Harvey Perera 

 Brief history of India: India was just a collection of small kingdoms almost up to 1947. The Portuguese came to India in 1498 and then the East India Company took over from 1757-1857. The rebellion in India in 1857 was brutally put down by the British and the British crown took over the governing from 1857. Tamils formed part of the British army, which fought against India. It was the British who united India for administrative purposes, and India emerged as a single country under the British. From the 1920’s Tamil Nadu was trying to break away and be independent. However Nehru passed the anti-secessionist law in 1963, which ended the separatism in India. Since then, the separatist movement has been transferred to Sri Lanka. (See attached link below).

http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2013/04/01/tamil-nadu-game-plan-to-take-over-sri-lanka/

In the present day, India cities lack cleanliness. People defecate and urinate openly on the streets; the Central Government has done little to uplift the masses or to control the population growth. There is no free health care or free education, and no social security net for older people. India has been behaving as a bully in the region and seems an enemy of Sri Lanka  after Independence (1948) for training the LTTE. For the last 67 years Sri Lanka and the Sinhalese have been undergoing slow death at the hands of Tamil Nadu and India. India has as their motto on their flag Satyameva Jayate” “Truth Alone Triumphs” which is a mantra from the ancient Indian scripture Mundaka Upanishad. This is sheer hypocrisy since they slaughtered thousands of Naxalites in the forests with no accountability to any one, and they also keep on the caste system, the institutionalized slavery in India. There were many attempts to bring the caste intolerance up at UN, which were blocked by the Central Government of India. They have been browbeating most of the smaller countries around them including Sri Lanka which is the closest, yet an island and separate.

 Brief history of Sri Lanka: The Sinhalese migrated mostly from North and Middle India originally estimated to be about 2600 years ago. The Portuguese came to trade but invaded Lanka initially in 1505. They were very destructive and destroyed all the Buddhist temples they came across and burnt valuable ola leaf books many centuries old. They converted many to Catholicism at the point of the sword.

Then the Dutch came in 1638 and threw out the Portuguese and started planting Tobacco in the North and Cinnamon in the West. For this purpose they brought in South Indian Tamil labor. These were the first Tamils who came in large numbers to Sri Lanka.

The British removed Dutch colonists. British tried very hard but could not penetrate to the interior Kingdom of Kandy because of the hills. They then resorted to subterfuge and sent whisky to the King who became addicted to liquor. In his drunken bouts the King started killing some of his chieftains in the most gruesome manner. The disgusted Chieftains turned to the British who agreed to remove the King and a Treaty was signed which gave promises to preserve Buddhism and the Sinhala language etc. As they have done in other parts of the world, they broke the Treaty and decimated the Sinhalese who protested in the Uva-Wellassa area. They killed all the men, women and children in the area and laid waste to the land. They took over the land from the farmers by force and planted tea and brought the largest numbers of  South Indian Tamil labor, over a million, to work on the Tea plantations. For details please see the attached links.

http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2015/03/02/kandyan-convention-of-1815/

http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2015/02/04/governor-robert-brownrigg-butcher-of-uva-wellassa/

http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2015/02/28/200-years-ago-remembering-the-kandyan-convention-of-1815/

http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2015/03/02/a-plea-to-queen-elizabeth-ii/

http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2015/03/08/will-sri-lankas-leaders-seek-apology-from-the-british-at-least-remind-them-of-their-crimes/

As you can see, three different colonists culminating with the worst who were the British, have persecuted the Sinhalese for almost 500 years. They changed forever the ethnic balance in the country by importing South Indian Tamils as indentured labor. They then educated the Tamils using Missionary schools in the North.  Tamil people became the second layer of Administrators in Sri Lanka, with only a few Sinhalese.  Net result was that when Sri Lanka gained independence, the Tamils were the educated class to take advantage of top administrative positions once again.

The Sinhalese have an unbroken written history in the form of the Mahavamsa and the Chulavamsa going back 2600 years have a unique version of Buddhism (Theravada) which is considered the purest form of Buddhism in the World. It is available in a shortened form on line. (See http://mahavamsa.org/mahavamsa/original-version/,)

However the correct version is about 80 chapters.  Buddhist priests were mainly the guardians of the Buddhist religion and Sinhala language. They have maintained the books for a period of over 2,600 yrs. The majority of the people in the country are Sinhalese who have a unique spoken and written language, which is available only in Sri Lanka. The Tamils comprise only about 9% of the 21 million people in the country. They speak Tamil, and are aligned to the culture of Tamil Nadu in India. Tamil Nadu is their real homeland. There are also Muslims, Christians and a few other minority groups. The Sinhalese comprise about 75% of the population.

Sinhalese speak and write a unique language, which is there only in Sri Lanka and nowhere else. The type of food they eat and the customs are unique to the Sinhala culture. Furthermore it was the Sinhalese who preserved Theravada Buddhism which is a great Philosophy now benefitting the whole world. Many as you may know are turning to Buddhism in the West. Western Psychotherapy borrows from Theravada Buddhism. The Sinhalese have no other place to go other than Sri Lanka.  Tamil People have Tamil Nadu in India.

Therefore if we are to speak in terms of nationhood, there is one nation, which is Sinhala Nation in Sri Lanka, which has existed for 2600 years, and the other one is in Tamil Nadu, the Tamil Nation. It is imperative that the Tamils of Sri Lanka integrate into the local Lanka culture, which accommodates them so well, instead of asking for a separate state. Otherwise as Prime Minister Modi has stated they are welcome to return to India. This fact has to be made very clear to the whole world. We should not be embarrassed to speak out.

Please see attached link below.

http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2015/03/04/sinhalese-are-the-real-minority-in-sri-lanka-76million-tamils-against-14-8million-sinhalese/

 The Tamil problem: In the 80’s during the time of the Cold War, India was aligned with Russia and Sri Lanka aligned with USA when JR Jayawardena became the President. Russian leaned on India and India then created training camps and gave arms to the Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam (LTTE).  In fact the DIG of Police Suderalingam had caught Prabahakaran, the LTTE leader,  and his accomplices during JR’s time and unfortunately JR let them go probably because as a Buddhist, he was against killing and wanted to show a good gesture toward the Tamil leaders and community.

In 1983 the nascent LTTE orchestrated riots by killing 13 soldiers by sniper fire in the North and about 300 – 400 poor Hindu Tamils were killed in the riots. Tamils themselves led some of the mobs. They were ready with cameras when it happened and the films were sent to Sri Lankan ambassadors in Paris, London and Bonn who happened to be Tamils conveniently in place. They had the films on the news broadcasts very quickly. Net result was that these countries opened their doors to refugees” who were ready and waiting to travel.

The whole world was told by the Tamils that they are a minority in Sri Lanka and the majority are suppressing, killing and ill-treating the Tamils. On the contrary they have more rights in Sri Lanka than in Tamil Nadu as they have Free Education and Health Care in Lanka only.  None of the States adjoining Tamil Nadu allows Tamil as a National language. However even though there are only about 9% Tamils in Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka has adopted Tamil as a National/Official language. They get free education, free medical care and are free to live in the South among the Sinhalese. Some statistics regarding SL Tamils for your information from an article in Lanka Web. (Please see Appendix).

Most of these Tamils were Dalits or Untouchables from South India. In India ‘Untouchability’ is an institutionalized form of slavery. If someone is born to the Untouchable caste (now known as Dalits), they have little hope. Their station in life is fixed. In their birth certificates they have to state their fathers caste. To escape caste many of them have migrated to other countries – a move which is most likely encouraged by India. They are in Malaysia, Fiji, Mauritius, Madagascar, Australia, Canada, Europe, Sri Lanka, South Africa, etc. Sri Lanka is particularly vulnerable to illegal migration since Tamil Nadu is only 12 miles away across the Palk Straits. So by encouraging the emigration of the Dalits from India, the upper caste people have reduced the Dalits the way U.K. got rid of their convicts by sending them to Australia.

Those in India and the West must look at the Tamil issue in Sri Lanka objectively and realize that there is no real issue. Between Tamil Nadu and Tamils in Sri Lanka they have hyped up between them so called grievances” in order to create a separate state called Eelam. Creating a separate state for Tamils will be suicide for Sinhalese due to the large number of Tamil Dalits in Tamil Nadu (about 15 Million) dying to get out of that caste ridden hellhole in Tamil Nadu.

This is the main reason as to why the Tamils have created issues in Sri Lanka while in all the other countries they migrated to they have been lying low. They are hoping that by creating an issue where there is none, they can justify creation of a separate state in Sri Lanka for Tamils, which will empower them to import the millions of Tamil Dalits from India and take over Sri Lanka.  This method of exporting their unwanted to other countries is also a way by which India has been slowly invading all the countries mentioned above. In case of Fiji, which is another small Island, the current percentage of Indians is 51%. They have banned Indians from migrating to the country any more.

These Indians who migrate to other countries also set up shops to sell Indian groceries and the Indian culture. Especially in countries such as Africa where there is no strong culture established the people take to the Indian culture easily and adopt the Indian eating habits etc. As you can see in the world today anywhere you go there are Indian restaurants. Therefore by exporting their Dalits they have also created an avenue for export of their culture and the groceries, which are made in India.

 The question is, do the Tamils have a unique culture in Sri Lanka different from Tamils of Tamil Nadu in India, which is only 12 miles away. We think not.  All their books come from South India, most of them import movies from Tamil Nadu, even travel to South India to watch movies, and speak and write the same language as Tamil Nadu, namely Tamil, follow the same religion, food and culture of Tamil Nadu. In view of this what is distinct about their culture and language from that of Tamil Nadu? Nothing.

During the thirty-year war with the LTTE terrorists many South Indians came as illegal immigrants to Sri Lanka. It was estimated that about 1 million Tamils left for foreign countries during the period of the war. However when the Census was done in 2011 it was found that the number of Tamils in the North and East was about the same as in the 1981 even though a large number had migrated to the South to Colombo. In fact the LTTE leader Prabahakaran had stated that about 35% of his fighters were from Tamil Nadu. As you can see illegal migration has been a very real problem from Tamil Nadu as there are about 15 million Dalits who prefer to leave Tamil Nadu.

Tamil leaders in South India have hyped up hatred against the Sinhalese in Sri Lanka by using the rhetoric that the Buddhists are against the Hindus. Another one – they use is the Ramayana (an Epic poem from Hinduism where Rama is supposed to have invaded Sri Lanka and killed Ravana who was considered to have been evil). They have spread mythology to make the uneducated Dalits believe that their sins are forgiven if they read the Ramayana and if they cross the sea go to Lanka, land of Ravana. The people are so stupid that at one time when M.G. Ramachandran, who was an actor of the Bhagavad Gita characters, used to ride in a cart they would throw themselves under the wheels to commit suicide since they believed Ramachandran was God himself so that if they died under his cart, they go to heaven. Ramachandran was only a poor actor who came from the tea estates of Sri Lanka. The current Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu is Jayalalitha who was a consort of his for a long time. One can therefore imagine the level of ignorance of the people of Tamil Nadu.

Most of the present day Sri Lankan Tamils migrated from Tamil Nadu during the 19th Century. It was the British who imported indentured labor (virtual slaves) from Tamil Nadu to work the tea and coffee plantations. Since many of them were from the Dalit or Untouchables caste they were grateful to the British for bringing them across the sea waters of the Palk Straits. The Tamil people believe that by going across seawater they lose caste and also gained better social status among their own people. (This is another myth propagated by the upper caste to encourage Dalits to leave India). Many Tamils of Lanka who were earlier servants of the upper castes in Tamil Nadu called themselves Vellala and put themselves as high caste above the low caste that came later to Lanka. All these points show that they do not have a case to show that they have a unique Tamil culture in Lanka. If the culture is really important then they must migrate back to Tamil Nadu where they will be completely at home. The Tamil caste factor is something we do not want in Sri Lanka.

Possible solutions for Sri Lanka:

1. Set up an international independent group consisting of people from the Eastern countries as well as the West to look into the so called grievances” of Tamils to see they are real and if their request for a separate state is justifiable in a small country like Sri Lanka.
2. Set up defense agreements with China and other countries friendly to Sri Lanka to act as a counter against India’s bullying.
3. Sign territorial agreements with India and also on repatriation of all the illegal migrants who came in during the last 30 years during LTTE rule of North and East.
4. Set up a National Military Service for all men and women between the ages of 18-40 years so that they receive training at least for a year and are then on call in case of need. This is what Switzerland, which is adjacent to Germany, France and Italy, have done to preserve their security. Our security is now very fragile. If India decides to invade as they did with the IPKF army there is little we can do.
5. Strengthen the Navy and patrol the shores to prevent illegal migration from India and other countries.
6. Repeal Tamil as a National Language and Official language. It was absurd for SWRD Bandaranaiyake to have given this since Tamils were only about 9%. In all countries where there is a minority they have to adapt to the majority not the other way around.
7. Repeal 13A and use Districts as the administrative unit instead of the Province.
8. Request reparations from India for the damage done by them to the country by their actions to date.
9. Request reparations from Britain for the damage they did to Sinhalese and the Buddha Sasana during the period they colonized the country and for abrogation of the treaty they signed with the Sinhala Chieftains.
10. Request reparations from Portugal for the damage done to Sri Lanka and the Buddha Sasana and the conversion of so many at the point of the sword.
11. Ban all forced conversions by use of inducements to prevent divide and rule happening in Sri Lanka.
12. Set minimum standards or education for all those who run for political office in Sri Lanka.

 Appendix

 SL Tamils THINK RATIONALLY; ACT WISELY…………………….

Lanka Web – Posted on April 24th, 2015

 About Tamils

How many Tamils live in Colombo?

33% of total population (one third) (2011 estimate). Now it is closer to 44%.

How many Tamils live in Southern parts of Sri Lanka?

12.4% of total population (2011 estimate)

How many Tamils are employed in Sri Lankan companies in the southern part? (See the number of high caliber Tamils in Sri Lankan private hospitals, banking sector, hotel trade, export import trade, and other industries viz. garment and beverage)

Do they experience any hardship professionally due to ethnicity? If so, how come they hold such high positions?

See how many Tamil kids are getting educated in International schools in Colombo and Kandy? They have outnumbered all the other ethnicities together.

Royal college has Tamil medium branch under an asst. principal, DS has Tamil medium branch under an asst. principal. So many other leading Sinhala government schools in the country have Tamil medium and they share equal opportunities. Private schools like St. Thomas ‘, Trinity etc have quite a large number of Tamil students.

How many Tamil major schools have Sinhala medium? None !!!

Travel via Wellawatte, Dematagoda, Dehiwala, Kotahena etc and see the number of Tamils sharing the comforts.

Go to Pettah market and Fort. Walk along the streets and see how many Tamils are doing various types of business there.

Start from Kotahena and travel passing Dehiwala. Sinhala shops are outnumbered by Tamil traders. I don’t see any hardship put on them.

Get into a bus in any part of the country and listen how many speak in Tamil.

Try to find a single Sinhala board in Wellawatte. All are Tamil and English.

How many Sinhala shops/trades are seen in the northern and eastern province? Why don’t you visit and see?

Go to a government University. Let’s say University of Colombo. See the number of Tamil students. How smoothly they study? They share equal opportunities. See the number of Tamil lecturers. How much they are privileged? They share equal opportunities. They have separate Tamil Unions, their cultural events, their religious events. I never ever saw them being humiliated or harassed by Sinhalese,

except they themselves have discriminations saying Jaffna Tamil, Baticaloa Tamil, and Upcountry Tamil.

How many

Kovils are there in Colombo itself? Nearly 200 Kovils!!!

See the number of Sinhalese visiting Kovils and Tamil shops. Doesn’t it display the harmony?

What is the ethnic proportion of Tamils in Sri Lanka?

8.5%

How many Tamil representatives are in the parliament? 23 out of 225 total seats, that is

more than 10%

Can a Tamil settle down in any area of the country including southern part?

Yes

Reason?

The Sri Lankan constitution has secured the right and freedom of any citizen to live in any part of the country

Jaffna and Trincomalee have ports, heavy industries, bus stations, railway stations, radio and TV broadcasting stations, universities and so many other facilities equaling to Colombo.

Ø

Now about Sinhalese

How many Sinhalese live in Jaffna?

0.005% (only 33 people head wise!!) How many Sinhalese live in the Northern part of Sri Lanka?

Only 1.04 % of total population

How many Sinhalese live in Baticaloa? Only 0.46% of total population.

How many Sinhalese are in the Eastern part of Sri Lanka?

Only 21.64% total population

(Source: 2007 estimate)

How many Sinhala medium schools are there in Northern Sri Lanka?

(None)

How many Sinhala employees are in Northern Sri Lankan offices and industries?

(None)

How many temples are there in Northern Sri Lanka?

One, at Nagadeepa

(left over out of thousands which were in the past)

How many Sinhala students are studying in Northern, Eastern and South- East universities?

None!!!

(Source: University statistics 2009)

Can a Sinhalese travel unharmed in Northern Sri Lanka?

(Only now, after the defeat of the LTTE)

Can a Sinhalese settle down in the northern part of the country?

No!!

Reason?

Because you are a Sinhalese. According to ‘Thesawalamai’ law, Northern Province is meant for Tamils only and you are not entitled to buy lands there as a Sinhalese!!!!