The inauguration of the Mahatma Gandhi International Centre in Matale, about 150 km from Colombo, on Sunday, marked an end to a three-decade-long unpleasant episode.
The 1983 anti-Tamil riots saw, among others, the burning down of a building, meant to perpetuate the memory of Gandhi, who made a brief visit to the town in the Central Province in November 1927 as part of his Khadi promotion campaign. The structure housed a reading room and a library.
It had existed on an 80-perch [equivalent to half-an-acre] plot given by the local body to the Mahatma Gandhi Sabah, which ran the facilities. In October 1949, the then High Commissioner of India, V.V.Giri, who later became President, declared open the reading room. The 71-year-old P. Selvaratnam, who is now Assistant Secretary of the Sabah, recalls that even as a school-going boy, he had attended in the early 1950s Yoga classes.
Nearly for 20 years since the riots, the Sabah was in a state of limbo. In 2002, when the organisation decided to resume its activity, it functioned from a place owned by its President, S. Chandrasekaram. On Sunday, when President Maithripala Sirisena declared open the Centre, this formally marked the return of the Sabah to its original site.
Mohamed Hilmy, who has been Matale’s Mayor for a decade, recounts his meeting 10 years ago with the then External Affairs Minister of India, K. Natwar Singh, in which he requested the latter for help. “He [Mr. Singh] immediately asked Nirumpa Rao, who was the High Commissioner here, to follow up the matter.”
Mr. Selvaratnam adds that Ms. Rao came to Matale and she was quite impressed with our work. “That’s how the involvement of the Indian government in funding the establishment of the International Centre came about.”
An amount of 88.6 million Sri Lankan rupee was spent by the Indian government. Work on the Centre formally took off in April 2013 when Ashok K. Kantha was High Commissioner.
Lauding India for its assistance to development projects in Sri Lanka, Mr. Sirisena said his government was keen on improving “economic, cultural and social” ties with India. Y.K. Sinha, India’s High Commissioner, said the overall assistance of his country to Sri Lanka was $2.6 billion.
