{"id":100596,"date":"2020-03-31T14:35:07","date_gmt":"2020-03-31T21:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=100596"},"modified":"2020-03-31T14:35:07","modified_gmt":"2020-03-31T21:35:07","slug":"discrimination-that-the-sinhalese-face-in-the-north-and-the-east","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/03\/31\/discrimination-that-the-sinhalese-face-in-the-north-and-the-east\/","title":{"rendered":"Discrimination that the Sinhalese face in the North and the East"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chanaka Bandarage<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

After the war, all governments have\nmiserably failed to settle the displaced Sinhalese (numbering about 50,000) in\nthe Northern province. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0In the past five years, the governments have embarked on a massive \u2018Sanhindiyawa\u2019 campaign, placing lots of onus on the Sinhalese to embrace Tamil culture and Tamil way of life. For this, a ministry of National Language and Social Integration was created. It ran racist policies against the Sinhalese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

State-owned TV and radio stations promoted \u2018Sanhindiyawa\u2019 day and night in the Sinhala dominated South. Even on Sinhala TV channels, cheap Thamilnadu movies were shown with Sinhala subtitles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the then government was very keen to\nestablish the Northern Provincial Council (in 2013), Wigneswaran became the\nChief Minister and his provincial government adopted racist policies one after\nanother, against the Sinhalese. \nWigneswaran implied that he did not want the Sinhalese visiting the\nNorth even on short stays; he objected to the Sinhalese worshiping Buddha\nstatutes in the North placed in the open. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Jaffna railway station failed to\nannounce the arrival of the train from Colombo in Sinhala. The writer is informed\nthat Wigneswaran had directed that massive billboards in the province (including\non A9) must not display a single Sinhala word. Even some premier Sri Lankan\nBanks who had their headquarters in Colombo had to advertise in the billboards sans\nSinhala. In North\/Jaffna, Sinhala was purposely omitted from many street name\nboards.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Madhu Road, Mannar, Sinhalese living\nthere were deprived of the only Sinhala school that they had for more than 30\nyears. That was close down in January 2019. Sinhala people in Mannar (Madhu\nRoad, Nari Kadu and Seelawathura), have no cemetery to bury\/cremate their dead.\nThey take the corpses to Anuradhapura.  The\nHindus would not allow them to use their cemeteries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shops in the newly built shopfront near the Madhu church were given to Tamils and some Muslims only.\u00a0 This happened despite the Sinhalese\u2019 request that they also are given at least a shop or two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Eastern province (Trincomalee) the Sinhalese\nwere chased away from the paddy lands that they had cultivated for several\nyears (in 2015).  These lands were later\nallocated to Tamils who were brought to the area only recently.  The Order to do this had been given by a\nprominent Eastern Province based Tamil politician who is much venerated in the\nSouth.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tamil divisional secretaries work to block the Sinhalese from resettling in the North (former Northern Sinhala settlers).\u00a0 In Navatkuli, Sinhalese who were engaged in small businesses were deprived of continuing with their activities. A person running a breakfast food cart (string-hoppers) was unfairly stopped from his operation. A Sinhalese man, well experienced in making ice cream in Anuradhapura, was prevented from starting the same business in his Navatkuli home. These Sinhalese are mostly 2nd<\/sup> or 3rd<\/sup> generation Sinhalese, who speak fluent Tamil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are instances where newly arrived\nSinhalese have been discouraged from settling in the North by Tamil Grama Seva\nNiladharis.   In the Tamil speaking areas\nof the North, all government offices work only in Tamil language.  Those who do not understand Tamil face huge\ndifficulties as a result. But, in the South, Tamil is strictly enforced as a\nNational Language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the previous government forced\nSanhindiyawa down upon the Southerners. Due to this many people (especially the\nchildren) have lost their patriotic feeling about the country. Sinhala songs\nsuch as \u2018Me Sinhala Apage Ratai, Hela Derane Kandula Susuma, \u2018Api Okkoma\nRajawaru\u2019 etc were removed from radio broadcasting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The previous President proudly announced\nthat his government reduced the acreage held by the Army in the North and the\nEast from 84,523 to 14,769 \u2013 a reduction of \n83%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the East, large numbers of Buddhist archeological sites are being discovered regularly. None of the governments since the ending of the war have shown a keen desire to preserve them and identify them as Sinhala Buddhist cultural sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In order to satisfy the minorities and win their vote, Sinhala history has been distorted in history books. Children are now taught that Vijaya and Mahavansa maybe myths. That, Buddhism may have arrived in the country before the arrival of Ven Mahinda.\u00a0 The Sinhalese have been heavily indoctrinated to believe that King Ravana, a fictitious\/mythical character in Hindu books, had indeed existed in Sri Lanka, more than 4,000 years ago. This has given Tamils the opportunity to make the false claim that Ravana was a Tamil, thus they are the first arrivals of the country. Wigneswaran got in the bandwagon to state that King Devanampiyatisa was a Tamil and his correct name is Devanampiyatissam! Until about 20 years ago, Ravana was totally a non-entity in Sri Lankan history. The Great King, Dutu Gamunu, was described in a famous movie (produced mainly for the children) as \u2018Dushta Gamini\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given the acute land shortage in the South, the government must allow non-Tamils to live in the North and the East (1\/3 of the country). Those are the only areas where land is now freely available to live.\u00a0 The South is congested with Tamils (Wellawatta, Kotahena, Muttwal are just a few examples).\u00a0 There is nothing wrong with this, but the Sinhalese must also be allowed to live in the North and the East (currently they cannot seek properties even on lease). It is time that the government corrects this serious anomaly. All citizens should be allowed to live wherever they wish to live. This is a right enshrined in our Constitution<\/em> (Article 14 (1) (h). Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights<\/em> which Sri Lanka is a signatory also prescribes this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nwriter is an International Lawyer<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

srilankasupportgroup@bigpond.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chanaka Bandarage After the war, all governments have miserably failed to settle the displaced Sinhalese (numbering about 50,000) in the Northern province. \u00a0In the past five years, the governments have embarked on a massive \u2018Sanhindiyawa\u2019 campaign, placing lots of onus on the Sinhalese to embrace Tamil culture and Tamil way of life. For this, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chanaka-bandarage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100596\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}