Power-sharing

1 Power sharing1 Chapter IPower-sharingOverviewWith this chapter, we resume the tour of democracy that we startedlast year. We noted last year that in a democracy all power does notrest with any one organ of the government. An intelligent sharing ofpower among legislature, executive and judiciary is very important tothe design of a democracy. In this and the next two chapters, wecarry this idea of Power-sharing forward. We start with two storiesfrom Belgium and Sri Lanka. Both these stories are about howdemocracies handle demands for stories yield somegeneral conclusions about the need for Power-sharing in allows us to discuss various forms of Power-sharing that will betaken up in the following two chapters.

2 NCERTnot to be republished2 Democratic PoliticsBelgium and Sri LankaI have a simpleequation in power =dividing power =weakening thecountry. Why do westart by talking ofthis?Ethnic: A socialdivision based onshared culture. Peoplebelonging to the sameethnic group believe intheir common descentbecause of similaritiesof physical type or ofculture or both. Theyneed not always havethe same religion ofBelgiumBelgium is a small country in Europe,smaller in area than the state ofHaryana. It has borders with France,the Netherlands, Germany andLuxembourg.

3 It has a population of alittle over one crore, about half thepopulation of Haryana. The ETHNIC composition of this small country isvery complex. Of the country s totalpopulation, 59 per cent lives in theFlemish region and speaks Dutchlanguage. Another 40 per cent peoplelive in the Wallonia region and speakFrench. Remaining one per cent of theBelgians speak German. In the capitalcity Brussels, 80 per cent people speakFrench while 20 per cent are minority French-speakingcommunity was relatively rich andpowerful.

4 This was resented by theDutch-speaking community who gotthe benefit of economic developmentand education much later. This led totensions between the Dutch-speakingand French-speaking communitiesduring the 1950s and 1960s. Thetension between the two communitieswas more acute in Brussels. Brusselspresented a special problem: theDutch-speaking people constituted amajority in the country, but aminority in the us compare this to thesituation in another country. SriLanka is an island nation, just a fewkilometres off the southern coast ofTamil Nadu.

5 It has about two crorepeople, about the same as in other nations in the South Asiaregion, Sri Lanka has a diversepopulation. The major social groupsare the Sinhala-speakers (74 per cent)and the Tamil-speakers (18 per cent).Among Tamils there are two sub-groups. Tamil natives of the countryWalloon (French-speaking)Flemish (Dutch-speaking)German-speakingBrussels- Capital RegionLook at the maps of Belgium and Sri Lanka. In whichregion, do you find concentration of differentcommunities? Wikipedia NCERTnot to be republishedPower sharing3 Majoritarianism: Abelief that the majoritycommunity should beable to rule a country inwhichever way it wants,by disregarding thewishes and needs of called Sri Lankan Tamils (13 per cent).

6 The rest, whose forefathers came fromIndia as plantation workers duringcolonial period, are called Indian Tamils .As you can see from the map, Sri LankanTamils are concentrated in the north andeast of the country. Most of the Sinhala-speaking people are Buddhists, whilemost of the Tamils are Hindus orMuslims. There are about 7 per centChristians, who are both Tamiland imagine what could happenin situations like this. In Belgium, theDutch community could takeadvantage of its numeric majority andforce its will on the French andGerman-speaking population.

7 Thiswould push the conflict amongcommunities further. This could leadto a very messy partition of thecountry; both the sides would claimcontrol over Brussels. In Sri Lanka, theSinhala community enjoyed an evenbigger majority and could impose itswill on the entire country. Now, let uslook at what happened in both in Sri LankaSri Lanka emerged as an independentcountry in 1948. The leaders of theSinhala community sought to securedominance over government by virtueof their majority. As a result, thedemocratically elected governmentadopted a series of MAJORITARIAN measures to establish Sinhala 1956, an Act was passed torecognise Sinhala as the only officiallanguage, thus disregarding Tamil.

8 Thegovernments followed preferentialpolicies that favoured Sinhalaapplicants for university positions andgovernment jobs. A new constitutionstipulated that the state shall protectand foster these government measures,coming one after the other, graduallyincreased the feeling of alienationamong the Sri Lankan Tamils. They feltthat none of the major political partiesled by the Buddhist Sinhala leaders wassensitive to their language and felt that the constitution andgovernment policies denied them equalpolitical rights, discriminated againstthem in getting jobs and otheropportunities and ignored theirinterests.

9 As a result, the relationsEthnic Communitiesof Sri LankaSinhaleseSri Lankan TamilIndian TamilMuslim NCERTnot to be republished4 Democratic PoliticsWhat kind of a solution isthis? I am glad ourConstitution does not saywhich minister will come fromwhich war: A violentconflict betweenopposing groups withina country that becomesso intense that it appearslike a Belgian leaders took a differentpath. They recognised the existence ofregional differences and culturaldiversities. Between 1970 and 1993,they amended their constitution fourtimes so as to work out an arrangementthat would enable everyone to livetogether within the same country.

10 Thearrangement they worked out isdifferent from any other country andis very innovative. Here are some ofthe elements of the Belgian model: Constitution prescribes that thenumber of Dutch and French-speakingministers shall be equal in the centralgovernment. Some special laws requirethe support of majority of membersfrom each linguistic group . Thus, noWhat s wrong ifthe majoritycommunityrules? If Sinhalasdon t rule in SriLanka, whereelse will theyrule?single community can make decisionsunilaterally. Many powers of the centralgovernment have been given to stategovernments of the two regions of thecountry.