There is no word but tragic for this most civilised of South Asian nations with its blood-soaked history of the last half century. It is at once a beacon and a warning to the subcontinent. The paradoxes are immense and nowhere more so than in its culture and politics. How, it is constantly asked, did a country with a predominantly Buddhist culture spawn two of the most determined armed insurgencies South Asia has seen, the Tamil Eelam movement in the north and east which continues, and the extreme-left wing, mainly Sinhala, JVP movement in the south which died out after it was brutally suppressed in two phases. Sri Lanka achieved fairly early on what none of its neighbours has managed even after 50 years.
Universal literacy is nosmall boast in the surrounding sea of ignorance.
Even with such exceptional attainments, the country's politics has been driven as much by violence as debate and its political leaders have been brought down by the weapons of monks, rivals and extremists almost as often as by the ballot. The struggle to build one nation out of diverse communities is the constant theme all over South Asia. In Sri Lanka the struggle began after independence and, fatefully, involved the aggressive assertion of Sinhala identity under S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike and a form of majoritarianism in which lay the seeds of most of the country's future troubles. Fifty years have brought no substantial change in the outlook of the political establishment. Shortsighted politicians and the LTTE's extreme and violent reaction have driven Sri Lanka to the edge.