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Merchants of Moderate Aspirations - part
I
C. Wijeyawickrema
cwije7@yahoo.com
"There is no state without a Tamil, but
there is no state for the Tamils."
World Confederation of Tamils (2006)
(www.tamilnation.org)
"If the Tamils' cry for separatism is
given up, the two communities could solve their problems and continue
to live in amity and dignity"
M. C. Sansoni, former CJ (Sessional Paper No. 7 of 1980)
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary
Act"
George Orwell
Emperor has no clothes
NGO-funded anti-nationals, some of whom cannot even read or write
in Sinhala or Tamil together with a group of foreign agents have begun
to float a new balloon asking GOSL to "listen to the aspirations
of the moderates." Interpreted in diplomatic language this means
minorities have "legitimate issues or desires." The hurried
solution from these merchants is a panacea product called the Indian
"F" model implemented in a merged N-E Province without allowing
Pondicherry-type pockets within it to meet the needs of the minority
Muslims or Sinhalese. Just like the tobacco companies-merchants of death-the
merger merchants have no clothes. Does their merchandise reasonable
or justifiable in the context of Sri Lanka's history and geography?
Their focus should be the empowerment of people, a clear practical task,
rather than talking about a fuzzy and politically loaded topic of "aspirations"
of people. To aspire is a private matter, to empower is a public responsibility.
Some white diplomats have confused the two, perhaps unintentionally.
Who is a moderate is a time and space specific matter. Terms such
as aspirations and moderates are political footballs. Moderation merchants
are silent about the real issue of human rights-the ultimate goal of
democracy-the empowerment of people at the grassroots level (taking
Pondicherry concept to village level could be called Panchayathi Raj
Institute or Gram Raj). They are silent because their "enlightened
self interest" is in conflict with the empowerment of people philosophy
of the Mahinda Chinthanaya which won a miraculous approval from voters
at the November 2005 Presidential Election. A genuine enlightenment
could perhaps be distinguished from global shedding of crocodile tears
if the dollar power of million rupee monthly salaries paid to local
NGO anti-national agents is used to teach Tamil/Sinhala to school children.
A Jatika President or an Arthika President?
Really speaking, the Thoppigala liberation in July 2007 began in November
2005. In an essay titled "A Jatika President or an Arthika President?"
an American-living anthropology professor (Island, Nov. 9, 2005) identified
the two candidates in terms of "national" versus "anti-national"
and the former won with a razor thin margin. Such margins are a new
political trend in democratic elections. Considering the foreign and
anti-national money power behind it, 2005 was more significant a victory
for the people than the 1956 victory of the "Ape Aanduwa"
(peoples' government). The splits in UNP earlier (17 MPs) and in SLFP
more recently (2 MPs) indicate the national-anti-national cleavages
indirectly identified by the anthropologist (he disguised anti-national
under the label of economics even though the two candidates had more
or less the same economic approach) prior to the November 2005 Election.
Mahinda Rajapakse is the first elected leader of Sri Lanka who came
from a village with a Kamatha (the mud hut in which rice comes out of
paddy).
Empowerment of people
People in Jaffna or Muttur crave for peace. But are they crazy for an
Indian "F" formula? Was that they aspire individually or as
a group? Indian masses (300 million now in abject poverty) did not benefit
from it. In 1993 Panchathi Raj was added to the Indian constitution
to empower people. Why then in 2007 we are asked to go back to India
in 1947 or India in 1956? The "F" formula is a merchandise
of the politicians, by the politicians and for the politicians. The
PC white elephant under the 13th Amendment imposed upon people in very
undemocratic manner did not empower people. Instead, it created a new
set of corruption-prone politicians. This was exactly what had happened
under the language-based state demarcation plan of Nehru in 1956. A
new set of language-based state politicians was added to the set of
politicians operating from Delhi that began to grow from the time of
the creation of the Indian National Congress in 1885.
When Col. Karuna says in 2007 "give us what Colombo gets,"
he was repeating what the Youth Commission Report said in March 1990-kolambata
kiri apita kakiri (Sessional Paper No. 1 of 1990, p. xvii). JVP said
this in 1971 and Tamil youths began to say it armed with Indian surface
to air missiles in the 1980s. They were crying for empowerment. Just
like the language-based state demarcation in 1956 did not empower Indian
villagers (admitted officially in 1992 by the 73rd Amendment to the
Indian constitution to empower Panchayathi Raj Institutes) a new set
of Tamil politicians operating from Trincomalee will not empower the
average Tamil. The SLFP proposals to APRC in April 2007 are meant to
empower Tamil, Sinhala and Muslim villagers but it received praise from
only three outsiders-China, Pakistan and the Englishman Paul Harris!
Diplomats and other human rights groups prefer the term aspirations
and not the term empowerment because the former is fussy and political
but the latter is real and practical.
Malaria and empowerment
The eradication of Malaria is an example of empowerment of people.
The late Ven. Kalukondayawe Pannasekera tried it in the 1940s with Justice
Akbar, and ASP Osmond de Silva, despite road blocks from the Colombo
establishment. The young Marxists also became popular at that time for
their anti-Malaria work. In 1963, Sri Lanka had only 17 cases of Malaria.
Alexander the Great perhaps died of Malaria. At least four Popes died
of it. George Washington and Abraham Lincoln suffered from it (National
Geographic, July 2007, p. 46). Which is more beneficial to people-merger
of E-N Provinces or eradication of Malaria in the Eastern Province?
Bestowing real political power to people at the village level, as proposed
by SLFP in April 2007, is the ideal way of empowering Tamils, Sinhala,
Muslims, Christians, Hindus and Buddhists. Eradication of corruption,
de-criminalization of society and prevention of drug addiction are other
examples of people empowerment once the army completes its mop up operations.
"God speaks in five"
Why are the moderation merchants silent on the home-grown solution of
the Grama Rajya concept which could be language-blind and ecologically
sound-watersheds/river basin-based as in New Zealand? The Panchayathi
Raj model in India is based on the principle, the Vedic tradition of
God Speaks in Five. Vinoba Bhave explained the Gandhian ideal of decentralization
based on Sarvodaya-the good for everybody-at the village level, "it
is a common saying in India that if five speak with one voice, it should
be understood as the word of God; that is, our ancients believed in
working with the consent of all" (India: the most dangerous decades,
Selig Harrison, Princeton, New Jersey, 1960, p.316). With Buddhist temples
devoting 10-30% of its sacred space to Hindu gods and goddesses Tamils
in Sinhala villages and Sinhalese in Tamil villages will have no problem
of co-habitation without moderation merchandise. After all that was
the history of Sri Lankan villages both before and after 1505.
(1) Defects in the moderation theory: Gondwanaland-Rawanaland factor
In addition to the politicians' use and abuse of the terms "moderates"
and "aspirations" globally, two other objective geographical
factors make the case of moderate merchants untenable and unreasonable
in the context of Sri Lanka. One is the Gondwanaland-Rawanaland factor.
Sri Lanka was separated from the Indian landmass geologically, but there
is a Rama's bridge. Sri Lanka is in the backyard of an unstable and
unpredictable political unit called the Tamil Nad. Two caste groups
in Tamil Nad are demanding two new separate states within its boundaries!
(PMK leader S. Rmados is demanding one for the Vanniyar castes; as a
reaction to this the Dalits in Tamil Nadu are also demanding a separate
state, Island, Nov. 13, 2006).
Since 1917 Tamil separatist master E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker twisted the
Rama-Ravana story in the Hindu epic Maha Bharatha. According to Naicker,
"Rama and Sita are despicable characters…Ravana, on the other
hand, is a Dravidian of excellent character." Sivaji Ganeshan and
the Kandy-born MGR sustained such myths by way of low-budget Tamil movies.
Jaffna Tamils crossed the shallow waters to see such movies in Tamil
Nad and return home in the night! Any Tamil magazine published in Madras
was available in Colombo, Kandy or Matara. The Tamil Nad factor is no
longer an issue of simple majority-minority complex-Sinhala majority
is a minority in a 61 million Tamil homeland.
(2) Defects in the moderation theory: failure of Nehru's linguistic
state solution
The other objective factor is the failure of the experiment of language
based state demarcation implemented by Nehru in India in 1956. The American
President Woodrow Wilson promoted the idea of national self-determination
by ethnic groups in 1914/1918, and the new USSR pretended to follow
this idea with self-autonomous ethnic units. Nehru was falsely impressed
by Stalin's fake propaganda on the level of national self-determination
allowed internally in USSR. Nehru and USSR are no more, but in 2007,
Indian military is fighting terrorist groups who demand separate states
based on caste, tribe or dialect. As President Clinton once pointed
out, world will end up with 7,000 countries if this path is taken.
The population distribution map of Tamils in Sri Lanka requires language-blind
empowerment units and not ethnic homelands (this is the subject of part
II of this essay). It requires taking the Pondicherry sub-model to village
level using water resource-based boundary lines. Language cannot prevent
landslides, floods and droughts, a river basin management-oriented political
unit system can. The re-introduction of the communal idea removed in
1931, after its use for 99 years as a hidden instrument of divide-and-rule,
will be a disaster forcing otherwise unconcerned people to look at their
neighbors through the lenses of language or religion. If language-based
units are accepted by APRC or the GOSL, the Thoppigala victory will
become a vain sacrifice of lives by the foot-soldiers from poor southern
villages.
Moderates versus extremists
Who is a moderate? The moderate path proposed is the federal path
based on two not so moderate documents-1987 Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement
and the 2002 CFA (nobody remembers the infamous ISGA or P-TOMS any more).
These were humiliating documents from any objective standards. Who is
a moderate is linked with another concept called "aspirations."
Even in the case of weather there is no easy way of separating an extreme
from a moderate weather conditions. Was it "normal" weather
or was it "comfortable" weather? Does moderate mean a balancing
of pressure such as what men apply on a razor blade when shaving beards?
Was it compromise for political convenience of the old (colonial) masters
who have become new (globalization) saints? Was the documentary SICKO
by Mike Moore, promoting universal health care in USA a moderate or
extremist cinema? Some think the proposal to create three federal units
based on religion and race out of Iraq a moderate solution.
In India in the 5th Century B.C. there were religious teachers indulging
in material-sensual pleasures of life on one end and those who tortured
their bodies without food or clothe. Buddhism followed the Middle Path.
But one cannot say this is a moderate's path. The middle path is internally
driven relative to one's individual abilities and capacities. Who is
a moderate is an external, public matter measured by what is reasonable.
This is political and not spiritual. Thus depending on one's geopolitical
understanding or biases, PLO's Fatah is a moderate group compared to
the Hamas even though both carry guns and bombs. Thus, as the villagers
say "when one wants to eat it a kabaragoya could become a talagoya."
Just like what is "reasonable," what is "moderate"
is also relative in time and space. Moderates can be sitting in between
conservatives and radicals. Some could even identify them as "progressives."
Perceptions or interests of others could influence what it is. For example,
Chamberlain was a peace loving moderate when Churchill was shouting
"War" from the back benches. For the Gang of Four, Deng Xiaoping
was not a moderate. Was Vladimir Putin a relatively moderate president
compared to Hitler or Stalin? Was Gandhi a moderate when he said on
December 25, 1947, "Beautiful Kashmir was worth fighting for"
(Religion in four dimensions by Walker Kaufmann, 1976, p. 248)? As presidential
candidate Abraham Lincoln did not oppose slavery. For some people he
later changed from a moderate to an extremist. When Gandhi went to London
for negotiations, Churchill called him a half-naked fakir, because in
his dress for the meeting Gandhi was not a "Roman in Rome."
He was an extremist!
Take for example the US Supreme Court with nine judges. It has two
factions-conservative and liberal. After the recent appointments of
two conservative judges, last year it had 24 decisions based on 5 to
4 majority, all with a conservative bent (not progressive?). In the
past there was a female member who acted as the "moderate"
force blocking the Court's conservative agenda. Recently, President
Bush commuted the 30 months jail sentence imposed on Scooter Libby by
a lower court judge stating that it was harsh. He said the jury verdict
was fair, reasonable, correct and right (in finding that Libby lied
to the grand jury) but the judge's punishment was not "moderate"!
The most troubling aspect of this "moderates" theory is
when the authors of former extremist actions deciding later to become
"moderates." There was Arial Sharon who became a moderate
after his extreme act of creating Jews settlements in the Palestine
occupied territory that he began 30 years ago. Those settlers who thought
he was a hero then wanted to kill him the moment he took the "moderate"
path of dismantling settlements. Did he act reasonably thirty years
ago so that those who wanted to kill him could now be identified as
unreasonable Israelites?
Some Tamil politicians entertained the separatist idea since 1918.
This was just one year after separatism started in Tamil Nad. In India
the colonial master accepted "India is a myth" propaganda
and prepared for the "two nation" solution. This encouraged
separatists in Tamil Nad, Malaysia and Colombo. In 1949 a new Tamil
party was formed with this goal and by 1976 TULF got trapped itself
with the homeland theory. The late Amirthalingam blindly missed a good
opportunity he had to work with the Sinhala masses as the Leader of
the Opposition. By 2007 Mr. Anandasangaree has changed so much but he
did not give up yet the federal idea based on a Tamil homeland. Tamil
masses and Col. Karuna fortunately gave up this idea. Because Mr. A's
life is in danger from a group of serpents that he himself was feeding
with milk for some time, can he claim the label of a moderate but still
support the "F" solution that first began in 1918?
Clash of aspirations
Unlike an individual's aspiration one group's aspirations could be
moderate or extremist from another group's point of view. For example,
Turkey has an aspiration to become a member of EU. But France has an
aspiration to keep EU white European and Christian. French President
says Turkey is Asia Minor and not Europe. So Turkey can be an active
member of NATO and a special trade partner of EU but it cannot join
EU like Estonia or Lithuania. Even individual aspirations can become
problematic in public space. In UK Muslim children could not wear headdresses
in public schools. In Turkey, women working in government offices or
studying in universities cannot wear them.
As revealed from the recent elections in Scotland on May 3, 2007,
the political party (Scottish National Party) with an aspiration to
become a separate country with membership in EU and UNO is gaining in
strength. It wants oil and gas revenue for Scotland not to the government
in London. This has become exciting news to others groups in Europe
(e.g., Basque separatists in Spain) to think anew of their own aspirations
which clash with the aspirations of the "parent" country like
in the Kosovo-Serbia clash. In Belgium, the national elections on June
10, 2007 heightened tensions between Flemish and French speaking regions
(www.migrationinformation.org). In Switzerland, the Zurich chapter of
the Swiss People's Party put forward a motion in August 2006 calling
for a ban on the construction of "provocative" minaret towers
on Muslim centers of worship (www.altermedia.info).
Puerto Rico is a good example about politics of aspirations. As a territory
of USA it could select one of three choices. It can become an independent
country in which case Puerto Ricans will lose their US citizenship.
It can become a state of US and start paying federal tax as any other
state in the Union. The third option is to become a commonwealth in
which case they do not have to pay federal tax and keep US citizenship
while also maintaining their Spanish identity with Spanish language
schools and courts. If it becomes a state in the Union then federal
laws will apply and English language has to be taught in schools. There
are 54,000 Puerto Ricans serving in the US army but they prefer to carry
their own flag at the Olympic Games. Thus three groups of politicians
promote three kinds (degrees) of aspirations.
Separatist paradigm
When one considers the fact that Tamils in Sri Lanka have more rights
than the Tamils in their real homeland of 61 million-strong Tamil Nad,
was it a reasonable aspiration to think of a second homeland in some
others homeland? Sinhala people have no other island just like the Japanese
have only the islands of Japan. There is a movement to get a separate
country for the world Tamil race and this attempt failed in Malaysia
and in the Fiji Islands. Would it be possible that the promoters of
moderate aspirations in Sri Lanka are indirectly in support of this
movement?
The American Tamils, British Tamils, Canadian Tamils and the European
Tamils are with Tamil Nad Tamils in their demand for a state carved
out of Sri Lanka (www.tamilnet.com). Scotland or the Basque Region does
not have this kind of overseas agitators. It is even more complicated
by the fact that separation from "Hindia" is a live issue
in Tamil Nad. How APRC's Colombo-living majority is going to prevent
its "F" solution not becoming another Scotland-type debacle
with pencil and paper exercises is easier said than done. Constitutional
documents do not help if "one legislates against geography."
Once taken, the "F" path, unlike the CFA 2002, will be a path
of no return creating boundary war zones all over Sri Lanka. No two
persons are equal. What enlightened democracy tells is to provide equal
opportunity for all. This is the spirit and purpose of empowerment.
This does not have to be confused with the so-called "aspirations"
of ethnic minority politicians of the former colonies. If that is followed
there will be 7,000 countries in the world.
Tamils' cry for separatism began in India in 1917 and in Ceylon in
1918. That was long before 1956 or 1983. The two separatist rivers,
one in Tamil Nad and the other amongst the Tamil politicians in Colomb,
ran parallel mingling with each other from 1917 to 1963. When the 16th
Amendment to the Indian constitution in 1963 made it a criminal act
to talk about separatism by politicians the poison water from Tamil
Nad was transferred to Lanka as noted by the late history professor
Tennakoon Vimalananda in the late 1960s (Dravida Munethra Kasagam Movement
and the future of the Sinhalayas (1970) Anula Press, Colombo 10,). In
the 1980s both Tamil Nad and Delhi politicians secretly and openly,
directly and indirectly, supported and allowed separatist elements from
Sri Lanka to operate from India without thinking that separatism has
been a grave problem for India itself. V. Balakumaran, Advisor to Prabakaran
said in Janaury 2006, "We are helping Tamilnadu to achieve self-rule"
Any homeland-based aspiration will not be a moderate solution in Sri
Lanka. The Oluvil declaration, the little Rome idea in the Negombo belt
and the Malayanaadu sentiments will get their own self-propelling from
it. Recently, Paul Harris talked about a possible LTTE-Muslim fundamentalist
clash in the East and the retired professor G. H. Peiris discussed about
the youth unrest brewing in the Malayanaadu (Sri Lanka: challenges of
the new millennium, 2006, p. 358). The first step has already been taken
with the CWC demanding five regional councils including a sub region
for upcountry Tamils (Daily Mirror, 3/12/2007). The battle after winning
the war will then be with the federal lobby raising its head in 2007.
Any attempt to impose an "F" formula will not help the average
Tamil and will plant the germ to balkanize the tiny island of Sri Lanka
and eventually the Indian subcontinent.
India's Palestine Wall
Delhi coalition governments no longer "enjoy" the unrestricted
power of presidential rule (Article 356) that some used to identify
as a special centralizing power of Indian "F" model. Politicians
from language-based Indian states use their block votes to control and
tame Delhi rulers. With the Tamil Nad voting block gaining influence
in Delhi, two central government projects came to Tamil Nad as if there
is a plan to cutoff the mingling of two separatist rivers-separatists
in Tamilnadu and Sri Lanka's north-Sethu Samuduram Canal Project and
the mega Kanya Kumari nuclear power plant. Gwynne Dyer (Island, Feb.
15, 2007) gave a list of world walls. For example, Pakistan is building
a 1,500-mile fence along Afghanistan border. Since Tamil terrorists
converted the sea border between India and Sri Lanka a terrorist super
highway, the Delhi government may be planning to use the two federal
projects as "India's Palestine Wall' in the south (Map 1).
Red arrows on the map show pressure sources on Tamil Nad from its
landward neighbors and from the Hindi official language department in
Delhi. Tamil Nad is perhaps the most anti-Hindi state in India. The
Pondicherry model is another pain in the neck forced upon Tamil Nad.
Additionally, those federal water transfer projects come with the federal
muscle. With such pressure Lanka to the south is a trouble-free fertile
valley full of Ravana attractions such as Trincomalee and Seetha Eliya
and Ravana Ella. A Tamil "F" will rekindle the fire beneath
the surface. Chamberlain thought Hitler had only a limited hunger. A
language-based "F" state is a growing monster. It needs more
room. It cannot grow landward in India. But it can come southward via
the shallow seas and become the Dravidasthan first demanded directly
from London in December 1938 by the Justice Party of Naiker.
Politics of film stars
Tamil Nadu is no different from USA with film stars (Ronald Regan
and Arnold Schwarzenegger, California governors) becoming politicians.
In the case of Tamil Nad it's more than their past film acting. The
chief ministers themselves were behaving as if they were acting in movies.
Scenes of love and sex, jailing of rival ex-chief ministers and asking
the federal government to use Presidential Rule against the rival in
power are more common than the exception. Sons, daughters or mistresses
become political heirs. The leaders of the two major parties are accused
of running the respective parties with iron control. At the state assembly
elections these two parties come to power alternatively with landslides
victories. So the previous chief minister ends up in the jail. The situation
in Sri Lanka is still a little bit better!
There are other third parties such as MDMK of Vaiko and the Tamil
National Movement party of Nedumaran who openly support Prabakaran.
Veerappan, who evaded arrest for political crimes for 20 years, was
a hero to these politicians. Tamilnadu separatist movement is well and
alive. The 1963 Indian law has lost its teeth. The annual program of
the department of official language (Hindi) in the Indian Home ministry
is considered as imposition of Hindi on Tamils in Tamilnad. Tamilnad
is the only Indian state to oppose Hindi as a unifying language in this
manner. There is a talk of a Hindian homeland in India as opposed to
a Tamil homeland. Despite laws in book, the power of separatist writers
was so penetrating that Rajiv Gandhi once made a personal appeal to
a writer to stop writing!
Tamil Nad mindset of a Tamil Ravana from Lanka is not easy to erase.
The anger fueled by separatists Tamil politicians against Delhi as exploitation
of Tamils by Hindi rulers is conveniently directed at the Sinhala Buddhists
"killers" with a "Mahavamsa mind set." Tamil websites
propagate this idea on a daily basis. Sri Lanka has to seek its own
solutions to create an island where Tamils, Sinhalese and Muslims all
can achieve their peace and prosperity (aspirations?). In this regard
we are in short supply of data and factual histories. Sri Lankan university
professors and the National Science Foundation in Sri Lanka (social
science section) should undertake or promote research (grants for student
masters theses?) on Tamilnadu-Sri Lankan affairs. They should study
why a famous Malayalee Indian diplomat, K. M. Panikkar once said "Trincomalee
is India's jewel."
The so-called "Tamil armed struggle," the journey towards
Tamil self-determination, sanitized by some NGOs and human rights INGOs
began not in 1956 or in1983 but in Tamil separatist behaviors in deep-seated
in Colombo Tamil history in 1918, 1924, 1928, 1944 and 1949. The 1956
Sinhala Only (with Reasonable use of Tamil Language Act of 1958) Act
was a reaction to Tamil separatist politics by the Colombo-living Tamil
politicians who copied unfairly the separatist agitation in Tamil Nad.
In July 1947, SJV Chelvanayagam proposed merger of Tamil Nad and Tamil
state in Ceylon. In November 1947, Chelvanayagam's speech at Trincomalee
promised "to snatch Trincomalee from the Sinhala enemies and deliver
it to Nehru for India's security if Nehru so asked."
Humiliation theory
Did Sinhala Only Act humiliate Tamils as some retired CAS officers
now suggest, thus forcing them to demand for separate "aspirations?"
The 1956 version of "one language two country-two languages one
country," which the author himself revised twice in 1966 and in
1972 was based on a Colombo class mind set. By 1948 there were two countries
in Ceylon-English-speaking Colombo country of less than 10% of population
and the Sinhala/Tamil village country. The English-speaking Colombo
Tamil politicians gave private tuition to their children to learn Sinhala,
while sabotaging Tamil villagers learning Sinhala language at government-funded
public schools as if when Tamils learn Sinhala it was going to help
the Sinhala language and not them!
If there was humiliation it was the Sinhala language which was humiliated
for 450 years and after by the Colombo rulers. Tamils went to Madras
University for university education but when Professor F. R. Jayasuriya
went to Sir Nicholas Attygalle seeking his support to teach medicine
in Sinhala, he was told "to first teach your Sinhala in Sinhala
and then come to me." Sinhala Only Act was nothing but a glacial
rebound (land rising up when the weight of glaciers melted) not meant
to harm Tamils. Poor Tamils benefited immensely from the removal of
control exerted by English. The excesses such as sending an official
reply to a Tamil in Sinhala (without at least an English translation)
were stupid acts of sabotage-bent Colombo officers.
Any comparison of India to Sri Lanka as two countries is like comparing
Himalayas to Pidurutalagala because both are mountains. India is Asia's
Europe. Bengal and Tamil Nad are like Germany and Spain. In India, Bengali,
Tamil and Telugu are languages older and richer than Hindi and Hindi
was spoken in 1946 by about 31-37% of the population. Yet the Indian
constitution (Article 343.1) accepted Hindi as the official language
of India by a majority of one vote on 14th September 1949. In 1963,
the Official Language Act was passed to expedite the use of Hindi as
the unifying language in the union and the Official Language Department
is implementing this language policy monitoring its progress with annual
progress reports.
In Punjab Sikhs fought for a Khalistan. But today in their schools
the language hierarchy, Panjabi comes after Hindi and English. This
attitude explains why India has a Sikh as its Prime Minister. India
had a Muslim from Tamil Nad as its President not simply because he left
the presidential palace with just two small suitcases but as a nuclear
scientist and a humanist he presented a view point that the solution
to world's problems is in Buddhism.
"Sinhala [language]'s very survival as a clearly Indo-Aryan language
can be considered 'a minor miracle of linguistic and cultural history"
James W. Gair, Studies in South Asian Linguistics: Sinhala and other
South Asian languages, 1998, Chapter 14: How Dravidanized was Sinhala
phonology? Pages 185-199).
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