Welcome steps towards equity

It is now plain to see that the government, under the guidance of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, is highly intent on taking the development drive into the North-East in a major way. As our front page lead stories these days sufficiently indicate, government efforts are increasingly directed at taking vital common amenities to the people of those provinces, and important connecting bridges and unprecedented water facilities are just two of these.

No doubt, these are watershed events for the provinces concerned because for 30 long years, development in any sense of the word was hardly visible in the areas in question. Besides, political leaders of any standing hardly visited the provinces over the period the conflict bled this country white. Needless to say, the situation is vastly different today. President Rajapaksa is leading from the front in visiting the North-East and is doing his best to alleviate the lot of the citizenry of the North-East. This example must be replicated by other members of our political community.

All this is as it should be. For 30 long years, when terror held sway over the length and breadth of the North-East, the people of these provinces were virtually left to their own devices almost by the then political leadership of the country. There was hardly a major politician of the South who spoke in terms of being a guide and leader of the totality of the Sri Lankan people. This, no less than other factors, enabled the LTTE to exert a whip-hand over the North-East people. Besides, such gross negligence had the effect of widening the communal divide and in alienating sections of the North-East people from the rest of the country.

By personally launching development schemes in the North-East and by siphoning substantial funds for material welfare purposes to the provinces concerned, the state is clearly underscoring the fact that all of Sri Lanka is now one and that all sections of the citizenry are being treated equally. Equitable growth which would enable every citizen to feel that she/he belongs to a common polity, is a crucial need and as long as the state enables this to happen, there would be harmony in abundance in this country.

During his recent visit to Batticaloa, where he launched some very important common amenities, the President made it plain that the country needs to rid itself of the incendiary communal jargon of the past which fed the disastrous conflict in no small way and which emotionally separated sections of our communities from each other.

This is a most timely intervention by the President which will help heal the wounds of the past and cement very substantially, the bridges of friendship which are fast being built among the different sections of our citizenry.

It is evident that the country has to adopt a two-pronged strategy to establish durable normalcy in this country.

One of these prongs, as mentioned, is equitable growth or development in the real sense of the term. The second is the complete rejection of the language of division and discord. Among the latter one could count, communal jargon and racism in both North and South, which ensured that the conflict raged relentlessly. We have to see an end to such lingo if development and normalcy are to thrive in this country.

We have already commented elaborately on how parity of national languages helps in consolidating peace and harmony in Sri Lanka. Most reservations anybody could have had on this score could now be erased because the state is committed to a policy of giving equal status to these languages. Hopefully, the constitutional and other provisions in this regard would be speedily implemented for it's the practical implementation of this policy which is vital.

Coinciding with such measures, there should develop in this country a political culture which would say a huge and pronounced 'no' to communalism and ethnic hatred in all its forms and guises. No doubt, the President is setting an exemplary precedent in this respect by eschewing communalism, but this positive mindset should be deeply entrenched in our polity. Most welcome would be state-initiated measures to completely outlaw communalism in Sri Lanka and the inflammatory language which feeds it. This is the policy direction post-conflict Sri Lanka needs to take.