Sri Lanka is learning so late; India needs to learn fast and not tread that path

I got an opportunity to attend the 77th independence day celebrations of Sri Lanka at the WIPO in Geneva. I am a Tamil from India and I am married to a Sinhalese Sri Lankan. We have been living in Geneva since 2013 with our two kids. We attend this function every year and I am noticing some interesting changes in the last two years.

From 2023 — They started playing the national anthem in Tamil too

From 2024 — A moderator who can speak Tamil

In 2025 — After Ayubowan(Sinhalese) and Vanakkam(Tamil), they started saying Salam Alaikkum (for Muslims).

While these are all positive changes and needs to be welcomed and appreciated, I can’t stop thinking about how the country could have benefitted if they had this ‘inclusivity’ 70 years back.

Sri Lanka was №2 in Asia next only to Japan in the 60s. A low income neighbourhood in Colombo is called Korea even today because Korea used to be so poor. Sri Lanka had high literacy, great health standards and high quality of life. In less than 50 years, the fortunes turned and Korea became №2 and Sri Lanka went bankrupt recently. What happened?

The Sinhala Budhhist majority wanted to assert their superiority over the minority Tamils and created a ‘one language’ policy in 1956 that deprived Tamils of educational and employment opportunities. Continuous victimization of minorities led to an armed conflict with the emergence of LTTE on the Tamil side. The conflict was triggered by the Black July 1983 ethnic cleansing when over 20,000 Tamils were murdered in retaliation to LTTE’s killing of seven Sri Lankan soldiers.

Since 1983, 10s of 1000s of Tamils have migrated and sought asylum in Europe and many other countries. There was a bloody and nasty civil war that resulted in the death over 100,000 people on both sides. The country became unsafe and violent. The war destroyed its economy, society and everything.

After the war ended in 2009, there were attempts to bridge the fault lines between the communities and things are definitely improving. The 2024 elections has given them a new and inclusive President Anura Kumara Dissanayake who speaks the language of unity and inclusion which is promising. If only, the leaders of the past spoke this language, this country would be a top 10 country in the world today.

Sri Lanka’s powerful neighbour and my country India is traversing this wrong path over the last 10 years where minorities are victimized and the majority wants to assert its cultural superiority. A lot of common people proudly call themselves ‘Hindu’, constantly socialize anti-muslim messages in whatsapp / social media and what were aberrations or fringe actions are now part of the mainstream. Another striking trend is the emergence of propaganda movies celebrating the glorious Hindu past and saffronisation of everything since the BJP came to power in 2013.

All these aggression and superiority had already manifested in the form of hate violence against minorities in the form of cow vigilantism, beef violence etc. Things started like this in Sri Lanka and then, at one point in 1983, it flashed into an uncontrollable conflict between the communities.

Once violence spreads in the society, it will be hard to curtail it. When one’s own family members get affected by the violence, then people will realize the impact of their actions. But that will be too late.

India is a light to the world. It is probably the greatest idea on the planet that so many people from so many diverse cultures and languages can come together under a common national umbrella. Its beauty is its diversity. I hope we celebrate the diversity and be inclusive & tolerant to the diverse set of faiths, practices and rituals.

Let us be proud of that unity in diversity.