Around million years ago human were living roaming hunting in search of food living in caves virtually like animals in this planet when Sri Lanka the island nation was a dot in the Indian Ocean. With evolution, they came out of living in caves began clearing land for cultivation and built shelters for living; thereafter for safety stated communal living and with time began worshiping and have now progressed gradually to civilized modern living proving that man is superior to all animals.
At the time of independence in 1948, Sri Lanka was then called Ceylon had a secular constitution and though it was effective up to 1972 the rulers made up of hardliners, radicals and fundamentalists never missed the opportunity to work around it and finally took that fateful step to replace the secular constitution. There was no popular demand in the 1970’s to change the secular nature of the constitution, to give a special place to Buddhism; yet the constitution was changed for political convenience, at a time when economic considerations were paramount for the people.
Bitter Truth is it created a minefield for Sri Lanka and the rest is now history and today marked the tenth anniversary of ending the civil war in 2009 and that saw many people mourn genuinely for the loss of their loved ones or victims known to them. Sri Lanka is a multi-racial and multi-ethnic country that has with independence a multi-party system, yet politics is dominated by power-hungry political groups most of whom are inseparably knotted to corrupt extreme elements that does not acknowledge the reality that the island is made up of diverse communities with diverse cultures and their ethnic and religious identities are deeply overlapped.
True there were two past rulers, who were exceptions the first was Dudley Senanayake and the second was Ranasinghe Premadasa and both were practicing Buddhists are to this day respected by all the ethnic and economic minority communities. Thus the failure of the bulk of Sri Lankan rulers to respect the differences between its ethnic and religious communities was against the teachings of Gautama Buddha, who has said “Never try to defeat people, just win their Hearts” has divided the island nation. Earlier in 2015, when the present government was voted in to power, a rare window of opportunity came its way to work with moderates and progressives of all communities to isolate and weaken the hardliners, the radicals and the fundamentalists by producing a constitution fit for all communities living in this multi-ethnic and multi-religious country. But the government frittered away that opportunity and the tragedy and the danger of today stem from that unforgivable failure is of great concern to the people of this island nation.
The classical Puranas divide the world history into four yuga (age) as Satya Yuga or Golden Age, the Treta Yuga or Silver Age, the Dvapara Yuga or Bronze Age and the Kali Yuga or Iron Age and the general understanding is that Kali Yuga the age of strife and conflict is what is said to be running now and it the time of warfare, murder, mayhem, social disintegration, enslavement, degeneration, poverty, death and destruction. It is said that the rulers, who governs the yuga for that country and today Somalia, Syria, Yemen and Iraq which are all in deep Kali Yuga. Whereas India is ascending out of Kali Yuga into Dvapara yuga and Australia and New Zealand are in Satya Yuga, while Sweden in Satya Yuga can be considered as a country descending into Dvapara yuga.
Accordingly, it is fair to say that Sri Lanka is presently in the worst age of Kali Yuga and the present Sri Lankan leaders as all are fortunate to be Buddhist, on this Wesak Day it is the wish of the ruled that their leaders follow the teachings of Lord Buddha by putting to practice Buddha Dharma to prevent the country from deteriorating any further. May this Vesak be a time of reflection, peace and happiness for all Sri Lankan.
Northern Breeze 