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.
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