The Sanctity Of Dharma May Be Gambled Away, Only For It To Ultimately Prevail
By Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran -November 15, 2013
PM – TGTE – Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran
Many voices being raised around the world calling for a boycott of theCommonwealth Summit being held in Sri Lanka are a clear declaration that Truth and Justice shall not be compromised under any circumstances.
While the support for holding the Summit in Sri Lanka might have been based on short term political interests of some states, the recent calls for boycott are clearly anchored in justice and Dharma, echoing the words of the great Tamil poet, Subramaniya Bharathy, who wrote “The sanctity of Dharma may be gambled away, only for it to ultimately prevail”!
Among the world-wide calls for a boycott, Tamil Nadu was a beacon and shining example of the unmitigated opposition to the Commonwealth Conference and a historic one. As we have said on many occasions earlier, the foreign policies of a country can and will be influenced by its domestic polity. This has been amply demonstrated by Tamil Nadu in relation to India’s foreign policy. It is only due to the opposition of Tamil Nadu that the Prime Minister of India has chosen not to participate in the Summit.
In the international arena, the position taken by India, as the regional power of South Asia, in relation to neighbours such as Sri Lanka is significant, and one that heavily influences other countries in their relationship with Sri Lanka. The boycott of the Commonwealth Summit by the Mauritius Prime Minister as a condemnation of the human rights violations by the Sri Lankan government is a testimony to the fact that Sri Lanka is being isolated in the international arena. Read More
Nalin Vs Nirmal: Envisioning Real Utopias
A few months ago Nirmal Dewasiri, the FUTA Convenor, history don and former X-Group was pulling out his hair at the ICES. He was trying, rather unsuccessfully, to understand why he, the X-Group and the progressive Left in general failed to beat Nalin De Silva’s racist and regressive ideas in the battle for public opinion.
He couldn’t have picked a better question to soul search on. The failure to discredit and demolish Jathika Chinthanaya explains many of the structural problems Sri Lanka faces today including minority accommodation, issues of justice and democracy.
Prof. Nalin De Silva
Nirmal argued that Jathika Chinthanaya, Nalin De Silva’s worldview, provided the intellectual foundation for the South’s unwillingness to solve the national problem, fight against authoritarianism and approach a more progressive approach towards political and economic development. In a nutshell, he argued that Nalin’s Chinthanaya was necessary for Mahinda’s present chinthanya (as opposed to the 2005Chinthaya) becoming the terrifying reality it is today.
Pradeep Pieris (recently appointed the Social Scientists Association’s treasurer) disagreed. He compared the bloodbath after a platoon of soldiers died in 1983, with the relative calm post the Dalada Maligawa bombings, when Chandrika urged the nation to be calm. Pradeep argued that political leadership and events more generally had a greater role in influencing the collective consciousness or less grandly long-term public opinion.
