Rajpal's Column

31st October 1999

Bewildered by the Lords,
and the going - away party

By Rajpal Abeynayake

The process may be slow, but it's grand nevertheless that they quit.

Going, on the other hand, is hardly something that happens here back in Sri Lanka, judging by the queer attempts at self - martyrisation by some Sri Lankan cricketers for instance. They have turned Ranjith Singh's clever adage " it's better to go when people are asking you why — not when they are asking why not?'' on it's head.

Back here, cricket heroes have plumped for the new motto "its better to not to go, when they are howling for your head..."

It is true that the House of Lords didn't self - destruct. Tony Blair wanted the Lords out, but they have taken it in great spirit. We do not, back here, have a House of Lords , because politicians who want to Lord it over have many ways of doing that — House of Lords or otherwise.

There is one example, for instance, called the National List, which seeks to enrich democracy by installing in parliament, various types of persons who can be considered to be national assets. As a result, the nation has also had to settle for a large crop of national disasters.

Institutions such as the National List, the preference votes, and the Presidency of course were put in place by J R Jayewardene who wanted to install a brand of Lords in Sri Lanka, just about the time Britain was getting heartily sick of them.

J R Jayewardene's Lords were more plebeian than not , but that aside, his whole slick idea was to concentrate power among a circumscribed power elite. The idea of an elected chamber — House of Commons — was anathema to Jayewardene, who displayed this tendency by promising to roll up the electoral map of Sri Lanka for several years, and promising replacement of elections with referendums.,.

But, to all intents and purposes , it appears as if J R Jayewardene succeeded in installing a power elite in Sri Lanka — a perpetual House of Lords, made up usually by a motley crew of ex-aristocrats blended liberally with the noveau riche, in place of Britain's brand of heredity peers.

The point now is that no local cowboy version of Tony Blair, can dream of easily getting rid of this power elite that has been created by Jayewardene. His constitutional license gave successive government's after his, a happy environment to instal and perpetuate their own power elite.

Though we do not have a second chamber, the realities of post-Jayewardene era politics have meant that the elected chamber — which is Parliament — is made a nonsense of by an Executive wielding a kitchen cabinet which operates as the upper chamber, a house of cubs without wigs.

The Executive plants this upper chamber assiduously first by picking for the so called National List, a crew of persons who are ideally suited to perpetuate the power of the ruling power elite at a given time. The persons picked may be men of erudition or competence - - or perceived competence, but they are generally persons who are capable of perpetuating a certain classist brand of power - if you will. Though a particular President may pick a few veda mahattayas or some docile other breeds to populate the National List, generally it can be seen that the Executive has picked persons who are, plainly speaking, from the same social elite to which he or she belongs...

The National List affords just a start, but the way the Parliament works under the so called near-Gaullist system that has been installed by Jayewardene, there are further chances to install a de-facto second chamber that generally supersedes the elected chamber, which is represented by various hapless nondescript elected men and women in Parliament.

Britain's House of Lords, at the time Blair suggested that they be shunted into retirement, were effete old relics, almost. They could technically stall bills in their tracks, and cause all kinds of legislative mayhem, but really never dared to do so under pain of being exposed to the electorate by members of an elected chamber which was alive and kicking . In years, the Lords had been quaint as ornaments, with or without their hopeless attire of red robes and powdery looking wigs.

But that real second chamber, not half as powerful as the de-facto second chamber created by the second republican constitution here, was considered a threat by Tony Blair, and most Britons concurred. The Lords are said to have fought back gamely, finally agreeing to prolong their suffering with a compromise of a restricted emasculated house elected by peers. However, Blair has promised to get rid of the quaint leftovers of aristocracy altogether sometime soon, and that's the story of a powerful institution dating back five centuries or so, becoming ineffective, fading out and finally becoming altogether non-existent .

But, socio-political evolution in Sri Lanka by comparison seems to be in reverse, and this is clear by the way the de facto power elite that was created by the Jayewardene constitution has been exploited to the hilt, especially by the incumbent government which managed the sensationally hypocritical task of promising to dismantle this system of government, while enjoying its deliberately created attributes for concentration of power to the fullest.

But, then in Sri Lanka, the trick is to stay and not to get out. Cricketers are adept at it, judging by the lachrymose shows they put on in television. ( Said one recently, gushing, after a retirement, that 'he thought it was time to quit the game, when he was not selected, even for the national pool.' This tear jerking self martyrdom is meant to conceal the bald fact that the player was a national disaster — a one time national asset maybe, who had hopelessly come to grief.)

The Presidency, like effete cricketers, stays. The cricket analogy may be tiring, but its the most intelligible when all other idiom is lost to the vagaries of these times. Resign, leave? These words are but for Lords and mad dogs and Britons...

Hulftsdorp Hill

Editorial/ Opinion Contents