President Anurakumara Dissanayake has launched a new initiative as well as taken the first step in the new year to cleanse the Island. As far as a clean country in South Asia is concerned Singapore remains exemplary. The late legendary leader of Singapore not only adopted policies to keep his country physically clean. The great leader also ensured that his country stood above all petty racial, religious and political differences.

Singapore President Tharman Shunmugaratnam of Lankan origin remains an exemplary figure to be pointed out how Singapore respects the minorities despite the Chinese remains majority in the country. 

From the first executive President of Sri Lanka J.R.Jeyewardene onwards, all his successors cited Singapore as an exemplary country to be followed as far as stances taken in politics, ethnic harmony as well as the economy of the country. However all former Lankan leaders who came to power failed badly in living up to their Singapore dream and hardly they did anything to live up to the expectations of the countrymen.

Therefore in this backdrop the new President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has launched a new initiative to keep the country clean and the initiative has been named as `Green Lanka’. The new initiative is an appreciative endeavor as far as the country’s hygienic issues are concerned. However the Illankai Tamil Arasu Katchchi (ITAK) leader and Parliamentarian S.Sritharan responding to the President’s new initiative has commented that cleansing the politics by respecting and fulfilling the political aspirations of the minorities is the need of the hour. 

Parliamentarian and the leader of the premier Tamil political party ITAK’s response to President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s new initiative is appropriate. From the time Sri Lanka gained independence from the British, ethnic crisis remains a thorny issue in the Island. In the fifties Sri Lanka remained politically and economically a strong country. Even the Malaysian and the Singaporean leaders admired the quality of the country in the past. However the ethnic rivalry between the major ethnicities and the policy adopted to prioritize Sinhala language and Buddhism by isolating other religions and other minorities had initially led to political crisis and later leading the country to suffer with a civil war which lasted for nearly four decades.

ITAK leader S.Sritharan commenting on President Anurakumara Kumara Dissanayake’s new initiative said that first of all a clean political thinking was vital to maintain the stability both politically as well as economically in the country. 

The ITAK leader by making this comment had reminded the need of successfully implementing the 13th Amendment to the Constitution to the present leadership of the country. 

`A horse could be taken to a lake to quench its thirst. But it’s up to the animal to drink the water’. Therefore the ITAK leader can remind the present leadership of the Island on fulfilling the political aspirations of the Tamils in the country. But it is the leader in power and his Government has to take the decisions to keep the country’s political stance clean and unpolluted by keeping away all petty differences. 

On the other hand it is for the first time the premier political party in the Tamil political forum ITAK had suffered immensely in the General election last year. Several of its former Parliamentarians who were even the leaders of the former militant outfits had faced a setback at the Parliamentary polls last year. It is interesting to note C. Illankovan , the  grandson of the founder of the ITAK  late SJV Chelvanayakam had even lost in the parliamentary polls last year.

The political observers and even leader of the All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC) Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam has  sympathized with the present state of the ITAK and pointed out that the party’s role in the Lankan Tamil politics is inevitable. It has been observed that within the ITAK several issues have emerged and its future remains in the Tamil political scene unpredictable. Therefore being the leader of the ITAK it is important for Parliamentarian S. Sritharan to put the party in order before reminding the country’s President Anurakumara Dissanayake to cleanse the country’s politics. 

The ITAK’s party symbol is `house’. So the political observers have sarcastically mentioned that the `house is now in disarray and in total mess’. So while urging the present government led by President Anurakumara Dissanayake to cleanse the country’s politics, ITAK leadership must see whether the party is in order to call for the country’s leadership to fulfill the political aspirations of the people it represents. Since failing badly in handling the North and East political issues both moderately and through a long standing armed struggle, the ITAK and other Tamil political parties are now compelled to rethink about their political stances to deal with the National People’s Power (NPP) which is now the ruling party in the country.

The ITAK and other Tamil political outfits in the country must act in a manner to streamline their political plans with genuine interests and not with the intention of looking into their selfish motivations. 

By Ananth Palakidnar – 2.1.2025