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Journalism of Courage
Late on Saturday (July 9) night, several hours after “Gota Go” protesters overran President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s official residence in Colombo’s Fort area and the Presidential Secretariat on Galle Face, Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardene said in a televised address that the President had informed him he would resign on July 13.
But why July 13? Why did Gotabaya choose that date, which was on July 9 still four days away, even though it had become clear as daylight that he could no longer continue in office?
There is a Buddhist connection to the date.
Although there is no official word, Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s choice of the date may be linked to it being a full moon day. This day in the lunar cycle carries great religious significance for Buddhists. In Sinhalese, it is called ‘poya’. Every ‘poya’ day is a public holiday in Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka follows Theravada Buddhism. In Theravada Buddhist calendar, the full moon of July is observed as ‘Esala Poya’, which commemorates The Buddha’s first sermon, and the founding of the Buddhist Sangha.
The Buddha delivered his first sermon in the Deer Park in Sarnath near Varanasi, an event that is dated to c. 528 BC, when he was 35 years old. In the sermon, which he preached to five ascetics, The Buddha “set in motion the Wheel of the Law”, laying down the Four Noble Truths, a foundational principle of his philosophy.
Gotabaya is a staunch Buddhist, and knows that it was only the Sinhala-Buddhists who voted for him in the 2019 presidential election.
There is something special about July itself.
July has always been an extraordinary month in Sri Lanka’s history. For the minority Tamil community, the month has been observed for nearly four decades as “Black July” after the July 24-30 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, who fought Sri Lanka for three decades, observed July 5 as Black Tiger Day to commemorate its first suicide bombing, killing 40 soldiers with an explosive-laden truck that was driven into an Army camp by an LTTE bomber called “Captain Miller”.
On July 29, 1987, India and Sri Lanka signed the India-Sri Lanka accord, which failed in its objectives within three years, and led to huge losses for the Indian Army. More recently, it was on July 29, 2017 that Sri Lanka signed off on a deal to hand over the Hambantota Port to the Chinese to settle money owed to the Chinese construction company.
If Gotabaya does keep his word, July 13 will be another addition to the month for Sri Lanka. And July 9 will be remembered as the day of the people of Sri Lanka.
