Reviewed by ASIF ANWAR ALIG
Sri
Lanka: The New Country, by Padma Rao Sundarji, HarperCollins Publishers
(India), Noida -201301, Year2015, 322pp, Indian Rupees 499, Soft.
ooks
on post-war Sri Lanka often bring variegated perspective on island nation. Padma
Rao Sundarji illustrates a stimulating picture in Sri Lanka: The New Country.
Most books themed on this country portray grim scenarios that engulfed it for three
decades. This travelogue cum post-war reporting vividly recounts the observation
of a journalist on the troubled region which strived for peace. It is a firsthand
assessment of Sri Lankan masses gaining self-confidence after encountering the gory
scenes.
A spellbind reportage on Sri Lanka at its best by German
publication Der Spiegel’s former South Asia correspondence, this book claims to
have carried detailed versions of reports on the island nation that would have
often been trimmed to suit to the Western mindset. Impelling reports found room
in this book.
She spoke her mind while presenting the core idea of a nation. They
are the scenarios from war-torn Sri Lanka to its emergence as a new country coming
out of hounding past. Her interactions with Sri Lankan army officers, former
LTTE cadres and locals are parts of the fact-finding reportages. Balanced reports
defy ‘defending some and blaming other’ notion.
Post-war
Sri Lanka is still a center of attention in the context of military reeling
under the alleged human rights abuses during the final phase of brutal war which
ended in May 2009 to rout out the Tamil Tigers rebels. Author’s travels around the
country on many occasions including recent one for this book are meticulous firsthand
reports and independent observations. She witnessed this country coming out of the
“darkness of a long, murderous and frightening tunnel” to the ray of hope. She witnessed
socio-political transition in the lives of common Sri Lankans in recent past.
Readers
get a dose of history which the author brings as an unbound treasure of facts on
Sri Lanka especially its glorious past. She laments that civil war spanning for
three decades crushed region’s historic gleam. Though boom is vivid now the sharp-eyed
journalist converses with Sri Lankan Tamils to know reason of their angers over
a senseless war LTTE waged hypothetically for them. They believe that Indian Tamils’
hues and cries for them are but unworkable hoaxes.
Insights
into scenes in Jaffna which author visualizes as a foreign correspondent are
vigorous. She interviews many people—literally everybody from those brought the
idea of war to people causing the deadliest war to sufferers from this war. An
interview of one woman Laxmi out of the countless poor victims whose lamentations
have been narrated brings a vivid picture. They speak how LTTE would pick to sacrifice
adolescent boys and girls for an aimless “cause” that steadily traumatized the masses
just to tarnish country’s image. They were forcibly made fighters to die as human
shields. Inside story on countless missing youths whose whereabouts are still
not known has been questioned in this book.
Persuading
Sri Lankan military officers to explain the other side of the story of brutality
believed to be allegedly done by them on the civilians, she repeatedly coaxes them
during her meetings with them. Interviewing former Sri Lankan president Percy
Mahendra ‘Mahinda’ Rajapaksa to know the exact scenario, unlike the world media’s
prejudices on post-war Sri Lanka, authenticate her claims. Personal visits to places
like LTTE jails where cadres accused of betraying were locked or executed besides
inside stories from ordinary Sri Lankan Tamils encountering the pain of their children
abducted from schools to countless other horrific tales are ghastly flashbacks.
This
book also mentions the hypocrisies of LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran who lived
luxurious life in underground air-conditioned bunkers and availed best facilities
in contrast to the poor Tamil families often slaughtered in the name of a promise
for “their own land.” The author points out several such discomforting facts related
to the war. Many former LTTE guerrillas are still considered outcastes in the Sri
Lankan societies. Military officials reveal during interviews that ordinary
Tamils would accept them back into their folds sooner.
Bringing
other perspectives like pro-LTTE Tamil Diaspora in Western world with their flimsy
imaginations for revival of the mystic Tamil Eelam for Sri Lankan Tamil causes
she has much to narrate. One senior army official emphasized during conversation
with the author that until such ideologies circulate soldiers can’t quit the north
and eastern Sri Lanka which is now prospering. Former LTTE cadres including ex-chief
international financier cum weapons procurer K. Pathmanathan (KP) insisted that
such ideologies would only damage the flourishing Sri Lanka.

As
frequent visitor to Sri Lanka the author saw transformations hence agrees to that
it is emerging as a new country now. Rapid developments in the regions that were
once war zones strengthen this claim. With the eradication of LTTE countless
Sri Lankan youths born during or after the war’s eruption have a newer
confidence. This book though highlights other set of problems which halt country’s
growth especially Buddhist suppressions of other religious minorities.
Likewise,
steps taken by the army to destroy LTTE war memorials in Jaffna weren’t prudent.
She agreed with army that it was time to move ahead to build a new country rather
than keeping the monstrous memories from the past which could be rather erased
at the earliest.

It
is a seminal book on contemporary Sri Lanka. It is a knowhow of a country as an
outcome of author’s research and regular travels over the years. It brings many
facts to learn about a nation that dreamed to obliterate a past to build future.
Inundated with author's opinion and arguments the book has done justice in
portraying Sri Lankan diaspora. Author’s travels prove cursory guidance for the
future travellers. Her conversations and interactions with the common Sri
Lankans provide a glimpse of nation’s current state of the affairs besides golden
history.
Author’s perspective about Sri Lanka distinguishes it from
the rest books published in the wake of the 2009 LTTE liquidation. She
justifies the theme on island nation through reporting the ethnic conflict and
thereafter. Exposures of hers are helpful for readers and future travellers for
an awareness of the true emerald of an island nation—Sri Lanka.
This review was first published in CeylonToday on 19 June 2016.
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