In a moving testimony to the Government’s commitment to communal harmony and reconciliation, the National Anthem was sung in Sinhala and Tamil at the Independence Day celebrations at the Galle Face Green yesterday under the patronage of President Ranil Wickremesinghe.
The National Anthem was heard in Tamil ‘Namo Namo Daaye’ at an Independence Day event after a lapse of several years. The National Anthem was written in Sinhala by Ananda Samarakoon and this was translated to Tamil by Sinhala and Tamil expert M. Nallathambi.
It was last heard during national events when President Wickremesinghe was the Prime Minister during the 2015-2019 Yahapalana administration. The previous administration had banned the singing of the National Anthem in Tamil.
At yesterday’s event, the National Anthem was sung in Sinhala at the beginning of the event by schoolchildren from Sinhala schools in the Western Province and the National Anthem in Tamil was sung by students from Tamil and Muslim schools in the Western Province at the end of the event.