-By Eng.Sooriasegaram
(Lanka-e-News -21.Aug.2025, 9.45 PM) Things were bad for Sinhalese, Tamils as well as Muslims under the colonial masters but they became progressively worse under local masters.
Things were bad under colonial rule but they became worse after independence under the rule of the Senanayakas and Bandaranayakas and became even worse under Jayawardane and the Rajapacksas. The common feature among all of them are ‘divide and rule’, deception, plunder and robbery of the country’s wealth to make themselves rich and make the country bankrupt and subject its citizens to repressive rule and economic and social ruin. Independence from colonial rule did not lead to a better life for people. We fell from the frying pan into the fire!
It has to be said that Senanayakas and the Bandaranayakas did not plunder the country to enrich themselves but they too used the divide and rule policy to remain in power
Senanayakas disenfranchised and made stateless one million plantation Tamils for electoral gains and for remaining in power. G.G Ponnampalam and C. Suntharalingam slavishly collaborated with the Senanayakas in this shameless and inhuman act. It has to be said that ordinary Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese played no part in this inhuman act. It was a top-down conspiracy.
Instead of unifying the country Bandaranayake, foolishly introduced the Sinhala only act and set the Tamils and Muslims against the Sinhalese. There was no cry for this by ordinary Sinhalese but it was done in their name by power hungry leaders. This paved the way for religious and ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka till today. Making Sinhala and Tamil as the official languages of the country would have received the support of all the Sinhalese, all the Tamils and all the Muslims and Sri Lanka would have become a strong, united and economically powerful country. There would not have been war and destruction, militarization, human rights violation, murder, torture, mass graves, large scale displacements, poverty, unemployment, economic ruins, rule by the IMF etc.
None of these were caused by the ordinary Sinhalese, Tamils or Muslims.
Because of the betrayals of the ruling classes only, Sinhala youths rightly or wrongly carried out an armed rebellion in 1971 and later in 1987 and 1989. They were ruthlessly suppressed and more than 20 thousand Sinhala youths were arbitrarily tortured and massacred to death. Our country has so tragically lost irreplaceably valuable human resources. I think people are beginning to realize how tragic this was.
Likewise, the Tamil youth also took up arms against the Sri Lankan state which was oppressive to the Tamils who were discriminated in education, employment, colonization, subjected to riots and pogroms in 1977 and 1983, burnt down Jaffna including the Jaffna public library. These were directed by the UNP government directed by President J.R. Jayawardena and his ministers including Ranil Wickremasinghe (who we now know also ran the Batalanda torture camp) with hired thugs and police. These were NOT initiated by ordinary Sinhala people. These were top-down planned arrangements by the UNP but the blame was put on the Sinhala people. UNP perfected the colonial divide and rule tactics to remain in power. The difficult task of undoing the damage done to ethnic and religious harmony has now fallen in the hands of the NPP government. Sri Lankan leaders were equally responsible for the 30-year-old war and the killing of 30 to 40 thousand Tamils, who would be an asset today to rebuild our country, if they are alive today. We have lost so many of our sons and daughters. This should never be allowed to happen again.
What is so clear today, if it was not clear before, is that all the leaders who governed our country since independence, are the common enemy of Sinhala people, Tamil people, Muslim people and the Hill Country people. We have to be clever to never again elect them to power. They have to serve their time behind bars and go through a rehabilitation process before they can be returned to society. In spite of their criminal history, we must refrain from death sentencing them. This is the difference between them and us.
We must all unite against our common enemies to create a humane, happy and prosperous Sri Lanka. For the first time since independence, we have a realistic chance now to achieve this under the present NPP government under the presidency of Anura. We cannot afford to miss this opportunity, which has come our way after 75 years!
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by (2025-08-21 16:18:05)
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