Time to restore image of communal harmony

Wijitha NAKKAWITA

A former Sunday Observer Deputy Editor Philip Fernando based in California USA called over a few days back to exchange views, mainly about the present socio-politico-economic state of the country.

As a senior journalist his main concern seemed to be the image of Sri Lanka abroad especially in view of the crushing defeat faced by the LTTE terrorist group now hemmed into a small pocket in the north.

He emphasized that a plethora of bad publicity, propagated by the terrorist sympathisers and front organisations had done the rounds especially in the Western countries but till recently successive governments in power had failed to project the true image of our people.

Those countries were not aware that the majority of Tamils in Sri Lanka, more than ever, were living peacefully and without harassment in the South among the Sinhalese.

What was needed therefore was to let the world have a glimpse into the true state of the country, the fact that the Tamils did not suffer in our country but lived like the other ethnic groups in peace in the South among the Sinhala majority.

This brings us back to the times of a few Tamil politicians who misled the Tamil youth to take up arms and to the halcyon days in the early 1970s when the Sinhalese and Tamils with other ethnic groups like the Muslims, Malays and Burghers lived side by side as equals though the Tamil people had certain grievances.

It was during the SLFP led government of 1970 that the University of Jaffna was built and Premier Sirimavo Bandaranaike went to Jaffna to declare the new campus open.

On that occasion in 1975 when she visited Jaffna she was accorded a rousing welcome by the Jaffna people, especially the wives of the Jaffna farmers at the Jaffna Town Hall.

The good ladies spread their long hair over the steps of the town hall like a carpet for the Premier to step on but in characteristic style she refused that unusual welcome with the remark “I cannot disgrace womanhood,” and asked the ladies to rise.

The organisers of the reception told Premier Sirimavo that the Jaffna farmers had become very rich due to her import substitution policies earning a good price for the potato, onion, chilli, vegetable and fruits and the wives of the farmers were grateful to her.

The pandals erected were embellished with banana, chilli, potato, onion and tomato grown by the Jaffna farmers a symbol of their prosperity and a token of their goodwill.

There was a very special man among the good people of Jaffna who stood out from the other farmers. It was Krishnaswamy the farmer from Urumpirai who had a fine vineyard with a luxuriant crop of grapes. He had brought a big basket full of freshly culled grapes as a present for Sirimavo Bandaranaike.

The warm friendship between the Sinhalese and Tamil people was in the very air. When he started growing grapes Krishnaswamy had brought the grape clippings from Israel and cultivated his vineyard taking great pains to make it very fertile.

He was one of the happiest among the Jaffna farmers and had treated the entourage of the premier with his grapes that had made him a very rich man.

When the Jaffna university was opened a new chapter on education was written for the people of the North where they always strive to give the best education to their children.

Yet behind the innocuous exterior the future killers and their godfathers were plotting the doom of the hardworking and conservative Tamil people of the North at that time. Even then the so-called ‘boys’ egged on by the former TULF leadership had begun to steal arms, rob banks or co-operatives and silence opposition.

A vast majority of the Tamil people abhorred violence. Among those engaged in sabotage and violence were such members of the TULF youth like Kasi Anandan or Senathirajah among others.

One night following the visit of Premier Sirimavo Bandaranaike the ‘boys’ broke into the vineyard of Krishnaswamy with sharp knives. Their mission was to cut the grape vines in the vineyard and destroy everything that enterprising farmer had done over for months. The mission completed the ‘boys’ dissolved into the night without a trace.

Krishnaswamy could not believe his eyes when as usual at dawn he came to the vineyard to find everything he had worked for destroyed. He became a broken man who from then on could not orient his thoughts.

What was the crime he had committed? To present a basket full of grapes to the Prime Minister. He lingered on for a few years after that and died of a heart attack as a pauper. That was one of the gifts the terrorists had given the enterprising people of the north.

The message we could give the other countries is that the majority was always prepared to encourage the Tamil people of the North to enterprise once again and sell their vegetable or fruit in the South or engage in their ventures in the North or the South.

The average man in the South and the North like the former Parliamentarian of the North, P. Kandiah said should get to know one another and the time to get to know had come.

And as Philip Fernando said the image of the country that had also been destroyed like Krishnaswamy’s vineyard will be grown again, nurtured and restored to its pristine image, as the pearl of the Indian ocean as the vast majority among all three ethnic groups wish for peace and amity.