CLASSIFIED | POLITICS | TERRORISM | OPINION | VIEWS

Fair Share and Equity in University Admission and Parliamentary Representation

Dilrook Kannangara

After years of neglect a dependable census has been carried out in Jaffna. According to it the total population of Jaffna is around 608,000, much lower than previously estimated. Very large scale internal and external migration is the cause for this reduction. The university admission scheme and parliamentary seats for Jaffna depends on its relative population. However, these vital numbers were not updated after 1971 owing to various reasons mainly the war. Apart from the war organised criminals and racist political elements stopped all attempts to iron out apparent differences.

It is high time these vital numbers are updated based on present day realities. Owing to the use of 1971 population percentages and the large population flux out from Jaffna, its populace enjoys undue and unfair benefits in both university admission and parliamentary representation at the expense of other districts. This is not only gravely unfair for the other districts it also amounts to downright corruption on the part of the government to waste much scarce economic resources with no return to the country. What is worse is that some of those who exploit the unfair advantage and get a good education at the expense of others end up financing the LTTE to kill the very same people who educated them. This mockery must stop now.

If the total national population is taken at twenty (20) million and if the number of legislators elected on the district basis is 196, Jaffna district should have not more than six (6) legislators according to the Proportionate Representation (PR) system. However, at the moment there are ten (10) allowed from Jaffna. Therefore a forty percent (40%) reduction is required to re-establish fair share and equity. As expected, most of them work tirelessly to the detriment to the country! This is a double whammy and immediate steps must be taken to amend this. On the other hand, districts of higher population growth suffer as they required more votes to get one legislator elected than in districts with a proportionately reducing population. This was amply visible at the last general election where the JHU and TNA received an almost similar number of votes but TNA ended up having more than double the number of seats JHU obtained. This is at the very least anti-democratic and certainly discriminatory. This is the real reason behind the non-display and non-representation of people’s wishes in parliament; a very dangerous situation that can lead to the loss of faith in the democratic system.

The same can be said about university admission. Children from districts like Matara are severely disadvantaged because of the use of old and irrelevant population data. A viable alternative is to reallocate a district quota based on the number of candidates sitting for the GCE (A/L) examination for the first time each year. This will take care of unfair advantages the present system offers to the Northerners at the expense of the Southerners. Unfairness is even more amplified when tax collection is considered. Bulk of tax money is collected from the ‘south’ and there is no justification spending a higher-than-proportionate education and administration expenses in the ‘north’ as the tax payers expect a commensurate return for them. It is a robbery of taxpayers’ money if it is not equitably distributed throughout the country. This crime must stop.

One popular argument that sustains this gross unfairness and injustice links the LTTE to the inequation (it is not an equation!). Some argue that one root cause of the war is the equitable university admission scheme! This is a cruel argument justifying barbarianism over equity. The right approach is to identify the reality that crime never pays and if anyone justifies terrorism on an equitable scheme fair for everyone, he is only going against the rules of nature and natural justice. Unfortunately for the proponents of this evil theory, evidence suggest otherwise. According to them the LTTE was born due to the university admission scheme that reduced the previous intake from Jaffna. However, over the years due to the population movement, children from Jaffna enter university from almost all the district on top of having a very high unfair advantage in Jaffna itself! But has it reduced the LTTE? On the contrary, it has indirectly strengthened LTTE finances!

This is the hard reality shallow thinkers do not posses the faculty to apprehend. A Tamil politician who is unpopular enough not to get elected and who also leads a race-based political party is vehemently against equity and fair share in university admissions across all the districts. Although he calls himself a moderate, his ultra race-centred justifications of the present unfair university admissions scheme (rendered unfair by the use of outdated population data) amply display the hidden racist in him. It is no surprise he is also promoting racist federalism! While we celebrate his non-violent approach, we must be cognisant of the simple fact that there are many non-violent means of doing dirty tricks on the gullible. The CFA is a classic example. An old adage goes, ‘impartiality is either the ignorance of a fool or the trickery of a knave’. While Lankans must not be impartial between fairness and unfairness, they should also be open to the innocent-looking tricks that can land them in a worthless position. To cite another example, it is like the folklore of the two famers who literally shared a cow by demarcating a physical division while the cow was alive. The front part went to one scatterbrain while the hind went to a trickster. The latter continued to fool the former by praising the serene face of the cow which was in the part of the former. If a section of Sri Lankans are fooled into surrendering their fair share and democratic rights to the detriment of the nation, it is a crime against the Lankan Buddhist society marked by the strength of generosity, compassion and sacrifice.

We urge the government to take immediate and effective action in ironing out unfairness in university admission and parliamentary representation caused by massive population movements that took place in the last three decades. Steps must also be taken to reverse all and every ‘victory’ LTTE won with a racist connotation including ethnic cleansing of Muslims and Sinhalese from the North-East, merging the North with the East, suppression of democratic rights and democratic representation of certain regional minorities in the North East, tolerance of separatism and recognition of the LTTE as anything more than an uncivilised terrorist organisation. All these must end soon as we have put up with these nonsense for far too long. Terror cannot always keep us silent.

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