{"id":40054,"date":"2015-03-29T14:09:10","date_gmt":"2015-03-29T18:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=40054"},"modified":"2015-03-30T03:21:16","modified_gmt":"2015-03-30T07:21:16","slug":"sri-lanka-the-new-countryby-padma-rao-sundarji-is-a-refeshingly-different-book-from-scores-of-others-appearing-after-defeat-of-ltte","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=40054","title":{"rendered":"“Sri Lanka-The New Country” by Padma Rao Sundarji is a Refeshingly Different Book from Scores of Others Appearing After Defeat of LTTE."},"content":{"rendered":"

By Col R Hariharan<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"@PRaoSundarji\"<\/a>

@PRaoSundarji<\/p><\/div>\n

Book review: Sri Lanka The New Country
\nAuthor: Padma Rao Sundarji
\nPublisher: Harper-Collins Publishers, Noida, UP
\nPrice: Rs 499; Pages 322 <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

S<\/strong>easoned journalist Padma Rao Sundarji\u2019s book Sri Lanka \u2013 The new country is refreshingly different from scores of other books that appeared in the wake of the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May 2009. She is a self-confessed critic \u201cof the one-size fits all application of Western perceptions, expectations and demands unique to South Asia\u201d a view I heartily share. This probably has given her the strength to look at the Sri Lankan side of the \u201cfence\u201d that had been ignored particularly by Western critics and sections of Sri Lanka Tamil diaspora and polity after the war ended in May 2014.
\n\"SL<\/a>
\nThe author has not allowed her tenuous South Indian lineage (with some Tamil connection also) to cloud her objective of reporting the situation on ground as she saw and understood it. Her years of experience as the South Asia bureau chief of Der Spiegel, the reputed German news magazine, in New Delhi with sufficient exposure to Sri Lanka and its ethnic conflict has enabled her in writing an eminently readable book for the average reader and traveller to the emerald island.
\n
\nAfter giving a brief background to the current Sri Lanka scene, inevitably touching upon the origin and growth of Tamil extremism and separatism, Padma Rao gives vignettes of her visits to Sri Lanka during various periods before and after the War. Absence of shrill rhetoric we have become so familiar in writings on Sri Lanka is a welcome feature of the book. So is the absence of instant remedies in her reporting.<\/p>\n

Padma has almost succeeded in presenting Sri Lanka with \u201cequanimity and open mind\u201d as she claims by not allowing emotion to override common sense in presenting her viewpoint. But I have one reservation. Padma\u2019s analyses fail to critically examine the Tamil arguments with the same interest she has shown in presenting the Sri Lanka government viewpoint. Perhaps this was intentional as it would have made the reading heavy. But the question why Tamils \u2018well integrated in Sri Lanka upper echelons of power\u2019 like Northern Province Chief Minister CV Wigneswaran supporting a united Sri Lanka were not charmed by Mahinda Rajapaksa\u2019s dispensation for Tamils during five years of peace is left unanswered. Rajapaksa\u2019s failure to put through a nuanced strategy in the last five years is as much responsible as Tamil politics or LTTE\u2019s overseas remnants\u2019 handiwork for sustaining the ethnic confrontation. Rajapaksa\u2019s defeat in the January 2015 presidential election due to massive minority votes against him is a testimony of this. To certain extent this weakness has been rectified in the quick fix addition towards the end, written after presidential election.<\/p>\n

In chapter 3, Kilinochi commander Major General Udaya Perera cogently presents the Sri Lankan perspectives on some key issues like allegations of war crimes and human rights violations. But it is to be noted that he had wisely avoided commenting on the alleged killing of surrendering LTTE leadership in the last stages of war (White Flag incident). The cameos on former LTTE women cadres now serving in the army and former LTTE\u2019s international gunrunner KP (chapter 4) and former Tamil Tiger PR man Daya Master (chapter 7) touch upon how they have come to terms with life after the LTTE\u2019s defeat. Chapter 6 is a unique but a little lengthy exploration of the rare species of Tamil Buddhists in Jaffna before and after the war. The rest of the book presents the beautiful country that Sri Lanka is (if we omit the two political interviews (with Rajapaksa and Wigneswaran) with added human touch.<\/p>\n

The author need not be apologetic (as she had done in the end) for writing a book on post-war Sri Lanka that focuses on the human aspects of the nation trying to rebuild itself from the embers of nearly three decades of war that cost nearly 200,000 lives. Both Sinhala and Tamil purists who look at the future only in the back drop without learning from it are likely to criticise the book because it does not conform to their analytical design. But I have faced years of criticism for telling them in person as well as in writing to learn from the past to build a new idiom for peace. I am sure Padma Rao as a seasoned reporter has enough resilience to take it in the stride juar as I had done.
\n
\nCourtesy:Mail Today<\/em><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Col R Hariharan Book review: Sri Lanka The New Country Author: Padma Rao Sundarji Publisher: Harper-Collins Publishers, Noida, UP Price: Rs 499; Pages 322 Seasoned journalist Padma Rao Sundarji\u2019s book Sri Lanka \u2013 The new country is refreshingly different from scores of other books that appeared in the wake of the defeat of the …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘“Sri Lanka-The New Country” by Padma Rao Sundarji is a Refeshingly Different Book from Scores of Others Appearing After Defeat of LTTE.’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40054"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40054"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40068,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40054\/revisions\/40068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}