Sri Lanka a few years after Independence, then known as Ceylon, was a much lesser known country in the world than it is today. It was called many names such as ‘Lipton’s Tea Garden’, an island of India etc. Some said since we were at that time a Dominion of the British Commonwealth was not an independent nation. Yet, our leaders from this little known isle, did not hesitate to speak fearlessly as representatives of an independent nation among the big powers of the world and assert our independence.

As early as in 1951, J. R. Jayewardene did speak out at the San Francisco as an Asian and a Buddhist on behalf of vanquished Japan in World War II. He pleaded that Japan should not be penalised while many other nations did not do so fearing the wrath of the victors. That speech is remembered by many nations, particularly Japan, even today.

A few years after Independence, when the newly Independent nation found it difficult to buy rice to feed its people, the then leaders did dare sign the Rubber-Rice Pact with China. This was at a time when China was targeted by the United States as an enemy nation and we did incur the wrath of the mighty west. But our patriotic leaders such as Dudley Senanayake and R. G.Senanayake placed the interests of the people above all others. China still remembers this brave act of the Sri Lankan people.

When Buckingham Palace asked Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake to share a stagecoach with the Prime Minister of another small country of the Commonwealth, in a state drive during the Queen’s Coronation, he considered it an insult to the honour of his country and threatened to return home. It made the courtiers of Buckingham Palace relent.

Ceylon was one of the countries that spearheaded the Afro-Asian movement that developed into the Non Aligned movement but Non Alignment or not, our leaders were not willing to surrender the independence, pride and the sovereignty of the nation. At the Bandung Conference, when Prime Minister Sir John Kotelawala launched on a tirade against China and the famed Chinese leader Chou En Lai, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru who was considered the leader of this emerging group of nations taking our country for granted asked: Sir John , why did you not show your speech to me? The resounding reply of Sir John was: Why the hell should I show you my speech man, when you do not show your speeches to me! Whatever the right and wrongs in this encounter are, it showed that we Sri Lankans were not lickspittles that did cower to the mighty of the world.

Sir John, for his audacity, was called the ‘Mouse that roared’ by some journalists. But, mouse or not, that Sri Lankan did roar and not squeak meekly.

S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike and Sirima Bandaranaike did much better. Bandaranaike on coming to power abrogated the Defence Treaty with Britain. He backed Egyptian leader Gamel Abdel Nasser on the Suez take over and the Anglo-French attack but proved his true independence by not supporting the Soviet invasion of Hungary.

Mrs. Bandaranaike did not fear to antagonise the mightiest of the world. She nationalised the American oil companies that resulted in the Hiken-Looper Amendment being imposed on this country cutting off American economic assistance. She used terms such as the ‘rapacious west’ and during her final stages nationalised the British owned plantations. As a leader of the Non Aligned Movement and its one time Chairman, she took on the west on the most sensitive issues such as pioneering the Indian Ocean Peace Zone Proposal which if implemented would have stopped the militarisation of the Indian Ocean by the superpowers.

Though a very close friend of India and Indira Gandhi, she proved her independence during the Bangladesh war when she permitted Pakistan military personnel to pass through Sri Lankan ports from East and West Pakistan.

At the United Nations this little nation was respected and asserted its independence. There was Ambassador Shirley Amerasinghe chairing the Law of the Sea Conference and Gamani Corea, Secretary General of UNCTAD guiding the poor nations of the South in its just claims for a fair share of the world’s trade from the affluent nations of the North.

In hindsight, it could be said that this foreign policy was not beneficial to Sri Lanka. South East Asia which were called ‘American puppets’ developed economically by leaps and bounds during this past 50 years, whereas Sri Lanka and India while propounding highfalutin international morality wallowed in poverty.

But no doubt there was a sneaking respect for this little isle and its people because of their sturdy independence and fearlessness to fight for justice to poor nations.

Since 1987, however, we have become mendicants, at times going on all fours for no ostensible reason. Friendship with India has come to mean kowtowing to India. We have been running to India and prostrating ourselves before the Indian mandarins of the Foreign Ministry on issues that are solely internal issues. The Indians cannot be blamed for these sheer acts of volition by us. This was done by the regime of Chandrika Kumaratunga and is being overdone by the Ranil Wickremasinghe administration. We are now pleading for the Indians to come in and help but they are snooty, halving been once Sri Lankan bitten.

This administration has gone even further. Now we have the ‘international community’ starting with the United States, almost the entire of Europe and Japan deciding on matters that have to be decided only by the Sri Lankan Community. And this ‘international community’ and India as ‘regional power’ are being asked to act jointly by us!

Little wonder that our former colonial master has commenced treating us like pickpockets. We have to be finger printed to enter old Blighty – the only nation to be imposed this indignity.

Do we protest? Consider leaving the Commonwealth? Do our leaders care? Anyone cares? No.

All we can say is: Cry our beloved countrymen!