Idiriyatama Yawu Helayeni Lyrics by Sunil Santha

Go forward, O Hela people, go straight forward
you who laughed in the face of death, O Hela people
you who laughed at death
Go forward, O Hela people, go straight forward
In our own Hela land, begging and begging,
shall we go on sitting as slaves, still more?
What use is a life without freedom? Go forward

Go forward, O Hela people, go straight forward
weigh your two duties, O Hela people
weigh your two duties
Go forward, O Hela people, go straight forward
Our forefathers of the old days
gave their lives and saved the nation
are we then to be their slaves? Go forward

Go forward, O Hela people, go straight forward
build your lives for the Hela, O Hela people
build your lives for the Hela
Go forward, O Hela people, go straight forward
Our country is Hela, our race is Hela
our language is Hela, Hela, Hela, Hela
our wisdom is Hela, our very liberation too, go forward

Go forward, O Hela people, go straight forward

This is a rousing nationalist marching song, and its words carry real historical weight: they are by Kumaratunga Munidasa, the great scholar and language reformer who led the Hela Havula movement to revive pure Sinhala, “Hela,” and Sinhala self-respect under colonial rule. The song is a call to a whole people to stand up and move forward, its single command hammered again and again: idiriyata ma yawu, “go straight forward.”

The first verses light the fire with pride and shame together. It salutes the Hela as those “who laughed in the face of death,” a fearless people, and then stings them with a question: in their own land, why go on “begging and begging,” sitting as slaves? “What use is a life without freedom?” It invokes the ancestors “who gave their lives and saved the nation,” and asks, pointedly, whether their descendants are content to be slaves instead.

The final verse turns the pride into identity. Everything belongs to the Hela and must be claimed: “our country is Hela, our race is Hela, our language is Hela,” and even “our wisdom” and “our liberation,” nivana, the Buddhist goal of release. What the listener is left with is not a love song or a lament but a summons, Kumaratunga’s vision set to Sunil Santha’s stirring melody, urging a colonized people to reclaim their language, their heritage and their freedom, and to march forward without fear.