{"id":105972,"date":"2020-08-27T14:29:22","date_gmt":"2020-08-27T21:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=105972"},"modified":"2020-08-27T14:29:22","modified_gmt":"2020-08-27T21:29:22","slug":"wigneswarans-attempts-to-construct-an-alternative-history-of-local-tamils-going-back-to-millenia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/08\/27\/wigneswarans-attempts-to-construct-an-alternative-history-of-local-tamils-going-back-to-millenia\/","title":{"rendered":"Wigneswaran’s attempts to construct an alternative history of local Tamils going back to millenia."},"content":{"rendered":"

Chandre Dharmawardana<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

“Wigneswaran …..Presumably hoping\nfor a wider, protracted debate on that element. The Govt side very effectively\nscuttled his hopes by nixing any such debate during event.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This sort of thing has gone on since\nthe 1930s. In fact, the first Sinhala-Tamil riot in 1939 August occurred when\nG. G. Ponnambalam alluded to the ancient history of the Tamils in Sri lanka,\nwhile the condemning the Sinhalese as a “mongrel race” descended from\nthe tamils. He claimed at a meeting in Nwalapitiya that Vijaya was Vijayan<\/em>,\nand Kashyapa was Kasi-appan<\/em>. The riot which began to spread widely was\nput down with force by the British Raj and it ended in a day, unlike the\ncommunal riots under Bandaranaike or JR Jayawardena..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, just prior to Independence\nD. S. Senanayake followed the same tactic of NOT arguin with the Tamil leaders\nin front of the Soulbury commission. He forebade people like S. W. R. D.\nBandaranaike who was the leading Sinhala nationalist and spokesman of the\nSinhala Maha Sabha and all members of his party (nascent UNP) from making any\npresentations in front of the Soulbury commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

G. G. Ponnambalam Senior talked and\nharangued for three days, claiming that<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. the Tamils are discriminated with\nrespect to jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. The existence of the Buddhist\nTemporalities act and place given to Buddhism by  treaty discriminated\nagainst tamils.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. There was no port in the North\ncomparable to Colombo and discriminated against the tamils.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4.  There were no hospitals\ncomparable to Colombo in the North. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

5.  The British favoured the\nSinhalese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6.  The expatriate tamils who\nhad been working in British colonies and had come back to Sri lanka because of\nthe 1930s ecomomic depression should be given government employment in\npreference to the “uneducated” sinhalese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7. Seananayak’s irrigation schemes\nfavoured the Sinhalese
\n8. Etc, etc <\/p>\n\n\n\n

9. The Tamils, although a small\ndemographic must be given an equal number of seats in parliament<\/strong> (50 for\nTamils and any minorities who join his party, and 50 for Sinhalese) – the \ninfamous  50-50 demand<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

G. G. Ponnambalam talked for three\ndays, making the same sort of wild assertions made by Wigneswarn today (but\nonly for a very brief period given to him). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was no rebuttal. It was\nimplied and made known that GGP’s claims were so preposterous that no rebuttal\nwas necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Muslim leaders like T. B. Jayah\nopposed GGP in brief presentations. Some Kandyan leaders wanted power to\nthemselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nBut Soulbury ordered the Ceylon Civil Service heads  of various\ndepartments to research each of the claims. Many of the top civil servants were\nBritish and tamil, with very few sinhalese. However, the civil service brought\nout solid evidence showing the highly favourable position occupied by the\nTamils in almost every sphere of public and commercial endevours in Sri lanka,\ndebunking the claims of GGPonnambalam.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile D. S. Senanayake and\nothers, while publicly boycotting the Soulbury commission, feted and dined them\nin private and took them on trips in the country to show sights, irrigation\nworks etc., and got them entirely into their pockets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soulbury wrote that G. G.\nPonnambalam is trying to put justice and fairplay upside down, and rejected\nPonnambalam so hard that Ponnambalam’s political future became in doubt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then,\nafter letting GGP eat humbe pie for an year or so, DS Senanayake the master\ntactician asked GGP to join his Cabinet, and even help to draft the Indian\ncitizenship act which denied citizenship to estate workers unless they had 7\nyears of continuous residence in the country. Vaitiyalingam, GGPonna etc, were\ninvolved in drafting that bill whicvh the Tamils mof today blame on D. S.\nSeanayake. In 1952 GGPonnambalam campaigned hard against the ITAK of SJV\nChelvanayagam who pushed a Tamil Nationalist program. That is GGPonnambalam\neffectively rejected his old policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, after DSSenanayake’s death,\nthe ignorant and naive John Kotelawala<\/p>\n\n\n\n

undid\nall this by going to Jaffna and telling ITAK agents who hosted him that he will\nmake Tamil an official language [where as DS senanayake has said he will not\nmake the official languages issue “a political football” and avoided\nthe issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 He\nwanted to take it up later, “behind the curtain”. I do not know if\nthat was a feasible tactic. Buddhist leaders like Mr. Mettanada, Ven\nKalukondayawe  and others were very unhappy with the position taken by\nDSSeanayake, although Dr. Malalasekera, Baron Jayatilleke and others agreed (or\nvacillated) that the language question should not be brought out as an election\nissue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this most experienced and\ncunning politician who had the British rulers in his pocket died when he fell\nof a horse, and John Kothelawala became PM by accident.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n


\n[The best account of all this is found in the book by the British Historian Dr.\nJane Russell, Communal Politics under the Donoughmore commission<\/em>,\n1931-1948, published in 1982 or 1984 by Tissara Prakashakayo. You can also\ngoogle it].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, the situation is different. Just\nas the Soulbury commission did, the government must give a dignified (non\npolemical) response to Wigneswaran so that Wigneswaran has no platform to put\nout his theater and become a Tamil Nationalist hero worth a tuppence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gotabhaya, in appointing the task\nforce for the preservation of archaeological sites, is moving in the right\ndirection.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nfact that what Wigneswaran said has got into the Hansaard is of no importance.\nthere are already much worse things said there in the Hansard, from GGPonnambalam\nSr in the state council, by SJV Chelvanayagam, EMV Naganathan, \nAmirthalingam etc, in the Parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does any one (except a historian)\nknow much about them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what Wigneswarn said is nothing in comparison – he is making sounds to be heard by his diaspora funding agents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chandre Dharmawardana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chandre Dharmawardana “Wigneswaran …..Presumably hoping for a wider, protracted debate on that element. The Govt side very effectively scuttled his hopes by nixing any such debate during event.” This sort of thing has gone on since the 1930s. In fact, the first Sinhala-Tamil riot in 1939 August occurred when G. G. Ponnambalam alluded to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chandre-dharmawardana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105972","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=105972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105972\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}