{"id":101835,"date":"2020-05-01T16:18:52","date_gmt":"2020-05-01T23:18:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=101835"},"modified":"2020-05-01T16:22:24","modified_gmt":"2020-05-01T23:22:24","slug":"academic-adolescents-against-the-nationalist-cause","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/05\/01\/academic-adolescents-against-the-nationalist-cause\/","title":{"rendered":"ACADEMIC ADOLESCENTS AGAINST THE NATIONALIST CAUSE"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rohana R. Wasala<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The online Asian Tribune of February 21, 2020, carried a profusely illustrated article under the title A Historical Leadership Program Launched by Professor Nandana Wijesinghe\u201d. The event was reported to have been conducted on the weekend -14th -16th February 2020 at the Ridee Viharaya Conference Centre, Ridi(ya)gama, Kurunegala, organized by this professor who, according to the news report, heads the Department of Sociology, University of Peradeniya. Having read the Asian Tribune article, I wanted to find out something more about the university don involved, for his name was new to me. So I did a google search, and what I incidentally came across was an extremely unpleasant surprise to me as a patriotic journalist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am not a professional journalist in the sense of a person who is\nearning a living by their journalism. It is not a vocation for me, but an\navocation, a hobby. I don\u2019t write articles and have them published for any\nmaterial reward or gain, financial or otherwise. My broad journalistic focus is\nthreefold: education, culture, and current affairs; the last has dominated my\nattention over the last ten years out of more than two decades of freelance\njournalism. The overriding objective of my journalistic exertions is, apart\nfrom desired self-fulfilment, national service in the form of trying to project\nto a global readership, through the medium of English, a correct view of Sri\nLanka\u2019s domestic political landscape that is characterised at the grassroots\nlevel by benign and inclusive Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism. An apparent\ndocumentation error committed by Nandana Wijesinghe has betrayed or\nmisrepresented me to the members of his specific global academic community that\nis relevant to my aforementioned journalistic objective as a friend of the long\nentrenched local and international anti-Sinhalese Buddhist propaganda brigade\nwhose diabolical distortions have done and are still doing near irreparable\ndamage to Sri Lanka.  Following is my story in this\nconnection:    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asian Tribune editor K.T. Rajasingham published an article in his online paper on September 19, 2010, that, he claimed, consisted of a part of the evidence that he had allegedly given before the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (May 2010 – November 2011). When I read this article I thought that KTR was guilty of grossly misrepresenting the facts relating to the so-called Sinhalese-Muslim Riots of 1915. So I immediately replied to him in an article under the title The Truth about the 1915 Riots\u201d published in The Island of September 21, 2010 (http:\/\/www.island.lk\/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=7150<\/a>). My reply article began thus, following it with a few paragraphs quoted from KTR\u2019s:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

QUOTE Mr K.T. Rajasingham, editor of The Asian Tribune, carried a\npart of his evidence given before the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation\nCommission in his online daily news publication on September 19, 2010. It\ncontained the following patently erroneous references to the so-called\nSinhalese \u2013Muslim Riots of 1915. END OF QUOTE <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The paragraphs that I quoted from KTR at the beginning of my reply\narticle were as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

QUOTE After the Kandyan Rebellion of 1817-18 to overthrow British\nrule, the British, by a proclamation dated November 21, 1818, greatly reduced\nthe privileges granted to Sinhalese chiefs and changed the guarantees on\nreligion given in the Kandyan Convention. Consequently, it was absurd that the\nSinhalese wanted to celebrate a clause in a convention that was no longer in\nforce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, the government agents of Kandy had informed the trustees of the Gampola Buddhist temple that in taking their annual Perahera (procession) in Kandy they would not be allowed to beat drums or play any musical instruments within 100 yards of a new mosque in Castle Hill Street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ntrustees turned to the courts, arguing that a perahera of the old Kandyan\nkingdom was permitted in terms of the Kandyan Convention of 1815. The District\nCourt of Kandy decided in their favor, but on an appeal by the government the\nSupreme Court reversed the judgment. The trustees then appealed to the Privy\nCouncil in England.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nthe meantime, Buddhist preachers went about the country urging Buddhists to\ndemonstrate against Muslims. Incidentally, the anniversary of the birth of The\nLord Buddha fell on May 28, 1915, and a procession began that night. The\ncelebrations were marred by an incident near the mosque, where some 25 men were\narrested on charges of housebreaking and rioting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sinhalese\nattacks on Muslims continued, spreading from the central province to the\nwestern and northwestern provinces until June 6, 1915. Muslims sustained heavy\nlosses. According to available records, losses sustained included 86 damaged\nmosques, more than 4,075 looted boutiques and shops, 35 Muslims killed, 198\ninjured and four women raped. Seventeen Christian churches were burnt\ndown\u2026\u2026.END OF QUOTE<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professor\nNandana Wijesinghe (NW) erroneously attributes to me these paragraphs from\nKTR\u2019s Asia Tribune article quoted in my The Island article titled The truth\nabout the 1915 riots\u201d above mentioned. NW does so in a paper published in the\nJournal of the International Association of Buddhist Universities (JIABU, Vol.\nVII, 2016) titled \u2018Buddhist-Muslim Collision in Sri Lanka: A Partial History\u2019,\nwhere the first footnote reference is to me (Rohana R. Wasala) as a source of\ninformation (He gives the WEB link to my Island article). Thus, Nandana\nWijesinghe, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka,\nwrongly attributes to me KTR\u2019s deliberate misrepresentation of the 1915\nincidents. Wijesinghe doesn\u2019t seem to have read my article at all. He must have\nrun his eyes through the first six short paragraphs of my article (which were\nactually paragraphs quoted from KTR as copied above) and come to the conclusion\nthat I was merely propagating the long prevalent anti- Sinhala Buddhist version\nof the 1915 unrest. This sort of crass negligence is not worthy of an academic\nresearcher of Nandana Wijesinghe\u2019s stature. It is regrettable that the lecturer\nhad not read my article at all apart from taking a hurried glance at the first\nfew paragraphs or had not read it carefully enough to properly understand it.\nOne reason why he apparently misread the very beginning of my article was that\nthe quotation marks duly inserted in the original text had been inadvertently\nomitted in a typographical mishandling committed during the digital\ntransference\/printing process at the newspaper office (which was beyond my\ncontrol). But the text of my article makes it very clear that the five\nparagraphs after the opening (copied above) are extracts from KTR\u2019s problematic\narticle. That is, the opening paragraph is mine, at the end of which there is a\ncolon (:), which  indicates a \u2018list\u2019 of the \u2018erroneous references\u2019\npreviously mentioned. Paragraphs 2 to 6 are reproduced from KTR\u2019s Asian Tribune\narticle, which contain those references. My article holds KTR\u2019s distortion of\nthe factual history of the 1915 clashes to derision and offers an authoritative\nhistorical account of the fateful events of that year as reflected in the\nfamous cause c\u00e9l\u00e8bre known as the Gampola Perahera Case. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact that I totally rejected KTR\u2019s narrative about the 1915\nSinhala-Muslim conflict was the very reason I wrote that reply; it was just a\nnewspaper article, though; there was nothing academic about it, but it was\nbased on some authentic literature I had read relevant to the subject. The more\nimportant reason for Wijesinghe\u2019s mixup was probably that he was anxious to\nquote something that confirmed his own prejudices.  In his paper,\nWijesinghe betrays a decidedly anti-Sinhala Buddhist frame of mind. The\nsubtitle \u2018A Partial History\u2019 could be an attempt to salve his conscience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nandana Wijesinghe announces his prejudices in his opening\nparagraphs:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

QUOTE Sri Lanka is no stranger to eruptions of communal\nviolence.  The most glaring testimony to this stands in the form of the\nnotorious thirty year civil war that was a result of conflicting Sinhala and\nTamil political ambitions.  Obviously, these expressions of violence do\nnot emerge overnight but rather progress around a number of events spanning\nextended lengths of time, finally escalating into their terrible forms. \nThe recent controversy springing out of the Buddhist-Muslim clash clearly shows\nthe dangerous potential of communal rifts to disintegrate societies and\ndissolve them in rivalry and hatred.  A look into the historical\nunderpinnings of Buddhist-Muslim exchanges provides valuable insights into the\ncontemporary dynamics of this relationship. END OF QUOTE<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He accepts the notorious myth that the thirty-year civil war was a communal conflict, not an armed conflict between a democratic sovereign state and a treacherous terrorist organization assisted by foreign vested interests, bringing misery to all peaceful Sri Lankans. Then, what does he mean by \u2018Buddhist -Muslim exchanges\u2019? Verbal exchanges\/negotiations or armed confrontations\/clashes? Imprecise vocabulary is not a mark of academic writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Describing the background to the breakout of violence between the\ntwo communities in 1915, Wijesinghe writes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 QUOTE\nTensions between the two communities were running high with the Buddhists\ncomplaining about the increasing number of mosques springing up in the area,\nand the Muslims retaliating by objecting to a Buddhist procession conducted in\nthe vicinity of a mosque.  On 29 May 1915, a Buddhist mob torched a mosque\nand began to attack Muslim homes and businesses.  Soon the violence spread\nto Central, North Western, Western, Southern and Sabaragamuwa Provinces. END OF QUOTE<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the section (consisting entirely of fabricated\ninformation) for which he incorrectly mentions my name in a footnote as the\nsource. To anyone who cares to read my \u2018The Truth about the Sinhala-Muslim\nRiots of 1915\u2019, it will be clear  that these blatant lies are not found\nthere; not even in the extracts from KTR given at the beginning of that\narticle, i.e., paragraphs 2 to 6. Wijesinghe must have borrowed them from some\nother faulty source\/s, unless he has himself manufactured those fictions,\nwhich, however, is not conceivably possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lankaweb<\/em> online forum (November 06, 2014) carried an updated version of my\nIsland article. I deleted the introductory part that referred to KTR, including\nthe above mentioned extracts from his Asian Tribune article. This is the\npreamble to the updated article which I renamed What happened in 1915?\u201d (https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2014\/11\/06\/what-happened-in-1915\/<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

QUOTE The following is an updated version of an\narticle of mine entitled The Truth about the 1915 Riots\u201d published in The\nIsland on September 20, 2010. It has been specially prepared here for Lankaweb\nNews and Forum readers. The real cause of the disturbances traditionally\ndescribed as the Sinhala-Muslim Riots of 1915\u201d has sometimes been deliberately\nobscured by opponents of Sinhala Buddhists as merely something to do with the\nnative (Sinhalese) capitalist class, just emerging under the auspices of the\nBritish, exploiting communalism to advance their interests. The truth about\nwhat actually led to the \u2018riots\u2019 was otherwise as revealed at the court case\ninstituted in 1913 by the aggrieved authorities of a historic Devale\/temple\nnear Gampola important to Buddhists challenging the government\u2019s subjection, at\nthe behest of some members of an extremist Muslim group, the issue of a permit\nfor holding an age-old perahera to the fulfillment of an unjust demand insisted\non by the latter.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 The principal source of information about\nthe famous Gampola Perahera Case was the book Studies of Some Famous Cases of\nCeylon\u201d by Walter Thalgodapitiya (Formerly of the Ceylon Judicial Service and\nCommissioner of Assizes), M.D. Gunasena & Co. Ltd, Colombo, 1963. The late\nJustice Thalgodapitiya had an unblemished reputation as an incorruptible legal\nfunctionary and a great human being of impeccable honesty. His analysis of the\ncase is unlikely to be disputed by anyone, in my opinion<\/em>. <\/em>END OF QUOTE<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(The Lankaweb article is available at https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2014\/11\/06\/what-happened-in-1915\/<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 To return to Wijesinghe\u2019s JIABU paper\/article, among the\nconclusions he draws are the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

QUOTE Especially in light of the current upheaval in the\ninternational community regarding the Human Rights situation in Sri Lanka, it\nis imperative that the island strengthens its existing cordialities with\nfriendly nations, most of whom are Muslim countries.  If domestic\nconditions turn unfavorable to the Muslim community in Sri Lanka, it would be\nlogical to assume that these countries would be less inclined than they are now\nto show their solidarity with the island nation. END OF QUOTE<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is very shallow reasoning. It amounts to advocating an\nundignified offer of mea culpa to uncommitted human rights violations out of\nmere servility; but it was in accordance with the treacherous Yahapalana\nthinking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nconcluding paragraph quoted below summarizes the anti-Sinhala Buddhist\nmentality of the sociological researcher, Nandana Wijesinghe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

QUOTE Buddhist-Muslim clashes in Sri Lanka, as this essay shows, are not a recent phenomenon.\u00a0 However, they did become more pronounced in the recent past with the renewed interest of BBS, among others, in the Muslim community and the threat they pose to the Sinhala-Buddhist community.\u00a0 Since Buddhist monks comprise a very potent tool that shapes public opinion, it is extremely important that they deliberate on their views and stances before involving the public in certain issues because though their actions are fundamentally oriented towards the preservation of Buddhism and the Sinhalese, if their actions themselves serve to warrant international interference in Sri Lanka to probe the Human Rights condition of the country, the very entities that they strive to preserve will be the first to be compromised. END OF QUOTE <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\nis strange that this academic was not informed enough about the existing local\nrealities (not exclusively those uncovered with evidence by the BBS – Bodu Bala\nSena) relating to the problem of the menace posed to Sri Lankans of all races\nand religions and worldviews, especially to Sinhala Buddhists and Tamil Hindus\nwho together form over 80% of the population,  from Abrahamic religious\nfundamentalists (not from the mainstream adherents of those religions), when he\nwrote to that international journal. These monks do \u2018deliberate on their views\nand stances before involving the public\u2026\u2019; there is nothing wrong with their\nactions, but whatever can they do if they are misreported to the world by\nindifferent media, and immature ill-informed academics? (A personal opinion)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Rohana R. Wasala The online Asian Tribune of February 21, 2020, carried a profusely illustrated article under the title A Historical Leadership Program Launched by Professor Nandana Wijesinghe\u201d. The event was reported to have been conducted on the weekend -14th -16th February 2020 at the Ridee Viharaya Conference Centre, Ridi(ya)gama, Kurunegala, organized by this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rohana-r-wasala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101835\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}