Today we (don’t) celebrate 40 years of independence

I didn’t know much about holidays when I was 6 years old.  I knew the days of the week, but I never counted the days thinking of a school-free Saturday or Sunday.  ‘Weekend’ was a known word but not something that was important.  My mother woke me up 7 days of the week and wake-up time was the time she woke me up. ‘School days’ were the days she hurried to get me to brush my teeth. That much I knew.

There were Poya days and other holidays and they were not anticipated with any extra relish.  So it was unlikely that I found anything special when a Tuesday in the month of May in the year 1972 turned out to be a holiday.   I didn’t go to school that day.  The next day, Wednesday, was when I encountered ‘strange’.  I entered Royal Junior School from the Kumaratunga Munidasa Mawatha side, then as now better known as ‘Thurstan Road’ and proceeded towards the Navarangahala, skirting the school ground to get to my class, 2F.  There was a strange structure between the Navarangahala and the ground, an elegantly constructed platform.  What it was, I got to know, only when I got home and saw the Daily News.  I can’t remember the headline, but I remember inquiring from my father, a civil servant, what it was all about and he explained.

That was the day we won our political freedom.   Until that day a lady called Elizabeth Alexandra Mary, aka Queen Elizabeth II, was the official head of state.  That ‘head’ or ‘headness’ shall we say was the final fetter of political subjugation.  It was ceremoniously torn asunder on May 22, 1972, the day that we got our first Republican Constitution. 

The occasion, if not the day, was made to be remembered by a commemorative stamp with the simple word ‘Janarajaya’ or ‘Republic’ written against a backdrop of a pretty picture of a sunrise.  That stamp was around for long enough, following the earlier ‘unmistakables’ of a bunch of king-coconuts and a bluish stamp of S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, which was 10 cents and later 15 (over a crossed ‘10’). 

The political importance of that day was unceremoniously erased in 1978, when the UNP reverted to the colonial ‘Independence Day’, February 4^th and for a few years May 22 was re-named ‘National Heroes Day’.  I can’t remember if it was a holiday even.  All I know is that May 22 was systematically erased from the public consciousness. 

The power of that erasure is such that I had forgotten about it until I saw a poster put out by the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) commemorating the day we became a republic.  I know that commemoration and remembrance are not as important as the living of independence and a truly vibrant republic, but to the extent that we are a dependency that doesn’t seem to realize the fact or even care about it, and that our republic character is only evident in its breach, it seemed relevant to reflect on what May 22 meant. 

Let’s keep it to a few relevant facts.  First, to the extent that even formal ‘independence’ matters, February 4^th is but precursor to and not the deal itself.  Too much is made of it, especially since May 22^nd is ignored completely.  Secondly, it is the best ‘annual moment’ to discuss the dimensions of our independence.  We have no reason to indulge in self-congratulation because we are woefully dependent economically and have by and large been satisfied in letting others blueprint our development strategies -- policy packages which only further the interests of the blueprinters and not ours, ironically serving to further entrench dependency.  That condition of fettering, indeed, is what makes us most vulnerable when international bad boys (such as the USA, UK and the EU) needle us with preposterous charges and engage in insufferable arm-twisting. 

A gross blunder was made on that day.  Perhaps it was an innocent error by decision-makers of the day who knew little about history.  Then again, it could have been a deliberate slip on those who knew history very well and since fact rebelled against their outcome-preferences deliberately glossed over it.  On that day we ceased being Ceylon and became Sri Lanka.  What was not said at the time and said in hushed tones for fear of being name-called by those adept in the business of vilification, was the fact that Ceylon was the European corruption of ‘Sinhale’, the true name of the island, a fact inscribed in stone by no less a personality that Raja Raja I the marauding invader from what is called South India today (he refers to the island as ‘The land of the warlike Sinhalas’) as well as by countless travelers to the island.  ‘Ceylon’ should have stayed, and ‘Lanka’ should have reverted to ‘Sinhale’. 

The sleight of hand helped a lot of ‘divisionist’ operators and helped Tamil nationalism bleed into terrorism, one notes, not least of all with insane extrapolations of meaningless ‘multi-ethnic; multi-religious’ rhetoric  which did not even bother to footnote percentages and ignored the question, ‘are there any and were there any mono-ethnic, mono-religious polities, and if not what’s your point?’   

All that came later to me, but back then, it was another day of the week.  A Tuesday that was not recognized as such.  I remember May 23, 1972.  It was a rainy day.  The ground was muddy.  I walked up to that ‘platform’ where the important political moment was officially announced.  It was a nice construction. Simple.  It was story-less to the eyes of a 6 year old boy.  That memory stayed, though, and today, 40 years later, it says a lot more, much more than I would have ever dreamed that day, around 10 am, a few minutes into the school ‘interval’. 

I am thinking right now, ‘We should reflect more on that day, the 22^nd of the month of May, in the year 1972’.