Yal Devi bonding two communities

Today marks yet another landmark in the on going efforts to forge North South unity, with the launching of the Yal Devi project by President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

It was only the other day that our cinema artistes commenced a project to build an Arts centre in Jaffna to afford Northerners to given full vent to their well known artistic talents.

The Yal Devi conjures a nostalgic past where people from South as well as Jaffna journeyed to and fro cutting across all ethnic barriers. The Yal Devi has a special place in the hearts of the Northerner of the past.

It was told how the native of Jaffna returning home from his Government job in Colombo donned in Western garb retires into the men’s room of the train to change into his Vetti as his destination nears - a symbolic means of identifying with typical Jaffna culture.

This trait of the Northerner though giving rise to some misgiving on the part of the Sinhala traveller was never a cause for friction and accepted without demur.

For all that the Yal Devi was a veritable link between the North and the South that provided a vehicle for ethnic harmony in those spacious days as Sinhalese freely mixed with their Tamil companions sans any prejudices.

It was a popular mode of journey replete with many legends and anecdotes. People of that vintage still speak nostalgically of the journeys in the Yal Devi where the two cultures mixed congenially at a time there was plenty of goodwill and camaraderie between Tamils and Sinhalese.

The Yal Devi was also the mode of conveyance of Parliamentarians from the North at a time when legislators freely mingled with the populous when security was not an issue.

As reported in the font page of our Weekend paper the Sunday Observer train services that existed between the North and the South for more than a hundred years came to a halt with the beginning of hostilities.

The last Yal Devi train to operate between Colombo and Jaffna was in 1990 and the service was terminated at Vavunia. Today there are only poignant reminders of the famous Yal Devi journey in the form of empty shells of once bustling railway stations and dislocated railway tracts reclaimed by the jungle.

Railway lines and sleepers too had been spirited away by the LTTE to fortify bunkers and what remains is the bare skeleton of the rail infrastructure of the once thriving Northern line.

A rebuilding of the Yal Devi operations therefore is going to be a Herculean task but a challenge worthy of undertaking by the Government, given the symbolic link this has between the North and the South.

Especially at a time all measures are being taken by the Government to break all existing barriers that had served to separate both communities over the years.

It is an ideal bridge building exercise that would mark the beginning of the much needed unity where Tamils and Sinhalese would travel together in a single compartment instead of being compartmentalised as they have been all these years.

Ideally a Fund should be started to assist this project with all members of the public contributing signifying this unity. Such a gesture would go a long way towards mending those shattered bonds between our people.

Complementing this project other areas and avenues which connected the North and South in the past too should be revived.

This should be done expeditiously without leaving room for a vacuum in the aftermath of liberation of the North from terrorist clutches.

In fact the full integration process should start concurrently with military successes not leaving room for the people to feel the absence of leadership to guide their destinies. Such a vacuum could also lead to bitterness and a sense of drift of the Tamil people of the North.

The President often reiterates that he would not abandon the Tamil people who had suffered under the grip of the LTTE. In this context the launch of the Yal Devi project is a positive step where he would give the people a chance to reunite with an integral facet of their past lives.

The international community particularly the Western nations who promotes a solution based on mutual trust and understanding it is hoped would generously contribute towards this project and similar schemes intended to unify the hitherto estranged communities.

True, much bigger issues have to be addressed such as resettlement of the IDPs and the relocation of the displaced together with restarting shattered livelihoods which needed immediate attention.

But no harm cam be done if equal attention is paid to the integration process at the same time by rebuilding the damaged connecting lines between the two communities such as restoring Yal Devi.