Ethnicity As a Prism for Conceptualizing Social Injustice in Sri Lanka

Ethnicity and nationalism have become the grand narrative of inequality and social injustice displacing social class, caste and gender in Sri Lanka. This can be seen as an outcome of colonial encounter and anti-colonial struggles, state-led development and democratization combined with identity politics. Processes of social inequalities resulting from neoliberal globalization as well as failures of the welfare state are increasingly understood in ethnonationalist terms where one group’s gain is typically understood as a loss for the other group. Using the same logic widespread poverty in one’s own ethnic community is readily attributed to unfair appropriations by privileged layers in a different ethnic group deploying social capital, political power and a variety of other means. While nationalist politics and rhetoric have in fact served to undermine the welfare state, particularly when it comes to ethnic minorities and marginal social groups, ethnic mobilizations have only served to conceal the larger processes of social polarization driven by neoliberal globalization.

This paper examines the role of ethnicity in conceptualizing social injustice in post-war Sri Lanka, with a focus on Northern and Eastern regions. The paper will use qualitative information gathered as part of a strategic social assessment conducted by the International Centre foe Ethnic Studies in selected communities in the Northeast region. Even though the war ended in May 2009, the affected people continue to use the ethnonationalist framework in conceptualizing their existential problems and grievances. One outcome of this situation is that it has taken away the drive and energy of the people and their agency so much so that they do not respond to incentive structures and market signals in the way they are expected to within the neoliberal policies and programs. This, in turn, highlight the need to transcend the ethnonationalist prism in promoting social justice in South Asia.