Sri Lanka toon targets PM, CM
A dirty cartoon lampooning Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and chief minister J. Jayalalithaa published in the Sunday edition of Lakbima, the second largest circulated Sinhala daily in Sri Lanka, has triggered angry reactions among right-thinking people across the world.
Many have demanded action against the cartoonist and the newspaper, while some suspected ‘proxy’ war by Colombo since the paper is owned by an MP, who is an ally of President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s ruling alliance.
The vulgar cartoon was seen as a crass reaction to the recent incidents in Tamil Nadu —expulsion of student footballers by the government and attacks on Lankan pilgrims by Tamil ‘nationalist’ groups.
Angry postings on Twitter and other social networking sites wanted Colombo to pull up the newspaper.
Presidential spokesman Bandula Jayasekara responded with a tweet: ‘It is disgusting. We DO NOT endorse it’.
The paper’s ‘acting’ editor Ranga Jayasuriya backed the cartoon as “a matter of artistic expression and therefore of freedom of expression”. He also counseled “a dose of tolerance is mandatory for any healthy society”.
Ranga, however, was alone in defence of the cartoon. Noted poet-author Meena Kandasamy called the cartoon a vulgar and offensive sketch of TN CM.
Another influential Tamil, Janani Jananayagam from London too tweeted her protest. People also e-mailed TN chief secretary Debendranath Sarangi on this.
Fortunately, better sense dawned upon the Lakbima bosses as the cartoon was taken off its site around 1600 hours Monday.
While there was no official protest from the Indian government, sources said that the High Commission in Colombo did ‘mention’ the unpleasant matter to the Lankan foreign ministry.
Unfortunately, the Lakbima cartoon is not an isolated instance of the Sinhala spite against India. Another leading paper in Colombo used the picture of a bus bombed by the LTTE in Dambulla (Sri Lanka) in 2008 along with the report of the Lankan pilgrims’ bus being attacked in Tamil Nadu last week.
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