Jayantha Liyanage Sinhaladeepa Jathika Peramuna

Dear Editor,
New Constitution should reinstate the historical rights of the Sinhala people
Six Tamil & Muslim political parties in their joint statement issued today (14.07.2026) has said that the present Government should enact a new constitution as promised before they come to power. Several National Newspapers has published that statement as their headlines.
The first constitution enacted prior to the independence was the Soulbury Constitution enacted in 1947. Thereafter, 1972 Republican constitution was enacted to regain the full independence from the British and 1978 constituent incorporated the executive Presidency.
In 1995, the then President Chandrika had tried to enact a new constitution, which was generally known as the ” Package” in order to satisfy the Tigers by proposing eight semi independent regions. Prof: G.L Peris, a Minster at that time prepared the new constitution. But some MPs of the then United National Party burnt the copies of the new constitution not because the country was going to divide into regions but because a clause was incorporated in order for Chandrika to extend her term of Presidency.
Thereafter, the next attempt to prepare a new constitution was in 2016 by the then Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe. But there was not opportunity for that constitution to move forward. During those two attempts, our party & many other Sinhala organizations either prepared or presented new constitutional proposals to the public.
Also, since the year 1985, Tamil political parties were asking the Sri Lankan governments to enact a new federal constitution without the unitary concept and by giving them powers of self-determination. After the defeat of the LTTE, separatist Tamil political parties formed alliances in order to get self-determination status through constitutional means. The only difference this time is that some Muslim political parties also joined the Tamil political alliances. The aim of the Muslim political is to get some special political powers for themselves through the efforts of the Tamil political parties,
The historical nation rights of the Sinhala people stared to get weaken since the year 1505 and officially ended in the year 1815. But there were no attempts in the year 1948 for its restoration, hence the present constitution does not state the name of the nation, Therefore, Sri Lanka is not a nation but only a state.
According to the present constitution, the Sinhala people & other ethnic groups are put into the same basket and the Sinhala people have been given only the status of the majority community status. Therefore, the historical nation rights of the Sinhala people are not yet restored.
Therefore, if the present government is going to enact a new constitution, then we propose the following, (1). Sri Lanka should be a Sinhala nation state (2). The state religion should be Buddhism.