There was a photograph along with a news item under the above title in ‘The Island’ of 20.08.2001, giving an account of a commemorative meeting attended by our Sama Samaja heroes and their comrades. It is also obvious that they are still resting on their laurels about their greatest bravado on behalf of the down trodden masses of this country, as if they were prepared to lay down their lives in those dark days of 1953.

As we old-timers can remember, the reason for staging such a devastating Hartal was to against the raising the price of a measure of rice by 20 cents (from 50 cents to 70 cents) as it was said that the prices in the World Market had gone up due to the Korean war. It is also noteworthy, at that time the cost of Living Index stood at 100 units.

What is the position today? The prices of all the items that we can think of including the most indispensable commodities like basic food items, medicines, infant foods and invalid food have all sky-rocketed, not by mere cents but by astronomical amounts. The cost of living index, the indicator to our predicament, today stands at more than 2973 units.

So, honestly if they want to do justice to their Greatest Event, how many millions of Hartals have they got to stage, at the rate of one Hartal for each 20 cents price increase? As such, what else can they do other than play childish pranks like clinging onto a Sari-pota or celebrating some mock-heroic event!

Those days they were fighting for the rights of the common people but today they are fighting for privileges of the rulers. What a tragedy!
K. Sathyapala,
Pannipitiya.