Minister of National Co-existence Dialogue and Official Languages Mano Ganesan in an interview with the spoke on the process of reconciliation, issues surrounding the implementation of the official languages policy and many more. Excerpts:
Q You’ve been given a very pivotal ministry, but you are a representative of Colombo, while 
the militancy emanated from an entirely different territory. How do you reconcile these two? How does Mano Ganesan from Colombo reconcile these two facets?
Maybe I was chosen because I came in from the streets and through civil society. I have been a non- traditional Human Rights fighter, agitator and defender. So, I think I’m more suitable to this post. The President, and the Prime Minister would have thought so as well when picking MPs for Ministerial portfolios.
I hold two large mandates. One is national co-existence-that is bringing ethnic, religious and linguistic communities together. Bringing together, the people who were marginalised and sidelined through a national co-existence dialogue.
On the other hand I have a mandate for the Official Languages Policy. We have the policy for a long time, but we don’t have a consensus for power sharing and many other things related to power sharing. But we have a consensus on national languages, Sinhala and Tamil are the official languages and English is the link language. It has been there for so many years.
QAgain, the issue regarding the deprivation of rights of the Tamils came from the North and East. You are a Minister representing Colombo. I want to know how you, someone who comes from a completely different background handle that?
We have 3.2 million Tamils living in this country. Only 1.6 million live in the Northern and Eastern Provinces, the rest live in the other seven provinces, mostly in the Central, Western, Uva, Sabaragamuwa and the North Western. Exactly fifty percent are living there and the other fifty percent are living outside that.
The traditional thinking that the Tamil issues are only centred in the Northern and the Eastern Provinces is wrong. The national and the international community are slowly coming to understand this issue. We have done a lot of work, to ensure this thought is corrected.
Now, there is no Eelam demand. Because of the demand, earlier the issues of Tamils living in the north and east had to be taken to the international forum. It is not so now.
We have agreed on an undivided Sri Lanka, one Sri Lanka, where we are discussing power sharing. We have to look at the larger picture.
The whole country will have to be taken in to account, when it is the Tamil issue or the north-and-east-issue or whatever you want to call it.
Q You have been in this position for the past eight months, what are the issues that you have grappled with and what exactly does your ministry overlook?
As for the official languages policy, we have laws in the country, what is lacking is the implementation. Please understand that for the first time a Minister, who has taken this portfolio can read, write, speak and understand all three languages of this country. Sinhala, English and Tamil. I have come to understand, where we have to travel more to do the hard work.
The law, by way of circular, demands the State employees learn the second language. Tamil employees need to learn Sinhala and Sinhala employees need to learn Tamil. But this is not happening. When I took up duties in this Ministry, the first event I participated in was to distribute certificates to Sinhala employees, who had learnt Tamil. When I was distributing these certificates, I checked up with them. I spoke to them and I came to know that none of them was speaking good Tamil, but they were receiving Tamil proficiency certificates from the Minister! So there was something wrong somewhere.
There are 331 Divisional Secretariats in this country, of them 41 are declared officially as ‘Bilingual Divisions.’ No one has taken care of that, it is only on the paper.
It requires, State employees, who are employed in the Bilingual Divisions, to be bilingual, before they enter in to the Divisions. Earlier, they were employed and then asked to learn the language. They were given a five year grace period, which was later extended to seven and extended to nine. This shows the issue was not taken seriously.
I demand that they learn the languages and then come into the positions. At least in the Bilingual Divisions. That will make a major difference, if we look at the past experiences.
Q You said we had the policy in place but the issue was implementation. What are you doing differently that will ensure the policy is implemented?
I have started already. There are a few things we deal with, of which the first is visibility- name boards. Signs need to be in all three languages.
Documents and forms also need to be in both languages and the official commitment, which means any ordinary citizen, who may need a response from any Government institution needs to respond with his or her own language.
That is the ultimate goal of this Ministry. Any citizen in any part of the country should get a reply in his or her mother tongue. But it is not happening and I am trying my best. The Official Languages Commission comes under my Ministry and the biggest job it has, amongst others, is to find violators and rectify the issue or take legal action.
Wherever I go, the response is that they don’t have funds to correct themselves, so last week I got Cabinet approval to allocate funds to every Ministry to implement the Official Languages Policy from the next Budget.
Q Mr. Minister you said they should learn the languages before joining the State sector. Don’t you think that the infrastructure should be ready for this? Where can they learn both languages? At school or even at university?
We are not going to start this immediately. It will be implemented from January 1, 2018.
In the meantime, my Ministry has an institution, National Institute for Language Learning and Education.
This institution will make an alliance with the private sector, schools and other entities. We will make the curriculum and they will teach the students who are looking to learn a second language, Sinhala and Tamil and even English.
They will sit for an exam prepared by the Examinations Department and they will also have to go through an exam for speaking and listening, which will be conducted by the Ministry. They can then enter the services with the certificates provided by the Examinations Department and the Official Languages Ministry.
Q To move onto a different direction, the entire Tamil militant struggle was in the north and the east. How do you view that struggle today?
The militant struggle is over now, but we are not yet ready with the answers for the root cause of the struggle.
Q What was, according to you the root cause of the struggle?
Power sharing. There is no other short cut. The Tamil and Muslim communities in this country need and demand power sharing to regions. That is what you call democracy. We have mixed up the demand for power sharing with the ethnic issue.
Power sharing is an issue, which is connected to democracy, the republican democracy in clear terms.
You see the power, which is gathered in Colombo in the hands of a certain class, needs to be devolved, shared with the provinces, districts and villages.
Not only to Jaffna, Trincomalee or Batticaloa, but also to Mahiyangana, Moneragala, Galle, Matara. The power that is here in Colombo should be taken away and sent to the Provinces. That is what you call democracy, that’s what you call a republic.
Q But we have a white elephant in the name of the 13th Amendment, which we have seen to be an utter failure in most of the Provinces. How do you reconcile that?
I don’t consider it as a failure, because the political leadership in this country didn’t have the will to implement it. There is nothing wrong with the piece of legislation called the 13th Amendment or whatever that caused the Provincial Council system in this country.
There are shortcomings and we will have to correct them through dialogue. That is the only piece of legislation, which provides space for power devolution. There has been much talk about the issue of power sharing.
We had the Banda-Chelva Agreement, Dudley-Chelva Agreement, Mangala-Moonasinghe discussions and the last discussion was held during the regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa, under the APRC, which had a very progressive report published.
There are documents, but this is the only legislation, which was passed through Parliament and became a Law, so we can’t simply reject it.
Q So you are saying power sharing has to be based on the 13th Amendment or are you saying it has to go beyond the 13th Amendment?
The 13th Amendment is there. In fact, Mahinda Rajapaksa during a discussion with Ban Ki moon, immediately after the war, issued a Joint Statement, which said the President of Sri Lanka agreed to implement the 13th Amendment and conduct discussions with the political parties and enhance the 13th Agreement.
What is that? 13 Plus, so he himself agreed to 13 Plus. We should thank Mahinda Rajapaksa for agreeing to 13 Plus.
Q Very interesting you bring Mahinda Rajapaksa up. There is a notion among the Sinhalese polity, that the current regime has let down the majorities and its aspirations and that they are catering to the minority. That the National Unity Government is going behind minorities. As a person who is in the middle of this, how do you perceive this notion?
I don’t think so. We have formed a National Government in this country. The thinking for a National Government has been in the country for a long time but it has never materialised. For the first time it has, and it is due to the political courage of Maithripala Sirisena and Ranil Wickremesinghe. They are the best political pair that I have seen.
There will be complaints from the majority community and similarly from the minority community. In the minority community they say that things are not moving fast, there are such complaints. Maybe for the majority community there could be complaints that things are moving very fast in respect of the ethnic issue, national issue and various other issues.
These are all opinions. We shouldn’t look at the smaller, narrower picture, but look at the larger picture. If you do that you can see that things are moving in the right way.
Q Going back to the Tamil militant struggle, you’re in a pivotal Ministry designed to prevent another uprising. If there is an uprising again, what would be the reasons apart from power sharing and what are you doing to address these issues?
I have a vision to address this. I understand the Sinhala psyche and similarly I understand the Tamil psyche as well.
You see I am a Tamil, living in the south, who can speak Sinhala as well as Tamil. I will always take the message of the Sinhalese community to the North and East and explain it to them in Tamil. Similarly I am bringing back the message from the Tamil community to the Sinhalese community for their observations. I speak in different platforms and take part in discussions. I am a messenger for both communities.
Therefore I am better equipped to understand this. The Tamil psyche demands two assurances from the Sinhala psyche, they are that the Sinhalese should accept this country as a multi ethnic, multi religious and multi linguistic country. It can’t be a mono ethnic and mono linguistic country.
The diversity should be considered strength, not as weakness. They also expect the Sinhalese to agree to power sharing.
Power sharing within an undivided Sri Lanka. Power sharing is not a strange thing. If you look at it, power sharing is there in India, it has strengthened the unity of the country. They expect these assurances from the Sinhalese.
On the other hand, the Sinhalese psyche also demands two assurances from the Tamil psyche. What are they? One is that the Tamils should give up the demand for a separate Tamil Eelam State and accept the one Sri Lanka concept for good.
The second thing is that the Tamils should give up the idea of an armed struggle. They should never think of taking up arms against the Sri Lankan State to achieve their political goals. These are the two stories that the Sinhala psyche demands from the Tamils. My vision is based on these four principles. To both communities I propose this one thing, which is to look back on history, not to go back, but to learn from mistakes and a lesson or a few in marching forward.
Q In marching forward, what are the concrete steps, except for the National Languages Policy?
I don’t describe the national issue as a language issue. It is not totally so, it has gone beyond that. But, this also plays a large part in the national question. If you address this reasonably and fairly, most part of the national issue would be over. What would be left would be small issues that we can address easily.
Therefore, I consider addressing the National Language Policy would only be a prelude to the political question and national co-existence.
We have a national Constitutional process that is going on now. We have turned Parliament into a Constitutional Assembly and we have a 21-member Steering Committee that I’m a part of, it is chaired by the Prime Minister.
In the Steering Committee we have political leaders from all political parties, representing all ethnic groups, everybody. And also the Joint Opposition is being represented by Dinesh Gunawardena and Prasanna Ranatunga. That will be a national forum, we are discussing and having dialogues and that is the way out.
Q The recommendations by the UNHRC. Do you think it is important for reconciliation? If so how important are they?
It is important. In principle I believe our issues should be discussed within Sri Lanka. Internal issues need not be discussed in Delhi, Geneva, Washington or anywhere. But it has gone beyond our control and we have to blame ourselves. We can’t blame the foreigners, they didn’t come and take our issue to their soils, and we took them there.
Lately, the Geneva resolutions have helped to move us towards real time co-existence in this country. Now, we are moving towards resolutions that were made in 2015 in UNHRC.
Q Are you for or against bringing in foreign judges?
I’ll come to that, but I must say, that we can’t disown the resolutions. The resolutions were put forward to the UNHRC and passed through by certain other countries. Sri Lanka opposed them, but last time Sri Lanka was a partner and a co-sponsor of this resolution, so we can’t disown it.
The foreign participation is supposed to be the most controversial issue right now. I think that there needs to be some foreign participation, need not be judges, it could be observers, lawyers and other participants. It need not be judges.
As a true Sri Lankan, I can say I accept the concept of accountability. We are seeking answers to what happened in the past. That is correct. That is very reasonable. But by making that reasonable, by seeking answers to the issues, occurrences, we must not destroy the future. The answers need not be a hindrance to our march forward.
Q Don’t you think the healing process involves getting these answers? The need to know exactly what happened?
I am for answers. As a civil society member, I need answers. I support the concept of accountability but at the same time what I say is we need to seek a balance between the past and future. We must not take one side alone.
Q The ex-LTTE cadres, who were released, what is your view on their integration and how they have been integrated to society?
That is part of my job as well, because they are one of the marginalised groups in this country.
Even the ex-LTTE cadres, who have been rehabilitated and sent home, are feeling isolated within their own community, on behalf of which they thought they were taking up arms. They met me personally and expressed their problems to me. So, we need to bring them in as well.
Q What are you doing to bring them in?
As for my Ministry I have plans to conduct dialogues and establish offices. My Ministry has brought proposals to establish centres in nine districts. Most of them would be in the Northern and the Eastern Provinces, where the concentration of the former LTTE cadres is high.
QThis is the long term policy, but in the short term? I mean how do they live their day-to-day lives?
It is the job of the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Ministry. The Ministry is formulating a lot of policies and plans in respect of such cadres, who have been sent home after rehabilitation. I think they are being paid a monthly allowance and the monthly allowance needs to be increased to a certain level, so that they can manage and take care of their families reasonably.
Q How does Mano Ganesan, a trade unionist -and presumably Leftist- how do you sit in a Cabinet that comprises those diametrically opposite of what you fought for?
You see I am an optimist. I am a proud Sri Lankan, who can speak all three languages and I am a Tamil born in the South, so I will be a messenger.
At the same time I have stood against injustices for all communities. Not only have I spent time opposing the so called injustices against the Tamil community, this is not so. When Beruwela was burning I was one of the first to visit to the streets in Colombo and protest against such carnage.
When Rathupaswala shooting occurred and when the Puttalam and Katunayake fishermen and when the Katunayake Free Trade Zone workers were shot at, I was there on the streets.
I was always there in the struggle for media freedom. Based on this I am looking forward.
QWon’t a UNP led Government hinder your vision?
That is not so. The UNP is not the UNP, which ruined this country in the 1940’s- 70s. It has changed. I think the UNP has also taken up the position of the social democracy.
QYour future, how do you see the next four years? for the Government and personally for you?
I am representing the most marginalised sector in this country, the plantation workers. My party, the Tamil Progressive Alliance, of which I am the leader. With Palani Digambaram and V. S. Radhakrishnan as deputy leaders, we have six MPs in Parliament. The segment of plantation workers, about 300,000 people, who are part of the Indian Tamil community in this country, are also a part of the Tamil community of this country. They are the most marginalised, underprivileged people. I have a duty to bring them into the national main stream. We are taking many steps towards that. Never before in the history of this country were the plantation workers led by a progressive leadership. Now, we have given them a progressive leadership and we are bringing them to the national mainstream.
