'Save the youth'

by S. Thambyrajah

(January, 07, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Nandana Gunatillake JVP MP 'is reported to have stated that a group within the JVP want to secure power through armed struggle. There is the eternal danger that misguided youth may be enamoured by this proposal. Therefore elders who have gone through the experiences of the insurrection of the seventies should use persuasive methods to warn young blood of the inherent dangers. I wish to give publicity to the travails of one youth who was saved in good time. I was then in the Kandy Municipality in charge of the Personnel Department which had a count of about 25 officers, most of them seniors. When a new recruit was sent to the Council, we adopted a practice of giving a training before posting him/her to any existing vacancy. One such person was a youth who knew Sinhala only (he is not to be blamed for that).

From the beginning he was averse to Tamils because he did not have any exposure to other communities. He cannot be blamed for that too. The same applies to those in the North and East, who know only Tamil and have not moved with the majority community. This is one of the major causes for the on going conflict which over the last quarter century has turned out monsters who suffer from a severe inferiority complex and are prone to violent tendencies. The link language English has been denied to them and that is another cause for their anger against society. With experience of over 25 years service at the time, my sympathies were with such youths whose future had been ruined because of short sighted power politics.

To continue my story, to the credit of this youth, he was a good worker although very brusque when speaking, bordering on rudeness. All of a sudden he did not turn up for work. There was no intimation from him and days passed by into a month. News trickled down from the train commuters who came to work travelling to Kandy by the train from Polgahawela that the young man was seen dressed in prison garb carrying the conservancy bucket accompanied by army personnel in his home town. Everyone of us was aghast. It was the general view that we should go to his assistance. A suitable letter was prepared and sent to the Army Commander of the area.

Things appeared to have moved fast because soon thereafter when all of us were at work in the morning hours, suddenly the swing door to the entrance to the department opened with a bang and the young man crash landed prostate, wailing and weeping. With sympathetic understanding from all, he developed into a decent officer. With time we moved out to different local authorities. Probably he is now in his final stages of service before retirement.