An Eye-opener

The article “Sri Lanka: Rajapaksa’s ‘Final Resolution’” by M.K. Bhadrakumar (Mainstream, July 28, 2009) is an eye-opener for those who think that the only reason for the recent mass carnage on Tamils was the vanquished LTTE.

As Bhadrakumar rightly put it, the region in the Indian Ocean has become a theatre for big-power rivalry.

The present government of President Rajapaksa is the first to fully embrace the Sinhalese Buddhist ideology, suggesting that there is no minority in the country.

In Article 9, the Constitution of the island of Sri Lanka says: “The Republic of Sri Lanka shall give to Buddhism the foremost place and accordingly it shall be the duty of the State to protect and foster the Buddha Sasaa...”. President Rajapaksa has taken this excerpt to elevate his personality cult to a new leval that he is now conferred with an emperor status by many as a ‘universally glorious overlord of the Sinhalese’.

On the other hand, the Narayanans, the Menons and the Nambiars have been mishandling the Sri Lankan conflict ignoring the fact of an ethnocentrc Sri Lankan regime and its longstanding minority issue.

The new tone of the Sri Lankan language is similar to what is happening in the Chinese province of Xinjiang.

As a former Sri Lankan put it, the “way in which the state treats the victims of the conflict—that will be the basis on which national unity will be forged”.

July 29, 2009

Shanthy Vadi (Mrs)

Toronto, Canada

sandyvadi@gmail.com