Reform Watch is a video magazine program which aims to redress issues faced by marginalized communities through Constitutional Reform. Activist and lawyer Ermiza Tegal explained to the Reform Watch team how language rights can be included in a new Constitution.

“I have never found anything to excite the people in quite the way this language issue does” – SWRD Bandaranaike (reportedly stated to a journalist) –

Imagine being born and growing up in a country where you haven’t set foot in a government office but instead rely on someone who speaks the language used by government officials to fill your official paperwork for you even though your language has been declared an official language in the Constitution of your country.

The above incident is one which takes place all over Sri Lanka to citizens who speak Tamil, even in areas where Tamil is the major language spoken by the population. To understand why this has become such an issue and what we can do to ensure that the language rights of Sri Lankans are included in the Constitutional Reform process, we spoke to lawyer Ermiza Tegal.

History

To understand how we got here, first we need to understand our history, says Ermiza. For the many decades when Ceylon was under British colonial rule, English was the official language of the country, and many institutions such as banks and even Parliament retained English as the official language several years after independence, which enraged the Sinhalese who found that they couldn’t perform as well in English.

Enter SWRD Bandaranaike. Forming a Sinhala faction of the UNP which later became the SLFP, he soon realized that he would gain more popularity if he promoted just Sinhala as an official language – excluding Tamil. His strategy saw him win a landslide victory and in 1956 he passed what is popularly known as the “Sinhala Only” Act – the Official Language Act (1956). “People who spoke Tamil lost their right to language overnight,” says Ermiza of the Sinhala only Act.

In 1958 the Tamil Language (Special Provisions) Act allowed Tamil to at least be used in Tamil-speaking provinces (in the North and East) until 1978 when the new Constitution called for Sinhala and Tamil to be both considered national languages and now Tamil is an official language of Sri Lanka. “However, if you look at the Constitution, it says “Sinhala is an official language and then it says that Tamil should also be used as an official language in the next sentence but many say that they should just be included in the same line” so it doesn’t seem like the status of Tamil is secondary, says Ermiza.

Current Status

Although Tamil is technically an official language, there are many issues with the practical implementation of its status. If we look at the Constitution, the often flawed Tamil translation of the Constitution, as well as the somewhat erroneous English translation, are both secondary – where there are discrepancies, the Sinhala version prevails. The same is true for all legislation. In many places, including the North and East, there seems to be a lack of officials who understand Tamil which results in Tamil citizens not being able to access official services such as hospitals and police stations in their own language. “The Constitution states that people can deal with the government in whichever language they prefer from Sinhala and English, but in reality, this is not the case,” explains Ermiza.

Enshrining language rights in the new Constitution

Ermiza says that a good Constitutional Reform process needs to ask the people what they need in terms of language rights and then offer that as a solution. “The government needs to ask the people what their needs are and take down their suggestions and then introduce a draft and discuss the potential solutions before making it a law so that everyone can take part and ensure that their needs are met,” says Ermiza. “In Sri Lanka, there is a culture of bringing in laws very secretively and even after they have been enacted no one really explains why a law is there and what purpose it serves – this can’t be how we bring in a new Constitution and it actually shouldn’t be how we bring in any law,” she says. Ermiza also highlights the fact that in Sri Lanka, there are only 2 languages that are being discussed as official languages. “In other countries there are many more and even in Sri Lanka there are others we can include but let’s at least get these basics right and include Tamil – its not that difficult,” she says.