President Anura Kumara Dissanayake was conferred with the Kamban Award at the Kamban Festival held at the Ramakrishna Hall in Wellawatte on Sunday, declaring that Sri Lanka’s journey towards unity among Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim communities had reached “a point of no return” and that his Government would not allow racism or extremism to regain space in the country.
“We have already taken a firm and decisive step towards national unity. I assure you that the steps already taken will not, under any circumstances, be reversed,” Dissanayake said in remarks reported by Daily FT. “If existing laws are not sufficient to defeat racism, we will formulate new laws and ensure that racism is decisively defeated.”
The President made a pointed reference to the destruction of libraries during Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict, an apparent allusion to the burning of the Jaffna Public Library in 1981. “I still reflect on how a library could be set on fire in the name of an election,” he said. He also recalled a personal conversation with the late Tamil political leader R. Sampanthan, quoting him as saying: “Anura, I am proud to say to the world that I am a Sri Lankan, but I do not wish to live in Sri Lanka as a second-class citizen.”
Dissanayake said politics had often nurtured ethnic division. “The seeds of racism are deeply embedded within politics itself,” he said, arguing that everyone born in Sri Lanka and contributing to its economy “must feel a sense of belonging that this is our motherland.” He described the conflict era in stark terms: “In war, it is humanity that perishes first. In literature, it is humanity that is first revived.”
The President was received in accordance with traditional Hindu rituals at the four-day event, one of the principal literary and cultural gatherings of the Tamil community. The All Ceylon Kamban Kazhagam was established in Jaffna in 1980 in the name of the Tamil poet Kamban and runs the annual festival to honour individuals who have contributed to Sri Lankan society without distinction of ethnicity or religion.
The President also delivered a broader critique of the education system and digital culture, warning that schools, tuition classes and “excessive academic pressure” were producing children disconnected from empathy. “Are we raising our children as if they are merely nuts and bolts of a machine?” he asked. He committed government support for organisations working to strengthen Tamil literature, arts and cinema in Sri Lanka.
Among those present were Fisheries, Aquatic and Ocean Resources Minister Ramalingam Chandrasekaran, former Malaysian MP M. S. Aravanan, former Bharatiya Janata Party state president K. Annamalai, liver-transplant specialist Dr. Mohamed Rela, Court of Appeal Judge P. Sasimahendran and former Court of Appeal Judge Vishvanadan, patron of the Colombo Kamban Kazhagam.
The award is the first cultural recognition Dissanayake has received from a Tamil literary organisation since taking office, and follows a series of NPP outreach engagements with northern and Tamil constituencies including the Nuwara Eliya May Day rally and recent appointments on minority and inter-faith files.
