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The Erosion of Social Capital in SriLankaJayatilleke S. Bandaralage aa Griffith University , QueenslandPublished online: 25 Mar 2009.
To cite this article: Jayatilleke S. Bandaralage (2009) The Erosion of Social Capital in Sri Lanka,South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 32:1, 110-135, DOI: 10.1080/00856400802709300
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The Erosion of Social Capital in Sri Lanka
Jayatilleke S. Bandaralage
Griffith University, Queensland
AbstractUntil the 1970s, Sri Lanka was often seen as a model for a third worlddemocratic welfare state. However, its image as a model of development anddemocracy has been rapidly and severely tarnished over the 1980s and the1990s. Recently, a number of studies have attempted to explain the reasons forSri Lanka’s fall from grace. According to these studies, Sri Lanka’s recenthistory of underachievement and economic crisis can be attributed to thecountry’s 25-year-old war, policy mistakes, an inefficient large public sector,and poor governance. In this study, I propose to argue that the erosion of‘productive’ social capital has also played an important role in the sorry tale ofdevelopment in Sri Lanka. To this end I investigate how its accumulated stocksof productive social capital have been eroded.
IntroductionUntil the 1970s, Sri Lanka was often regarded as a model third world democraticwelfare state. After the SecondWorldWar, successive governments in Sri Lanka(then called Ceylon) gave priority to the universal provision of education, healthcare and securing a minimum level of consumption for all citizens. There wasremarkable progress in education, health care and nutrition. All this made SriLanka in the 1960s a shining exception among developing countries. Indeed itshuman development indicators at that time were not far behind those even ofdeveloped Western countries. Last but not least, Sri Lanka had a deep-rootedparliamentary democracy. Not surprisingly, optimism was abundant:
Twenty-five years ago enthusiasts were talking about Sri Lanka asthe ‘Singapore of South Asia’. Thirty-five years ago it was seen asthe ‘Switzerland of Asia’. Forty-five years ago The Revolt in the
South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies,n.s., Vol.XXXII, no.1, April 2009
ISSN 0085-6401 print; 1479-0270 online/09/010110-26 � 2009 South Asian Studies Association of Australia
DOI: 10.1080/00856400802709300
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Temple promised that ‘if Lanka takes the right path, the rest of theworld will follow’.1
None of the above predictions materialised. Although Sri Lanka remains anoutlier among developing countries on many human development indicators,its image as a model of development and democracy has been severelytarnished. With the eruption of ethnic riots in 1983, a full-scale civil warbetween the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and governmentmilitary forces began. The war has persisted now for over two decades—punctuated by fitful episodes of peace talks. And the economic and social costshave been massive. In 2001 a negative GDP growth rate was recorded for thefirst time in the history of independent Sri Lanka. At the time of writing, apolitical solution to the ethnic problem has yet to be found.2
A number of recent studies have attempted to explain the reasons for SriLanka’s tragic story of development. Their titles are instructive: ‘A Tale ofMissed Opportunities’;3 ‘Sri Lanka: What Went Wrong?’;4 and ‘Sri Lanka:Recapturing Missed Opportunities’.5 According to these studies, Sri Lanka’sunderachievement and its economic crisis can be attributed to the civil war,economic policy mistakes, the welfare-oriented inward-looking policies thatwere implemented in the 1960s and 1970s, the country’s inefficient large publicsector, and poor governance. In this paper I argue that, along with thesefactors, an erosion of ‘productive’ social capital and a correspondingaccumulation of ‘perverse’ social capital in Sri Lanka have played a role inits sorry recent history of stagnation. According to a recent World DevelopmentReport,6 social capital plays an important role in development—similar to that
1 J. Jupp, ‘Sri Lanka: Third World Democracy After Twenty-one Years’, paper presented at the Asia, Sri
Lanka and the Diasporic Communities: International Conference On Sri Lanka Studies, Canberra, 3–6
December 1999, p.10.2 Currently Sri Lankan government military forces and the LTTE are engaged in a fierce battle (known as
Eelam War IV or ‘Humanitarian Mission to liberate the Tamils’ as the Sri Lankan government interprets it)
in the North following the liberation of the Eastern Province from the LTTE by government forces in 2007,
and the abolishment of the Cease Fire Agreement (which was signed between the Sri Lankan government and
the LTTE in February 2002) by the Sri Lankan government in January 2008.3 D. Snodgrass, ‘The Economic Development of Sri Lanka: A Tale of Missed Opportunities’, in R. Rotberg
(ed.), Creating Peace in Sri Lanka: Civil War and Reconciliation (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution
Press, 1999), pp.89–107.4 S. Kelegama, ‘Development in Independent Sri Lanka: What Went Wrong?’, in Economic and Political
Weekly, Vol.35, no.17 (2000), pp.1477–90.5 World Bank, ‘Sri Lanka—Recapturing Missed Opportunities, Report No: 20430-CE’ (Washington, DC:
The World Bank, 2000).6 World Bank, ‘Sustainable Development in a Dynamic World: Transforming Institutions, Growth, and
Quality of Life’, World Development Report (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2003), pp.19–22.
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of physical capital, human capital and the availability of natural assets in acountry. This is part of a growing body of literature that highlights thesignificant complementary role played by social capital in the developmentalprocess. Productive social capital contributes to development in a number ofways. Firstly, it enhances human capital accumulation. Secondly, it improvesthe productivity of physical capital. Finally, it improves management andproductivity of environmental assets. As a result, the erosion of social capital islikely to undermine economic growth. This idea can also be used to explain, atleast partly, Sri Lanka’s failure to achieve higher economic goals over the lastfew decades.
The main purpose of the present paper is, therefore, to investigate howaccumulated stocks of productive social capital have been eroded in Sri Lanka.The next section of this paper briefly introduces social capital, with a focus onhow it can be eroded. Section three explains the evolution of the high level ofproductive social capital and the positive role it played in development in SriLanka during the 1950s and 1960s. The process of the erosion of social capitalsince the 1970s is then described, and an attempt is made to provide possibleexplanations for this phenomenon. The last section of the paper highlightssome policy implications.
Social CapitalIn recent years, social capital has become one of the most commonly usedconcepts in a wide range of social sciences. However as yet there exists nogenerally-accepted agreement on the definition or measurement of social capital.
In recent years, the concept of social capital has been evolving from the narrowdefinition used by Putnam, which emphasises networks, norms and trust,7 tothe broader definition used by Coleman.8 According to Coleman:
Social capital is not a single entity but a variety of different entities,with two elements in common: that all consist of some aspect ofsocial structure, and they facilitate certain actions of actors—whether personal or corporate actors—within the structure.9
7 R. Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Transition in Modern Italy (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1993).8 J.S. Coleman, ‘Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital’, in American Journal of Sociology, Vol.94
(1988), pp.S95–S120.9 Ibid., p.S98.
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Yet Grootaert has noted:
. . . in addition to the largely informal and often local horizontaland hierarchical relationships in the concepts of Coleman andPutnam, this view encompasses institutions such as the govern-ment, the political regime, the market, the rule of law, the courtsystem [and] civil and political liberties.10
The social capital web page of the World Bank says of social capital: it is‘not just the sum of the institutions which underpin a society—it is the gluethat holds them together’.11 This broader definition is summarised in Figure1 (adapted from Bain and Hicks).12 But others have gone still further.Krishna and Shrader divide social capital into two separate categories:‘micro’ and ‘macro’. The macro level refers to the institutional context inwhich organisations operate, including ‘formal relationships and structuressuch as the rules of law, political regime, legal frameworks anddecentralisation and the level of participation in the policy formulationprocess’.13 The micro level includes horizontal organisations and socialnetworks that contribute to development. Uphoff and Uphoff and Wijeratnein turn identify two types of micro-level social capital: ‘cognitive’ and‘structural’. Cognitive social capital they argue consists of less tangible socialcapital such as norms, values, attitudes, behaviour and beliefs, whilestructural social capital consists of roles, rules, procedures, precedents andsocial networks. Cognitive forms of social capital are more internal andsubjective, whereas structural forms are relatively external and objectified.14
Uphoff and Wijeratne identify the benefit of social capital in terms ofmutually beneficial collective action (MBCA).15
10 C. Grootaert, ‘Social Capital: The Missing Link?’, Social Capital Initiative Working Paper No.3
(Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1998), p.3.11 http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/scapital.12 K. Bain and N. Hicks, ‘Building Social Capital and Reaching Out to Excluded Groups: The Challenge of
Partnerships’, paper presented at CELAMmeeting on The Struggle Against Poverty Towards the Turn of the
Millennium (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1998).13 A. Krishna and E. Shrader, ‘Social Capital Assessment Tool’, paper prepared for Conference on Social
Capital and Poverty Reduction (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1999), p.9.14 N. Uphoff, ‘Understanding Social Capital: Learning from the Analysis and Experience of Participation’, in
P. Dasgupta and I. Serageldin (eds), Social Capital: A Multifaceted Perspective (Washington, DC: World
Bank, 2000), pp.215–49; and N. Uphoff and C.M. Wijeratne, ‘Demonstrated Benefits from Social Capital:
The Productivity of Farmer Organizations in Gal Oya, Sri Lanka’, in World Development, Vol.28, no.11
(2000), pp.1875–90.15 Uphoff and Wijeratne, ‘Demonstrated Benefits from Social Capital: The Productivity of Farmer
Organizations in Gal Oya, Sri Lanka’, pp.1875–90.
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The World Bank describes social capital in a similar way to Bain and Hicks andKrishna and Shrader, using the idea of coordination of human behaviour byinstitutions.16 According to this description, elements such as rules, organisa-tions, and social norms facilitate coordination of human behaviour. While the
Figure 1Levels and Types of Social Capital
16 World Bank, ‘Sustainable Development in a Dynamic World: Transforming Institutions, Growth, and
Quality of Life’, p.38.
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informal end of coordination of human behaviour includes different forms ofsocial capital such as trust, norms and networks, the formal end includesinstitutions such as codified rules and laws, and associated procedures andorganisations. All these are considered as social assets. Institutions and socialcapital are inter-related, rather than separate components. Overall, both typesof social assets play an important role in development.
Irrespective of the definition used, however, a common thread runs throughsocial capital studies, and that is the idea that social capital provides animportant positive contribution to economic growth and development. Thus,social capital is mostly seen as a productive institutional asset, and carefulresearch efforts are undertaken to analyse how and why social capital isconstructed, and how much, and through which channels, it contributes tohousehold incomes and the development of regions and countries. Muchattention has been paid to the positive side of social capital, but less attentionhas been devoted to investigating the erosion and destruction of existingproductive social capital stocks. Moreover the negative effects of the erosion ofsocial capital are typically illustrated with reference to notorious examples suchas the Mafia or Ku Klux Klan.
Alejandro and Landolt examined the downside of social capital explicitly,arguing that researchers and policy-makers often ignore the economic andsocial costs of the erosion of social capital.17 Grootaert notes that some highly-developed countries have declining levels of social capital as measured bygrowing crime rates, declining family and kinship cohesion, falling trust ingovernment, and lower participation in the political process.18 All these havelong-term consequences for economic development. Putnam has provided anextensive empirical survey of the potential causes of a continuing decline insocial capital based on USA data,19 and Dasgupta—who treats social capital asa private good—has plotted its erosion by using concepts of negative andpositive externalities.20
In particular, the concept of eroding social capital has been effectively deployedto explain criminal behaviour in the USA. But it has not been used soextensively to track deviant behaviour in other countries. (The main exception
17 P. Alejandro and P. Landolt, ‘The Downside of Social Capital’, in The American Prospect, No.26 (May/
June 1996), pp.18–21.18 Grootaert, ‘Social Capital: The Missing Link?’, p.9.19 R. Putnam, ‘Bowling Alone’ (mimeograph, 2000).20 P. Dasgupta, ‘Economic Progress and the Idea of Social Capital’, in I. Serageldin and P. Dasgupta (eds),
Social Capital: A Multifaceted Perspective (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2000), pp.325–424.
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is Rubio’s investigation of the coexistence of two types of social capital, ie.,productive and perverse, in Colombia, which he examines by looking at the linkbetween education and income.21)
The Evolution of a High Level of Productive Social Capital and its Role inSri Lankan DevelopmentTo start with, at the micro level there was a well-established family structure inCeylon (Sri Lanka) at the time of independence in 1948. This structure has beensignificantly eroded in recent decades.22 The country also inherited a system ofwell-functioning community-level horizontal organisations, sometimes referredto as grassroots organisations (GROs). Wanigaratne notes that ‘grassrootsorganizations (GROs), spontaneously generated as a response to [the] felt needsof society, have been a part and parcel of the Sri Lankan culture from ancienttimes’.23 And he goes on to show that these organisations were generallyassociated with (1) religious institutions and their cultural values, (2)agriculture and artisan production and their economic values, and (3) civilsociety with its civic values. The independent evolutionary character of GROs,Wanigaratne explains, safeguarded the people in difficult times such as duringwars, foreign invasions, and natural disasters.24 Moreover this nature madeGROs amenable to evolution over time. But during the colonial period theireconomic role weakened.
In the 1950s up to a dozen different types of independent GROs were createdby governments or by villagers.25 These included Rural Development Societies(RDSs), farmers’ societies (govikaraka sabha), women’s organisations (mahilasamiti), funeral aid societies (maranadhara samiti), mutual aid societies(anyonyadara samiti), religious societies (temple, church and mosque) andyouth societies. These GROs and their roles, procedures, precedents, and therules under which they operated, constituted an important stock of positivestructural social capital. Their role was further strengthened by the village-levelleadership of monks, schoolteachers, ayurvedic doctors and affluent farmers.These leaders were generally respected by the villagers: firstly, because of the
21 M. Rubio, ‘Perverse Social Capital—Some Evidence from Colombia’, in Journal of Economic Issues,
Vol.31, no.3 (1997), pp.805–16.22 Government of Sri Lanka, ‘Report on the Presidential Commission on Youth’ (Colombo: Government
Press, 1990), p.24.23 R. Wanigaratne, ‘The State–NGO Relationship in Sri Lanka: Rights, Interests and Accountability’, in D.
Hume and M. Edwards (eds), NGOs, States and Donors—Too Close For Comfort? (New York: St. Martin’s
Press, 1997), p.218.24 Ibid.25 Government of Sri Lanka, ‘Report on the Presidential Commission on Youth’, p.17.
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particular role they played at the village level in the areas of religion, education,health and economic activities; secondly, because of their personal qualitieswhich were widely admired and emulated; and finally because of their economicstatus. For these reasons, GROs played an important role in rural developmentand the maintenance of social stability. An official report prepared by thePresidential Commission on Youth, points out that ‘despite the class and castevariations that existed in the village, these traditional institutions appear tohave contributed more to the life of the village than did many [government-created] innovations which came after them’.26 But the village-level standingand economic basis of many of these local leaders have now diminished in theface of the growing influence of political leaders and a globalising economy.
The social capital embedded in these village institutions facilitated andsupported collective action in several ways: by making decisions; mobilisingresources; communicating effectively for coordination; and resolving conflict.27
These functions were performed through formal or informal rules, roles andprocedures. By mobilising resources the GROs helped to improve efficiencythrough the production of private goods and services such as harvesting, andbuilding houses, and of public goods through the building of schools and theconstruction and maintenance of village roads. The creation of public goods byGROs contributed significantly to rural development in Sri Lanka.
Two examples of traditional functions organised by village institutions help toillustrate the positive effect of GROs. Firstly, to help individual members of acommunity in terms of providing assistance with harvesting, or with making aroof for a house, a function known as kaiya was organised at the village level.Under this traditional function, members of the GROs, or an informalnetwork, gathered to help individual members of the community on aparticular day, say, for example, the day a farmer was to harvest his paddy.Each individual in return provided a sumptuous meal to his fellow communitymembers for the hard day’s work (sometimes accompanied with local liquorknown as kassippu or ‘moonshine’). This was a small-scale function and it wasused to create private benefits. It had mutual obligations too. The person whoobtained the labour was expected to participate in kaiya organised by otherson the same basis. A second function, known as shramadana (‘donation oflabour’ or ‘free labour’) involved the large-scale creation of public goodsthrough community work. Under this system, members of the GROs
26 Ibid., p.16.27 Uphoff and Wijeratne, ‘Demonstrated Benefits from Social Capital: The Productivity of Farmer
Organizations in Gal Oya, Sri Lanka’, pp.1875–90.
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voluntarily participated and donated their labour in building or maintainingroads, tanks, channels, community halls, wells or school buildings. Some ofthese activities were made into social events which heightened participation.Even the elderly and the sick would sometimes attend to show their solidarity,even though unable to actually work.28
In addition to these village institutions, rural youth societies were also veryactive and important. They dealt with sports, community work and youthtraining in some trades, particularly for school-leavers. And women’s clubs toooften got involved through training and other issues of importance to ruralwomen. Finally multi-purpose co-operative societies, operated and controlledby committees selected by villagers, played an important role in the distributionand marketing of rice and other government-subsidised essential items, andother goods. As Wanigaratne points out, pooling of resources at the communitylevel had traditionally taken place in association with kingship-based ritualssuch as harvest festivals, alms-giving ceremonies and exorcising ceremonies.29
Then the monetisation of the economy during the nineteenth century provided aneed for collective action in emergency situations, for example the death of afamily member. The GROs built on these bases. Collectively, GROs promotedvillage-level collective action and solidarity among the villagers throughcommunity work, training, sports, trips and other activities. These activitiescontributed to economic development by holding society together, and creatingpolitical and social stability, and helped protect the environment.
Some common positive features of the traditional GROs stand out. Firstly,being non-political organisations, they had no affiliation to political parties;decisions were taken on the basis of fairness. Secondly, leadership wasentrusted to respected community leaders. Thirdly, villagers trusted theseorganisations and there were apparently few problems with credibility andlegitimacy. Fourthly, villagers had the opportunity to change the leadership orprotest when such issues did surface. Finally, they contributed to the solidarityof the village community. Most of these organisations functioned well until the1970s. But during that decade, they were progressively replaced by newgovernment-imposed, politicised, organisations. A few, such as funeral aidsocieties, survived but today are only a shadow of their former selves. Thus alarge amount of accumulated structural and cognitive social capital at themicro level has been destroyed over the last three decades. We examine thisprocess in more detail in the next section.
28 Ibid.29 Wanigaratne, ‘The State–NGO Relationship in Sri Lanka: Rights, Interests and Accountability’, p.220.
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Meanwhile, at the macro level, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) had inherited a well-functioning system of parliamentary-type institutions from the British.A system of adult franchise was instituted even before the country gainedits independence. These institutions, buttressed by a clear separation ofpowers, continued to function independently until the 1970s. In Jupp’swords:
. . . Sri Lanka almost uniquely has built its politics on parliamen-tary democratic institutions; had modified these from the Britishcolonials without completely deserting the tradition; had broughtthe people into politics without the political class having toabandon its ultimate control; had synthesized ‘Sri Lankan’ and‘Western’ practices and attitudes without returning to pre-colonialtraditions; and faced a conflict between the aspirations of theelectors and the capacity of the economy which threatened to blowthe whole system apart.30
Similarly recruitment to the Public Services was overseen by an independentCommission without political interference on the basis of educationalqualifications and competitive exams. Public institutions and civil servantsappear to have been trusted and respected to a substantial extent. And thepolice and judiciary were independent, too. Finally democracy in Sri Lanka wasunderpinned by a strong political party system. This impressive quantum ofpublic social capital contributed immensely to maintaining social andpolitical stability in Sri Lanka until the 1970s—even as the country struggledwith slow economic growth and high unemployment. Thus the destruction ofthis system after 1970 has been an economic and social catastrophe. Recently awell-known economist has noted that the erosion of social capital can havetremendous long-term costs despite some short-term gains (such as higheconomic growth and a low unemployment rate).31 In the next section weexplain the process of the erosion of social capital in Sri Lanka.
The Erosion of Social CapitalSince the 1970s, and in some cases even before the 1970s, productive socialcapital at the micro and macro levels began to erode.
30 Jupp, ‘Sri Lanka: Third World Democracy After Twenty-one Years’, p.2.31 J.E. Stiglitz, ‘Globalization and Growth in Emerging Markets’, in Journal of Policy Modeling, Vol.26
(2004), pp.465–84.
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The Transformation of Traditional Villages and their GROsThe traditional Sri Lankan village structure began to change during thesedecades in a number of ways. Firstly, the nature, composition and the size ofthe village began to change with colonisation schemes. Secondly, changesoccurred in the nature of village leadership. Thirdly, GROs increasinglybecame distributors of government welfare benefits. Fourthly, there was adeterioration of the economic base of traditional villages. Finally, thepoliticisation of village GROs destroyed the traditional unity and spirit ofvillages. These trends are analysed below. I will show how they helped todestroy productive social capital and create perverse social capital.
When Ceylon gained independence, there were no large cities except forColombo. Until the 1940s Sri Lankans preferred to migrate into villages andthis process produced spill-over effects that transformed large villages into littlemarket towns scattered around the island as heterogeneous communities.32 Thesituation was further complicated by the many colonisation schemes fosteredby the government. Under these schemes around 50,000 families were settledthroughout the dry zone in the island between 1939 and 1975.33 For thesecolonies, families were very often selected by local MPs from their supportbases. Because settlers came from different villages, the new colonies took shapeas heterogenous settlements rather than communities. A big literature testifiesto how solidarities have been destroyed as the ‘natural village’ has been openedup to and by external forces, including party politics and the physicalresettlement of people into newly-colonised areas.34 We do not need thereforeto reiterate the details of this process here.
Still, a few cardinal points can be made. When outsiders from the city anddifferent areas migrated to villages, the peaceful life and social fabric of thevillage changed. Urban people migrated to villages as merchants, entrepre-neurs, and settlers on reserve lands. Sometimes total strangers, withpolitical backing, attuned to a different culture, replaced the traditional
32 G. Obeysekera, ‘Political Violence and Future Democracy in Sri Lanka, Part I and II’, Lanka Web News
(1984) [http://www.virtual-pc.com/property/buddhist/030397-1.htm] and [http://www.virtual-pc.com/
property/buddhist/230297-2.htm].33 Central Bank of Sri Lanka, ‘Economic Progress of Independent Sri Lanka’ (Colombo: Central Bank of Sri
Lanka, 1998).34 See for example, N.K. Sarkar and S.J. Tambiah (eds), The Disintegrating Village: Report of a Socio-
Economic Survey (Colombo: Ceylon University Press Board, 1957); B.M. Morrison, M.P. Moore and M.U.
Ishak Lebbe (eds), The Disintegrating Village: Social Change in Rural Sri Lanka (Colombo: Lake House
Investment, 1979); M. Moore, ‘The Ideological History of the Sri Lankan Peasantry’, in Modern Asian
Studies, Vol.23, no.1 (1989), pp.179–207; and J. Spencer, A Sinhala Village in a Time of Trouble: Politics and
Changes in Rural Sri Lanka (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990).
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leaders.35 According to Obeysekera, ‘practically all civil disturbances, [the] postelection riots endemic after the sixties, and race riots have occurred primarily inthese lumpen colonisation schemes, in the anaemic market towns and in the cityof Colombo’.36 This is hardly surprising in the light of these changes. Suspicionhas replaced solidarity. Important community roles that village headmen,religious leaders, ayurvedic doctors and teachers used to perform have beentaken over by local businessmen, politicians and their henchmen, middlemen oflegal and illegal migrant agents, and criminal elements.
The central government’s focus on the nation-building exercise, the distributionof various welfare benefits, and rural development after independence neededGROs. This need led as we have seen to a proliferation of GROs. Theestablishment of the Multi-Purpose Cooperative Movement and CultivationCommittees in 1958, the setting up of Agricultural Productivity Committees in1972 and of Gramodaya Mandalas (another village-level organisation) in 1978can be cited as further examples. The integration of village communities with thenational political, economic and social framework through the introduction ofthese institutions has brought many changes. Slowly but surely, traditionalvillages were transformed into divisional, electoral or district-level units in anational administrative system.37 Although the traditional leaders were notchallenged at the initial stages of these changes, they were gradually sidelined asnew leaders were elevated through political patronage. Since then these neworganisations have become entrenched. They have acquired sole distributionrights over agricultural inputs and as the biggest purchasers of the country’smainagricultural products. Likewise the leaders jobbed in by the politiciansconsolidated their power by manipulating welfare benefits in favour of theirclients and supporters. Together these developments destroyed the spirit of thetraditional village. Gradually some sections becamemarginalised. These changeshave had long-lasting and deleterious impacts on development, and political andsocial stability. In short, there has been a transformation in rural Sri Lanka thathas destroyed its social networks and eroded social capital at the village level.
Gradual Destruction of Old GROs and Politicisation of New InitiativesWith the transformation of traditional villages, some of the old GROsdisappeared. At the same time, the government’s attempts to recover socialcapital by establishing new GROs often failed. What was the result? The
35 Obeysekera, ‘Political Violence and Future Democracy in Sri Lanka, Part I and II’.36 Ibid., p.2.37 J. Perera, ‘Control over Rural Organisations’, in Economic Review, Vol.12, no.11 (1987), pp.8–9.
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Presidential Commission on Youth, formed to look into youth unrest, pointedan accusing finger at the social cost of the destruction of local institutions.
Representatives from the rural areas were unanimous in theirconcern about the gradual destruction of village and local levelinstitutions. They were of the view that the lack of effectiveinstitutions at the village and AGA levels had led to alienation andisolation on the part of village communities. While the traditionalleadership of the village was losing its authority because of far-reaching changes there was no new authority to supplant theprevious structure and to fill the vacuum of leadership.38
Accordingly, the Commission urged the government to resurrect the oldorganisations in 1990—but its plea fell on deaf ears.
I would view it slightly differently. I would say that the government’sexperiments and innovations at the village level led to an erosion of socialcapital. Government-led initiatives since the 1970s saw politically-affiliatedvillage-level organisations such as Janatha committees (people’s committee)introduced, and old GROs politicised. Independent multi-purpose co-operatives were taken over by the state. And village-level poverty alleviationprojects were packed with organisers appointed by the government. All thiscaused the villagers to lose confidence in local institutions, new and old.
A recent study comments on the Samurdhi poverty alleviation programimplemented in the 1990s as follows:
For instance, certain organizational features of the Samurdhipoverty alleviation movement, which is a central governmentfunction, may have: (i) unnecessarily restricted the developmentand innovative potential of more indigenous forms of socialmobilization; and (ii) hampered growth of community socialcapital or the trust, norms and collaborative social relations whichfacilitate coordinated action by society.39
This large poverty program has been ineffective because of design andimplementation weaknesses, and political bias. It is of a piece with othergovernment-sponsored poverty reduction programs in the 1990s, which have
38 Government of Sri Lanka, ‘Report on the Presidential Commission on Youth’, p.16.39 World Bank, ‘Sri Lanka—Recapturing Missed Opportunities’, p.37.
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helped some people while totally ignoring others. For instance new evidenceshows that about 44 percent of the recipients of these programs belong to thetop three income quintiles.40 This failure reflects the politicisation of grassrootslevel leadership which oversees their implementation. In the name of povertyalleviation, political networks have been created that misuse funds andintimidate opponents—all to make sure that they are returned to power at thenext elections. Meanwhile deserving families are excluded from receivingbenefits. No wonder the poor no longer trust their political overlords.
Moving from Parliamentary Democracy to an Executive Presidential SystemSo far we have considered how productive social capital has been eroded atthe micro level. But there has also been an erosion of productive social capitalstocks at the macro level, with the undermining and weakening ofparliamentary democracy. This began with the passage of emergency lawfollowing the first Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) insurrection (by aMarxist rebel movement known as the Peoples’ Liberation Front) in 1971 andthe promulgation of a new constitution in 1972. Under the new constitution,the duration of the current parliament was extended by two years (from 1975to 1977) without a mandate from the voters. Then the United National Party(UNP) government, which came to power with a large majority in 1977,initiated further reforms, replacing the post-colonial ‘Westminster-style’system with a ‘Gaullist-style’ system having an executive president and basedon proportional representation. This gave unprecedented power to thecountry’s head of state. And if this was not enough, the UNP governmentmisused the constitution by extending the duration of parliament for anothersix years in 1982 by means of a referendum (rather than holding generalelections) which was marked by vote rigging, violence and intimidation.Finally the president collected undated letters of resignation from ruling-partymembers of parliament and initiated a further amendment to the constitutionthat restricted political party competition. These changes had a far-reaching,destructive impact on society. Shortly after the introduction of the newconstitution, Obeysekera wrote, prophetically: ‘Perhaps the government[UNP] is yet unaware that this many-headed monster it created may notonly destroy its creator but also the entire democratic fabric of Sri Lankansociety’.41
40 Ibid.41 Obeysekera, ‘Political Violence and Future Democracy in Sri Lanka, Part II’, p.1 [http://www.virtual-
pc.com/property/buddhist/230297-2.htm].
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By the first decade of the new century political instability had becomeinstitutionalised with the president routinely coming from one political party,the prime minister from another.
State-Sponsored Violence and the Politicisation of Government Institutions since1970The origin of political violence in Sri Lanka goes back to the 1960s whenpoliticians started using thugs to intimidate their opponents. However,massive post-election political violence really began with the victory of theleft-of-centre United Front (UF) in 1970. After the 1970 elections, there wasisland-wide violence; houses were burned down, properties destroyed andopponents beaten to death. These events led to the erosion of social capitalduring the regime of the right-of-centre United National Party governmentfrom 1977 to 1994. Obeysekera has provided a detailed analysis of how theUNP government institutionalised political violence in Sri Lanka by using itstrade unions to orchestrate election violence, intimidate academics andjudges, and provoke communal riots.42 But the situation did not improveunder the People’s Alliance (PA) government that ruled from 1994 to 2002.The presidential election campaign of 1999 and the parliamentary electioncampaign of 2001 were the most violent in the country’s political history.More than 2000 violent incidents, including more than sixty murders,accompanied the 1999 elections; and a similar death toll was recorded in2001, despite promises by the major parties before the elections to rein inviolent activities.
Political violence and undemocratic processes appear to generate self-reinforcing cycles. Since 1970 all the main political parties have brokenelection laws and come to power via corrupt practices. As a result, they havebeen obliged to extend political patronage to their relatives, friends, business-men and the criminal elements who protect them from counter-violence. TheYouth Commission reported:
These victories not only gave rise to an unprecedented level ofpost-election violence but also to the perception that the ‘winnerstake all’. As one representative before the Commission put it, ‘thewinners always acted in a manner so as to give the impression that
42 Obeysekera, ‘Political Violence and Future Democracy in Sri Lanka, Part I’, pp.2–3 [http://www.virtual-
pc.com/property/buddhist/030397-1.htm].
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the supporters of the losing political parties ceased to be citizens ofthis country’.43
The Commission has identified corruption in four different areas: (a) abuse ofpolitical power in the recruitment of employees to the public services; (b)misapplication of political power in the granting of public contracts andlicences to the supporters of the ruling party; (c) abuse of political power in theundermining of existing democratic institutions; and (d) political interference inthe day-to-day administration of government institutions.44
A 1999 citizen survey of public perceptions of political governance in SouthAsia conducted by the Mahbub ul Huq Human Development Centre inKarachi found that 75 percent of people in Sri Lanka did not have faith in theirpolitical system (see Table 1).45 This was the highest dissatisfaction rate in theregion. (By comparison, the corresponding rates in India, Bangladesh andPakistan were 29, 63 and 31 percent, respectively.) Similarly, the surveyrecorded that 82 percent of people in Sri Lanka thought that the main politicalparties were not representing their interests, while it found that 70 percentbelieved that the legal system was not just and did not protect their rights, andthat 83 percent believed that police officers were corrupt (see Table 1). All theseresults indicate an erosion of both the political system and of law and order.
Exclusion in Education and Employment: Explosion of Unfulfilled Expectations?During the heyday of the welfare model, people came to expect continuously-rising standards of living. Jupp summarises this situation as follows: ‘In SriLanka, where liberal democracy goes together with universal education,subsidized food, a national health service and mass unionisation. . .expectationsdo not simply rise. They explode’.46 It appears that earlier rapid advances inhuman development in Sri Lanka created a stock of educated rural youth whoexpected white-collar jobs, which the small private sector and the inefficient andoverstaffed public sector were unable to create. The first youth uprising underthe banner of the JVP in 1971 can be considered the result of these skyrocketingexpectations going unfulfilled: by 1971 the official unemployment rate was morethan 20 percent and many unemployed youths were arts graduates for whomdemand was low. Indeed, the unemployment rate has generally been higher in
43 Government of Sri Lanka, ‘Report on the Presidential Commission on Youth’, p.1.44 Ibid.45 The Mahbub Ul Huq Development Centre, Human Development in South Asia 1999 (Karachi: Oxford
University Press, 1999).46 J. Jupp, Sri Lanka: Third World Democracy (London: Frank Cass, 1978), p.359.
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Ta
ble
1Res
ults
oftheCitize
n’s
Survey
Questions
SriLanka
%
of‘N
o’
response
India
%
of‘N
o’
response
Pakistan
%
of‘N
o’
response
Bangladesh
%
of‘N
o’
response
Nepal
%
of‘N
o’
response
Doyouhavefaithin
thepoliticalsystem?
75
29
63
55
31
Doyoubelievevotingin
federal,provincial
andlocalelectionsisim
portant?
26
629
620
Doyoufeelyourpoliticalpartyrepresents
yourinterests?
82
49
48
N/A
15
Isthelegalframework
just
andprotective
ofpeople’srights?
70
36
64
65
49
Doyouthinkyourpoliticalleaders
are
corrupt?
49
17
324
17
Doyouthinkjudgesare
corrupt?
51
35
13
39
45
Doyouthinkpoliceofficers
are
corrupt?
14
16
314
36
Source:TheMahbubulHaqHumanDevelopmentCentre,
HumanDevelopmentin
South
Asia1999(K
arachi:Oxford
University
Press,
1999).
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Sri Lanka since the 1960s among the young and educated,47 as the data shownin Tables 2 and 3 clearly demonstrates.
During the period of youth insurrection in 1971, an International LabourOrganisation (ILO) mission visited Sri Lanka to undertake a study onunemployment there and to make recommendations. This report, MatchingEmployment Opportunities and Expectations, formed a view that Sri Lanka’sbiggest problem was the mismatch between education and employmentopportunities. Dunham and Jayasuriya went further, pointing out that‘education per se is no longer the crucial issue’.48 They found that the languageof education was more important. After the introduction of the Sinhala-onlyofficial language policy of Swabhasha (local language) in 1956 in place ofEnglish, two classes began to emerge among educated youth: rural and urbanpoor youth educated in Swabhasha; and urban middle-class youth educated inSwabhasha with a good knowledge of English. But the latter group remainedquite small because there were only a very limited number of governmentschools that continued to provide English-medium education.49
This was a problem. Due to the colonial legacy, English-educated peoplereceived preference in the professional job market. Only the urban elites and
Table 2Unemployment Rates by Age Group (%): 1963–2003/04
Age Groups (Years) 1963 1973 1986/87 1996/97 2003/04
14–18 47.5 65.8 48.0 35.6 36.019–25 30.3 47.5 35.3 30.4 30.026–35 7.8 15.2 10.6 8.8 8.936–45 2.4 3.9 3.2 2.4 2.146–55 2.7 1.2 0.7 1.0 0.8Over 55 1.9 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.4All ages (total) 13.8 24.0 15.5 10.4 8.9
Source: Central Bank of Sri Lanka, Consumer Finance and Socio-Economic Surveys (Colombo:
Central Bank of Sri Lanka, various issues).
47 W.D. Lakshman, ‘Income Distribution and Poverty’, in W.D. Lakshman (ed.), Dilemma of Development:
Fifty Years of Economic Change in Sri Lanka (Colombo: Sri Lanka Association of Economists, 1997),
pp.171–221.48 D. Dunham and S. Jayasuriya, ‘Equity, Growth and Insurrection: Liberalization and the Welfare Debate
in Contemporary Sri Lanka’, in Oxford Development Studies, Vol.28, no.1 (2000), p.105.49 The situation has now changed with the introduction of international schools.
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upper middle class had the opportunity and resources to access English-medium schooling. Again, with the opening up of the economy in 1977,English-educated youth were able to find high-paying executive jobs in theprivate sector, for which youth educated in Swabhasha were deemed unsuitable.While the urban political elite was promoting Sinhala- and Tamil-languageeducation in the public education system they were hypocritically sending theirown children to private schools at home or overseas to ensure they received agood English-medium education.
People in Sri Lanka who manage only to get a poorly-paid public sector jobtend to see that outcome as second best.50 More generally, the rapid increase inthe supply of Swabhasha-educated youth with very limited opportunities ledthem to ‘rally around radical, anti-systematic movements which promised tooverhaul the politico-economic system or establish a separate state in the caseof northern Tamil youth’.51 The result was a cycle of violent youth uprisings inboth north and south. These outbursts contributed to a significant erosion of
Table 3Unemployment Rates by Education Level (%): 1963–2003/04
Level of Education 1963 1973 1986/87 1996/97 2003/04
No Schooling 6.1 8.0 2.9 0.7 0.8Completed Primary
Education
10.5 14.1 5.0 2.3 1.9
Completed Secondary
Education
23.0 37.1 19.8 12.7 8.7
Obtained General
Certificate of
Education
(Basic Level)
39.3 47.4 28.5 14.2 13.8
Obtained General
Certificate of
education (Advanced
Level)
13.9 44.4 36.8 23.7 18.2
University Graduates 0.0 16.2 7.6 9.3 N/A
Source: Central Bank of Sri Lanka, Consumer Finance and Socio-Economic Surveys (Colombo:Central Bank of Sri Lanka, various issues).
50 S.T. Hettige, ‘Economic Liberalisation and the Emerging Patterns of Social Inequality in Sri Lanka’, in Sri
Lanka Journal of Social Science, Vol.10, nos.1 & 2 (1996), pp.1–15.51 S.T. Hettige, ‘Introduction: Youth, Nation-State and Globalisation’, in S.T. Hettige (ed.), Globalization,
Social Change and Youth (Colombo: Karunaratne and Sons, 1998), pp.1–11.
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social capital and caused widespread social exclusion, outcomes which haveimposed heavy economic and social costs on the country.
Policy Reforms and the Systematic Exclusion of Some Sections fromOpportunitiesOne reason for the erosion of social capital was the major policy reformpackage implemented in Sri Lanka since 1977, which included trade liberal-isation, privatisation, a reduction in the size of the public sector and a reductionin welfare expenditure. The economic impact of these programs has beeninvestigated in a number of studies,52 but as Hettige points out, their political,social and cultural implications have not received much attention53—nor, inparticular, has their impact on social capital.
The policy shift from state-oriented industrialisation based on closed economicpolicies towards private sector-led industrialisation based on open economicpolicies caused frustration among unemployed youth educated in Swabhasha.During the 1950s and 1960s an expanding public sector had allowed theseyouth to obtain white-collar jobs and so move up the social ladder. Howeverthis situation changed in the 1970s. When the government introduced its policyreforms in 1977, there were about 600,000 unemployed youth who had beenmainly educated in Swabhasha. Although the new economic policies providedsome opportunities for rural-based female labour (more than 400,000 strong) infactories in Free Trade Zones and elsewhere, they were unable to absorb all theSwabhasha-educated youth; and the shrinking public sector did not provideemployment opportunities either. Hettige has demonstrated how the gradualdismantling of the state sector under the new policy regime underminedthe social and moral order that emerged after independence. He showsthat while employment in the public sector almost doubled from 1971 to 1977,it marginally declined during the following decade despite a growingpopulation.54
52 See for example, P. Athukorala and S. Jayasuriya, Macroeconomic Policies, Crises and Growth in Sri
Lanka, 1969–90 (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1994); P. Athukorala and S. Rajapathirana, Liberalisation
and Industrial Transformation: Sri Lanka in International Perspective (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000);
and A. Cuthbertson and P. Athukorala, ‘Sri Lanka’, in D. Papagergious, A. Choksi and M. Michaely (eds),
Liberalizing Foreign Trade: The Experience of Indonesia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka (London: Basil Blackwell,
1991), pp.283–416.53 S.T. Hettige, ‘Global Integration and Disadvantaged Youth: From the Centre Stage to the Margins of
Society’, in S.T. Hettige (ed.), Globalization, Social Change and Youth (Colombo: Karunaratne and Sons,
1998), pp.71–106.54 Ibid.
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The reduction in welfare expenditure, and withdrawal of some subsidies in theearly stage of the reform process also created economic and social problems.Trade liberalisation led to a huge surge of imports and fuelled consumerism.But even as a small segment of the society reaped the benefits, a larger sectionfelt that it had been left out. Meanwhile as Dunham and Jayasuriya argue, thereduction in welfare services ‘remov[ed] supports for the poor that may havebeen badly targeted, costly and inefficient, but . . . were buying social peace’.55
People who felt left out by the reform process began to give up on the socialnorms that had prevailed for generations. For example, during the infamousanti-Tamil riots in 1983, some people participated in looting because they wereangry and frustrated, and wanted easy access to luxury items such as TV setsand expensive clothes.
After liberalisation in 1977 and structural adjustments in the 1980s, the rate ofeconomic growth initially rose. Yet evidence has emerged that this growthstrategy created significant regional disparities. The majority of the populationwas excluded from reaping the benefits of liberalisation in the South. In theinitial period of reforms, the government implemented three leading projects:the massive Mahaweli irrigation project; establishment of a Free Trade Zone;and the construction of 100,000 houses in urban areas. The economic benefitsof these projects were limited to the Colombo District and some Sinhalese-dominated districts of other parts of the country. Not only were the mostlyTamil-dominated Northern Province and some parts of the eastern districtsexcluded, but also the Sinhalese-majority Southern Province and some parts ofthe rural North-Western Province. Similarly, some regions did not reap the fullbenefits of trade liberalisation. Lakshman has noted that the ‘economic growththat took place during this period appears to have been strongly biased towardthe Colombo metropolis’. He further points out that the Tamil-dominatedareas were relatively neglected by the economic reform package, which helpedthe Tamil separatist movement gather momentum.56 According to Lakshman,‘certain social groups appear to have been favoured and certain otherssystematically excluded from the limited income earning opportunitiescreated’.57 The latter included middle-aged and married women, the youtheducated in Swabhasha, and small farmers living in traditional villages.
55 Dunham and Jayasuriya, ‘Equity, Growth and Insurrection: Liberalization and the Welfare Debate in
Contemporary Sri Lanka’, p.105.56 Lakshman, ‘Income Distribution and Poverty’, p.191.57 Ibid., p.213.
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The opening up of the Sri Lankan economy spawned, in the 1980s, a newclass—what Hettige labels the New Urban Middle Class (NUMC).58 Itincluded middle- and higher-ranking executives of the private sector (most ofthem educated in English) heading upper-level foreign-funded NGOs, high-ranking state officials, and expatriate skilled and professional workers. Thisclass is different from the pre-existing traditional middle class. The emergenceof private schools (commonly known as international schools) and privateeducational institutions linked with universities in America, England andAustralia has strengthened the aspirational gap between the elite and subalternclasses. These days the NUMC’s children can count on receiving a goodEnglish-medium education at an internationally-competitive university. Butentry to such institutions is way beyond the means of the poor, who must resortto second-tier colleges at which learning is routinely disrupted by studentunrest, strikes and closures (which are at one level a reflection of studentfrustration and anger). To make matters worse, both the private and publicsectors tend to give priority to overseas-qualified graduates ahead of localgraduates on the basis of their superior facility in English, more advancedtraining in information technology and, last but not least, political and familyconnections—a process that systematically excludes the bright children of poorfamilies from both the Sinhalese and Tamil communities.
Escalation of Civil WarThe escalation of civil war in the northeast and the south of the country duringthe 1980s not only created a huge economic cost, but also destroyed socialcapital such as trust, norms, attitudes and behaviour. As noted earlier, a groupof frustrated militant Sinhalese youth organised under the banner of the JVPattempted to capture state power in 1971. This rebellion was brutally crushedby the government, more than ten thousand youths being killed in a month.The JVP reorganised its movement in the second half of the 1980s when theIndian Peace Keeping Force was in the country and ventured anotherinsurrection in 1986–89. This too was savagely suppressed, killing thousandsmore. Meanwhile in the north and eastern parts of the country another type ofmilitant movement had been formed with the object of creating a separate stateknown as ‘Eelam’. In the 1970s Tamil separatist groups, including the LTTE(also known as the Tamil Tigers), the most powerful group today, begantraining, accumulating arms, and carrying out political assassinations and bankrobberies. This gradually morphed into all-out guerrilla warfare following the
58 Hettige, ‘Global Integration and Disadvantaged Youth: From the Centre Stage to the Margins of Society’,
pp.71–106.
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ethnic riots of 1983. Then in the 1990s the separatists’ campaign spread to thesouth (mainly to Colombo) by way of suicide bombings and damage to stateproperty. Successive governments tried and failed to crush the separatistmovement. Running out of options—and cash—Colombo agreed in 2002 to acease-fire agreement. But the agreement collapsed during 2006. War returned.In the last two years the government has forced the LTTE to withdraw from theeast and is now successfully pressing its advantage in the north.
The protracted war between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan forces had adevastating effect on the country’s social capital. As Easterly and Levine found,long-running ethnic conflicts and wars can lead to a reduction of trust,destabilisation of political institutions, corruption and rent-seeking activities.59
Certainly, the trust between Tamils and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka has been badlydamaged by the ethnic conflict. For example, Perera found that Tamil childrenliving in the Eastern Province envisage Sinhalese as ‘people wearing khaki,[and] carrying guns’, while Sinhalese children in the south stereotype Tamils as‘Tigers and enemies’.60 As the World Bank observed in a report of 2002,‘achieving long lasting reconciliation and trust is undoubtedly the most difficultof tasks for Sri Lanka, but one with the greatest of payoffs’.61
To summarise, unsuccessful youth rebellion in the south and war in the northeroded productive capital in Sri Lanka in several ways. Firstly, they destroyedthe trust between Tamils and Sinhalese. Secondly, they undermined traditionalvalues (such as respect for adults and community leaders), family relationships,and the GROs. Thirdly, they allowed the government to use war as a scapegoatto undervalue democracy. Finally the war helped to create a gun and criminalculture in Sri Lanka, especially among the country’s youth.
From Democracy to Violence, Impunity and AnarchySri Lanka has become a violent society. Violence against political opponents,human rights lawyers and critics has become common practice. Criticism fromprofessional organisations such as lawyers’ associations is discouraged andindependent journalists are intimidated and sometimes killed. Lawyers andjudges too are subjected to harassment. Elections have been postponed
59 W. Easterly and R. Levine, ‘Africa’s Growth Tragedy: Policies and Ethnic Divisions’, in Quarterly Journal
of Economics, Vol.112, no.4 (1997), pp.1203–50.60 S. Perera, Political Violence in Sri Lanka: Dynamics, Consequences and Issues of Democratization
(Colombo: Centre for Women’s Research, 1998), quoted in World Bank, ‘Sri Lanka—Recapturing Missed
Opportunities, Report No: 20430-CE’ (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2000), p.13.61 World Bank, ‘Sri Lanka—Recapturing Missed Opportunities’, p.14.
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and election rules grossly violated. Much of this violence can be sheeted hometo militia groups and security officers connected to the ruling party.
Despite intimidation the country’s opposition parties united to form thePeoples Alliance (PA) and managed to oust the long-running UNP regime(1977–94) in the 1994 general elections. Mrs. Chandrika BandaranaikeKumaratunga was elected as prime minister, and a year later became president.She promised to end the ethnic conflict, re-establish democracy, reinstall mediafreedom, end political violence and corruption, and restore law and order. Inthe event the new government did oversee a return to something like full mediafreedom. But the politicisation of institutions, violence, and corruptioncontinued.
Disillusioned by the PA government’s record of hollow promises, votersturned, in hope and desperation, to the United National Front (UNF). A UNFgovernment under Ranil Wickremasinghe was elected in December 2001.Wickramasinghe pledged to create a new political culture and revivedpeace talks with the LTTE. A new cease-fire agreement was signed in February
Table 4Serious Crimes 1992–2005
Year Total Burglaries Homicides Rapes
1992 46,963 9,577 1,423 3711993 43,990 9,097 1,286 3861994 52,344 10,211 1,336 5181995 53,062 10,675 1,614 5421996 51,809 10,613 1,775 7161997 57,366 12,314 1,851 9091998 56,767 12,596 1,919 1,0761999 57,376 12,870 1,801 1,3092000 51,504 12,422 1,670 1,1942001 48,978 13,146 1,576 1,2832002 49,095 14,476 1,347 1,2472003 53,006 16,768 1,310 1,3712004 49,065 14,478 1,347 1,3472005 59,391 18,656 1,221 1,221
Source: Department of Census and Statistics, Statistical Abstract (Colombo: Department of
Census and Statistics, various issues).Note: Actual crime figures are probably much higher than in this table. According to anecdotalevidence, many crimes are not reported.
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2002, and a Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission, a Norwegian-backed body, wasappointed to monitor it. But once again the peace process stalled and the LTTEsuspended its participation in April 2003. In the meantime, a political crisis inthe south led to the president taking over three key ministries. Followingparliamentary elections in April 2004, a United People’s Freedom Alliancecoalition comprising the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and the JVP came to power.And in November 2005 the country got a new president, Mahinda Rajapakase.The merry-go round revolves, but there is little sign of real political change.
And society, too, remains mired in a culture of violence. The official crimefigures for the period 1997–2005 are shown in Table 4. Alarming as thesefigures are, the truth is worse—for many crimes go unreported. Insiders believethat there are systemic links between underworld gangs, army deserters,government officials and political parties.62 A supreme court judge wasassassinated in November 2004. These activities represent a serious erosion ofsocial capital.
Concluding RemarksAt independence in 1948, Sri Lanka had a high level of productive social capitalat both the micro and macro levels. This lasted until the 1970s. Since then, thecountry’s social capital has been steadily eroded by the politicisation ofgovernment institutions and GROs, the exclusion of large sections of society,and ethnic conflict. Although the economic growth rate in Sri Lanka was higherin the 1980s and 1990s than in the first three decades after independence, thishas now flagged. The erosion of social capital in recent times has been costly.
There are important policy lessons to be learned here. Firstly, governmentshould not intervene in creating GROs within a politicised framework that willretard economic development and destroy social fabric. Secondly, the de-politicisation and strengthening of government institutions is a necessarycondition for progress, as it increases efficiency and re-establishes people’s trustin these institutions. Therefore, law and order, public service and electionsshould come under independent commissions without political interference.Thirdly, politicians must be accountable to the people and should be treatedequally. Fourthly, policy makers need to take care of all sections of thecommunity. Fifthly, as advocated by a recent World Development Report,63
62 H.M.B. Kotakadeniya, ‘Crime and Organized Crime in Sri Lanka’, The Island (27 Apr. 2001).63 World Bank, ‘Sustainable Development in a Dynamic World: Transforming Institutions, Growth, and
Quality of Life’, pp.19–22.
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government institutions should pick up social political distress signals from theperiphery and balance interests in setting development agendas. Sixthly, it isimportant to include groups which for decades have been neglected by decision-makers in shaping policy reforms. Finally, the further erosion of productivesocial capital must be arrested by the re-creation of a nurturing political andsocial environment.
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