Anagarika Dharmapala's 135 birth anniversary

Wijitha NAKKAWITA

The 135th birth anniversary of the great patriot Anagarika Dharmapala who led the national resurgence in the previous century falls today. During the British colonial era he saw that the Sri Lankans especially the Sinhalese Buddhists were discriminated by the colonial rulers and even the capital city of Colombo was like an alien city with foreign dominance in all spheres.

The Daily News spoke to the Anagarika's grandson former parliamentarian and Chief Minister Susil Moonesinghe and he said the movement and ideals introduced by Anagarika Dharmapala were more relevant today as the country is moving towards an era of self sufficiency in food and trust in the indigenous method of development suitable for us.

"The Anagarika was the one who taught me the letters of the alphabet and in fact it was who gave me the name Susil when the style those days was to give children western names when we in Asia had our own culture and civilization.

In fact Susil is a vulgarized form of the Bengali name Sushil. He invoked the dormant national character of our people and fought to revive our own culture.

But what are we doing today? We dress in full western coat shirt and tie and like grand penguins when our national dress that symbolizes our culture is suitable for our climate.

"I am very happy that President Mahinda Rajapaksa wears the national dress and his efforts are also directed towards retaining our national traditions without imitating the West.

It was Anagarika Dharmapala who led the national struggle against the efforts of the few to imitate the west as we have nothing to gain from imitating the West.

Even the Indian Congress leader Sonia Gandhi though she is an Italian by birth accepted the culture of India and learned the national language. She said Indians should be united.

"The other day I was in Kegalle when a soldier of the Sri Lanka Army bought a poppy flower in aid of war veterans and I was wondering why we cannot sell our national flowers like a lotus or araliya instead of selling poppy.

"Now for instance the West has the Red Cross but the West Asian nations have their Red Crescent as they do not imitate the west but preserve their own culture. I am very happy to see President Mahinda Rajapaksa preserving the national culture and giving the pride of place to indigenous methods of development.

The food production drive he started is on the right path. Our main need is food and if we become self sufficient in food we become a healthy nation and the other needs could fall in place," he said.

"The West always was prejudiced towards our countries. They call us the Third World meaning they are the first but today that is changing. For instance countries in Asia like Singapore, China and Japan became economic giants and we should cultivate close relations with Asian nations like China and India as we have so much in common with them.

"Some of our leaders like Ranil Wickremesinghe were seen bending their heads to people from the west like Erik Solhiem but President Mahinda Rajapaksa had steered clear of such policies and people and he like the way Anagarika Dharmapala exhorted us had respected the civilization and culture of our country that we had preserved for thousands of years.

"If you look at the culture of the West you see that people from West Africa were brought as slaves by the Southern States of USA to grow cotton and become rich," Susil Moonesinghe said.