Women from the Malaiyaha Tamil community in Uva province of Sri Lanka. , Photo Credit: Meera Srinivasan
AReporters of the Daily News, we stick to the here and now – the things being said today, the events unfolding at this very moment. Social media is especially ruthless, with its constant updates sapping our attention spans and shortening it.
Likewise, almost every reporting assignment brings up something from the past. An important event, a leader or his or her actions, a consequential law, an unexpected promise, a bizarre anecdote, a policy move, or a media exposé – anything that shaped or influenced today’s realities.
May 21, celebrated annually as ‘International Tea Day’, marks 200 years since Sri Lanka’s Malayah Tamil community, who arrived from South India to work for the British in plantations in the island’s hill country, adopted a declaration for affirmative action. , While the declaration called for solutions, and decisive policy action, on a number of contemporary challenges, including the living and working conditions of property workers, the first point read: “We, as a community whose existence is a struggle, cannot forget our past.” resolve to remember and transfer memories to our 200 years of struggle and achievements for the next generation. ,
these lines immediately took me back A press conference in October 2019, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was elected president The following month, he was addressing the media for the first time declared presidential candidate Rajapaksa’s Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna. We questioned him on various political and economic issues. He appeared slightly jittery in response to some questions, particularly a follow-up question on Sri Lanka’s rights record. “You are all the time talking about the past, talk about the future. I am trying to become the future Sri Lankan president,” he said, asking us to “move on”.
More recently, families of Tamils killed during the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war paid respects to their loved ones on 18 May, the state authorities, as usual, observed the following day as ‘Victory Day’, soldiers Honored as war “heroes”. Foreign Minister Ali Sabri said in a tweet, “Today, we remember the historic day 14 years ago, when terrorism was defeated in our beloved Sri Lanka. On this pious day, we applaud those who # Sacrificed themselves selflessly in the name of peace and harmony. These #heroes did not fight for partition.” Many more from the Sinhala-majority south gave similar messages to the government and other interlocutors. As has been the practice for 14 years now, they made no mention of the thousands of civilians killed by the armed forces’ indiscriminate shelling, including those Areas were also included that had been declared “no fire zones”.
A few days later, on 21 May, the authorities noted ‘International Tea Day’ with celebratory messages on “Ceylon Tea”. Again, hardly any mention was made of the approximately 1.5 million people who work in the tea gardens, whose hard work goes into producing internationally renowned tea, while earning vital foreign exchange for the island.
This trend is not unique to Sri Lanka alone; This is a characteristic of those who have power everywhere. They have the luxury of reading history selectively, or not reading it at all. They have the power to stay silent on the parts that make them uncomfortable. They have the audacity to distort or even erase the parts they expose. They have the choice to remember or forget. But common people do not. And they won’t, because their lives, as they know and experience them today, are a continuation of their ancestors’, not a clean break. Remembering neglected histories is, in her case, also an act of resistance in the struggle to build a better future.
For journalists, context is important to the story we’re following today. And so, history is inevitable.
meera.srinivasan@thehindu.co.in