Broadly speaking there are two perspectives for protecting rights of the people. One is to look at groups racial, ethnic, caste, disadvantaged and so on and make provision for the protection of group rights. The stress here is on the minorities and the disadvantaged because it is assumed that the majority group and the more privileged groups do not need special protection from the law or assistance from the state.

The second approach is the classical liberal approach that disregards groups and protects individual rights irrespective of race, ethnicity or class.

Sri Lanka's governance has had a long tradition of thinking and acting along ethnic group lines. Representation along ethnic lines evolved from 1833 when a Legislative Council with ethnic representation was established. Since then for 176 years ethnicity has played a central role in governance in this country. The 1946/47 Constitution had the well known section 29 (2) that prohibited enactment of legislation that discriminated against any particular community or religion.

The First Republican Constitution of 1972 and the Second of 1978 enshrined fundamental rights. In principle these were broader in scope than Section 29 (2) of the Independence Constitution. In theory fundamental rights were supposed to protect the rights of everybody. It was also a move away from the admittedly limited safeguard provided for “groups” in the old constitution and towards the more liberal individual rights framework.

Unfortunately, in practice fundamental rights have not worked that well. In fact some of the major constitutional initiatives taken after the enactment of the Second Republican Constitution, most notably the 1981 Development Councils and the 1988 Provincial Councils, have been designed to satisfy the demands of the Tamils for devolution. These initiatives are more in line with the group rights approach. But they too failed to satisfy some sections of the Tamil community. The war bears testimony to that.

Now that the war has ended, the president has implicitly suggested in the statement that we have quoted above, that we should revisit the issue of rights. The president's idea is to forget the majority-minority distinction and treat everybody equally. This is an excellent proposal provided effective steps are taken to make it operational.

There are a few things that the president could do almost immediately to realize this goal. At the top of the list is the full implementation of the 17th amendment. An independent police will go a long way to restore the confidence of everybody, but especially the Tamil people, in the law enforcement process. An independent public service is essential to ensure fair, equitable and efficient provision of state services. An independent elections commission will help improve confidence in the election process. An independent bribery commission will help fight bribery and corruption that many feel is like a cancer in the nation's body politic. An independent human rights commission will be most helpful to assure the Tamil people in particular that they have recourse to an independent machinery to redress rights violations.

President Rajapakse delivered on his promise to the nation that he would free the country of terrorism. For that Sri Lanka forever will be grateful. Commendably he has now promised to deliver on the peace dividend. Ensuring the rights of the individual irrespective of community the way he framed it in his address to the nation is an important and integral part of that dividend. The people of Sri Lanka are hopeful that he would deliver on that as well.