Sinhalese urged to have large families

By Nirupama Subramanian

COLOMBO, JUNE 19. The Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, Mr. Ratnasiri Wickramanayake, claims to have the perfect way to protect the country from the LTTE: have large families.

Mr. Wickramanayake was quoted in the Sinhala-language daily Divaina today blaming Sri Lanka's family planning drive for the present poor response to army recruitment drives. ``It is because people believe in the small family concept that we do not have the 10,000 soldiers required to finish the war against the LTTE quickly,'' he said, asking people to ignore the 1970s family planning slogan of ``Small Families are Golden.''

A recent campaign by Mr. Wickramanayake, who is also the Minister for Buddhist Affairs, to recruit monks in order to look after and maintain the country's many Buddhist temples, also drew a lukewarm response.

Special bonus scheme

The state-run Daily News quoted Mr. Wickramanayke as saying that the government would initiate a special bonus scheme for large families.

With a fertility rate of under 2.4, Sri Lanka has one of the slowest growing populations of the developing world and could be a model family planning nation. A nation-wide census, scheduled to be conducted next month, is likely to confirm the island's population at no more than 20 million, 70 per cent of whom are Buddhists, 14 per cent Tamils, with Muslims and Christians forming 8 per cent each. But despite their overwhelming numbers, sections of Sinhalese Buddhists are seized by fears that their religion is under siege.

Mr. Wickramanayake's present advice is not new. Buddhist monks have been preaching large families to Sri Lanka's villages for several years as the best way to counter, on the one hand, the separatist threat posed by the LTTE, which is interpreted as a threat to Buddhism itself, and conversion to Christianity on the other.

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Section  : International
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