{"id":90897,"date":"2019-06-30T15:53:36","date_gmt":"2019-06-30T22:53:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=90897"},"modified":"2019-06-30T16:11:24","modified_gmt":"2019-06-30T23:11:24","slug":"further-observations-on-the-public-lecture-did-japan-contribute-to-sri-lankas-independence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/06\/30\/further-observations-on-the-public-lecture-did-japan-contribute-to-sri-lankas-independence\/","title":{"rendered":"Further observations on the public lecture: Did Japan contribute to Sri Lanka\u2019s independence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Janaka Perera<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Having read the\nresponses to the article in ‘Lankaweb’ under the caption, \u2018Did Japan contribute\nto Sri Lanka\u2019s Independence,\u2019 I, as the writer who attended the public lecture\nand subsequent discussion at the Mahaweli Centre Auditorium, Colombo, on June\n24, wish to state the following.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the outset the Speaker Senaka Weeraratna said that the chief\npurpose of his talk was to explore an alternate version of history, which has\nbeen suppressed hitherto by mostly colonized minds that dominate the mass\nmedia, academia, and civil society in former colonies.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was commenting neither on Japan\u2019s actions in occupied\nterritories nor what they probably would have done if they had won the war. His\nmain focus was on the knock on effect of Japan\u2019s World War II role on European\ncolonies in Asia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Weeraratne further said that he visited Japan to deliver a\ntalk at the Japanese Parliament (Conference Room No. 101 of the Japanese Diet)\non the invitation of the Japanese \u2018Society for the Dissemination of Historical\nFact\u2019 to express gratitude to Japan. There he had said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/strong>I am here today not only to share my thoughts on\nwhat needs to be done to rectify a blatant historical injustice done to the\nleaders and people of Japan in the aftermath of the Second World War, through\nmanipulation of the media and the writing of history, but also to fulfill a\nlong overdue duty, as a Buddhist Sinhalese from Sri Lanka, as a representative\nof South Asia and a fellow Asian, to thank Japan for setting in motion a\nphenomenal process that brought about the liberation of Asia from Western\ncolonial domination.\u201d<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Weeraratna also made\nthe following points:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1<\/strong>)      He has taken up this cause to\nhelp re-write the narrative on how Sri Lanka gained independence in 1948 which\ncurrently is full of falsehoods and fake story lines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2<\/strong>)      He was NOT there to defend\nwar crimes of any nation be it Germany or Japan, but at the same time to draw\nattention as a lawyer, to abuse of due process at both the Nuremberg and Tokyo\nWar Crimes Trials. It was Victor\u2019s Justice. High Grade \u2018Lynch Mob\u2019 mindset was\nthe description of an American Jurist at what happened at the Tokyo Trials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3<\/strong>)       Sri Lanka gained\nindependence not solely due to internal factors but largely due to external\nfactors such as the attack by Japan on Pearl Harbour in 1941 which precipitated\na series of events leading to Subash Chandra Bose, Indian Patriot and\nnationalist, who formed an Indian National Army (INA) comprising 100, 000\nIndian soldiers, that joined hands with the Japanese Army to fight the British\nat Impahl and Kohima in 1944.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4<\/strong>)      Though the Japanese and INA\nlost these Battles, the British decision to try INA soldiers for high treason\nafter the war at the Red Fort in Delhi, backfired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5<\/strong>)      It led to the possibility of\nan Indian Mutiny in the British Indian Army, Navy and Air Force on a scale\nbigger than what happened in 1857.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6<\/strong>)      Riots in Bombay in 1946 with\nthe likelihood of riots spreading to all over India under the mantle of Indian\nnationalists and freedom fighters, were very high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7<\/strong>)      The British then realized\nthat the game was up, and with the British economy drained of resources due to\ncontinuous war and British people tired of unceasing wars, and not in a mood to\nengage in further battles, Clement Attlee, the then British Labour Prime\nMinister, wisely decided to grant independence to India and Pakistan, which\ntook effect on August 15, 1947.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8<\/strong>)      Sri Lanka received independence on February 4,\n1948 as a \u2018Knock on\u2019 effect of grant of independence to India on August 15,\n1947.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9<\/strong>)      The dates \u2018February 4, 1948 and August 15, 1947\u2019\nare intertwined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10<\/strong>)  There would have been no independence to Sri Lanka\non February 4, 1948 if India did not receive independence on August 15,\n1947. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

        This is the true\nposition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

11<\/strong>)   India was the Jewel in the British Imperial\nCrown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

12<\/strong>)   We in Sri Lanka gained freedom on a platter,\nwithout a fight, without in any way troubling the foreign occupier. There was\nno bloodshed in Sri Lanka to gain freedom in 1948.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

13<\/strong>)   But there was bloodshed outside Sri Lanka. It\nwas shed by other Asians to get rid of European occupation of vast swathes of\nAsian Territory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

14<\/strong>)   It was largely these blood sacrifices, mostly\nJapanese soldiers and joined by the sacrifices of other Asians from India,\nIndonesia, Burma, Vietnam, Malaya etc. that finally sealed the fate of European\ncolonialism in Asia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

15<\/strong>)     We were lucky. We never really\nfought on battlefields (after 1818 and 1848). However, we must be grateful to\nthose who fought for our freedom outside our country under the slogan \u2018Asia for\nAsians\u2019 led by Japan, and contributed towards us gaining freedom from the\nBritish Raj <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Weeraratne\u2019s is a point of view that gives\nfood for thought on a critical but yet balanced perception of what happened\nduring the WW II years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Janaka Perera Having read the responses to the article in ‘Lankaweb’ under the caption, \u2018Did Japan contribute to Sri Lanka\u2019s Independence,\u2019 I, as the writer who attended the public lecture and subsequent discussion at the Mahaweli Centre Auditorium, Colombo, on June 24, wish to state the following. At the outset the Speaker Senaka Weeraratna said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-janaka-perera"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90897","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=90897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90897\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}