By Wakeley Paul, Esq., December 4, 2004
Anura Bandaranaike’s self-aggrandizing views of his family’s contribution toward the success of a failed nation, published in the Daily News, call for a rational review. His claim that no family has shed its blood for the nation’s advancement like the Bandaranaikes have should read, instead, that no family has caused more blood to be shed as a result of their policies. The Bandaranaikes embraced every Sinhalese Buddhist available as co-conspirators in an effort to suppress both the national minorities and regional majorities. They were the cause of divided a nation that might have remained united except for them. They should hide their heads in shame rather than lift them up with pride.
Anura Bandaranaike (photo courtesy TamilNet)
Prior to Anura’s father assuming the office of Prime Minister, there was no inter-racial violence, except for the Muslim riot in 1915. The protests against D S Senanayake’s colonization policy and his disenfranchisement of the plantation workers were met with protests which did not arouse the public ire. The Bandaranaike policies that followed them did. His Sinhala Only Act, which carried with it dire economic consequences for the Tamils and Muslims in the NorthEast and the English-speaking minorities elsewhere, fired for the first time the wrath of the Tamils and Muslims in the NorthEast; and aroused agonizing apprehension among the other non-Sinhalese elsewhere.
The peaceful objections of these sections of the population were dealt with by fueling Sinhalese thugs and vagrants with booze to engage in the worst racial riots ever witnessed up and until that time since Independence. It was the first effort to make the nation a Sinhalese Buddhist state in place of a multi-ethnic nation. PM Bandaranaike courted the support of narrow-minded Buddhist monks with a passion and inspired them to demand the creation of a Sinhala Buddhist nation, with no concern for or desire to appease anyone but themselves. He tore the nation apart and set the seal upon a deeply divided nation.
Anura Bandaranaike’s mother, Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike, a previously untutored politician, upon the death of her husband was soon made the stooge of ambitious Sinhala kingmakers determined to capitalize on this Sinhala Buddhist phenomenon. They convinced her that the Sinhalese Buddhists alone were the victims of British occupation; that the others were favored by their colonial rulers and that the the Sinhalese Buddhists had to regain their lost rights from everyone else. She for the first time sent troops to the NorthEast to crush non-violent protests against the Sinhala Only Act and other chauvinist laws.
Sirimavo’s next step was to pass a Constitution which illegally and unconstitutionally abolished the guarantees of equality and prohibitions against discriminatory legislation contained in Section 29 of the Soulbury Constitution. In order to overcome the illegalities she was confronted with, she did so with a device called a “Constituent Assembly,” which institution had no legislative powers under the existing Soulbury Constitution, leave alone the right and ability to abolish that Constitution and replace it with a new one. This disgraceful document, upgraded to a Constitution, legalized discrimination against any and all who were not Sinhala Buddhists. The Sinhalese Catholics were also victims of her Sinhala Buddhist fury.
The final cut of all was Sirimavo’s policy of denying Tamils equal access to the Universities. This not only sparked the Tamil youth to demand separation and inspired the Vaddukottai Resolution. The realization grew among the Tamils that they needed to use violence to combat violence as practiced by an increasingly intolerant and hostile army, who were eager to suppress all peaceful protest with unabated brutality. It was she who first encouraged and supported the army to engage in this unchecked use of force.
If this is what Anura Bandaranaike is proud of, so be it. He should in fact be weeping with guilt instead of gloating with glee at the gross crimes his family were and continue to be guilty of. His sister Chandrika Kumaratunge’s attempt to maintain a united nation in the heat of the divisions created by their parents is the final absurdity. Let’s face it, the nation is divided beyond redemption, and the least she could do is to submit to granting a Federal Constitution, which the LTTE generously conceded as an alternative to separation, in a desire for a secure peace. Unfortunately, with typical Bandaranaike lack of vision, she resists that, too. Her stalling of the peace talks in order to appease her communist coalition partner and other bigoted allies is another indication of a rogue regime’s effort to have its way to retain another lop-sided Bandaranaike in power. She attempted the same illegal ruse of forming a Constituent Assembly that her mother resorted to in an attempt to abolish the Executive Presidency, a position which she is barred from holding for a third term. How many more illegal ploys should we be subjected to by this most recent Bandaranaike while she resorts to any device, legal and otherwise, in her determination to remain power? The rest of us can only hope and pray that she is the last of the Bandaranaikes to besmirch this island nation, which is not a nation any more, due to this family.