Sri Lanka has scrapped its national anthem's minority Tamil language version, a move that may add to the country's ethnic tensions after a bloody decades-long civil war. Public Administration Minister John Seneviratne said Monday the Cabinet decided only the original Sinhalese-language version of the song should be sung publicly.
Sri Lanka's constitution recognises the version sung in Sinhala, the language spoken by the country's ethnic majority. But it is ambiguous about the Tamil version. "There is only one national anthem which is constitutionally recognised," Seneviratne said. The decision could further divide a nation that has just emerged from a 25-year civil war that claimed at least 80,000 lives.
The Tamil-language anthem has been sung in Tamil schools and public offices in Tamil-majority areas for nearly 60 years, constitutional lawyer Jayampathy Wickramaratne said. Tamils have long complained of systematic marginalization by ethnic Sinhalese-controlled governments in language use, jobs and education. Suresh Premachandran, a lawmaker from the Tamil National Alliance party, said the decision imposes an unfamiliar language on the Tamil people. Sri Lankan troops defeated the Tamil Tiger rebels last year, ending the country's civil war, but the government has yet to follow up on its promises of equality and power-sharing.