ගාන්ධි නූතන ශ්රී ලංකාවට කැඳවා ගෙන ඒම (3)
Gandhi’s analysis of the crisis modern Sri Lanka faces and of the way to overcome it comes with his commentary on Sri Lankan history, and this instalment is his reading of the Portuguese and Dutch periods: the conversions, the Karava and Salagama communities, the Malays, and the taking of the Kandyan kingdom.
ශ්රී ලංකාවේ දෙමළ ජාතික අරගළය
A comprehensive historical analysis reflecting on the defeat of the LTTE and the 25-year armed struggle. Tracing the political history from the colonial Colebrooke-Cameron reforms to the post-independence Sinhala Only Act and university standardization policies, the author examines the root causes of the conflict. The piece argues that while discriminatory policies by Sinhalese governments fueled the crisis, Tamil political leaders also shared blame due to their utopian demands, lack of pragmatic foresight, and early reliance on ethnic nationalism.
චෞර රැජිනගේ රසකථා
Reading Upul Joseph Fernando’s interview with Chandrika Kumaratunga in Lankadeepa, Ivan takes apart the picture of a poor and blameless former president whose children travel by bus. She names two mistakes she knew were mistakes when she made them, and Ivan supplies the reason she does not: the appetite for power inside a system she and Ranil Wickremesinghe built between them.
A Separate Tamil Nation:- Prabhakaran Has Got It Wrong.
Ivan argues that the separate-state goal adopted at the Vaddukoddai conference was imprudent and has brought the Tamil people mostly loss: India’s opposition, a homeland claim covering a third of the island, rival Tamil groups driven to the army as traitors, and a population now largely living outside the North and East. A movement that cannot turn back from a wrong path, he writes, cannot succeed.
නිදහසේ උභතෝකෝටිකය
On the 54th Independence Day, Ivan laments that freedom won without struggle left Sri Lanka without the attitudes or institutions to hold its communities together. Contrasting its record with Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and India, he cites negative growth, 15 per cent inflation, war costs and some 100,000 deaths, and argues that no leader since 1948, Sinhala or Tamil, has won the respect of all communities.