Colombo: Change its face, not its name

by Gamini Weerakoon

(September 07, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Of late a few letters from Sri Lankans spread throughout the world have appeared in the state controlled and servile, privately owned press calling for the renaming of Colombo as 'Kholomba. In recent times, Madras, Calcutta and Bombay have undergone renaming in their native tongues. So, why not Colombo in the Sinhala language, the language of 70 per cent of the people, it has been argued.

Search for immortality

We are not sentimental about retaining the old name nor are we carried away by this seemingly global impulse of nationalism but we are against a change of name, save for very valid reasons. A doubt that worries us is whether this far flung appeal made on e-mail is a spontaneous expression of a nationalistic desire or machination of an individual's desire for immortality.

We Sri Lankans have an inclination towards immortality. Look at the names of roads, by lanes and even footpaths named after little known and even unknown people. This column carried sometime ago how we awoke one day to find that our road in which we had settled down for more than 10 years had been renamed after a little known personage - at least unknown to us.

Is this re-naming of Colombo an effort at immortality even though the name is not connected to any known personage? It would be unfair to name any person. But there could be some who want to be remembered in history like Dutu Gemunu for the Ruwanweli Seya, Parakrama Bahu for the Parakrama Samudra, Senanayakes for Gal Oya and reclaiming the dry zone from dense jungles for habitation and Jayewardene for the Mahaweli reservoirs and recreation of Jayewardenepura - the old name for Kotte.

Unfortunately for the Bandaranaikes, Solomon Bandaranaike set chaos in motion and had no time for immortality efforts - even if he had such inclinations - because he was assassinated two years after being elected premier but Sirima Bandaranaike set out on projects that would make her husband immortal and later on, herself. All such projects were manifestations of the 'Bandaranaike Principles' like the Mahinda Chinthana in contemporary times.

Reverse gear

Unfortunately much of her efforts now seem to have been put on reverse gear. There is some degree of heartburn and even rethinking about the 'Sinhala Only.' Bandaranaike socialism is certainly in reverse gear while non alignment is dead as a dodo. However there is the BMICH and many highways, byways, byroads, avenues, lanes and even the airport named after both husband and wife that remain. Her 1972 constitution was thrown out with that of J.R. Jayewardene but history will record that she changed the 'colonial' name of Ceylon to Sri Lanka. Whether this was a good or bad move only history will tell.

Ceylon to Sri Lanka

Recently while having dinner with an old Tamil school friend, now an expatriate doing quite well, he lamented on how Tamils were treated as 'second class' citizens. "You even changed the name of my country without consulting us.. Ceylon was the name of my country but it was changed to Sri Lanka overnight without our consent or even informing us," he claimed. (Tamil members of the Constituent Assembly grouped under ITAK withdrew from the assembly.)

We were reporters in 1972 but cannot recall whether Tamil leaders were consulted over the change of name. The redoubtable Colvin R. de Silva who is much revered by the remaining Trotskyites and some others for some of his observations such as 'Two languages one nation and one language two nations' presented the 1972 constitution for the Republic of Sri Lanka making not only 'Sinhala Only' the law of the land but Buddhism being given a pre-eminent place. It obviously was not to the liking of the minorities and inspired Tamil youth like Velupillai Pirapaharan to search for guns and bombs.

Colombo and minorities

Thus the argument that this country has more than 70 per cent Sinhalese and that the Sinhala language should be given its due place does seem democratic, in hindsight, it has to be said that it has had disastrous consequences. This is the same argument that is being presented for renaming Colombo.

However does the '70 per cent Sinhala' argument hold in this instance? There has been no census held in Colombo for quite sometime but the thinking among most politicians who keep up with demographic trends is that minorities outnumber the Sinhalese in the city of Colombo.

The point we would like to make is whether this issue of spelling Colombo beginning with a K as in 'Kholomba' is an important issue facing the nation today with innumerable and intractable problems. It could only make matters worse. Renaming would not help the poor suffering Sinhalese one jot and they couldn't care less.

Instead a far better thing than renaming would be to improve the face of Colombo which was once called the Garden City of Asia but is now fast becoming a stinking, chaotic, anarchic slum.

Have new highways from the international airport to the city replacing the maddening 18 mile death trap; remove the huge garbage dump at the entrance to Colombo by the Kelani River, breakdown shanties and the rash of billboards lining the capital's roads including those of politicians with hypocritical smiles; provide decent housing for the poor shanty dwellers; have more public parks instead of debarring people from such parks such as Galle Face Green; improve sewerage lines which are reported to be at bursting point; line the streets with shady trees as the imperial British did and provide for a smooth flow of disciplined traffic.

These are just a few improvements that are called for immediately, not a change of name.

A clean and disciplined Colombo would smell as sweet as a rose by any other name.
- Sri Lanka Guardian