Sri Lanka where all the people in the country will become equal stakeholders in its future...!!!

Indian High Commissioner visits the Mahatma Gandhi Centre in Colombo
Endorses Mahatma Gandhi’s sentiment "Sri Lanka and India cannot but be friends"

The High Commissioner of India in Sri Lanka, Ashok K.Kantha, visited The Mahatma Gandhi Centre (MGC), Sri Lanka on Thursday (Apr. 1) and endorsed Mahatma Gandhi’s sentiment that "Sri Lanka and India cannot but be friends" to its board of trustees and said India will do everything possible that will lead to a united and prosperous Sri Lanka where all the people in the country will become equal stakeholders in its future.

During his visit, the High Commissioner made a presentation of a number of books for the library of the Centre.


The inspiration of Nirupama Rao

While welcoming the High Commissioner, Dr. M.A. Mohamed Saleem, President of the MGC acknowledged that the inspiration and encouragement of a previous High Commissioner, Mrs Nirupama Rao, presently Foreign Secretary of India, was the catalyst to make the Mahatma Gandhi Centre a reality in 2006. It was she who opened the Centre on the birthday of the Mahatma on October 2 of that year. Since then the Centre has made steady progress.


Gandhi as a unifying factor

In his address Saleem said that "the world considers Mahatma Gandhi as a symbol for the voiceless and powerless, and therefore, as a unifying factor across divergent forces that dehumanize humanity. We in this country urgently need a unifying factor to arrest decay of human values and care that our society built over centuries, which fostered a social fabric of multi-ethnicity living in harmony, trust and mutual partnerships. We too found that unifying factor in the wisdom of the Mahatma"


Gandhian wisdom

Saleem went on to say that the Gandhian wisdom has often been forgotten namely that there is "sufficient provisions to satisfy everyone’s need and not greed" and there has been a disregard for the Gandhian prescription that "independence must begin at the bottom... it follows therefore, that every village has to be self sufficient and capable of managing its affairs" as the foundation for building a nation.


Gramarajya

The central objective of the Mahatma Gandhi Centre remains the village empowerment programme of Gramarajya, through which people directly determine their priorities and are involved in finding solutions with mandatory financial support from the government. The Gramarajya, the Mahatma Gandhi Centre is advocating is akin to the Mahatma’s Panchayats but, it should not be mistaken as an alternative or impediment for any future political power devolution. Gramarajya should be considered as an inevitable immediate action point to prepare the people to derive full benefit from whatever devolutionary arrangements that ultimately prevail.

The Mahatma Gandhi Centre is involved in encouraging village enterprises for increasing land productivity through suitable food crop combinations and husbandry practices and for better price bargaining. Dedicated Renewable Energy Banks (REBs) of fast growing trees in every village is being encouraged for energy self-reliance, which is also one of the recommendations for resettlement programmes involving the war-displaced.

Another area to which the Mahatma Gandhi Centre is focusing is alternative sources of medicine, including training of mind and body, as an accessible health care facility. Apart from this, the Public Awareness and Right to Information programme through IT connectivity and other communication means, which provides people an exposure to civic rights and rights to information about the workings of public offices for the purpose of improving efficiency of services to the public is being promoted in the villages.


Rehabilitation and conflict transformation

These activities are the basis of the reconstruction and rehabilitation packages that the Mahatma Gandhi Centre has proposed to the government in its efforts in the war affected areas. An Indian institutional partnerships can leverage efforts of the Sri Lanka government to fast tract resettlement of the traumatised and development of this country. Sri Lanka’s experience in managing conflicts and conflict transformation would then become an important lesson for others in the region. For this reason, the MGC is collaborating with such institutions as the Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development (CRRID), Chandigarh, India who are working on a "Cooperative Development, Peace and Security in South and South East Asia". This is a forum for exchange of views on these subjects for the entire region.


India’s role as a global power

India’s perspective of Sri Lanka has over the years taken a transformation. India is today a global power, and being in close proximity in itself is sufficient to make Sri Lanka secure. Unfortunately, in Sri Lanka there has been some level of fear and suspicion of India given its size, wealth, market aggressiveness and partial towards one group in the country. Sri Lanka cannot afford to be a disgruntled neighbour any more.


Mechanisms to forge closer partnerships

The one reason for misperceptions has been the lack of in depth mutual knowledge about the two countries and because of the lack of a mechanism to forge closer partnerships. Thus, the Mahatma Gandhi Centre is working on a proposal to establish Mahatma Gandhi Academies of Indo-Sri Lanka Partnerships on the subjects of Affordable Healthcare Services, New Economic Enterprises, Rural Democracy and Non-Violent Societal Development, Natural Resources Management and Environmental Safety, Cross Cultural Heritage and Relationships and Sports and Entertainment.

Saleem concluded : "the Mahatma said during his last visit to this country that "it is, at least it should, be impossible for India and Ceylon to quarrel". In the least our efforts at Mahatma Gandhi Centre is what the Mahatma wished for the two countries and we wish to leave this as our legacy for posterity".



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