Apologising for hurting sentiments of minorities is laudable

Recently, President Ranil Wickremesinghe apologised to the nation for the Gotabaya Rajapaksa administration’s decision to impose forced cremations during the COVID-19 pandemic. The ill-advised move caused immense emotional trauma, particularly to the Muslim community apart from clashing with the religious beliefs of Christians.

Wickremesinghe is perhaps the only Head of State/Government in our lifetimes to express regret over a policy implemented with the intention of discriminating a particular ethnic/religious community. Since becoming President, the veteran politician has made a number of decisions to raise the self-esteem of minorities as well as enhance coexistence among communities. The UNP Leader’s decision to recommence singing the national anthem in Tamil on the Independence Day ceremony is representative of his commitment towards creating a pluralistic and inclusive society. 

Doubts arise whether the notorious, COVID-related move was driven by science or political motivations. Gotabaya’s victory in 2019 was fuelled by anti-Muslim propaganda in the aftermath of the Easter Sunday attack and his predominantly chauvinistic supporters hailed the compulsory cremation of deaths from the disease. The controversial guideline issued by the health authorities were perceived by observers as an attempt to punish Muslims, whose overwhelming majority did not vote for Gotabaya at the last Presidential election. Unfortunately, at the initial stages of the pandemic when the number of deaths was low, not many from the majority community empathised with the pain and grief felt by the minority communities in the country who had to witness the dead bodies of their loved ones – in some instances, infants as young as just two months – being burnt contrary to their wishes.

The short-sighted policy affected Sri Lanka’s longstanding ties with the Middle-East States and other OIC members. The Government’s insensitive stance was internationally condemned – including by the UN – and the country’s reputation suffered a serious setback as a result. The severely admonished blunder was corrected only after the conclusion of the official visit of the then Pakistani Premier Imran Khan in February 2021.

Nevertheless, it was astonishing how few Muslim MPs elected from political parties that were established to safeguard the interest of their community crossed over to the Gotabaya-led regime and gifted them a two-third majority in seek of ministerial perks and other benefits amidst their constituents undergoing distress from a draconian regulation which undermined the core of their self-dignity and effectively treated them like second-class citizens.

State leaders expressing regret over discriminatory actions in the past against minority/marginalised citizens can be observed even internationally. The former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s apology to the nation in 2008 – which received considerable international attention – over the policies of successive governments that had resulted in the forcible removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, causing unbearable grief, suffering and loss to generations of indigenous citizens in Australia, was one such prominent instance in the contemporary global history.

In the Sri Lankan historical context, no community has been deprived and mistreated like Indian Tamils. Regrettably, the injustice meted out against them has not received adequate attention from policymakers, media, academia and the civil society. When the nation’s indigenous rulers gained political power in 1948, one of the initial legislative enactments was to pass the Ceylon Citizenship Act, which made Indian Tamils stateless persons. The endeavour to take away the citizenship of people who worked from dawn to dusk in tea and rubber plantations under trying circumstances was a monumental injustice in the annals of the nation’s civilisation. For decades, the regressive legislation profoundly affected the living standards of individuals who shouldered the major sources of foreign exchange income.

Since gaining independence, the Sri Lankan State has expended its time and resources towards sidelining ethnic and religious minorities instead of building an inclusive and harmonious society in which people from diverse backgrounds coexist with each other unlike admirable nations like Singapore which have thrived on the foundations of diversity and meritocracy.