கவனிக்க: இந்த மின்னூலைத் தனிப்பட்ட வாசிப்பு, உசாத்துணைத் தேவைகளுக்கு மட்டுமே பயன்படுத்தலாம். வேறு பயன்பாடுகளுக்கு ஆசிரியரின்/பதிப்புரிமையாளரின் அனுமதி பெறப்பட வேண்டும்.
இது கூகிள் எழுத்துணரியால் தானியக்கமாக உருவாக்கப்பட்ட கோப்பு. இந்த மின்னூல் மெய்ப்புப் பார்க்கப்படவில்லை.
இந்தப் படைப்பின் நூலகப் பக்கத்தினை பார்வையிட பின்வரும் இணைப்புக்குச் செல்லவும்: Tamil Times 1999.03

Page 1

Children in War

Page 2
2 TAMIL TIMES
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நீங்கள் தொடர்புகொள்ளவேண்டியவர்கள்: Harry Mahendran Asoka Fernando
 
 
 

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15 MARCH 1999
ISSN 0266 - 44 88 Vol. XVIII No. 3 1S MARCH 1999
Published by: TAMILTMESLTD PO Box 121, Sutton, Surrey SM13TD United Kingdom Phone: 0181 644 0972 Fax: 0181 241 4557 Email: prajan(agn.apc.org
ANNUAL SUBSCRPTION
UK/India/Sri Lanka...................... £15/US$25 Australia............................................... Aus$45 (Australian Bank cheques only) USA........................................................ US$35 Canada...................................................CanS40 All other countries....................... £20 US$35
Views expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of the editor or publishers. The publishers assume no responsibility for return of unsolicited manuscripts, photographs or artwork.
No to Capital Punishment 03 Theatre of War Shifts 04 Confronting "the Billo" 07 The Noose Again 10
Myths Without Conscience 11 Lest Democracy Gets Skewed 19
Election Violence 21 Myth of Dravidian identity 23 Book Review 25 Classified 30
Cover Photo: Oxfan/Sean Sutton
The Suicide Tens of thousa of the country, OSS of life is n( restore capital years.
The campa WaSled OnCel progressive ar tries, Some ev death penalty, of many know progressive vi Carry Out judic The increa: to be deterred into vogue thi long been bla Commit Crime attacks, Orind those CrimeS that were to be ment for life & them carry Out The fact that Countries whe SOme the State Of the deterrer It haStO be tries with high years, there ha the United Kir tenCeS for ter been Set asid they were initi cated by the in rendered the these instanc for many yea tal punishmer have been lOS because Of til punishment t judicial execu Capital pu ing other than of life itselfform. Reintro not have e Ve! all the efforts eradicating til Whole fabric
 

TAM TIMES
rate in Sri Lanka is one of the highest in the world. lds have been victims of wanton killings in the name anguage, homeland and liberation. As if this terrible tenough, the government has announced that it isto punishment which has remained Suspended formany
ign Sri Lanka for the abolition of capital punishment pon a time by persons who were not known for their d liberal views. At a time when more and more Counen led by reactionary regimes, have abolished the that a government Ostensibly Considered to Comprise n libertarians and enlightened men and women with aws should have decided bring back the hangman to all executions is indeed amentable. se in Crimes of murder and drug trafficking which has has been advanced as the reason for bringing back S barbaric practice. The "deterrence" argument has sted out of court by empirical evidence. Those who s of premeditated murder, or kill people by terrorist ulge in drug trafficking have never been deterred from merely because they fear the hangman's noose. If : true, they would equally fear a sentence of imprisonand deter them from committing them. But most of tthese crimes in the hope that they won't get caught. these abominable Crimes have been On the rise in recapital punishment still operates, as in the case of ls in the USA, demonstrates the utter unsustainability Ice argument.
noted that miscarriage of justice occur even in pounly streamlined criminal judicial systems. In recent ave been many cases of such miscarriage of justice in gdom where convictions followed by life prison senorist offences carried out by alleged IRA men have aftermany years because the evidence upon which ally Convicted was found to be Contaminated or fabrivestigating authorities, or new evidence emerged which :onviction insupportable. In such cases, the victims of ls of miscarriage of justice after languishing in prison shad the chance to go free. But had there been capit, the opportunity forrectifying the judicial wrong would for ever and the innocents would have lost their lives e desire on the part of those who advocate capital ) exact revenge through a sophisticated process of
O. lishment does not achieve anything positive. It is notha barbaric exercise in exacting violent revenge interms in eye for an eye syndrome in a much more Serious lucing the practice of such revenge-violence should entered the minds of those in authority at a time when f the government and the people should be directed at e Culture of violence and intolerance that afflicts the f Sri Lankan society today.

Page 4
4 TAMIL TIMES
he bitter war that raged on in the North-Eastern sector of the northern mainland of Wanni has now shifted to its north-western sector. The Sri Lankan armed forces seem to have changed their plans of establishing a ground based main supply route through the heartland of the Wanni. Instead they are now attempting to do so by capturing and consolidating the roadway along the coasts of Mannar and Kilinochi districts for the purpose. This has escalated the fighting in the north-western sector of the Wanni as opposed to the earlier stage of strife in the north-eastern sector.
Interestingly this current round of fighting has been preceded by a marked shift in the military strategies adopted by both the armed forces as well as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
With the theatre of conflict shifting to the north-western sector of the northern province the protagonists themselves are revising their objectives and redefining their strategies accordingly. This has led to a rapid transformation of both the nature of the war as well the military equation on ground in this current phase of the conflict.
Ever since the government launched its major offensive named “Operation Jayasikurui (Certain Victory) on May 13th 1997 to recapture the 76 km stretch of road between Vavuniya and Kilinochi along the Jaffna-Kandy A-9 highway the LTTE mounted effective resistance through a counteroffensive named “Operation Sei Allathu Sethu Madi” (Do or Die). The significance of that resistance has been the adopting of positional warfare by the LTTE instead of depending upon its usual guerrilla type tactics alone. Instead of "melting” away in the face of an advancing army as "guerrillas” are expected to do in classical textbooks the tigers have been entrenching themselves and attempting to defend territory.
In doing so the tigers have been successful to the extent of preventing the army of reaching its avowed destination of Kilinochi yet. In spite of the protracted war described as the longest operation in South Asia the armed forces had only reached the
99 DYMM
North-East to
northern town of M km to the south of “Jayasikirui” was December. The 18 r ever was the blood entire war, resulting dead and injured to ure mark on either s that the LTTE has I try (Charles Anth Vithusha) and one type units to confro 53rd, 54th, 55th a were engaged in the conflict.
When Jayasiku it was perceived as the army being un the LTTE and achi dictably LTTE pro jected the “non-succ forces in meeting “defeat”. The rece has seen an intere tion. The military i rection has been cc the army progressi tions and acquiring unting to 670 sq What is puzzlingly these gains is that quire any fighting. The LTTE in a of strategy did not ance when the arm From the incept round of war Sri La defence minister ( ratunga had been c management of the and deputy ministe rudha Ratwatte. In phant “victory in and the early succe the army had been the same moment The amazing resil had resulted in the ting bogged down the Wanni. In the taining very heav those of morale a was increased criti
 

15 MARCH 1999
Shifts From
inkulam about 32 Kilinochi when
suspended last nonth battle howiest phase in the in casualties both oping the five figide. It is reported aised three infanony, Jeyanathan,
artillery (Kittu) it the army whose nd 56th divisions Wanni theatre of
ui was called off a clear instance of able to overcome eve its goal. Prepaganda has pro:ess of the armed the deadline as a :nt past however sting transformampasse in one dimpensated for by ng in other direc“real estate” amouare kilometres. noteworthy about they did not re
seemingly change proffer any resisty advanced. ion of the present kan President and Chandrika Kumaontent to leave the war to her uncle r of defence Anuspite of the triumJaffna peninsula sses in the Wanni, inable to maintain um subsequently. ence of the LTTE army virtually getin the quagmire of process it was suslosses including d prestige. There cism that this was
NORWEGS
yaʼa
all because of Ratwatte's single minded determination to achieve control of the A-9 highway alone instead of reviewing other less costly options.
Under these circumstances Kumaratunga had no choice other than to assert her authority and play a more decisive and direct role in the realm of defence from the last quarter of last year. Instead of leaving everything in Ratwatte's hands she was set up a joint operations bureau under retired general Rohan Daluwatte to plan and co-ordinate military action while being directly responsible to her.
After the armed forces gained cointrol of Mankulam the government suspended the much prolonged “Jayasikurui saying it had achieved its temporary objectives. The reality however was that the emphasis on an upward north-bound thrust towards Kilinochi had been put on hold. Instead the army conducted another limited operation named “ Rivibala” (Sunpower) reminiscent of operation “Riviresa’ (Sunray) that led to the LTTE getting dislodged from Jaffna.
The Jaffna-Kandy road or A-9 highway that runs through the middle of the Wanni mainland has three major roads leading eastwards to the Tiger citadel of Mullaitheevu on the north-eastern coast. These roads are from Paranthan, Mankulam, and Puliyankulam respectively. When “Jayasikurui” was suspended the army, apart from its positions along the A-9 highway, was also occupying Nedunkerny on the Puliyankulam - Mullaitheevu road and Olumadu on the Mullaitheevu -Mankulam road.
“Operation Rivibala” in December last year saw the army breaking out from the Olumadu-Karippattamurippu camp along the Mankulam-Mullaitheewu road and proceed eastwards till it reached Oddusuddan o the same road. This manoeuvre was supplemented by another column from Nedunkerny advancing towards Oddusuddan in a north-eastwards thrust.
Both lines of advance seemed to have surprised the LTTE who apparently had been structuring their defences in readiness for an upward, northbound move by the army. Apparently it did not expect the army to

Page 5
15 MARCH 999
progress sideways like a "crab” and take territory. The end result was the linking up of Mankulam via Olumadu to Oddusuddan along with Nedunkerny. This near triangular area saw the army gaining 135 square kilometres of territory easily,
There was no direct fighting but the army advance was preceded by intensive bombing and long range artillery barrages. Civilians in the region numbering over 14,000 fled from the area but another 850 people opted to take their chances with the army, They sought refuge in Oddusuddan than Thondreeswarar Sivan Kovil premises. This was another new feature as the general practice had been for Tamil Civilians to run away from areas seized by the army. Later Ratwatte escaped death when LTTE shells landed dangerously close to him when visiting the Sivan temple. A senior commander Maj-Gen Neil Dias was injured.
The suspension of “Jayasikurui” saw a reversal of roles in the military scenario that has gone largely unnoticed in the Island nation's media. It was no longer a case of the army trying to advance on predictable routes with the tigers waiting in anticipation. Now it was a case of the army embarking on unorthodox expeditions. The strategic shift, illustrated vividly by the Oddusuddan annexation, meant that the army now possessed the element of surprise. In the Wanni arena the army had the options of -
l. Going north east by east to Mullaitheevu from Oddusuddan; 2. Proceeding South by south - east to Mullaitheevu from Paranthan. 3. Resuming Jayasikurui and commencing either a northwards thrust or southwards thrust or both again 4. Reopening the north-western front and undertaking manoeuvres there. The LTTE in its wisdom ruled out the north-western sector of the Wanni lying to the west of the A-9 highway as a potential venue for escalated conflict and instead focused on the other options. It strengthened its 40 mile long ”Pathukapu Veli” ( Security Fence) of entrenched positions extending from Vavunikulam in the west to Katsilaimadu in the east. It also set up positions near the Paranthan- Elephant pass axis. The LTTE may have
felt that the arm Mullaitheevu becau sense the heartlanc now. The Alambilthe LTTE lifeline in ing military supplie Also the fledgli (Air tigers) unit ( microlite aircraft ar copters was also s Subsequent ev that the LTTE may miscalculation in i; Western Sector Or yet to be revealed sleeve.
The district of N portions of the V: nochi districts cor Western sector of chief road linki Vavuniya is the A. proceeds westwar town to Parayanal: north-westwards to road, the A-14 hig wachiya to Manna also meets it and nlankulam.
The army had over the Vavuniya through another “Edibala” prior to launched in 1997. offer any resistanc nar-Vavuniya roa secure to the exten police along that h the army statione camps. Apart from LTTE did not atter operation to count armed forces prest From March 4 the government fo unusually quiet o conspicuous by it ce” in striking coi ame “Ranghosa” Cry”. The operatic nged drive from wards a single c Iluppaikulam whi “Twin Mahua tree to the north -west This was follower to Moondrumurip tions and then ar Vannivillankulam t The army mov Poovarasankulam west of Vavuniya Mannar road to

TAMIL TIMES 5
y would target se it was in every of tiger territory balai coastline was terms of procurs from abroad,
g ”Vaan Puligal” omprising a few d two seater helilationed there.
:nts demonstrated nave made a grave gnoring the norththat it had some tactical ace up its
Mannar along with „vuniya and Kilinprise the Norththe Wanni. The ng Mannar and 30 highway. This is from Vavuniya ankulam and then
Mannar. Another hway from Medar via Chettykulam merges at Paraya
2stablished control -Mannar roadway operation named Jayasikurui being The LTTE did not e then. The Manil was considered it of deploying the ighway instead of d in interspersed a rare ambush the mpt any significant er the Sri Lankan ince there. th to 6th this year rces conducted an peration that was s secretive “silentrast to its codenmeaning “Battly n was a twin prowo directions toestination Iranai ch literally means Tank and is 27 km of Vavuniya town. | by second thrust lu from two direcupward move to owards the north. d northwards from eight miles to the on the Vavuniyawards Iranai illu
ppaikulam by way of a minor road that cuts through villages like Velankulam, Thirumenikulam and Periya Puliyankulam. The area was virtually a no man's land devoid of people. Six Czech built T-52 main battle tanks of the armoured corps were in the vanguard of the advancing column. The armoured thrust was followed by men of the 215 brigade led by Brigadier Saliya Kulatunga.
Simultaneously another column proceeded from Thandikulam six miles to the north of Vavuniya along another minor road also leading to Iranailluppaikulam. This road goes through places like Marukkarampalai, Shastrikoolankulam, Kalmadu and Thavasiyakulam etc. This line of advance too met with no resistance. It comprised men from the 214 brigade led by Colonel Kumar Herath. Even more notable was the virtual absence of landmines on the way. The people of Iranailluppaikulam were surprised to wake up one fine morning and find the army amidst them. There had been absolutely no firing of any kind. Their surprise increased when they found the LTTE "pass” issuing office closed and a woman Tiger camp nearby deserted. Obviously the LTTE had anticipated army arrival and faded away. Upon reaching IranaiIluppaikulam and tarrying for a "breather” the army had moved northwards again passing through villages like Vilaathikulam, Valaiankaddu, Periyamadhu etc and reached Moondrumurippu. Likewise another column started out from Omanthai, ten miles to the north of Vavuniya town and proceeded northwestwards to Moondrumurippu along a gravel track cutting through jungle areas and villages like Rambaikulam, Kondakkaarankulam, Palamoddai, Navvi, Panichanikulam, Koliyakulam etc.
Again there was no resistance. After reaching Moondrumurrippu both columns of the army continued northwards via Pandiyankulam and reached Vannivilankulam to the northwest of Mankulam. Later the Mankulam axis was extended to Vannivilankulam.
Now the army is poised to move through Vavunikulam and then Thunukkai and Mallavi the two most important towns in the north-west sector. Mallavi incidentally was the place where the inter-religious delegation from Colombo met the LTTE re

Page 6
6 TAMIL TIMES
cently. The LTTE leaders Karikalan and Thamilchel van had stated to the Buddhist and Christian priests that the Tigers were prepared to enter peace negotiations. Expectations of peace that arose as a result were rudely shattered by the new army operation. In fact the army had proceeded at least some of the way along the route taken by the peace delegation. Some Colombo correspondents could hardly conceal their glee when they reported that the government had shattered possibilities for peace negotiations by the military operation. In terms of territorial acquisition operation battle cry was a great “success” as it resulted in a further 570 sq. kilometres area coming under army control. This consisted of jungles and agricultural fields in 24 villages coming under 17 grama sevaka divisions. With this all lands in Vavuniya district except one division (Periya Thambanai) have come under government control. Thus in two operations sans fighting the Sri Lankan army had brought under its domain 670 sq km of new territory. What is most puzzling about this is the marked absence of LTTE resistance. It was a virtual cakewalk for the army.
Over 9000 civilians have opted to remain in the areas captured by the army instead of fleeing like another 15,000 displaced persons. An immediate benefit was the availability of essential goods at cheap prices. Ratwatte sought to gain much propaganda mileage out ofit. Iranailuppaikulam is a key intersection in the northwestern sector. Several roads cut through the place. Also it was the main transit point in one direction for people crossing to an from government controlled areas into LTTE controlled areas.
Government sources attributed the army success to the factor of surprise.
LTTE circles however indicated in their media organs abroad that the LTTE had allowed the army in so that it can be encircled and attacked later. Yet there has been no effective counter attack by the Tigers so far. The only two incidents so far in the newly seized areas was an ambush on an army convoy that was inspecting the LTTE cemetery of over 1000 “Maaveerar (Great heroes) in the Thavasiyakulam-Kalmadu area. Four men including an intelligence official died.
The other was a l on a sentry post murippu area.
It does seem the change of strat provide much foot army instead of f. the A-9 highway sifying its advanc rections and accum of real estate in th
The LTTE on not resisted thes allowed the army quer. Acquiring t that the army will ing to consolidate creasingly vulne amount to the Ti lated army detach future. At the sam denied that the a resilience to mai despite suffering slaughts by the L Anuruddha Ra Parliament abou
C6CSS6CS W8S OCC & ebullient mood. A byhorse of boast centage of territo the LTTE, Ratwa that the main sup by land would be ill-fated Jayasikur tive was to estab route by capturing the Jaffna-Kandy comments howeve that he was hintir gic shift regardir ground link to Jaf the recent succ open that possibi Before Jayasil there had been so path the army p achieving the targ ground route. In sis it seemed pruc pursue a roundab along the North-W ready the roadwa under army cont would have been the Mannar -Poo highway that hu, ern coast. From M road goes along madhu, Iluppaikka Mulankavil, Nacl nkattu etc to Poo Thereafter the lin

15 MARCH 1999
obbing of grenades in the Moondru
clear however that egies by both sides l for thought. The cusing on opening lone is now diveres in different diulating a great deal le process. the other had has 2 manoeuvres and to march and conerritory also means spread thin in tryit and become inrable. This could gers attacking isoments in the near e time it cannot be rmy does have the ntain its presence tremendous onITTE. itwatte speaking in t the recennt sucagain on an upbeat fter riding his hobing about the perry recaptured from tte also proclaimed ply route to Jaffna ; opened soon. The ui’s avowed objeclish such a ground and consolidating road. Ratwatte's ir led to speculation g at another strateng plans to open a na. It was clear that asses had thrown lity afresh. urui was launched me doubt as to what oposed to take in et of establishing a terms of cost analylent for the army to out but safer route Vesterns coasts. Alup to Mannar was ol. The next stage to gain control of heryn road of A-32 is the North-Westsannar-Thalaldi this Pappamottai, Palladavai, Vellankulam, ikudu, Pallavarayaheryn or Poonagari. age with the Jaffna
peninsula could be achieved by either extending links to Elephant Pass via Kilinochi-Paranthan or by re-establishing the Pooneryn ferry ( or constructing the Mahadeva causeway) between-Kerathivu and Sangupiddy. Though long winded this route hugging the coast was easier to establish and safeguard than the A-9 going through thick jungle in the centre of the Wanni.
The ambitious Ratwatte preferred to take the harder path. After Jayasikurui began speculation about this route ceased. After the army abandoned Pooneryn and was later driven away from Kilinochi it seemed that this route was no longer an option. But with the significant strides made in the North-Western sector this vague probability became a distinct possibility again. The capture of the strategically located Iranai Iluppaikulam has enabled the army to mount pressure on the LTTE from different directions.
Soon the airforce began bombing the Pooneryn area. Then the army broke out of the Thallady camp and reached Pappamottai on the Pooneryn road without any resistance. Realising perhaps that the army was bent on taking the entire roadway the Tigers began striking back. Long range heavy artillery was swiftly moved to Naayaaruveli on the same road from where a barrage was unleashed on the army. Several years ago Naayaaruweli was the target range for the army in Thallady. The artillery used by the LTTE for the first time in Mannar is Multi-barrel rocket launchers
(MBRL).
The Thallady camp us the headquarters of the 21st brigade with Maj Gen Shantha Kottegoda in Command. The LTTE scored significantly when shells fell on the Thallady camp ammunition dump. At least 24 soldiers were killed and 42 injured in the chain reaction of explosions. The camp sustained great damage and a great fire erupted. The fire raged for two days destroying a substantial portion of the Thallady premises including its storage facilities. At least nine vehicles were gutted. The army advance along the Pooneryn road was temporarily halted. It also appears that the Tigers are now assembling cadres along this

Page 7
15 MARCH 1999
route in anticipation of an army advance. The people of the area have started moving out.
The army however commenced another forward moving operation in a different direction. The most famous Catholic shrine in Sri Lanka is situated at Maruthamadhu popularly known as Madhu in Mannar district. Nominally it is a Fatima church dedicated to out lady of the rosary (Sebamaalai Matha) but is generally know as Our Lady of Madhu or “Madhu Maatha Church”. In recent times a colony of displaced persons numbering nearly 15,000 has been set up in the areas surrounding it and is under UNHCR supervision. The road to Madhu begins on the Madhu road junction on the Mannar-Vanunniya highway that is controlled by the army. With Thallady coming under artillery fire by the LTTE the army commenced an operation on this road and started proceeding towards Madhu. Once again the Tigers retaliated and fired rocket propelled grenade mortars killing one and wounding three soldiers. But the Tiger resistance did not prevent the army from bringing under its control the Madhu area including the church which is regarded as a major loss for the LTTE.
Another outcome of the MannarPooneryn road coming under army control would be the possible curtailment of the clandestine marine contact between the Tamil Nadu and Mannar coasts. It is no secret that the Tigers have in recent times been procuring medicine, fuel, newsprint, nonperishable foodstuffs, mechanical and electronic spare parts etc from Tamil Nadu through smugglers and some fishermen. Some arrests have been made in this regard. This contraband is stored in the Sea Tiger base at Nachikudah on the littoral and then distributed to other tiger points in the hinterland. If the coastal road is taken by the army then the clandestine traffic between Tamil Nadu and Mannar coasts would be interdicted effectively.
Thus all indications are that the theatre of war in the Wanni has shifted from the north-east to the north-west. It remains to be seen as to what manoeuvres will be undertaken by both sides in pursuance of their military objectives. O
ne sunny aft month, in a one of the v surgent armies, a erly, holy men and cetics confronted commanders of th them off in no unc “We pointed o uma suffered by South due to the dhapura and the bo da Maligawa,” the sor Kumburugam news conference ir ruary 12th in des ary 10th meetingb tion of senior Bud clergy and two key Liberation Tiger (LTTE). “We told tacks only made own task of creati standing in the So of the Tamil peop. a settlement of thi The Tigers, a the delegation, ha wares by the une) by their ecclesia had apparently a tion that, on their be made to avoic damage to, any shrine. (Can we tu rorists? Will the word given to th The Ven. Prof egation of clergy cluding some of senior Buddhist gious leaders wh ary 8 - 10, visitec led Vanni region. the Inter-Religio tional Unity (Jaat saavuu Aagamik a mission to visi areas, meet the especially the mo groups such as ced by the confli cate to the peop
 

TAM TIMES 7
Lakshman Gunasekera
:rnoon earlier this jungle hideout of orld’s fiercest ingroup of frail, eldyounger fellow assome of the top at army and told ertain terms. ut to them the trathe people in the attack on Anurambing of the DalaVenerable Profesuve Vajira told a Colombo on Febcribing the Februetween the delegahist and Christian top-rankers of the s of Tamil Eelam them that these atmore difficult our ng a better underuth of the concerns le and the need for s war.” :cording to one of d been caught unaspected admonition stical visitors and ssured the delegaart, an effort would destruction of, or religious site or ust those Tiger tergo back on their Sadhus?) Vajira led the delfrom the South inthe country's most und Christian relich, during Februthe LTTE-controlThey were sent by s Alliance for Naika Samagiya UdeSandhaanaya) on these war-ravaged ivilian population, st severely affected he refugees displa, and to communie of the South the
conditions of the Vanni population and the concerns and aspirations expressed by them. From the South and to the South signified that the delegation was, in effect, representative of the religious leadership of the Sinhala people.
The Delegations
What was truly historic about the meeting between the religious delegation and the LTTE was the very fact that it was a meeting between the two immediate deputies of Liberation Tiger leader, Mr. Velupillai Prabhakaran, on the one hand and, on the other, the deputy heads of two major Buddhist sects and senior prelates of the two largest Christian sects in Sri Lanka.
On the side of the LTTE was Mr. Karikalan, chief of political affairs, and Mr. Thamilchelvam, deputy military commander. The big guns of the religious delegation were the Ven. Udugama Buddharakkhitha Nayaka Thera, Anunayaka of the Asgiriya Chapter of the Siyam Nikaya, Ven. Thalalle Dhammaloka Nayaka Thera, Anunayaka of the Amarapura Nikaya, the Rt. Rev. Malcolm Ranjith, Roman Catholic Bishop of Ratnapura and SecretaryGeneral of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Sri Lanka and, the Rt. Revd. Kenneth Fernando, Anglican Bishop of Colombo. The Ven. Prof. Vajira, former Vice Chancellor of the Buddhism and Pali University and an internationally respected Buddhist scholar, headed the delegation in his capacity as moderator of the Inter-Religious Alliance.
If the LTTE is at the centre of the Tamil struggle for self-determination and embodies (in more than one sense of that term - including the selfsacrificial) the Tamil spirit of sovereign identity and autonomy, the Buddhist Saasana is a core icon of the Sinhala nationalist spirit. The classical political-historical role attributed to the Sangha in the sustaining of the Sinhala monarchy over the centuries,

Page 8
8 TAMIL TIMES
as well as the traditional recognition of the monks as those who possess the purest form of pronunciation of Hela Basa, are both powerful pointers to the symbolic and political significance of the saffron community.
It is not the first time that Buddhist and/or Christian clergy of the Sinhala community have travelled North to meet and exchange views with representatives of Tamil nationalist militancy. This writer remembers being a (junior) part of a delegation of Sinhala Buddhist and Christian students and young clergy which visited Jaffna in the immediate aftermath of the anti-Tamil riots of 1977 (which occurred as part of the UNP's violent celebrations of its massive election victory). The Student Christian Movement, whose membership included both Sinhala and Tamil Christian students, was the facilitator of that meeting. However, it was the fact that the Colombo-based SCM already had a record of being sensitive to the problems of ethnic minorities and had gone as far as recognising the right of selfdetermination that gave that organisation the credibility to act as intermediary with Tamil militants who were gradually becoming suspicious of the Sinhalas.
The Role of the Church
Over the past two decades of gradual deterioration of relations between the Sinhala and Tamil communities, Christian/Catholic institutions have often played this role of inter-ethnic facilitator, precisely because of their demographic advantage of straddling both Sinhala and Tamil communities. These institutions were also well positioned to provide the necessary logistical resources because they have a lot of money as compared to the Hindu and Buddhist ecclesiastical structures. In fact, in some of these exercises, the Church and the Christian clergy involved have chosen to remain in the background and merely provide the logistical support in order that the Buddhist Sinhala elements have the opportunity to be in the forefront and directly interact with the Tamil nationalist activists both civilian and militant.
It must be said, however, that much of this initiative in the past has been by small, religiously committed elements within the Church structures and has been often undertaken not
withstanding the l support (sometim tility) of the Chur Equally impo decades of hard v mitted elements solidarity with gr of both Sinhala an peasants irrespect filiation which h build-up of confid tians on the one h tians who have na cious of the colo nial legacy of the It is this record of the masses of op these radical Chris that has, in more the Church as a socio-cultural cre joys among the n lation and religio Christian hiera Catholic and Prot ever credibility it social justice to t those elements.
Taking the Lead But who took recent venture by tlegrounds of the Theras did. “It w Bishop who was i me. “They wantec senior bhikkhus time they went N for themselves an The principal for the arduous o ross wild, war-to of the younger m pahane Piyaratan his committed pi ther with the Nat: He told me that it ior monks hired trip from Colomb( A decade ago, E visit the North v the seniority to ea bus for such a da would they have such resources. record of the vis of the younger m eras along. Unfo a co-ordinated fo sations that sup delayed the avai of pictures of th: Today, partly

15 MARCH 1999
thargy and lack or 2s downright hosh hierarchy, tantly, it was the "ork of these comn social action in iss roots struggles Tamil workers and ve of religious afas resulted in the nce between Chrisand and non-Christurally been suspihial and neo-coloSri Lankan Church. identification with pressed people by tian social activists recent years, given whole the kind of dibility it now enon-Christian popuus institutions. The rchy today, both estant, owes whathas in the area of he early activism of
the lead in the most clergy into the batNorth? The Nayaka as their idea,” one n the delegation told l to go. Some of the decided that it was orth and saw things d learnt from it.”
logistics organiser verland journey acrn country was one onks, the Ven. Kalu, already known for ace activism togeonal Peace Council. was one of the senhe mini bus for the to Madhu and back. hikkus wanting to ould not have had sily mobilise a mini ngerous journey, nor had easy access to Even the pictorial t was made by two nks who took camtunately, the lack of llow-up the organiorted the visit has ability to the public ; historic visit. as a result of their
gradual recovery from colonial oppression and partly as a result of the support received from an ethno-centric State as well as from the richer Buddhist countries (such as Japan and Korea), both the Sangha and Buddhist laity are now able to mobilise more resources. The growing affluence and social power of non-Christian social classes has provided the Sasana with lay constituencies possessing a better capacity to support the Sangha community. This is already being reflected in the multitude of creative initiatives taken by the Sangha and by lay Buddhist organisations in diverse areas ranging from drug rehabilitation and trauma counselling to protecting the environment and indigenous culture and technology, to support for numerous causes of social justice.
While there have always been cases of individually active bhikkhus, in more recent years, however, the Buddha Sasana has been showing a greater and greater organised response to the ethnic conflict entirely on its own initiative, that is, responding in a more complex and creative manner than simply lending itself to the machinations of the Sinhala-Buddhist supremacist State.
Significant Journey
The reality is that, precisely bécause it is the religion of the majority of the population and of the dominant civilisation on this island, it is the Buddha Sasana that has the greatest capacity to respond creatively to the current crisis in our island society. Thus it is not surprising that the visit to the North by the delegation from the Inter-Religious Alliance for National Unity was entirely the initiative of the senior bhikkhus who hold leadership positions in that Alliance. The fact that some of the monks were frail ascetics in their seventies and sixties but were neverthless prepared to endure not merely the risk of violence in the war zone, but also the physical rigours of fast overland travel along jungle roads and roads neglected and damaged after years of war, made this journey all the more significant.
As the Ven. Piyaratana told me: “We felt that this was the time to visit the war-affected Tamil population and see for ourselves their conditions. It is true that it was very tiring and tense.

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15 MARCH 1999
But I think even the older Svaaminvahansa did not feel the strain too much because we were all so inspired by the importance of our mission. The suffering we saw that the refugees were undergoing also made us realise that our travel hardships were only temporary.”
Hardship it must have been for these clerics to traverse about three hundred miles of wilderness and war zone in just three days.
The delegation comprised 17 bhikkhus, the two Bishops and Prof. Tissa Vitarana, the convenor of the National Alliance for Peace. Several of the senior monks in the delegation were also in leadership positions of the National Alliance for Peace.
They left Colombo early in the morning of February 8th and, after a lunch stop in Anuradhapura, reached the Catholic Shrine at Madhu at about 5 p.m. that day. They were now well inside the LTTE-controlled territory. They found a large crowd that had been waiting several hours to welcome them to the shrine. The Catholic Bishop of Mannar had made arrangements for their reception in Madhu and was also the liaison between the delegation and the LTTE.
Praying for Peace at Shrine
The clerics celebrated their arrival in the LTTE-held Vanni with the conducting of a Peace service at the Shrine that night. This was the first time that Bhikkhus had participated in religious observances at the Shrine. The next morning comprised a series of visits to schools in the area and meetings with students and teachers. In the afternoon there were meetings with government officials in the area including the Additional Government Agent and the health officers. The evening was occupied with visits to some of the many refugee camps in the vicinity of the Shrine. The monks recalled how refugee children, who had never before seen a bhikkhu, came up to them and wonderingly touched their saffron robes. The adult refugees seemed overwhelmed by the f: it that these elderly prelates had - iertaken so hard a journey to visit them in their predicament.
One would have thought that the whole day's accumulation of the expenence of human suffering as well as the strain of travelling in the hot, Dry Zone jungle conditions would
have been enough haps that may have egation found the they conducted in that night so inspi After the medit rch, the Buddhist c initiative, perform peace and unity in The religious obse inded by a large n from the nearby ca On the 10th m tion set off across t avi, some eight m chchi, in the Mull cause the roads we because of the nee nition in the war zo sons, the delegatio provided by the L Were not these ful of a possible a plane that might sp could legitimately pected enemy ve aware of that risk focussed on our 1 already absorbed seen and heard an ing our first day Ven. Piyaratana re
Meeting the LTTE The delegation let of Mallaavi at received by the LT ing set apart from tlement. Member recall it as a wel house. They were srs Karikalan, Th ran and Purithava mber of other civ present. Alert as peculiarities of th clerics did not se the only uniform Piyaratana saw v policeman (or sl boy?) in the Mal
The monks, visited LTTE in were impressed b facilities and the insitutional infra police officers an courthouse, Ver They were als der LTTE rule b local citizens' or come (been bro sion. However, til

AMIL TIMES 9
or anybody. Perbeen why the delaama Bhaavanaa” le Madhu Church ing! tions in the Chuergy, on their own ed satyakriya for ront of the Shrine. Vances Were atteimber of refugees mps. nring the delegahe Vanni to Mallales east of Kilinoitivu district. Bere so bad and also d for quick recogne for security reatravelled in a bus TTE. gentle clerics feartack by any SLAF ot their vehicle and strike at any sushicle “We were out our minds were mission. We were with what we had d experienced durin the Vanni, the calls.
arrived in the hamabout l l a.m. was TE in a small buildthe rest of the setof the delegation maintained guest received by Mesmilchelvam, Vidu1. There were a nulian Tiger officials they were for the 2 battleground, the : any guns. In fact the observant Ven. as that of a LTTE ould I say policelavi settlement. one of whom had tallations before, the standard of the scale of the Tigers' tructure. “We saw an “Eelam” district Piyaratana said. briefed on life unrepresentatives of anisations who had ht?) for the occakey activity of the
day was the one hour of discussions with Messrs Karikalan and Thamilchelvam. After the initial exchange of pleasantries, there was a sharing of views between the two sides on the events and processes that have drawn the country into the abyss of civil Wa.
There seems to have been considerable agreement between the two sides concerning the suffering Sri Lankans of all commmunities have had to undergo because of the war. The religious leaders were quite impressed by the manner in which the Tiger leaders referred to the war as something which was destroying the country and need to be ended soon.
No doubt, as with many of their lay Sinhala counterparts in the South, the Bhikkus had a vision of the Tigers as some awful, bloodthirsty beings bent on destruction and domination (of Hela Diva). The ability of the LTTE to suddenly strike and disappear recalls the supernatural billo which are the stuff of Sinhala horror tales. Billo is derived from the historical memory of the ferocious invaders from across Palk Straits. The term billo invokes images similar to that of the Norse berserkers who put parts of coastal Britain to the sword in their successive campaigns of pillage and plunder across the North Sea. “Onna Babo, billo enavaa!” is a common invocation in Sinhala childhood.
So in February 1999, after nearly twenty years of bitter warfare and, according to mainstream Sinhala perceptions, atrocities against the Sinhalas, the terroristic slaughter of innocents especially monks, and the forcing of political concessions from the Sri Lankan (read Sinhala) State, at last the Sangha, who are the protectors of the Sinhalas, have gone in force to meet the billo.
Talking with the "Enemy'
The actions of meeting and dialogue undertaken by the delegation, however, is the reverse of military confrontation. Rather than fighting the enemy, the spiritual-intellectual core of the Sinhala Being is now talking to them, discovering them, learning from them. This can only help in a re-adjustment of attitudes concerning the enemy.
It was the enemy which cared for the elderly prelates on February 10th; reminding them at ten minutes to

Page 10
10 TAM TIMES
noon that it was time for their daana. It was the Tiger leaders who personally served the Nayaka Theras their meal and then sat down with them to eat and chat.
No doubt all this is excellent propaganda for the LTTE. The LTTE's video crew (the same which videoed the gory details of Tiger attacks?) was present to record the meeting with the religious leaders. The record is probably already being distributed worldwide. But that is inevitable. Just as much as the State and various other political groups will either praise or criticize the visit by the delegation.
What is crucial is the effect of the visit on the LTTE representatives, on the Tamil refugees, on the religious delegation and also on the Sri Lankan public in general. The significance of the Nayaka Theras’ visit to the Vanni and, in particular, their meeting with the LTTE top-rankers, is three-fold.
Firstly, the very act of senior (Sinhala) Buddhist ecclesiastical leaders going to the North to visit the waraffected Tamil population is an action done in front of the (Buddhist) Sinhala community, a kind of demonstration of concern (maithriya) by the Sasana and a political intervention of sorts by the Sangha community.
Secondly, the effect of this visit and meeting with the LTTE on the Sangha leaders themselves is critical as it will to some degree alter their own perceptions of the conflict and the possibilities of overcoming it.
Thirdly, the experience of the visit to the Vanni will influence subsequent actions by the Sangha. It will colour the communications between the Sangha and its constituency which is the Buddhist Sinhala community. In effect then, the visit will have a bearing on the future spiritual leadership that the Sangha gives to that community. One visit alone will not bring about radical change. The experience of the visit needs to be communicated and shared among the communities of the South. The lessons learnt must be preached through bana and from the pulpit. However, this action by some Sangha leaders will surely change the Sasana. For too long has the Sasana been trapped by the politics of the post-colonial State and by the compulsions of modernist development.
It is time that the Sangha recovers its central role in Sri Lankan soci
The
very few years in the newspa the possible r tal punishment in ments are used ab increase of murder the death penalty a issue that divides m ressives, socialists, man rights activist right-wing hard line tion of capital punis State's legal right take a person's lif cluding hanging, th trocution, lethal inji squad. It is also al divides the more ci those that still prac toms of the past. Eve some federal state: capital punishmen backward ones - South and South W their commitment alty - even when it of other countries, execution in Arizo with German citizel Feminist politic stand against capita merely because wor do not want to dest feminists know th;
ety. The Sasana mu
bolic power - its cc spiritual centre oft alist impetus and 1 ultra-nationalist eı just of the nationa Sangha has to bec the life of Sri Lank eral as it has done not go back to a m only attempt to liv now, to respond to today.
To do that it m main a mere grav Sinhala ultra-nation tool of politicians a It has the challengi Sinhala conscious of ethnic dominatio

15 MARCH 1999
Noose Again
Cat's eye
we get headlines apers announcing astoration of capiSri Lanka. Arguout the horrifying and the need for s a deterrent. One lost liberals, progfeminists and huts, authoritarians, :rs etc. is the queshment, namely the to execute, i.e. to e by methods ine guillotine, elecaction or the firing n issue that today vilised states from tise barbaric cus2n within the USA, s do not resort to t, while the more especially in the vest still celebrate to the death peninvolves citizens as in the recent na of two brothers nship. }s usually takes a al punishment, not men create life and roy it, but because at revenge by the
st recover its sym
ore function as the he Sinhala nationnot the idol of the nterprise. But not list impetus. The ome immersed in an society in genin the past. It canythical past. It can 'e in the here and
the needs of Life
must no longer reen image” for the alist cause - a mere nd interest groups. ng task of ridding ness of the maya in and empire. O
state is no deterrent and that, as Bernard Shaw has reminded us, murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another out but similars that breed their own kind”. Or to quote a more mundane, but relevant source, the official hangman in the UK for 25 years up to 1956, Albert Pierrepoint, who in his biography said: "I do not believe that any of the hundreds of executions I carried out in any way acted as a deterrent aga-inst murder. Capital punishment achi-eved nothing except revenge”.
Deterrence or Revenge?
The deterrence argument is, of course, most popular among advocates of capital punishment and as Dr. Hugh Bedau has noted is based “on wish, not fact. He claimed that in the USA, death penalty states” rather than having lower homicide, had rates two or three times higher than the non-penalty states’. And in Britain, the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment (1953), revealed that the abolition of the death penalty does not lead to an increase in homicide, nor does its restoration lead to a fall. To the argument that public executions (as still practised in some countries) are a deterrent, a Commission in the UK in 1868 (when public hanging was stopped) revealed that of the 167 persons sentenced to death in a town, l6l had already witnessed a public execution.
The Sri Lanka Case
Donovan Moldrich's excellent book “Hangman - Spare that Noose” (published in 1983) records the history of the abolition movement in Sri Lanka. In both pre-colonial and colonial times capital punishment was prevalent, Opposition to the practice grew because many instances were reported of innocent persons being executed as a result of perjury, false allegations and mistaken identity.
Moldrich notes that the first attempt at abolition was in the Legislative Council, in 1928, when a motion

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15 MARCH 1999
by D. S. Senanayake, seconded by Baron Jayatilake, to abolish the death penalty, was passed by 19 votes to 7, but was ignored by the Colonial Office in London. In the State Council of the 1930s and 1940s further attempts were made by Susantha de Fonseka (1936) and Dr. A. P. de Zoysa (1942), both being rejected by the elected state councillors.
In the post-independence years, the question came up again, especially in the Buddha Jayanthi year (1956) when Dr. G. P. Malalasekera called for the abolition of the death penalty and in parliament, Fred de Silva in March 1956, successfully proposed life imprisonment as a substitute for hanging.
In 1956 when S. W.R. D. Bandaranaike led a People's United Front to a massive victory at the elections, one of the first decisions of the cabinet was to suspend the operation of the death penalty. The Minister of Justice M. W. M. de Silva described capital punishment as a “survival of a rather primitive social state” and referred to the fact that most murders in Sri Lanka were unpremeditated and committed on sudden provocation. The bill was presented in parliament by Mahanama Samaraweera (as the Minister of Justice in the Senate), who recalled that over 30 countries had already abolished capital punishment and that the UK had suspended it for 5 years. The enactment of the Act suspending the death penalty was widely welcomed. Dr. N. M. Perera ref. erred to it as a “most progressive step” and Dr. Colvin R de Silva said: “The men who normally come as murderers in our courts never contemplated either the killing or the death penalty”.
The Act provided for a trial period of 3 years and S W R D Bandaranaike stated that he hoped that its working would "justify the abolition of the death penalty after this period.” But ironically it was Bandaranaike's assassination in 1958 that led to the restoration of capital punishment. In subsequent years, motions by private members for abolition were unsuccessful. Hangings resumed, but the campaign for abolition also continued and the Sri Lanka Committee for the Abolition of the Death Penalty was formed in 1977, which stated that “the time for a return to the suspension of the death penalty is now ripe.”
From June 197 taken place and th able commutation Jayewardene was f sequent President
In July 1995 the Committee noted the government's s implementing deal
The Noose Again
But again, the has reared its ugly cians are succumbi for the death pen ment which alway face of S. W. R. D. whose Ministers sons known for thi eral views, seem again for capital Eye is proud to be bring the kite dow with those (inclu
TAMILANDSi Myths
he intensifi Lankan eth 1980’s has ment of “morbid in our political pr by the creation of state, but also in political writings. paper is to highl writings and to pc ship to nationalis As Romila Thapa. nalism and Anci “Historical In grally related of its culture : in itself make one of the mc tual areas witl on popular na cal beliefs'. This prelimin vided into two pau a look at two re works on Tamil by Satchi Ponna *National Ques Struggle', and a

| AML TIMES 11
, no execution has : policy of invariommenced by JR llowed by all sub
UN Human Rights is satisfaction “at ated policy of not in sentences.’
“hanging lobby”
head, and politing to hysteric calls alty. The governlauds the human Bandaranaike, and oday include per:ir enlightened libo be flying a kite punishment. Cat's among the first to 1 and to join forces ding the Pope, no
less) who decry the death penalty as a return to barbarism.
The death penalty has always worked against the poor and the illiterate, and in the USA, against African Americans, who form the vast majority on death row.
Liberals and the Left in Sri Lanka have often urged governments to look into the causes of murder, and both Dr. Colvin R. de Silva and Pieter Keueneman in the l950s debates, spoke of the social and economic contexts in which murders occurred. As Clarence Darrow in the USA said:
“From the beginning, a procession of the poor, the weak, the unfit have gone through our jails to their death. They have been victims. Crime and poverty and ignorance have always gone hand in hand. When our law makers realise this, they will stop legislating more punishment and go af. ter its causes. (from Moldrich 1983)
Without Conscience
Dr. Radhika Coomaraswamy
cation of the Sri hic conflict in the ed to the developymptoms” not only ocess, as evidenced a national security our scholarship and The purpose of this ight some of these int to their relationt ideology.
writes in “Communt History”, erpretation is inteo a people's notion nd nationality. This s historical writing st sensitive intellecwide repercussions ionalism and politi
ry inquiry will be dis. The first will take :ent and Important ationalism - a book balam entitled the ion and the Tamil article by N. Satye
indra called “Legitimate Expectations”. The second part of the inquiry will be directed by one aspect of the latter day reiteration of past myths by Sinhalese ideologies. Writings in this category are numerous, emanating from official sources such as The Ministry of State and also from various unofficial groups and individuals. Some of the more blatant of these publications such as Kauda Kotiya (Who is the Tiger?), Sinhalayage Adisi Hatura (The Invisible Enemy of the Sinhalese) have already been analysed and debunked by some Sinhala scholars who have also examined the mystic background common to these writings in separate as well as joint volumes.
Kumari Jayawardena’s Ethnic and Class Conflicts in Sri Lanka, The Social Scientist Association’s Ethnicity and Social Change; The Committee for Rational Development’s Sri Lanka’s Ethnic Conflict, Myths and Realities, as well as individual articles by scholars such as K. M. De Silva and C. R. De Silva, have provided the

Page 12
12 AMIL TIMES
backdrop for a critical assault on some of the myths relating to Sinhala nationalism.
I do not therefore propose to deal with all aspects of Sinhalese nationalist myth making. However, there has recently been a spate of writing which use archaeological and settlement history as a means of reiterating Sinhala myths about the Sri Lankan nation-state. In this regard, I propose to look at one of these, a more scholarly article by G. H. Pieris on “An Appraisal of the Concept of a Tradi
tional Tamil Homeland' which has
been widely disseminated and references to which have appeared even in our daily newspapers. Disturbing Trends in Tamil National Writing
Until the 1970's Tamil politics at the national level was “rights” oriented, a reaction against measures taken by governments motivated by a Sinhala nationalist ideology. Though Tamil culture and creative writing witnessed a renaissance in Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka after the rise of the DMK, Tamil political discourse in Sri Lanka in the 50's and the 60's was characterised by a sense of grievance and political oppression.
The rhetoric and language of Tamil politics was "developmental” - i.e., grievances with regard to education, employment and land. In addition, it was democratic' - i.e. against laws that appeared to discriminate against the Tamil language and for political structures which would allow for autonomy in predominantly Tamil areas. Consciousness was centred around language and economic rights. This has been analysed by Professor Sivathamby as being the discourse of the Federal Party, which represented for the most part, the interests of the Tamil middle-classes.
In June 1985, at Thimpu, the Tamil groups put forward four principles as a framework for resolving the present crisis -
a) recognition of the separate national identity of the Tamils, b) respect for the integrity of the traditional Tamil homeland, c) recognition of the right to selfdetermination of the Tamils, and d) citizenship rights for all Tamils. These principles are of course the expression of a people who have mov-ed away from the concept of Tamil rights to an ideology of Tamil nationalism.
It can be said any form has botl regressive aspects Tamil nationalism counterpart in the l tion. Tamil national tive impact on Sri I ety, with its rise, Tamil politics is ac against distinctio1 and gender. Sri Lau which was conser chical is finally beir within. The discour ture of democratic, ist ideologies.
Tamil political flected in the writi mitted to a Tamil within it, seeds of st the same time, like ism of the 1950ʼs, Tamil nationalism, pressed in certain t literature, appears to communalism, whic will lead us furthel era of neo-tribalism Sinhalese inte 1950's who attempt the progressive and of nationalist ideol the 1980's as sad a nic chauvinism. If ing any other part their own, their app been different. But, an ideology which nic bias, their cons imperatives of tribe vailed over abstrac much so that many ing the 1983 riots, c tempts to dispel the the times.
Some spent thei ing international cc or recreating past 1 come to terms with vinism and intoli Sinhalese who atter regressive nationa gated in the media ; Buddha, half-cast traitors to race an others just remain to the “mass cons ironically may have creation.
It may be argue lectuals cannot af same mistake. Po which further the ci

15 MARCH 1999
hat nationalism in
progressive and is part of its core. like its Sinhala 50's is no excepsm has had a posiankan Tamil socior the first time, ively speaking out is of class, caste kan Tamil society 'ative and hierarg challenged from se contains a mixpopulist and left
awareness, as rengs of those comnationalism has ocial liberation. At Sinhala nationalthe discourse of especially as exypes of expatriate ) contain the same h if unchallenged into the modern
llectuals in the ed to straddle both negative aspects ogy, ended up in pologists for eththey were analysof the world but roach would have bogged down by ad a built-in ethience failed. The and religion prephilosophies, so ended up justifyr resisting any at
racial hysteria of
efforts constructinspiracy theories nyths refusing to
their own chaurance. The few pted to fight this ism were castis betrayers of the 's and generally | religion. Many d silent, hostage iousness” which been of their own
that Tamil intelord to make the tical ideologies use of social jus
tice, which fight oppression and exploitation must be distinguished from those which find their sustenance only in tribe, race and ethnicity. The right of ethnic groups to political expression, to political autonomy and even to a separate state may be justified in "political” terms of the right to self-determination or the right to be free from oppression or exploitation. It poses difficult problems, if it is justified in terms of the discourse of a chosen people.
Many progressive scholars will however, argue that the nationalism of the oppressor must be distinguished from the nationalism of the oppressed. But, experience, especially in Sri Lanka, has shown us that even if this type of discourse is marginal during the period of dissent, it becomes more legitimate when movements acquire political power. Unless there is a deliberate attempt to counter this consciousness, it may emerge as the dominant force in Tamil political thinking.
The discourse of a chosen people, which is a familiar and important part of Sinhalese nationalism has become a new and disturbing phenomenon in Tamil political writing. In surveying some of the books and articles, which have come out since 1983 there appears to be an alarming and , rapidly growing process of myth creation about Sri Lankan Tamils. It is important that these myths be dispelled now, before they receive ideological vigour.
Where does this discourse come from? The rise of the DMK in Tamil Nadu and its version of anti-Brahmin, populist nationalism had an important effect on Sri Lankan Tamil consciousness in the 50's and 60’s. Tamil pride in culture and language had been an important part of Tamil identity, but there was no automatic spill over into Tamil political discourse and political writing.
Even as early as the 1950's, Mr. C. Suntheralingam spoke in terms of a Dravida, Saiva Siddhanta consciousness as part of the Sri Lankan Tamil identity. However, his writings were on the fringe of the movement and were, therefore not reflected in the consciousness of other Tamil political leaders, especially S. J. V. Chelvanayagam, who was a Christian with little affinity for this type of political consciousness.

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15 MARCH 1999
In the 1970's when the demand for a separate state was made, there was much writing which pointed to a sense of pride in Tamil history, but, again Tamil political discussion and discourse, whether among moderate Tamils, or in the publications of Tamil militant groups, centred around Tamil grievances based on linguistic and territorial rights and their sense of oppression. It was this discourse that gave birth to the concept of a Tamil Linguistic region.
The riots of 1983, however, had a major qualitative impact not only in terms of the increasing radicalisation of the Tamil population, but also in the type of language and discourse used to present the Tamil cause. Certain Tamil nationalist myths which had been politically latent began to be openly expressed; there was a deliberate and conscious attempt to create a Dravida, Saiva Siddhanta political identity.
The main thrust of this campaign appears to come, not so much from Madras or Jaffna, where every day issues of survival point to a different type of politics, but from the expatriate community, who have begun to write extensively on Tamil history and ideology. Their writings are circulated widely and have an important effect on Tamil consciousness.
Many Tamil social scientists have argued in private that this new phase in Tamil nationalist writing is an attempt by the middle-class, expatriate population to capture momentum and give ideological direction to the Tamil nationalist movement which for the most part has relied on general concepts of freedom from oppression and the right to self-determination. However, impugning motives to expatriate scholars, and thereby dismissing the influence of such writing may under-estimate the power of such ideology which draws sustenance only from ethnic loyalty. There is no doubt that these writings have become an influential part of the ideological debate and it is, therefore, necessary to analyse the political implications of such myths of dissemination.
The evolution of these nationalist myths can only be understood in the context of Sinhala nationalist ideology to which it is a political response. Sinhalese social scientists such as Kumari Jayawardena, R. A. L. H Gunewardena, Gananath Obeysekere
etc... have outline myths in detail. Dr. chronicles, Sinhal. Sri Lanka as the ht Aryan race and the This identity has v pan-class identity. Though, it has that social analys to understand na terms of myths an equate, the experie tionalism points to tionalist ideology certain types of n has a powerful inti ch cannot be und ing material for alone.
Tamil myths poused by some scholars appeals t ing elements:
Firstly, Tamils heirs to an old sation which Mohenjadaro a sations which by less develo West Asia. Secondly, Tam inhabitants of Sinhalese are a came later to came Sinhale Buddhism as Thirdly, the T ken in Sri Lank it is Tamil as Sangam renai century. Fourthly, Sai religion of th has a specia Lanka becau of Arumuga N There are m creation of thi Siddhanta identi disturbing. In 1 sources used to a especially with Tamil, are the ve have been prove unreliable by crit ars. Generally r accept the Mall source of legend alam in fact cal stories “nothing cleverly contrive this does not p scholars from u

TAMIL TIMES 13
these Sinhalese wn from Sinhalese nationalism sees me of the Sinhala, Buddhist religion. th time become a
been pointed out s which attempts ionalism only in symbols is inadce of Sinhala nathe fact that a nawhich appeals to yths and symbols rnal dynamic whirstood by analyses of production
as currently es - Tamil expatriate b have the follow
of Sri Lanka are the and ancient civilihas its roots in nd Harappa civilihad been destroyed oped Aryans from
ils are the original Sri Lanka and the ctually Tamils who the island and bese after adopting heir religion.
mil language spoa is its purest form, spoken during the sance of the ninth
a Siddhanta is the Tamil people and homeland in Sri e of the teachings avalar. ny aspects to the Dravida, Saiva y which are rather le first place, the gue the Tamil case, regard to ancient same sources that to be historically al Sinhalese scholpst Tamil scholars vamsa only as a Satchi Ponnambsome Mahavamsa ut a tangled web of fiction'. However, vent a few Tamil ng the Mahavamsa
as a source when convenient, For example one of the arguments put forward to prove that the Sinhalese are of Tamil descent is a quotation from the Mahavamsa that Prince Vijaya, after rejecting Kuv-eni, married a princess from Madurai (South India), and his courtiers married Tamil women of nobility.
Writes Satyendra: “The Sinhala chronicle, the Mahavamsa, also records that a few years after his arrival in Sri Lanka, Prince Vijaya and his followers married Tamils from the Pandyan kingdoms in South India.” It is, therefore, asserted that from the beginning the Sinhalese were a mixed race. The fact that most ethnic groups as they exist today are mixed races is perhaps correct, but using the Mahavamsa as a historical source, whether by Tamils or Sinhalese, poses major problems of interpreting historical reality. In some cases, Tamil writers have used the Ramayana and the Mahabharata as sources to show an early Tamil presence in Sri Lanka.
“The Mahabharata and Ramayana the two great Indian epics written in Sanskrit before the Sixth Century B.C. mention the Naga kingdoms and their conquest by Ravana, the Tamil Yaksha King of Sri Lanka”. This type of history, which uses legend as empirical fact, must be challenged and discredited, regardless of the biases of the author or text. The Dravidian Race and Myths of Origin:
Ashis Nandy in his recent book on colonialism outlines two forms of contemporary dissent. The first accepts the world view of the oppressor and dissents from within the value framework. The second accepts the oppressor's definition of the other but glorifies the very values which are anathema to the oppressor.
Tamils living in Sri Lanka have been constantly subjected to the Sinhalese version of the "Aryan” myth, Anagarika Dharmpala's noble Aryan race has been rammed down their throats ever since independence was achieved. As a reaction to glorification of the “Aryan’, there is an increasing Tamil tendency, to speak of the noble Dravidian past. Mohenjadaro is said to be the world's oldest civilisation which was destroyed by less than civilised Aryan hordes.

Page 14
14 TAMIL TIMES
The remnants of this old and majestic Dravidian civilisation can only be found in Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka so the argument goes:
“The Tamils of Sri Lanka are an ancient people. It was a Dravidian civilisation which traced its origins to the people of Mohendajaro in the Indus valley around 2,000 years before Christ”. A concept of Aryan as a racial category has been dismissed by scholars from around the world. Max Miller accepted, in the end, that he used the term "Aryan” to describe certain languages. The extension of this linguistic concept to convey a sense of race was a contribution of the German nationalist movement, especially in its Nazi phase. R. A. L. H. Gunewardene in his article on “The People of the Lion” shows that the term Aryan was not used in the traditional chronicles of Sri Lanka.
Aryan as denoting Sinhala racial ideology is therefore false. The cry of Dravidian is equally mythical. Dravidian is a linguistic category not a racial one, and it is highly unlikely that the Tamils living in Sri Lanka are the lineal descendants of the citizens of Mohenjadaro.
The Sinhalese have always claimed that they were the original inhabitants of Sri Lanka, with the Tamil presence always being that of invader. The Sinhalese chronicles, the Mahavamsa and the Dipavamsa, are used as evidence of this claim to priority. To combat this myth of origin, Tamil scholars such as Ponnambalam have this to say:
“According to tradition, the Tamils of India and Sri Lanka are the lineal descendants of the Naga and Yaksha people. (According to Harry Williams) Nagadipa in the north of Sri Lanka was an actual
kingdom knov the people wh all part of an i South India, Nagars... The could validly new historical lish that the present day Ta nal occupiers before 543 B. chronicles date man habitation Ironically, thi rights of one ethn the need to deleg Latter day Sinhala the Mahavamsa, claims by portrayi ers and invaders. to this allegation is is no such thing as the Tamils are “the of the original inl land”, the Sinhales matter what the ra mains of the orig belief in it”. Finall cepted Buddhism í scribed as Deva Tamil Hindu King
It is perhapstir and Sinhalese acci such researchers ranayake, who ha to the fact that Tan Muslims in Sri Lanll ed group. Waves ( internal migration any claims to raci hala and Tamil may nic and religious there is no racial b tion whether as no rious Dravidians. nayake writes:
“It is becoming however, that
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15 MARCH 1999
n to historians and ) occupied it were migrant tribe from amil people called conclusions that pe drawn from the data clearly estabancestors of the mils were the origiof the island long C. which the pali as the earliest huof Sri Lanka”.
assertion of the ic group results in itimize the other. nationalists, using lelegitimise Tamil ng them as foreignthe Tamil response to assert that there a Sinhalese. While lineal descendants abitants of the Ise lackpedigree, “no xial origin, little reinal stock, except y, the King who acor Sri Lanka is dempiya Theesan, a of Lanka. me that both Tamils ept the findings of as Senake Bandave clearly pointed nils, Sinhalese, and Kaare aracially mixf immigration and have obliterated al exclusivity. Sinbe products of ethconsciousness but asis for differentiable Aryans or gloSenake Bandara
increasingly clear, he peopling of Sri
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Lanka and the formation of its ethnic variety have been an extremely complex process which we do not fully understand yet. Again, it is important to keep in mind that the ethnic composition of the Sinhalese both in cultural and also bioethnic and demographic sense was not the product of a single historical period or a unilinear process, but, one that took place throughout a long history... the same methodology can be applied to other nationalities. Saiva Siddhanta
The notion that saivaism was the original religion of the Tamil people from pre- Aryan days and that being Tamil is synonymous with the practice of Saivaism has also to be challenged:
“And though through the vehicle of the Tamil language came Saivaism, a religion which the Oxford scholar G. U. Pope called “the most elaborate, influential and undoubtedly the most intrinsically valuable of all religions....” many have regarded Saivaism and Tamil as being almost synonymous and that one cannot exist without the other. It is rightly said “Thamillum Saivamum, Saivamum Thamillum.”
It must be said in all fairness that not all are agreed on this approach to Tamil identity. Satchi Ponnambalam for one, strongly believes that the Tamil identity has no religious base and that religion for Tamils is a matter of conscience. But, any attempt to link religion and community can lead to exclusive tendencies and has chauvinist potential.
Saiva Siddhanta appears to have two sources with regard to its philosophy. Shivapadasunderam in his book on the Saiva School of Hinduism states that the authoritative works on Saivaism are the twenty eight Sivagamas which are originally in Sanskrit. A chapter of the Raurava Agama, called Sivagnanabodham and consisting of twelve couplets said to have been revealed to Saint Nandi, as the essence of Agamas, was translated into Tamil in the twelfth century by Meikandar who also added to it a commentary. This was expanded by his disciples and later saints into what is now considered the Saiva Siddhanta doctrine. It is also said that some of the thoughts on Saivaism were drawn from the original works in Tamil such

Page 15
f5 MARCH 1999
as the Thirumanthiram or Thirumalar written in the first century.
The philosophy of Saiva Siddhanta became an important part of Tamil identity in Sri Lanka when Arumuga Navalar, the great nineteenth century reformer, revived the doctrine in Jaffna and South India.
It is, however, a grave mistake to think that Hinduism, let alone Saiva Siddhanta is synonymous with Tamil. Tamil Nadu was the centre of Buddhist and Jain learning until the tenth century. In fact, it is argued that the great Hindu revival of the ninth and tenth centuries was a reaction to the powerful intellectual influences of Buddhism and Jain texts. Some great Tamil works such as the Silappadikaram and the Manimekalai were Buddhist and Jain texts. Tamil religious history has thus been pluralistic and cannot be confined to one specific doctrine.
Saiva Siddhanta as it exists today is an erudite philosophy which supposedly explains the essence of Siva worship. Sir Ponnambalam Arunachalam summarises this essence as follows...Saiva Siddhanta postulates three entitles - God (Pati), the Soul (Pasu) and Bondage (Pasam). The scheme of the Universe has for its aim the removal of the Soul's impurity and its union with the Lord Siva so as to destroy duality and maya (illusion). The devotional aspects of Bhakti worship are combined with the more philosophical tradition of the Vedanta. Saiva Siddhanta is said to be extremely metaphysical and it is claimed that some of the concepts for primordial energy can only be communicated in the Tamil language. However, it is unlikely that the refined doctrine of Saiva Siddhanta is the basis of the religiosity of the majority of Tamil people in Sri Lanka.
Popular religion is rarely found in this abstract form. The vast majority of Hindus in the North are Bhakti worshippers, devout followers of Lord Muruga, Ganesha, Amman and Shiva. To claim that all Tamils are followers of Saiva Siddhanta is an artificial attempt to construct a monolithic religious doctrine to unite the Tamil people. This is not only unusually doctrinaire but goes against the essence of Hindu philosophy which has had a strong tradition of syncretism, drawing from all religions and popular traditions.
The use of Sa gospel for the Tam ment also poses m gospel of Saiva S of Tamil nationalis must be as alienat dus as Buddhism Lankan identity. ment is to be see cally progressive context, then it m which is secular the multi-ethnic c Lankan) society. Linguistic nation The Tamil lan of the most impo of the Tamil movi for the recognition tic Region is a p sciousness. Given grievances gathere Lanka after the pa Only Act, it is no Tamil language sh of Tamil identity. Tamil language as which provides a Lankan Tamil dis her Tamil Nadu c
Even before conflict, Sri Lank pressed pride in t uncertain terms:
Tamil is one ages of the wi both in South It is a languag world the dist Kural of whi there hardly e collection of r have more lo Since 1956, th lost status in Sri value to “use' va as the Sinhala O. heart of Sri La1 Though denial o an aspect of pol asserting these aware of the pitf tionalism. Rece1 writers as Bene to the fact that li is often the most tionalism. Sinha articulated by v elites is a classic of virulence.
Critical soc however, ask the group or class b

TAMIL TIMES 15
va Siddhanta as a l nationalist movejor problems. This ddhanta, as a part | political discourse ng to the non-Hinwas for a pan-Sri f the Tamil moven as being historiin the Sri Lankan ast be a movement and which accepts naracter of our (Sri
alism guage has been one tant rallying points ment. The demand of a Tamil Linguisroduct of this conthe fact that Tamil d momentum in Sri ssage of the Sinhala t surprising that the ould be a focal point In addition, it is the spoken in Sri Lanka n identity to the Sri tinctive from his or ‘ounterpart. the current ethnic an Tamils have exheir language in no
of the oldest languorld and it flowered India and Sri Lanka. e that has given the illed wisdom of the :h it has been said xists in the world a naxims in which we ty wisdom”.
2 Tamil language has Lanka from “rights” ue. Legislation such ly Act struck at the ka Tamil identity. language rights is tical oppression, in ights one must be lls of linguistic nat writings by such ict Anderson point nguistic nationalism virulent form of naese nationalism as
•rnacular speaking example of this type
al scientists must, question as to what nefits from this type
of nationalism. Benedict Anderson researching forms of nationalism throughout the world comes to the conclusion that it is the ideology of the elites educated in the vernacular, harbouring tremendous resentment against races and classes which have prevented their upward social mobility. This class is radical with regard to imperialism and international capitalism but conservative with regard to its own nationalism and ethnic pride. Anderson points to the fact that this ideology is particularly powerful because the vernacular speaking elites usually control the communication system in any given society.
The fact that the Tamil language has been discriminated against since independence can be well substantiated by historical fact. However, it may be necessary to see whether Anderson's thesis is relevant with regard to Tamil nationalism. Sri Lankan Tamil writing, due to the recent diaspora, is no longer dependent on the Sri Lankan state for publication and dissemination. Self-criticism, in line with Anderson’s thesis, may therefore have to become an essential part of Tamil social science. Traditional homelands and Sinhalese myths
Even as we critically assess myth creation on the part of Tamil writers, we have to be watchful of the continuing process of myth reiteration on the part of Sinhalese scholars. Given the fact Sinhalese nationalist ideology has State-backing, this type of enterprise may have disturbing consequences. As mentioned earlier, myths with regard to "Aryan”, “Sinhala” and Buddhist’ have been under scrutiny from critical Sinhalese scholars since the 1960s. However, there have been a series of recent articles on archaeology and settlement which in an indirect way reinforce Sinhalese myths about history.
Though many writings have appeared, I would prefer to concentrate on what appears to be a genuine scholarly attempt to deal with the relationship between settlement history and ethnic conflict. This is a paper by Professor G.H. Pieris, references to which have appeared in the national press, and which is entitled “An Appraisal of the Concept of a Traditional Tamil Homeland in Sri Lanka. In his paper G.H. Pieris states that the Sinhalese and "Sinhala purana” vil

Page 16
16 TAMIL TIMES
lagers were the original settlers of the Eastern province.
Whether the Nagas were Tamil and whether they were the first inhabitants of Sri Lanka or whether “Sinhala purana villagers” were the original settlements in the eastern province may be of interest to historians and geographers but is this really relevant to the current political debate?
G.H. Pieris cannot even argue that his paper is a balanced non-political piece of writing because he presents his argument in no uncertain terms as a polemic against Tamil political demands:
“Among the various exemplifications of Tamil nationalism in Sri Lanka, those related to claims over territory have acquired increasing prominence during the recent past. These claims are based on the perception that certain parts of the country belong exclusively to the Sri Lankan Tamils. The present study is an attempt to place this perception under critical scrutiny”. Some scholars may contest Professor Pieris's empirical findings but to do so is to return to the debate on myths of origin who came first to the eastern province etc... the type of debate which has characterised our research and accentuated the ethnic conflict. I prefer, instead to contest his premises and assumptions.
One could argue that scholars who analyse Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict are divided into two schools; those whose approach comes from a desire for modern solutions to contemporary problems of Justice and Democracy and those who argue from a vantage point of historical right. The former use modern sources usually from comparative history, the latter draw their inspiration from history and archaeology,
A theory of social justice which primarily or exclusively rests on an analysis of historical research and historical right has enormous pitfalls. For example, it may be interesting to ask Pieris whether if independent, convincing research were to really show that the Tamils came first to the Northern and Eastern province and had a historical presence there, would Tamils, therefore, have the right to a separate state'? If it is proved that the Nagas were in fact Tamils, does this mean that the Tamils have the right to
rule the whole isl where the Sinhale And what about claims do they have peting historical ri The reverse t could be asked of lam and N. Satyen modern justice bas of early history mu extreme scepticism. ing the historical cl group, say the Tam end up reiterating of the other ethni Sinhalese. As a res by the subject of in course of land clain These are self-per that are somewhat during times of cri tion. The current de homelands and arc ment is one such e: Another proble such as G.H. Pieris of “traditional hon graphical concept litical one and in d an elaborate argum where and when. claim to objectivity. bias comes into e quoted E.B. Denha TeՏԱII16 -
“..... among the numerous in Ce can regard Ceyl the nation and t tional traditions Why this quote ously consider whe as these which obj of Tamil traditional from an understan cal concept of trad or from a belief tha ancestral property Prof. Pieris attem Tamil claims to trac not with the critica tion of scoffing at prises which mysti with people but wit pose of legitimisir Sinhala myth that : tion-state, a land v belongs to the Sinh some parts have be “There is indet dence which about the 13th powerful Sinha

15 MARCH 1999
nd even in areas e are a majority? Muslims? What in this era ofcomghts? "pe of questions Satchi Ponnambadra. Any claim to ed on an analysis st be treated with However in refutaims of one ethnic il, many scholars he historical right c group, say the ilt they get trapped quiry into the dishs and land rights. petuating debates escapist especially sis and confrontabate on traditional haeological settlexercise in futility. m is that scholars treat the concept heland” as a georather than a pooing so, construct ent on who lived Though there is a his own political vidence when he am as paru of his
races that are most ylon, only one race on as the home of ne shrine of its na
לל
? One must serither articles such ect to the concept homelands come ling of the polititional homelands t Sri Lanka is the of the Sinhalese. pts to tear down itional homelands l scientific intenall political enterally connect land 1 the seeming purg the profoundly ri Lanka is a nawhich historically lese, even though en “Tamilised”. d a mass of evihows that upto century the more ese rulers did ex
ercise sovereignty over the entire island...” But is this the historical norm? K.M. De Silva seems to think otherwise:
“Indeed one had to look further back into the past to find a period when Sinhalese rulers had control over the whole island to the second half of the 11th century and the first half of the twelfth. But even this had been in effect an interlude of indigenous rule sandwiched between two phases of South Indian domination.” In fact K.M. De Silva argues that British rule was a turning point with regard to the effective administration of a centralised state.
Using the framework of a Rajarata Region which has been subsequently Tamilised, G.H. Pieris goes into imply that the presence of Sinhala purana villagers in the Eastern Province in ancient and medieval times justifies modern day state-aided colonisation schemes which are altering the ethnic power balance of the province at the time of independence or as it exists today.
It may be convenient to caricature political problems associated with state-aided colonisation schemes as a primordial struggle over ancestral property. To do so, however, is to miss, the point. Tamil claims against land settlement policies result from their present fears and destruction of their political power and economic security. Their claims are against the postDonoughmore Sinhala-dominated state which held out the promise of a Sri Lankan nation. The problem of colonisation is a modern problem of ethnic minorities, who are alienated from a state which reflects the interests of a seemingly hostile ethnic majority.
These are sensitive political issues that surely cannot be conceptualised as a simple quarrel over ancestral lands.
In addition G.H. Pieris's concept of settlement and of history in the North and the East is unilinear. In terms of settlement as well as political history he assumes that the Sinhalese and the Rajarata civilisation came first and then around the twelfth century the region was Tamilised. This unilinear approach to ethnic settlement has rarely been accepted by social scientists who see settlement

Page 17
15 MARCH 1999
as a complex dynamic process, autonomous from the forces of political and dynastic history. This autonomy provides for a different type of process leading to what is now termed “subaltern studies. One of the accepted premises of this understanding is that history of archaeological settlement cannot be analysed using modern political categories as they exist in modern nation states,
R. A. L. H. Gunawardena writes for eg: “The disparate nature of the early settlements in the island, with each village clustering around a small reservoir would not be conducive to the development of strong group identities..... it will be evident from the preceding survey that the nature of Sinhala identity as well as the relationship of the group brought together by this identity with other groupings based on religion, ritual status and languages varied in different periods of history”. In fact, one has to ask what is “Tamilised' and what is “Sinhalised' and which came first Gananath Obeysekere writes:
“Except perhaps for the oldest stratum of settlers prior to 500 B.C. almost all subsequent settlers in Sri Lanka came from South India, most from Tamil Nadu, Orissa and Kerala and quickly became Sinhalised”. Michael Roberts has a similar view of migration of some of the Sinhalese castes:
“In common with such castes as the Salagama and the Durava, the Karava (were) made up of relatively recent Dravidian migrants. Nevertheless, they slotted into the structure of caste-regulated corvee service and came to be regarded as Sinhalese castes”. Of what real significance are the modern political identities of “Tamil” and “Sinhalese” and the modern political debate on land policy to studying settlement patterns of ancient and medieval Sri Lanka. How relevant were they to the group identities and self-perceptions of those dots in settlement maps?
The history of settlements and the political history and ideology of states cannot be collapsed into one research realm. Scholars have long ago come to terms with differences which exist
between political cal discourse on migration and sel the other. In addi the past through sies is often an uu placed enterprise to the present cor pound existing p. The failure to the actuality of s imperatives of it problems for the concept of traditi his haste to trea lands as a geogra Pieris does not terms with the co homelands as it anthropological a literature.
The term orig logical literature " scribe the lifestyle political science, homelands - has arsenal of libera course and is usec a territorial eth does not control its rights against when the state at political power of to alter its social style. It is in this ( claim to tradition best understood Ironically, th tional homelands litical discourse find solution of the framework fact in South Afr ema precisely collaborationist Sri Lankan con tional home “primitivised” in over territory, counter-claims.
It must be a cept of tradition from the notior chosen piece of people. The cor a variant of this course. It is tru Tamil nationali in these terms clusive homela In his arti presents us with type of Tamil na

Arwn L. TIMES 17
istory and politihe one hand and ement patterns on on, to try and read present Controvernecessary and missuch an approach lict will only comoblems. istinguish between :ttlements and the eology also poses nderstanding of the inal homelands. In traditional homehical concept, G.H. ttempt to come to ncept of traditional is actually used in hd political science
inated in anthropowith attempts to de; of tribal groups. In he term - traditional become a part of the ul, democratic disl in situations where hic minority which state power asserts the State, especially tempts to dilute the the ethnic group or
and economic life‘ontext that the Tamil al homelands can be
e concept of tradiis an aspect of powhich attempts to thnic conflict within If a nation-state. In ca the term is anathbecause of its xonnotations. In the ext, the term tradiands has been o a primordial debate listory, claims and
cepted that the conl homelands differs of promised land, a erritory for a chosen ept of Sinhadvipa is type of political disthat some aspects of writing also speak d in terms of an ex| for Tamils. e, Professor Pieris }me quotations of this nalist claims. In such
a context, it is vital that these attempts at creating mystical connections between land and people be confronted and criticised, not from a vantage point of attempting to stake a superior claim for a particular ethnic group but from the perspective that all claims to promised land always lead to ethnic chauvinism and a desire for territorial expansion.
With the intensification of the present ethnic conflict, we, as a society have forgotten, or have chosen to forget, the deeply humane aspects of our respective traditions. Instead, many writers and ideologues from various communities continue to emphasize those aspects of our culture and history which accentuate dif. ferences and which see ethnic loyalty as the supreme human value.
Modern political categories are used as mirrors into the past and history is used as a weapon in an ethnic war of words. The issues of justice and oppression get lost in a discour-se of historical fact and counter-fact. Ironically, in this struggle for the “correct’ historical interpretation, other more universal social values are oft-en forgotten. Perhaps, at times such as these it is best to remember Ashis Nandy’s famous truism, “that knowledge without ethics is not so much bad ethics as inferior knowledge'. O
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15 MARCH 1999
Dr. Oswald B. Firth OM
Director, Centre for Society and Religio
Need for an Enlightened Leadership “I have striven all my life for the liberating of India. But if I could get it only by violence, I would not want it.’
Brave words uttered by a person who took on the whole British Empire armed with one indomitable and resolute strategy, that of non-violence. His possessions were a crude staff to support his feeble frame and a hand-woven cloth to wrap his nakedness and protect himself from the penetrating cold.
The British throne was aware that a whole nation stood behind this fragile figure whose credo was freedom through non-violence. Challenging Gandhi, “the naked fakir”, was no political trifle. It meant challenging an entire nation. Such was the resolve of a people whose leaders eschewed every form of personal gain or vested interest, which could tarnish and paralyze a nation's struggle for independence. Gandhi's triumph encapsulated overwhelmingly the synergy of democratic forces which translated themselves into an unremitting people's power. This is the moral stuff of which genuine leadership is made and it stands out as a beacon worthy of emulation.
There was a glimpse, a faint shadow, a silhouette of such leadership manifested a few days ago. No one ever thought it could and would happen: a tete-a-tete between President Chandrika Kumaratunga and the Opposition Leader Ranil Wickramasinghe. A continuous campaign of vilification, highly strung vitriolic and sometimes socially degrading language used against the opponent were all indicative of a total political war between the two parties that made the northern debacle pale into oblivion.
But what really made the tide turn? Was it the Wayamba vaudeville that had made a mockery of the peo
ple's franchise, o lowed institutio Was it a “save fac the mounting o home and abroad momentum again litical parties, the ting the floating \ ds a seemingly les it the insurmounta by the people's
election monitorii unsparing in thei haviour of the two ties? All this may than mere specul ing line between ality is too narro tend to overlap.
Remorse for Pa: What the Wa vealed without th ity was that the n had crossed the and respect for tions. Even thoug won by the PA, posed to public m ticularly from rel unions, non-gov tions, the busin election monitc civic minded bo the masses from dolence and m form of philanc try's legitimate
The gangren trated by unlim that entered the ing the District elections in Jaf fected nearly e cratic instituti that Wayamba eruption from v odours of a dec All this was mc politicized civi
 
 

TAMIL TIMES 19
e of the most halis of democracy? device to counter position both at that was gathering t the two main poeby unwittingly letote gravitate towars corrupt JVP? Was ble pressure exerted organizations and g NGOs who were attacks on the be» main political parnot amount to more ation, but the dividspeculation and rew, obtuse and often
it Sins yamba elections rele slightest ambiguajor political parties limits of propriety democratic instituh the elections were the results were exoral indictiment, parigious leaders, trade ernmental organizass community and ing groups. These lies vowed to rouse their slumbering inlitantly oppose any bring with the counemocratic processes. of thuggery, perpeLed political power, lectoral process durlevelopment Council na in 1981, had inry hallowed demoto such an extent ecame the point of ere emanated putrid imposing democracy. than what a highly society could stom
ach.
Opposition leader Ranil Wickramasinghe's apology to the nation for electoral abuses committed during the UNP regime, was indeed a welcome gesture. Very rarely do political leaders in Sri Lanka appropriate the role of the trenchant critic of crimes committed by one’s own party and take the rap for its actions. The tendency, by and large, has been to transpose the blame onto others. Reports transpiring from cabinet meetings also showed a resolute President Kumaratunga threatening to resign if future campaigns were to be marred by election malpractices by her party mem- . bers. Cynics may argue that all these were a subterfuge intended to impress the press and the public.
There are those unrelenting skeptics who would rush to warn us that circumspection is the best virtue when faced with the pronouncements of politicians. Be that as it may, their statements shall remain as measurements of the democratic credentials of two important leaders who hold the future of this country in their hands. It is worthwhile remembering that they will be guilty of gratuitous insult to people's intelligence if they were to forget that both they and their parties have too many skeletons in their cupboard which need cleansing before they engage in vituperative allegations of corruption against each other.
Cost Cutting on Propaganda War
Up until now, initiatives on the part of political leaders to curb corruption when elections come around have been lame and lackadaisical.
Politicians and their bandwagon that aspire to taste the flesh-pots of Egypt when they enter the portals of power have in recent times been engaged in a fanfaronade spree, pompously spending on larger-than-life cut-outs, stretching banners across every light-post in town and disfiguring every available space on street walls. The rush for the walls was so intense that special squads had to be recruited whose sole livelihood has been on renting out buckets, brushes and man-power to keep the poster campaign of bloated personalities with their grinning faces alive.
It boggles the mind to wonder from what sources such campaign funds were obtained. There is little

Page 20
20 TAMIL TIMES
doubt that local business entrepreneurs and shopkeepers were often fleeced by various political party candidates to pay for the illegal propaganda. Some of these persons may have silently succumbed to such political acts of extortion to forestall damage to their investments. The more unscrupulous - drug cartels and sex purveyors - may have had more pernicious motives in mind when they made their contributions.
India overcame this vice to some extent through a quaint law of 1919 in the Indian Penal Code which stated that “anybody, other than the candidate, spending any sum on anyone's behalf would entail that person being sentenced to jail. In 1996, Indian election expenses were reduced to at least 1/10th
It is indeed heartening to observe the recently constituted Election Monitoring Committee (EMC) deciding on a ban on bill-boards, cut-outs, pandals and posters. This will not only curtail profligate spending, but will also level the field for smaller parties and independent candidates to meet the voter on his/her own merit, than to be drowned in the scurrilous
propaganda of the EMC was only rel of a law they the in Parliament w loathe to observe It is the comn electoral process with a mortal dise diagnosed before with an untimely left bare for probl through the barre ever democracy h law and order hav deterioration and worse type have e: ever dictatorship there poverty and the cruel and inva Russia, Bosnia-H Congo have been t ofsuch tragic insta racy remained su mied for years.
More Muscle to the Election Co It is, therefore, portance that we ! democracy and arı ous cancer that ca
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major parties. The inding politicians selves had passed ich they were so
on feeling that the has been infected se that needs to be democracy meets leath and the field ms to be resolved of a gun. Wheris collapsed, there e recorded gradual lictatorships of the nerged. And wher
have flourished, misery have been sive consequences. rzegovina and the ut recent examples nces where democppressed and sty
mmissioner
of paramount impursue the path of est the cantankeruses its decay. To
15 MARCH 1999
begin with, the Election Commissioner should be vested with sufficient powers to perform his duties without fear or favour to none. He needs sufficient legal muscle to curb election malpractices even to the point of cancelling elections if he considers them to be rife with considerable abuses.
It is rather unfortunate that there is no provision in our electoral system to prevent criminality from reaching the Provincial Councils and even Parliament. As things stand at present, challenging the legality of an election or of a particular elected candidate’s criminal conduct in courts takes years to be disposed of. In the meantime, the seats of power could be occupied with gentlemen who are more suited to be denizens of our central prisons. It is incumbent, therefore, on all those who treasure democracy to exorcise those destructive demons in the system that violate a people's right to free and fair elections before democracy itself becomes heavily skewed.
(The writer is also the Editor of Social Justice the monthly journal published by the Centre for Society and Religion.)
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Page 21
15 MARCH 1999
Election Violence: Th for Dispassionate Asse
Nirmalan Dhas
ollowing the recently concluded
Wayamba Provincial Council
Elections, two dominant trends have been clearly evident in the media. On the one hand there has been a shrill outcry that seeks to maintain that the Peoples Alliance organised a campaign of violence and electoral fraud that completely subverted the elections making it essential that fresh elections be held. On the other hand there has been an indignant cry of outraged innocence on the part of the Peoples Alliance which claims that it was the target of a campaign of electoral violence mounted against it by the United National Party and that Peoples Alliance cadres had been forced to fight back in self defence to advance their electoral campaigns.
The situation has been complicated by various election monitors, some of whom seem to believe that their mandate extends far beyond the documentation of incidents of violence, fraud and other occurrences that interfere with the democratic electoral process and the task of ensuring that the machinery of law enforcement acts against those responsible for such acts, to include also the task of deciding on the validity of an election as well as on appropriate governmental response to their verdicts in this respect.
Within the acrimonious situation
that has resulted there is an obvious need for dispassionate analysis and comment on the violence that accompanied this election and the context within which it occurred. There is room too for the articulation of viable, appropriate and creative responses to polls related violence that may help prevent such violence at future polls. The advancement of such responses through their recommendation for adoption by the government and implementation by the commissioner of election at all forthcoming polls is one of the major tasks expected of organisations that have engaged in monitoring the elections. It is only through such a process of feedback and fine tuning based on a dialogue that rests
on confidence and and other aberrat nated from the ele
The Context
The context in took place is of par to such an analysi ignored. Central tc fact that the Peop ernment has been cisive steps towa: of the island's pot the centre linking t East Asian Regio Ocean Rim Counti form housing the of the developme impacts upon regi arising from such underestimated.Th. Peoples Alliance commodate the ma political relationsh necessary to refo) tain equilibrium w strategic equation indicated by its p to the Indian nuc ing of the Indo Agreement, its r Sedusamudra Ka the return of the of the Northeast ) Varatharajah Peru in India.
Quite clearly Government has tioning itself as player most able idly move towar the islands poten able to portray most entitled to t port of our neigh national commu Since the realis potential dem policy the Peop. ment is no dou its ability to ach upon its remaini another term, a the absence of political strate
 
 
 
 

TAMIL TIMES 21
ust that violence ns can be elimioral process.
hich this election mount importance and must not be this context is the es Alliance Govhe first to take deds the realisation ntial to emerge as le South and South hs and the Indian les and as the platstrategic function ntal process as it ons. The pressures move must not be 2 willingness of the Government to acjor changes in geo ips at regional level mulate and mainlithin regional geos has been clearly ragmatic response ear tests, the signLanka Free Trade sponse to India's alvi Project and to irst Chief Minister rovincial Council - nal - form his exile
he Peoples Alliance succeeded in posihe internal political and willing to raps the realisation of al. It is thereby also :self as the player 2 goodwill and supours and the Intery towards this end. ion of the island's ds continuity of s Alliance Governkeenly aware that ve this end depends in power for at least possibly longer. In cilled professional its, propagandists,
campaign managers and other ellements vital to the achievement of this end through the electoral process it is quite possible that cynical elements within the government assumed that this evident need for continuity of policy could be made to take precedence over the need to strengthen - and not weaken - democratic processes such as the process of holding free and fair elections.
The fact that the Peoples Alliance faced the opposition of the United National Party which over the course of its years in power permitted itself to be gradually transformed into a cynical master of violence, brutality and subversion of the democratic process cannot be ignored. In the absence of skilled professionals capable of conducting a sophisticated electoral campaign - both within the Peoples Alliance as well as the United National Party - a move towards violent and brutal confrontation could never have been anything more than a short step away.
The Peoples Alliance also had to contend with the growing popularity of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna which has on more than one occasion resorted to the most cold blooded of killings on a massive scale and which despite its current claims to have dissociated itself from its bloody and violent path continues to maintain most of its machinery in a covert underground fashion. The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna continues to appeal to a significant section of the electorate and nothing other than a lack of political sophistication within the Peoples Alliance has prevented the formation of some sort of creative engagement between it and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna.
Saddled also with an intelligence apparatus weighted towards the machinery of law and order, suspicious of think tanks and NGO’s as well as sources of academic input, and known mostly for its real or imagined proclivities towards terror, torture and harassment and an infantile, obvious and bungling program of telephone tapping rather than a professional approach based on reliable research and analysis, and a primitive party structure with no identifiable strategic function, the Peoples Alliance seems to have entered the election not with the confidence of a party in power but riddled with the anxiety of a politi

Page 22
22 TAMIL TIMES
cal dilettante brought to power by forces it could not comprehend much less hanness and utilise towards consolidating its position.
The need for the employment of sophisticated human resources at various levels affecting the task of governance has been articulated on several occasions before, particularly in respects to the need to manage ethnic contradictions and relations between ethnic communities. Many of those employed by NGO's for the task of monitoring should have been employed by the government long before the elections to formulate and implement measures that would ensure that violence and fraud did not occur and that in those instances where they may have occurred the machinery of law and order would move swiftly to punish those responsible.
The repeatedly demonstrated reluctance of the government to acquire the services of sophisticated human resources especially in those problematic areas of governance is very difficult to comprehend especially since the continued failure to do so will leave these problems unresolved and ensure a rapid deterioration of the political and economical situation.
Analysis
It appears that incidents that have occasioned serious dissatisfaction with and dissatisfaction towards the electoral process were facilitated by the following major factors: O The governments overconfidence arising from its having successfully positioned itself as the internal entity most willing and able to realise the islands potential. O The governments anxiety arising from its desire to consolidate its position and remain in power for long enough to realise this potential. O The governments reluctance or inability to acquire the services of the sophisticated human resources required to initiate, support and sustain those processes required to consolidate its position and remain in power while realising the islands potential, and its consequent inability to: O Forge a synergistic working relationship with the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna and the New Left Front, O Initiate and sustain strategic interaction with the United National Party;
O Build an eff group able to e. systems of electo of violence and
O The governn deal with the phe between the crimi ticians and politi O The inability
position to forml an effective, nor gic response to !
Some Possible E Although mu age has already o sible for the gov the services of s resources to revi dures, analyse p and recommend amongst which in O The limiting ( ing to electronic of media, and the munication syste of canvassing inc ing of posters to O Content of ele be limited to conti tal strategy, suppo work and vision outcome of impler of criticism of ol criticism of permi toral canvassing election propagar O Deployment of equipped, ordered arrest anyone bea such vehicles in may be found tra arms are found, such armed pers arrest. O The election c. powered to immec and prosecute po fere with the law during elections. O Election moni ered to observe ing, to document tion laws, to mor those who violate to recommend ch as may from time necessary.
It is very clea this island followi is a history of a vi scent towards b those who wish

15 MARCH 1999
ctive strategic core ploy sophisticated ral competition free larassment, ents reluctance to nomenon of linkages halunderworld, polical parties or refusal of the oplate and implement violent and stratehese factors.
esponses ch avoidable damcurred it is still posernment to acquire phisticated human ew electoral procepll related violence reventive measures lay be considered: f electoral canvassand all other forms postal and telecomm. All other forms luding the displaybe barred. ctoral canvassing to ents of developmenorting policy frameary projections of nentation. All forms oponents excepting tted content of electo be barred from nda.
special police units and empowered to ring arms, to seize which such persons velling or in which and to disarm any on who may resist
mmissioner be emiately arrest, detain iticians who interund order apparatus
Eors to be empowIolls and canvassviolations of elecitor prosecution of election laws, and nges in such laws to time seem to be
that the history of g its independence lent and brutal derbarity. Many of ) see this process
reversed voted for the Peoples Alliance platform of peace, Democracy and the defence of Human Rights.
However the credibility of its commitment to the establishment of peace, democracy and the defence of human rights however has come under intense scrutiny and critical review following its failure or refusal to prevent the pattern of violence so clearly evident at the recently concluded polls. Despite this setback the visionary bankruptcy of the opposition makes it possible for the Peoples Alliance to retain its position as the vehicle commanding the most amount of political credibility with regard to the realisation of the islands potential.
Those who placed their trust in the Peoples Alliance platform of peace democracy and the defence of human rights - many of whom served actively and with great dedication on the several organisations that monitored the recent elections, therefore must not lose heart but must formulate and advance strategies that can counter the sad reversals they have Տ66Ո.
The fact that the Peoples Alliance Government has created a context wherein the democratic process has been strengthened and most recognised human rights can be exercised and that it is precisely this context that the Peoples Alliance has created that makes it possible to commit the above to writing and seek publication must be both acknowledged and appreciated. It is this context that makes it possible to hope that the Peoples Alliance Government will move swiftly to ensure that such a situation does not arise at any future election.
What is sought by all those who worked actively to bring the Peoples Alliance to power is the creation of a space for the emergence of an awareness and acceptance of the need to discard political competition based on violence, coercion and brutality in favour of more sophisticated and civilised forms of competition and the consequent formulation and adoption of measures that will ensure that political parties remove from their ranks all persons who have committed, or permitted the committing of violence so that we need no longer fear being held hostage to the primitive instincts of goondahs and their criminal gangs who seek to pass themselves off as politicians and take control of the state. O

Page 23
15 MARCH 1999
Myth of Pan-Drav Identity in Tatt
T N Gopalan
ineteen Tamils posted to the Accountant General's office in Bangalore could not take charge because of opposition from the Kannadigas, 48 persons taken into custody on suspicion of collaborating with sandalwood smuggler Veerappan are languishing in the Karnataka prisons for years now, scores looking for jobs in Malaysia have been interned, the Rameswaram fishermen are periodically felled by the bullets from the Lankan navy.... Oh what indeed is happening to the Tamil community, cried in anguish Chief Minister Karunanidhi the other day in the state Assembly.
“But we are not going to keep quiet....we'll do whatever we can to help out the Tamils in distress,” he declared, raising his voice. But pray what is his game plan in the face of such gross injustice?
“I am wondering whether all political parties here should jointly observe a “Save Tamils day... he said, for starters of course.
That was in mid-Feb. But since then nothing has happened. Neither the Tamil refugees in Malaysia have been rescued nor the Tamils released from the Karnataka prisons nor yet the youngsters have been able to take up their postings. On the other hand neither Karunanidhi nor his chief rival Jayalalitha seems to be in any particular hurry to do anything about the situation.
The plight of such varied categories is a revealing commentary on the Tamil polity in general not to speak of the sheer incompetence and callousness of the so-called leaders of the community.
The case of the Tamil boys posted to the Karnataka office of the Accountant General of India is yet another striking instance of the increasing parochialism in the Indian union, with no one in any position to do anything to defuse the situation.
The Union Public Service Commission periodically recruits persons for
clerical level posti tral government es basis of written te Twentythree of were posted to th of the AG. That months ago. As it are Tamils. While managed to take c still cooling their some fierce protest The agitation v days. One of the u ard Louis, who in in Tamil, rationalis way: “Of the 3,80 region, as many as Tamil. We have n Tamils or their lan the nature of the j staff are to go on to district and talu the accounts are in Kannada. How expected to do a 1981 85 Keralites our offices and th and we got the or can’t they appo these postings? lected but they h New Delhi...this besides the Tami serve in their nat Many Kanna cluding film actor into the fray and the rights of the
The Union M tion, Ananda Ku a BJP man and f Deve Gowda joi upon the Centre the injustice don Finally the Unic in.
Ironically it Tamil Nadu, Ka in the Ministry c celled the postin agitationists wi leave in peace ready joined du

TAMIL TIMES 23
idian
S
gs in various cenblishments on the
S. hem thus selected Bangalore office was a couple of appened all the 23 only four of them large, the rest are eels in the face of by the Kannadigas. ent on for over 40 hion leaders, Richsidentally is fluent 2d the agitation this ) employees in this 2000 can speak in othing against the guage. The point is ob is such that the periodical auditing k offices. And there all maintained only could the Tamils be proper job of it? In were appointed to en too we agitated lers rescinded.why nt Kannadigas to Nine such were seave been posted to is very unfair to us s too would like to ve state...” a leading lights inand writers jumped waxed eloquent on ons of the soil. hister for Civil Aviaar, from Karnataka, mer Prime Minister :d hands to impress he need to “set right to the Kannadigas.” Government caved
as a minister from mbur Janardhanam, Personnel, who can; for 19 Tamils. The prevailed upon to e four who had al
Karunanidhi made full use of the opportunity to hit at the "lack of commitment for the Tamil cause on the part of the AIADMK” and shed profuse tears for the plight of the Tamils the world over.
Janardhanam responded with a weak defence saying that anyway those originally posted would not be left in the lurch and that they would be distributed among the other offices of the AG in Karnataka.
And worse the Chief Minister also disclosed that the regional director of the UPSC at Madras, Ms. Shubhadra Narayanan could not even go to her Bangalore office and she had received telephonic threats saying that her daughter would be kidnapped and so on. For the more fanatical among the Kannadigas held her responsible for the posting of the Tamils to Bangalore. Chauvinism has been growing in Karnataka by leaps and bounds in the last decade or so. And if Cauvery af. fair is in such a terrible mess today that is more because of the fanatics over there than anything else. And the saner sections refuse to speak out.
Deccan Herald, a leading English daily of Bangalore, reported on March l, “The three-day 67th Kannada Sahitya Sammelan which concluded here today resolved that persons without the knowledge of Kannada should not be appointed to any Central government offices in Karnataka.
The sammelan chaired by noted Kannada novelist S L Bhyrappa welcomed the Centre's decision to cancel the appointment of 23 nonKannadigas to the AG“ s office in Bangalore following a 40-day agitation by pro-Kannada organisations. It opposed the Centre's move to re-deploy them in other Central government offices in Bangalore.” There was no note of disapproval either in the report or any editorial admonition either. Chief Minister J.H. Patel in an interview felt that those selected could be accommodated in Tamil Nadu. He too cited the fact that accounts were being maintained in Kannada language.
“But what harm if those selected are trained in Kannada language? Af. ter all in every state there are those from out of that place serving there at various levels and who manage to learn the local language in course of time....” One would get only evasive replies to such pointed questions.

Page 24
24 TAMIL TIMES
But the case of those detained under the notorious Terrorist and Anti-Disruptive Activities Act (TADA) is much more heart-rending. They had been taken into custody in the early nineties by the Karnataka Task Force for such assorted crimes ranging from serving food to the Veerappan gang to acting as informantS.
Most of them, numbering 48 at the moment, are said to be innocent and had been picked up merely on suspicion, their only crime being that they lived in areas frequented by Veerappan. Neither the cases against them would be pursued nor would they be released. Repeated representations to the Karnataka authorities have been made in, but in vain.
In fact one of Veerappan 's long time demands has been the release of the Tamils in Karnataka prisons.
The plight of those who go in search of the El Dorado abroad, Malaysia or Singapore, taken for a royal ride by the brokers and left to fend for themselves is nothing new. Only the situation has become acute in the wake of the South East Asian crisis of
the recent years. dile tears, no Chie regulate the traffick Whether it is th laysia or the per Rameswaram fishe empty rhetoric an is ever done. Such mitment of the Tan If none of the the relationship be hbouring states o Karnataka, Cauver tioned earlier, coul cably, could the K alone be blamed f affairs?
After all was it still is the case, th ment which, in the the ethnic identity assumed menacing and more general rhetoric, thus sett other ethnic group A Karunanidhi up a bit after realis playing the Tamil c him win the game born MGR, a Jaya
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For all their crocof Minister cares to ing in human cargo. lose trapped in Ma2nnially suffering rmen, we only hear d nothing concrete is the level of comhill leaders.
issues bedevilling ween the two neigf Tamil Nadu and y or the others menil be sorted out amiannada chauvinists or the sorry state of
not, and perhaps it e Dravidian movename of asserting 7, went overboard, postures at times ly stuck to fierce ing an example to bings?
might have sobered sing to his cost that ard would not help against the Keralalalitha might have
15 MARCH 1999
altogether jettisoned the Tamil plank for purely opportunistic reasons and even the likes of Dr. Ramdas and Vai. Ko, could, with some misgivings though, rub shoulders with the Hindi zealots. Still everyone of them does take up, quite aggressively at that, the Tamil nationalist cause when it suits him or her.
In fact a Tamil weekly Nandan which prides itself of being the vehicle of purest and uncompromising Tamil nationalism, LTTE supremo Prabhakaran being one of its godheads, came out with a scurrilous attack on the Kannadigas after the AG's office episode came to light.
“Kannada, unakku yennada ingu velai?” - Kannadigas, you have no business to be here, it said and warned them all to clear out of the Tamil land. There are fringe groups like Thamizh-Thamizhar lyakkam which tilts at the Northerners periodically.
Ifa Vattal Nagaraj oractor Rajkumar follow suit over there in Karnataka, do the Tamils have any moral authority to blame them? Every section in the country wants to have a greater share of the cake for itself, and as the eco
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15 MARCH 1999
BOOK REVIEW
SriLanka: Collective identities Re
Volume II Editor: Michael Roberts: Marga Insti Colombo, 1998. pp. 452 (and prefac
Review by Sasanka Perera (Department of Sociology, University of Colol
ri Lanka Collective Identities Re
visited (Vol II) edited by Michael
Roberts consists of 15 essays in varying degrees of quality, mostly written by academics with an interest in Sri Lanka working or studying abroad. It also contains an editor's preface which the editor correctly calls Meanderings Amidst Heightened Moments.” In a way, the present volume is the second of a two part reincarnation of a collection of influential essays originally published in 1979 as Collective Identities, Nationalisms and Protest in Modern Sri Lanka also edited by Michael Roberts. Of the 15 essays in the present volume, those by CR de Silva, Michael Roberts and S Arasaratnam are reprints from the 1979 version. Some of the remaining essays have either been published before elsewhere or have been pre
sented in various other words, some sented in these ess culating among S Lanka oriented ac some time. In gent would be mostly f the essays appeari for the first time, ir tempt to introduce main arguments o than making a deta in the conventiona
At the outset that given the sig sues dealt with il reproduced from t could have made for the authors to temporary or rece: formulate their wo lishing them mere
(continued from page 24) nomic situation gets grimmer progressively, the strife only increases.
Anyway the world over ethnic conflicts are only the order of the day. In such a situation for things to be different, some enlightened leadership is called for. If that is one commodity in short supply in Europe or Africa, it is much more so in India.
The left parties are slowly waking up to the bitter realities of the ethnic consciousness and are trying to reorient their perspectives and attitudes a little bit. But one cannot blame them too much. What can a Marxist in Punjab do in the face of an aggressive, even violent, Sikh assertion? He or she can make noises and leave it at that. At best one can refuse to be part of a sectarian agenda as many Lankan Tamils are doing. Beyond that those concerned can only keep campaign
ing in their own sr for the best.
To get back t which we started, lies in tatters. T Dravidian family ferent language South including daggers drawn a cannot be a more tion of the pan-D It is becomin that the Dravidia did play a crucial the Brahmin Ra. travelled a very - harming not onl min communities ing but also inspi undesirable forms tarianism, many much more obt than their notiona
 

AM TIMES 25
isited
ute,
)
hbo)
conferences. In of the ideas preays have been cirri Lankan or Sri ademic circles for ral, my comments }cused on some of ng in this volume which I would atthe readers to the f the essays rather illed critical review, l academic sense.
should also note nificance of the isn the three essays he 1979 edition, it much more sense add pertinent connt material and rek, rather than puby as essays of his
hall ways and hope
the problem with the Dravidian unity he much-vaunted ncluding all the difgroupings of the ne Kannadigas are each other. There esounding repudiaavidian identity.
increasingly clear movement which ole in overthrowing has, nevertheless, rilous course since the very Non-Brahclaimed to be serv!d a variety of most if casteism and secwhich are proving se and dangerous progenitor. O
torical significance or artifacts from academic production from a previous period. Thus Michael Roberts' Nationalism in Economic and Social Thought, 1915-1945 , C R de Silvas The Impact of Nationalism on Education: The Schools Takeover (1961) and The University Admissions Crisis, 1970-75” and S Arasaratnam's Nationalism in Sri Lanka and Tamils” seem like essays that are encapsulated in a time capsule where sociopolitical developments of the last two to five decades have not been dealt with despite the fact that such information is readily available, and in need of analysis not merely for academic consumption but for purposes of intervention as well. If such an effort was made, their work would have been of much more relevant to the contemporary concerns.
In chapter 5, in an essay entitled Pushing Poson’ Jonathan Walters writes about the politics of religion in the context of Poson celebrations Sri Lankan Buddhists, an event that marks the introduction of Buddhism to Sri Lanka through Arahat Mahinda. He describes the transformation of Arahat Mahinda into what he calls Mahinda the Nationalist” in the post 1950 period (1998:135). Prior to that, in the 19th century Walters suggests that there were two versions of Mahinda's co-existing among Sinhala Buddhists - Mahinda the Temple Preacher and Mahinda the Missionary (1998: 136-139). This transformation, he suggests, should be understood in the context of the political chances of the time since it reflects the way in which the post-colonial elite perceived and reacted to these changes (1998: 135). Walters also shows how the commemoration of Mahinda in Poson celebrations expanded rapidly since the early 20th century, gaining political momentum, particularly after independence in 1948. With reference to specific incidents up to the mid 1990ʻs, he suggests that this process continues to date through many transformations (1998: 140-156). It is interesting to note the manner in which Poson has been turned into one of the most important national Buddhist celebrations by the press, particularly through the Lake House Group using its sponsorship of the aloko puja (honouring with light) during the main Poson celebrations in Mihintale (1998: 144). He also

Page 26
26 TAM TIMES
describes the role played by politicians and archaeologists in the making of Mahinda the Nationalist to represent the modern Sinhala Buddhist nation (1998:151).
In Chapter 6 entitled Praxis, Language and Silences: The July 1987 Uprising of the JVP in Sri Lanka.” Jani de Silva presents an essay on the second uprising of the JVP. Her analysis of the politics of the JVP is based on four elements which she believes are central to understanding the politics of the JVP. She has identified these key areas as the JVP's notion of social justice. Its notions of patriotism aud related dynamics, the role of violence in social struggle and issues of leadership (1998: 168-190). One of the key features of de Silva's essay is her attempt to base her work on scattered JVP material such as leaflets and tapes etc which are no longer easily accessible.
Much of the conventional academic wisdom suggests that the JVP ideology based on concerns over class and socialist aspirations in the late 1960s, was transformed into an ideology based on patriotism” in the late 1980's (1998: 164, 190). Contrary to this view, de Silva argues that despite the shift to a platform of patriotism, a preoccupation with social class remained a primary category of the JVP identity and politics.
Neloufer de Mel in her essay Agent or Victim: The Sri Lankan Woman Militant in the Interregnum’ (Chapter 7) attemptsto place in context the positionality of women militants in JVP and LTTE movements. She focuses on the manner in which their roles as militants have allowed them to transcend the limitations of conventional female identity and gender roles as that very process also imposes other forms of restrictions on them (1998: 200). Much of her ethnographic material comes from a conversation with a woman member of the JVP who was active in 1971 as well as poetry from Tamil women poets and LTTE literature. She points out that most of LTTE literature on women cadre, such as Adele Ann“s book, Women Fighters of Liberation Tigers (1993), stresses the idea that the armed struggle is a departure from traditional restrictive gender roles imposed upon them by patriarchal society (1998: 202). Yet in other instances such alleged freedoms are clearly
curbed by the LTT Such examples of simultaneous co points out, can be ics of both the . (1998: 199-217).
Referring to JVP militant acti uprising in 1971, that her womanh sexualised and he placed secondal her struggle. The takes place in mil most clear, as shi manner in which relegate emotiona as merely persona ority. It is also in female combatant are never conside (1998:213).
Clearly de Me the first in Sri L question the notio of female combata groups while als containment stra membership in s entail. Such probl cal notions of emp not only from the but also from tract demic discourse. ( given the importa de Mel is dealing v could have been m and more convinc to women comba second and much ing in the late 198( female combatant context of the se and the restricted bers the possibilit search with the la said than done.
In chapter 8, P presents an intere essay entitled Al Ethnicity and Ineq of a Riot. Based ( an area south Jeganathan attem similarities or cor the anti-Tamil vio and the 1992 floo Jeganathan points sons emerge out qualities of the tw that experience is denness' and the of the two events (l

15 MARCH 1999
E itself (1998: 209). empowerment and tainment, de Mel seen in the dynamVP and the LTTE
he experience of a e in the JVP's first de Mel points out ood had been depersonal needs are y to the cause of gender control that tant groups became points out, in the such organisations and sexual needs and thus not a prihis context that the s needs as a woman ed political needs”
l's essay is one of anka to seriously n of empowerment ints within militant o focusing on the tegies which the uch organisations amatic and uncritilowerment emanate LTTE propaganda, is that pass as acaDn the other hand, ance of the issues vith, her arguments lade much stronger ng had she talked ants of the JVP's more brutal upris)'s as well as LTTE . However, in the recy of the LTTE access to its memof conducting reter is much easier
radeep Jeganathan ting and readable the Lords Men? lality in the Space n this fieldwork in of Colombo. its to find certain parisons between ence of July 1983 s of Colombo. As ut, these comparif the experiential ) events. Much of ased on the sud
extraordinariness’ 198: 227-228). The
other aspect of this comparison relates to the issue of property. In both events property in the words of Jeganathan stood seriously challenged” (1998: 228). In both moments the boundaries between these spaces disintegrated. To Jeganathan the flood is a tracing of the riot” (1998: 229).
Through a number of conversations with some of his neighbours Jeganathan brings out a series of recollections about the riot, particularly focused on the fate that befell a Tamil family living in the neighbourhood. Through these recollections it becomes clear that the violence directed against this family had much more to do with other issues than their mere Tamilness. For instance, the partial destruction of the house that the family had rented from a Sinhala had nothing to do with their Tamilness but with the sense of inequality some of the rioters' felt in their relationships with the owner of the house. In these recollections one could also find how a family which was once popular in the neighbourhood despite their Tamilness became demonised over their reaction to one particular incident prior to the July violence, and how the violence directed against them was justified in recollections after the event in which they were considered aloof, distant, different and soon (1998: 221-242). Jeganathan, in his analysis of the floods of 1992 as a tracing of the violence of July 1983 has successfully brought into sharp focus many issues such as concerns over inequality, and differential recollections of memory, often hidden in the discourse on ethnicity and violence in Sri Lanka.
In chapter 9, Mark Whittaker presents a paper which he has called Learning Politics from Taraki: A Biographical Fragment. Whittaker presents an interesting but a somewhat larger than life picture of a former Tamil militant from the People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Elam (PLOTE), whom he has identified as Taraki. He introduces Taraki in an amazing array of manifestations: Tamil separatist guerrilla, sailor, jungle guide, party theorist, export businessman, published historian, philosopher and journalist.
The essay is based on a series of conversations Whittaker has had with Taraki in the eastern Sri Lankan

Page 27
15 MARCH 1999
town of Batticaloa in 1984 (1998:249265). In his essay Whittaker presents numerous views Taraki has on society and the politics he is familiar with, based on what Taraki has learnt from experience as well as his own readings and interpretations of selected ideas from Chomsky, Foucault, Gramsci and so on. But one particular theme that clearly emerges from the conversations that Whittaker has reproduced and in some cases presented in summarised form is Taraki's critique of formal anthropology and university based knowledge production (1998: 247-265) - As Whittaker recounts, Taraki takes issue with Whittaker's assertions of professional neutrality” because the prevailing political conditions demanded engaged action” (1998: 248). Of course, issues of anthropological neutrality as well as the possibility of objectivity in the practice of anthropology have been debated for quite some time in international academic discourse, even though that debate has not touched the Sri Lankan academic or popular discourse in any real sense. It appears that to Taraki, conventional anthropological practice, if uninvolved, was merely a discourse that has no real purpose. The following words from Taraki places this sentiment in perspective:
Why am I going off tomorrow to get my hands dirty, when a normal anthropologist, equally a repository of knowledge, would simply go back to his desk and write articles for university press publications . (1998: 258)
Clearly, Taraki has a point. And, he is also simplistic in this particular critique. He has a point in the sense that the Sri Lankan academics in general not simply anthropologists are notoriously non-interventionist when it comes to taking a stand with regard to tenuous political issues. That is one reason why Sri Lankan social sciences in the formal sense and social intervention in general are marked by an extreme sense of mediocrity.
He is simplistic in the sense that one cannot expect every individual to be a larger than life hero in situations of political and social instability as is the case in Sri Lanka, particularly in the context of prevailing practical difficulties, which are far from the
ideal. For example, t in support of Tamil ever legitimate it could ensure that may he imposed on gists while foreign difficult to get a vis work next time aroul tique of LTTE politi an anthropologist c( so dirtied that she LTTE visa” to enta movements contro ent individuals get in different ways, forts may not be a becoming a guerrill published historiar spite its limitations pect of Taraki's cr above are important tique is necessary come from seats of tion within the cou cal self-evaluation ( contemporary acade urgently needed.
Patricia Lawren writes about the w eastern Sri Lanka ir extensive political v fear and lack of trl to her, silenced co of mourning (1998: ver, individuals we their problems to g ties since some ag ernment in the for police forces wer much of the viol enced. Even thoug plete silencing mourning implied present in the rout ern Sri Lanka, it modes of mourn emotion in the con lence and metho trauma have certa nificant transform the war as well as is then in this con tions of the role c cults become imp Lawrence, peopl pouring in local a comes political s occurred under (1998:274).
The role of

TAM TIMES 27
ing a clear stand eparatism (howay seem to be) ate restrictions ocal anthropoloones may find it to do their fieldl. Similarly, a cricould mean that ld get her hands may not get an areas under the Besides, differheir hands dirty” fhile all such efs spectacular as , a philosopher, a or whatever dehowever, the astique as outlined Since such a cribut has not yet academic producntry where a critif the relevance of mic production is
hce in chapter 10 fork of oracles in 1 a situation where iolence marked by ust has, according nventional means 271-275). Moreore not able to take »vernment authorigents of that govm of military and 2 responsible for ince they experithe almost comof conventional by Lawrence is not he realities of eastS quite clear that ng, expression of ext of political vios of coping with nly undergone sigions as a result of n response to it. It xt that her descriporacles in amman tant. According to s emotional outman temples overencing which has onditions of war
2 oracles become
more relevant and legitimised given the fact that many of them are also touched by the same violence that had been experienced by their clients. Their advice to the clients varies from asserting that the violence they had experienced would happen again. Suggesting to mothers that they should not give up hope for the sake of their children irrespective of the violence they may have personally experienced (1998: 279). It is significant that in the southern part of Sri Lanka also a similar process of oracular intervention as well as expectations of demonic and divine intervention in delivering justice and revenge became popular in a situation when mechanisms of secular justice and law and order failed with the expansion of political violence in the south in the late 1980's. While the issues that Lawrence address - the problems of mourning and coping with trauma - are important issues in sites of violence including eastern Sri Lanka, her essay would have benefited much had she introduced additional ethnographic material from her fieldwork.
In chapter 12 Sankaran Krishna presents an interesting essay on “Divergent Narratives: Dravidian and Elamist Tamil Nationalisms. Krishna argues that contrary to popular perception in both India and Sri Lanka. Tamil Elamist nationalism in Sri Lanka and what he calls Dravidian nationalism of Tamil Nadu were not in dialogue and had completely different contexts of origin, and the reasons for their emergence were different from each other (1998: 319).
But Krishna suggests that the matter in which Tamil leadership in Sri Lanka looked towards India for help in the context of worsening ethnic politics in Sri Lanka has quite a bit to do with the Indian intervention in Bangladesh in 1971. According to him the emergence of Bangladesh pushed Sri Lankan Tamils further along the road to Elam, believing in its achievability while it also exaggerated their expectations of the Indian central government on behalf of their cause (1998: 339, 341). The Bangladesh situation also marked a more aggressive Indian external policy towards its troublesome neighbours, a model India used later on in Sri Lanka

Page 28
28 TAMIL TIMES
to bring around the Jayewardene regime more in tune with Indian policy. As he points out, in India the Bangladesh situation was interpreted as indicating the tremendous foreign policy implications "that could accrue from intervention in neighbouring countries by utilising beleaguered minorities to further regional hegemony” (1998:341). After the 1980's, with the worsening of the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka,Tamil Nadu politics also adopted the cause of Sri Lankan Tamils as one of its agendas, which only changed after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi by the LTTE. In the end, according to Krishna, it was because of the perception of the intimacy of these two nationalisms that the Indian army fought its longest war - in Sri Lanka (1998: 340-341).
In general, I would have very little to say about the remainder of the book. A Jeyaratnam Wilson's brief essay entitled, Politics of Ethnicity and Ethno-nationalisms in Asia as the title itself suggests attempts to
paintabroad pictu ethnic based nation such an enterpris possible in the 9 had devoted to it, a purpose this essay ume is not clear to
been better offin a
Sarvan, in chapter
story entitled An Rajiv Gandhi” whi count of the thoug of the woman suic LTTE who assassi the Story the unnar sin perceives herac in which she embr garlands her brideg 361). Chapter 15 long essay by Goc entitled, The Ideo ties of the Ethn Postface'. In the 57 has devoted to his description of the c nic conflict, its dev present position (in
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15 MARCH 1999
e of ethnicity and lisms in Asia. But
clearly was not ages that Wilson ld in the end what plays in this volne. It would have nagazine. Charles 4 presents a short ppointment with h is a fictional achts and activities de bomber of the nated Gandhi. In led woman assastion as a marriage aces death as she room (1998: 357:onsists of a very frey Gunatilleke logies and Realic Conflict - A pages Gunatilleke rather unilinear mergence of ethelopment, and its his view) offers a
| LESURRE
generalised description of a very complex process, and much of its complexities tend to disappear beyond the margins of Gunatilleke's essay. But it still serves the purpose of a general outline for those who are pressed for time, but are nevertheless interested in understanding” the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict.
Finally, despite the kind of shortcomings I have briefly outlined above, the present volume marks yet another significant contribution to the realm of knowledge production in the Sri Lankan academia. But unfortunately that knowledge - as typified by this book - continues to be published in a language most Sri Lankans would not be able to read even though they deal with issues which at least Some of them should know about and think about. One hopes that Marga, as the publisher would consider bringing out at least some of the more useful essays in this volume in Sinhala and Tamil in the not so distant future.
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15 MARCH 1999
The passing away of Regina on Wednesday 10 February 1999 after her brief illness was a shock to many and to her kith and kin a profound and irreplacable loss. When one refers to her kith and kin, it is not restricted to her blood relatives only. To Regina and her husband Raj, everyone who had the fortune of coming near to them became their kith and kin.
Regina was born in Mannar in northern Sri Lanka and from very early on in her life she became a very deeply devoted and committed religious person. Regina's comitment to the service of ordinary people was reflected in her choosing nursing as her career - a noble profession which fitted her gentle and service-oriented character and gave her the chance to to devote the best in her for the welfare of the larger humanity.
Regina was trained and qualified as a Staff Nurse in Ireland in the midsixties, thereafter she worked for a short period in Switzerland in a hospital run by Catholic missionaries, then she travelled to South India and in Kerala did her post-graduate diploma in mid-wifery. Regina returned to Sri Lanka, worked in Jaffna and then in Colombo as a Theatre Sister. Her urge to become accomplished in her chosen profession again made her to travel to the UK in 1972 to undertake post-graduate training in Theatre Technique, and from then on she had been working in the National Health Service until she fell ill.
After helping thousands of patients day and night to cope with the demands of illness, she herself faced her own illness bravely and beautifully with her solid faith, calm acceptance and unassuming smile. Her religious commitment and devotion made her to go on pilgrimages to Rome, the Holy Land and only a few months before passing away to Medjugorje in Bosnia and Velankanni in India following which she intensified her devotion to Our Lady and Her Rosary. Her last moments, we are told by those who were at the bedside, were spent sinking herself into prayer and sacred music. What a beautiful flight from a painful world into Eternity
My wife and I came to know Regina from the time she married Raj, who was staying with us in Colombo
Regina Ra An Appr
until hemigrated to very much attachec pecially to our chi instrumental in tak eldest daughter, w and Raj and Regin more than a paren dren, especially Sha ily in London, were and cared for by t did not have childre showered their lov and wide on all th need.
Regina's husb Hindu background oriented politicalol was from an ortho ground with a deel to her religious o our visits to the closely how the tw were bound by a s mitment to each of difficulty whatso deeply united as c differences in orig gifts. She was ma dent believer or ar but to a great resp other beliefs and all he could to he religious and soci Raj and Regin and harmonious u verse gifts. With always been, emp lawyer, editing a devoting most c sources in servin the needy and in and democratic r decades, Regina of love and sacri
 

TAMIL TIMES 29
anayagam ciation
he UK. They were
to our family, esdren. Regina was ing Sharmini, our th her to the UK a looked after her would. Our chilIrmini and her fam; very fondly loved nem. Though they n of their own, they 'e and concern far lose who were in
and came from a with a secular lefttlook while Regina lox Catholic back) sense of devotion pligations. During JK we have seen o, Raj and Regina, trong mutual comher that showed no ver in remaining he in spite of their in and God-givenried, not to an arorthodox Catholic, actor of persons of deologies. Raj did ) Regina fulfill her l obligations. a made a beautiful uity out of their diaj, busy as he has oyed as a full-time Lonthly journal and his time and rethe oppressed and he cause of human hts for over three ud a serene service ce to perform be
hind the scenes feeling proud of her husband's work. In addition to her demanding duties in the National health Service, she spent a lot of time in keeping a beautiful home ever ready and willing to receive and host the variety of visitors to their home.
Regina's last visit to Sri Lanka was in September 1998. Probably knowing that she had to take farewell from her dear ones, she made a planned visit to her sister, brothers and their families who are in India having been displaced by violence from their homes in Mannar in the late 1980s. She spent almost a month with her dear ones whose welfare was one of her life-long main pre-occupation.
Regina, a strict disciplinarian by character, she carried the discipline into her own personal life and with great patience helped others, including Raj, achieve it. She showed her unassuming love for the others by her simple and transparent ways. Her candid remarks were always healing to others. After lavishing visitors with her hospitality of superb dishes and jokes, not allowing political discussions or differences to warm up, she would turn to music as an instrument of harmony. With a strong pent for music she would play old melodies vigorously on the piano. Not given to gossip or idle talk or diplomatic double-speak, she never hesitated to call a spade a spade.
The way she cared for and accepted her husband and his world of interests, the way she devotedly spent
herself in giving credible expression
to a strong but hidden service of love to others, the way she took her farewell though painful yet in a melodious way - all these leave us wondering how fortunate we all were in having known her and experienced in Regina a unique expression of divine love. May that Divine be her eternal reward.
In Regina’s death, we have lost a sincere and much loved friend. May her soul find Solace in peace and may the turf lie lightly over her. We sincerely pray that God would grant Raj the strength to accept the loss and the courage to face the future with equanimity and fortitude. o
By J S Bastiampillai, Sri Lanka (Edited by Fr SJEmmanuel)

Page 30
. , 30 TAML TIMES
7 சிவ &
London
W ܀ Charity
تلل . د ملاقاتي
Est. t 993 / 4A, Clarendc
Board of Trustees: Appeal to the Devote President: London Sivan Dr. S. Navaratnam Ph
Vice President: Dr. S. Sivathasan
Secretary: Dr. T. Sriskandarajah
Administrative
Secretary: T. Kulasegaram
Treasurer: V. Kanesamoorthy
Assistant
Treasurer: Dr. S. Rajasundaram
M. Alagapan T.Arulthas
Dr. R. Kandavel V. Krishnantharajah N. Satchithananthan S. Sivagnanam N. Sivasubramaniam Dr.S.T.S.Somasegaram S.Yogarajah
Bankers: 1) Barclays Bank Plc.
Catford Branch 2) Lloyds Bank Plc.
Billericay Branch
Auditors: B.W. Chatten
Brentwood
The "River House', 12A I cost of £140,000, is the o Trust owns and it is adj Temple itself. This forms a
This building once renova centre, providing facilities such as conducting classe This community centre is help the community at larg
The main hall on the groun of three hundred, with stag cater for wedding ceremo meetings. The first floor of will be used for educatio library facilities.
In the Phase I stage of ren were completed at a cost o initiated, is estimated to co facilities, including new whole building. A part o truSteeS.
We appeal to devotees an either by a lump-sum dona Donation to be made by Kovil Trust-Building Ac credit is also enclosed to fa
Yours Sincerely,
Dr.S.Navaratnam President
 
 
 
 

15 MARCH 1999
Sivan Kovil Trust Registration No. 1051516
n Rise, Lewisham, London SE13 SES
Tel: 0181 3 189844
es and Well-wishers 17/03/1999
Temple Complex - “River House” ase II Renovation Work
see High Road, Lewisham, SE13, purchased at a nly free hold property the London Sivan Kovil acent to the building which houses the Sivan
part of the Temple Complex.
ted will be used as a multipurpose community for Social, Cultural and Educational activities, S in Languages, Religion, Music and Culture. designed to support the temple activities and
e, being in the Sivan Temple Complex.
d floor is designed to accommodate an audience te, lighting and public address system and could nies, music concerts and cultural and religious this building which consists of five large rooms inal purposes including computer classes and
ovation, the structural alterations of the building f£50,000. The Phase II stage of renovation, just st around £150,000. This will provide improved alectrical and central heating systems for the f this cost (£50,000) has been funded by the
d well-wishers for help to finance this project tion or by providing standing order to the Trust. heque drawn in the name of "London Sivan 'ount”. A standing order form with details of cilitate your contribution.
Dr.T.Sriskandarajah V.Kanesamoorthy Secretary Treasurer

Page 31
15 MARCH 1999
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OBTUARIES
《 ; : x *్యణా? Mrs. Lalithambal Sandrasekeram (72) beloved wife of Mr. K. Sandrasekeran, retired Headquarters inspector of Coop Societies of Sri Lanka, loving mother of Dr. Parameswaran (Canada), JegatheSWaaf (Australia), Sathananthes Waran, Dr. Premachandran, Vasanthy and Ravichandran (London); loving sister of Dr. Rajaratnam (Sri Lanka), Mahalingasivam (Germany), late Neelambigai, Shanthy, loving mother-in-law of Dr. Charmaine, Sugi (Austalia), Gowri and Dhamayanthi sister-in-law of Kirupamani and Ketharagowry, loving grandmother of Lakshmi, Sharmila, Sumi, Sasha, Prassana, Sathes and Denesh passed away peacefully after a brief illness on 28th January 1999 and was Crennated at Mortlake Cemetery, Richmond on 30th January
The members of her family wish to express their sincere thanks to all friends and relatives who attended the funeral, sent floral tributes and messages of sympathy and assisted them in several ways during this period of great sorrow. - 37 Grove Road, Ealing, LonCOf W5 5DS. el 0.781 840 3243.
 
 
 
 

TAM TIMES 31
Sakthiammal (82) wife of the late S. R. Kanaganayagam, Senator and Advocate of Jaffna, passed away peасеfully, after a brief illness, in Sydney on 27th February 1999. She was a deeply religious and mild mannered lady, well loved by all who came to know her. Caring and charitable, her death leaves a void not easy p fils. She leaves behind het three Children, Sa Vitri Devi (Sydney), Kanag-isvaran (Colombo) and Maheswaran (Sydney), nine grand children, a great grandsOn, Son-in-law Dr. A. Balasubramaniam (Sydney); daughter-in-law Sooriakumari (Sydney) and Countless number of relatives and friends across the Continents. The funeral took place in Sydney on 2nd March 1999 - 12 FitzWilliam Road, Valucluse, Sydney, NSW2030, Australia.
Mr. S. Kandiah, former Chemistry Teacher, Hartley College, Point Pedro, former Chemistry Lecturer, Jaffna College, Vaddukoddai and retired Lecturer, Department of Chemistry, University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka; Son of the late Mr. & Mrs. Sithamparapillai of Puloly South, Point Pedro, belovedhusband of Gnaneswary,
retired teacher, St. John's Academy, Jaffna, loving father of Suhanya, Aravindan (Canada) and Ahalya (Madras); father-in-law of Ramachandra, Anne Glory (both of Canada), and Siva Sakthynathan (Madras); brother of Subramaniam, Thangammah (Sri Lanka), Dr. Kanapathipilai (UK), Pakkiam (Sri Lanka), Sangarapilai (Botswana), Sellamah, " Sinnammah and Sivakolunthu (Sri Lanka); brother-in-law of Kala valli, Pankayatchelvi, Bala Shanmugam, Paramesvary, Kathiravelu (Sri Lanka) and Sivapalan (UK) passed away in Madras On 31, 1.99. - Dr. S. Kanapathipillai, 2 Cleveland Road, Canvey Island, Essex SS8 OAU. Tel 01268 514624
Mr. Kanagasabai Jeyasingham (65), Retired Engineer, Ford Motor Company (UK), beloved husband Of Saraswathy; loving father of Nirmala, Gajendran, Mala and Nalini; father-in-law of Surendran, Rejitha and Rajkumar; loving grandfather of Breman and Janahan, brother of the late Mrs. S. Parameswari, Mrs. S. Pushpeswari, and Mrs. S. Puwanendeswary of Navindi and bother of Mr. K. Vidhuasingham (UK) passed away peacef illy on 5th March 1999. Funeral took place according to Hindu rites on 9th March at City of London Crematorium.
The members of the family thank all friends and relatives who attended the funeral, paid floral tributes, sent messages of sympathy and assisted them during the period of great Sorrow. - 67 De Vere Gardens, llford, Essex /G1 3EF

Page 32
32 TAMILTIMES
IN MEMORAM Our Beloved Daddy Mummy
Ponnampalam Wemalaranee Kanagaratnam Kanagaratnam f0.7.1923
Born 11. 10. 1908
Rest 23, 1982
Gently with love your memory is kept Your affection and kindness We will never forget
You both are always in our thoughts And for ever in our hearts,
Remembered With love and affection by sons Sara, Brem and Dubsy, daughters-in-law Lalitha and Shyamala, and grandchildren Janarthan, Mehala, Uthistran, Arani and Anuja. - 19 Huxley Place, Palmers Green, London N13 5SU. Tel 018 1 8865966.
31.3.90
Second Death Anniversary
*8:3.3 : `.28.",?!
Dr, C. Peruma Pla 16th February 1920 - 2nd March 1997
Арра Two years have gone by, since you left our midst. Your loving care and inspiration are strongly missed. In your peace We find Solace. Your ever loving children Ravi, Usha, Jeeva and Ranjit and families.
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
Apr 2 Good Friday, Feast of St Francis, Apr. 3 South London Tamil
Welfare Group (SLTWG) Drop in. Tel 0181 5423285. Apr 4 San k a da hara Sathuirthi. Apr 7 John. Apr 10 9.30 a.m. Tamil Union Sports Club conducts SeVenth Annual Badmintor Tournament for Boys, Girls, Men, Ladies & those over 40 and 50. For details Tel: Evenings 0181 385 7453 (Ulmachandran)/ 0181 551 1342 (Bala) Apr 11 Feast of St Stanislaus.
Apr 12 Eekathasi. Apr 13 Pirathosam; Feast of St Martin. Apr 14 Dawn of Pramathi Hindu New Year. Apr 15 Amavasai. Apr 17 Tamil Youth Centre presents Ilaya Natchathirangal', Variety Entertainment including Band, Dances, Comedy and Fashion Show at Logan Hall, London W1. Tel: 0181 9082646. SLTWG New Year Celebrations, Tel: 0181 542 3285.
Sasdi Feast of St
Apr 18 Karthigai; 9,30 a.m. Tamil Schools Sports Association (TSSA UK) 7-A-Side Football Tournament for Adults, U 16, U 14, U 12 and Net ball Tournament for U 16S. For details Tel: Of 81 241 588 f/ O 1293 407586. Apr 19 Sathurthi. Apr 21 Sasdi. Apr 23 Feast of St George, Apr 24 SLTWG Drop in. Tel: Of 81 542 3285. Apr 25 Feast of St Mark; 12.30 p.m., SCOT Annual Lunch with Guest Speaker at Greenford Town Hall, Ruislip Road, Greenford. For details & tickets Tel 0181 904 9227/ 952 7249.
Apr 26 Eekathasi. Apr 27 Pirathosam. Apr 29 Feast of St Cather. ine of Siene. Apr 30 Full Moon, 6.30 p.m. Illustrated Lecture by Seneke Bandaranayake on Ivan Peries Paintings 1938-88 at Lecture Theatre, London School of Oriental & African Studies, Russell Sq., London WCl. Admission Free. At Bhavan Centre, 4A Castletown Road, London W14 9HG, Tel: 0171 381 3O86,406.8 Apr 2 to 4 Three - Day
 
 
 

15 MARCH 1999
A million happy memories
Our whole world fell apart Our Secret tears still flow For what it meant to lose you
ents, Sister, brothers,
land 1004 New Zealand.
IN MEMORAM Pradeep Jeganathan
Second Anniversary - 31.03.1999
Chooti, it's two years since the day you left us And not a day goes by that we don't think of you. We miss all the great times we had together, You will always be in our hearts for ever,
Won't mend our broken hearts For on this day two years ago
Chooti, no one will ever know,
Sadly missed and affectionately remembered by your parin-laws, niece and nephews. - Jeganathan family, 6A Cambrai Avenue, Mount Roskill, Auck
Ayurveda Seminar Apr 16 7.30 p.m. Karnatic Music Workshop by Karaikudi. R. Mani, open to all, donations WelCOnne. Apr 24 5.30pm Talk on New Discoveries in Indian History by V.S. Godbole. Als welcome. Apr 24 6.30 p.m. Tyagaraja Jayanti - Bhavan's Karnatic Vocal, Vina, Violin and Mridangam teachers and students pay homage to Saint Tyagaraja. All welcome.
Author of Tamil Research Book Honoured
Dr G.Rajendran, Professor of Tamil at Madras Christian College, Madras, who authored 'he new book, "The Tamil
Root Kal, the World Over” Chosen as the best book in Tamil in the ethnological field was honoured by the Tamil Nadu Government at a Colourful ceremony attended by Tanil Scholars and Tamil national leaders. Kalaignam M.Karunanithy, Chief Minister of Madras presented the award.
Though there are several words in the languages of the world, the number of root words in each of them is very limited. The author contends that the Tamil WOrd Kal is One such important root and examines those Words that have sprung from it. However, what is significant is his argument that there are a number of Words both in the East and the West that have Come from the Tamil words, which have thenSelves been derived from Kal. The author goes on to prove hOW Kal becomes the roof Word for several Words in Chinese and in Austro-African aboriginal languages. The book published by the Ratnam Foundation, London is available from its office at 179 Norval Road, North Wembley, Middx HAO 3SX for £5.

Page 33
15 MARCH 1999
Winner of Commonwealth Science Award
****MMMMM
38:
Mr S.Ratnakumar, a Sri Lankan Science teacher in Seychelles has won the prestigious Commonwealth Association of Science, Technology and Mathematics Educators award for his project" Bio-Gas not just Technology" The picture above shows Mr Ratnakumar flanked on the left by Dr. Ved God, Secretary of the Association and Dr Cream Wright, Head of Education of the Commonwealth Secretariat on the right at the award ceremony held at the Secretariat in London, Mr Ratnakumar, who hails from Kokuvil, is an old student of St Sylvesters College and a former teacher of Trinity College, Kandy. He wins this award for the second time.
Maha Kumbabishekam
Sri Raja Rajeswary Amman Temple, Dell Lane, Stoneleigh, Surrey KT172NE. The Maha Kumbabishekam (Grand Consecration/Opening Ceremony) of the Sri Raja Rajeswary Amman Temple on 5th April 1999 heralds a new milestone in the history of temples in the United Kingdom. Built in immaculate, classical South Indian architecture, the Sri Raja Rajeswary Amman Temple will be the first ornate Shakkthi Temple in Europe.
The grand consecration commencing on Wednesday, 3ist March with the Ganapathy Homam extends through various phases to the culmination of the final consecration on Monday, 5th April 1999
The Raja Rajeswary Amman Temple is
dedicated to SHAKK latent Energy goddes Shiva, the almighty. Mother Will be LC Thiru Chenthur Mul London in 1973 to p Hindu religious mis temple complex stuc concert/wedding ha mandapam, priest faCilities Will be the fi rate regular yoga pa grammes for both ch Zens. The ceremonie a.m. on Wednesda everyday till about 1. Kunbabishekarn tin 10.48 a.m. on 5.4.99. The Mandala Abi the next day on Tue Continues till 23.5.99. For further informa tact the temple on 01 542 5803 or Of 622 6
Thanuja's Bl Arang
Thanuja, daug S. Thanabalasi Inc Switzerland hac Arangetram on 1, Hotel Kronenhof
Thanuja comt With the traditio Thodaya Mangal
 
 
 
 

the ever powerful nd consort of Lord ing abode with the Ganapathy and an, brought to eer and steer the n in Europe. The ld with a spacious yoga-meditation arters and public temple to incorpos with cultural proren and senior CitiCommence at 9.30 31.3.99 continuing p.m. With the Maha | between 9.48 and
lekam COrnmences day, 6th April and
On and detail S COn31 3938l47 or 0181 3938. arata Natya
etrann
er Of Mr & Mrs ፵rኻ? of Zurich, her Bharata Natya February 1999 at the ditoriurn, Zurich. nced her programme Mallari followed by Jatiswaram and the
TAMIL TIMES 33
Vaman Sakuje in Anandabairavi Ragam. This item being the central and most important one, took about fifty minutes to perform. Unlike in the good old days, the audience nowadays is not prepared to Sit through lengthy programmes. To everyone's amazement there was complete silence in the hall and when the Vamann finished, the dancer was greeted with a loud and lengthy applause, which indicates that people stili do appreciate long classical dances!
After the interval, Meenakshi Kalyanan' . in Ragamalikai, "Kuyile" in Yamunakalani Ragam and the Thillana in Hamsanandi Ragam were noteworthy and well received by the audience.
Thanuja is a disciple of Smt Gnanasunderi Vasan, a product of the Ramanathan Academy University of Jaffilia anc" director of 'Radha Nadamalaya', Zurich. She was ably supported by Natya Kalaimani Gnanasunderi Vasan Natuwangan, Ganabooshanan Ambika Tharmotherann Vocal, Sangithabooshanam Komala KandiahVioin, Nathamani Muthu Sivarajah - Mirdangam and S.Jegatheesan-Ganjira.
Kavadi Festival in Seychelles
The Annual Kavadi Festival of the Navasakthi Vinayagar Temple in Seychelles was celebrated on 31st January, Thai Poosam day, with great pie'', pomp and pageantry. The day being a Sunday drew large crowds of tourists and the local residents to get a full view of this rare festival in this part of the world The crowds along the route of the procession in the city centre watched with awe and admiration the Kavadi carrying devotees dancing to the tune of the Nathaswaram music and the Bajan singing ladies in multicoloured sarees carrying Paticudarns (pots of milk) resting on their heads. The entire route which was tastefully decorated and the coloured illuminations transformed the festival into an almost national cultural shov/.
This festival for the seventh year in succession in Seychelles had more devotees taking part in the different Kavadis and Patkudams and the festival was rounded off at noon with a free lunch to more than five undred in the temple hall. The popular and glarmorous festival Which Was telecast over the State Broadcasting Corporation had numerous interested Viev verS.

Page 34
34 AMIL TIMES
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