Opinion
JULY 1983: TAMILS DO NOT BLAME SINHALESE PEOPLE
By Jayantha Somasundaram
(This articlecontinued from yesterday (25) is based on reporting by the international media on the events in Sri Lanka forty years ago.)
“For day after day Tamils were beaten, hacked or burned to death in the streets, on buses, on trains – sometimes in the sight of horrified foreign tourists. Their homes and shops were burned and looted. Yet the security forces seemed either unwilling or unable to stop it – indeed, in Jaffna and Trincomalee, some members of the armed forces themselves joined in the fray, claiming an admitted 51 lives. And not until the fifth day, did President Jayewardene finally appear on television. In that address he did not utter a single word of sympathy for the victims of the violence and destruction.” (Paul Sieghart Sri Lanka: A Mounting Tragedy of Errors International Commission of Jurists 3/1/84)
“Mr Athulathmudali, who was later to be appointed Minister of Security on the same television programme, nearly wept with ponderous histrionics over a sight he had never dreamed he would see – lines of Sinhalese people waiting to buy food as a result of the riots! He had not a word to say in sympathy for the frightened Tamils crowded in indescribable conditions in refugee camps. In the first days after the holocaust neither the President nor the Cabinet, nor even a single prominent Sinhalese politician visited them,” wrote Harvard Professor S. J. Thambiah, in Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy.
The British Guardian said that “The President has decided that his immediate task is to placate the majority Sinhalese mobs which are still rioting, burning, looting and murdering at the expense of the Tamil minority. He has· effectively outlawed the only serious Tamil party (TULF). Instead of throwing a protective Gandhian arm around the minority population, the President has thus at a stroke disfranchised the great mass of them and turned them into a race of untermenschen or institutionalised second class citizens. The danger is that the President’s decision may be seen both by the Sinhalese mobs and the Tamil masses as a virtual endorsement of the blood bath.”
“When presented with evidence that the Army or the Police have committed atrocities against defenceless Tamils, the Government has reacted with a shrug of the shoulders,” wrote Francis Wheen in the London Times (30.7.83). “Police misconduct has actually been rewarded. In two separate cases the Supreme Court found that police officers had acted illegally; in both cases the officers concerned were promoted.”
“On the first day of violence in Colombo,” wrote T.R. Lansner in the London Observer (14.8.83) “when thousands of Tamil businesses and residences were gutted, police had orders not to intervene, it is claimed. Certainly hundreds of armed Police deployed through the city could be seen standing idly by as mobs broke vehicles and looted homes and businesses. Even when Tamils were set upon and beaten and burned to death, police armed with automatic weapons did nothing.”
Conspiracy Theory
Having watched silently for almost a week as anti-Tamil violence engulfed Sri Lanka, Indian Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi finally telephoned Jayewardene on 28 July and expressed concern about the situation in Sri Lanka and the fate of its Tamil population. She also informed him that she was sending her External Affairs Minister Narasimha Rao on the following day to Colombo. “The Indian Foreign Minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao, met with President J.R. Jayewardene today to discuss the situation.” (New York Times 30/7/83)
Given international media reporting and diplomatic concern, the Jayewardene-Premadasa Regime now found it necessary to change its position and distance themselves from the perpetrators of violence. Government spokesmen thereafter laid claim to an anti-Government plot, a Communist Conspiracy and foreign involvement, to explain the unchecked anti-Tamil violence of the previous week. To substantiate this they proscribed the Communist Party, the Nava Sama Samaja Party and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). “The Colombo Sun called for the closing of all Soviet bloc embassies, specifically those of the Soviet Union and East Germany.” (New York Times 2/8/83)
But in a letter to the President, TULF leader Amirthalingam said: The Tamil people do not believe that Left parties had any hand in the attack on them. They regard this as an attempt to win the sympathy and support of the Western powers. The attack on the Tamil people was executed by the same forces that attacked the strikers in July 1980, attacked Professor (Ediriweera) Sarachchandra and demonstrated outside the houses of Judges (in June).”
“Initially Mr. Jayewardene hinted publicly at an Indian-Soviet Conspiracy and rumours spread that he had asked Western powers for help,” wrote John Elliot in the Financial Times. “Then he said he had no ‘direct evidence’ of a foreign power’s involvement but he was sure that army officers loyal to the JVP planned civil disturbances. Recently in an interview in Colombo he told me that the trouble was caused by the JVP together with people in his own party who are violently anti-separatist.
“Cyril Matthew, a member of the rigidly Buddhist Jaggery caste and boss of the UNP’s trade union is widely suspected in Colombo of having a guiding influence over the riots.”
John Elliot continued: Many foreign and local observers regard the claims of Mr. Jayewardene and his fellow Ministers as an attempt to cover up the fact that a few leading members of his own Government may have played a role in the plot which was partly aimed at striking a death blow at Tamil activists and at removing Tamils from their positions.
Mrs B: Govt. looking for Scapegoats
In an interview with Asiaweek (12.8.83) former Prime Minister Mrs. Bandaranaike dismissed the ‘conspiracy theory’. “It is definitely racial,” she said. “Anyone who says the violence was anything else but racial is living in a fool’s paradise. This government since it came to power in 1977 has been trying to encourage lawlessness. The UNP (United National Party) and its members have been on the wrong side of the law all the time. Now they are telling lies – that this is a plot to overthrow the government. They are only interested in looking for scapegoats.”
“There is a wealth of theory and a remarkable shortage of fact,” comments the International Commission of Jurists, “(State Minister Ananda Tissa de Alwis saw in the master plan ‘the minds of certain foreign elements’. He had previously said much the same about the 1981 outbreak. In a press interview in December 1983, he identified those foreign elements as the KGB. In parallel press interviews his colleague Cyril Matthew saw ‘the dirty hand of India’. For simpler-minded Tamils the answer is only too obvious: the entire blame falls on the Government but interestingly and encouragingly they do not blame the Sinhalese people as such, nor have they attempted any reprisals against them. What I find most extraordinary is that to this day there has been no attempt to find out the truth through an official, public and impartial enquiry when the situation in the country cries out for nothing less.”
“Virtually every Tamil I met was of the opinion that the violence against them was organised by the Government,” reported Princeton University Professor Gananath Obeysekera in Political Violence and the Future of Democracy.
“Both the Tamils hurt by these events and even Sinhalese people, as well as the foreign press, openly stated that the government either condoned the attack or it was done by factions within the government. As a response the government came out with its own theory of an international and local Communist conspiracy,” continues Professor Obeysekera. “According to this anti- Government plot scenario the Muslims and Christians were to be massacred next. All three of the proscribed parties were sympathetic with Tamil language aspirations. Similarly it is difficult to believe that a government so promptly informed of (Vijaya Kumaranatunga’s) ’Naxalite’ plot by the CID a day after the presidential elections were ignorant of a more serious plot by Marxist groups to create race riots. In other words, the government was forewarned of a plot that did not occur but not warned of one that did! If the race riots were caused by Marxists why did the government imply that it was a popular uprising by the Sinhalese and why in heavens name did no one offer sympathy for the dispossessed?”
The Jayewardene Regime now carried the pogrom to its logical conclusion. First, they made it clear that the remaining Tamil population were hostage against any external intervention to protect them. J.R. Jayewardene told India Today “The worst that India can do is to invade us. If they invade us that is the end of the Tamils in this country.”
Fourteen Hours: Fourteen Minutes
In The Break-Up of Sri Lanka, A.J. Wilson Founding Professor of Political Science at the University of Ceylon quotes Minister Gamini Dissanayake as telling a meeting at (UNP HQ) Sri Kotha on 5th September: “They are bringing an army from India. It will take 14 hours to come from India. In 14 minutes, the blood of every Tamil in the country can be sacrificed to the soil by us.”
The Regime proceeded with the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution which removed the TULF from parliament. Tamil MPs supporting the UNP Regime took the required oath and retained their seats. But none of them: S. Thondaman, Bill Devanayagam and C. Rajadurai, were re-elected to Parliament at the next General Election. Thondaman did return to Parliament, but on the National list.
Second, the pogrom was used to economically marginalise the Tamils. Ananda Tissa de Alwis explained that the ownership of Tamil businesses would be restructured to deny them a majority shareholding. And trade itself would be reorganised. “The Trade Minister has already reorganised rice wholesaling to break the Tamil grip. It is no longer in my interests to allow one community to dominate, insists Lalith Athulathmudali,” in the Irish Times (24.8.83). ‘The Tamils have dominated the commanding heights of everything good in Sri Lanka,’ explained Finance Minister Ronnie de Mel, “the only solution is to restore the rights of the Sinhala majority.’ “
“Today, after nearly a week of killing and burning Sri Lanka’s aura of stability and progress has evaporated. Hundreds of businesses and factories lie in ashes, and economic development, the Government says, has been set back three years, five years, even more. Tamils were dragged from their homes, set fire, stabbed, hacked with axes and run over. The true extent of the killings remains unknown, because many are still missing. Thousands of Tamils fled to refugee camps … Tamil homes were burned down, and Tamil-owned businesses in Colombo were gutted. Seventeen major factories wholly or partly owned by Tamils were turned into ash, including two that employed thousands of people each. Three plants that produced textiles for export were destroyed. Damage estimates are uncertain and incomplete, but the total economic loss has been placed at $300 million or more, and 150,000 people are said to have been rendered jobless. About 10,000 foreign tourists were here when the trouble started. All but about 1,500 have left. ‘If the Tigers take one more Sinhalese life in the north,” T. D. S. A. ‘Jungle’ Dissanayake, a Government official, said, ”I hate to think of the consequences.” (New York Times 4/8/83)
The final toll may never be known but during that week when homes, shops farms, cinemas, factories and vehicles belonging to Tamils were destroyed 140,000 of them fled to refugee camps. Government estimates were that 100 factories and 2,497 shops were destroyed and so large was the collection of burned out vehicles that they had to be carried out to sea for disposal.
Nazism
“Not only may foreign investors now be frightened away, but the island’s once-prosperous Tamils may no longer be counted as a mainstay of Sri Lanka’s economy…. An estimated 100,000 were left homeless. Government miscalculation and inaction have contributed to the violence,” explained The Christian Science Monitor. “So has a breakdown in discipline among the almost exclusively Sinhalese Army and police… Bewildering to even some of Mr. Jayewardene’s aides, is that the President has not made a conciliatory public statement to the Tamils; has offered no compensation; and done nothing to appease. Rightly or wrongly, this is being interpreted as a colossal show of weakness, indifference or isolation, by both Tamils and educated Sinhalese. Rather, he has permitted his Cabinet members to flail on the ”involvement of foreign powers,” a well-coordinated ”foreign plot.” When such statements were received with annoyance and some derision by Colombo’s elite, the President himself spoke only of a Sri Lankan ‘leftist plot.’”
“Half of the 4,100 Tamil shops in this once-gracious capital have been burnt to the ground. Seventeen major Tamil owned textile factories have been gutted in Colombo alone… The export-oriented tea industry in the lush hills has, according to the finance minister, nearly disappeared. For it was Sri Lanka’s Tamils who were the entrepreneurial class. In the greater Colombo area, though they represent only 9 percent of the population, one-third of the capital’s businesses and investments were in Tamil hands.” (Mary Anne Weaver The Christian Science Monitor Boston, Mass. 8 Aug 1983)
“In 2004, President Chandrika Kumaratunga gave a public apology to Tamils for Black July, likening it to Nazism. She appointed a commission, which concluded that nearly 1,000 people died and 700,000 were exiled. And she acknowledged there might be many more unreported incidents. … Despite Mrs Kumaratunga’s gestures, no one has been held accountable for the July killings.” (BBC 23 July 2013)
by Dr B.J.C.Perera
MBBS(Cey), DCH(Cey), DCH(Eng), MD(Paed), MRCP(UK), FRCP(Edin),
FRCP(Lon), FRCPCH(UK), FSLCPaed, FCCP, Hony FRCPCH(UK), Hony. FCGP(SL)
Specialist Consultant Paediatrician and Honorary Senior Fellow,
Postgraduate Institute of Medicine, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Joint Editor, Sri Lanka Journal of Child Health
In an age of unprecedented global development, technological advancements, universal connectivity, and improvements in living standards in many areas of the world, it is a very dark irony that child food poverty remains a pressing issue. UNICEF defines child food poverty as children’s inability to access and consume a nutritious and diverse diet in early childhood. Despite the planet Earth’s undisputed capacity to produce enough food to nourish everyone, millions of children still go hungry each day. We desperately need to explore the multifaceted deleterious effects of child food poverty, on physical health, cognitive development, emotional well-being, and societal impacts and then try to formulate a road map to alleviate its deleterious effects.
Every day, right across the world, millions of parents and families are struggling to provide nutritious and diverse foods that young children desperately need to reach their full potential. Growing inequities, conflict, and climate crises, combined with rising food prices, the overabundance of unhealthy foods, harmful food marketing strategies and poor child-feeding practices, are condemning millions of children to child food poverty.
In a communique dated 06th June 2024, UNICEF reports that globally, 1 in 4 children; approximately 181 million under the age of five, live in severe child food poverty, defined as consuming at most, two of eight food groups in early childhood. These children are up to 50 per cent more likely to suffer from life-threatening malnutrition. Child Food Poverty: Nutrition Deprivation in Early Childhood – the third issue of UNICEF’s flagship Child Nutrition Report – highlights that millions of young children are unable to access and consume the nutritious and diverse diets that are essential for their growth and development in early childhood and beyond.
It is highlighted in the report that four out of five children experiencing severe child food poverty are fed only breastmilk or just some other milk and/or a starchy staple, such as maize, rice or wheat. Less than 10 per cent of these children are fed fruits and vegetables and less than 5 per cent are fed nutrient-dense foods such as eggs, fish, poultry, or meat. These are horrendous statistics that should pull at the heartstrings of the discerning populace of this world.
The report also identifies the drivers of child food poverty. Strikingly, though 46 per cent of all cases of severe child food poverty are among poor households where income poverty is likely to be a major driver, 54 per cent live in relatively wealthier households, among whom poor food environments and feeding practices are the main drivers of food poverty in early childhood.
One of the most immediate and visible effects of child food poverty is its detrimental impact on physical health. Malnutrition, which can result from both insufficient calorie intake and lack of essential nutrients, is a prevalent consequence. Chronic undernourishment during formative years leads to stunted growth, weakened immune systems, and increased susceptibility to infections and diseases. Children who do not receive adequate nutrition are more likely to suffer from conditions such as anaemia, rickets, and developmental delays.
Moreover, the lack of proper nutrition can have long-term health consequences. Malnourished children are at a higher risk of developing chronic illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes, and obesity later in life. The paradox of child food poverty is that it can lead to both undernutrition and overnutrition, with children in food-insecure households often consuming calorie-dense but nutrient-poor foods due to economic constraints. This dietary pattern increases the risk of obesity, creating a vicious cycle of poor health outcomes.
The impacts of child food poverty extend beyond physical health, severely affecting cognitive development and educational attainment. Adequate nutrition is crucial for brain development, particularly in the early years of life. Malnutrition can impair cognitive functions such as attention, memory, and problem-solving skills. Studies have consistently shown that malnourished children perform worse academically compared to their well-nourished peers. Inadequate nutrition during early childhood can lead to reduced school readiness and lower IQ scores. These children often struggle to concentrate in school, miss more days due to illness, and have lower overall academic performance. This educational disadvantage perpetuates the cycle of poverty, as lower educational attainment reduces future employment opportunities and earning potential.
The emotional and psychological effects of child food poverty are profound and are often overlooked. Food insecurity creates a constant state of stress and anxiety for both children and their families. The uncertainty of not knowing when or where the next meal will come from can lead to feelings of helplessness and despair. Children in food-insecure households are more likely to experience behavioural problems, including hyperactivity, aggression, and withdrawal. The stigma associated with poverty and hunger can further exacerbate these emotional challenges. Children who experience food poverty may feel shame and embarrassment, leading to social isolation and reduced self-esteem. This psychological toll can have lasting effects, contributing to mental health issues such as depression and anxiety in adolescence and adulthood.
Child food poverty also perpetuates cycles of poverty and inequality. Children who grow up in food-insecure households are more likely to remain in poverty as adults, continuing the intergenerational transmission of disadvantage. This cycle of poverty exacerbates social disparities, contributing to increased crime rates, reduced social cohesion, and greater reliance on social welfare programmes. The repercussions of child food poverty ripple through society, creating economic and social challenges that affect everyone. The healthcare costs associated with treating malnutrition-related illnesses and chronic diseases are substantial. Additionally, the educational deficits linked to child food poverty result in a less skilled workforce, which hampers economic growth and productivity.
Addressing child food poverty requires a multi-faceted approach that tackles both immediate needs and underlying causes. Policy interventions are crucial in ensuring that all children have access to adequate nutrition. This can include expanding social safety nets, such as food assistance programmes and school meal initiatives, as well as targeted manoeuvres to reach more vulnerable families. Ensuring that these programmes are adequately funded and effectively implemented is essential for their success.
In addition to direct food assistance, broader economic and social policies are needed to address the root causes of poverty. This includes efforts to increase household incomes through living wage policies, job training programs, and economic development initiatives. Supporting families with affordable childcare, healthcare, and housing can also alleviate some of the financial pressures that contribute to food insecurity.
Community-based initiatives play a vital role in combating child food poverty. Local food banks, community gardens, and nutrition education programmes can help provide immediate relief and promote long-term food security. Collaborative efforts between government, non-profits, and the private sector are necessary to create sustainable solutions.
Child food poverty is a profound and inescapable issue with far-reaching consequences. Its deleterious effects on physical health, cognitive development, emotional well-being, and societal stability underscore the urgent need for comprehensive action. As we strive for a more equitable and just world, addressing child food poverty must be a priority. By ensuring that all children have access to adequate nutrition, we can lay the foundation for a healthier, more prosperous future for individuals and society as a whole. The fight against child food poverty is not just a moral imperative but an investment in our collective future. Healthy, well-nourished children are more likely to grow into productive, contributing members of society. The benefits of addressing this issue extend beyond individual well-being, enhancing economic stability and social harmony. It is incumbent upon us all to recognize and act upon the understanding that every child deserves the right to adequate nutrition and the opportunity to thrive.
Despite all of these existent challenges, it is very definitely possible to end child food poverty. The world needs targeted interventions to transform food, health, and social protection systems, and also take steps to strengthen data systems to track progress in reducing child food poverty. All these manoeuvres must comprise a concerted effort towards making nutritious and diverse diets accessible and affordable to all. We need to call for child food poverty reduction to be recognized as a metric of success towards achieving global and national nutrition and development goals.
Material from UNICEF reports and AI assistance are acknowledged.
By Dr Upul Wijayawardhana
The colossal failure of not a single opinion poll predicting accurately the result of the Indian parliamentary election, the greatest exercise in democracy in the world, raises the question whether the importance of opinion polls is vastly exaggerated. During elections two types of opinion polls are conducted; one based on intentions to vote, published during or before the campaign, often being not very accurate as these are subject to many variables but exit polls, done after the voting where a sample tally of how the voters actually voted, are mostly accurate. However, of the 15 exit polls published soon after all the votes were cast in the massive Indian election, 13 vastly overpredicted the number of seats Modi’s BJP led coalition NDA would obtain, some giving a figure as high as 400, the number Modi claimed he is aiming for. The other two polls grossly underestimated predicting a hung parliament. The actual result is that NDA passed the threshold of 272 comfortably, there being no landslide. BJP by itself was not able to cross the threshold, a significant setback for an overconfident Mody! Whether this would result in less excesses on the part of Modi, like Muslim-bashing, remains to be seen. Anyway, the statement issued by BJP that they would be investigating the reasons for failure rather than blaming the process speaks very highly of the maturity of the democratic process in India.
I was intrigued by this failure of opinion polls as this differs dramatically from opinion polls in the UK. I never failed to watch ‘Election night specials’ on BBC; as the Big Ben strikes ‘ten’ (In the UK polls close at 10pm} the anchor comes out with “Exit polls predict that …” and the actual outcome is often almost as predicted. However, many a time opinion polls conducted during the campaign have got the predictions wrong. There are many explanations for this.
An opinion poll is defined as a research survey of public opinion from a particular sample, the origin of which can be traced back to the 1824 US presidential election, when two local newspapers in North Carolina and Delaware predicted the victory of Andrew Jackson but the sample was local. First national survey was done in 1916 by the magazine, Literary Digest, partly for circulation-raising, by mailing millions of postcards and counting the returns. Of course, this was not very scientific though it accurately predicted the election of Woodrow Wilson.
Since then, opinion polls have grown in extent and complexity with scientific methodology improving the outcome of predictions not only in elections but also in market research. As a result, some of these organisations have become big businesses. For instance, YouGov, an internet-based organisation co-founded by the Iraqi-born British politician Nadim Zahawi, based in London had a revenue of 258 million GBP in 2023.
In Sri Lanka, opinion polls seem to be conducted by only one organisation which, by itself, is a disadvantage, as pooled data from surveys conducted by many are more likely to reflect the true situation. Irrespective of the degree of accuracy, politicians seem to be dependent on the available data which lend explanations to the behaviour of some.
The Institute for Health Policy’s (IHP) Sri Lanka Opinion Tracker Survey has been tracking the voting intentions for the likely candidates for the Presidential election. At one stage the NPP/JVP leader AKD was getting a figure over 50%. This together with some degree of international acceptance made the JVP behave as if they are already in power, leading to some incidents where their true colour was showing.
The comments made by a prominent member of the JVP who claimed that the JVP killed only the riff-raff, raised many questions, in addition to being a total insult to many innocents killed by them including my uncle. Do they have the authority to do so? Do extra-judicial killings continue to be JVP policy? Do they consider anyone who disagrees with them riff-raff? Will they kill them simply because they do not comply like one of my admired teachers, Dr Gladys Jayawardena who was considered riff-raff because she, as the Chairman of the State Pharmaceutical Corporation, arranged to buy drugs cheaper from India? Is it not the height of hypocrisy that AKD is now boasting of his ties to India?
Another big-wig comes with the grand idea of devolving law and order to village level. As stated very strongly, in the editorial “Pledges and reality” (The Island, 20 May) is this what they intend to do: Have JVP kangaroo-courts!
Perhaps, as a result of these incidents AKD’s ratings has dropped to 39%, according to the IHP survey done in April, and Sajith Premadasa’s ratings have increased gradually to match that. Whilst they are level pegging Ranil is far behind at 13%. Is this the reason why Ranil is getting his acolytes to propagate the idea that the best for the country is to extend his tenure by a referendum? He forced the postponement of Local Governments elections by refusing to release funds but he cannot do so for the presidential election for constitutional reasons. He is now looking for loopholes. Has he considered the distinct possibility that the referendum to extend the life of the presidency and the parliament if lost, would double the expenditure?
Unfortunately, this has been an exercise in futility and it would not be surprising if the next survey shows Ranil’s chances dropping even further! Perhaps, the best option available to Ranil is to retire gracefully, taking credit for steadying the economy and saving the country from an anarchic invasion of the parliament, rather than to leave politics in disgrace by coming third in the presidential election. Unless, of course, he is convinced that opinion polls do not matter and what matters is the ballots in the box!
By Prof. Kirthi Tennakone
ktenna@yahoo.co.uk
Thoughtfulness is the quality of being conscious of issues that arise and considering action while seeking explanations. It facilitates finding solutions to problems and judging experiences.
Almost all human accomplishments are consequences of thoughtfulness.
Can you perform day-to-day work efficiently and effectively without being thoughtful? Obviously, no. Are there any major advancements attained without thought and contemplation? Not a single example!
Science and technology, art, music and literary compositions and religion stand conspicuously as products of thought.
Thought could have sinister motives and the only way to eliminate them is through thought itself. Thought could distinguish right from wrong.
Empathy, love, amusement, and expression of sorrow are reflections of thought.
Thought relieves worries by understanding or taking decisive action.
Despite the universal virtue of thoughtfulness, some advocate an idea termed mindfulness, claiming the benefits of nurturing this quality to shape mental wellbeing. The concept is defined as focusing attention to the present moment without judgment. A way of forgetting the worries and calming the mind – a form of meditation. A definition coined in the West to decouple the concept from religion. The attitude could have a temporary advantage as a method of softening negative feelings such as sorrow and anger. However, no man or woman can afford to be non-judgmental all the time. It is incompatible with indispensable thoughtfulness! What is the advantage of diverting attention to one thing without discernment during a few tens of minute’s meditation? The instructors of mindfulness meditation tell you to focus attention on trivial things. Whereas in thoughtfulness, you concentrate the mind on challenging issues. Sometimes arriving at groundbreaking scientific discoveries, solution of mathematical problems or the creation of masterpieces in engineering, art, or literature.
The concept of meditation and mindfulness originated in ancient India around 1000 BCE. Vedic ascetics believed the practice would lead to supernatural powers enabling disclosure of the truth. Failing to meet the said aspiration, notwithstanding so many stories in scripture, is discernable. Otherwise, the world would have been awakened to advancement by ancient Indians before the Greeks. The latter culture emphasized thoughtfulness!
In India, Buddha was the first to deviate from the Vedic philosophy. His teachers, Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputra, were adherents of meditation. Unconvinced of their approach, Buddha concluded a thoughtful analysis of the actualities of life should be the path to realisation. However, in an environment dominated by Vedic tradition, meditation residually persisted when Buddha’s teachings transformed into a religion.
In the early 1970s, a few in the West picked up meditation and mindfulness. We Easterners, who criticize Western ideas all the time, got exalted after seeing something Eastern accepted in the Western circles. Thereafter, Easterners took up the subject more seriously, in the spirit of its definition in the West.
Today, mindfulness has become a marketable commodity – a thriving business spreading worldwide, fueled largely by advertising. There are practice centres, lessons onsite and online, and apps for purchase. Articles written by gurus of the field appear on the web.
What attracts people to mindfulness programmes? Many assume them being stressed and depressed needs to improve their mental capacity. In most instances, these are minor complaints and for understandable reasons, they do not seek mainstream medical interventions but go for exaggeratedly advertised alternatives. Mainstream medical treatments are based on rigorous science and spell out both the pros and cons of the procedure, avoiding overstatement. Whereas the alternative sector makes unsubstantiated claims about the efficacy and effectiveness of the treatment.
Advocates of mindfulness claim the benefits of their prescriptions have been proven scientifically. There are reports (mostly in open-access journals which charge a fee for publication) indicating that authors have found positive aspects of mindfulness or identified reasons correlating the efficacy of such activities. However, they rarely meet standards normally required for unequivocal acceptance. The gold standard of scientific scrutiny is the statistically significant reproducibility of claims.
If a mindfulness guru claims his prescription of meditation cures hypertension, he must record the blood pressure of participants before and after completion of the activity and show the blood pressure of a large percentage has stably dropped and repeat the experiment with different clients. He must also conduct sessions where he adopts another prescription (a placebo) under the same conditions and compares the results. This is not enough, he must request someone else to conduct sessions following his prescription, to rule out the influence of the personality of the instructor.
The laity unaware of the above rigid requirements, accede to purported claims of mindfulness proponents.
A few years ago, an article published and widely cited stated that the practice of mindfulness increases the gray matter density of the brain. A more recent study found there is no such correlation. Popular expositions on the subject do not refer to the latter report. Most mindfulness research published seems to have been conducted intending to prove the benefits of the practice. The hard science demands doing the opposite as well-experiments carried out intending to disprove the claims. You need to be skeptical until things are firmly established.
Despite many efforts diverted to disprove Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, no contradictions have been found in vain to date, strengthening the validity of the theory. Regarding mindfulness, as it stands, benefits can neither be proved nor disproved, to the gold standard of scientific scrutiny.
Some schools in foreign lands have accommodated mindfulness training programs hoping to develop the mental facility of students and Sri Lanka plans to follow. However, studies also reveal these exercises are ineffective or do more harm than good. Have we investigated this issue before imitation?
Should we force our children to focus attention on one single goal without judgment, even for a moment?
Why not allow young minds to roam wild in their deepest imagination and build castles in the air and encourage them to turn these fantasies into realities by nurturing their thoughtfulness?
Be more thoughtful than mindful?
US sports envoys to Lanka to champion youth development
Rahuman questions sudden cancellation of leave of CEB employees
