By Vishwamithra –

“If no one responds to your call, then go your own way alone.” ~ Rabindranath Tagore,

An invocation to courage, conscience and the unfinished destiny of Sri Lanka.

AKD, take that first step. Take it with the courage of a man who knows that history does not always announce the hour of its arrival. Sometimes it comes silently, without ceremony, without the thunder of drums or the applause of assembled multitudes. Sometimes it arrives disguised as uncertainty, demanding of one solitary individual the courage to venture where generations before him feared to tread.

Take that first step, AKD. For the road ahead is not one upon which the timid may travel, nor one from which the determined may return unchanged.

You may not recognize the landscape into which you are entering. Its mountains may appear unfamiliar, its valleys treacherous, its pathways concealed beneath the accumulated dust of centuries. The comforting landmarks of yesterday may disappear behind you. Those who once walked beside you may hesitate at the threshold, and those who await you beyond it may speak in unfamiliar voices, carrying unfamiliar dreams.

Yet do not mistake unfamiliarity for hostility, nor hesitation for betrayal.

For somewhere beyond the boundaries of party, class, caste, creed and ethnicity, there are men and women who have waited all their lives for this journey to begin. They may never have sung your songs, carried your banners or embraced your political philosophy. They may have opposed you yesterday and may question you tomorrow. But in the deepest chambers of their conscience, they too have heard the same ancient summons.

It is the summons of a nation yearning to become worthy of its own people.

For two thousand five hundred years, within the womb of Mother Lanka, there has dwelt a promise not yet fulfilled. Not a promise belonging to any single race, religion or dynasty, but one carried in the silent endurance of generations: the promise that this island, blessed with beauty and burdened with history, might one day become a land in which dignity is not purchased by privilege, justice is not determined by power, and opportunity is not inherited through blood.

That promise has survived the splendor of kingdoms and the ruin of empires. It has survived foreign conquest, colonial subjugation, communal suspicion, political betrayal and the bitter tragedies of civil conflict. It has lived in the calloused hands of the farmer, the weary eyes of the plantation worker, the patient endurance of the fisherman, the uncelebrated sacrifices of the teacher and the quiet desperation of the mother who sends her child across oceans in search of a future denied at home.

It has lived in the sorrow of the North and the East, in the frustrations of the South, in the neglected villages of the dry zone and the crowded streets of Colombo. It has waited in every home where hope was repeatedly born, repeatedly betrayed, yet never entirely extinguished.

And now, perhaps, the hour has arrived when that ancient promise demands more than another speech, another election, another government or another procession of triumphant politicians.

It demands transformation.

Not merely a change of rulers, but a change in the very meaning of rule.

Not merely the punishment of yesterday’s wrongdoers, but the creation of a tomorrow in which wrongdoing can no longer find comfortable sanctuary.

Not merely the redistribution of political power, but the restoration of moral purpose to public life.

AKD, your greatest companions on this journey may not be those who applauded you most loudly at the beginning. They may be those who challenge your assumptions, question your certainties and insist that the dream of a new Sri Lanka must be larger than the ideology of any single movement.

Welcome them.

For a nation’s rebirth cannot be accomplished by the faithful alone. It requires the courage of former adversaries, the wisdom of dissenters, the imagination of the young and the experience of those who have witnessed both the triumphs and the failures of generations past.

Let the Tamil mother who still waits for answers, the Muslim citizen who seeks security without suspicion, the Sinhala villager who demands a fair chance in life, and the young professional who wonders whether to remain in the country of his birth all recognize themselves in the future you seek to build.

Let no citizen be asked to surrender an identity in order to claim a place in the nation.

And remember: the journey is irreversible not because one leader must remain forever in power, but because a people, once awakened to their own dignity, must never again be persuaded to surrender it.

There will be dark mornings. There will be betrayal and disappointment. There will be moments when the burden of expectation weighs more heavily than the machinery of government itself. The applause of the multitude may fade, and the solitude of leadership may become almost unbearable.

But history has never reserved its finest pages for those who chose comfort over conviction.

The task before you is not to become another celebrated occupant of the presidential chair. It is to help make that chair less powerful than the institutions of the Republic, less important than the rights of its citizens, and less enduring than the principles by which the country must be governed.

Let that be the measure of your achievement.

For Mother Lanka has waited long enough.

She has buried too many sons, mourned too many daughters, watched too many promises dissolve into the polluted waters of political expediency. Her soil has absorbed the tears of the innocent and the blood of the forgotten. Her children have inherited not merely the glory of an ancient civilization but the unresolved wounds of a modern nation.

She does not ask for another savior.

She asks for a generation courageous enough to make saviors unnecessary.

So, take that first step, AKD.

Take it not as the leader of a victorious party, but as the temporary custodian of a permanent national aspiration.

Take it knowing that those who begin the journey may not live to witness its destination; that the seeds planted today may blossom beneath skies unseen by their planters; that the noblest victories of public life are often those for which no individual can claim exclusive credit.

And when the familiar voices grow faint, when the road bends beyond the horizon, when yesterday’s certainties no longer illuminate tomorrow’s choices, remember that the true compass of this odyssey is neither party doctrine nor personal popularity.

It is the conscience of the people.

For somewhere in the depths of this ancient island, beneath the ruins of abandoned promises and the weight of unfulfilled dreams, the heartbeat of a different Sri Lanka can still be heard.

It is calling.

Not for a king. Not for a conqueror. Not for another name to be carved upon the monuments of political vanity.

It is calling for justice. For reconciliation. For decency. For a republic in which the humblest citizen may stand upright without fear before the mightiest institution of the State.

AKD, take that first step.

And let it be the first step of a nation that has finally decided never again to walk backwards.

*The writer can be reached at vishwamithra1984@gmail.com