JVP-led NPP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake said on Saturday that post-Independent Sri Lanka was led astray by politicians playing the ethnic card to muster votes.

Anura Kumara

Addressing the NPP Women’s Convention in Matara, Dissanayake said: “We have no other option but to rise as a single nation. We never had a national movement comprising all communities thinking as a single nation. Prior to its Independence India had a very strong national movement.

It is that national identity built by the likes of Nehru, Gandhi, Chandra Bose and Patel overarching communal differences that has helped India to attain its development goals in engaging in space exploration.

“Japan, which was flattened during World War II, could rise to become an economic super power because its people thought of it as a single nation. The US made use of nationalism in its struggle against the British and has become a world superpower. In Sri Lanka, there has been no such movement. When we speak of nationalism we still have to talk of our forefathers in the times of 1818 and 1848 rebellions. We have had no national heroes since then. We have no Nehrus, Gandhis and Patels. When India produced such national leaders, we had Stevens, Junius Richards, Ridgeways and Solomon Diases.

“We never had an independence struggle to awaken the Sri Lankan nation. Instead our leaders thought only of self-interest and they opted to the strategy of setting ethnic communities against one another. That was the political culture they nurtured because it helped them stay in power for short periods. They never wanted to create a national identity – a pan Sri Lankan identity overarching communal and religious differences. This is where we got it wrong and it is the mistake that we should rectify because without that thinking as a single nation, we would never be able to march forward from the present crisis to develop this nation.”

NPP MP Dr. Harini Amarasuriya, NPP National Executive member Sunil Handunnetti, NPP National Executive member and Women for Rights Chairperson Saroja Savithri Paulraj, Socialist Youth Union and Matara District leader Malsha Amasha also addressed the rally.