By Veeragathy  Thanabalasingham

Colombo, February 1: The bodies of none of Sri Lanka’s late former Prime Ministers or Presidents have been preserved and placed in a memorial. We are not aware of any request made in the past for their bodies to be preserved when they died.

However, in a strange turn of events, former Deputy Speaker of Parliament Ajith Rajapaksa has called for the preservation of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s body for public display after his demise.

Speaking to the media  last week, he stated  that the former president Rajapaksa has ended Sri Lanka’s  three decade civil war and deserves such  recognition to honour his legacy for future generations.

The former deputy speaker also noted that bodies of the former Soviet leader Viladimir  Lenin and Vietnamese revolutionary Ho Chi Minh have been preserved as they were historic figures in their counntries, which have given due respect to their leaders. He argued that the Sri Lankans should extend the same treatment to former president Rajapaksa.

Further more, he expressed concern that the National People’s Power (NPP ) government is attempt to undermine Mahinda Rajapaksa’s prominence as a leader and urged the government to ensure the security and respect of the former president’s contributions to the nation.

According to reports, Ajith Rajapasa  has only mentioned Lenin and Ho Chi Minh as examples. However, the bodies of some other prominent  leaders are also preserved  and placed in mausoleums in their countries after their deaths.

The body of Lenin who died  in 1924, has been on almost continuous  public display in the mausoleum in Moscow’s  Red Square since 1930. In October 1941, during the Second World War, known in  Russia as the Great Patriotic War, when it appeared that Moscow might be captured by the Nazi German forces, the body was evacuated to Siberia for safekeeping. After the war ended the body was returned and the tomb was re – opened.

Between 1953 and 1961, the embalmed body of Joseph Stalin, second leader of the Soviet Union,  shared a spot next to Lenin’s ; Stalin’s body was eventually removed as a part of de – Stalinization during Nikita Khrushchev’s period and buried in a cemetry near the Kremlin Wall in Red Square.

The body of Chinese leader Chaiman  Mao Zedong, who died in September 1976, lies on public display in the Memorial Hall in the centre of Beijing’s famous Tiananmen Square. Although Mao had wanted his body cremated, his wishes were reportedly ignored. Mao might have asked to be cremated so that he would not suffer the same fate as Stalin. But,  although Mao’s principles are not followed in today’s China which is the second largest capitalist economy after the United States, his body remains in the Memorial.

The body of Vietnamese revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh, who died in 1969, has been kept in a mausoleum in the capital Hanoi since 1975. Similarly, the body of North Korean founding leader Kim Il Sung, who died in 1994, and his son Kim Jong Il, who succeeded him, are kept in a mausoleum in the capital Yongyang.

Despite various criticisms of the policies and governance  of these leaders, they are all communists who led successful  revolutions in their countries amid great sacrifices. It seems to be the great desire of the former Deputy Speaker that  Mahinda Rajapaksa should be given such an honor by Sri Lankans. It seems that he, out of loyalty  to the former president, wants to add his leader to the pantheon of great leaders of the world.

The immediate reason for Ajith Rajapaksa’s request appears to be the controversy surrounding Mahinda Rajapaksa’s current luxurious Colombo residence and security reduction as part of the NPP government’s decision to reduce the special privileges and facilities enjoyed by former presidents.

For politicians loyal to Mahinda Rajapaksa, the only reason why they praise him and his regime is because he ended the civil war by defeating Tamil Tigers. They are not concerned with how the war was ended. Mahinda himself believes that the memory of war victory will once again help his party’s political recovery. His eldest son, Namal Rajapaksa, also sought votes in the presidential election by citing his father’s feat in giving political leadership to the war.

It seems that the Rajapaksas, who used the war victory to consolidate their power for many years by majoritarian  mobilization, still believe that they can recover in politics through reminding the people of war victory. They have no other way except racism.

It is true that Mahinda Rajapaksa in particular and his family in general enjoyed overwhelming support among the Sinhalese people due to the war victory. But, eventually, the people understood that Rajapaksas  were mainly responsible for the collapse of the economy. They used the euphoria over war victory to distract the attention of the Sinhalese people and run an unprecedentedly corrupt government.The Rajapaksa family is seen as the embodiment of all the evil tendencies of the governance.

Sri Lankan politics has been dominated by a few elite families in the past. But,  There have never been any uprising against those families, like the people took to the streets against the Rajapaksas three years ago.

Over the past four decades, since the introduction of the executive presidential system, authoritarianism has been gradually increasing in the governance. But it was only after Mahinda Rajapaksa came to power that that authoritarianism reached its peak. They acted as if it was their birthright to accumulate excessive powers and wealth.

The Rajapaksas used to call any action against them a domestic or foreign conspiracy. They developed a strange feeling that the people of the country were indebted to  them. The family also believed that the Sinhalese people would always support them for defeating the LTTE and ending the war, believing that the  people would not mind their wrong doings.

Above all, the Supreme Court’s historic ruling that the three Rajapaksa brothers and their subordinates were responsible for the unprecedented economic crisis that hit the country three years ago is particularly noteworthy.

Rajapaksa loyalists like the former Deputy Speaker have no other way to revive their political prospects without the help of  the former ruling family.  However, it seems unlikely that the Rajapaksas who have been rejected by the people, will regain support  in the near future.

Even for Mahinda Rajapaksa, there is no doubt that there is an urgency to secure the future political prospects of his eldest son during his life time.

History has given Mahinda Rajapaksa a rare opportunity to find a political solution to the national ethnic problem following the  war victory. He had every opportunity to gain the support of the majority community  to find a political solution immediately after the war ended. If Mahinda Rajapaksa had at least come forward to implement the 13th Amendment to the Constitution to the extent possible at that time, there would have been no opposition from the majority community.

But instead of striving for ethnic reconciliation and a meaningful political solution he adopted a regressive approach that fostered further enmity between the communities. He found new enemies to foster racism and incite majority community and ethnic minorities.

If Mahinda Rajapaksa had used the opportunities prudently and with foresight  to avoid leaving the national ethnic problem which is the root cause for the civil war, for future generations, he could have truly been celebrated  as worthy of the   respect of those generations. To say that future generations should respect him only for war victory is essentially an attempt  aimed at further fostering racism.

It is unclear how Mahinda Rajapaksa, who claims that he will not retire from politics for the time being and that he is in good health, views Ajith Rajapaksa’s request to preserve his body after his death.

Mahinda’s loyalists may exhort that he deserves to be remembered in history for the  war victory against Tamil Tigers. He may remain a hope  for the hardline nationalist forces waiting for opportunities to stir up racism again. But the truth is that he is really a symbol of misgovernance.

( The writer is a senior journalist based in Colombo)

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