True laws of God

Public newspapers are not expected to transgress on religious sensitivities because they believe that every religion must be tolerated, as everyman has to go to heaven in his own way. But when religious dignitaries stray into politics and make controversial statements on incendiary issues even public newspapers may not be able to salvage such dignitaries. It is in that context that we dissect the recent statements made by Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith on this most sensitive issue of ‘ethnic conflict’ in this country.

The good Reverend seemed to believe that this country needs a ‘permanent solution’ to what he calls an ‘ethnic conflict’ and that, that solution should include the full implementation of the 13th Amendment and granting official recognition to the Northern and Eastern Provinces of the country as the ‘homeland of the Tamils’. Further Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith identifies the introduction of the Swabasha Bill, which he pejoratively terms as the ‘Sinhala Only’, as the cause of the conflict.

Post independent era

This is a rather fundamentalist stand to take, considering the fact that the country has come out of a 34 year scourge that enacted mayhem and murder in the name

 of a separatist struggle that sought to establish homelands. Such is the parochial nature of this stands that it reminds us of the dark days of the post independent era where SJV Chelvanayagam made separatist pronouncements quite in the open and then started tarring vehicle number plates triggering this violent campaign that accounted for 100, 000 lives, billions worth of collateral and 34 years of lost opportunity. Is the Catholic Church, after 62 years and after much water has flown under the bridge, still unable to face the reality of a united and peaceful Sri Lanka where we have scoffed off not only the ‘majority minority syndrome’ but even the ‘traditional homeland concept’ as things of the past?

The two most acceptable historians of this country, K M de Silva (Sinhala Christian) and Indrapala Kartheguisu (Tamil) have never contributed to the ‘traditional homeland’ that the Tamil racist politicians had been trying to uphold with tendentious propaganda.

In fact it is this ‘claim for a Tamil homeland’ that had been the root cause of all the problems in this country because the Sinhalese, though the majority in this country, has always had forebodings about South Indian invasion of Sri Lanka. This is not an unfounded fear but a reality that has taken place 33 times during the recorded history of this country costing thousands of lives and centuries of civilization.

Sinhalese do not consider Tamils as a mere minority but as a part of the 50 million Tamils in Tamil Nadu and hence when Chelvanayagam declared a ‘Tamil speaking homeland’ in the North/ East in 1951, the Sinhalese entertained fears of being eventually invaded and overwhelmed by Tamils.

And this design of Chelvanayagam, as made very clear in his biography authored by his son in law, was only a process to push the North East of Lanka to the Pan Tamil kingdom of South India.

Further the irony of this ‘traditional homeland concept’ is that it conveniently ignores the fate of one million ‘Indian Tamils’ who are settled outside this so-called ‘Homeland’ but who today outnumber the ‘Ceylon Tamils’.

Indo Lanka Accord

When the 13th Amendment was introduced through the Indo Lanka Accord, the conflict in this country was still at a very manageable stage and it had accounted for only 3561 lives.

But after the 1987 Indo Lanka Accord, the conflict assumed greater and international dimensions pushing this country to the brink of dismemberment by the year 2005.

If the 13th Amendment had any curative properties to the conflict this country had, its introduction in 1987 should have improved the situation rather than worsening it.

Further it should be borne in mind that the 13th Amendment was not implemented on a credible and democratic way and hence its implementation costs this country about 50,000 young lives and collateral. Thus could the Church now advocate the 13th Amendment that was immorally implemented and has proved beyond doubt to be a remedy worse than the disease?

Language bill

The Language bill of 1958 not only made Sinhala the official language it also made Tamil, a language of reasonable use and the administrative language of the Northern and Eastern Provinces.

This was a benefit the Tamils were not afforded to up to then, as under the previous system English was the only recognized language and the vernacular (Sinhala and Tamil) had no place in the country’s administration.

In such a situation, where the life of an average Tamil speaking man was elevated to a position of recognition vis a vis before, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith owes us an explanation as to how the Language bill could be identified as the cause that lead Tamils to arms. Further, in the film Village in the Jungle we saw how the Colonial administration dispensed justice to the locals; in a language that neither the litigant nor the accused understood; sentencing Silindu and Babun to imprisonment and death, for crimes they never committed.

The fact however is that, the Swbasha bill dethroned English and earned the ire of the ruling Western oriented minority who formed the vanguard against progressive reforms in independent Sri Lanka. Thus, is the Catholic Church, in the name of an ‘ethnic conflict’, trying to take us back to colonial times?

Catholic church

Religious leaders therefore, if they are true to the doctrines they profess, should consider the concerns of everybody before they support strident stands by racist politicians with hidden agendas. The Catholic church has a special responsibility to act with balance to ensure that their stand would not be interpreted to mean that the church is either ‘anti Sinahala’ or ‘anti Buddhist’ in their advocacies.

Jesus Christ was known as the Prince of peace because he refused to retaliate even against those who came to kill him.

Hence Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, being a pallbearer of that humanist religion should sagaciously ensure that his own pronouncements on the conflict would not lead the country to more wars in the name of ‘peace’.

The true laws of God are the laws that ensure everybody’s well-being!

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