia, Quebec and Scotland were at odds with their majorities, and yet are based on the rights of those nations. Secondly, I disagree on this point of the ‘realism’ of the Sinhala majority. As I noted in my comment above, The world liberal order has encountered nationalistic majorities before and there are economic and political tools available to ensure those extremist nations (on a global liberal spectrum) do fall in line, so I disagree that in sri lanka one has to have a solution within the confines of what the extremist SInhala majority are willing to concede. In any case, if that is the case it is unclear how Dayan (or Asanga) can deliver their majoritarian liberal (or in the case of Asanga, pluri-national) visions in any case? Both seem to respond, that Sri Lanka needs more time and space to reform to those visions – which echoes of the present Rajapakse line. So is Rajapakse really a Sri Lankan liberal in disguise?

While not expressly framed as such, Dayan’s present piece is in
important ways a response to my recently published review of his book.
I welcome his constructive attitude to the critique, although I still
think he repeats in this response the methodological and substantive
flaws that I highlighted in relation to the book. The issues raised
and counterclaims deserve a more sustained engagement between us, but
for reasons of other pressing matters that I hope Dayan will
appreciate, I am unable to do so at the present moment. I would like
however to state some brief responses and clarifications, as below. I
will do so by reproducing a selection of Dayan’s comments, together
with my responses to them. The issues I do not address here will have
wait for another day.

Let me begin with a positive point of absolute agreement between us.
He says that, “Given the domestic geopolitical realities of the
island, the most significant of which are the uneven distribution of
minorities and the overwhelming preponderance of one ethnic community,
two political conclusions may be derived: (i) there can be no purely
Northern or North-Eastern solution to the ethnic question; it has to
be part of the reform of the state as a whole and (ii) ethnic reforms
have to secure the consent of a moderate majority of the overwhelming
majority on the island.”

I am in complete agreement with this observation and hence the reason
why I attempted to argue at length that the prospects for reform are
in large measure a challenge that is within the Sinhala-Buddhist
national space in a recent article on Groundviews. This is broadly the
approach of analytical realism that I believe we share, but
nonetheless it seems to lead us to radically different conclusions.

Dayan then says the following: “This brings us to the second problem
with the thinking of the anti-government camp, with regard to the
Tamil question. That is the ‘two nations theory’ namely the
self-proclamation of the Tamil nationalists that the Tamils of Sri
Lanka are a nation; that Sri Lanka is a bi-national or pluri-national
society and should therefore be proclaimed such as a state/country;
and that it should be recognised that the Tamils of Sri Lanka have the
right of national self determination.”

My response to this:

(a) my perspective on the competing constitutional claims that are at
play within the politics of the island is not dependent on my
membership of the present ‘anti-government camp’ but rather an
understanding that derives from a longer historical assessment of the
Sri Lankan state. This is a state that has congenitally and
pathologically been unable to reflect and represent the fundamental
pluralism of the polity upon which it is based, calling into question
its ‘democratic’ character. It is democratic only in the thin,
procedural, sense in which majoritarianism is everything; it is and
has never been able to reflect a more substantively deeper democracy
that is required of a state in a pluralistic polity.

(b) the assertion of nationhood is for any group to make insofar as it
is plausible; it is not dependent on whether someone outside that
group thinks it is absurd or unacceptable. Nonetheless, there are
objective and subjective ways of assessing the claim in political and
constitutional theory, but the criteria that Dayan produces – in
previous writing, in the present piece, and in the book – are
insufficient and inadequate by themselves to deny the nationality
claim of Sri Lankan Tamils. There are, as I have said more than once,
serious defects in the Tamil claim. These have to be debated. But
starting with the assumption that it must be denied by the application
of a skewed realism or a monolithic concept of nation-statehood is in
my view not the most enterprising or fruitful way of engaging in
historical, political or constitutional debate.

(c) it might be noticed that I have always used ‘multinational’ and/or
‘bi-national’ as descriptive terms, whereas I have always used
‘plurinational’ as a normative term. This is significant in that the
latter is an aspiration, whereas the former is a fact with which
political and constitutional analysis has to contend, because quite
apart from the Tigers and their abhorrent politics and violence, this
is a nationality claim that a community has asserted democratically
for virtually the whole of the post-independence period. Dayan’s way
of addressing this is to deny it. Mine is not. Theoretically, his way
is much easier; mine is far more challenging, but we have to deal with
these difficult questions sooner rather than later. Moreover, my
description of the sociology of the Sri Lankan polity as multinational
and/or bi-national does not necessarily entail a personal subscription
to the ethnonational claims that are at play. It rather means that, as
a realist (or more accurately, a ‘functional normativist’), I
acknowledge that these have to be taken seriously even though we do
not necessarily subscribe to them. Dayan’s realism of course does not
acknowledge this as a reality that must be constructively addressed,
but as an extravagant impertinence on the part of Tamils.

(d) as I have observed elsewhere, Dayan uses the phrase “the Tamils of
Sri Lanka have the right of national self determination” here in
exactly the same grandiloquent and self-aggrandising way that Tamil
nationalist rhetoric (including that of the Tigers) has used it. I
have always maintained that I regard these terms as tenets of a
political morality the normative and structural extents and limits of
which are entirely to be negotiated in a constitutional conversation
between and within the peoples of our island. They are not terms with
fixed, concrete, precise meanings, and there is very little use in
regarding them as explosive terms with which to conduct polemical
attacks on each other. It is ironic that an emerging legal scholar
must make this point to a credentialed political scientist, for I have
always thought that the conceptual imagination of the latter is by
training and instinct far wider than that of the former. I am as
committed as anyone is to the ideal of a single Sri Lankan state. My
argument is that this is entirely possible while acknowledging
internal pluralism including national pluralism.

Dayan then says, “The danger of this political position is that it
informs Tamil nationalism and pushes it to adopt or be vulnerable to
unrealistic emotionalism. No state in Asia accepts such a position
with regard to an ethnic minority within its borders, and with good
reason which includes but is not limited to the history of colonial
fragmentation and the fear of centrifugalism.”

My (partial) response:

(a) Tamil nationalism is perfectly capable of unrealistic emotionalism
without the help of liberal constitutionalism of the sort that I
promote.

(b) The second sentence seems plausible at first glance, but only on a
very thin, selective, and self-serving reading of politics and
constitutionalism in such places as India and Indonesia, and even
China. Just as much as a state does not have to call itself a
federation in order to practice federalism, there is no need for a
state to call itself plurinational in order to practice policies of
accommodation that afford the recognition, representation and autonomy
that sub-state nations demand of the state. I am baffled how it seems
to be the case that Dayan’s understanding of these issues seems to
completely disregard massive literatures on these countries and the
ways they deal with multinationalism within their borders that every
other comparative and area specialist scholar seems to take as a
given. Even Myanmar’s 2008 Constitution manages to say the following
in its Article 3: ‘The State is where multi-National races reside’!

Lastly, Dayan makes a claim of surpassing ignorance that I wish he
never did when he says that, “In the case of Sri Lanka the case of
pluri-nationalism is patently absurd, because one ethnic group
constitutes almost 75% of the island’s population, and according an
equal status of nationhood to a far smaller formation is logically
untenable. With such overwhelming preponderance of one community, how
could the entity that is Sri Lanka be described as pluri-national or
bi-national?” He then goes on to substantiate this claim with exactly
the same kind of asinine analogy from international relations that I
have previously said makes the argument in his book more unpersuasive
than it should be.

There is a book to be written as to why this is complete nonsense, but
suffice it here to say one thing. There is nothing ‘patently absurd’
about this. Every plurinational state is dominated by a large majority
nation. That is a fact, a given, a reality, and as can be seen from
basic statistics, this is even more pronounced than in Sri Lanka in
the three most advanced plurinational states in the world.

In the United Kingdom, there are 53.5 million people in England, 5.3
million in Scotland, 3.1 million in Wales and 1.8 million in Northern
Ireland. So the majority nation here is 84% of the total population.

In Canada, the population of Quebec is only 8 million out of a total
population of 33.5 million. Thus the sub-state nation is only 24% of
the total.

In Spain, Catalonia has a population of 7.5 million, the Basque
Country just over 2 million, out of a total population of 47 million,
which makes the most nationalist of the two regions of Spain together
only 20% of the total.

If Dayan’s logic were adopted in any of these cases, then there would
be no such thing as a plurinational state. What is noteworthy is that
these countries have the constitutional imagination and the maturity
to deal with their minority nations in ways that suit their own
circumstances and with a rich understanding of the requirements of
liberal democracy. They have not been limited by conceptual
straightjackets of any kind in addressing these issues and in the
process have advanced our common understanding of how to deal with
these problems. I prefer therefore to draw my comparative lessons from
these experiences rather than the habitual nay-saying that is Dayan’s
contribution to this issue.

Thanks for highlighting and comparing the state media and Dayan, interesting take !

yes Dayan does sound an awful lot like the state propaganda machine, but to be fair he is far more eloquent. Some of the interviews by sri lankan officials are hysterical – reminds me of Comical Ali (google it for those who are too young to remember – priceless). I suppose if Dayan stays true to his position, once the IC is off Sri Lanka’s back then he should be lobbying for his supposedly liberal ideals again .. although given the long period before the IC came into play he never did, I certainly won’t be holding my breath.