Today as Sri Lankans are trying to make sense of all that has happened to their country under seven decades of independence with many greedy and faked patriotic politicians rotten to the core with corruption simply filling up the seats in the House of Parliament – the highest house in the country. With many parliamentarians who sell their tone and point fingers out at each other backed by their supporters all the way down to the remote village; is continuing in the present parliament was witnessed again yesterday. Thus having lost their way Sri Lankans are asking questions like “Where is God?” pondering how a compassionate force could allow such horrors on this island nation in the Indian Ocean, that was once a paradise. A Bitter Truth not appreciated by most Lankans is that they are currently living in an Age of Darkness – Kali Yuga, where ignorance, filth, lies and very low life of the Dark Age span; explaining the presence of all these violations to this very day and this tendency has over the years spread to all level power houses countrywide like Provincial Councils and Local Councils; that makes Yahapalanaya not a reality but a dream in Sri Lanka during Kali Yuga.
According to the Vedas there are four cycles of spiritual evolution that earth goes through and these cycles of time measured in Yugas are Satya Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dvapara Yuga and Kali Yuga Yugas are many thousands of years long and are not just related to earthly existence. The scriptural scholars have said that the current Kali Yuga that began many centuries ago will continue for many more years. The nature of the Kali Yuga is degeneration, discord, and strife; characterized by the breakdown of systems and structures, including family, social, political and religious or spiritual structures. It is sometimes called the ‘dark age’ – a time in which teachings of enlightenment are harder to access and truly live. This present age Dark Age of Kali Yuga known as the age of deterioration, quarrel and hypocrisy is the final stage, before the cycles begin again with the Satya Yuga. In this Dark Age, that man degenerates and moves far away from God and Dharma (morality) becomes nonexistent and civilization loses itself in indulgence. The Bible and other religious texts say the same and living in an era with everything upside down, where the materialistic culture reigns supreme.
Thus the effect of Kali Yoga is very visible on Sri Lankans, where people supposed to be good are now evil; with lies, cheating, deceit and corruption; moral character has reached low level becoming part of their life. With all ancestral knowledge gone, there exists in the land fake monks and teachers with no sense of spirituality. People live with lust, ignorance, animosity towards others and murder without reason; while laugh, criticize and attack those who are spiritual. Thus extreme hardship has fallen on those with ideals and higher ambitions as more and more people are completely lost in consumer addiction, constantly searching for answers. Materialistic comforts have become a means to an end; many belief in their mind that they are not worthy of being normal when compared to superheroes, celebrities, politicians worshipped as royalty.
In 1948 Sri Lanka that was a multi-ethnic and multi-religious united country in Asia, as a leading nation was perhaps second only to Japan. But lost that status in no time because of poor governance by successive divisive rulers, who were dictated to and distantly controlled like a drone, by forces outside the parliament starting with the Buddhist Monks in the forties, from the fifties vernacular educated administrators and school teachers; thereafter from the sixties the corrupt professionals and businessmen joining these teams of remote controllers. Progressively together by the seventies the rulers became powerful and dictatorial, who to retain power utilized drug barons and murderers and that alarmed many foreign governments. As people began to resist, the government unleashed state terror on the people utilizing security forces, leading the country to a civil-war that lasted three decades and the war brought to finish at a heavy human cost and loss of properties that put the country back by five decades in terms of development. It is all history that faked patriotic politicians rotten to the core turned rulers were dictated to by foreign governments, a trend that started with the civil war distantly controlling them like a drone. These fake patriots to deny the basic rights of the economic, ethnic and religious minorities supressed them by unleashing state terror in the name of safe guarding the integrity of an independent nation; but has done just the reverse, with many foreign countries telling them how to run the country. That is how the devolution of power to the provinces were made in 1987, then the civil-war was brought to finish in 2006 and finally in 2015 blew out the rulers with the change of wind making history each time with interventions of different foreign countries.
As the result the Unity Government that came to power in 2015 is today buried with issues such as having to settle mounting foreign debts, while many politically motivated professional bodies and trade unions are taking industrial actions to prevent any good governance taking place; ably supported by media giving space more for negative stories on the government. The government to its credit has progressed by making many reforms including the new Inland Revenue Act to collect more direct income tax; sorting out the country’s bankrupt coffers and are working hard to make good many white elephant projects inherited from the previous regime. The government has also come up with an economic development plan to bring prosperity to the people by 2030. While as most people accept that judiciary was made ineffective due to political interference in the past the government has today ensured its independence, established special courts to expedite cases against frauds and plan to bring back capital punishment. There has been calls to establish a special court for monks that would have the power to decide whether a monk convicted in a court of law can continue to remain a monk.
In the past three years, the Unity Government has made many strides to bring back normalcy in the country, but has not made an impact in particular to those affected most by the war, but would be the first to concede that lot more needs to be done. Large percentage of land held by the security forces have been returned to the owners; further have commenced projects to build houses and related infrastructures to enable the displaced communities to resume their normal life in their own area; but has a long way to bring the projects to completion. Further has established the office of the Missing Persons, to resolve the issues of many families whose family members were made to disappear during and after three decades of war caused by the oppressive state. Sadly, it goes only as far as to confirm if the missing persons are dead or alive, with no facility to prosecute any offenders based on its findings.
While all these are being done by the government, to regain lost power the previous regime members in opposition are bending over backwards to prevent the government from putting the economy back on track and are preventing them from resolving the root cause that led to the civil-war, much to the disappointment of the affected minorities living mainly in the previous war zone provinces. Further, the Unity Government is yet to conclude any investigations to bring to justice many politicians, administrators and others, who have by their corrupt activities over past few decades have syphoned out the wealth of the nation. Last but not least the New Constitution is yet to see day light and with time running out for the Unity Government, even if such a constitution is produced in time it will most likely to fall short of expectations of the population, would leave the country divided, to signpost government failure discharging its own functions fairly and efficiently.
Sri Lankans have had some bad rulers in the past, who saw themselves as superior than protectors of society that had caused over time many uprisings from people and a civil war in the country, where many thousands perished, triggered mass migration of many to foreign lands for survival; while the rest were left with all the miseries a cruel and brutal civil-war brings. There are today many corrupt and greedy politicians still left in parliament who plan to regain power and their possessive aspects would only cause more sufferings to the people, resulting from the constant discord and strife with other political, social, and religious groups as nothing else is possible in Kali Yuga.
To ensure future generations benefit from the Golden Age of Satya Yuga anticipated to arrive after the present Dark Age of Kali Yuga and based on the past three years that confirm Good Governance (Yahapalanaya) is unlikely in Kali Yuga; the nation needs to be saved first from the bad politicians. Possible if all Sri Lankans vote correctly at all future elections to obliterate all shades of colour bad politicians to the last from all three power houses in the island and introduce new politics with collectivist philosophy providing equal opportunities to all communities to usher in a united Sri Lanka in the Golden Age of Satya Yoga.
Northern Breeze 