Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

27 October  2019

DEEPAVALI & EASTER SUNDAY

Today we celebrate Deepavali. As per my understanding,  Deepvali is the day on which Divine Krishna used the  Sudarshana Chakram (Sudarshanam =  Sacred vision;  Chuckram = wheel) to eliminate Narakasuran (Massive brawn power). Those Christians who believe in the power of the Absolute / Ultimate Reality – today is Easter Sunday. Narakasuran is the power that was killed on Good Friday.

In Sri Lanka the timing of the Easter Bombing  confirmed celebration of Physical Power over Soul Power that unites all.

Did the People who elected the President cause the Easter Bombings? Like Narakasuran, were the People using the ‘seen’ and the ‘heard’ – i.e. – majority power - to elect a President like themselves?

In his Daily Mirror article ‘Sirisena’s presidential scorecard’ – Ranga Jayasuriya reveals his conclusion as follows:

[However, five years ago when he ran for presidency, his backers of the UNP-led UNF, and the voters who elected him did so not for his gamesmanship, but for lack of it. They were in a desperate bid to end an all-powerful and increasingly-authoritarian reign of Mahinda Rajapaksa.]

Taking that as a true assessment of Mr Sirisena’s makeup – what are the People entitled to expect out of that  Presidency? – one without gamesmanship? Does this not mean that the voters elected a non-Executive President? Did the People not abolish the Executive Presidency by electing Mr Sirisena?

Ranga Jayasuriya goes on to contradict himself as follows:

[Abolition of the executive presidency as some of the windbags in the cocktail circuits, now advocate would have led to nerve-wrecking political paralysis in a country where politics is increasingly-polarised and fragmented]

The People being the source of real power – did abolish through election and Mr Sirisena did deliver non-executive leadership. Prime Minister Wickremesinghe is reported to have stated as follows:

[“We were able to win the political crisis as a result of the 19^th amendment to the constitution.”]

The political crisis happened due to loss of intellectual power. Power takes the form of the person through whom it is recognized. This was why Mr Sirisena needed the UNP to win against Mr Rajapaksa. But he lost it when he did not ‘get’ what he thought he would – he lost that power of the UNP. His mind then went back to being under the papered power of Mr Mahinda Rajapaksa who like Ravana – the king of Lanka was clever but was driven by victory instead of ownership of the whole. That is a local, low level measure based on the visible outcomes.

The Sunday Observer article ‘Presidential Election 2019: Which way will the North swing?’ confirms this as follows:

[As the SLPP also made its presence felt in the Vavuniya district, W. Nandini from Mahakachchakudiya, Vavuniya seems to have already made up her mind to support its candidate. One of the oldest Sinhala villages in the district, it was once considered to be a border village during the War. Nandini like many others in her village is suffering from Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD). According to her the villagers believe CKD has been caused by the groundwater of the region. As villager after villager fell victim to the incurable disease, consecutive governments have failed to provide solutions to the drinking water problem faced by them. “Recently they installed two water filters but those too remain closed on certain days. When open, the queues are long,” she said. As for treatment, villagers have to constantly travel to either the Vavuniya or Cheddikulam hospitals.

The villagers also claim the Sinhalese are often marginalized in the area. “It is difficult to obtain services even in government institutions,” she noted. She also said they are often overlooked when it comes to employment opportunities. “There is no one to speak for us,” she said.

According to Nandini, the hardships faced today are pale in comparison with the war torn years.

“Many young men in our villages died in the war after joining the forces,” she said. Seeing fellow villagers being killed by the LTTE and becoming trapped in their village, Nandini says the majority will vote for Gotabaya Rajapaksa in honour of Mahinda Rajapaksa who they credit with ending their suffering.

The sentiments seem similar in the newer Sinhala villages such as Namalgama in Vavuniya. Created during the Rajapaksa regime, residents in these villages had arrived from the South.]

Nandini is not conscious of the suffering of  the thousands in the camps of Chettikulam in 2009 due to the ‘cleverness’ of Mr Rajapaksa. When as Ranga Jayasuriya points out – the country gets polarised and fragmented – each group thinks at its own level using its own measures. To the emotionally driven – the whole picture is not visible. They recognize only what their eyes see and their ears hear. It is not passed through a common principle or their own Truth. That Truth is that their own young men died in the war - after joining the forces – means that Mr Rajapaksa did not alert them to the risk involved but rather excited their minds that winning would make them war heroes. It is the same phenomenon through which Mr Sirisena was made the Common candidate – all because he lacked the intellectual balance of logic.

As a grassroots person I identify with the following expression from the University of Jaffna:

[As for what sways the people of the North to vote for a particular candidate, Senior Lecturer of the Department of Linguistics at the University Saminathan Wimal had an interesting observation. “I do not believe that people cast their votes based on what the TNA says. Instead I believe that what the TNA says is based on people’s ideas,” he said.

According to Wimal, people in the North still cast their vote based on ideologies. “A small fraction might look in for some physical benefits. But the majority vote is based on ideologies and activities of political parties. I think it is a unique status in the North,” he said.]

The above seems logical to me because those who are discriminated against – stop expecting benefits from custodians of power. This is why the votes of majority who went through greater hardship to achieve what they have,  has values that are stronger than the sum of the individual votes. The power of the difference is the life of the community. Without that life – the value is limited to the physical only. The more we shared with the discrimination victims followed by war victims as if we suffered – the stronger the value of our community vote. That is how the Diaspora strength is shared. This in turn takes shape when that greater power is needed – as happened in 2018 Political Crisis.