By Chandani Kirinde
Dr. Colvin R.de Silva, Minister of Constitutional Affairs, penned the following in an article titled “The Making of the Constitution” that appeared in the Ceylon Daily News on Monday, May 22, 1972.
“Today, Ceylon will once more become to the world what she has always been to her people: Sri Lanka. Today the people of Sri Lanka, asserting their freedom, sovereignty, and independence, as a nation, will finally and totally sever the link between Ceylon and the British Crown by setting up the new Republic of Sri Lanka.”
The Constituent Assembly, chaired by Sirimavo Bandaranaike and established in July 1970 by the United Fort (UF) Government to draft a new Constitution for the nation, end Dominion Status, and put an end to decades of colonial Constitutional rule, reached its conclusion on that day after 22 months of deliberations.
For the first time in their documented history, De Silva, the driving force behind the Constitution-drafting process, referred to it as a “truly a home-grown product” with the passage of which Sri Lankans will break ties to the monarchical system of government.
The day symbolized the UF government’s electoral promise to enact a new Constitution once in power. The coalition had requested permission from the people in its 1970 manifesto to transform the elected parliament into a Constituent Assembly and create a new Republican Constitution.
Following a resounding victory in the general election of May 1970, Mrs. Bandaranaike’s administration got right to work fulfilling its promise. But from the beginning, the process of creating the Constitution was far from unanimity. On May 22, 1972, the Constituent Assembly voted to adopt the new Constitution, with 119 voting in favor and 16 voting against it.
The United National Party (UNP), the largest opposition group, took part in the Constituent Assembly’s debates but later opted to vote against the new Constitution. Dudley Senanayake, the leader of the UNP, gave an explanation of his party’s reasoning.
“The government has manifestly shown by it acts and attitudes that it is unconcerned with the views and wishes of the people even in so fundamental a matter as a new Constitution and that it is determined to drive its parochial, political attitudes and policies down the throat of the people merely by using its majority and without even giving the people a fair opportunity to express their views freely in a climate conducive to free debate and discussion.”
After their proposal for equal status for Sinhala and Tamil was rejected, the Federal Party (FP), which represented the interests of the majority of Tamil speakers, boycotted the sessions of the Constituent Assembly a few weeks after it was established. On the day the new Constitution was adopted, it stayed away.
Minorities did not do well under the 1972 Constitution, which further widened the nation’s racial division. The following is mentioned by K. M. de Silva in his book A History of Sri Lanka.
“Although an undercurrent of hostility to the Tamils, indigenous and Indian, was discernible from the onset (since victory of UF coalition in 1970), the adoption of the 1972 Constitution was the critical starting point of a new phase in communal antagonism on the island, especially in regard to relations between the Sinhalese and the indigenous Tamils.”
Language rights and religion were the two fundamental issues at issue. While guaranteeing the rights of other religions, Chapter II of the 1972 Constitution stated that the “Republic of Sri Lanka shall give to Buddhism the foremost place and accordingly it shall be the duty of the state to protect and foster Buddhism” and that Sinhala would serve as the official language.
Stanley Tillakaratne, who served as the Constituent Assembly’s President on the day the new Constitution took effect, signed the certificate, bringing it into effect at 12:43 p.m. A short while later, Mrs. Bandaranaike took the oath of office as Sri Lanka’s first prime minister, and William Goppallawa, the country’s previous governor general, was named the country’s first president.
It was a bittersweet moment for Sirimavo Bandaranaike because it was the realization of a proposal made by her late husband, S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, who had, in his capacity as prime minister, submitted a resolution to the House of Representatives in April 1957 calling for the establishment of a special committee on constitutional reforms that would grant the nation a Charter of Fundamental Rights and transform it into a republic. As stated in Maureen Seneviratne’s autobiography
The World’s First Woman Prime Minister,
“It was a dream her husband had long cherished, and it gave her a peculiar and very special pride to accomplish this much desired objective.”
The establishment of the Republic of Sri Lanka was cheered by the majority despite strong opposition. On that momentous day, Sri Lanka abolished nearly 2,500 years of monarchical rule and severed relations with the British Crown. According to Dr. Colvin R. de Silva,
“The task of the Republic of Sri Lanka has set itself by Constitution is to realise the objectives of a socialist democracy including the fundamental rights and freedoms of its citizens. The aim is noble, the road to the realisation of the aim will be arduous but there can be no doubt that the wide mass of the people of Sri Lanka cherish the aim as being the means of their advancement.”
Though it has been 50 years, many of the aspirational objectives Sri Lanka set for itself in 1972 are still unfulfilled.
