CNA has Shin Corp- JVP, SLFP significance Temasek deal: 2 and UNP 3 A closer look beyond talks Wednesday 11th October, 2006 by Banda de Silva popular personality among the Sinhalese refugee in the Buddhist temple in the vil- — Indee nidahasata diva-rae karati aro A. J. Wilson’s book Sri Lankan Tamil villagers in the areas more exposed to lage, Sri Subhadharamaya. They includ- It was a rather long dialogue and I Nationalism. That is the culture that ournalist Balachandran wrote last information in the country.Even in the ed Ven. Manjusri, (later Manjusri the cannot remember all the lines now. Ven. Tamil Nadu leaders wish to see contin- year that Gandhi was a forgotten outback of the NCP and Wanni jungles artist), the Tibetan monk, Ven. S. Mahinda later came out with the follow- ued for their own reasons and not Jfactor among the Sinhalese while people thronged along the railway track Mahinda, (I remember serving “dane” to ing indictment on the Sinhalese: Gandhian principles any more. So does his name lingered among the Tamils. As to gain a glimpse of this great Indian both of them at the temple), Is mola tiyeddit me bava notakanne.... New Delhi, which gives the nod to Tamil I recall, that was shortly after Dr. leader and humanist when he visited Sri Chandraratna Manwasinghe and Aes gedi dekata hena gehilada Nadu for its own reasons. In this sce- Radhika Coomarasawamy delivered the Lanka and travelled to Jaffna. How did Somaweera Chandrasiri. Sinhalunne... nario where does Mahatma stand? Gandhi memorial lecture on 2nd October that image disappear? Ven. Manjusri and Ven. Batapola Sri (Have the brains of the Sinhalese Looking for a more fundamental rea- 2005, i.e., an year ago from today as I What was the attraction in Gandhi’s Anomadassi, when they later went on a been attacked by a thunder bolt that they son to answer this question, I wondered if write this piece. On that day I added a action for the Sinhala speaking Sri long journey copying temple murals are not reflecting on these while their it was because unlike in India where non- paragraph to my unfinished story on Lankan middle class elements those starting with temples down-south, were heads are clear enough!) tolerance, inequality and himsa (violence) Mahatma Gandhi to say that the days? Not his ahimsa, I think; stopped on the way several times on the had been part of institutionalised system Gandhi memory was still held but the suspicion that they were Japanese spices. Erosion of Gandhi image of caste, religious ritual, and sacrifice, among a small circle as seen from Their binoculars were Coming to Dr. Gopal’s question, if my including human sacrifice, Sati, Gandhi’s the commemorative lecture. Very (imagined?) perception of the lack of ideas of tolerance and ahimsa came to recently, writing over India’s response from my countrymen have a special appeal, while in Sri Lanka acquisition of nuclear teeth and (the where these tenets were not novel to the her race to join the nuclear club, Buddhist way of life, being part I remarked that after “Buddha of their Smiled” over the dessert of everyday Pokhran Mahatma Gandhi life for became a forgotten factor even nearly two in India as far as his principles millennia. were concerned, and his mem- That ques- ory was confined only to com- tion remains memorative occasions. Those to be further Gandhian principles are no explored. more in accord with India’s Reflecting big power status. Even those on more big time Indian slogans like story recent events, “Unity in Diversity” cannot did India’s own hide that situation. attitude I began writing my towards Sri piece many years back. It Lanka ever remained dated. Yes. It has since the been pricking my con- Independence of science for over twenty both countries, three years. That was have a hand in when Dr. Sarvapalli marginalising Gopal, whose association Gandhi’s impact? I was privileged to culti- In other words, vate from the mid 1970s did India’s big asked me in April 1983 brother treatment when we met again in of Sri Lanka over New Delhi at the the vexed issue of International House Indians in Sri one morning at the Lanka, the arms breakfast table, how training of Tamil the film on Gandhi militants in Indian was received in Sri camps, which took Lanka. He was the place in the 1980s and author of a volume other more serious on Mahatma Gandhi events that followed, and was expecting a overshadow the posi- positive response. I tive Gandhi image, could not hide my which had earlier taken embarrassment that root in the country? day not having seen Mahatma Gandhi can- any positive not be thought of in iso- response from the lation. Such reflection elite in Colombo has to be part and parcel though I remem- of Indian thought, atti- ber reading the tudes, treatment of neigh- film advertise- bours etc. If the Gandhi ment columns as image has lost its grip in an old habit, and the island, both among the recalled that the Sinhalese and the Tamils, film was exhibit- it is India alone that has to ed somewhere Remembering Mahatma Gandhi: account for that situation. down at If I have the opportunity Panchikawatta, to meet Dr. Gopal today anyway not in these are some of the reflec- a place where tions I would like to present our elite go. to him. (Will any reader please Enter Kumar Rupasinghe correct me on Now, the next question I this if I am wish to address is how did wrong). I Kumar Ruapsinghe suddenly had seen the come to think of Mahatma islandwide commotion The unfinished Gandhi to write about him in that films like “Exodus” and similar The Island. Dr. Susantha titles created earlier. Even Hindi films spirit of defiance Goonatileke has reminded us attacked far greater interest in the old present in the Satyagraha movement through his new book, days. associated with the salt campaign. That removed and they “Recolonisation: Foreign Funded How is it that the Gandhi film did not was different from the true Gandhian were turned back by British soldiers in NGOs in Sri Lanka” that he was create a sensation? However, I under- spirit that evolved later. Didn’t Gandhi’s the Wellassa jungles but they continued earlier an admirer of (mass stood that the film was serialised over action of defiance re-kindle the spirits of with their mission and even attended a elite) to the Gandhi film is correct, killer) Pol Pot and Soviet dicta- the TV network lately. the Sinhalese who had been brutally sup- secret meeting held in a rubber estate in why did they ignore this film? The film tors! How could he now become an admir- The average Sri Lankan, including pressed by the British over the rebellions Matale where the left leaders who had may have received a different response in er of Mahatma Gandhi? How the wheel the Sinhalese, had not been averse in the of 1818 and 1848 and the Muslim-Sinhala jumped prison met. The meeting was Jaffna. Yes, over there, (there is also a turns? past to Mahatma Gandhi for a conclusion riots? Wasn’t it also an expression of dis- held in a property that William de Silva’s monument at Trincomalee), there is Anyone who read Rupasinghe’s article like what Balachandran arrived at lately. appointment over the complacency of father owned there. admiration for Mahatma, at least for his on Mahatma Gandhi would have discov- During my days in the village, as a young the English speaking Sinhalese leader- Ven. S. Mahinda wrote some of his personality (if not for his message of ered that it is only an alibi to propagate boy I had often heard my parents and ship? This is where my experience of patriotic poetry from the Batapola tem- non-violence and peace), which the new his “anti-war” campaign. It is clear that he teachers sing the old popular Sinhalese anti-imperialist and patriotic spirit that I ple. Even as little children we were excit- generation of Tamils are being taught, is using Mahatma Gandhi’s name to mas- song about Gandhi’s satyagraha and salt witnessed in my village as a boy comes ed by this poetry.I recall Ven. Mahinda although indirectly, to eschew in prefer- querade as a champion of peace and per- march that caused quite a stir among the in. writing a dialogue which he published in ence to the gun-culture, hand grenade haps to muster 100,000 people for his next average people of Sri Lanka of that gen- Around the time of World War II, as a the Sinhala newspaper or a Sinhala jour- and claymore bomb, and where suicide “anti-war” meeting that he promised. eration. The song, as I recall went as fol- little boy I read many patriotic poems nal that became popular in our village. It bombers have become the symbol of the I do not see that his strategy is any bet- lows: that were published in the Sinhala press started with an imagined visitor from day, and paraded publicly and treated as ter than former President J. R. Mahatma... Gandhige... yuddhe... and journals and pamphlets published in India giving a description of what was heroes and martyrs. That is not only by Jayewardene’s claim to be a disciple of anarghay... lunu nisaa... waelle... my village, Batapola, in the Galle taking place in India and asking why Velupillai Prabhakaran and his cohorts Gandhi and one who joined him in Pireela..