The solution

[tharinda07]

The solution​

​

Finally what is the solution we offer to the so called ethnic problem? In order to have a solution it is necessary to have a problem. The so called ethnic problem is nothing but a problem due to the unwillingness of the English speaking Jaffna Vellala Tamils to recognise the significance of the Sinhala Buddhist culture, instigated by the British. The Vellalas inspired and instigated by the British wanted to become the leaders of the country by creating a mythical history going back to thousands of years. However, these Vellalas were brought to Sri Lanka by the Dutch for their tobacco cultivations only after 1650 and the Tamils in Sri Lanka do not have a continuous history going back to any time before that year. The Vellalas had been taken by the Dutch to South Africa at about the same time they were brought to Sri Lanka and are referred to as agricultural labourers in that country. In Sri Lanka the Vellalas have achieved a position in society that was not possible for them to realize in South Africa. Sri Lanka and South Africa have inherited Roman Dutch Law and the Vellalas as a result of the Dutch occupation.​

Now let us look into the history of the Tamils in Sri Lanka. What is the origin of the present Tamil population in Sri Lanka and in Jaffna in particular? Before the Vellalas were brought by the Dutch who populated the Jaffna peninsula? Before the Dutch the Portuguese ruled this area who conquered it by the name of the Arya Chakravarthins. There is no evidence to show that the Arya Chakravarthins were Tamils as there had not been a Tamil ethnic community in the twelfth, thirteenth centuries in any part of the world. The use of Tamil as a language does not necessarily imply the existence of an ethnic community by that name whether in India or Sri Lanka or any other place. The pundits who take extra care to show that Aryan refers to a language group and not an ethnic community should take this into consideration. In Dambadiva or Bharath there were no ethnic communities as such and kingdoms were identified by the vansa of the kings. From ancient times we know of Sakya, Liccavi, Maurya, Chera, Pandya, Soli, and Pallava kings but not of ethnic communities. Also various languages and dialects have been used to identify groups of people but not their ethnicity. As a result Tamil speaking people have been ruled by Pandya, Soli, Pallava kings and conversely Pallavas and others have ruled over various other communities speaking different languages. The kings were not identified with the community ruled by them and there was no one to one correspondence between the vansa of the kings and their subjects. Even if the language spoken by the Arya Chakravarthins was Tamil there is no evidence to show that the people who lived in the Jaffna peninsula in the thirteenth century spoke Tamil let alone them being identified as a Tamil ethnic community.​

In the case of the Sinhalas it had been different from the days of king Pandukabhaya. It was king Pandukabhaya who did away with the vansas of kings and gothras of peoples and established a nation that came to be called the Sinhalas who not only had a common language, a common culture, a common king who spoke the language of the people (unlike the earlier kings of England who spoke French) and a common way of life. There was a one to one correspondence between the king and his people and the large number of inscriptions by the kings found all over the island in Sinhala bear ample testimony to this fact. Perhaps there were only two nation states in whole of the ancient world that being the Sinhalas and the Chinese. How many inscriptions in Tamil can be found in the Jaffna peninsula? The absence of such inscriptions in general implies that either the kings did not speak Tamil or the people did not speak Tamil. In either case it is wrong to say that the kingdom of the Arya Chackravarthins was a Tamil kingdom.​

The Sinhala people previously comprised of kings of different vansas and people of different gothras, and we may infer that the kings belonging to the SinhaVansa gave the name Sinhala to the new nation. We may conclude from all these and the story on Pandukabhaya that the king Pandukabhaya belonged to the Sinha Vansa but had the support of the yaksha gothra beside that of the nagas and the devas living in the country at that time. It is not necessary to give Pandukabhaya a yaksha birth as some people try to do in order to explain the origin of the Sinhala nation. It is very unlikely a yaksha king would have given the name Sinhala to the nation he established and those who talk of the yaksha beginnings of the king have had to resort to fancy interpretations to the word Sinhala in the process.​

As Prof. Indrapala had noted before he became a "prisoner" of the Tamil terrorists, there were no permanent Tamil settlements in Sri Lanka before the twelfth century meaning of course settlements of people who spoke Tamil as a language and not of an ethnic community as such. Tamils in this period even in India did not constitute an ethnic group but a group of people speaking the Tamil language. The population of the Jaffna peninsula when the Arya Chakravarthins came to Jaffna would have been Sinhala with some Velakkaras who spoke Malayalam. The Arya Chakravarthins would have established a Vassal state under the king of Sinhale that being the kingdom of the Sinhala people and the Sinhala king, and ruled over the Sinhalas and the Velakkaras. It is very likely that the Arya Chakravarthins followed the pattern of the Dambadiva or Bharat kings and established a Vansa kingdom though under the Sinhala king rather than a nation state or even a gothra state. There would not have been any one to one correspondence between the kings and the people and until the Dutch brought the Tamils for their tobacco cultivation there would not have been many Tamil speaking people in the Jaffna peninsula. When Vijaya and other kings of Sinha and other vansas came to Sri Lanka they also would have established their little kingdoms in the same manner most probably following a system that the Aryans began. It was this Bharat or Dambadiva tradition that all these rulers had brought to Sri Lanka at various times without taking into consideration that in Sri Lanka already gothra or national kingdoms (after king Pandukabhaya) had been established. In a gothra kingdom the king or the ruler belonged to the same gothra of the people whom he ruled and it was most probably this tradition that inspired king Pandukabhaya to establish a nation state after defeating some other princes who belonged either to the Sinha or the Sakya vansas. Pandukabhaya did not create a so called feudal kingdom uniting all the gothra kingdoms as some pundits who can look at the world only through the spectacles of the westerners claim, but established what we may call a nation state, though not on the western Christian modernity model, following the model of the gothra kingdoms which were in this part of the world before the Aryans and hence the Dravidians came to what is now known as South Asia.​

After the Arya Chakravarthins lost to the Portuguese nothing significant would have happened to the population pattern in the Jaffna peninsula until the Dutch brought the Tamil speaking Vellalas for the tobacco cultivation. There would have been a Sinhala population with Vellakaras and may be a few Tamil speaking people. The Vellalas in Sri Lanka managed to organise themselves as the leading cast among the population as farmers and not as agricultural labourers, sometime after they had permanently settled down in Jaffna. This itself is different from the caste system (Varna) in Bharath where Brahmins are the leading cast. It is clear that the Vellalas have been influenced by the Sinhala society after the Europeans especially the British came to this country in which goigama cast was given preference. Also I am told that the Tamil spoken by the Tamils in Jaffna is not very much different from that spoken in Tamil Nadu and the separation of the two languages does not differ by more than three hundred and fifty years. The Thesavalamai was codified by the Dutch in 1707 to prevent the agricultural labourers going back to India after the harvest and together with Prof. Indrapala’s earlier observation that there were no permanent Tamil (speaking) settlements in Sri Lanka before the twelfth century it is not difficult to argue that the origin of the Tamils in Sri Lanka is very much closer to the twentieth century than many people try to figure out. After the Vellalas settled down permanently, with their majority in Jaffna they would have established a Tamil speaking community with the Sinhalas and the Velakkaras who had been living there becoming different casts of the Tamil speaking community. It may be that they formed into an "ethnic community" of some sort and not only a population speaking Tamil language following the Sinhala people who had by that time lived as a nation for more than two thousand years, during the British period. In any event it was the British who created the Tamil ethnic group by identifying them as a nation. The British first considered the Sinhalas and Tamils as the two majority nations to undermine the Sinhalas but when they realised that it was ridiculous to call the Tamils a majority nation they created the concepts of majority and minority nations and called the Tamils a minority. In any event it was the British who introduced the concept of ethnicity to people other than the Sinhalas, in Sri Lanka as well as in India and the only people who had been conscious of the fact of being a nation before the British introduced this concept in the region were the Sinhalas.​

(To be continued)




By Nalin de Silva
http://www.island.lk/2009/06/10/midweek3.html
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[Scarface]

The British first considered the Sinhalas and Tamils as the two majority nations to undermine the Sinhalas but when they realised that it was ridiculous to call the Tamils a majority nation they created the concepts of majority and minority nations and called the Tamils a minority. In any event it was the British who introduced the concept of ethnicity to people other than the Sinhalas, in Sri Lanka as well as in India and the only people who had been conscious of the fact of being a nation before the British introduced this concept in the region were the Sinhalas.

suddo thama thani kara waga kiyanna onne...para ballo

 

[tharinda07]

suddo thama thani kara waga kiyanna onne...para ballo

for more datails-
Prabhakaran Ohuge Seeyala, Bappala ha Massinala :: Must Read


http://www.elakiri.com/forum/showthread.php?t=198640&highlight=prabakaran+ohuge

 

[sudunone]

Westerners created problems and our kalu suddo continued that tradition.
Thanks for this information.

 

[lolipro]

nice post macho....

 

[bigbuddy]

Nice one ,good

 

[tharinda07]

The solution II
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by Nalin de Silva
http://www.island.lk/2009/06/17/midweek2.html

The British who created the Tamil ethnic group did not have a clear idea as to what a nation was. That is why they called both the Sinhalas and Tamils as nations whether majority or minority. The infamous Leghorn Minute refers to two nations the Tamils who came from present Tamil Nadu and the Sinhala nation that had origins in Siam, or Thailand. The Minute is wrong on both counts but the Tamil racists even today hang on to the two nation concept perhaps knowing very well that the Leghorn Minute is wrong both conceptually and factually or concepto factually. (The term concepto factually has been used in order to reveal that facts are not sacred and that they depend on concepts and theories). Though there had been a Sinhala nation from the days of Pandukabhaya there had not been even a Tamil ethnic group either in India or Sri Lanka before the British occupied these regions. There had been only Tamil speaking groups before the British introduced ethnicity into the conceptual framework and in Sri Lanka if one wants to make use of the term Tamil speaking people to include the Muslims with reference to so called devolution of power then it is clear that the term Tamil ethnic group cannot be used to devolve power.


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The British erroneously called the Tamils a major nation first and then again erroneously called them a minority nation though the Tamils had not been even an ethnic group either here or in India before the British came. As we have said in many articles which the Tamil racists conveniently ignore, the British having created a Tamil minority nation and hence an ethnic community (not in the terminology of nation state of the western Christian modernity) instigated the English speaking Tamils against the Sinhala nation especially the Sinhala Buddhist people, helped them to create a bogus history with two independent states, a Tamil state in the North and a Sinhala state in the so called South. The English civil servant Leghorn was again the culprit who identified one of the Dutch Judicial divisions as the region of the kingdom of the Tamil nation. Based on these errors it is claimed by Tamil racists that there were two kingdoms of two nations namely the Sinhalas and the Tamils when the Europeans came to the country, the English after 1815 united these two kingdoms and established a unitary state for the first time in the island, but when the English went back the so called Tamil kingdom was not given back to the Tamils but was given to the "Sinhala imperialists". The Tamil racists further claimed that the original Tamil state had to be liberated from the "Sinhala Imperialists" and Prabhakaran took up arms in order to establish the Tamil Elam.


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It has to be remembered that the Leghorn Minute, not a "scholarly study" but just a minute by a mere English civil servant, was discovered only later in the so called struggle to liberate the "Tamil State" from the "Sinhala Chauvinists". At the beginning the Tamil racist movement was instigated by the British to acquire power at the centre so that the Tamil Vellalas could become the leaders of the country. The resignation of Ponnambalam Arunachalam over the representation of the western province Tamils in the legislature, his formation of the Thamil Maha Sabai the first racist organization to be formed in the country, fifty fifty proposal by G. G. Ponnambalam which could have made the Sinhala members a minority in the state council were all attempts by the Tamil racists to become the leaders of the country without allowing the Sinhala elite to become the leaders. The British governors connived with the English speaking Tamil elite in this exercise as the British had an inherent hatred against the Sinhala Buddhists from the very beginning.


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The biggest mistake the British did in this country was giving universal franchise without realizing what was in store for them. It may be that the British had an enormous faith in the leadership that they had created for the Sinhala people and never anticipated the fifty six or two thousand five nearly fifty years after fifty six. Perhaps they were encouraged by the "defeat" of Anagarika Dharmapalathuma by the nobodies who became somebodies in the beginning of the twentieth century. These somebodies were the result of western education that the British imparted through their schools and the economy that they had introduced after the so called Colebrook reformations. They were not reforms as such but proposals that propagated the western Christian culture (through schools), laid the foundation of the western Christian economy demolishing the Rajakari system which was identified as a feudal system by the British "Scholars", and established the western Christian political structures. In short Colebrook and Cameron replaced the Sinhala Buddhist way of life with western Christian modernity breaching the Sinhala British agreement of 1815 which was named the Kandyan Convention by the British. We have to be freed from Colebrook and his colleague Cameron if we are to achieve independence.​

The British would have had full confidence in the somebodies who had accepted the western Christian culture as the dominant culture in the country though some of them would have remained as Buddhists in religion. It has to be emphasized that a "Buddhist" can adopt the western Christian way of life and accept the dominance of the western Christian culture. The leaders who were given to the Sinhala Buddhists by the British were the nobodies or those who were Sinhala Buddhists by culture who had become Obamas (somebodies) by becoming Christians of western Christian modernity by culture. These so called leaders were acceptable to the British just as much Obama is acceptable to the white Americans, and the British had expected them to deliver the goods for them. Anagarika Dharmapalathuma the Sinhala Buddhist leader was defeated by these Obamas of yesteryear, and the British police officers in Sri Lanka and the governors considered him to be a spent force. It is said in the reports prepared by these officials when Anagarika Dharmapalathuma addressed meetings after he had come back from India only a few workers in the harbour and some students from Ananda College came to listen to him.


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The British must have thought that the somebodies who defeated Anagarika Dharmapalathuma were able to crush the nationalist movement and that there would be no threat from the Sinhala Buddhists to western Christian modernity. They gave universal franchise to the Sri Lankans thinking that the nationalist movement was all over. They had their Obama in the form of D. S. Senanayake who had become a western Christian by culture though he remained a Buddhist by religion. Not only that Senanayake was acceptable to the British, he was seen by them as a person who would not completely break away from the British empire. (The Marxists were not nationalists and except for schoolboy type adventures like the Bracegirdle incident they were not a threat to the empire. As far as the British were concerned the Marxists, especially the Trotskyites who opposed the war became a nuisance only during the so called second world war.) However,l the British should have worried of Senanayake, a Sinhala person becoming the leader of the "nation", even if he was one of their creations, instead of a Tamil. The Tamils especially the Ponnambalam – Coomaraswamy family had led the Sri Lankans from the third quarter of the nineteenth century making the Burghers to leave the stage gradually with their aborted Ceylonese nationalism. The British did not properly understand what they had done by giving universal franchise as they were under the impression that the Sinhala nationalist movement was dead.


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[bigbuddy]

nice post....

 

[tharinda07]

The solution – III
(The two paradigms) ​

By Nalin de Silva
http://www.island.lk/2009/06/24/midweek2.html

I shall not deviate too much from my main theme to respond to Mr. K. Sivakumaran, who appears to think that I am anti-Tamil or do not have a "soft corner" for the Tamils in Sri Lanka. I have more than a "soft corner" for the Tamils as well as all the other ethnic communities in Sri Lanka and I respect them as citizens of the country. However, I do not keep silent when people misrepresent "facts" especially in the interests of the British and the other westerners who are out to dominate not only the Sinhalas but the Tamils, Muslims and others as well. At present the Brits are supporting the Tamils simply because they think that can use the latter to weaken if not destroy the Sinhala Buddhist culture, but if they succeed then they (Brits) will train their guns on the Tamils. I have "facts" which are neither sacred nor independent of theories, concepts etc., as in the case of the "facts" of others as well, to show that Tamils in Sri Lanka do not have a continuous history going back to a date not before the thirteenth century but before the seventeenth century.​

The Vellalas in Jaffna as well as in Natal, South Africa were brought to the respective districts by the Dutch, and could somebody explain how the former became the dominant cast in the Sri Lankan Tamil community surpassing the other castes if there were any Tamil settlements in Sri Lanka at the time the Dutch brought them. Why there is no dominant Brahmin caste among the Hindu Tamils in Sri Lanka, unlike in the case of Hindus all over India from North to South, from Nehrus to Jeyalalithas, is a related question that needs an answer. Then, of course, the close relationship between Tamil spoken in Jaffna and in Chennai or in Madurai for that matter has to be understood.​

If Sri Lankan Tamils had come at a very early era then the languages spoken in the two regions could not have been that close. In any event, the artefacts found in ancient Sri Lanka or ancient Bharath or Dambadiva including those in Mohenjadaro or Harappa should not be identified as Dravidian. They could be identified as non-Aryan for want of a better term as the term indigenous with all the connotations that it has acquired over the years is inappropriate.​

The Dravidians just as much the Aryans were not an ethnic group and it is agreed by the historians and the archaeologists that the Aryans had come to Dambadiva before the Dravidians. The non-Aryans included various tribes such as Naga, Deva and Yaksha, who had a Persian connection, and we have to remind ourselves that matrilineal society was not a prerogative of the Dravidians. The tendency to identify any matrilineal society in South Asia with Dravidians cannot be justified. It is based also on the assumption that that non-Aryan implies Dravidian and when writing the history of the Tamils these "facts" also should be taken into consideration.​

Of course, I have no hesitation to state that the Sinhala Buddhist culture is the significant culture of the country, not the dominant culture as stated by Mr. Sivakumaran, and to demand that the Tamils and the other ethnic communities accept this "fact". It is the non acceptance of this "fact" that has led to the so-called ethnic problem of the country and even very recently I am told that at a certain function in the Northern Province the national anthem had been sung in Tamil in the presence of none other person than Mr. Basil Rajapaksa! I do not know whether Mr. Rajapaksa tolerated this nonsense in the name of reconciliation but there are certain things in governance that cannot be compromised even if one has a soft corner for ethnic minorities. Imagine singing the national anthem of Britain in Tamil in Wembley in London in the presence of David Miliband or the national anthem of Canada in Tamil in Scarborough in Toronto in the presence of Bob Rae. If the Tamil Sri Lankans living in the former white commonwealth can accept that various forms of Anglo Saxon Christian culture are the dominant just not the significant culture of the respective country why cannot they accept that the Sinhala Buddhist culture is the significant culture of Sri Lanka, while retaining their ethnic identity. The day all the communities, including some "enlightened" Sinhala Buddhists, in Sri Lanka accept this "fact" the so-called ethnic problem would be over.​

When discussing the Tamil problem in Sri Lanka there are two paradigms that are involved. The first is the usual western Christian modernity paradigm based on which the most well known "story" is woven. It says the following among others: "The Sinhala people and the ‘Sinhala government’ have discriminated against the Tamils since 1956, and the injustices caused against the Tamils became their grievances. SJV Chelvanayakam fought non violently against these injustices but the ‘Sinhala government’ instead of giving a sympathetic ear, crushed violently the peaceful movements of the Tamils led by Chelvanayakam. Chelvanayakam and the other leaders had no option but to demand and fight for a separate state in the northern and the eastern provinces. The youth led by Prabhakaran, Uma Maheswaran had resorted to violence when they realised that Chelvanayakam and the other Tamil leaders were not doing much to liberate the Tamils from the ‘yoke of the Sinhala government’." In 1976 the demand for a separate state was adopted as a resolution at Vadukodai and Prabhakaran grabbed leadership for that struggle, very often killing the other leaders who affectionately called him "thambi" and the terrorists as our boys initially. Thus the proponents of this "story" justify the taking up of arms by Prabhakaran and in a sense they, too, are responsible for the murders committed by the LTTE, even though it may be only indirectly.​

There are several auxiliaries associated with this "story". It is said that the Tamils in Sri Lanka had been there from the days of Vijaya, if not from the days of Ravana, and the northern and eastern provinces have been the so-called homeland of Tamils. Yet another auxiliary is that the Tamils had been living in Sri Lanka from time immemorial, if not from sixth century BC, and that even the king Devanampiya Tissa or Thesam was a Tamil. After Buddhism was introduced, according to this auxiliary, some of the Tamils had become Buddhists and then Sinhalas by inventing the Sinhala language based on Pali (the mirror image of the "theory" of Kumarathumga Munidasa as far as the invention of Pali by the Bhikkus in Mahavira is concerned). If this auxiliary is correct then the Tamils who had become Sinhalas had pushed the remaining Tamils to the northern and the eastern provinces. In any event these auxiliaries are essential to "establish" that there is a Tamil "homeland" in the northern and the eastern provinces, as without them a separate state in those two provinces could not be "justified".​

However, the irony is that these two provinces were finally demarcated by the British only in 1889 and not during the days of Ravana or "Devanampiya Thesam". Incidentally, how many Thesams could be found among the Tamil Sri Lankans at present and how many Thissas could be found among the Sinhalas even today. It appears that Thesams have given up the name of the "traitors" while the "traitors" had stuck to the name of the original "traitor" for more than two thousand years.​

There are so many other contradictions in this ‘story’ and the auxiliaries which have been dealt previously and I am not interested in repeating them ad nauseam. The "homeland theory" can be easily demolished with data supplied by Prof. G. H. Peiris in his research papers. The "homeland theory" was also based on the Leghorn Minute which we discussed last week. The late Gamini Iriyagolla adequately dealt with the Leghorn Minute and some so-called historical ‘facts’ and it is a waste of time to repeat them here. Anybody interested is referred to the publications by the late Iriyagolla, who had also referred to an agreement between the Arya Chakravarthins and the Portuguese in Sinhala and Portuguese. We could say that this ‘fact, implies that for all purposes the "official language" in the Arya Chakravarthi kingdom was Sinhala. (To be continued)​

​

 

[tharinda07]

The solution IV​

by Nalin de Silva​

It is unfortunate that a series of weekly articles each confined to about 1300 words on a single theme cannot be written as invariably there would be distracting snippets by "distinguished" and respected" "scholars" and others that need immediate responses. This series on the solution has to give some space this week to respond to Dr. H. L. Seneviratne who is respected by Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka. In fact Dr. Seneviratne refers to an article by Dr. Jayatilleka on his late father Mr. Mervyn de Silva where according to the former "the best answer" to the "bevy of writers" who have asked what the problem of the Tamils that demands a "political solution". The recognition of "scholars" worldwide is generally on a reciprocal basis and I have no grudge against "respected scholars" as these descriptions are relative. In any event Dr. Jayatilleka does not quote his father but merely states "At the same time Mervyn would stress that the issue of the alienation of the Tamil people and the complex challenge of accommodating Tamil ethnic identity within the Sinhala fears and ancient memories emphatically do not lend themselves to a military solution". In spite of Dr. Jayatilleka’s reference to "Sinhala Bushiness", Dr. H. L. Seneviratne fails to identify the injustices that are caused to the Tamils merely because they are Tamils. The closest he comes is a statement that late Mr. Mervyn de Silva would have made according to Dr. Jayatilleka on the so called alienation of the Tamils. I wish the sociologist Seneviratne elaborated or developed on this theme and was more specific on it for the benefit of others who are trying to identify the illusive Tamil grievances.​

The statement that the Tamils are alienated cannot be attributed to either late Mr. Mervyn de Silva or Dr. Jayatilleka as the latter is only stating that the former would have stressed this point within a complex of ideas. However, since Dr. Seneviratne quotes it with approval we have to request him to provide us with the necessary explanations. Could he identify these Tamil persons who are "alienated" in Sri Lanka? Is it a recent phenomenon or does it have a history? Incidentally are the Sri Lankan professors in USA an alienated lot? What recognition they have in the American Christian culture, which is a variety of Anglo Saxon Christian culture, which is the dominant culture in that country? Do the Sri Lankan professors in USA belong to the dominant culture in that country? In any event did the non English speaking Tamil people feel alienated at the beginning of the twentieth century? If so from what were they alienated? Did the non English speaking Sinhalas, especially the non English speaking Sinhala Buddhists feel that they were alienated from the government in the early part of the twentieth century? If at the beginning of the twentieth century the English speaking Tamils did not feel themselves alienated from the British Raj (when I say the English speaking Tamils I mean the majority, obviously not including the few who opposed the British Raj) how did they become or feel alienated in the fifties? If Dr. Seneviratne is prepared at answer these questions together with some other questions I had asked him as well as Shanie on supremacy we would be able to engage in some dialogue. Incidentally Shanie who has written on pluralism should clearly define what is meant by the term. Is it pluralism that is found in all the other countries where people of different cultures could live but under the hegemony of a dominant culture such as a variant of the Anglo Saxon Christian culture or something else, and has to be defined unambiguously. Just by repeating catch words such as pluralism supremacy Shanies are not going to achieve anything by trying to fool the Sinhala people. They may be able to carry on their" project" with few Sinhalas such as Dr. H. L. Seneviratne but definitely not with the non English speaking Sinhalas who cannot be fooled.​

We were discussing the two paradigms on which the stories of Tamil racism or the Tamil problem have been woven and had begun to describe the first story based on the Judaic Christian Culture and the Greek Judaic Christian Chinthanaya. The story takes the following form. "Tamils had been living in this country from time immemorial until Arhant Mahinda came to Sri Lanka and "converted". (The Arhant Thero did not come here as a missionary and was not interested in so called conversions unlike the various evangelical organisations that are all out to convert people to various Christian Churches all over the country.) After that the section of the Tamils that became Buddhists created a new "race" speaking a language called Sinhala with the help of Pali and most probably pushed those Tamils already living in the country to the North and the East.​

(The story is not at all clear on this). In any event there was a Tamil kingdom in the northern province (though Tamil ethnicity had not been created by then!) when the Portuguese came to Sri Lanka. The Portuguese captured the Tamil kingdom which was then won over by the Dutch and finally by the British. However, when the British went back (did they?) they did not give back the original Tamil state to the Tamils but to the Sinhala imperialists. The Sinhala imperialists discriminated against the Tamils after 1956 by first making Sinhala the official language then by standardising marks at the G. C. E. A/L examination, by distributing land in the eastern province to the Sinhalas and there by altering the demographic pattern in the eastern province (who established the demographic pattern? Was it a "natural pattern" or an externally imposed pattern? In any event why worry about demographic patterns in provinces created by the British artificially?). S.J. V. Chelvanayakam who had formed the Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (Lanka Tamil State Party) way back in 1949 to establish a separate state as a solution to the discrimination of Tamils by the Sinhalas after 1956 (how did Chelvanayakam know in 1949 of the impending discriminations after 1956?) staged non violent protests (that incited the people to be violent) which were put down violently by the Sinhala state. As a result the innocent Tamil people were forced to take up arms (thus justifying Prabhakaran, the other violent leaders and all the murders committed by these terrorist groups including the LTTE) and for thirty years fought with the Sinhala army to be free from the yoke of Sinhala imperialism. According to some Tamil racists Prabhakaran wanted peace and was prepared to negotiate with the Sinhala government but the latter was not sincere in its attempts. Some so called moderates take a different line from this point. According to them people had to be won over from Prabhakaran who wanted an Eelam and for this purpose an alternative to Eelam had to be proposed that could attract the people and also would be a solution to the discriminations against the Tamils by the Sinhala government. The solution that has been proposed is devolution of power to enable the Tamils to look after their affairs in their homeland in the northern and eastern provinces which the Sinhala extremists have opposed from the very beginning."​

This story is full of contradictions and just like the fairy tales with contradictions which are not understood by the babies is good only for one thing. That is to put some English educated Sinhala "scholars" into sleep while the Tamil terrorists prepared for action with the help of the western powers. From an interview given by K Pathmanathan the international rogue and arms supplier to the LTTE it is clear that Solheim (he had given a separate interview to India Today) and some so called international leaders had been in touch with the terrorist leaders including Prabhakaran until the last moment. Pathmanathan is not prepared to divulge the names of the "international leaders" as at present and for this reason alone the west will give all the protection to this terrorist rogue as they would not want a captured Pathmanathan to spill the beans. We will deal with the contradictions of the first story on "Tamil problem" next week.

 

[tharinda07]

The solution IV​

by Nalin de Silva​

http://www.island.lk/2009/07/01/midweek5.html

It is unfortunate that a series of weekly articles each confined to about 1300 words on a single theme cannot be written as invariably there would be distracting snippets by "distinguished" and respected" "scholars" and others that need immediate responses. This series on the solution has to give some space this week to respond to Dr. H. L. Seneviratne who is respected by Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka. In fact Dr. Seneviratne refers to an article by Dr. Jayatilleka on his late father Mr. Mervyn de Silva where according to the former "the best answer" to the "bevy of writers" who have asked what the problem of the Tamils that demands a "political solution". The recognition of "scholars" worldwide is generally on a reciprocal basis and I have no grudge against "respected scholars" as these descriptions are relative. In any event Dr. Jayatilleka does not quote his father but merely states "At the same time Mervyn would stress that the issue of the alienation of the Tamil people and the complex challenge of accommodating Tamil ethnic identity within the Sinhala fears and ancient memories emphatically do not lend themselves to a military solution". In spite of Dr. Jayatilleka’s reference to "Sinhala Bushiness", Dr. H. L. Seneviratne fails to identify the injustices that are caused to the Tamils merely because they are Tamils. The closest he comes is a statement that late Mr. Mervyn de Silva would have made according to Dr. Jayatilleka on the so called alienation of the Tamils. I wish the sociologist Seneviratne elaborated or developed on this theme and was more specific on it for the benefit of others who are trying to identify the illusive Tamil grievances. ​

The statement that the Tamils are alienated cannot be attributed to either late Mr. Mervyn de Silva or Dr. Jayatilleka as the latter is only stating that the former would have stressed this point within a complex of ideas. However, since Dr. Seneviratne quotes it with approval we have to request him to provide us with the necessary explanations. Could he identify these Tamil persons who are "alienated" in Sri Lanka? Is it a recent phenomenon or does it have a history? Incidentally are the Sri Lankan professors in USA an alienated lot? What recognition they have in the American Christian culture, which is a variety of Anglo Saxon Christian culture, which is the dominant culture in that country? Do the Sri Lankan professors in USA belong to the dominant culture in that country? In any event did the non English speaking Tamil people feel alienated at the beginning of the twentieth century? If so from what were they alienated? Did the non English speaking Sinhalas, especially the non English speaking Sinhala Buddhists feel that they were alienated from the government in the early part of the twentieth century? If at the beginning of the twentieth century the English speaking Tamils did not feel themselves alienated from the British Raj (when I say the English speaking Tamils I mean the majority, obviously not including the few who opposed the British Raj) how did they become or feel alienated in the fifties? If Dr. Seneviratne is prepared at answer these questions together with some other questions I had asked him as well as Shanie on supremacy we would be able to engage in some dialogue. Incidentally Shanie who has written on pluralism should clearly define what is meant by the term. Is it pluralism that is found in all the other countries where people of different cultures could live but under the hegemony of a dominant culture such as a variant of the Anglo Saxon Christian culture or something else, and has to be defined unambiguously. Just by repeating catch words such as pluralism supremacy Shanies are not going to achieve anything by trying to fool the Sinhala people. They may be able to carry on their" project" with few Sinhalas such as Dr. H. L. Seneviratne but definitely not with the non English speaking Sinhalas who cannot be fooled. ​

We were discussing the two paradigms on which the stories of Tamil racism or the Tamil problem have been woven and had begun to describe the first story based on the Judaic Christian Culture and the Greek Judaic Christian Chinthanaya. The story takes the following form. "Tamils had been living in this country from time immemorial until Arhant Mahinda came to Sri Lanka and "converted". (The Arhant Thero did not come here as a missionary and was not interested in so called conversions unlike the various evangelical organisations that are all out to convert people to various Christian Churches all over the country.) After that the section of the Tamils that became Buddhists created a new "race" speaking a language called Sinhala with the help of Pali and most probably pushed those Tamils already living in the country to the North and the East. ​

(The story is not at all clear on this). In any event there was a Tamil kingdom in the northern province (though Tamil ethnicity had not been created by then!) when the Portuguese came to Sri Lanka. The Portuguese captured the Tamil kingdom which was then won over by the Dutch and finally by the British. However, when the British went back (did they?) they did not give back the original Tamil state to the Tamils but to the Sinhala imperialists. The Sinhala imperialists discriminated against the Tamils after 1956 by first making Sinhala the official language then by standardising marks at the G. C. E. A/L examination, by distributing land in the eastern province to the Sinhalas and there by altering the demographic pattern in the eastern province (who established the demographic pattern? Was it a "natural pattern" or an externally imposed pattern? In any event why worry about demographic patterns in provinces created by the British artificially?). S.J. V. Chelvanayakam who had formed the Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (Lanka Tamil State Party) way back in 1949 to establish a separate state as a solution to the discrimination of Tamils by the Sinhalas after 1956 (how did Chelvanayakam know in 1949 of the impending discriminations after 1956?) staged non violent protests (that incited the people to be violent) which were put down violently by the Sinhala state. As a result the innocent Tamil people were forced to take up arms (thus justifying Prabhakaran, the other violent leaders and all the murders committed by these terrorist groups including the LTTE) and for thirty years fought with the Sinhala army to be free from the yoke of Sinhala imperialism. According to some Tamil racists Prabhakaran wanted peace and was prepared to negotiate with the Sinhala government but the latter was not sincere in its attempts. Some so called moderates take a different line from this point. According to them people had to be won over from Prabhakaran who wanted an Eelam and for this purpose an alternative to Eelam had to be proposed that could attract the people and also would be a solution to the discriminations against the Tamils by the Sinhala government. The solution that has been proposed is devolution of power to enable the Tamils to look after their affairs in their homeland in the northern and eastern provinces which the Sinhala extremists have opposed from the very beginning." ​

This story is full of contradictions and just like the fairy tales with contradictions which are not understood by the babies is good only for one thing. That is to put some English educated Sinhala "scholars" into sleep while the Tamil terrorists prepared for action with the help of the western powers. From an interview given by K Pathmanathan the international rogue and arms supplier to the LTTE it is clear that Solheim (he had given a separate interview to India Today) and some so called international leaders had been in touch with the terrorist leaders including Prabhakaran until the last moment. Pathmanathan is not prepared to divulge the names of the "international leaders" as at present and for this reason alone the west will give all the protection to this terrorist rogue as they would not want a captured Pathmanathan to spill the beans. We will deal with the contradictions of the first story on "Tamil problem" next week.
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