KAMALIKA PIERIS UNESCO recently announced that it has accepted for its Memory of the World Register 2025, the Trilingual inscription” found in Sri Lanka. The tablet   containing the inscription was brought to Sri Lanka from China by Chinese Admiral Cheng Ho.  The item was therefore submitted to UNESCO jointly by Sri Lanka and China. UNESCO […]

Kamalika Pieris  2nd  REVISION.  5.4.2025. The theatre enthusiasts, who saw Maname in its maiden presentation in Colombo and before that at rehearsals in Peradeniya, saw its significance and artistic value. Many years later, this group wrote up their recollections for Sunday newspapers. They also provided contributions to publications issued to mark Maname anniversaries, such as […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS MADURU OYA FIASCO 1. The Maduru Oya  settlement project   of September 1, 1983, led by Dimbulagala Hamuduruwo started well. Gamini Dissanayake, Minster of Mahaweli Development  had suggested it and the Mahaweli Ministry staff responded enthusiastically. It was a  settlement created at Ministry level.  It should  have been a great success. But it was […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS MADURU OYA FIASCO 2 Tamil Separatist Movement  was not able to  nip the Maduru Oya  project in the bud.  India   sent  an envoy, G Parthasarathy in August 1983 to scuttle the project. His visit was secret. He met Gamini Dissanayake   and discussed the issue of  Mahaweli settlements. [1]    But Gamini   did not give […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS TAMIL SETTLEMENTS  Tamil Separatist Movement steadily  established new Tamil settlements in the north and east   after Independence. The purpose was to strengthen the  Tamil population   on  the Eastern coast. The northern and eastern provinces were under populated   and there was lot of empty space which had to be filled up. J. D. Arudpragasam’s […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS ATTACK ON KENT AND DOLLAR FARMS 1984 Revised 10.3.25 The Kent and Dollar farms were located near Manal Aru.  Kent and dollar farms are 11 minutes drive from  Kurundi vihara and  8  minutes drive from  Tannimuruppu kulam. The farms were bought on a 99-year lease from the state by a wealthy Tamil in […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS    LTTE MASSACRES AT KOKILAI AND NAYARU   1984, 1985 Revised 10.3.25 On 1 December, 1984 LTTE cadres, including women fighters, attacked two Sinhala Catholic fishing villages, Nayaru and Kokkilai, killing 59 fishermen. [1]  Kokkilai lagoon is an estuarine lagoon on    north-east Sri Lanka .The town of Kokkilai is located on a sand bar […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS ARMING SINHALA SETTLEMENTS, 1984 The Tamil response to the Maduru Oya settlement was an eye-opener for the small coterie of Colombo elite who had taken an interest in the matter. They found that settling Sinhalese in Eelam needed much more strategy than they thought.  Tamils who arrived here through settler colonialism were determined […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS MADURU OYA SETTLEMENT PROJECT 1983 When work started on Maduru Oya Right Bank construction Mahaweli officials and engineers found that the Tamil Separatist Movement was quietly settling estate Tamils on the land intended for the new settlements. They were filling it up so that the Sinhalese could not get in. The UNP government […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS YAN OYA SETTLEMENT PROJECT 1983 The aborted Maduru Oya Sinhala settlement of September 1983 was part of a much grander Sinhalisation plan suggested by an officer at the Mahaweli Authority in 1983.T.H. Karunatilleke Director of Planning in Mahaweli [1] had studied the Eelam strategy and had come up with a plan to thwart […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS If Maname was  Sarachchandra’s  first experimental drama, then his next play Sinhabahu with its rich dramatic text, the powerfully complex tragic characters he created around the popular yet simple folk legend, their singing of his poignant poetry was,  I think the high point in his dramatic career, said Ranjini Obeyesekera.  Sarachchandra remained a dramatist to the end of […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS Theater enthusiasts in the newly independent states of South Asia were finding it difficult, if not impossible, to move away from the proscenium arch” theatre introduced by the western rulers. There were two types of theatre going on, traditional and modern, rural and urban. The main challenge faced by them in the 20th […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS Sarath Amunugama observed that one of the many items which made Maname special was its melodious music. [1]Sarachchandra was an   accomplished musician. He had gone to Santiniketan in the 1940s to study music.  However, in his Pin ati Sarasavi, he spoke of ‘veenawa ata pata gawa,’ so I thought he was a dilettante […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS In ‘Pin Eti Sarasavi Waramak Denne’, Sarachchandra described an incident he faced on the second or the third night at the Wendt. He was seated in the foyer while the play was in progress and all of a sudden a limousine came to a halt at the entrance and a well dressed woman […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS Revised 26.12.24 The theatre enthusiasts, who saw Maname in its maiden presentation in Colombo and before that at rehearsals in Peradeniya, saw its significance and artistic value. Many years later, this group wrote up their recollections for Sunday newspapers. They also provided contributions to publications issued to mark Maname anniversaries, such as the […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS K.W Devanayagam held a second press conference on 16th September, 1983 and announced that the situation was worsening. He said the Tamils of the Batticaloa district were getting agitated and a confrontational situation was developing. [1]  He told the press that a massive attempt was on by Sinhala farmers, led by the Dimbulagala priest, […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS Ven. Kitalagama Sri Seelalankara, chief priest of Dimbulagala Raja Maha vihara (Dimbulagala Hamuduruvo, hereafter Dimbulagala)   was a political monk. He had a continuing battle with Tamil officials and politicians of Batticaloa on illegal settlements in Maduru oya. He himself had tried to settle Sinhala farmers at Wadamunai, (Koralai Pattu west, Batticaloa district) in […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS When the Accelerated Mahaweli project started, Gamini Dissanayake, Minister for Mahaweli had asked Ven. Ellawela Medhananda    to do a history of the Mahaweli region. While engaged on this, Medhananda had met Ven.  Kitalagama Seelalankara of Dimbulagala. Dimbulagala and Medhananda decided that the best way to prevent Tamilisation of the east was to settle […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS After the colonization schemes of the 1950s and 1960s,   the government started doing Development Schemes. Tamil Separatist Movement viewed these development schemes   with great alarm, because they brought Sinhalese settlers into the area they had reserved for Eelam. State-sponsored colonization would lead to a change in the demography of the Northern and Eastern […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS Gal Oya starts in the hill country east of Badulla and flows through the south east of Sri Lanka passing Inginiyagala and flows into the sea 16 km south of Kalmunai. The idea of using   Gal Oya for development was first suggested in the late 1930s.  A technical survey on harnessing the development […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS Tamils were initially very keen on the Gal Oya Project. They thought it would help   strengthen their position in the Eastern Province. They thought it would strengthen Settler Colonization. Gal Oya scheme was in Ampara and Ampara was part of Batticaloa the time. G.H. PeIris observed that the records of the State Council […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS REVISED 18.11.24 The second Yahapalana government which started with Gotabhaya Rajapaksa in 2019, followed by Ranil Wickremesinghe In 2022 came to an end in September 2024, with the election of a new President, JVP’s Anura Kumara Dissanayake.  For the first time in our political history, a rural lad was voted into the highest […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS The second Yahapalana government which started with Gotabhaya Rajapaksa in 2019, followed by Ranil Wickremesinghe In 2022 came to an end in September 2024, with the election of a new President, JVP’s Anura Kumara Dissanayake.  For the first time in our political history, a rural lad was voted into the highest position in […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS The Tamil Separatist Movement continued the Settler Colonialism project after the British left.  Illegal Tamil settlements were established in the north and east, after Sri Lanka got its independence.   These Tamil settlements were set up silently and secretly, without the knowledge of the public. A small number knew about these illegal settlements, but […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS Sri Lanka’s development policy included state-sponsored colonization schemes which transferred people from the densely populated wet zone to the sparsely populated areas of the dry zone. The places best suited to such colonization schemes were located in the north and east of the island. These provinces were the least populated, the land was […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS Tamil Separatist Movement was highly critical of the state colonization schemes of the 1950s. They were not in the least interested in the development aspect of the schemes, only on   the impact of Sinhala settlements on their precious Eelam. Tamil Separatist Movement charged that the colonization schemes, from the very beginning, were intended […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS The Ceylon Tamils aggressively pursued Settler Colonization after the island gained Independence. The British rulers left without allocating territory to the Tamil settlers, and the Tamil settlers found themselves face to face with the indigenous group they had hoped to displace. That group was now in power. But the Tamil Settlers had no […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS The Tamil Separatist Movement was able to push forward two Agreements and two Acts of Parliament all intended to ensure that the North and East remained exclusively Tamil with the possibility of partition later on.   IN between the BC  Pact and the Dudley Chelva Pact, the Tamil Separatist Movement submitted a set of […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS In the 20th century too, the British   rulers continued to colonize the island with Tamils from India. At a Durbar with Tamil chieftains of Jaffna peninsula in 1911 British Governor Henry McCallum told them that he had reserved the Tank Country and the East for the people of Jaffna. He would bring immigrants […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS This essay looks at Settler Colonialism in action using the writings of Jayatissa Bandaragoda, a SLAS officer who came in contact with aggressive  Settler Colonialism many times  in the course of his ofifical work. He is mentioned  fleetingly in the writings of  the Tamil Separatist Movement,   as a person who keeps on obstructing  […]