Dr. Sudath Gunasekara. Mahanuwara

The Log standing friendship between Bharath and Sri Lanka

We, as Sri Lankans whole hardheartedly, welcome the rise of Bharath Dhesh in 2014 without any reservation. Because Bharath is the fountain of our present unique Sinhala Buddhist civilization. Vijaya the founder father of the Sinhala race came from North Bharatha in 543 BC and the living core of our extant civilization that is Buddhism also was introduced in 307 BC to this country by the North Bharatha.  We also join hands with her in her battle against the colonial repression and oppression. But it is high time, that she stops its ‘blow hot and cold policy” towards this country and also trying to play the policeman role in the region.  She has no right to tell us as to with whom we could have diplomatic or any other relationship like economic, cultural or any other relation with any country she does not like. The best example is our relationship with China. For example, what right on earth does India has to tell us that we should not give entry permission to a Chinese Ship either to one of our ports or our maritime territory as she has done recently.

To begin with India should accept that we are equals as free, independent and sovereign nations with her even though different in size (1/60^th). I It is rue we have inherited a lot from mother Bharath from time immemorial. The main and the most precious thing being Buddhism, that 25 centuries old umbilical code between our two countries which marked the dawn of a new and unique Sinhala Buddhist civilization on this Island giving unique identity and heritage to this nation, that is called Sri Lanka. Its central location on this planet, as one Bharatha Purana grantha had asserted, “Bhoo madyayei  ankiiyathithi lanka which means it was called Lanka as it was located at the centre of the earth. 

It was Sri Lanka that provided a ready and safe and eternal home for original Buddhism on earth, permanently, when it disappeared from its land of Birth, Bharath. In this backdrop Bharath should   be grateful to Sri Lanka for protecting that greatest world religion found by one of its greatest sons, the greatest human being born on this earth in the whole world for that matter, in its purest form by Sri Lanka, having documented it in books for the first time and carved on rocks and permanently injected in to the minds and hearts of the Sinhala people from the pre-Christian times, who had been the prime custodians of this great religion.  On our part, as a nation, we are ever grateful to emperor Asoka another great son of Bharath for introducing Buddhism to this country. The Sinhala nation has protected this sacred doctrine and preserved it in its purest form in spite of repeated vandalism committed by Indias own South Indian people for centuries, starting from pre-Christian time reaching the climax in the 12th century AD by the Maga invasion, which completely destroyed all what had been achieved by the Sinhala Buddhists from the 6th C BC up to the 12th Century AD. In spite of all these tragedies the valiant and pious Sinhala Kings together with their subjects have preserved the vestiges of that great and unique Sinhala Buddhist civilization on earth for the world to admire. At the same time, Bharath should also be ever grateful to the Sinhala people in this country for fostering, preserving and protecting the message of the Budda, the greatest human being the world had ever produced anywhere on earth.

Under this backdrop we expect a resurgent Bharath to play the role of that great Emperor Asoka another son of Bhaaratha, the greatest Emperor the world had ever produced as H.G. Wells has once said. In this, backdrop we also expect the new NaMo Bharath that is going to be born soon to put an end to its ‘Blow hot and cold” policy not only towards Sri Lanka but also towards all its neighbors including Pakistan and treat all of them as equals. But it Is unfortunate that at present India has antagonized practically everybody around One good example is the breakdown of the SARC due to India’s boycotting.

We, As Sri Lankans are ever prepared to embrace Bharath as our elder brother, so long as it does not hurt us and try to change our identity as a Sinhala Buddhist nation by interfering with tour domestic politics at the instigation by the Sri Lankan Tamils. The relationship between our two countries should be one of equals as two distinct nations. Mutual respect should be underscored and it should be reciprocal. Also, she should clearly recognize that we are a separate sovereign country and not a part of India as they think.

The new nation that is going to be born as Bharath in 2024, at least, we hope will begin with a new and pragmatic approach towards its neighbors in a world of equals. We are also concerned about our independence and security as much as India is, about her own security and independence. Though small in size our Geo-strategic position, as an Island nation situated right at the center of the Indian Ocean where all the international maritime and air traffic meet and moves across is even more important than any other place in the whole world particularly in the emerging new world order as the busiest and the richest global hub on earth. We are also more open to the Indian Ocean than any other. We, as a free and sovereign nation we should have the right to decide on our own destiny to our own advantage as a nation without the interference of any other country in our internal matters. We extend our warm hands to everybody in the name of humanity.

The ugly bone of contention between Bharath and this country

The current ugly bone of contention between Bharath and this country is the Tamil question. It is their own creation mainly ignited by Tamilnadu in South India and sometimes the colonial West who wants to create regional instability. The South Indian Animosity towards Sri Lanka is chronic as we know. It may be that they find it difficult to change as it is deeply ingrained in their system coming down from the 2nd century BC. I think India should understand this historical reality before it takes wrong decisions and become unpopular in the region just to pacify the South Indian electorate for local political interests.

The Tamil question in this country it is twofold. The first is the traditional Tamil people who had been here for ages in the coastal areas in the north and parts of the East, with a component of those Malabar people who were brought here by the Dutch and British to work on their projects after late 17^th century. The second category is those who were brought here by the British after 1840 as their labour force to work on the newly opened up Tea plantations on the central hills. These lands were owned by the native Sinhalese, until the British illegally grabbed them after 1840.. They were taken over by the British by force under draconian laws with no compensation either, displacing all the Kandyan Sinhalese en-masse, having killed in tens of thousands, who had been the owners of those lands from the time human civilization began on this land. They were made eternal destitute on their own motherland.

The Tamil labour were British citizens at the time of the British leaving the shores of this Island in 1948 who were left high and dry as an army of Stateless labour gang.  Unfortunately, we did not have a local native leader who had the brain to ask the British to hand over our land that was taken over by them without any encumbrance by moving these laborers back to their motherland in South India from where they were brought. The first batch of these Indian laborers were brought by the British in 1838. They labored for the British as slaves to enrich the British empire. This process continued up to 1948. It was the British planters and people like Jeevan’s Thondaman’s grandfather who came in 1924 (11 years then) and his great grandfather Karuppiah who came in 1873 (13 years then) when families were fleeing in batches the villages in Madras in search of food and employment” to neighboring foreign lands. It was the British and the Indian labourers who really had benefitted from this human trafficking and certainly not this country as claimed by their present-day leaders and many others like the mad vote hungry unpatriotic politicians and trouble shooters the world over.

As such it is a big myth firstly, to say that these people have been here continuously for 200 years even by Presidents and Prime Ministers of this country, without verifying the authenticity of such data, and secondly, to say that they have heavily contributed to the economy of this country. In fact, this labor force had been an eternal liability to this country and the natives, right from the beginning as they were heavily subsidized by the British with money earned here to keep them here to increase their profits. The majority came here in search of food and employment and whatever they saved was repatriated annually to India, meanwhile people like Thodaman bought properties here as well as in India with the money earned from exports of Ceylon Tea and they amazed wealth in both countries.

The Tamil population living in this country, both the traditional and those imported by the British to work on their new plantations as coolies should never be a bone of contention between the two countries because by now, they are citizens of this land. India should not treat them as Indians any more. They are our people. As such India should not interfere or get involved in matters pertaining to them at least in future. Nor should India entertain their grievances either as it continues to do at the moment. This tantamount to Indian interference with Str Lankas internal matters. These Tamils should be told to settle their problems with the Sri Lankan government as they belong to Sri Lanka and not to India any longer.   What India should do is ask the Tamil community to accept this county as their mother land and get integrated with the Sinhala natives as it had happened in the past and live happily as brothers and sisters without making unnecessary claims and without waging war to claim some one else’s land. If there are any who don’t want to do that and if they want to continue to treat India as their motherland, then they have no legal or moral right to subsist on the resources of the Island. It is high time that therefore India advises them to forget about the Vadukkodei declaration or the so-called Thimpu principles together with their dream Eelam in the north and east or Malayha on the hills of this country and learn to live with the native Sinhala people, who are the sons of the soil who found the civilization on this land millennia ago, fostered and protected it from all foreign invasions and live cordially so that reconciliation will automatically come them. If any one feels shy to so then there is no alternative but for them to go back to their original and true motherland in South India. Everyone should concede to that historical fact without any debate. Once that is done, this festering historical wound will be permanently cured.

The same formula applies to the plantation sector Tamils as well. If they also disagree then India should advise them to ask UK to carve out a part of the British Islands as they were brought here from India by them and they were British citizens when they were left behind in a foreign country high and dry as destitute when the British left this Island in 1948. In the alternative the best thing for India to do is to take them back as an additional headache of India if she is so genuinely concerned about their wellbeing, without trying to create a Tamil State called Malayaha, right on the heartland of this Island nation that belongs to the Sinhala nation as it had been so from the inception of history.

Coming back to the fishing problem persisting in the Manar bay why can’t India and Sri Lanka enter in to an agreement that the citizens of both countries should strictly abide by the internationally accepted condition that they should engage in fishing only within their territorial waters.

India also should desist from encouraging separatism and should stop dictating to us to do this and that. For example, the 13th A and their settlement policies.  This problem will persist as along as that agreement is inked and implemented to its letter thereafter.  The funniest thing is now that the Tamilnadu politicians want the Kachchathive Island also back as a part of the Indian subcontinent, that is 60 times the size of this tiny Island, as if its vast territory is not enough for them. Settling internal problems in India within its territory is their business, without making neighbors scape goats. On the other hand, asserting our position and protecting our independence is the bounden duty of our leaders. To quote from their own sources, even in Kautilya’s list of the three main duties of the State, the first is Rakka, that is the protection of the State against external invasion. We have no bone of contention with their right to protects its own territory. But we strongly object and protest against their well calculated intervention in our domestic affairs with a view to strengthen the pro Indian Tamil community in Sri Lanka and systematically weaken the native Sinhalese in the same way the British did for 133 years against the native Sinhalese. This well-planned intrigue is well displayed even when we look at the following well planned  8 agreements signed between the two countries.

1Modernisation of 27 schools in the Northern Province,

2 Housing projects in Mannar and Anuradhapura, and

3 Improvements to the Hatton Thondaman Vocational Training Centre and Pussellawa Saraswati Central College. Additionally, a

4Mmulti-ethnic trilingual school is slated for construction in Polonnaruwa,

5 Establishment of 2,889 rainwater harvesting projects in the Jaffna region.

6 Efforts to promote vegetable cultivation in Dambulla and the construction of greenhouse facilities with a capacity of 5,000 tons for fruit preservation are also on the agenda.

7.A new surgical unit for the Batticaloa Teaching Hospital will be swiftly built to boost the healthcare sector.

8.In addition, a landmark agreement was reached involving the Indian National Dairy Development Board, the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation of India (Amul), and the Cargills (Ceylon) PLC.

Here you see out of a total of 8 projects 7 are designed to improve the Tamil community and their area. One can ask what about the Multi-ethnic trilingual school is slated for construction in Polonnaruwa Yes you can argue the way that suits you best. But my question is why a Multi-ethnic trilingual school in Polonnaruwa unless you have a subversive agenda up your sleeves, to facilitate the annexation of Polonnaruwa district to the Eastern Province in future.

Foreign fundings are always welcome. But what you do with that money and where you invest it is a matter that has to be decided by this country after evaluations recommended by local experts in the relevant fields followed by Cabinet deliberations and also approval by parliament perhaps.

But in this case, it is very clear that these project locations have been pre-decided by India with a long term subversive pro-Indian agenda. Even the selection of the participants proves this argument. Probably India has given a dead rope to the President who is eying at the next election.

I wonder  whether this list of agreements is also a part of the Rajiv -JR Accord of July 1987?