Category Archives: reconciliation

from Groundviews, 16 December 2010, http://groundviews.org/2010/12/16/is-the-tamil-version-of-our-national-anthem-a-joke/

 Recent media coverage in Sri Lanka has focussed on the confusion over the ban of the Tamil version of  Sri Lanka’s national anthem. In media reports that need to be read in the context of the ignominy suffered by the President in England recently, it was suggested that the President had, “reportedly argued that no one of the other countries in the World had national anthem ‘in more than one language’. He also told the cabinet that the Tamil anthem is a limitation which undermines the unity amongst people in Sri Lanka.”

This of course is blatantly wrong, as Indran Amirthanayagam noted on Groundviews. Again, Sutirtho Patranobis from the Hindustan Times captures it well, “At a time when Rajapaksa’s been talking about a trilingual society — Sinhala, Tamil and English — the move could be interpreted as regressive. The lessons of history seemed to have been forgotten here; discrimination over language was one reason behind the civil war. If one nation, one anthem was the logic then it didn’t do anything to make the Tamils feel secure about their present or the future. There are several countries where the Anthem is sung in more than one language. This controversy revealed how rightist politicians here make use of India’s example when they require. Minister Wimal Weerawansa  claimed India’s anthem was in Hindi though it had 300 languages. Yes, the same Weerawansa who went on two-day fast unto death in July against the UN. Yes, the same Weerawansa who spews periodical anti-India speeches. And yes, he got it wrong: the Indian anthem is in heavily Sanskritised Bengali, not spoken by the majority in India.”

  Pic from Google during Jatika Chinthana Pravahaya, 2008

Continue reading →

B. Muralidhar Reddy, http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article950506.ece

Web Editor’s Note: in this highly significant news report Reddy contradicts recent news items. So this raises the vital question: who was responsible for the mis-direction, or fabrication reported by the Sunday Times? as an editor I am aware of my own urge to rush to press with hot scoops. But in 2009 we saw how the Times, BBC and Guardian and Australian – every one of them – peddled some concocted yarns and/or half-truths as part of a stance in support of the underdog Tamils and/or hostility to the Rajapakse regime because of the latter’s intimidation of the local media. The question then boils down to the more specific inquiry: was it a Tamil gentleman or some Sinhalese, perhaps those who wish to push the government in a Hela Urumaya direction, who misled the Sunday times of Colombo

************** **********             The Sri Lankan government on Monday denied a media report that it had decided to disallow a Tamil version of the island nation’s National Anthem played in some parts of the Northern and Eastern Provinces. Lucien Rajakarunanayake , Director, Policy Research & Information (PIRU), Presidential Secretariat told The Hindu that there was no basis to the media report and follow-up reports by sections of the press that the Cabinet had decided to “scrap” the use of the Tamil version of the anthem. The general discussion at the Cabinet meeting was a continuation of an earlier meeting on the decorum to be followed when National Anthem was played. The Cabinet would also discuss the code to be followed during the unfurling of the National Flag, he said.

The implication of the media report was that if the constitutional provision was implemented in letter and spirit, the practice of a Tamil translation of the National Anthem being played at private functions in the Northern and Eastern Provinces would not be allowed. A report in the English weekly Sunday Times that the last Cabinet meeting presided over by President Mahinda Rajapaksa had decided to disallow the Tamil version of the National Anthem has triggered a controversy.

A Minister who was present at the meeting told The Hindu that, “The constitutional provision is clear. There was a general discussion in the Cabinet on the need to maintain decorum when National Anthem is sung and nothing more as reported in a section of the press.” The 1978 Constitution (Article 7) states: “The National Anthem of the Republic of Sri Lanka shall be ‘Sri Lanka Matha’, the words and music of which are set out in the Third Schedule.”

Meanwhile, a representative of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) expressed concern over the media report. TNA MP Suresh Premachandran said he would seek a clarification on the subject from the government. “At a time when the government is talking about ethnic harmony and national integration, this national anthem is an unwanted issue,” Mr. Premachandran said.