THE SOLUTION - III
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 will turn their guns towards 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 casts if there were any Tamil settlements in Sri Lanka at the time the Dutch brought them. Why there is no dominant Brahmin cast 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 had come. 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 Rajapakse! I do not know whether Mr. Rajapakse 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 the Tamils. 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 gradually Prabhakaran took the leadership, 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 the 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 Mr. Gamini Iriyagolla had adequately dealt with the Leghorn minute and some so called historical “facts” and it is waste of time to repeat them here. Anybody interested is referred to the publications by the late Mr. 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)
Professor Nalin de Silva
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