Continued from Part 1

So, where, or what, precisely was this Indian ‘unity’? To find the elusive answer to this question we need to return to Nehru who, despite his inspiring romanticism, provided us the clue in the following passage (1946: 343) the essence of which is that Indian Unity is essentially a ‘middle class’ yearning. He said: “The rising middle classes … wanted some cultural roots to cling on to, something that gave them assurance of their own worth, something that would reduce the sense of frustration and humiliation that foreign conquest and rule had produced”.

(Admiral Leighton W Smith USN, C in C US Navy Europe and NATO and Allied Forces Southern Europe (1994-6) – who with his staff had prepared a military briefing on Bosnia for Holbrooke, the chief US envoy to Yugoslavia(1995+)

I always think of this excerpt whenever I read Dayan Jayathileke (DJ). Coincidentally Holbrooke US Ambassador to Germany, Assistant Secretary of State and head of the US negotiating team at the Dayton Peace talks wanted to ‘bomb for peace’.

Since Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka has found it necessary to preface his ‘Devolution and Sri Lanka’s Global Vulnerability: A Response to Prof. GH Peiris’ (The Island, 6 June) with a statement of the “fundamentals” of his stand in relation to province-based devolution, it would not be inappropriate for me to spell out the essence of my perceptions on this issue.

* Some NGOs feeding terrorism and conflict

* LTTE fronts posed as legitimate organisations

Sri Lanka emphasised that regulation, transparency and accountability of funding to NGOs and NPOs is a pre-requisite in the interest of national security and counter-terrorism as recognised by states, and that obligation placed on states to adhere to the regulatory framework in compliance with 40 Recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force, makes it mandatory to monitor fund transfers of all financial institutions inclusive of NPOs and INGOs (associations) and other financial institutions, in countering financing of terrorism, money laundering or other related trans-national crimes.