Adam Smith, Karl Marx and Dharmapala

I know that some readers would wonder and probably would question my topic of this week’s column. As many would know very well that three personals that I use as my topic does not have anything in similar; their time, their thinking or in their respective countries of origination. Since I have already written my thoughts on Dharmapala’s modernist project, I think it is important to discuss the interconnectedness and responsive influences of these three thinkers with respect to the politics of our society. In other words, if we need to understand the current situation of the country, I think it is important to examine the ‘thinking foundations’ of Sri Lankan politics. If I borrow a word from Michel Foucault, it would be the ‘archeology of knowledge’ in Sri Lankan politics. A key issue that appears to be emerging is that politics in the country is becoming increasingly complex. This means that not only the era that began with the January 2015 presidential election is approaching a definite end, but plans for a new political revolution are also being schemed. It is therefore quite important to consider the matter in a rather broad point of view. There is nothing wrong in claiming that after 1948, the politics of this country is based on three theoretical foundations. The three main ideological pillars on which the political system was built were Capitalism of Adam Smith, Socialism of Karl Marx and Nationalism of Anagarika Dharmapala.

It is important to see that the political landscape of our country over the period of past 71 years has been organized politically under these three theoretical pillars, either separately or mixing the theories together. Many would agree with the point that our three main political factions, the UNP, the Leftist Movement and the SLFP have represented or followed the ideologies of Capitalism, Socialism and Nationalism respectively in their politics. (Since we need to understand this factor in a non-complicated manner, I have not included all other social and nationalistic movements into this picture) In my opinion, if we need to understand constrains (or rather blocking features) in the development process of this country, it is vital to examine its foundational thinking based on these three main philosophical and ideological streams. As it was clearly shown in the post-colonial political history, these three ideological foundations (market-oriented capitalism (the UNP), Marxist critique against that economic system (The Left), and the nationalistic politics thinking based on Dharmapala’s interventions (the SLFP) had become serious determinant factors in our policy formulation. One important observation to make here is that the entire policy making process in post-colonial Sri Lanka has been dealing (inclusively or exclusively) with these ideological frameworks. And it is also correct to say that it is not easy to maneuver ourselves beyond their limitations for any policy endeavors. 

Dr Charitha Herath
Senior Lecturer/ Department of Philosophy
University of Peradeniya 

A close look at our political landscape from 1948 to 1977 would highlight the fact that the political transactions in our country were squashed within imbalanced ideological settings of this triangle. If we are to see the historical time period with prominent political ideologies, the governments from 1948 up to 1970 can be named as the first cluster of the country’s political road map in which the political architecture of the country was mainly aimed to build better capitalistic state based on classical economic theories. If we extend Kumari Jayawardana’s argument a little bit, it was the time where nobodies became somebodies with the new economic development. We could call 1970- 1977 period as the second cluster in Sri Lankan politics and could define it as the period of experimenting the ‘politics of centralized socialism’ system under the combined government of nationalistic forces and socialistic forces (Marx and Dharmapala) together. The era from 1977 to 2015 could be marked as the third cluster of the Sri Lankan political discourse. This is the era during which we were all entangled in Jayewardene's economic project and political project, which was tightly bound to the 1978 constitution. It is important to note here that this period has converted Sri Lankan society into a very complex nature while inviting the excluded sections from the market and from governance to militarily responses towards the system. Two uprisings, Northern one in 1983-2009 and Southern in 1989 were the productions of it. (These two uprisings have had ideological links, either in an inclusive manner or in an exclusive manner, with all the three founding thinkers that I have discussed in this article). 

In my opinion, the change that occurred in January 2015 has shown the fact that the survival of all above political models has reached their climax within the political paradigms of Sri Lanka. That climax is clearly marked with the sole effort taken by all political parties whom otherwise were in extreme opposite to each other’s ideologies, forming in to a single front to try the chance of mixing all three projects in to a one common project after those projects previously failed when implemented separately. In this perception we can arrive in to the conclusion that as a country we have arrived at a new dawn in our political landscape. In an academic point of view, we have arrived to a ‘political space’, which can be called as a post-UNP, post-SLFP and post- Left era. With this observation, it is also important to note here that the confusion in power-politics in the post-independence period in Sri Lanka is not limited to an economic crisis. We, as a country, are still wondering what would be the possible constitution that we could adopt to accommodate the aspirations of all of stakeholders. The type of state that we are trying to create after the colonial era is not yet clear to us even though it has already passed 70 years. 

Some says that we should go back to the state structure of the kingdom, which existed before 1815, while some others are of the opinion that a secular state should be created which completely denounces culture and religion. Yet some others are of the point of view that market should be given the full force to operate while the form of state should be annihilated as a whole. As I understand, today we have arrived at the pinnacle of the current political structure, where we cannot go further on the same road at any cost. We have come to a point where there is a need for a change in the political thinking.