A Nation Limping Towards Good Governance; Who Is At Fault?

By Vishwamithra1984 –January 13, 2016

‘Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total; of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.’ ~ Robert Kennedy

In modern Sri Lankan history, two elections stand out as watershed elections: firstly the 1956 General Elections in which a coalition of left-wing parties (Mahajana Eksath Peramuna) led by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) of S W R D Bandaranaike was elected and secondly, the 1977 Election in which the United National Party (UNP) led by J R Jayewardene was victorious. Why and how would they stand out as exceptions to the norm? When one looks back at the aftermath of these two elections, one cannot but conclude that both these elections produced some history-making changes. The ’56 elections in which the UNP led by Sir John Kotalawala was routed out of power, in its wake, signaled a clear departure from the then status quo.

Apart from the Sinhala-only language policy, which in the long run proved to be disastrous to both communities- Sinhalese and Tamil, it also opened the flood gates for some utterly uncouth and unruly elements to enter into the political arena. I am not saying this as a condescending, Colombo-educated snob- far from it. As a matter of fact, the writer himself is a product of that ’56 Revolution, though Colombo-educated yet at one of those premier Buddhist schools. Yet when results are glaring at your face and when pluses and minuses are tabulated, minuses seem to overwhelm. A thirty-year inter-racial war, distrust between the two major communities in the country, attitudes changing from one of accommodation and sharing to distrust and exclusivity, faked superiority of one community over the other etc. were all results of this so-called ’56 Revolution.Read More