SULU KARUNA OF ELANKESAN - III
The Sinhalese who live in this island have no "relatives" living in any other country and no other nation or ethnic group speak the Sinhala language. Sinhalese, who migrated to Maldives from Sri Lanka had spoken Sinhala at first but now their language called Divehi language has evolved so much that it cannot be identified as Sinhala. This differentiation or evolution of the two languages took place over nine hundred years. On the other hand as we mentioned last week, Tamil spoken across the Palk strait is not very much different from each other, and if the Tamils had lived as a separate ethnic group for more than a thousand years in Jaffna, from those in the present Tamil Nadu, the Tamil Language spoken in Jaffna would have evolved so much by now that they would be speaking two different languages, even with the close proximity that exists between Tamil Nadu and Jaffna. Also Tamils in Sri Lanka (Jaffna, Batticaloa or up country) have not built a separate culture from that of present Tamil Nadu and that again goes on to show that the Tamils in Sri Lanka are of recent origin. The same thing cannot be said of the Sinhalese, whose culture is very much different from the culture of any ethnic group living in India at present or in the past. The fact that it was different in the past also implies that the Sinhalese were not immigrants to this country from Bharat, and as we said last week what has taken place is the absorption of some cultural traits of the Ardha Vedic (Partly Vedic or Half Vedic) people, who migrated to Sri Lanka from about ninth century BC by the people (Yakshas, Nagas and others), who were living in the country.
There is a school of opinion, which thinks that the Yakshas came from Persia. In any event, Yakshas, Nagas and others should not be considered as Dravidians simply because they are not Aryans. They should be called pre-Aryans, and it has to be recalled that the Dravidians came to Bharat around the sixth century BC. In case a pundit finds me at fault, I emphasise that by the term Aryans, I refer to a cultural group.
Independence
Even in literature there is a lacuna as far as books written in Tamil in Sri Lanka are concerned. There is no point in coming with examples of books written in Tamil in India (Bharat) as they were not produced by Tamil scholars in Sri Lanka. The Sinhalese on the other hand have produced a number of books in Sinhala, where the authors have shown a remarkable independence from the works written in Bharat. Even in the case of translations from books written in Bharat, the Sinhala Buddhist scholars have shown ingenuity in adopting rather than merely translating them into Sinhala. The Sinhala Buddhism is not Asokan Buddhism or what was practised in Bharat during the time of King Asoka. The Bodhi Vandana (worshiping the Bo Tree) is something that was not found in Bharat, and Sinhala Buddhism originated during the time of Devanampiya Tissa, and not in the nineteenth century after the British, following Protestant Christianity as some imitative Sociologists are fond of repeating.
Even if the Sinhalese are descendants of those who came from Persia (Iran) and people already living in the country at that time, the above scenario has not changed in essence. It may be that in addition to the Ardha Vedic people, who came from Bharat some came from Persia and settled down in this country mixing with the indigenous pre-Vedic people in the country. The indigenous people would have absorbed some cultural traits from the Persians thus came, on their way to build the Sinhala nation. The Sinhalese not only absorbed those initial traits, but later absorbed traits from others who migrated to this country from China and East Asia, Tamils and even Malay people who were brought by the Dutch and the British, not to mention the Portuguese and the Dutch who came as colonialists, who attempted to impose their culture on us. However, these absorptions have only enriched the Sinhala culture until the full force of western Christian colonialism was felt after the British arrived. The western Christian culture is now not interested in allowing the people of other cultures to absorb the western culture. The western Christian culture is now forced on other people with the might of western Christian cultural colonialism, making use of education, art forms and media.
History
As Prof. Indrapala, who was the first professor of history at the University of Jaffna, has shown in his Ph.D. thesis submitted to the University of London that there had been no permanent Tamil settlements anywhere in this country before the eleventh century. It is known that Prof. Indrapala having migrated to Australia has changed some of his views under the influence (threats) of the LTTE, but we are not concerned about these not so academic works. As we have said over and over, the present population of Jaffna are mainly descendants of the Tamils, who were brought by the Dutch for their tobacco cultivation. It explains the observations I had stated last week regarding the Tamil spoken in Jaffna and their culture. Having brought the farmers, the Dutch found that the Tamils returned to their homes in South India after harvesting the tobacco cultivation. In order to prevent them going back to South India the Dutch codified the Thesavalamai Law, which according to late Mr. Gamini Iriyagolla, was a law of the Muslims in South India, and not even of the Tamil Hindus. In spite of the Thesavalamai Law many Tamils continued to go back to their homes in South India. The British, who took over from the Dutch had to reintroduce the Thesavalamai Law, and were successful in retaining the Vellalas and others in their homes in Jaffna, with additional privileges given to them.
Thus the history of the Tamils in Jaffna does not go beyond the seventeenth century, whether we like it or not. Though there were Sinhalese and Velakkara Malayalams living in Jaffna when the Tamils were brought by the Dutch, the numbers and the sponsorship by the Dutch gave the Tamils the upper hand with respect to language and culture vis-`E0-vis the Sinhalese and others living in Jaffna. Thus it was an absorption of the culture and the language of the Sinhalese and the Malayalams into those of the Tamils and not the other way around. In the case of the Sinhalese, the pre-Vedic people living in the country absorbed the language and the culture of the Ardha Vedic people, who migrated to Lanka in the process of forming the Sinhala nation. Thus the Sinhalese cannot be called immigrants the way Mr. Elankesan has done in his article, although the Tamils in Jaffna, and of course Batticaloa, and up country, could be called immigrants if one wants to. However, for a moment I would not call any citizen of the country, including Arthur C. Clarke an immigrant. As individual citizens they all should enjoy the same benefits and should be equal before the law, albeit the Roman Dutch Law. However, this does not mean that all cultures are equal and the Sinhala culture has to be given its due place.
Dominant Culture
It is the Sinhalese, who have built a unique culture in the country, not found anywhere else in the world, over nearly three thousand years, and one cannot also ignore the fact that they are the majority. Those Tamils who are against so called majoritariarism forget that they want to be in the majority in the Northern and the Eastern Provinces combined, and that the Sinhalese living in those areas could agitate against the same majoritariarism. In any event from Norway to India no two cultures are treated equally in any country. In the former, it is the Lutheran culture, which is the dominant, not even the prominent, culture, and in the latter the dominant culture is the Hindu culture, not to mention Britain where the dominant culture is the Anglican Christian culture. The problem in this country is nothing but the nonrecognition of the Sinhala Buddhist culture as the prominent culture, which does not exist anywhere else in the world.
However, it is said that in all those countries all citizens are equal before the law, in spite of the fact that there is a dominant culture. We should, before proceeding further analyse the statement that all are equal before law. Law is not something, which is God given or objective (objectivity is a concept that has been derived from God given and thus not varying according to the subjectivities of the individuals), but man made, and men create knowledge including law relative to the culture. As the law itself is subjective and created either as the word of the king or an act of parliament, is finally based on the culture of the country. The British Law has been framed in the Anglican culture, and therefore is not free from cultural biasness. So is the French or any other law including the Roman Dutch Law. However, the Roman Dutch Law, which is practised in South Africa and Sri Lanka are not relative either to the culture of the Sinhalese (neither the Tamils nor the Muslims) or the Blacks in South Africa, and it creates problems as the law in either of these countries is not in step with the history of the country. France recently ruled that Muslim girls cannot wear their dress to school, but have to come in frocks like the other girls. In Pakistan or in an Arabic country a Sinhala girl may find it difficult to go to school in a lama sari. Even in Sri Lanka, the school uniform has been decided by the Education Department that carries on with the circulars issued by the British, and even in the so called Buddhist girls schools, the students have to go in frocks and sometimes in ties as well.
What I have been saying is that when we take the Roman Dutch Law as our base, all citizens are said to be equal before that law though it discriminates against the Sinhalese mostly. One has to remember that the Law in this country includes not only the Law that was passed on by the Dutch to the British, but the laws introduced by the British who baptised and nurtured Tamil racism in the country. In the next instalment we will discuss how the British favoured the Tamils and nurtured Tamil racism against Sinhalathva.
(To be continued)
Professor Nalin de Silva
Mr. Sankiliyan Elankesan's articles
17th April 2006 "The Island" News Paper
10th May 2006 "The Island" News Paper
21st June 2006 "The Island" News Paper
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