Sri Lanka became independent in February 1948; then Ceylon was a good middle size country with fewer than 10 million people; one of the best countries in Asia, only second to Japan with a higher level of education. The country as a major producer of agricultural exports was dependent on export earnings, had an open economy. In the middle of last century the country had foreign reserves in sterling pounds to feed its population for 18 months had peace and only 2.5% of country’s budget was spent on defence. Due to failure of successive governments the law and order under democracy was not common for all. The disciplined society broke down as significant changes took place and today with 21 million people to feed the present government recently announced that it had reserves only for four months.
Most of the early rulers were converted to Buddhism and embraced nativism to identify themselves with the people, who without following a holistic rule fit for the multi-ethnic and multi-religious society began discriminating the minorities from day. This put the country in a turmoil and the life enjoyed by people at independence started deteriorating day by day as the rulers of independent Sri Lanka never tried to maintain the quality of life. The whole country had to face many uprisings against the rulers by the ruled that included a civil-war lasting three decades that pushed the development of the country back by five decades. The civil-war was brought to finish in 2009, the rulers should have with a holistic rule gone out of the way to reconcile the grieved minorities to lift the country. Instead the rulers ventured into many glamour projects considered by them as symbol of progress the when there were much reconstruction works needed for irrigation, agriculture, housing, industrial promotion and development and so many other post war projects in the war devastated zones. Due to then ruler’s insistence most of these glamour projects that were not of great value for a country recovering from civil-war destructions were launched at great costs.
The greatest mistake made by the post-civil-war government was to address issues of the minorities affected by the war including redistribution of land held by the security forces in the previous war zone. With land given to the Sinhalese, not the Tamils who had historically been living in that zone, lingering in make shift camps. The conflict could only be solved by a political solution considered fair by the affected people. The rest of the world sat waiting and began using the UN to exert pressure on the government faced with heavy foreign debts and negative cash flow, it was bound to fail and the government was changed with foreign intervention in 2015.
At a time the sacred Buddhist scriptures ‘Theravada Tripitaka’ the most important source of authority that contain teachings of the Buddha on how to reach enlightenment as well as teachings to help guide Buddhists in their everyday life has been declared a National heritage in Sri Lanka; it is the wish of all communities in Sri Lanka that their Buddhists rulers will follow these Buddhist scriptures to guide them to provide a holistic rule for a united nation. For there is democracy and freedom that allows people do what they like with law and order not common for all the people from top to bottom and across all communities; because if the rulers at the top are disciplined the same will trickle down to the ruled people at the bottom to produce a disciplined society to bring this island nation back to prosperity.
Northern Breeze 