Page 1
Vol. 14 No. 14 November 15, 1991 Price RS
THE SAARC
THE BHUT,
“TIGERS”, SINHALA PAI
MAHA
( India's Geo-Politics a
Racism and the W
SOWIET */WHOW* : "
THE STATE OF T
SRMA - SHASTRI
 
 

7.50 Registered at GPo, to .
NON-SUMMIT
- Mervyn de Silva
AN INTRUSION
- Bertram Bastiampillai
RTIES AND INDIAN POLICY
S. D. Muni
ΤΤΑΥΑ
D nd the Eelam Struggle
Women Writers
- Roshni Rustomji-Kerns
sternized Sri Lankan
- Izeth Hussain
HE ETHNIC CHALLENGE
Reggie Siriwardena
HE ESTATE PEOPLE
- Paul Caspersz
PACT
- Shelton Kodika ra

Page 2
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Page 3
Briefly...
A MURAA OM WHY SAARC FALED
Acting Opposition Leader Anura Bandaranalike Called a press conference and told the media: SAARC had to ba Callad off at the last ritute because Sri Lanka lacked a coherent foreign policy. The UNP's foreign policy had deteriorated steadily and lacked Coherence and that WvaS why Sri Lanka had to suffer the humiliation of having to cance the Summit, h9 Said,
Among the foreign policy blunders, according to Mr Bandara naika: refusing to attend the 1989 meeting of the Council of Ministers in Islamabad and refusing to host the fifth SAARC Sullit in protest against the preSECO O f t FG || PKF i Sri Lanka, thereby contravening the rule that bilatara | issues should not stand in the way Of SAARC.
The acting Opposition LeadBr recalled that B6 nations had attended the Non-Aligled SLT it in 1976 and that if the los t prestige Was to be regained it was necessary for Sri Lanka to rewive good relations with India. The expulsion of the Indiam journalist Mr Kuruppa Swamy too Would hawe Contributed to the series of diplomatic blunders committed, he said.
A journalist asked what steps were recommended for to restoration of relations with India, Té arlswEr was given by Mr Wasudeva Nana
yakkara, the NLSSP leader Who WW 295 also present: "Change the Government"
RUTA CALLS FOR DEMOCRACY
The Føderation of University Teachers Associations (FUTA) has expressed grave concern about the future of democracy in Sri Lanka. The present system has no capacity to meet people's aspira
tions says tF a lengthy res un animously.
Excerpt: " of university Lanka wiews Continued de the democrati has hither to Country. The is One of a C the executive 8 size:albalığı 5 parliament. T Elode well for the politi C5 To in Sri Laka,
TR
Not what
"Wijaya sa that we sfi алтү а//fалсе das ard b Whoever its na lities may Walio 7ā / Or Abeygunase! телt compl. Was not αίSρμSς ίσης / polit burea L the SLMP Селега/ Secr SLFF.
Abolish
A newly Cassed the O, Егтд/oyees”
äÜAR
Wol. A No. 1 r.
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he federation in olution adapted
ityחuוחוחטThe G reachers in Sri With a lar the iterioration of ic process that Irg Wali|Ed in this Jr BSB n t sit Liu H tion or flict between
presidency and eccio of the his does not
the futur e of r for democracy
"We as university academics are gravely concerned about this situation and we Wish to state and reiterate that the democratic system
that had existed in thea Country should Cortin Le to prevail"",
JAFFINA CITIZENS FLE E LITTE DE MWANDS
Fleeing LTTE demands for gold, Jaffna civilians are filtering through jungle paths into Wavuniya. About a hund
fСопfїлшва ол раgте 28)
EAVDS
Wijaya wanted
ѓd very c/eаг/y Ош/d лоt have
Wřo/7 f/7a feg LV - JLIrgeois SLFF /ead'їлg persobe", says SLMP ganiser Ossie Kera In a stataafлing that he
informed of те/a by certain members of
including its etary, with tha
PAYE tax
called on the government to abolish the PAYE tax. At fts Wrna L/gyu ra / r77eeting fsg Corwerer Mr. A. W.H.W. Weerakoor7 Said that the tax was. Inegшfrous and also a disir centiwe to poroduction and development. He cited a case Where a death donator of Rs 7,500 made to a private sector emp/oүee had beеп taxed to the externt of Rs 687.
LTTE stirs in Tamillnadu
Srї Lал7ќал Tamil militants have formed a Tamil National Retrieva / Force' (Tami/ Desiya Meetрш Раdai) in Tamil Nadu to 9ег7егаfe Support for theїг
formed union novement in the South rganisation for Indian state, the Hindu "ax Relief has reported.
CONTENTS DAN News Background 2 SAARC Background 4.
|оунплывr 15, 1991
S. 5
Jrtnightly by Lublishing Co. Ltd.
lic Place,
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"Wh daSilva
: 447534
nan da Prga Eli SaraWarutu
Ը|յmiԷյԷն 13I: 435.975
5
Tigris on the Current Situation
Siri halE:Su Nut kesan om
Resolving Conflict
Miss Daisy and the
WISTIČrni Zad Sri Länkerns O It is a Numbers Game 1 Nationalist and Swiet
Dis-union (3) 16 Land Reform (5) ԱԼ Do the Estate People
Really Belong? 21 Three South Asian
Women Writers 23
Letter

Page 4
Lessons of SAA non-summit
Mervyn de Silva
India has been indicted for the wrong offence. True, Delhi’s erratic diplomacy, perceived hcre and in much of the neighbourhood, as devious and diabolic, did expose itself to the charge of planning to Scuttle the SAARC su IL1 Imit, and punish an obst reperous President Premada sa, Sri Lanka was indiced de nied the pomp and prestige of hosting a SAARC summit, and the splendid CercII10 mies that accompany the formal crowning of a new SAARC chairma II. The UNP had to 5 LI ffe T insteld the taunts of the acting Opposition Leader, Mr. Anura Bandaranaike, who in turn was reininded by the Lake House press of his 10-holds barred cxchanges with High Commissioner Ma Di Dixit, who is about to be instal lcd as Foreign Secretary.
But this is only the domestic flap and the follow-up to the postponement of the su IIIInit. The Tealle 55 con of the SAARC meeting, such as it was, relates to the SAARC YEAR OF THE CHILD, and the celebration thereof. The year' is itself part of a wider program entitled THE DECADE OF THE GIRL CHILD. India has already had its own show in Delhi, an excellently organised event
from all first-hand accounts, India raised foreign funds, notably UNICEF, the obvious
choice. Delhi ha sn’t the slightest objection though this is none of its business, really to Sri Lankai goði Ing about fundraising in the same fashion. But it strongly objects however to SAARC or the SAARC secretarist raising funds outside the region for a SAARC DECADE OF THE GIRL CHILD ceremonics. In short, any at tempt to mobilise UNICEF, UNESCO, UNDP OR E.C.,
2
ASEAN cc is raged. In fact, are obstructed, quiry is direct country like JA group of small the NORDIC gi
Plainly, Delhi to cI courage scparate SA ARK overarching co, that Ted LIces status as the Cor at le:List p7|| Para II lountcy al would be gre Indian identity subs11 m pticon,
Thcrc is sich SAARC Fulci, Lihat it shou | extra-regional s III. tc.Tlational UNESCO, UN etc) because tlh | adequate funds the region. A pic-in-the-sky. from that, d particularly thc : EC, the NOR are keel to st efforts. In the
there is the 5 Tati Illa le so mc ScIlse a II di cmi 5 when conceived condly, region: operation red Licensions a T dl
chances of st conflicts, all on the global New World clear in conce the shape it ull Thirdly, a Teg a fairly cohesi" |ל) שחט טיותר)טbe di Ing blocks of power structure of incr-state flicts with re. effects should ח regional rcspo

itrongly discollall such efforts Even if the inEd to a single PAN or a small
countries, e.g. oup. Why?
does not wish
he growth of a i del tity, al II lective identity India's spt:dial natural leader' "irrI u I ir Taro II ries, ld pre-eminence atly er Coded if
suffers such a
a thing als the BLI LI II di al Igles di Tot explore gli Tces or invite gencies (UNDF, CEF, UN CEIP :Tc is IIIC. Te that 1 El välill ble with i El and that’s plure India, a part Il lor Coll. El tries , affluent, JAPAN, DIC group etc engthen regional first instance, trictly economic projects make Lic success only regionally. Se'll econoric coJces inter-Stilt C improve the ett ling regional important item agenda of the Order.' We wer tic) mi :) T whatew CT ti Ila tely as SILI I Lies, İ011 thilt ilçt5 {15 ve collective, can F the basic builthe new global . The resoluti) C0Inflits (T COIgional spill-over be ideally, El sibility. A func
KGROUN
Backg
Lining Tegin body could be the lost effective inst Linent of conflict-resolution I at least assume a fireman's Tole in the wide neighbourhood e.g. EC as benign interventionist -cum-IIl ediator in the civil War ethnic conflicts in Yugoslavia, a Wall T that Tel:5ed a flod of refugees to neighbouring western
II tries.
India lais inwokel the SAARC Charter to justify its action. There Illust be 5 trict adhcrece to the principle of "Heads of state Heads of goverrierit only' at the 5 uIII mit meeting, although the South Asia I, 4; Lumilit eers have cheerfully winked at gross '' + with liatio Iris' blic foirc. So I litliain pıtım Ctilicitusiness was slightly suspect, just as the sight of Mr. Eduardo Falleiro, ch cerfully grecting the Maldivian Chairman's ruling that the summit could It be held in the absence of His Majesty Jigme Wangchuk, was widely appreciated. After Hill, his II linister, Mr. MadlıELWsinh Sinlanki hi TT1self hold taken
wing westwards, to Iran. So neither at Foreign Secretary nor at Foreign Minister level
Was India going to be represen. ted anyway. And the Prime Minister will spend only one night, III his case: Et cast the TC was a strong reason that lost obser wers would have El ppreciated — the by elections, his own chance to get himself a Lok Sabha seat after, hopefully, a comfortabl: polls victory. Equally impor tanıt was the chance that the by elections offered the Congress party. It could change its lowly standing as a Illinority regime to an administration with a clicar parliamentary maljority,
The Indian press, widely quoted here these days, present a som c what different picture, from thic official version of Delhi's

Page 5
behaviour. Mr. Mani Dixit, former High Commissioner Colombo, High Commissioner, Islamabad and Foreign Secretary-designate was required in Delhi to brief the Prime Minister and the External Affairs Minister on Sri Lanka and Pakistan. "Mr. Dixit was asked by New Delhi to cancell the visiL . . . The in ference is incvitable. By that time India had made up its mind that the summit would not take place... '" reported K. P. Nayar in the ECONOMIC TIMES OF INDIA, But SEEMA GUHA who spent three years here as TIMES OF IN DIA correspondent, had already rcported on Oct. 21 (TOI 22/10): “Ostensi
bly, the Prime Minister will rush back as he has to face a by-election. But actually
New Delhi wants a message to to go home to President Prema
dasa, India is concrened about thc Sri Lankan President's reusal to mend fenccs with this
country, and his propensity to keep necdling New Delhi.' In other words, even Mr. Rao's decision to spend less than a day had very much to do with teaching the Sri Lankan regime and its leader a les son than any domestic preoccupation or the trouble in Bhutan Which prompted His Majesty to cancel his own trip but to send a high level representative himself. SAARC INDENTITY
Over and above this IndoSri Lankan friction is another question which concerns the entire South Asian community and its future. One could call it the SAARC Indentity. The SAARC charter, which is held sacrosanct, and properly so, cmphasies the necd to * '.strenghithe In cooperation” a IIn cong members in international forum5 on matters of common interest. (Articlc II, G). The Incxit article refers to "cooperation with international and regional orgaInisations with similar aims and purposes” (Article I, H),
This could mean UNDP, UNICEF, UNESCO, or other sources like E.C., or Japan or the Nordic group. But India insists that the South Asian Seven should not seek financial assistance outside the region. Each
In ember-state not as a gr obvious reaso to keep its re tly bila teral le tive action, e. realm of at froΠι οτι ήτίαε, leadership rol pa nying influit identity that e a single group outside world Would automat plus 6 cquals -7 reducing the p An extra-reg Germany or the 7 together Weak en Indian the South Asi: Japan, or Ge. economically tha L1 India.
India insists the sole shapi SAARC identit Any threat its 1949 Treat a thTeat to II controls thic affairs.
Aid from to well owc ; budgetary nee thus totally dep Harsh living land hunger l large-scale mig day settlers o constitute mor | the Bhutanese | watch Indian programs; The Dzongkha nor w dress. The B this as "cult Their reply is B of ja ihika chirit Lence on the ni and the ind cre. Wherea a probilcm in
hals a rewolt
South. Docs it
help?
Nepal is o
important to II because the K off Delhi by c1 and inviting Nepal-Bhutan has to tread Bhul ta In be * Silk Who Warned

Cal do so but oup. Why? For ins, India prefers
lations at a stricWel because collec:specially in the Tacting resources Will Weaken its and the accom. 21 CC. A SAARC XpTcs ses itself is dealing with the (US, JAPAN, EC) iCally alticr the 1 equation, greatly 0 W er of 1, India. ional Japan or EC dealing with must Inc.cessarily influence in lil Club because "Inå ny Ur EC is much stronger
herefore on being Ing for cc of the
to Bhutan, says Y with India, is ldia which also lountry's foreign
India a nounts 50% of Bhutan's ds. Bhutan is endant on Delhi. conditions and LaWC resulted in ration. And tof Nepali origin : than 35% of population. They Bangladeshi TW y don't speak Car the national 1utanese regard Tal pollution”. l'It:1185 C Yersion 'T J's, all insistional language genous drukpa Colombo has north, Thimpu TcWing in the need Indian
ČOLITIS: IT ia, particularly ng had played tiwa ting China, S. aid. In the
isplite, Delhi Warily. Will "Ed"ל ונח
the King that
his 'security problem'' in the south was to o scrious to permit him to lcave Bhutan? After all, he had accepted the Sri Lankan invitation. Anyway, Bhutanese situation was a tC II1p - ting target of opportunity" for Delhi. Once Delhi would not accept the idea of an accredited representative and Chairman Maldives sent out its
circular, Mr. Faleiro was off the hook and off to thic airpo Cort,
If Bhutan was a targct of opportunity for India, India's absence served the same purposc for Pakistan. Princ Minister Nawaz Sharif who grabbcd the chance. In an interview with Gamini Weerakoon, editor of the SUNDAY ISLAND, the Pakistani PM said the absence of superpower rivalry in the Indian occan region should not mean cxcrcise of hegemony by any regional power'. In his speech he referred to Kash
mir, and that brought an official protest from India House.
Although Colombo was denied a morale-boosting 'summit spectacle", as an SLFP MP put it, the presence of Pakistan and Bangladcsh, the two major subcontinental states (both have problems with India) the aggressive speeches of the dynamic Nawaz Shariff, and the dignity and self-assurance of Begum Khaleda Zia prevented the Co. lombo non-summit from turning into a total fiasco, Chairmam Gayo on another Muslim leader, made it four against three, a serious embarassm.cnt to 'supcrpower' India.
But the last-minute salvage operation, with a chance of playing host to a one-day conference if the Chairman cooperates, should bring home to Colombo, now nursing its bruised ego, that there is always somebody smaller than Sri Lanka in the neighbourhood, who Is acts the same way, to haughty Big Brothers.
As for Delhi, which hosted YEAR OF THE CHILD in 1936 with the help of 'foreign grants', it should remember that Big Brothers and Regional Hegemony should give up childish ways.
3.

Page 6
SAARC BACKGROUWD:
The Bhutan Fa
Bertram Bastiampilai
hic th cr India had il role Cor II et in the "Il-ewet of the SAARC su Illit in
Colombo, Bhutan whose absence provided the immediate cause for putting off the Summit has enough troubles of her own which anchor ed her king in "Thimphu. The government is a her editary monarchy headed by a powerful king who appoints a prime minister and advisory council to assist him. He also appoints a quarter of about the 130 member advisory national assembly while willage lı cadmen about three quarter of the members; a far cry from electoral democracy.
The king is besieged by ethnic Nepalese now in revolt. The king sought Indian assistance in September to contain political agitation on the collmon border. India assured that her territory would not be used by pro de Incracy Ncpalese frill Bhutan who fled into India when the king withdrew their rights as citizens. But III dia which is certainly interested in Bhutan's stability how cwc T Els simultaneously also
to stic cr a Wily frol angering her own cthnic Nepalese whose Il altional list fer van Lur has bice aroused in support of their kinsmen at the mercy of Bhutan,
The India has to contend
with Marxist West Bengal support for the democracy demainding Nepalese. West Bengal protests against incursions by Bhutan's militia to assist pro democracy agitators and gueTillis. Yet III dia Hall been ignoring the capture of Bhutanese refugee protestors in West
Bengal and Assa III , India's actions stem not merely from a love for Bhutan's King but
also from a feat that the agitation of Nepalese of Bhutan is controlled from Nepal, which
15 Techt Cd w) L1 li like Inco 111 Bhlı tir. E5 e a
Revival of Nepal which as conflict with h i Luth CTL Lic r Ll llic: lid l5 cT) activity Cf groups in Bhut Congress Hnd Nepal support Nepalese de 5 cen Nepal hals Blilitan but 11 :r with India has Bhuta nese fron People's Party in activists trill India.
TF - Butlc til of Bı LI LELI tially provoke
Il velmelt för Inocracy and Nepalese active the agitation Bhutan and I hensive Of Lh Bhutan Wats systell and I Telaxatio II of the kingdom.
ThC king's a I Bhutanicse-Budd minance was di that Nepalese G the majority tTicLs, H: cla. Nepalese Hini order cd that it Its less ted. The Bhu was made offic of Nepalcsc ba Nepale sic weTc in migrants. If denographic : that 1 lit of 1. tanesc Buddhi: 48%, the Nep oth cris 7%.
Fätel Wit t LLITe Where the E
SaTLTTTkLkHH TTTCHTTGTT LOLOLLuuLL LLLLLLLTk kk LLLLLL LLLL SLLLLL
4

Ctor
ly India. She On e tij interfe Te Tfii T5.
dicim Cocracy in counted for the cr o will Unic tine r, the Monarch, y 5 timulated the the democratic an. The Nepali leftist groups in thc agitators of
within Bhutall. brict with
porous frontier
måde dissident 1 the Bhuta. These .nd hլImall rights
into Nepal wia
se King's asserlese Cltre initill: Willelt multi-party deill turn artius Ed inwu lweTleil in within Bhuta. ndia ar e apprcis a phen cynnen Con. no change in India wa Tits na her influence in
nforceט (tion ttב hist cu 1. LI Tal doLic to his alarm turkhas compris cd Il 5 Jul the Ti di 5Imped down on du culturc and raditional Bhutaunivers ally adoptanes e language rial and teaching Inc. Numerous
dubbed illegal 1988 the real sce Iha Tio showed
37 million, Bhuits alıcılıqlı ted to alcse 45%, and
his frightful picBhutan es e majo Ti'ersity")
ty was precariously slim, the King Ordered ELIn en force I11ent of the 1985 citizenship act by which 1958 became the deterTiining dia fe for claiming Bhutanese citizenship by do Ilicile. Over night 30,000 ethnic Nepalese without documentary proof of dollicile were tendered state less, Mass protests erupted in August
and September last year and consequent violence accounted for over 30 deaths. India
persuaded the king to abandon insistence on the dress and cultural code, but this leasure came too late, El Ind India remains diffident of driving the king further in conceding the demands of the ethnic Nepalese or the pro-democrats.
The Nepalese who had for long sought their fortune in Bhutan abanilo 11 ed the land Of democile, seeking Sanctllary in India and Nepal. They fled from a repression of anti Inationals by the Bhutanese militia. Allegations of human rights proliferated which Bhutan denies, The present crisis is only a climax of problems since the eighties when tension Tose high between the indige nous Drukpas and other Nepalese with an influx of impoverished Nepalese.
The King sensitive to the i Itt Lusin a di alfraid of Bh utål T. being swamped by Nepalese a woke late to preserve Bhutan's cultural identity. His repression
of protests against the step 5 to preserve Bhutan's identity Worsencil. Lhe rift between the
Bhutanese and ethnic Nepales c. The Nepalese militants took their campaign of anti-gover nIn ent violence. This group S Welled when Some Bhutanescha.Inker
ing for democracy supported the
Nepalese,
There is wrath against a Mo
narchy that permits no frce clections, is suspicious of Cultsiders, allows hardly any for
cign publications in, and tole
rates only supervised tourism, But the King himself faces a dilemma - he would like Bhu
tan to be open and foster its
(Cred ரா நவழக :)

Page 7
AW7AFAR WWIEMW
LTTE on the Current
4 translation of the Маһалdrarayah (Maaththya), and the President of the Tigers (PFLT), to Ut Wilaya 7,
1. Question :-It may be argued that the Indo-LTTE war of 1987 resulted in a set back to to the freedom struggle of the people of Tamil Eelam. Do you feel that a similar situation has arisen now? In India the Tamil Nadu government and the Central government are both engaged in a blatant alLemp to suppress the Eela IT struggle. Rajiv Gandhi's killing is being used as a PTCPagrinda * Cool agai inst the Liberation Tigers. The ground situation like the consequences of the Elepha nt Pass War, the criticasituation resulting from economic sanctions etc. have led one to supposic that the se factors cons. tituted a setback to the freedom struggle?
Answer:- I am of opinion that the term 'crisis' would be more appropriate tha in the term "setback".
In the course of our national liberation struggle we have Cole across many such crises.
It is not surprising that such situations a rise in a freedom Struggle. A people who long
for national liberation have EC, I to face such situations,
It is a mistake to consider that the Indo-LTTE war Iesu 1ted in a set-back to our Struggle.
The Indian intervention arose as an inevitable historical factor in our Struggle. This was a War of aggression foisted Il Il L 13,
The contradiction which arose between the Indian ge CI-political ambitions and the lational interests of the people of ThaEmil Eell m erupted int p a war We resisted Indian äggression
Interview given deputy Meader of
Pedro Was Frar o
7 Jaffr7ā 7 arri
With the inten ding the natic Ölır people,
So IIc tkat we this war. If w this war cert have had to fic of our people Tegional ambiti So it would hi. al Very great II of our people,
Inäy
C3 Li li
It is true th loss of lives Were on a big it Cal Timot be Sil Tluggle suffere H.S. El TC51 IL of häid to face Crisis because
tion of the It protected the i people. We a
jective by sheddi má tely ve succ
Indian histori mented that thi disa Strous set-be eign policy of dial In Tulling cli to Eld Illit this bitt fore this war ma T1 ) [ 5 ] Illich as OLIT Freedo III 5.tr Set-back to LE thrust of India Inilitary interven Ced Our Struggle Illinition to a II 1In this context, that our struggl gressive leap.
For a loпg tiп or the other, Se Weifall critic Cän 10 t take the 5 Without facing : It would be wro

Situation
by MM. K. *g 凸,严T.占 f Liberation ή απήν.
ion of safeguar'nal interests of
hold the view have avoid cd "c Were to avoid ainly we would Tgo the intcrests to the Indian 1. Haid wc dome We amounted to }olitical betrayal
lat in this war and destruction s Callic. Ewen so Said that our da big set-back this War. We El WCT y 5 cirious Df the interwendia In arny. We Interests of oil Chiewed this obIg blood. Ulti:ceded.
El 15 have comSi Will T CELLISE ick to the for. IIldia, The Inis SCS also live CT tt Lith, The Te. y be considered El Set-back to uggle but us a le inperialistic The Indian tion has advanfor self-deterICW di mension. We Carl say e took a pro
lê, in ole form We halve faced Situations. We truggle forward such sit La Lions. Ilg Q 5uppose
that because of
the externa critical situations faced by us today that our Struggle has been pushed back. As Strug
gle develops and gains In it turity Critical situations are likely to
Cls.
It is truc that we are filсіпg very. In any pressures today. The Indian government and the Tali mill Nadu government are acting together to crush our movement. As you correctly stated Rajiv Gandhi's killing is being used tlh A PrԳpaganda Lւյg| gali Inst the Tigers. At the Sall Ille Li ille the Sinhala government ills his launched rtlilitary offen. Si We as well as Stiffened its CConomic sanctions.
We are not surprised ovci the Indian stand or ט שםplט arc also well aware that the Indian ruling classes have always been acting against the interests of our liberation struggle. The Indian Illing classes wrongly presuppose that our freedom struggle is detrimci tal to the national and regional interests of India. Foti, reason the Indian government has been, from time to tiןlic, making efforts to stifle our Struggle.
The Indian ruling hawe been de nying the national
classes the right of for nations for self government. They consider that a struggle of the nationali. ties for self government is a Serious threat to Indian unity and national intergrity. The Indian government is a tempting O el force this stand in the island of Sri Lanka which is beyond its shores. It is because of this that we are at loggerheads with India. The Indian government fears that the struggle, of the people of Tam Eelam for self-détermination is
likely to whip lip nationalist feeling in Tamil Nadu and pave the way for separation. As a result of this baseless
5

Page 8
fear the just struggle of our people has to face several prob
Cls,
The Iridiāli i Inter y el till in our struggle began in 1983 and has assu ined several ghostly proportio 15. It is not possiblic to marrate this long and com plicated story in detail.
Indian in Inperialismin has, from that ment up till 0W, Tade Herculcan efforts to suppress the Liberation Tigers for thcy realisc that the Tigers are a formidable fighting force who hawe taken forward strugglic of the people of Tamil Eelam for self-dicter Illination with great courage, vision and deter Illinatic. It is in continuation of these efforts that steps have now been taken against the Tigers in Tamil Nadu.
Rajiv Gandhi's death is used as a propaganda tool against the Tigers. For the Indian ruling elite, which was engaged in a malicious callpaign to undermine the image of the L.T.T.E., aid to alienate our organisation from the people of Tamil Nadu, the killing of Rajiv Gandhi came as H blessing. The politicians and the media which described the several incidents of violence, which took place in Tamil Nadu, as the outcome of thc gun culture of the Tigers did not besitate to level accusations against thc Tigers for the death of Rajiv.
For quite a long time the politicians of Tamil Nadu have been using the Tigers as though they were pawns om thicir political ch'ess-board, The Liberation Tigers were made scapegoats in their power struggles, in the overthrow of governments and in their political squabbles, The Tiger hunt which started during the Karunanithi regime has today become so intense as to lay hands on the refugees from 1 Täällil Eelam. The Tecā Illen bchild all these are the rulers in Delhi. They are the perpetrators of the political farce being staged in Tamil Nadu. Their 5ccret objective is to somehow or other suppress the Tamil Eelam Liberation struggle.
The anti-Tiger has reared its is [ „) t 5o Em1e tb1i started El CW. fc5 til till of t policy towards objective of wh the struggle for ii) of tle: Tal Il
The trelled Ol by the Tigers Struggle and the
matika lisa til might have allar government. Til Surprising that being made by pressure oil the
The attitude ground situation dered as a big struggle. It is is pursuing its Since they ca directly in Thal gli I, lhey 1. Tais: I 1 iri) Il C li Na, du. BuL 5 c3 support a Lld sy mi1 a in Ing the pici Na dul fos. Cuir i tain is not g'. ob5ta clc.
The ground si tם נן 13 נןBEIHI We have proved of the Elephan CELP) a City to eng CCT1 frontatio II W military offensi new Illa de dev military capabil out military st has been tem but the war he El c1d. The cI his flag on his That is a II.
It is true th:1 thic Indian Cen thic attitude of g.) W CITI 1 Diment, Lh Situatic III, the e C all-in-all cons pres SLITE, O il ölır 0 1 0 Lur people. would not be Cour struggle. F become: the mot would carry ti Ward. These

campaign which head in India ng which has It is the Ilalihic old for cign Sri Lanka, thc ich is to crush self-determinā1i15.
us strides i Ina de il tille a TImed
: growing inter
of Our struggle
IIled Llle IIllian
erefore, it is mot an attempt is Il di to exert Tigers.
of India or the Canlı Dit b c ç ) ElisiSct-back LC CLIT clear that India
former policy. Il at il te weile Thil Ecl:1ÍT1 Once : attempting to IT tali I i 1 Tall lil long as there is pathetic feelings
a plc of Tamil cause, this curing to be am
tuation in Ta. Ili 1 :ll dwer se to Lills. il tible cu T5 e t Pass War OLII age in a direct ith a large scale fe. This reveals elopment of our ity. As part of ra tegy the Siege porarily relaxed LS -- 1 } t C}, t) cmy has hoisted own graveyard,
the policy of tral government, the Til Illi NdILI e interial war inomic sa Ilctions titute a heavy m) w em ett a Id These pressures El Set-back to Really these may tive force which le struggle forpressures bring
home to us the necessity to stand on our own legs, and on our own soil and to fight on our own strength. Whatever be the crises that we have to face so long as we have couragc, determination and faith nd power on carth Can destroy us.
2, Questiun - The government
is saying that the ethnic issue cannot be resolved by military I mean 5. The pro per course is a
political solution through talks and consensus of views. What is the position of your movement in this Itter?
Answer - This is a political Sermon preached by the Sinhala government for a very long time,
By por each i Ing non-violeirice and practising Violence, the Sinhall Tulling classes halwe beel chea Ling thc Tamil nation for more than forty years. Even today while talking about peace it is intensifying military opcrations.
On the question of armed violence, We must distinquish between the military opp Tession of the Sinhala government and the freedom struggle of the Liberation Tigers. There is a fund illnental distinction between the military repression of the oppressor and the liberation struggle of an oppressed people. One Cannot, at the samme breath, compare the one with the other and dub both as Illilitaris II.
Of a Moral Nature
The army of the oppressor functions as thic instrument of injustice. It is uesd to crush, to oppress and to destroy peoplc. The alled forces of the Sinhala government are carrying out these destructive functions, They are being used to decima te the Tallil na til.
The oppressed people wage a
struggle against injustice. They EL T C CODI plclled to bear a Tir Ins and to fight back. The armed
struggle of the oppressed people is based on the ethics of righteousness. In this way the armed struggle of the Liberation Tigers is based on justice,

Page 9
on the ideal of human liberaTherefore, the alled . חטיti struggle of the L.T.T.E. in its essence is progressive.
The Army of Aggression and the Army of Liberation
The Sinhala army is engaged in à war to Occupy and to destroy the El Imelal Ind of the Tamil People. The army of the Tigers is engaged in a fight to liberate the la Ilds of the Tails and also to protect the Tamil people. The One, functions ils a Il EA T Tiny of aggression and the other, as an army of liberation, Therefore there is a distinction between tille tw ar Imics als re
gards the ideals thic attitudes lnd the Imoral bāscs. It is WTO) to hold that both Eric
resorting to a Tined violence Without appreciating this distinction.
No Alternative
The people of Tha IInil Eclaim hawc for long carried out nonviolent agitations and protest.5 in a peaceful and non-violent Inann er agai I 1st the military oppression of the Sinhala state.
All these agitations and protests were put down by armed might. State terrorism was unleashed on our people who stood un armcd and powerless. In the circumstances there was no op
tid I. Jpen til LIS, Othe thin to :ITIT Oli Tselves and to defend our lives. Therefore, it is state oppression that gave birth to the armed resistance of the Tamils.
We are carrying on an ared struggle in order to achieve a political objective. Therefore,
On Thust view our armed struggle as a Tode of expression of a political struggle.
We are engaged in this fight in order to enable our people to live in peace and to live with security and dignity and to enjoy all human rights and political freedoms.
Peace Option
We are not opponents of peace. We are engaged in this struggle to establish sermanent
p: El c: C iII olLIr been torn to
Although for We have chiri of Lil arcd is not rejcctcd pe TE AIS, W. El: the approach ti to our probler ful II gotiations
We have dec () Il Sey I'll C: participa ted in titi 13. Well to find a per to the problem through Concil Sinhälla gover II not willing for proach. They tg Filiti a : Tamil nation peaceful means,
The Sillala kecen on al II The Sinhala go to occupy th through militar to kcep the Ta pression throug tary might. Fro Wםנup L111 I bec'in tıpholding militarist polic government is give up this proach based
Challenge to Ruling Class
The III e Ili en t of thlet: 1 has assulled tri challe Ingillig in militaris ill of Li
classes. Each a actic of the a basic truth
state that the sic. I will not Sinhala ruling realised the military philos. What shill circumstances? fi: cc än einem in oppression HOW 5 ha || WE ẽm C. my wh{1 cã human justice, play? How sh Colul Illa 1 de IT

land, which has picces by war.
" # lig time led out a path truggle we have aceful Ways : nd lve not rejected find a solution In through peace
.
Il Ted El celsefire isi Ils, We haye
pel ceful neguive made efforts "mai 1 et solution 1 of our people
iH, tion, BLI L the ing classes are a peaceful apare not willing Solution to the
Il question by
gC 3 "WcrT1 r 11e int i5 ilitaTy solution. "W":TF ITT t1 t "M"E1 ti T: mill lil d y ag II:ssion 11d mils under supIl superior miliIn the beginning Sri Lanka has : tili 5 5215 eless *Y. The Sinhala not ready to militaristic apon chauvinisn.
the
S
resistance, moveLiberation Tigers Cmen dous growth a big way the 1c Sinh Hla Tuling nd every military Tigers in parts the Sinhala policy of aggresWrk. Yet the classes have not fällä sy of their
phy. we do in
HUw sha || We y who believes and militaris In" : dea With an llously disregard city and fairall We handle a 10, Who Wishes
these
to find a final solution in genocidal destruction?
There is no other than to continue to fight, for Olır. Cause With courage, deterImination and faith. In order to Wage a War with a powerful force we also must be powerful. It is power that has become the determining factor in Our struggle.
alter III a ti we
People's Power
We will be able to lect the challenge of our enemy and achieve our goal of liberation only if we augment our Ilan power and strengthen our armed power and transform ourselves into a fonidable fighting force.
It is people's power that adds strength and vitality to a libera tio 1 milo Weement, We Will a55.111me the character of a powerful force when people's power takes the shape of national power then converts itself into a combating force and joint hands with the liberāti T1 mwellent.
We will continue to but w c hawe not closed doors for peace. It is our strength alone which would form the base for both War and peace.
3. Question :- Even if the gov
fight the
ert ment agrees to hold talks it is certain that Lunder no circumstances will it agree to the creation of Tail Eela II. In that event will you agree to accept something which will fall short of Tamil Eelian Or will
the basis that the only course open to you is to fight for the achievement of your objective till the bitter end? Answer : - We firmly believe that the only lasting solution for the Tallis is the creation of an independent state of Tamil Eela II. This indeed is Olli political goal. We are engiged in this struggle in order to achieve this political objective. At the same time the international comill unity advises us to consider a solution other than an independent state of Tamil Eelam -- El substintial
(Corrir i'r Tr read o'r Page 9)
yO LI flict on

Page 10
SRI LA MWAKA
Obstacles to Resolving
S.D. Mui
Ao a5 pĽct of the political crisis touched off by
thic move to impeach President Premada sa Was the increased interaction between Tamil and the mainstream Sinhala parties. The EPRLF group in parliament threw its weight behind the in 1-Pre Tadasa combine, largely to settle scores, however belatedly, with the presidem for the dis Illissa || Cf thic EPRLF-dominated N-E provincial council in early 1990s. The EPRLF was also aggrieved over Mr. Prema dasa" s opening to the LTTE in April 1989 and his subsequent decision to slipply arms to them. President Prcmada 5 his part cultiwated the support of the smaller Tal in il gr 7 Lips in parliament |ike the TLJLF, the TELO ind EPDP. He was even willing to seek the support of EROS, a close ally of the LTTE. The EROS MPs had left parliament
in June 1989 after the cutbreak of a r In cd ho & Lili ties a b c Li Weich the LTTE and the Sri Lalkan arried forces. Wrong Impression
The reliance of the Sinhala
parties on the Tali Illil across the impeach Illet divide created the impression that the Tamil partics had joined the national mainstream, and that this could ewentually plve the Way for a negotiated solution to the ethnic is sille. Such impressions and hopics are, however, ill-founded. The Tamil parties had been active in Illainstrel in politics before the ethnic strife erupted in the early eighties. Rival Sinhala parties wanted Tamil support against each other withQullt, in any Way, cha Enging their LI Incompromising stil mcee on TalTmil deIm1 a, T1dls. This was also true during the recent bitterly
fought power struggle. In fact, ethnic prejudices were openly articulated by many Sinhala MPs on both sides,
Despite the Sinhala parties' need for Tamil support, their
position on thc cthnic question seems to have hardened over
(The author is a Prof rar at VNL, Dalhi.
S
the past few m evident in the ful Sinha la est the military, th and the sangha ( They are exert Pressures on El seek a military challenge posed and bother it LTTE groups.
As it happel War is confined Tegins of Cort E Lanka, and sca therefore, on indeed amazing Sri Lankal humi which were so and destruction El Teas diring th ti 0,1 s, arc co these days. Th standing the Ehıllı 2,000 Sri I nd åbn11t the LTTE I militants IT1111y more of t i Il'jured and di ently in a peri, ter that that operations. Th the Concer TT
is not free of ethnic prejudice
There Le tw
ceptions behind of the Sinhala WOLIT of 11 tot approach in de; LTTE. (Olle is
10 other act approach hiLitt: I10t 5 et L lic for : 511 till with in COf Sri Lanka's integrity. The g of a possible i the assassinati Gandhi has gon in strengthening preception I thält i Sri Linkin ГП dia's chasteni of 1987-88 in tE The second pe a railitlry wic LTTE i 3 btb possible. The in the Elephant T"Ifs carriese Trip.

Conflict
ths. This is stance of powerablishments like e administration Buddhist clergy), 1 g COI sider El ble: 2 go y crn Illent to
solution to the
by the LTTE, tle about non
ns. the ethnic
to the Tani 1 and cast Sri reely impinges, Si Ilhall5. IL is that all those
1Il rights groups, "ÜCall C vir de äths ill the Tamil е IPKF operaTipletely silent is is so not withfact that lore Li kan soldiers SEL 11 : number of
hlve dici il t1 :I11 h:1 'w": be cL sabled permaindi 111 ch 51oOf the IPKF is suggests that hill man rights f political and S.
clerging perthe firining up position in fil1 tright II ilitary 1 ling with the that the Tc is * 1: tive to Lh i 5 the LTTE vry i 1 || ny political rethe framework SWTeignty and TY wing te widence LTTE Hall i on of Rajiv it long way this Sri Lankan is linfrtill lite s : Te ignoring Elg experie Icc3; 1 is regard, :rception is that tory over the desirable and El rmy's Success Pa:55, 3 ild other
Mullaitivu operations has enhanced the confidence of the military and political leadership. They have also been encouraged by the results of the crackdown on LTTE establishments in Tamil Nadu following the killing of Rajiv (Gaill hii. Bes idcs, optimism about the military option has been strengthen cd by the flow of arms supplics, including light tanks, from China and some east European countries. Well-in for led Si La Ilkan sources say that if the present c:a 1st Tallist5 con the LTTE ald 5 Lupporti fo T thc - Sri Lakan Tmilitary fron friendly countries continue, the LTTE may be tamed in a year's time. Yet only a couplic of months ägo, the army chief, General Hamilton Walsinghe, had acknowledged the LTTE's military proves 5 both as a guerilla a Tid full fledged conventional force.
The hardened Sinhala stance On the ethnic question assumes Lihat Once the military challenge of the LTTE is eliminated, the Tamil problem can be resolved
T1 thc: Si Inhala terms. Since Mr. Premadasa's coming to power, thicret has been Ilo El ttempt cven to undertake a
sincere debate on the question of devolution of power to the
Ta nils Linder the 13th ameIndLEIE Devolution processes have been negatived by quiet administrative actions. Alı d above all, resettlement of Sinha lese ha 5 continued in Welli Oya and other sectors of the
north-east region to accentuate denugraphic discontinuities in the Le Tritories recognised as thıc” tralitiqlalı I Tanrı il hı öpmı elan Indi,
At the political level, the lack of seriousness on the Sinlilla TmainstTeam parties has reduced the All Party Conference, set up to find a political resolution of the ethnic is suci, to a farce. The go wernment support for an individual mcmber's motion to constitute a parliamentary select corn
Yeared fra The Tirrer of Iridia)

Page 11
mittee for Working out an ethnic solution has been widely wellcorned. The select committee will be broad-based, ensuring both the government's and the opposition's participation in evolwing a consensus. But this will happen only if there is a sincere political will to find an honourable place for the Tamils in Sri Lankan society and polity, Therc are also, no indications that such l will cxists. This being so, the select committee looks like a non-starter.
Tactical Gesture
II wie w of the har de med Sinhala position On the Tamil
question, Mr. sionally conci Ce DIne Dn tS Elppta" fully planned It helped hin. votes of Lhe groups in pal fight agli Inst It also helps a suitable di military's hard leaves the initiative on tion in his hal ternational con him to project seeking image S alry tú) e In 3 ur
LTTE . . .
(Corrstler fron FFg 7) alternative scheme of self-gov
T Illl Il L.
The international community is also suggesting that we should spare no efforts to find a political solution through
peace dialogue. We do not reject this idea. That is why we are prepared for peace talks.
We are fully aware that the Sinhala government will newer agree for the creation of an independent state of Tamil Eelam. This is not al Imatter for a bargain. We know only too well that this is an objective that ha 5 to b c wyon through struggle. We are equally aware that the Sinhala Government will not consent even Lo a substantial alternative sche Ille.
We a Il mouced th:1 L wc Wcrc ready to participatic in talks in order to impress on the international community that
the Sinha la chauvinistic forces are not ready to met out justice in any form to the pcople
of Thal Fmi1 Ecla In. Federal set-up
We hawe already declared that We are quite prepared to consider favourably a proposal for full self-government within
a federal set-up. But it does not appear that the Sinha la government has even given
thought to it. However we are not surprised over it. Our people would have become
a wa Te os a through long rical expericinct The Fundame National Que
Le LVC alle Tha Imil Eela nil The gover Ti men
sing to Elck in o da mem tals of th questioni
The Sinhala tinues to deny of Thail Eel national entity, a hole and w its own and of Tha Illil E:llä constituting a tion areo en tit to self-determit Ewen today to consider a v based on a these fundame II our national qui But the Sitil is not going these. Yet we hic idea of ho| We art read in talks in hole to the in Imunity, the fac demands whic Tali lil Tatico Iljust and reas. fact that the Incent is not pri
justice in a c We a Te co 1 w Tld will 5
realise the i uljust atti Lud

'ema dasa's occaatoгу ргопоu mto be a ca Teactical gesture. to se cu Tc thc shaller Tamil iam cint in his JNP dissidents. nun to Thailntain ance from the ne position and erall political c Tamil quesds. In the in - ext, it enables dovish, pacc– yhich is necÇescontinued in
flow of économic a55istance from the Western do nors.
India has painfully learn cd to live With the consequences of Colombo's hardcned position on the ethnic issue. But as Sri Lankan military operations in the Tamil arca 5 get intensified, thic re may be more rcfugees seeking shelter in India, and the LTTE may be making Tew, and even deadly moves to regain its base in Tamil Nadu. It is time that the Indian policy - makers started pla nning responses to the unfolding consequences of Sri Lanka's persis ting ethnic strife,
political ild better histos
tals of the tion
the issues of and federalism. L is ewen refluW lcdge the Tune Tamil National
OWe TIn I11ent Conthat the people In constitute a that they hawe th a history of that the people Im, as a people national for Illaed to the right ation. we are prepared ia ble alte Tinative: recognition of tal aspects of estion. ala government agree to all do not reject ling talks.
to participate ordeT to drive ernational comthill the basic underlie the question are lable, and the Sinhala governha Ted to best to w rilised manner dent that the jn er of later ra Insigent and of Sinhala
truism
chauvinism. It is on the basis of such a realisation that the support and sympathy of the international community will turn in favour of our struggle,
The Bhutan...
(Солтілшесї frorл ддge 4)
subsistence economy. He is a fraid of adverse publicity that would hurt his Kingdom. But at the same time too many Nepalese Would mean the som thering of Bhutan's ethnic identity.
Hard liners in the palace urge thc king tỡ be 5trong agilirlst immigrant Nepalesc, But he is awarc that to C) Timuch har dness can make even the Worm turn; already it has, he knows. His own position is in jeopardy which is worsened because of rifts within the royal family itself; he is insecure in his position.
In such a would not
ttlu OL5 state he have come to the SAARC although he favoured regional cooperation and desi Tcs Ilmultilat cral relation. His own position could have bec in lost for ever and Nepal which is close by and had turned dicinocratic recently too had to be wary just it gets drawn into thc problem in Bhutan which would hawe been i Inevitablic if there is an upheaval. Already some suspect that Nepal herself would like her citizens to get a better deal, and Bhutan to democratise. Naturally like Bhutan, Nepal also had reason to remain grounded and give the SAARC a pass this tim c.

Page 12
Miss Daisy; reflections o
— Observations ол Еthліс Groups =
zeth Hussain
play, staged
A. AI Imerica Ilı
recently in Colombo by courtesy of the American Cul
tural Centre, prompt 5 $ 10 il c questionings about mis Concep. tions regarding the nature of
ethnic problems, These mis conceptions seem to be widespread among Cour Ilmajority ethnic group which is disposed to believe that ethnic problems aris e bc cause of EL fail LITe (0) socialize across the ethnic divide. According til this I 10 til 11 our ethnic problems will be Solwe Ulce we all Carl C t Ogethic in affirmation of our common humanity. It will be argued in this article that ethnic problems can bc properly understood only if they are set within a paradigm of hierarchy. It is not a question of çır coming together, but of the relative positions of our cthnic groups in Sri Lanka's hiera Tchical social syster m.
The play, which is set im the notoriously racist deep South of America, has no more than just three characters, a crotchety old white lady, her son, and a black chauffeur. According to the programme note, the la dy and the chalffeur begin their associatio Tn in suspicion and mistrust, but in the course of twentyfive years they develop a profound and almost completely un acknowledged love for each other. We have, ther cfore, in terms of this summary two human beings
who have discovered their common humanity across the et li Illic divide,
No more than just three characters, a few pieces of
fur Initure by way of stage props, nothing particularly dramatic about the plot, and performed Without an interwal, the play neWertheless held the audience riveted. This can be partly Cxplained by the professional
LO
1 istil shlo w II b America. Il actOIS more important
cx plana, tion is ! of people coi across an ethni be cxpected to r fully in the Sri these days.
More particul psyche of the W ha lese, who wo LI tuted the majo audience. They the belief 11: the Sinhala edil tually devoid of because they call in cross-ethnic virtue of shari language, Engli Westernized of піс gгоup5. Iп Ilotion, Out etiin really the conse | Sinhala only" in 1956, and . to fa de El Way 01 come tti-lingual termized Sinhale Well ä WAT :: tha South A Tricca ia' led by ethnic though all the in those countrie And they a Te during several 1955 LIT -- Wester and Tamils ( ethnic quarrels Tiirin language, 5 ccm 5 to be evasiveness, evid below the lewe ne55, about re; our cth. Ilic prob the curio L5. Ino gualism as the
ethnic problem entertailed.
The Westeril would have feeling reissure spectacle of W black chauffeur

n racism
алd Hierarchy
y the three Probably the part of the hat the theme mi I1g togetheT c di vide cal esona le power. Lanka. In psyche
larly in the 'esternizcd Sinld havc constiir part of the are given to they, unlike Il cated, EL Tc wit1HlisIIl]1ןlחוןCOL easily engage socialization by Ing 34 CC 0 Ill T||10. Il ish with the thic i wyth clir ethterrils of this ic problems are -quence of the policy imposed :an be cxpccted 1ce We El || bc. But the Wesse are perfectly t t Hic US and ve becn bcdew ilproblems even ethnic groups s share English. a ware alls to that decades before İı iz:l Sinhallese Onducted their in thicir co IIIEnglish. There som C sort of ently operating of consciousLlly confronting els. Otherwise tion of trilinSol Lltion to ou T Will not be
ized Sinhalese ft the theatre di because the hite la dy and
getting toge
ther, with no language barrier between them, seems to get to the core of our ethnic problems. Actually the play is not very Televant to cour ethnic problems, except in one of its aspects.
This is the aspect of Jew and black coming together, for the white lady and her son arc Jews. The play reflects the fact that at one time the American Jews Illide a notable contribution to the u pli ft Ilment of Americal blacks, something quite understandable because the Allerican Jews the Insclves were for long the victims of vicious racist prejudice in the US. It Should be natu Tall for the victims of prejudice and discrimination to come together. Therefore the message to bc drawn in transposing the play to the Sri Lanka. In context is that the Tamils and the Muslims, both of whom complain of discrimination, should establish common ground like A III erican Jew and Americal In black, and come together. This conclusion, a rigorously logical
one from what is actually there in the play, would not hawe becn Teassuring to the Simhale.5e Ile IIlbers of the
audience, if it had been understod.
while this de conreading is not a per verse one, the intention behind the play is obviously to Illa kc thic Telationship between whitic lady and black chauffeur a para dignum of thc coming together of people across any ethnic divide. The mcssage is a uniwersal One, but paradoxically it is at the same time specifically American. For America represents the coming together of people from al II corners of the globe, black, brown, white, yellow, for the most part the wretched of the
However, struction.i5t

Page 13
earth, who shed their ethnic particularities in the great American 'melting pot' and
made good. The image of the 'melting pot' is out moded because the US too has its ethnic eviva l'. But Allerica could nevertheless be regard cd as representing the cosmic man of the future.
It is a specifically American vision that is projected in the
play. We have to ask whether that vision is accuratic and realistic, or whether it is Illerely sentinental, and we halwe also to ask which cr it is really relevant to Sri Lanka's ethnic problems. To cxplore these questions, We must first situate the play within a dis
tinctive American tradition.
A peculiarity of the play is that all three of its cha Tacticrs arc thoroughly decent people. From the moment that Miss Daisy makes her appearance we know that she is obstinate and ca. In tankerous, al regular harridan, but we sense at the same time that deep down she is a thoroughly decent old
stick. And likewise, we know that bot.hı hicr. Son a ıd her chauffeur arc decent to the
bone. What Televance has this to ethnic problems? We know that decent peoplc all over the World gravitate to each other, a Tid Can easily socialize a cross ethnic divides. But ethnic problems become really problematic aftlicT , Suci dccent folk a Te neutralized and the upper hand is gained by low fellows who are indecent to the bone.
Behind the decency of Miss Daisy and the others is a venerable American tradition, going back indeed to the very inception of the US. Its Constitution had behind it the ideology of the Enlight ment of cighteenth century Europic, which was formulated by Rousseau and other thinkers. According to that idcology man is born frce, though everywhere he is in chains, and IThan is naturally good though his goodness is distorted by conventions and the constraints of society,
There is, it at purity underly We see all a ideology found American ex figure of Ener inspired two Writers, Thorea al In di Since thi Ima. In hals COnt under Tmätiny F Catı cultu Tail E. there behind til of the dichoto TiCE II i III] Cocenc experience, the its expression tion that is eq The power of ideology in A by the fact thị: natural man El in cel C e in f. finely sophisti gen C e Els that { It is there b great a novel of a Lady. A of the natural Daisy, behind ncSs is sheer g
There is, of tradition in A da ting a visio is lacking in tradition. This ted beca L15c thi other emigrant: America built ii nd Ino c i wijl built without understand and The vision of ful expression of Mel Wille allt Robert Frost, t American poet We Scil to tion 5. For the Wys in the tTä son, who was 4 favouri te AlcT in some of his a powerful sic side of the hur
One of his Mending Wall, Tective to th simple message Miss Daisy. T ''Sonething the love a wall", human agency

years, a pristinc ng the Tascality und us. This its archetypal Coment in thc on, who quickly great American and Whit Iman, 21 the natural In led to appear Watars in Amerik pression. He is e cu TiLIS I0 til ly between AT11ẽand European latter finding in a sophisticauated with evil. the Enlight ment merica is shown t the Lotion of nd of American cted even so lated an intellif Henry James, ehind ewen al 5 as his Portrait Turtler avatar main is Miss wh05 e crotchetioodness.
cours c, another mcrica, accomoin of ewil which the Emersonian is to be expecS Puritan and who went to a civilization, ization can be an ability to cope with evil. ivil finds powerin the fiction Hawthorne. In he most popular of this century, ave both tradimost part he dition of Emerignificantly his can poet, but poetry there is 15e of the dark 111.
best poems, provides a cor: misleadingly projected by he poem begins e is that doesn't meaning not a which breaks
down fences but some kind of un explain ed ineluctable natural force. The poet-farmer of thic poem Sees no reason to get together with his neighbour to e-eTect the Stone fece because il Will come down in any casc, and besides hic grows apple-trees while his neighbour grows pines and neither Will encroach into the other's territory. The stone-fence is no morc than a token, not really a demarcation bounday, but his neighbour insists that "Good fences make good neighbours', We have on the One hand, therefore, the something that doesn't lovc a wall, symbolic of a force that brings human beings together across the ethnic or any other divide, White at the sale time we have the territorial imperative, man’s need to draw frontiers and establish the territory of him. self and his group, symbolic of the will to keep apart from others. And this a partness goes together with potential hostility towards the other. The pict suddenly sees his neighbour approaching with a stone clasped in each hand, like an old stone-savage armed.'', and there is about him a darkness which is not just of woods and the shadic of trecs.
In Miss Daisy we have only the something that doesn't love a Wall, an as tygmatic vision which fails to recognize the fence. The truth is that ATTherican White and Wimerican black may assert their common humanity across the ethnic divide, something that was certainly happening even during the days of slavery in the old South, but the problem is that they still remain members of their own distinct ethnic groups. IIad there been an interwal during the play, the Westernized Sinhalesc Would have socialized nost affably with Izeth and Mahen and Wilhelm, replicating the crossethnic socialization that has been going on in Colombo and other places in the south, except when a rare ethnic outburst occurs as recently in

Page 14
Beruwela. Even thosc Westernized Sinhalese Who are among the world's worst racists since the time of Adolf Hitler, as shown by their advocacy of genocide as the only solution to the Tamil problem, are alWay 5 preparcd to social lize With the Tamils. And while all this cross-ethnic socialization, and even cross-ethnic copulation, has been going on the ethnic conflict rages in the North and East with a ferocity unparalled in the past. Our ability, and that of Miss Daisy and the black chauffeur to cross ethnic frontiers in grand affirmation of our common hu Ilarity, is ilit Very Televant to Sri Lanka's ethnic problems.
Olur ethnic problems, and perhaps all ethnic problems everywhere, can be fully understood only when they are placed within the paradigm of hierarchy. Only an aduilbration of the theoretical framework behind this hypothesis will be given in this article. All societies which have a division of labour are certainly hierarchically structured, and even the simplest societies which were invertebratic, Without division of labour and without governinct as We understand the term today, seem to have had the principle of hierarchy ope
rating in them. It might be postulated that man, at least man as known up to now, is
a hierarchical animal.
Ethnic problems * : Է11 5.
sh till ld bը Specifically moderI phenomena. Certainly there have been conflicts with an ethnic character in the past, but in Sri Lanka we tend to ethnicize the past and misread it in terms of our contemporary ethno-politics. Ethnic problems are modern phenomena because they relate to the mass cXբ tetation of upward mobility in hierarchically structured social systems, According to FurniWall's conceptualization of the "plurall Society”, different ethnic groups lived side by side in traditional societies, more or less apart from each . other. except that they interacted in
12
the market pl knew its place and kept it, king and no there was so lip ward mobilit and groups, c Societies of La lika, but the is that upwart not an expect Tegarded a5 a E
Upward Iob: unlike in the ta, tion of prac
and has become Coll sequence of the prospect of being for all ideology of eq que Wille, wri Lir American exp that the ideoil had bcc in gro 5ince th Է 13լի Te dicted that the world. It SpTe Eld, but it with the hiera I'll all I1. Thule ethnik the ethnopolitic teTimp C) Tary woT the consequence
Situa ting Mfis the paradigm of show that its Particularly cnli ethnic problem El 1d black chill ther but, as w they preserve the tilics. Whilt is f ta. It is that the the black cha children are mu the white lady's
and that is th ethnic problem not the difficul
may be in soc the ethnic divide
The power of principle can h Very clearly thro aðf ethnic relatio Slavery was pr; Contradiction to ideology enshrine riCEln Constitutic it required a em incipate the point something

ce. Fach group in the bierarchy s ordained by ility. Certainly Le Illeasure of for individuals 2n in the caste ldia and Sri inportant point mobility was tion, so mething rthright.
lity is today, ast, the expecically everyone
nr II naliti We, the IIlass education, economic Welland of the uality. De Tocg out of his Tience, noted gy of equality wing in power entury, and he it would sweep
has certainly is, in confli Çt 'chical drive in
: problems and s of the conld are alm ong S.
5 Daisy Within hierarchy will message is not ghtening a bout s. White lady feut come togefe have noted, air ethnic iden"ar morc imporlife-chances of uffeur's grand:h les 5 than of grandchildren, e core of the hierarchy and |ti: s tlıat ther c tializing across
the hierarchical e del Constrated Lugh the history 5 in the US, actised in total the Enlight ment !d in the AIlle
In itself, and civil War to lacks. At that very curious
happened. Louis Dumont in his superlatiwic book Con thc Indian caste system, Homo III i eTE Tchicus, noted that it was precisely at that mom.cnt of
time, just when the emancipation took place, that racist theories began to flourish in ble US for tille first ti II,
Earlier the blacks though slaves Were just as human as anyone else, the children of God who were capable of salvation just like the American whites. But the hierarchical principle required that the black thrust for upward mobility after emancipation had to be somehow suppressed. Since our ideologics and knowledge-systems serve power, a new ideology had to be found to justify the keeping down of blacks in low places in the hierarchy. It was found in the ideology of racis II, the theory of the supposed genetic inferiority of the blacks which Illa de the II un fit to Tise in the hierarchy. However, there has been El steady improvement
in lic situation of the blacks in the cours c of this century, particularly since the 'sixties
and at present the focus is on affirmative action, providing special opportunities for the blacks in compensation for past discrimination, to the extent that the Whites have taken to complaithing about discriinnination against them.
It would appear, therefore, that de Tocqueville's prediction about the ideology of equality sweeping the world is coming true at last, in the US 1 least. But this might be too facile a conclusion. It is known that the latest ethnic group I) immigrate into the US is usually at the bottom of the hierarchical scale. This suggests that the elevation of the blacks means II o Llore than A TCordering of the hierarchical structure of American society, not that the hierarchical principle is no longer operative. The power of that principle is shown by the fact that the blacks have felt some sort of compulsion to be snooty towards thc Puerto Ricans.

Page 15
It is not here that incorrigbly
being postulated man is by nature
hierarchical. The hierarchical drive in some societies, such as Australia or Sweden, is far les s powerful than in others such as India, while in some primitive socicties the hierarchical principlc was hardly operative, and in any casc did not operate in any oppressive form. It remains that in some societies the hierarchical drive is powerful and vicious, and in such societics under-privileged ethnic groups hal We to struggle against being pushed into lowly status. A black American Tadical will declare Miss Daisy to be not very relevant to Sri Lanka's cith nic problems, and probably argue that affirmative action and the elevation of the blacks
became possib they resorted the “Sixties. TE ty in protes hierarchicus, th I property rationality of F came into op life-chances ol proved and h proving. The a com fotting Sinhales e maj our minoritics,
II. Sri La chnic discours lese intelligent
promoting undel our ethnic gr. them al SS11 Ille
become trilingu socializes acr).5 as Miss Dais:
VASA O
207, 2nd C Colomէ
Telephone

le Only be cause d) Wii l Ice i Ley burnt proper
t against homմ leisurance rates escal litted, the
usטיiנון טווח שם חנון טו cration, and the the blacks inäwe kept on immessage is not חווט חטf סחט Oriry, Ilor for
ka, the typical of the Sinhasià fUCL15 e5 On "standing between ups. Many of
that once we al and eweryone 5 ethnic dividcs, and the black
chauffeur do, and we Westernized Sri Lank am 5 day at thc foyer of the Lionel Wendt Theatre, the underlying causes of our ethnic problems will disappear. There is an obsession about promoting national identity, and one segment of the SinHa lese believes halt Jatika Chinta näya will solvC olur: ethnic problems. These approach e5 evade the hard realities of our ethnicity, which relate to issues of discrimination and the relative positions accorded to differ cnt groups and sub-groups in Sri Lanka's hic Tarchical social system. Umless we confroot those hard Tealitics cour ethnic problems are not likely to be solved. In the alternative, We have to expect further eruptions of Frost's told stone-savage armed.'
PTICANS
Cross Street,
O - 11.
421631
13

Page 16
It is a numbers game .
Shelton Kodi kara
Sa hadewan has reactivated P. thic debate about the SiTiIna-Shastri Citizenship Agreement of October 1964, an agreement which has been greatly transgress cd both in letter and in spirit since its original signing.
Sahade yanı takes off from a | etter I had written to the Editor, Larka Guardia on 15
July 1990, in which I had a ttempted to place some of the more recent a III en diments to Sri Lanka's citizenship law in their context. Sa la dewan begins by quoting Hugh Tinker's The Ban var Tree. Overseas Errigrafiks for Int, Pakista Trd போgdesh, (Oxford, 1977.) where in the author likens the exclusion of Indian Tails frill the electoral registcrs in 1950 to an imposition 'upon the Indian Tamil population (os) a for Ill of 'a partheid" which was just as sever c”. This happened four ten years before the Sirima-Shastri AgreeTrent w:ı 5 signed Elıd, in Elıy event, the exclusion applied only to the shall I u Liber of II dian Tamils Who Were llen On the electoral register, the principle of it being that the franchise should be restricted to citizens only and that the citizenship of Sri Lanka Was then a matLeT under Consideration for the bulk of the Indian community in Sri Lanka. Whether or lot the principle of the exclusion of this co III unity froIII, the franchise was justified or not
is not the question it issue here. But what is interesting is that a II. Elçi de Illic of such
high standing as Hugh Tinker should liken it to al form of apa Ttheid! The esteemed British historian of South Asia appears to have overlooked the glaring reality that it was in fact the British plantation raj which created the unhealthy, in hospitablic and Crowded ghetto-like living quarters for the Indian plantation workers on the upCountry estates whicih were really comparable to a forfn of
14
apartheid! And sadly. Inissed t this fact to the of citizenship f tion of these pla: The estate-lines while Te Iewer i lite date a surplus the estes. a 1 age-Old tra by the plantati off the surplus lil dia, where but the Iloil-W dependent part population oft retire to di holiday there. ring to the pra tild be migration law, I imposed restrict tral well whiclılığı tion bCt Ween Lanka for cct Carly fifties, it ble for cstate w origin to travi from Sri LaT : special permits. this had stop and the estates with a class wanted to go but could not cxisting laws.
The question w is asking is: W thic" " ) calders of Ler ned", i.e. th workers, really
fore the 1964 signed'? Sa hade think so, or h
confused about it to his question ni te "yes". He
is no confirmat Sabha debates o based on a rep. (25 November 19 Singh, then I Affairs Minister an exploratory
Lanka in Sept. the signing of
in October, ha the Indian High

- a reply
Sa hulle wel has he rele walce of : whole question oT and Tepa tria - LTht at 1851 'Y Wyl Tikrc::T5. . Or habitations, 1ded to Ecccllaur onסof lab I Was not only di Lion, fo steed in rai, to siphon labour to South
it calle from, orking aged or is of the estate
in preferred to 1. OT L.O. Lake à | al here referctice which obSri Lanka'5 imEacted in 1949, is on the frcc. been the tradi. Indial and Sri Ituries. Il the was still possi. orkers of India II El to al fo a to India on By the sixtics, ped completcly, WETE: ÇIFTLICH if persons who back to India because of the
which SA hade wa Ti e Te ble views of the people conle Indian estate as certai lei be
t Wasם טוון שטHET : will des Tot IC is 50 Ille what
E, but the answer is a very defisays that there iom in the Lok fmy Statement, It in The Hird 64), that Swaran Indian External Who hild Imade Wisit to Sri =mber, prior to the agreement di i Ildicated to | Commission in
Colombo that 300,000 estatic Tamils wished to come straightaway" to India, a statement which Shade van has distarted LLLLLL S SS t SS SS LLLLLL L S L S SaSLHHLLL back straight' () to India (the exclamation mark is Sahadewan's). The account of the relevant portion of the Lok Sabh a dcbate quoted by Sahade van does not men tion a specific figure of 300,000, and both Sahade vall ili I a TC L I Elwarc how that figure could have crept into the Hird report, unless Mr Swaran Singh divulged to The Hindu reporter a specific figure which he was not prepared to reveal in the Lok Sabha for the obvio LI 5 Teal - son that while India had signed an agreement providing for the repatriation of 525,000 Indian Tamils from Sri Lanka, his information in Sri Lanka might have been that only 300,000 approximately were known to be in favour of going back to India at the time, i.e., in 1954. We now know that more than 500,000 Indian Tamils did in fact voluntarily apply for Indian citizenship under the agreement.
But to revert to the supposed divergence in thc Hird report änd the Lok Sabha, dcbate, what does Swaran Singh say during the course of that debate. He says, “I did have consultations with the leaders of persons of India origin there'. Mr J.B. Kripala ni intcrvenes at this sträge and says: "It is a fact that, whatever may be the reason, there is a good parcentage amongst our people who are settled there, who want to return to India. It is a hard fact, may not be convenient or pleasant, but it is a fict". This is confirmed by Swaran Singh, Pressed as to what is meant by a "good percentage', Swaran Singh says. "their number runs into lakhs'. I do not see here any arguable discrepancy between the Hindu Teport and the Lok Sabha debate.

Page 17
Sahadevan canvasses the questio u of how Swaran Singh kncW about any numbers at all, and he mentions three pos
sibilities: (1) Three lakhs of Indian Tamils in Sri Lanka nay not really have indicated
to the Indian High Commission that they wished to be repatriated (2) The Indian High Commission in Sri Lanka gave the Government of India false information. (3) Swaran Singh "cooked up this story in the face of scathing criticism made against the Indian Government by the opposition members in the Lok Sabbha". Says Sahadevan: "Swaran Singh aloneknows the truth', Wrong again, Mr. Sa hadewan! Mr S. Thondinian also knows the truth. Why is the na Ille of thic lcalder of the Ceylon Work cris Congress, not I men tilled cwcIl Conce in Sahaldevan's article'? Whon else would Swa Tan Singh halve consulted about thic intentions of the up-country Tamil estate w o T kers"? Who el 5c would hawe been in a position to know about their interests and inteltions?
Did tıc (CWC Cor its sisterorganisation, the Democratic Workers Congress (DWC) rejec the 1964 agreement as a horsedeal? On the contra Ty, what both organisations demanded was that in implementing the agreement, the twin processes of Tepatriation and grant of Ceylon citizenship should be cxpedited so that they may be completed even before the fifteen year period stipulated in the argreement. They objected vehemently to co II pulsory repatriation and asked that in dete Tim i raing the repatria ble quota, only those who opt or can be induced to go shall be repatriated and that 'in Inediately on the cxercise of the option a person to be repatriated shall be conferred Indian citizenship' (See statement issued by the CWC, Ceyları Daily Nels, 9 November 1964) and that similarly, "Ceylon citizenship shall be conferred on a person immedia tcly on his na nne being entered in the Register of those who the Government of Ceylon
consider 5 as El Ind that they gET1CTall Clect[]. consid cred as lo citi7.cms. T of who anong D1nil population should be Indi
who 5lould citizens had a bcr5 ga. Inc., Wi
SCnH na yake—Ne the Nehru-Kote of 1954. It was in thic Siri ma—S Fild Mr Thold: thic numbers gi tTict fra Ili hii inter:Sts. Whi the repatriates back to Indi of their rehil wictimisation | elements in the impact all attitudes of repatriates from Luite àIlother : this story whi ter est Silly Which 5 ccT115 te till ttJ Tc:ctivät of the Siri
11.
Sahadewan Writi
The present 80,000 Indiam Who do not physical repa should be vie: per spective, .
that is, in the in effectiwelcss tion ITıca surcs and that "a gr IndiEl In Tallinilis hälye l05 Llei country of th Sahil devamı IIlak Yvonne Fries an book, The ride 1984), which is ble pioneering happens to repa do get to lir they arc modes that the book ** the whole i t TLI1 of the expatri attempts to ""ct picture of what the authors did that "the India

eylon nationals, be put on the rall register and full-fledged CeyThe deter II i Illa LiCl the Indian Tal - i 1 Sri Lanka in citizens and be Sri LiLink: ways been a Inu III1W., the Dudley hru talks of 1953, la Wala agreement a numbers game has tri agreement, aman found that 1115 did not des own political it happened to after they well a - the aller bilitation their by unscrupulous Til milnadu, and this had on the future potential 1 Sri LEIlka, is story. But it is :h SceIls (Q in'en Inost, and have impelled e the discussion a-Shastri agree
case of about passport holders wish to opt for triation to India Wed in the above
co II text of the COf the Teh bilitai In Tamil middlu cat any of the
of Sri La Dikil T Tots i 1 the lei al cesturs".
es reference to di The Illas Bibin’s ire (Calcutt., ilde ed a valustudy of what triates when they 1dia. Although t enough to say does not say |h aboll the fate ates", but oily el te a plausible it is all about", hold the Wiew El Tallils of Sri
Lanka had the right to remain in Sri Lanka' and that thosc Indian Tamils who hawe been and will bc cxpatriated to India ha we thic right to become something else than second class citizens in their new fatherland". Taking his cue from the book, Şaha deven expresses the opiпіоп ti:
'Most of the repatriates seemed to have preferred to seck Indian citizenship owing to the compulsion imposed upon thern by the rejciction of their applications for the Sri Lankal. In citizenship prior to the conclusion of the 1964 pact".
This view is very questionable.
I have myself mentioned clsewhere how Indian Taili cstate Workers initially boycotted application for Ceylon citizenship шПtler the II diап & Pakista ni Residents Citizenship Act of 1949, and that of the 237,034 Hpplications which Were eventually filed, as In any as 160,000 Wert received by the DepartIn ent of Immigration after the
end of May, 1951, during the , :). urse of the last ten Week.5 available before the two-year
deadline expired. The question is, who organised the boycott, and who eventually decidcd to to lift it? Who exerted compulsion on whom? Again, according to a one-time very high offiCill of the Immigration DepartTDCint, als many as 38% of thc applicants did not reply to C[]TTẽSp Undent:{: relating to their Hpplications Efter their original filing,
Sahadeval Writes under the Els sumption that the 1964 a greement has been rejected, and that "a possible solution in place of the 1964 pact' needs
to be sugges tcd. As far. Els I am à ware, Ileither Sri Lārikā Tor India hawe Tejected the 1964
agreement. The 1986 Citizen-ship Act enacted by Sri Lanka to give Sri Lankan citizenship to an additil Conal 94,000 stateless person 5 of Indian origin in the island was related to the shortfall of 94,000 persons in the Indian list of 600,000 who had to be granted
Corrified a Page 9)

Page 18
Part ( 3 )
Nationalism and Soviet
Reggie Siriwardena
hey hawe e III phasised the
role of printing and other fo Tills of co III ulicatio I als Well Els rilass education il standardising languages and in creati Ing El sense Of shared identity among the 'imagined commuities who are nations.
SO Vict Te1917 people
In several of the publics wherc in WeIe still living as tribals or nomads, the processes which are broadly described as "mod crnisation' came only after the revolution. In fact, in some of the Asian languages of the Soviet Union the adoption of Written scripts was a postrevolutionary development, as was mass literacy.
The rise of new intelligentsia and administrative stratum in the peripheral republics produced the class that could be the creators and transmitters of nationalism. Thus not Benedict Anderson's "print capitalism' but a print socialism Was a formative element in the growth of national identities in some of the republics.
In the last part of this lecture I shall sum up the record of thic Gorbachev era in respect of nationalities policy and attempt some assessment of the possibilities of the future.
If one takes Mr. Gorbachev's three Watch words, glasnost, demokratizatsiya and perestroika, one has to recognisc that the first two hawe made great advances during his regime.
In keeping with glasnost the Soviet II edia have attained extraordinary openness and freedom in the last five years.
The fact that one of the first actions of the Emergency ComImittee on August 19 was to impose press censorship and to suspend the publication of
eertain papers they knew journ cauld Llot HC t b Tate With th E of course, th crt even Pravda ( appeared as paper) will at its title.
Demokratizats sation hil s Als C under MT. G. public meeting stration a ndi beer. El featlı Tc SQViet Scene th cedent for five elections have several republic R155 lan Federid thic Celt Te thic Congress of pc took place on vyhlich 5 till Tc5 er the seats for the and its affiliate
But consideTi the Soviet Uni any democratic those in 198 fo Assembly (whic
by the Bolshev failed to gain
diwa Ice i Ilı der
be el Substai Titial
However, if ico: the third of M watch w ords, per most precise sens - then, I thin recognise that what wa 5 lacki
til el 5 IIlic End nati MT. Gorbachey existing st† 11c IL not put anythi their place. I c. discuss the e C here, except to decline of the tributed towards tensions and CC

Dis-union
is cividctice that alists in general u sted to colla: coup. Today, is hope that which has rean indic pendent last live up to
iy Eı o T democratimade progress orbachev: Open - חטnחשe dשS, fr agitations hawe
if the Tect at had no pre
de Cac C5. FTCC
been held in s, including the tion, th tյացll at cicctions to the ople's Deputies
a constitution wcd Onc-third of Communist Party di organisations,
ng the fact that on had Ilot had : elections si I çe r the Constituent h was dissolved iks when they
a majority) the Locratisation has
me considers the Mr. Gorbachev's estroika in its e - restructuring k, Ille has to this was exactly 1.
of both econn) na lities policy could shakic the LTe5 but couch ng concret: in on't proposc to Ono Ilic failures say that the -y Co mוחם EGL} n exacerbating the - Inflicts on Ilatio
nalities questions. When the centre had little to offer by Way of material bcnefits, it was in eyitable that centrifugal tendencics would be accentuated.
It j5 true that Mr. Gorbachew cannot singly be blamed for the failures in either economic or nationalities policies; the hard corc of the party apparatus was resistant to change in both of the sc fields. Where Mr. Gorbachcy can legitimately be criticised is that in his anxiety to remain in power so that he could push through the reform
process, he relied on a perpetual balancing act between conservatives and reformers
which severely restricted his freedom of Illove Inent.
For at least four years liberalminded intellectuals had been advising him that the Union could be sawed neither in its previous form nor even as a reform cd federal structure but only as a lo cosc confederation. Yet Mr. Gorbach cw could't opt for such a structure because he feared a backlash from the conservatives.
the Baltic States he was by 1989 constrain cd to publish the secret protocols to the Stalin-Hitler agriccillent by which these states had been brutally and cynically annexed: yet he kept insisting on the validity of their accession to the USSR and sustaining it by shows of force. Today, in the after math of the coup, he has had not only to advocate a loose confederate structure as the last hope for the Union but also to recognise the absolute right of the Baltic States to se Cede.
The Union Treaty was Mr. Gorbachey's final attempt before the coup to attempt a new relationship between centre and republics. It recognised the
Agaiп, оп

Page 19
status of all republics as sow creign states, and embodied a cw name for the Union, which was to become the Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics.
The dropping of the word "socialist" from the Union's title Was significant particularly in the light of the clau 5 cs which gave the republics full control of land and natural resources in their territoric5. El Ind free choice of forms of property ownership and methods of economic management, thus opening the way to privatic proper ty,
The other powers of the republics Were to include de termining their national state and administrative complexion and their system of bodies of power, Each republic was to have the right of direct diplomatic representation in dicialing With foreign states. Each signatory to the treaty was to be pledged to democracy based on popular representation, the popula T wote and the rule of law and to the establish ment of a civil society,
On the other hand, the Union's defence and state security, coordination of foreign policy noves and foreign economic activities of the republics, money emission, the Union budget, enact Ilment of Union laws arki 1 H w em force Tic. Dit bo dict Caf the Union were to remain in the händs of LH1c cel Lee.
There was a third sphere in which there was to be joint responsibility between the centre and the republics, and this included determining the military policy, State security policy and foreign policy of the Union and policies regarding fuel and energy rԸ8 հll"ces, transport, communications and environmental protection, and supervising obserwance of the constitution and law cnforcement. Disputes between thic centre and the republics were to be resolved by negotiation, and where this failed, through arbitration by a consti. tlu Li mill court.
The language of the . Union Treaty was that of a generous
feder älis In Whi With that of so է: () Institut it, Is: Lunderst Hill WH decided not to Apart from th: of them – the t in particular - sights firmly a they mily well picious of this the long tradit: ship by the ce
A5 is Wye || structures al Tè g are implement c spirit of devolt constitutional ordination" can they are interp El Ili if tal kell providc in excu: | 11 intell LC: ) the centre.
The six repub to stay out I thought that a Tile Tit s Lil I ii m Communist Party tr:1dit 10Ils Could tÇ) ÇE I EL 1 dealing with
Further, tlլ է:
adjudication by Court оп disput publics and ce See milled Lureliä H "with ni cb [Taidi [. independence
politicisatic 1 o' has beer the in
The UI. T Er hy e bee si 20th has been aborted coup. bilite at the Co Ing Deputies centre possibility of a CQ Ilfedersi lĩ tin t} aged by the Uni basis for future ween thic reput
E: 5t fiha li sessi mi : proposal for a the which cach repu able lo defile th
4550 Cia, til.
This Ileans th former Soviet the salvage meas

sh compared well ne other federal
yet C. y six republics sig in the treaty. fact that s Colle ree Baltic states - had set their l independence, hawe been Susgift-h orst, given on of dictator1.
known, federal Død only as they l in a genuine Ition of power; III 15 like " ç - ITitän Whlte wer reted to mean, il liberally, can sic for continued f authority by
|ics which optcd nay well have central gover Dthe hands of a with its Leninist not be trusted iberal spirit in the rcpublics. provision for H. C.0 [15'titutional es bet Weel re. ntre may have le in a country ion of judicial where outright f the judiciary
Teaty that was gned On August
buried by the Last Week” 5 deress of People's
'd round the illu chi loose T El 1 till:11 t e I wis
on Treaty as a relations betlics. On Sep
Congress in its
greed on the w Union L1 I det blic would be e degree of its
he end of the Jnion. But Has iure to preser ve
something of the Union from the wreckage come too late?
The situation today is that twelve of the fifteen republics halwe made declarations of independence, while the largest and most powerful republic - the Russian Fedcration - has gone a long way towards assuming the power and authority of the paralysed centre.
Of the twelve declarations of independence three - those of the Baltic states - have already been given effect. It is likely that the Moldavian Republic, whose territory was annexed by the Sowjet Union ait thic el dl dof the Second World War, will also per sist in its claim for independence, 64 per cent of the population of Moldavia are ethnic Rumanians, and it is possible that these people will seek itu de pcndence only as a transitional step towards rejoining Rumania.
What of the other eight? The reality that must be recognised is that if any of them a Te in fact determined to secede, there is in C3 lenger any power in the Swict Union that can restrain then. The Communist Party is but of Liction an cl di 5 credited, thcarily and security apparatus are compromised and probably deeply divided among themselves, and President Gorbachev's prestige and authority have been badly shaken.
So the republics have the opportunity to make their own decisions. Is there any considera tion that cair induce the Til to stay in some form of association?
The answer is that there is one materia || colsideration which Will have weight at least for the present, and that is econoI Illic. The e co Il Comics of the Tepublics have been developed in close interdependence in repect of raw material supplies and trade, although these econoInic relations have been distorted and bureaucratised by being
routed entirely through the cent Tal administration.
The system can, of course,
no longer be perpetuated; but the
17

Page 20
republics do have a self-interest in maintaining bila teral lios with each other for the maintenance of eco II Comic activity, This consideration will apply cycn to the Baltic states, who have been so heavily dependent On the Soviet economy for supplics of raw materials and power and for markeis for their own Illanufactures that they cannot immediately cut themselves loose económica lly even which they do so politically.
In time may be, the Baltic S Lates could III we i to the German and Swedish economic orbits; and these possibilitics may be followed also by Byelorussia and the Ukraic if they becomine i Independent. BLI the immediate prospect is that the sleer necessities Of Survival in 11 economic Situation Which is nothing short of catastrophic will compel the republics to en ter in to so IIle form of econ comic association. This may inwolve no political centric beyond one which is set up by thc republics themselves rather than one standing above the In; the new regime in Moscow is thinking of such associations as the EC E15 : [[10 ciel Of fut LITe relations between the republics.
However, the problems of the Soviet Union or of any agglomeration of states that succeeds it will not be resolved simply by opting for a voluntary economic relationship bet WeeT) the republics. Among the republics one will be immensely larger than the Test, richer in natural resourccs, IInore advanced in economic development and more plentiful in skills - and that is Russia.
The circumstances of the postcoup situation have, as I have already stated, led to the government of the Russian Federation taking over Illiny of the functions of the centre. Bori5, Yeltsi II with llis u Indlu bitedly courageous stand against the plotters has emerged with his stature greatly enhanced; and in the wake of the failed coup President Gorbache" appointed Ivan Silayev, the Rus
18
Sia Federati In ter as Lie T1 e \, Cf the LJ110 m.
The Russian flię5 0WCT thic Irient, and nne the III this an. à Strong a 55erti Russi:LI I ati i I cally, culturally The coal o! and thc Testor: Tew Colutionary. Ina burg to thic asked for by citizel 5) is il si Sil of thi5 r. w be inclincil to development in tive terms, for tail that the had a destruct rich heritage o Ll 11ט n טייט t1ון 1:
guage. The R tradition, whetl dissident, hals
chance of revi munis III.
But it the potential imb Russian power te 5älle With it the Il Russian hegem lying republi II lifest itself after the dis centralised C. The second fra Teesee il the the Tell oval o rity may lead cai till of et Elli between neight as in the case Azerbaija D, or Lies and Illi 10 publics.
At the t II Georgia has declaration of Indt be el trealt Way as that states. They CL5e. if thic B forcibly incorp Swiet Union Georgia in 19 dent of Georgi nalist party ht in free clic ctio: ced that they

's Prime Milis.
PTiT i Militic
tir W Russi E1 F1 P1 r lillImust expect in 1 years to come on of a reviving nalis 11 — politiW and spiritli al lly. T Llei I"s (1111
tion of the pre— Ille of St. Pete T55old capital (as majority of its ymbolic expressiwal. I Wouldn't regard such a entitely TegalI would [Imai InCommunist era We effect. In the f Russian culture 15 RL155ian lånussian Ch Tistiä II eT (Orthodox Cor. today a better ving tlıām Com
time the a lace between and those of republics carries gers of continuing only ower the outgs which may in Tiew for Ins solution of thic III il Lu List stiltc. danger one can future is that central authto the intec Tisific conflict either outing republics, of Art II e Tial, a Tid between majoriTities withil Te
5 EL TIL 1:
Ime of Writing, rotested that its independence has ed i 1 Elc sare as the Baltic hawe a point bealtic states were rated into thic in 19), So Was 21.) The Presia where a liltilds power won 1s, has an 17 Lunare breaking off
all official relations. With Mos
Meanwhile in Azerbaijan, President Ayız MLütalibov hll lis as set a definite course for independence. The Azerbaijani situation is fraught with uncomfortable possibilities becausc it was one of the Only two republics (the other being
Kirghizia) which supported the coup regi Line, during its i brief existence. Further, Azerbaijan
has been conducti Ing a bit te T struggle with neighbouriug Armenia over the status of the autono IL1 ous region of Nagorn CDKarabakh, Which is : L1 ATTinenian enclave inside Azerbaijani territory.
MILItalibow has to W. EL ID1C) L1 I ı - ced that he is no longer a member of the Communist Party (thic Te is really inco longer any Communist Party to belong to anyway) and has held a hasty Presidential election to Confirm himself in power. The clection has been boycotted by opposition parties. Mutalibov will undoubtedly seek to str cingthen his position by fanning Azerbaijani nationalism, and this bod c. 5 i 11 for relations with Armenia and for the ATIn CIlian minority inside Azerbaijan who can no longer rely on thc federal army to protect them. The Ar Ili elia, In ca. 5. e is " EL Icminder that whilc the two forces that have broken up the Soviet Union are clcmocratisa
tion and nationalis II, the two elements may not always go together; and we Illust expect
in the future the emergence of right-wing nationalist regimes in some former republics of Swiet Ulliol.
I wish to conclude With some brief observations On Marxis IIn and Ilationalism.
1848, which was the year of mass upsurge of nationalis III i In Europe, was also the year of the Communist Manifesto. In that document Marx ald Elgels proclaimed that the nationstate had already been cultdated by the creation of the world market under capitalism,

Page 21
and that the Working class had טtry: they entle d tHם נוסC - סn Manifesto with the ringing cry,
"Workers of thc world, unite!" Whcn sic vcnty years later, a party and a leader dedicated
t Marxist inter mill tibla listin took powet in the former empire of thic Tsars, it see milled that Marx's prophecy was being bür me tյ11t: But so Great Russian nationalism refracted its clf through the Soviet state, and the COE 111 111111 ist IIl ter I11til Coll which Wä5 to hay C bell the Corgan of intCTI natinäll reWollution became Only all agency for the furtherance of Russian Inational interests.
I RIssi the dominance of nationalism was a seu el to the revolution; in subsequent Te volutions — the Chinesc, the
Cuban, the Wietla mese and others - nationalism was a strong force from their very inception and a condition of
their victory. Thus in the century and a half since the CoinImunist Manifesto Inationalis Il turns out to have had a greater survival wallu: thill Marx and
Engels imagine: fall of Comill and Central El in the Soviet clearly outlive
WCI It tilt fathered.
The Tc is 10 || the prospect TätiÜnälism5 in the fico Tiner Stovi Tosca te spectacl ? s Whtטplטטp T13 till libe: Tät time will rejoi much hardship erhHDs Witole mcרן է: ԼhrdլIբh in tէ Probably also sub-Illinorities liberated states the heavy hand In a tion al majo te Tritories.
For thab5e Wı long time with til Svet UJT
towards a terri this will b c էլ , 5נן וח טילו BLIL
that Eelief as
It is a numbers game...
(Солтfrшғd frain page 15)
Indian citizenship and repatriatcd to Indial, under the ter Ins of the 1964 agreement, which was supplemented by the 1974 Siri Ina-Indira citizenship agreeIeit of 1974. Sri Lili ka exte IIIded its obligations still further in this regard with its Grant of Citizenship to State less Persoms (Special provisions) Act of 1988, which provided that any person of Indian origin lawfully rC5 ident in Sri Lanka, who was neither a citizen of Sri Lanka or of India, H. nd who had mot previously applied for thic citizenship of neither country, * 'shall hawe thic status of Citi - Zel of Sri Lanka with effect froll the da te of the CJ IIIIle II - cement of this Act, and shall be entitled to all the rights and privileges to which other citizens are entitled by law".
I have referred clsewhere to thic domestic political compul
sions which le delt of Sri L these two piece They were obli ally undertaken on top of the tions which we LHC II ildo-Sri L8: agree Inents. W. ber of persons residual categor. Act — it i 5 est thaill 200), OOC) — Statele 5s ness, til which was the of thic 1964 now be regarde
Sahadevan's | with an entirely lic Il, tha L Irtlla ti Soms who have as Indian mai Lic: ] וטt bgנח still dia, i nd who, not want to g') category of pe

l, and with the lish in Eastern Irope and now Jilin, it will the political Marx and Engels
reason to regard of re-clerging the territory of it Union through es. The subject re experiencing ion for the first :e, blit there 15 ı, Conflict: ' :ıld e that they will 1 e Year5 t CO.Te. Some of the in the newly will experience Of the di Limit rities in the
O have lived a the illusion of lion is moving estrial para dise, gloomy prospect. today recognise SCICLI ll T. Illessi
anism which never had a basis in reality. To accept that human societies will probably always be imperfect, as human beings are imperfect, that utopia newer commes, is not to alba Indon the struggle against injustice, oppression and exploitation which is luch older than Marxism.
The faith that it is possible to create a perfect society in which human beings will at last be freed from all their problems is in fact highly dan gcrious because it en courages the ruthlessness of a Stalin, a Pol Pot or a Wije weera: what docs it matter - they must have thought - if any number of Peoplc are sacrificed if future humanity are going to live happily ever after? We should rather engage in the effort to correct human ills in the sober recognition that thic struggle is a never-ending one which needs to be renewed and Sll Stain cd in every age. The intoxication is over; this is the morning after.
1 the the PresiEL 11 kl tC i Ilitiate is of legislation. gation 5 unilaterby Sri Lanka bilateral obligare stipulated in 1пka citizenship la Lever the nullin Wolved in the y under the 1988 illalt el til III e the problem of e eraldication of primary purpose agreement, can d als S 01Wed.
eill cicer is r different probng to those perbeen registered mals, who hawe cpatriated to Inpresumably, do to India. This Tsons, Csti II ated
by Sahadevan to number about 80,000, must thcn remain indefinitely in Sri Lanka on visas, or become a de facto sta teless group again because they are ineligible to become Sri Lanka citizens under the 1988 Act, being already Indian citizens.
There is another aspect to this matter which Sahadewan appears to have overlooked, Article 2, 16 (d) of the IndoSri Lanka Agricement of 29 July 1987 stipulates as follows: ''The Government of India will expedite repatriation from Sri Lanka of India citizens to India who are resident there, concurrently with the repatriation of Sri Lankan refugees from Tamil madu". This a ti nimic when India is asking for the early return of Sri Lankan refugees from Tamilnadu. Sri Lanka itself has welcoined the return of these refugees. Let, then, the reciprocity contained in Art. 2.16 (d) take effect.
19

Page 22
Land Refornin (5)
Environment and policy
S. Sathan anthan
7.2. Industry
The in Westos in the indus
trial sector hawe Tesisted Lh incorporation of environmental protection 1 ileasures in the production process; and the naticnal industrial policy Statement (Ministry of Industries, 1989) was silent on the question of environ Tmiem tal Imma ma gement. Thic Strategy virtually pleaded that the "Cha II bers of Coller CC and Industry must accept thic urgent need to conserve and protect the environment'. It then reconnended a list of actions. They arc: improve the capability for environmental impact assessment, utilize cleaner technologies, incorporate pollll[ ion control Inca 5 lu re5, gran L incentives for pollution control, promote recycling, provide industriail count:; cilling service: and to includi c cm wironmcn ta l science in university curriculum (CEA, 1988:24). Thic Actiu Plan did not go bcy ond na ming 6 issues of concern (CEA, 1990:2-13) in relation to the list of actions suggested by the Strategy.
In short, the Strategy and the Action Plan failed to put forWard. El plan for en vironmental management with Tespect to agriculture and industry. This conclusion applies equally to the Ilıca sures a Tıd actions proposed for the other 16 econo
lic sectors.
8. All Approach tu Environmental
Management
It is necessary to return to fu Il di III e Itals, IIl tera ci II betWeen nature arid society occurs broadly at three levels:
(a) the individual; at the level of the individual, a producer appropriates resources directly fTUIf the Envir OIlITETI; and the Volume of resource appropriation by each in dividual is conditioned primarily by need.
O
(b) the social 1cwcl of the gri interact with through organiz day the comme til ize:S 5 Lich tions. The will consumed by dctermin ed al by the level of wity in s cicit: criterion of p) deed, during pe Illic Iccession ccd a ld Tc sour falls despite the rising Iced Tor Wices a mo ng Cooperative for LiOLIS is 24 sector Crganiza Lion in terion of satisfy goods' takes cIl Suring : Il inc of expenditure.
(c) the State:
resources by th directly influen dual necd and
sive to III arket ad it is deter lined econominic Tc qui tructiÚIL COf basi crcase in natio: and of strategic (national securi Capital is primi
by these two it face:5 the Llei a profit.
Thlc distincti{ between Eile factors is by In
iwe. But it attenti II to heter og er e cous c ciety-nature int emphasize the Li Co-et:0 T10 Illic i define the para II TeInt society-Ili and the intens each of the in place. Except gatherers, in 1

makers
բrouբ: at th t oup, individuals nature indirectly cd gröups. TūTicial fir III epigroup Organiza111C of resources iri watc capital is nost cxclusively CCCIC) Illic Citi - y and by the rofitability. Inriods of Cconooutput is reduct consumption ! continuing and
gods and serthe population. ns of organizald type of group
which the criחטוIIנIIנtשי טing th precedence over :( Ile in excess
cxploitation of
State is hot ced by indiviis less responcma E1ci. Insteld, In OIC by macro-Sנrםts (Cחשוון טir
ic industries, innal output, etc.,) : : C 05 i de Tatins ty, etc.). State arily influenced crit criai, though cessity to carn
סיום 1b: טl)111:1 חו LhI Ce principal LI DICE I 15 exhausSCTV es to i dTH W the structurally 1: Tict Cr if soer actions and to differing poli. Inperatives which Le t:T5 Of Lille diffie| turc in teTHÇEiOS ity with which
TECtis ta kes și Inong hunterhe Illore deve
lop cd social groups the indiWiduals are organized into systems or scieties; and in each
society, the way in which the individual, group or the State interacts with nature is deter
mined by the socially established
Criteria of own Crship, control, demand and usage of natural resourcCs. Therefore, environII Ital italna gement presup
posics an understanding of thc sociological perspective of resources and of the "social link." (Komar, 1975:236) between society and na tu Te.
The potentials and limitations of the "social link" have to be identified in respect of ench factor and incorporated into any program IIle of environ[11C IntEal m1:l InE:ı ge111 en t. This Tm eä In 5 that the structural prerequisites of sound environmental manageLlict II i Lust be i del Lified at the Enacro level in Tespect of each economic sector: in agriculture, for example, changes in agrarian structure to eliminate sub5 j5 tence
agriculture is a case in point. To satisfy these preTequisites, Inic To liciwcll iInitia
tives within each sect should be implemented: the consolidation of fragmented land holdings and introduction of a IT1iThiD11 u rim1 - ) r TIb"br 5 i7,e fo" T holdings to en sure th:ht each holding is capable of carrying on commercial agriculture i5 one such iTitil tive.
The Strategy and Plan lack al sociological perspective of natural resources; predictably, they fail to perform tasks of environmental
1131 DağtIIle ilt,
thic Actio
RE:
Bindarge, A, 1983, Čaľo ľaľiter for 5 ri La rika. Berlin: Mouton Publishers.
Bray Iye, C. W., 1920. Siarr MerriararTLTLL LLL LLL LLLLHGGGGuT TGGGGlLL LLTLLaL Bank, Carnbridge: Centre for South
Ašil. I SLL I dies.
(Prir fra Ered o page 23)

Page 23
Inter-Ethnic Relations in the Plan
Do the Estate
Paul Caspersz
Wer. 825,000 **Indian Tarn i 15' OE in the country, togct Eller with the Inatural increasc since 1981, forning part of its population. With what legiti. macy and with What status do they so remain? Maybe the best would be to procced from a reas of easy agreement to those of possible disagreement. Among the former would be the question of nomenclature. Should we and the censuses persist in calling this group of persons "" I In d ii m '' Tills IF the reason for so doing is that they are recent immigrants from India, it needs to be recalled that they are only the last in the series of Indian immigrant groups to a rive in the island and make it their home? Usually placed first in the series were the Wijayans, but even they were probably preceded by several ccnturies by groups of Weddahs. In colonial times there is suficient evidence that caste groups like the karayas, the sa laganias and the dura yas wcire originally South Indian i Inmigrants who Cowe T El period of centuries assiInilated so successfully with the local population as to make ,W themselves טn טyת טvט oblivious of their origins. Hence, if we and our censuses still speak of ''Indian" Tanils, the logical outcome would be to list the others as Indian Sinhalese, India i Ceylon Tal Inils, Indian Ceylon Moors and - why not - half-Indian Burghers, and so on. The situation would than be al 5, 11 Llte la ble as it way Could als co bę ludi Crous.
A further lore sinister reason is adduced by some. The 19th century in migrants, they say, do not yet consider Sri Lanka their home; the sense of belonging of the estate pcople regards India, not Sri Lanka. For evidence, they point to the phitos of
specific alınd
People
Gandhi and N: of thic line-rot old planters' tances periodic by cista te peopl it has to be sä - Weak argu c Welt — Were ti me of the yi älld Neh. Tu to haWC low dis completely. As T'cilit til Lice:S to 1 in India, they lack of allegia: als periodic rest Linki 15 i 1 A: fortuna te relatio prove that thos do not want ti Australia, They t.) El llegia. Il ce t family network, of allegiance to Ly.
The TEl Illi is in this count that sufficient e desire to be co of this country, m. Te CCT missi I'm Elated that ij bol of the plantatic per III: Th cently set try. Ten years the Jickson Re grati 31 raised per celt. Fili Soulbury Comm that 80 per cent population wi. 5:titledi i Sri I the II di Ti tC 5e ek citizeI3 the III dia. II and dents' (Citizenshi After II initia Willingness to El dw içe of thei leaders that app imply the legal non-citizenship), 825,000 persons ( applications, T willfully obtuse

tation Areas of Sri Lanka (2)
Really Belong?
:h Tu o n the walls is ind the CCC) Td5 of TT ita lly sent to India e. In Tehuttfll, id that the photos ents in any pular at the isits of Gandhi the island but al pop cal Ted Catly for the periodic the por relatives as little prove
Ce to Sri LIlk. li Itä Ilccs of SriLI 5 trailia, to 1ess is left behild c who have gone be citizels of
o are testino Iy the extended lot the lack
the host coun
lc h HWeקנt סגן שtit: ry given more Widence of their šide citiens The Donough– [ ] sם 1928 וזו נול. ut 40-50 per cent 1 Workers were tled in this coun|ater in 1938 -1 נוח וחו וחנt tחלPu the figure to 60 lly in 1945 the ission reported of the estate is permanently La lika. In 1949 1 il 3 w etc äsked lip rights under Pakista ili RegiD) Act of 1949. period of un. apply (on the r tradic Lio lication would acceptances of I ČI le 55 - thill lid submit their all bit the : these figures
provided evidcnce weighty enough to say generally that the Tamil population living in the plant. ations is a population that is, and desires to be permanently se titled as citizcin 5 in Our countTy.
If the group hither to called Il di Ti Till i 5 to be cled simply Tamil, however, it would
not ser ve to give them their Harks of distinction from the older Tamil arriva 15. The Illarks
of distiction Would be a dwa ltageco u Is to the Estatic Tanji 15 if employment were to be by strict ethnic quota.
Comparision with the Burghers
That the Estil Le possess Inarks of Eind specificity als fl distinct In a tinal group becomes clear if We briefly co II pare them with another ethnic group, namely, the Burghers. While the Indian Tal II li li s'' - whorlin from mow com we shall, I hope, agree to call "Upcountry Tamils' or Estate' Ta Til5"' Cor Pla I L: tit)D1 TEL[11i1 s"" - were 819,000 according to the 1981 Census, the Burghers and ''Eurasians' were 39,000 (having stel dily increascd si Ilıcc the L88|| Census, and steadly decreased lot only as a percentage of the total population but also i absolute Ilu Ibers since the year 1953).
The II ain
Til III || 5 do singularity
difference lies in the matter of self-perception. It is here if interest to recall that the Tc is a strong case in political science for saying that El people arc a nation when they simply think they are one; all other requisitics have their place only to help other peoples to un der stand these thoughts and recognize the nationhood. The Estate Tamils perceive of themselves as a distinct group in the plural society of Sri
21

Page 24
Lank El With the rights and priwileges of such distinction (even though the rights and privileges have been so consistently denied). The Burghers do not, certainly not to the si me ex telt, Ilo T with the same intensity. This could of course, be assictc. Of the Burghers with less con
fidence in the pre-1948 period than today. Then it may be that the Burghers hop cd and and thought that they had a distinct position, un als sailable for all time, in the plural society of thic country, Today
no longer, Especially after, and because cf. the introduction of Sinhala and Tamil as the only media of instruction in schools, the progressive 'drying up' of
the English mediu.In stream (which continued to be the lifeline of the Burghers even
after 1948) since the late 1960s, the Burghers have increasingly felt their distinctness threatened.
Those who could- and they were thic leaders of the community - cmigrated to other countries, chic fly Australia and Canada. Those who Temained increasingly accepted assimilation into the major Sinhala group in the West and South of thic island and into the
major Tamil group in thc Batticala District.
There are of course objective factors underlying the differences
in self-perceptic merical strength population, di and il te Tisities , חטTitra Liטשחטש own language, d and in te sities 3 belonging, en pl city among the introducing in of being a dist Lð ET CIX. It 1 E in the Burghers
The compar Burghers helps still that the E subjectively anc di SL lict Ilä tibili however, in Ot : why this natio calesced With national group but retained its Both groups ha the same prove spoke the sami the majority ii to the 51 m: Te lived se parately Is clt giticiall clist else, the Tallis נוט חוr E th שייו נWht if cultural leaders and I This if t 5Cl tered el SC Wh – considered th as unqualified 5 idc TitiT bocc 1 ly social and
Environment...
(Carir fra Fr Fs" frarr; Page 4'W) Central Environmental Agency, 1988. Mario Hill Cori serraria I Stra fegy. Co
Eobo: Ministry of Environment and Pali:Illulary Affairs.
SSS 00S LETMCMTS SLLLL eOLOLLLLYLLSSSS LLLKS
Fagyo — fe fff, FI FF, Tbili.
Clifford, II, 1927. "Scole reflections On the Ceylon Land Question", Trarical drierraris. Wols.
de Silva, K. M, 1986. Malinging ErhLLLL S SLLLLLLLLMYSL SL S S S LSYLYYCLaLLLLLL S L LLLLLS re: Sri LEFT&T, F'53"73-7735. LarıE: Liversity PCss of America.
FTIT er, Bd III, 1957. Forter Pertarr
Colora is a riori ir Ceylo Jr.. Londori: () xford University Press.
International Bank for Reconstruction ald Loveloprient (IBR), 1952. Tr Error" ir Pe'esar 777 err / Ceyla II. Colombo, Government Printing Press,
Jansen, Malcolin, A, B, 1989, Egygfril Diversity and Tropical "Fores is. Club C}: USA.D.
22
Komar, I W, 1975, Their Improverı Let wels - i Iii Fort Cfety carr7 fre Er asinoy, et all (e. gress Publishers.
Mi II5, LTDx; A,,
Erris R. I. ford University
Ministry of Indus
Гғgy fаг Глгілігі է այlւնmbմ.
Moore, Mick, 14 PFEIFFT P M FfC f bridge: Cambridg
Namayakki ra, W
Fores Policy I Lanka", Tre
| 15.
Peebles, Patrick,
Alk E1 hili: Com
of Sri Lirikal", Griffer, F. W. 49.
Peiris, G. H. 1597
El Tell Ti I IR Ο Εμία η σιγrπίτι α)

I: diferīt luin the total fferent patterns of geographical rights to their ifferent patterns f religio-cultural ay ment specifiEs Late Tallis :lic III the se Il se inct social class :ver present in
co Immunity .
is on With the að Ill: L0 L1 In die Tstät T1 mils àTB i objectively a ill group. It is, 15 eäsy to sec mal group new er the older Talil in the country own identity. ld awarc Less of Ila Ice of Origin, : language and 1 each Ei dhe red ligion. But they o al 1id diffe|1|H טיוטAb - 5וחני
of the North - ghi lang pT) Ces 54:s levelopment the ice-setters for 3EE15 t 3iT di T:IIi 15 2 TC in the is llid 1 C E5 til te TL1 i 15 for equal con15: 1.f thcjF 10 W.status ם ri11 חוו רtם E
"Resource Cycles, et t ti :Casting', Mfiri, Sry"FFFFFFFF. I PI GETds). Moscow: Pro
1933, -3. Press.
Iri:25, 1989. Af fraz Sri Lfrk.
og sor Lreder London: Ox
85. The Sri trid F F E FIKK IL:: University Press.
R, 1981, "Ւlatiքnal Devlopment in Sri Ff LEFFrk T Foreffer.
I99). "Till Titi
lict in the Dry Zone
Tf FI് "##ff
1.
"6, "Shıatc Tenancy
for T1 i Sri Lika", " His frica fra 5
Thc Estate Tamils had a castic st Tuctu Te Which Wls Llot diffeTe IL from that of the older Tamil inhabitants. But whicle as in the North the lower castic Tamils werc a minority complcte ly dominatcc1 — at lcast until very recent times – by the thc higher castics, in thic planta Li Jins thic lower castics were in a majority. The lower caste Norther L1 TåIL1ls did Llot have the opportunities to forge linkages with the Estate Tamils, While the latter because if ed Licati OLa 1 a Ild e CIOIIlic di5 a dwa mtages W :TC 1 , WI EL WELLE of the possibility or the potential i 11 porta Ince of such links.
For all these reasons - which, of coulse, le cd full TL hic T in westigation - the Estate Tamils over the past 150 and more years hawe developed as a national group, distinct not only from the majority Sinhala national group, a Ind from the other nonTal Emil national Illinoritics — the Motors, the Malays, the Burghers —b Llt Ells frill Elle Tal Illils of Lic North and Eist. It is the role of this national minority in Sri Lankan society that is today crucial. It is the role of the bridge-builder, if only thic Estate Tall mills werc EL 110 weed the opportunity of playing it.
efa Slides, vol. WI, No. 1 (New
Series.) Sessional Paper, Ilo III, 1931, Report
TT LLG ttG TLOGGCCC S LLLL TCLHHGGLCLkS LLLS
lombri: Guvernment of Ceylon,
—, Inc. W III, 1932. Repara cos' re Erecrff's Collilíffee Lift Reargarfsfi.7r and RerrorehrerIr fra sig Deparrierifs liffeder LTTLL TT SLLLLTCLk OCM STTGkkS Ibitl,
13 ,t IIוחCesar. Ibid.
Sirr, 28 Junt: 1972, "Will the Productivity Bill serye the Gowiyas" inteTēsts", p. 1.
We crawardiana, I K, 1975.
Ari EEErslerII, Colo IIIb 0: of Agriculture and Lands,
Wick remasinghe, Rohan II, 1933, CorTLCGGLGLLLS LTTLGLHLLLLLLL SLLGTLLLLSSS LLSLLLLHLHHLHHaS LaLLLLLLLaLLLL LLLLL S LaHaaL L LLLLLS Tonmental Still die 5.
Wickrchasinghe, S.A., 1951, "The Gal Oya Project and the Crisis of Agriculturc", Ceylor Ecgfridor is r, vol 1, na 4.
IrreplayrFieri r iiri
"stirs Ministry

Page 25
Expatriates, Immigrant 5 South Asian Women Writer
Rosh ni Rustomji-Kerns
ANTHA RAMA RAU,
Kamala Markandaya and Bharathi Mukherjee are intensely aware - even self-conscious - regarding their position Yas Asian Women recreating, in their Writings, the lives of illmig Tants and ex patriates. Their Works consistently revolve around people who are caught in the awkward act of juggling with multiple cultures. Interestingly, Prabhkar Mach we in an article, * Prominent Women Writers in
Indian Literature. After Inde. pendcncc' JSAL, Spring-Surinmer 1977] resists the tempta
tion to include Rama Rau and Markan daya in the discussion because they are “... not probably fully Indian. They have non-Indian nationalities... even though their understanding of India is so realistic and feeling. full" (p. 148), The official natioInalities of the three writers are not of overwhelming importancc for a discussion of their works. All three Write in English Eind all three halve made their homes and practiced their craft in South Asia and the West.
Santha Rama Rau's works are difficult to find and many of them are out of print. This
is a disser Wicc towards an interesting South Asian wo man writ cr. She writes well, but
not brilliantly, and much of her work may feel dated. But at a time when most of Asia was still overtly under Western domination, she tried to understand and write about the complex ties and tensions between South Asians and Western crs as well as those between India and the rest of Asia,
Santha Rama Rau was born in Madras and educated in England, the United States -
and as she constantly reminds
Referir fer s'arri The
Miš5 EchiuseLL RсүIет.
Llis — by her II
Il cother. O tE her Gifts of Pa PP2 cal Arfobiagra, Cribed as for perceptive ob: Curious Iud ver As an Indian West, s hic bri bala lice as w to hier wision." dust-jacket h hawe to sec1 || books by Rat discussei di C perceptive and na trator of expa
He autobiograplica Ranila Ril 11's Brahmin famil Sixteen, aftert CEL tibi il the SLOTy of al WoT her motherland is liwing thr years of the st pendence from
E75 of He autobiographical With the autէ1 in post-war Ja father is free II bassador. From wels through villäges — so III and sole lit - Of China, I and Indonesia. rested in study rew Clutto In and WAT W || || Tilt fascinating and gs. Horre is al COf Him Indian tl1.Tes ind celu World Willir II A gradual realiza and hcr coun parts of greater bok much of
Referriber Ilie preserts a ficti ter. Baba, a yo

s and Literature:
ther and granddust jacket of sage: Av. Ir forhy, she is desof the most rvers of Our complex world. educatcd in the gs a wonderful ll as sympathy It is the usual perbole. Books Yet the three na Rau to be show her as a compassionate triatic experience.
lia (1944) is an account of retu Til to her y at the age of en years of eduWest. It is the men Teturning to when that land ough the last ruggle for inde
Britain.
(1950), another work begins or's experiences pan where her India's first Am| Japan sh e trathe cities and |ę Well kilo WT) traditional Inaps do-China, Siam, Anyone inteing the Chinesc the Wict all this book both worthwhile. Ea of nusual chronicle w III a. Ils and weincai tion in postsil. Ram. Rau's tion of herself try as integral Asia gives this its poignancy.
House (1956) onålized characung wũnen dis
satisfied by her life With in the confines of a traditional Hindu family. She is seduced by the glamor of Western-style romance is she sees it in her short-lived friendship with an American couple. In her search for excitement, and the kind of fulfilled life she feels is lived by Westerners, she spurns the possibility of an arranged marriage and falls in love with love. The object of her infatuation is a Schoultecher who visits her grandmother's house in South India, Baba dreams about lovc and marriage while the young man, already suitabl y be trothed, continues his visits becau5 c of the excellent food offered by Baba's grandmother. Underneath the humor and thic descriptions of the glittering cosmopolitan life of Bombay contrasted with the quiet, nearly ascetic life of South India, is the story of a young Woman learning to see the different faces and facets of love. As Baba begins to understand her place in the newly independent India, and as she acknowledges the many traditional relationships of which she is a part, one wonders if Santha Ra Inä Rau is consciously weaving a twentieth-century story around the ancient Hindu concepts of karıdı, 5reha and prefнта,
The second Writer, Bharati Mukherjee, can take her place among the best South Asian and All crican writers of today. Her work ranges from very good to dazzling. Her handling of her subject, of what she calls 'thic pain and absurdity of art and exile... exile among the former colonizers; the tolerant incomprehension of hosts, the absolute impossibility of ever hawing home, desh...” (Epilogue to Days ard Nigers ir Calcutta) is un compromisingly honest and often deeply pain
high-society
23

Page 26
ful. Although at one time she saw W. S. Naipaul as her mod c1, 0 Ille feels that in Stone ways she is much more descendat of Sal Inthal Rumä RILI. חn aחנTrt טוחנn t: t סוחט th WםB economically privileged class and are very much a wa Te of it, both speak of their Indian education at ho II e, With in their families, but both tely immensely on their Western education.
And although both of them often speak about Hinduism, a Dd the complexities and age
of Indian culture, their discussions of these subjects tend to hawe the aura of intellectual excercises.
Day arīd Nigirs ir Cuc tā
(1977), co-authored by Bharati Mukherjee and her husband, Cal Tk. Blaise, CD sists Of LW J
These Te t'W na Tratives in some ways two philosophical essays, based on selected experiences and episodes which took place during an extended Wisit to India (I lost of it in Calcutta) in the cairly 705. It is in this work that Mukherjee describes thc difficultics of being a South Asian writer in Canada and discusses the constant se: Tch by many immigrants and expatriates for a Secure and fa ini liar place. She continues and develops this discussion in the introduction to her brilliantly written, chilling collection of short stories, Darkness (1985).
Her first novel, The Tiger's Dagher (1971), portrays Tara Benerjee Cartwright, a Westerneducated, well-to-do Bengali wnln. In HTried to 11 Arnerican, Tara's pelul ince ind constant nervous. Il ess Tegel Tiding her role as the Bengali Wife of an Americ1n visiting her family in Calcutta, Owershadows her well-intellioned efforts to ul
distinct parts.
derstild her World of diverse CLI ILLIT:5 The Calcuttii Tail visits is very different fro II. Lhe Born bay (and other parts of III dia) to which Sainthal Ral, Ill Rali i eturned in 1939. Ta Ta's Calcula is a city which cotinuously on the Werge of, or right in the midst of political wilence. And as she tries to
pick up the threads of hér old
24
life, a s , she ge Ilıcrized by a II at tempts tt) ke her husband th can barely writ LO || Ook it her Of CultaTes and a Te often impi cile, The book THra caught in Wilent de IIIs W if shטחt kםח like a frighteni Raus le55 c Search for love a changing so, thought is abo would e ver get and if she did husband David Eit she li y cd The Whole book a y 01 Ilg i Il T1 ig rounded by ideals, cultures - with ferocity. Mukherjee's Wife (1975), be With an openin w could do credi Dimple Disg heart on IIIa surgeon, but looking for Til at TiTTta Ilia I : Di Inple is su "would bring h tail parties on fund-Taising dir ties... (l Ild lo for real life begin it does it when El suppost is folind in AI an engineer w. his advantages, applied for i Canad and US application pent
After their Basus inmigra lin New Yoik,
series of a partin ly vacated by They attend where Dir Inple li regarding the re II dil alıd – ATM, 4 the ho TTT:s al New York. F: comprehensible tense loneliness ewe the sila 1 fidence: Al Id sic:

Is strängely mesolitician, as she :p in touch, with rough letters she e, 5 Hic i 5 faoTc edi own inner world Ideologics which ossible to Te COTI: concludes With the the Tt of El tration. We do е сscapes. Aпd ng ccho of Rama :complex Baba’s in the midst of :ictly, Tara’s last ut “ “ whether she Out of Calcutta, 't, whether her will I'll d e yer kı) w him fiercely." : Te Wolves around TTTLI "MI" {ʼiFi 1 5 LITdifferent ideas, - all experienced
,Welטוnd Iסט שS egin 5 in Benga! g sentence which Li tiii) Jail Ilie A L15 tc. lpta had set her Irying is neurher fill the Was 2ngineers in the Eds. re that marriage 3r fredom, CockCEA Tpcted lawns, yn ers for chariwe.' Slic waits to begin. And In Strange Ways, :dly good match 1 it KL mar Basu, h) lists among has already mПmigration to ; also has job iing in Kenya." marriage, the C: L O ACTICA, they live iп а 1 ents tempo Tariacqua in tances, Indian parties is tens to gossip l:tive Illi its of стica iТd about d wiclence of :e'd with El 1 ilcultul Te and ilDimple loses de grec of consiċċ ) f 5 elf sc.
had in Calcutta. She makcs lists of different ways to commit suicide. She loses sight of reality as she sinks into the world of television; and after seeing H show in which a bi Tidcage - comfortable but still a cage - figures prominently, she kills her husband as he collplacently eats a bowl of cereal.
Tara, i LI TPI e Tiger's Daughter, is caught in the physical vicolcnce of Calcutta as she tries to luntangle the confusion of different cultures. Dimple loses her sanity when faced with a culture she doesn't comptchend and which refuses to make room for her. Both are lonely, isolated women and their sense of loss is translated and recreated in the lives of the more glLi Lisy, but al most bizäTTE: chräCters who appear in Darkness. Some of us may feel quite uncomfortable around Mukherjee's cha Tacticrs. We look around Luis alıd Socc; fclow South Asianı immigrants at social gatherings, special gruccry and sari stores and even professional conferences. And we say, *No, comc on... who hicre would kill hcr hlusba. Il d as hic eats his cereall"? and Who Would be so silly as to be caught in the midst of a political confrontation' who Would brutally attack his unmarried daughter, not because she is pregnant, but because she is pregnant through artificiall inseIIIllination? This is only well-written South Asian American gothic. After all, aren't all Sluth Asian Americas succcssful citizens of America with periodic attacks of anxiety regarding their children's cultural identity?" Yet we know that in her own in imitable fashion. Mukherjee has taken her own fears and struggles, as well as the
fears and struggles of many a Llong Lis who have Teilnain cd Without a voice to speak of the inimigrant experience, and presented some of the Ilore violent and grotesque aspects
of ct illu Tal co||fision 5.
The South Asian woman writer Who Seems to be the most widely known in the West is Kamala Markan daya. Her novels, Possess lor (1963), The Nowhere

Page 27
Mari (1972) and Shalinar (1982) dcscrwC a place in a discussion dealing with meetings - friendly or otherwise - between culLLIT IS
Possessori can be rcad as an allegory on colonialism. An English Woman, Lady Caroline, fabulously rich, fabulously beautiful and fabulously highborn, finds a young goat herd with artistic abilitics during her visit to an Indian village in search of a raak. She compensates the boy's parents for his goat herding services and Lakes him away to England, Europe and even America. The boy Walmiki (not a bandit turned poet-saint but a supposed village idiot carefully molded into a high-soctety tlrtist) gTOWs into TT1änh pod and success under Lady Caroline's guardianship. He masquerades i thcal trical pseudo-Indialı Costum es complete With H monkey in his shoulder. He is the possession of Lady Caroline while she too in her own way becomes possessed by him and his succcss. Wal miki leaves Lady Carolinic and the world she hals built around him when het realizes the destruction of human life hic has brought about through his dishonest posturing and Callousness. The story is ma rrated by Anasuya, a South Indian fricnd of Lady Caroline's. Anasuya is also implicated in the different forms of possession and neo-colonialism Which appcar in the book.
In Shalinar (published nearly twa inly years after Passessior), neo-colonization comes to a South Indian fishi Ing willage in the form of a Western company (Tull by in old BitiLish colloIhial and a younger well-meaning son of a British colonial family) which has been invited by the Indian government to build a tourist para dise, a Xanadu, a shal imar, at the edge of the village. Again a young village boy quickly growing into Immanhood, Rikki, is the central character of the story. Already educated into thic exotic and in tricate world of the English language by a missionary Couple, Rikki. ends
up becoпning a Illing pool li SWIIIl III ng Ils | Shalimar compl ship with Tully Hollowoodish ijs dant of the ] family whose no tial Tcsidence, של סn IHט שם טL ncy tourist CC old fishing vi burden cd with of the past. Sir II is a tr A PAge to friendship wit liais Officer dian governmen national con better than L. friendship in But his Trie 15 seems hollow. asks Rikki to and a 5 he in W Cork. I this: III Cold family hom ma. El in Charge. a n1ting th Լ. Լ11t: rl if (obliquely, EA Ind Rikki's I if COLIII Lic Will | through his mis and then thro Shalimar, whic) gradual estrang life in the fish a hal unting wag, It rclids ble 5i () Il of Pology: regarding cultui conflict through Colonizal, til, mai to expatriates c own cultures, S[}lựed im buth
Siliwis, a Sch which H1 a 5 to file order to escapi of thc Britis “Путуће Те" ili I 1th THE "ייו 1טיות ח and post-indepe Britain are por of the actil is London suburb. of setting up a for himself an Taising their si country, of World W II y Deighbors, of 1.) the War and

Waiter, a swimfegua Tid and a ructor at the ex. His field. (the somewhat itsetting descenBritish colonial w-in-ruins palaAvalon, happens dge of both the mplex and the llage) is oversymbolic echoes In some ways ibute to Firster's India. Tully's h Heblekar, a between the In[ and the 11 LultiA ly, Sulcic eccl5 he attempts at Forster's novel. hip with Rikki Tully, as hic get a boat built Wites Rikki to osaic inside the ре, гепа I п5 the Tully is still Who rule, even Rikki's willage C., Rikki's e Ilhe West, first isionary teachers ugh Tully and 1 Ica ds to his ement froll his ing village; has 1e quality to it. of the conclu"for". Questions res brought into new folls of aking people inWCn within their a Te left un reInovels. uth Indilm man e to England in : the brutalities Raj, is the of Markanda ya’s sa me title. PreIdent India and rayed but most set in a South In the process 10 Inc in London
ld his wife, of Is in the new living through
with his English sing one son to he other tu a in
English daughter-in-law, Sriniwas comes to think of England as his country, After thic death of his wife he is befrieded by an English woman. The two live together, protect each oth cr and learn to respect each other's cultural idiosyncrasies. When ugly racial prejudice becomes an overt part of London in the 60s, Stini was becomes thc target of his bigoted neighbors' xiolent hatred and loses both his life and his home.
Carefully constructed places of residence: houses, palatial abodes, hotels, hotels and ashTams; places which are alive with busy families, places which have fallen in ruin or places which are in the process of being built, figure prominantly in the Works of Saltha Ra III: Riau, Kanala Markan daya and Bharati Mukherjee. These are not merely backdrops or settings for the narratives. They are integral parts of the South Asian protagonists' lives as they seek refuge from the assaults by different cultures, struggle to understand their cul
tural dile:Inmas and even face some of their most horrifying tragedies.
The obvious place to start discussion of this recurrent tif is, corse, With the titles of Santha Ramal Raul's
works - Horne to India, East of Hone and Rerriember the House. Bc they fiction or autobiogr:l- phy, the sic works speak of returning to the security of wellknown houses after long absences, of Visiting important political figures and close family friends in their homes, of trying to find a new home in the ancestral country, and of remembering a beloved but long lost holic.
At the beginning of Horne to Iridji Santha Rama Riau is wellcorned by her paternal grandIn other at the entrance of the fa Inily home.
My grandmother's house was
ia Colaba, the extreme end
of the island of Bombay. On both sides of the drive up to the house there were
great banks of wet, dark, tro
25

Page 28
pical plants and bushes. The holl WS were sticamy and lined with hibiscus inflower. We drove past the tennis court, which was covered with green slime, for it had been flooded for the last few months of the monsoon... The
house its clf was largc and White. Inside it was cool and dark. The bamboo mat
ting had been dawn across the verandas. There was the monotonous son ind of the fans in Cvery room... We were not guests or visitors; we might
have been away for a vегy long time but now we had Icturned restoring normalcy
to the family and taking up
Cour neglccted positions init.
Later in the day when Santha Rama Ral and her Sister, Premila, are in their own Γτίμ Π1, they open the French doors The sun and heat which stream in are, of cours e, followed by the pigeons. The two y Colling WOT1Cl H Te stunned as the Pigeons fly around, perch on the rafters and fill the room With their sounds. When their grandmother comes in she finds
her two Westernized granddaughters still staring at the pigeons.
"The C seem to be pigeons in the room,' Premila said patiently,
"Their nest is up in the rafters.'" Said gt and mother']. "You always keep pi gcoins in your rooms?" "Only here. They will not build on the ground floor." "Isn't it sometimes a little
i Ti convenient?" "Not at all.' She added Pointedly, "They deserve the
shelter as much as we do.'" "Besides," my grandmother Said With a di 5tinct twinkle, "Y Colul I light halwe been a pigeon in your last birth.' That apparently settled it. The book concludes with the author's decision to leave India again, this time to learn about democracy in America. She returns to her grandparents' home to bid them fare, e.
The day before I left Bombay I drove out to Colaba to say
2
good-bye to and grandfal see med empti PITC-II 01 SOOI the lizards they clustere the Wälls II My grand not ed a Small protection . . IIC ft T a II
it to task when America. . . . CELIle Out of le a ning on shook hands
and gracious me solemnly tCTS I AI Teld lbllt them to pictures." Different typ belonging to c Scit il diffe Tent the continuity family and cul in Bharati Mu Thic Cate]]|i-Co On Chowringhce cuttit, which Cribes as " ". . . universe. Gray . . . With the Č0 my wherc E tica in earlier d guarded by a Till II. . . . whilot S Out in the ci ls to the Calcut daughter, Tara Wright. It is a Tara spends nic in Calcutta wi and new acqua after this introl transported to the house of Hari Lal Baner: 1879. We retur ad tle Cit Hotel terrace w the important book takes pl where Tär wat taking place in Calcutta.
The fire which home in Canad; Conce of the mu both Bharati Clark Blaise for to Wisit India.

my grandmother cI . . . TH ec houl 5e Crand dark. The heat hadi sent into the rooms; | Fotionless om :ar the ceiling. hcr had de coraimage for my She looked at g time and told xpect a Il ca sier returned from My grandfather an inner Tool a stick . . . He with me slowly ly and warned about the gangsrica. "I have them lind seen in the motion
es of Tesidence 5, lifferent people, countries, reveal Cor disruption of | tural traditions khcTjce's works. intinental Hotc. | Avcı ule in CLI1Mukherjee de 5the in a well of the and imposing first floor baluropeans drank ecadcs . . . now turbaned young In all riots break ty,' introduces ta of the tiger's Bancrjee Cart: this hotel that ist of her time ith her friends intances. Soon uction, we are the terrace of Tara's ancestor, |ee, in the year 1 to the 1960s elli-Continental There T 1 Luch of action of thc ace and from hes the action the streets of
destroyed their
a is given as in reasons by Mukherjee and
their decision It was this
carries on his friendship
visit which eventually resulted in their book, Days and Nights ir Caci II. Both of them dicscribe the homes they visit and stay in while in Bombay and Calcutta. But their main home during this visit is Ramakrishna Mission in Culcutta.
Dimple Basu (Wife), transported to New York, does not cwen have the security of a home of her own. The Basus move from one apartment to another in which Dimple spends her Ioney, confused days surrounded by other peoples' belongings.
In Markandaya's Possession, the huts of Walmiki's willage, the swami's cave covered with the brilliant paintings by the untu torcd villagc aTtist and the powerty of Walmiki’s family home are all contrasted with the luxurious hotels and the sumptuous house which are Lady Caroline's, and later Walmiki's, places of domicile.
In Sha livrar, Rikki studies at the small house of the missionairy couple, a house which is in a constant state of disrepair; lives in his foster family's hut which can be Tethatched and even moved when inccessary, a hut which sees the advent of clicctricity; works at Shalimar, learning how to mix drinks and teaching tourists to swim in the swimming pool which he, bred to the occan, finds highly a musing; and with Tully at Avalon which Tully is trying to restore.
But it is in The No Pere Mfar that this comparison of houses,
the incessant appearances of homes, the leaving of old homes and the Scttling down into new homes, is presented most vividly by Markan daya, Srinivas had helped to build the family home in South India when he was still a
young boy. This house is ransacked and torn a part by soldiers, undcr the orders of a British officer who is searching for underground freedom fighters. Srinivas' young bride-tobe is physically insulted by thic officer at this tine, ST iniiwas

Page 29
Tepairs the da magic done to his house. But later in attempting to protect his father, he gets involved in a confrontation with the governor-general and has to escape to England,
In London, his South Indian Wife insists on their buying a gaunt, two-storey house with an eye to the future when, accor
ding to tradition, their two sons and their families would Inake their homes with thclin,
a dream which is not fulfilled in this new land with different traditions, It is this house which shelters Srinivas and his English companion and which a neighbor sets on fire as his personal contribution to racial hatred.
Srinivas' life in South India is presented to us in a flashback which opens with the Simple statement. There wa the house, then in which they all lived' (p. 99). And whi describing house and searching for festivals to celebrate in the London house with his con. panion, Mrs. Pickcring, SriniW Els tclls her,
'One does not realize . . . . When One leaves one's coun. try how much is chopped off illud left behind too. The inconsiderables the physical features of houses, the fest. Wills), which one does not even think of at the time, which are in fact important.
To return to Santha Rama Rau, most of her Works un fortu Etely Tead like an irritating travelogue, as though they were attempts to present an "exotic" culture to a Western audience. But when she begins to explore the inner landscapes of the relationships within these houses - and even between houses - she ceases to be the correct, rather stilted tour guide. The return to family homes is presented as an attempt to 마 back to and settle down into traditional appointed places in the larger context of the filmily in India. The author is unable to do this in Hong to India. In East of Home her travels through different Asian countries and her experiences in the
horines, hotels people of thes her a sense to Asian, cwen i; nized Asian. for f f e Folge nize her role cictly after he visiting Wester thcy hawe set her stay with at the ancestra India.
The houses Mukherjee's TV: and Day and El Te Set it 1 d. Indian history, exliberal Ice of LLIT II to India i optimis L1 of th, dia's independei jee's Works the and family hoi bewildering. A til build Ille w St. rica II lives and and Darkness o Sality ald violet te T5 Temid on formers a comb TÜ pe Walk cris and Els they search || familiar, places as their hole. for compromise: Cultures, the y tr tÕ lh cji [ 1 We fo and friends who become strangers tra is Cend the is a foreigner not Coll Intry but also cultures. Most
to, fiil al Id Wye Asian Americans dily" unravelled, Wounded on the Cultural complex flicts.
In Matkanday the expatriate from his British hy hone to a England and the hut and his sw: South India, Ir Mari Markanday Inain, Sri Illival 5, w significance of hones, but who in India and b and his lific in

ind inns of the countries gives heir5 elf as a it be a Westeralba in RefFerF2 - able to recogher own 50experience of crs in the houses p in India and er grandmother hone in South
and homes of Tiger's Daughter Wigh rs in Calciutra Fferent time of Gone is the &āmā Räu'5, TcIn 1939 and the advent of In|ce. In Mukherreturn to India nes is painfully ld the attempt luth Asian Annehomes in life ten lead to inlice. Her charac: of circus perination of tighti trapeze artists, For secure, eWel they can clair As they look between their y to hold on r their family scern to have 3. They try to plation of being only in another in their own of these attensee these South biccini Int: L1 In llicaught and sharp edges of itics illud cun
'a's Posses for, Wallmiki noves patron's Wealpoorer life in in back to his Lili's cavc in The No fiere а рог trays a ho realizes the houses, and los es his home oth his hone England. In
Shalimar, the building of a tou
rist para dise and the restoring of an old British home seem futile. At the same time they are a threat to the fishing villagers. Only the ocean and the land which can not be taken over by cither the old or the incw colonizers Icmail un cluttered and strong.
These homes and houses, hotels and ashrams, presented either as objects of nostalgia, Tılınclı ories to be held on to in times of perplexing changes, or as sinister cages in unknown tcrritories, could be scen as symbols of thc three Writers' attempts to explore the world of immigrants and expatriates, the World of the writers the 11Sclwes.
One way of coming to terms with the confusion, the hcartbreak, the courage and the humor of the South Asiam immigrant cxperience, especially in America, may best be expressed by Bharati Mukherjee in her Introduction to Darkness:
If you have to wondicir, if you keep looking for signs, if you wait - surrendering little bits of reluctant self every year, clutching thc souvenirs of an ever-retreating past — you’ll new er b clong, anywhere ... I have joined imaginative forces with an anonymous, driven, underclass of se Thias similated Indians with sentimental attachments to a distant holle land but no real desire for permanent
return. I see my 'immigrant' story replicated in a dozen American cities, and instead
of seeing my Indianness as a fragile identity to be preserved against ob lilleration (or worse, a visible' disfigurement to be hidden), I See it in W. El 5 a 5 et of fluid identities to be celebrated.
Or as Srinivas, an alien in the eyes of others, a focus of cultural tensions and the target of racial violence, the "nowhicre Iman," best describocs himself and nost of the cha Tacters we have been looking at, "they are homeless, not rootless."
27

Page 30
Ace Radio Cab
28
LETTER
Մduppfddy
was a mused at the obserWations made by Sachi Sri Kantha or the in Westigative article 'Who was Siwarajan?
Written by D. B. S. Jayaraj. hawe Observed many a time that Sachi has a tendency to challenge and contradict the wiews of Other writars, without having grasped What they were Saying.
First, Jayaraj, in his article meant Uduppiddy village only
Briefly. . .
(Corri'r Fe'i frig i'r Page ] ] red families are reported to be leaving Jaffna daily. The LT TE ha5 de Thanded a tax of three gold sovereigns for a per Tit to reside in Jaffna.
EPF THREATEMED SAWYSG CFL
The "Ceylon Federation of Labour has petitioned the Suprema Court that a Social
* Computerised Tneters
" No call up charae with in city limits '
" Can be Summoned to yo
and mot Uduppi as mertidormed bli agreeing with political star Wii S Sivasia ti, F. F. Dār LSSP was dr SLIpport imii h is r Willag.
Sachi Says t age is too Sma porter of a pol is irrele wat t.
when many a fighting in LTT R. F. D. här'TT1ã
LSSP did cote
Security Bee away the Pr benefits of e CFL has sough that the till
With the COG
COCOM AD LTE
Coconшt p and exporters
that 50 per c
WCC
'... Receipts issued on request Company credit ava Call E[] 15D? ED 1503 Ճr
ệAset L.
nother Aitken Spence
 
 

iddy electorate general election in Uduppiddy y Sachi. While where he confronted another Sachi that 'the United Front candidata Pon. of Uduppiddy' Kumarasamy, of the C.P. Of på råm at that CDUr53 the LSSP and tha Commaratnam of the munist Party ignored the issue a Wing Size abla simply becausa they |1É վET lative Udupiddy believed in winning a seat in
the Nort
hat 12 years of May our learned friend Sachi to be a sup- Stop and think twice before itical party. That rushing in to find fault with day at a time others, and show his 'great
12 year old is knowledge"
E TEKS. Р. Қirшpan anthап ratnam of the Karanavai North, st in the 1977 Wawel titra
fits bill takes oil ii r the market is : BdLI | teİdet FLIrı rated. Large quantities of re
ı ployegas. The iit a declaration firmed, bl Bached and i deodori
is in consistent sed palm olein aro imported titut IDI). and mixed with coconut oil, a Sp) 0 ke ST13 IT t.) Id tha: || Said, This is a result of the governUT OL
ment drastically reducing the
;RATED import duty on palm oleil |arh ters illers and other vegetable oils; a hawe alleged fut här reduction is Coltelent of CO,COrl LIt plated, they say,
un rido o rst 2 () cess from selected stands
lable
501 5Ս4

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Knight
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To Provide Financi
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Give your child one of the n in life -
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BANK OF
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al Security to your
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CEYLON
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lost important things
ie future.
u thought about it.
hid's security tomorrow.
CEYLON
THE WATIOW