{"id":241855,"date":"2025-05-11T20:41:30","date_gmt":"2025-05-11T15:11:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=241855"},"modified":"2025-05-20T03:14:26","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T21:44:26","slug":"sri-lankas-best-worst-came-together-set-apart-by-just-two-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/sri-lankas-best-worst-came-together-set-apart-by-just-two-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka’s Best & Worst Came Together, Set Apart By Just Two Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Vishwamithra<\/a> –<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Continued from March 27th<\/sup><\/span> column: “<\/i>Fragile Relationships Burst Asunder: Guns & Suicide-Bombers Rule The Day<\/a><\/span>“<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"

Anura<\/p><\/div>\n

“When I want to understand what is happening today or try to decide what will happen tomorrow, I look back.” <\/i>~ Omar Khayyam <\/i><\/i><\/p>\n

In my last column on the recent history of Ceylon, specifically since the beginning of the twentieth century up to now, I related the storied flow of events which could be eventually the product of the then prevalent sociopolitical circumstances, both objective and subjective. However, that particular historical context was partly a creation of the then leaders of our national life. The leading Tamils were the two Ponnambalam brothers, Ramanathan and Arunachalam, followed by GG Ponnambalam, C Suntharalingam, Chelvanayakam all the way up to Amirthalingam. But all of them represented the mainstream Tamil school of thought. Their engagement in the highest echelons of politics, according to the emerging fresh thinking on the part of average Tamil youth, did not bear any fruit<\/p>\n

Mainstream Tamil politics bordered on winning a Tamil homeland. They did not go that far as a Tamil Elam. Securing a Federal State, with broad Police and Land powers within a defined geographical domain of Tamil homeland while retaining the Thesawalamai laws, provoked many a wrongful conclusions by Sinhalese chauvinists as to the definition of the Thesawalamai laws. The ethnic divisions and their dangerous consequences were not paid sufficient attention to. All political leaders, in order to catch the majority voters by driving already prejudiced minds of either ethnic grouping, obviously did not provide for the burning ember beneath the ashes. Hence a full-blooded war between the government military forces and a well armed and even better equipped with conviction of Tamil militants.<\/p>\n

When the Tamil emergence as a formidable force in the military field occurred, Sinhalese political leaders of all parties too suffered from the same apathy as to the glaring discrimination practiced by the majority ethnic group. It did not seem to occur to each and every government that was elected by a majority of Sinhalese to bring about a lasting solution to the Tamil question. Instead of finding one, they opted to keep it as a live issue so that they could exploit its presence as a vote-winning tool when elections happened.<\/p>\n

By the time the UNP government was ousted by CBK in 1994, the Tamil question had engulfed the whole country. Our military forces were in full battle gear up in the North and those who had to pay the price with their lives were the ordinary soldiers on both sides, not to forget the untold numbers of civilian lives claimed by the brutal vagaries of ethnic war. CBK took over the government power when the ethnic war was in full steam; Prabhakaran had already eliminated the UNP leadership. Premadasa, Gamini and Lalith were brutally killed, all on the crowded streets in Colombo. All three were killed, Premadasa, while attending to the organization of the UNP May Day rally and both Gamini and Lalith in the course of delivering their respective speeches at election rallies.<\/p>\n

While the Sinhalese leaders were being eliminated in a successive fashion, Tamils set aside their class, religious and caste prejudices and their consequential discomforts and showed their absolute allegiance to the leadership of Velupillai Prabhakaran. The two groupings, Sinhalese and Tamils, were pinned down on two different positions, their political social and cultural histories that clashed in the past did assume the same old postures: different, antagonistic and mutually aggressive. Albeit the fact that the top leadership of both ethnic groups, did not trust each other, their sociocultural upbringing did not allow open clashes and uninvited debate in public. That decorum did not seep down to the bottom. The average citizens of both communities did not trust each other, and barring some rare occurrence of reconciliation-sounding sermon delivered by a not-so-prominent Buddhist monks, the ever enlarging gulf between them claimed its own victims by way of lies and half truths conveyed to police stations and other law enforcement personnel against their perceived enemies.<\/p>\n

Sri Lankan society as a whole was rotting away at the core, consuming itself while sitting on an edge of a double-edged knife: ethnic polarization. What was thrown away as inevitable victims of the conflict, from both sides, were the most vulnerable men and women of both communities. From the majority community, it was the village-recruited army soldiers who had to fight on the front-lines. They joined the army, navy or air force not out of heartfelt love for the land; nor for patriotic ideals; or for righting a historical wrong. No, absolutely not. Most of them joined the military forces because there was no other organization which required their skills or lack thereof to be gainfully employed. However, after joining the forces, they may have developed a genuine sense of patriotism. It was their lives that were expendable at the altar of nationalism, in this case, narrow chauvinism falsely expressed by politicians.<\/p>\n

At the other end of the spectrum were Tamil militants. They too were not only let down by their own leaders; they were sold an unreachable dream of a Tamil homeland \u2013 Elam. Their lives were expendable. However, their fight was based on a notion more akin to an authentic nationalism; yet the ethnic divide their leaders willfully created was far too dangerous in the context of modern global politics. Instead of making an effort to ‘live and let live’<\/i>, Prabhakaran and his disciples preached an utterly divisive philosophy of racial politics which depended upon sustaining and perpetuating a community lifestyle of living apart from one another. Reconciliation was never in their vocabulary and even a modicum of racial detente never existed in their minds. A division and discrimination amongst the political leaders of both communities seeped down to the general population. A society whose beginnings were deeply rooted in India, Sinhalese in the North and Tamils in the South, did not see eye to eye and that indeed is a sad commentary of Ceylon, ever since Independence in 1948.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Presi<\/span>dent Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaranatunga was elected in 1994, after the assassination of her main rival Gamini Dissanayake. Despite many appeals to CBK by Gamini’s relatives to appoint a commission to investigate to find out who was behind the planning and plotting of Gamini’s death, she did not bother to appoint any commission; nor did she show any mercy towards the then UNP. She unleashed the most unruly and ill-informed SLFP supporters against innocent UNP supporters. She showed the same ruthlessness of her mother. No prisoners were taken, as the clich\u00e9 goes.<\/p>\n

But CBK had a more dangerous rival in her own Party – Mahinda Rajapaksa, the newly named Prime Minister of her government. Mahinda showed, later of course, the fine arts of national looting on a scale that was never in display before. Mahinda’s governance, after he was elected President in 2005, ran amok; his siblings, Gotabaya as Defense Secretary and Basil as a Special Senior Advisor began a system of governance at the bottom of which were the people while at the top were the most avaricious and ambitious men and women in Sri Lanka’s society. They never looked back. Having been entrenched in the dark circles of power by the three brothers, Mahinda, Gotabaya and Basil, these dregs of our society ran the country down a slippery slope and the country ended up in economic bankruptcy.<\/p>\n

Being declared bankrupt is a national shame; its economic and governing ramifications could be gravely consequential and her very existence in a subcontinent that is not really known for its forthrightness in being incorrupt and efficient, is precarious, to say the least. A widely open road to fair governance and efficient administration after the end of the 27 year old war, the Rajapaksas managed to squander in no time. The Rajapaksas served the country well in one way: their way of running a country’s affairs by enriching themselves and their henchmen did not live a long time. The silver line was the emergence of the National People’s Power (NPP<\/a><\/span>); the old JVP in a new grab outside and renewed energy and thinking inside, appeared on the horizon.<\/p>\n

Aragalaya-22<\/i><\/a><\/span> that caused the downfall of Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s government created another political\u00a0 <\/span>phenomenon, and that was called the NPP and its remarkable leader, Anura Kumara Dissanayake<\/a><\/span> (AKD). AKD’s story is one amazing tale. Rich in its rustic fragrance and genuinely fresh in being authentic and totally devoid of cosmetic presentations, AKD’s oratory mesmerized the large majority of Sri Lankans. And it is continuing to galvanize the voters. For how long, only time will tell.<\/p>\n

The last chapter will be my next column on this subject of recent history of Sri Lanka’s story.<\/p>\n

*The writer can be reached at vishwamithra1984@gmail.com<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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