Dr Sudath Gunasekara Mahanuwara. (SLAS) Former Secretary to Pime Minister Mrs, Sirimavo Bandaranayake and President Sri Lanka Administrative Services Association (1991-94)

We welcome his choosing India for the first foreign visit as a good gesture, since it is our closest neighbor and it is also the country with whom we had the closest and the longest international relations in history.

But I would advise him to be very careful with the present-day Indian sharks both political and bureaucratic, before he is taken for a ride along a blind alley as they did to Ranil and Basil by getting both of them to succumbed to their tactics and dictates to meet their own needs. To avoid such disasters again, I would like to suggest to him to open his negotiations with Indian leaders with the following introduction, so that they won’t be able to tame him the same way they did to Ranil and Basil, to agree for everything they tabled.

” I would like to begin my talks with my esteemed Indian friends here, by requesting you first to take your mind back to the unique and nostalgic past historical, political, the cultural and spiritual relationship that existed between our two countries from the time of Gautama the Buddha, the greatest human being ever given to this world by Bharath Desh or any other Land. Lord Buddha ‘s first international visit was to Sri Lanka that was in 588 BC, in the ninth month after he attained enlightenment, to Mahiyangana to settle a waring dispute between two native tribes Yakkas and Nagas, the ruling elite of this Island at that time.

 On the verge of his attaining Parinibbana, he also selected Sri Lanka as the only land in which his Dhamma will last for 5000 years to come, in spite of the fact that Jambudviipa was his beloved birth place. At the same time, he also advised Sakka the King of Gods to protect Prince Vijaya, a Sakya Prince from northern Bharath, who found the Sinhala nation, and his retinue of 700 who landed in Lanka in 543 BC. That marked the Birthday of the Sinhala Buddhist nation on this Island. Thence forth this country had been named as the land of the Buddha.  It was Emperor Asoka, another great son of Bharatha who was acclaimed as the greatest Emperor the world had ever known, who officially gifted the Buddha sasana to this country during the reign of his erstwhile friend King Devaanampiyatissa, in 307 BC, who was the King in Lakadeepa at that time and who was also supposed to have added the Devanapiya” part to his name Tissa as a mark of  respect to his friend as it happened to be the first name of Emperor Asoka. The close religious, spiritual, cultural and political, ties between the two countries thenceforth were made the stronger by Asoka, by sending his own son Mahinda Mahathera and daughter Sangamittaa as the royal emissaries, who brought the Buddha ‘s noble message and the Sacred Bo tree to Lanka, the land of the Sinhala people, known as Lanka Deepa at that time. This unique relationship between these two countries laid the foundation for a unique and unmatched human civilization on this beautiful Island. Ever since, the teachings of the Buddha and the sacred Bo tree became the two cornerstones of the Sinhala Buddhist civilization in this country and the Sinhala nation. The Sacred Tooth Relic was brought to Sri Lanka during the reign of King Megawanna (325-377 A.D.) by Prince Danta and Princess Hemamala from India in 371 A.D. Ever since, the sacred Tooth Relic assumed the symbol of Royalty in this Island Kingdom and the age old tradition that only a person who held sway over the Sacred Tooth can be the King of the Sri Lankan Kingdom got permanently established on this soil and the protection of the Sacred tooth became the foremost duty of the King of this Island thereafter.

But this golden past was first, marred by a recurrent wave of invasions from South Indian Dravida Kings from 2nd century BC up to the most devastative Kalinga Maga invasion in the 13th Century. With this most devastative and savages South Indian invasion the Rajarata Sinhala Kingdom shifter towards the South West and the Kandyan provinces.

 Even in the mid-18^th century when the Sinhala Royalty ended  with the death of the last King Narendra Sinha, it was towards India,  the Buddhist Monks and the ruling elite extended their hands and installed Sri  Vijaya Rajasinha, a member of the Madurai royal family as the King of the Sinhale Kingdom and after him another three  members of the same clan ruled this country  in the same tradition followed by 187 Sinhala Buddhist Kings of the yore, until the demise of last king of the Sinhale Kingdom Sri Wikrama Rajasinha took place in 1815 with the annexation of the Kandyan Kingdom  to the British Empire by the Kandyan Convention of March 2^nd. That was the unique and remarkable level of the close and cordial relationship that existed between our two countries, from the time of Gauthama the Buddha for the next 26 centuries up to date.

But again, unfortunately in modern history a black mark of Indian invasion again emerged in 1987 orchestrated by Rajiv Ghandhi with his infamous Parippu invasion with the incursion of six military jets entering Sri Lankas air space simultaneously and there by marring all previous cordial relationships and violating all civilized international diplomatic norms. This was followed by the even more infamous Rajeev/JR Accord of 30^th July 1987 singed by the two heads of states and JR was compelled to sing under duress and intimidation after declaring an Island wide curfew imposed all over the Island, against some members of his own prominent Cabinet including Prime Minister Premadasa, Defense Minister Lalith Athulathmudali and Gamani Jaya Jaysooriya boycotted the event amidst strong opposition and public protest and  demonstrations against it, spearheaded by  Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranayaka the leader of the opposition with the participation of all opposition members of Parliament  in the capital Colombo, that was also suppressed by killing many of patriotic demonstrators. Ever since it has been a period of regular unpleasant intervention and arm twisting in the internal governance of this country by India in pressing the Government of this country to grant various demands by the Tamil community living in this country and also by the communal Tamil politicians in Tamilnadu to meet the domestic political needs at the expense of the freedom, independence, the sovereignty and the self-respect of this Island nation.

In this extremely grey backdrop, I would like to remind the Sri Lankan President that he should be extra careful in dealing with India as we have to settle many an issue as a fully independent, free and a sovereign nation on equal terms. He should be extremely careful not to repeat the political and economic blunders committed by JR, Ranil, Basil and Milinda Moragoda, (the founder of the Path finder, a pro-western organization) all of whom wanted to make this country the 29^th State of India, whose collective actions were always pro-Indian and anti-Sri Lankan, amounting to naked betrayals of the motherland. J R of cause had this ambition to make this Island as a part of India from 1944 in his State Council days.

I only hope the President, with his past patriotic Sri Lankan policies, as  clearly articulated  in their first lesson  of the  famous  5  JVP lessons articulated in late 1960s, will never agree to any anti Sri Lankan policies, like the selling of our national resources or assets like the Trinco Oil farm, the ports, handing over of the Kandyan Kingdom to Indian estate labour (who have got RS 1 citizenship only in 1988 under the Rajeev/JR accord of 1987)  or any other sell out  as left below in full detail.   

The JVP having being a patriotic political party right from the inception has always stood against Indian invasions, I hope the President will be mindful of this and will not agree with Indian agenda, however powerful it may be, even though Ranil Wickramasinha, in his recent visit has already paved the way for a knave yielding before Indian leaders, suggesting the new President to comply with all agreements, he had recently entered in to with India, forgetting the fact that has singed all his agreements illegally without the approval of  Parliament of this country.

 List of few more important issues, I want the President to be extremely cautious and not to commit.

1.All Sri Lankan patriotic people including even those who have not voted him or his party, expect President Mr Anura Disanayaka, not to allow India to dictate terms for this country, as if it is already a suzerainty of India and to point out to India that we are also an independent and sovereign country with equal status along with the Indian Subcontinent, although we are a small country in size.

2 We Also expect him to point out to India, that this country had been a sovereign Sinhalese Kingdom from 543 BC without any break even after it was annexed to the British throne in 1815 by the Kandyan convention, drawn on mutually agreed conditions.

3.The present-day Tamils living in this country are only immigrant minorities who have no right to  claim equality, dignity, self-respect bla bla  in this land of the Sinhalese and none of them including Muslims have any right here for self-determination or separate States as they all are only immigrant minority communities, either come here on their own for trade (Muslims) or South Indian Malabar cooly labour brought by Dutch and British after 1800 AD. to work on their projects and Plantations (hill country) to realize their ulterior political and colonial policies of colonial settlements, to destroy the Sinhala Buddhist nation and it’s unique civilization  in this country .

4. All those who are called estate  labour who claim 200 years  as of permanent settlement ( a blatant lie never established) under the slogan naam 200 years” are only the descendants of seasonal immigrant slave labour who never had a continues residence in this country as they were brought here in batches by the colonial British to work for them after 1840 as colonial settlers, and who also regularly travelled between India  their motherland and this country as a place of labour employment until 1948.  They were   left behind by the British as a band of stateless Indian labour when they left the shores of this Island in 1948 after granting a fake freedom to this country, leaving all colonial nooks tightly fastened around the neck of the Sinhala Buddhist nation along with a legacy and a burden of 1.2 million Indian Tamils and therefore none of them has a right to claim a separate territory and self-declared as nationhood in this country that has remained as an independent sovereign Kingdom from 543 BC to date.

 5. Furthermore, the entire hill country of this land together with the rest of the Island was the historical Homeland of the Sinhala Nation at least from 543 BC. Therefore, no outsider can have any claim over this land.

6. The President has to tell the Indian Government very clearly that these lands cannot be given to this Indian immigrant estate labour as the lands has to be restored to their original native owners from whom the land was illegally robbed by force at gun point and under draconian laws by the British colonial invaders after 1840, making all native owners landless and destitute.  

7. All Sri Lankans are vehemently against the Rajiv/JR Accord of 1987 forced on our heads by India by force at gun point under Indian military intervention, that resulted in a complete travesty of the 25 centuries of unbroken history of a great nation  and paved the way to hand over 1/3 of the country and 2/3 of the coastal belt and the oceanic  territory to about 5 % of the total population of the country who are descendants of Malabar slave labour  brought to this country a by the Dutch and British in late 18^th century and the 19^th century under the colonial  settlement  programme who has no right to claim an inch of land from this land, leaving aside a separate territory in this country  of the Sinhalese people.   

8 Even Tamils are not interested in devolution or separation or the 13th Amendment the illegitimate child born out of the Rajeev/JR Accord of July 30 1987, as proved by the latest election results of the recent Parliamentary election marks the end of Chelvanayagam racial politics.  In this back drop the people of this country wants the Rajeev/JR Accord as well as the 13^th A that have completely destabilized and destroyed the internal administration of this country and wasted trillions of public funds making the county bankrupt and a Beggers bowl, to be abolished as soon as possible.

7 I hope and wish president Disanayaka will not betray the country and the tens of thousands of patriotic warriors who have sacrificed their lives to Protect the Motherland from a terrorist gang led by Prabhakaran who killed even Rajeev Ghandhi, his benefactor who gifted even his bullet proof Jacket to Prabhaakaran and who did everything to divide this country in to two territories and destroy it.

8. I only wish that the President will not betray the Motherland, the Sinhala nation and at least the 61% voters who have voted his him and his party at the last elections in to power with so much of hopes.

9. Sri Lankan President also will have to clearly impress India that we are a separate free, independent and sovereign country as it had been from the inception of history and not a Suzerainty or dependency of India

10.Finally, I hope and sincerely wish he will go through this letter and take my advice given in good faith seriously, as this is his first foreign visit. Because the outcome of this visit I think, will largely  decide his political future specially within the framework of growing uncertainties and political confusions in Parliament and also in the country.