Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

10 November 2018

Truth becomes true law in Sri Lanka

Sri Lankan politicians have confirmed that they cannot conduct themselves as per their own Constitution. The first and the highest citizen is the litmus test about the workability of the Constitution. It is obvious that the President did not make a strong contribution to the Constitution nor that he mentally respected those who did. Hence the current state of affairs at the top.

When we fail to respect the law and invest in it – our Truth becomes the law. This would usually include some investment in law at the junior level. To be fair to Mr Sirisena he is in this current situation because he was tempted by being the President and therefore the boss of his then boss Mr Mahinda Rajapaksa. Mr Sirisena may have the senior position status ; but the one who can work that position is Mr Rajapaksa. The Tamil parallel of that in Northern Sri Lanka is that while Mr Wigneswaran held the position of Chief Minister, it was Ms Ananthi Sasitharan who had the LTTE power to work that position in current Northern Province which is ‘foreign’ to my generation. I had a dose of this demotion yesterday also when I rang the Registrar of Mallakam District Court in Northern Sri Lanka just to find out the progress of Due Process – and he said that I needed to come through our lawyer. He said that was the Judge’s order! In other words – in that court the Public will be ‘told’ by the Judges and lawyers. This eventually leads to internal divisions of the community served / led by the judiciary.

There are ‘rights’ and there are ‘benefits’. Those truly driven by rights would naturally unite and those truly driven by ‘benefits’ would naturally divide. This week I received emails inviting us to donate to prevent war-widows who were selling their kidneys to survive. The invitation came with the note shown above. It translates as one Mr Krishnapillai – the Minister’s special secretary having received Rs 200,000 from Mr Sripathi, to be handed over to Mrs Ananthi Sasitharan. The memory that my Truth invoked was that the then Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M G Ramachandran who earned big brother  status from LTTE leader  Prabhakaran received the kidney of a young relative. Money that does not go through common values of our positions, come with the true values. Hence the kidney sales by war widows who are the parallels of the poor relation of Mr MG Ramachandran.  

As of now, Mrs Sasitharan is yet to demonstrate  appropriate structures through which these donations would be processed to make them ‘Service’ to the whole.

This is the parallel of Mr Sirisena’s personal decision to make way for his former boss.

Now that we know that the law has been abandoned, we need to abide by the law that our own personal truth tells us. Each one of us has our own constitution as per our Truth. When we are marked ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ by that true law – we live in inner harmony.

Given that the global spotlight is directed towards Sri Lanka, it may be advisable to have elections rather than shame the President who was always lame duck. Big heart is needed by the UNP at this point in time, unless Mr Sirisena voluntarily steps down from his position. 

The President’s true law has marked him wrong in democracy.