Drafting of the New Constitution – Start from the Vision for Sri Lanka and work backwards, not the tweaking of a standard, staid and stale format!

What will Sri Lanka be like in 2065, at the possible of the expiry of the Constitution currently being drafted? If truth be told if there is no change to the process as currently undertaken, it will not last 10 years tops! The world is changing so rapidly, and the Constitution drafters are lost in a time warp.

Sri Lanka SHOULD have a population of 25M, with GNP per capita of US$50,000 in current terms. People will NOT own cars, they will only hire them when they need. All cars will be self driven, or driverless,

The rail service will be the fastest mode of transport for long distance, and at destination, a hire car will take us to where we wish to go. We will be an all Organic Island, where it is likely that our produce will be in high demand overseas, and we will have a highly productive agricultural sector. Tea being a very expensive but small component of this.  A highly sophisticated tourism sector, that would limit entrants to no more than 1.5M, and be extremely expensive, bringing in over US$30B in earnings per annum.

We will be an education hub, with our main earning being the remittances from highly skilled professionals working on temporary assignments overseas or service income from overseas contracts. Education institutions in Sri Lanka will also be a major industry, with many foreign students studying in Sri Lanka.

Health and Geriatric care will be a big industry, where there will be some geriatric facilities for foreign residents who wish to live in Sri Lanka, remitting their pensions and income for their living costs.

At this economic prosperity level there will be no ethnic issue, as all Minorities will be at the upper income scale of our society, and like in Malaysia’s Chinese would prefer to be under the radar, rather than agitating for rights that may only reduce their economic standing.

The Country divide will merely be the Megapolis of the Western Province vs the less developed rest, where Administrative Capital will be in Polonnaruwa,  with Megapolis just being a commercial hub, where many Indian companies will have their world HQs due to tax free status etc.

None of the current silly concerns of primacy of Buddhism, equal rights to minorities, language preservation and national language, will be issues then. Under this UTOPIA, the concerns should be on citizenship rights, ownership rights, clean air, clean water, and protecting the environment at the TOP!!!