It is nothing strange that this government which is committed to Buddhist Sinhala extremism praises S.W.R.D.Bandaranaike, who passed the Sinhala only act and paved the way for racial religious extremism in this country resulting in the present tragedy of the ethnic issue.

At this juncture, it will be appropriate to compare Sri Lanka with Singapore. Singapore got its independence from British Colonization in 1959. It was Lee Kuan Yew, who had been Prime Minister for 31 years until 1990, until he himself volunteered to leave politics.

He developed its country economically and built up a united country where there was coexistence of diverse races, religions and linguistic groups. It was he who gave the right direction to the country.

In the years 1925-26, it was S.W.R.D.Bandaranaike, who advocated federal system of government, which can offer devolution of power as the most suitable political system for this country. But in the mid 50’s, after 31 long years, he was determined to make Sinhala only as the official language within 25 hours.

Today, Singapore is a peaceful country because it recognized the legitimate aspirations of the minority communities and refrain from any form of oppression of the minority communities. That was the secret of success of Singapore.

In an interview, former Singapore Premier Lee Kuan Yew states that although the majority of the people in Singapore spoke Chinese, they made English as the medium of education. English continued to be the link language.

He has stated that if they had proclaimed Chinese, the language of the majority, as the official language, their country would have suffered politically and economically.

Citing Sri Lanka, he stated that having won independence the government made Sinhalese as the official language and deprived Tamils of their franchise. Thereafter, there has been war through out

Since the day Sri Lanka got independence, under the pretext of Buddhist revivalism, the Sinhale extremist forces raised their head and the whole country came under the influence of the thinking of majoritarianism.

While Sri Lanka suffered due to narrow parochial and communal politics, Singapore progressed due to its liberal national politics,that eschewed any oppression on racial religious or linguistic lines. Leaders of our country refuse to learn from history.

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