COLOMBO: The Chinese have stolen a march over the Indians in wooing Sri Lankans by learning to speak Sinhala, the language of the island nation’s majority community, the Sinhalese.
The Chinese government had set up a Sinhala language department at Beijing’s Foreign Studies University, half-a-century ago. Since 1961, the department has trained hundreds of Chinese, many of whom have gone on to handle Lankan affairs in government and business, or served in Lanka in one capacity or the other.
In contrast, New Delhi has been indifferent to Sinhala, although it is spoken by 74 per cent of Lanka’s population. Not a single Indian university teaches this South Asian language. Calcutta University used to conduct examinations in Sinhala, but that too ceased long ago.
It is only now, following the pro-Colombo shift in India’s Lanka policy, that the Ministry of External Affairs is seeing the need for its diplomats to learn Sinhala, which is central to the Lankans’ sense of identity and nationalism. An Indian diplomat has been earmarked to learn Sinhala at Peradeniya University in Kandy.
In his speech at the Foreign Studies University on Thursday, the visiting Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, said: “The very existence of the Sinhala language Department in this university is an important sign of China’s interest in fostering friendship between our two countries. I note with satisfaction that more than 100 Chinese students have mastered Sinhala language in this department.”
He went on to say: “The study of a language brings a natural interest among students, in the country from which that language comes, and its people. Having met many a Chinese diplomat in Sri Lanka, I have been greatly impressed by their knowledge of Sinhala.”
Rajapaksa was awarded a doctorate by the university. He inaugurated the Sri Lanka Research Centre there.
The Sinhalese are grateful to China for its unreserved support to successive Lankan governments in their fight against Tamil separatism. The Sinhalese believe that, unlike the Indians, the Chinese will not settle down in Sri Lanka and pave the way for absorption by India.