{"id":107725,"date":"2020-10-18T15:32:05","date_gmt":"2020-10-18T22:32:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=107725"},"modified":"2020-10-18T15:32:05","modified_gmt":"2020-10-18T22:32:05","slug":"three-events-of-the-thirties-that-made-the-post-independent-era-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/10\/18\/three-events-of-the-thirties-that-made-the-post-independent-era-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Three events of the thirties that made the post-independent era — Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

H. L. D. Mahindapala<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n
\"\"
H. L. D. Mahindapala<\/strong> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Taking an overview of  the 20th<\/sup>  century it\ncan be argued that the seeds of the major forces that shaped the political\nlandscape of post-independent era were sown in the thirties. Three events in\nparticular stand out from the thirties as defining points of departure from the\nsemi-feudal, semi-colonial, semi-capitalist past into the tumultuous future\nstruggling to be born: 1. democratisation of the  political system under\nthe Donoughmore Constitution with universal franchise in 1931  — a daring\npolitical experiment which was unique for the time: it transferred political\npower from the elite to the powerless enabling them to influence the political\nprocess according to their will; 2. the birth of LSSP and Sinhala Maha Saba in\n1935 and 3. G. G.  Ponnambalam\u2019s anti-Sinhala-Buddhist speech in Navalapitiya\nin June 1939. The impact of all three events unravelled in their own \nspheres sometimes intertwining, sometimes going their separate ways and\nsometime  clashing with each other, with, of course, all three\ncollectively leading \/ dragging the nation  to where we are now in the 21st<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us take the last one  first. With one  speech in\nthe late thirties Ponnambalam shattered the inter-ethnic peace that had lasted\nfor centuries. The impact of that anti-Sinhala-Buddhist speech still reverberates\nin the political highways and byways of the nation. It was an ominous event\nthat cast it dark shadow right across the remaining decades of the 20th<\/sup> century\nand to this day. In fact, the Hindu Organ<\/em><\/strong>, the leading Tamil\nvoice of the day, wrote a prophetic editorial titled, Writing on the\nWall, <\/em><\/strong>forecasting the coming events that bedevilled the\nnation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a time when the old aristocratic elite of Jaffna, led by\nthe distinguished brothers, Sir. Ponnambalam Ramanathan and Sir. Ponnambalam\nArunachalam, had faded  out  of the national political scene. The\nlast of that turbaned elite, Sir. Ponnambalam Ramanathan, passed away in 1931.\nThe field was wide open for the new-comer, G. G. Ponnambalam, to step in and\ntake command of Jaffna politics. It was also a time when anti-Jewish racism of\nthe Nazis was at its zenith. He  had seen how it had worked for Hitler. As\na student  in UK he had visited Germany couple of times and when he\nreturned he did not bring in his baggage the fashionable Marxists ideology that\ncaptured the imagination of the Sinhala returnees from Western universities\nlike Philip Gunawardena, Dr. N. M. Perera, and Dr. Colvin R de Silva. He took\nto casteism and communalism like duck to water\u2013 the two deep-rooted evils of\nJaffna.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His politics ran counter to the anti-caste, anti-racist ideology\nof the Tamil youth who were inspired by Gandhi. The powerful Tamil Youth\nMovement of the day was also against Ponnambalam, and he could not even contest\nin Jaffna. But he returned triumphantly to ride the waves of casteism and\ncommunalism. He was the first to define and exploit the subterranean force of\ncommunalism that ripped the nation apart. Besides, when Ponnambalam stepped\ninto the political vacuum left behind by his aristocratic predecessors he had\nno progressive or modern ideology to mobilise and lead the Jaffnaites into\nmodernity. His commitment to feudalistic casteism and political communalism was\nincurable. Nor was Jaffna, hidden behind the ubiquitous cadjan curtain, ready\nto receive and follow 20th<\/sup> century ideologies of social change.\nIt was stuck too deep in casteist conservatism. It was the most sacred\nreligious tenet of the elitist Saivites of Jaffna. It was the sole lifeline of\nthe ruling Vellala elite. Their supremacy, which they guarded with all their\nmight, depended on casteism which had been ordained as the divinely anointed\nsocial order. Furthermore, Vellalaism, which was a combined force Hinduism,\ncasteism and politics, was a political ideology that was incrementally\ntransiting into mono-ethnic extremism. Each one of these factors locked into\nthe other seamlessly, inseparably. Jaffna was held together by the superior\nforce of Vellalaism. Ponnambalam arrived on the political scene at the right\ntime to lead Vellala middle-class, competing mainly for government jobs and\npolitical power, with the rising middle class of the Sinhalese in the\nsouth.  So, when he took to anti-Sinhala-Buddhist communalism he became an\nintegral part of the  prevailing political culture of the English-speaking\nSaivite Jaffna Vellalas (SJVs) who dominated the British public service with a\ndisproportionate share of jobs at all levels. This enabled the Vellalas to\nmaintain a cosy relationship with the ruling colonial masters. This, in turn,\nenabled them to retain their Vellala casteist power, privileges, perks and\npositions derived from the preceding feudal age with the least resistance from\nthe colonial masters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The SJVs who were rising as the new middle class of Jaffna\nformed the formidable and indispensable base for all political leaders. The\nSJVs derived their strength as a collective force dominating the public\nservice. The Government Clerical Service Union headquarters in Maradana was a\nbigger political center than any place in Jaffna. So much so that S. J. V.\nChelvanayakam, the father of Tamil separatism, launched his Illankai Tamil\nArasu Kachchu (aka Federal Party) on December 14, 1949 at the GCSU Hall in\nMaradana. Their security and future prospects, particularly in the \nmarriage market, depended on government jobs. The discretionary administrative\npower that trickled down to them as the go-between subalterns of the British\nEmpire \u2013 an essential secondary tier to run all empires — armed the SJV\nelite  with the power to initiate, direct and implement the political contours\nof Jaffna with no rivals from within to challenge their supremacy in all\nsocio-political matters, and even personal lives, from the womb to the tomb.\nPonnambalam\u2019s arrogant personality too dove-tailed neatly into the reigning\nsupremacist ideology of the SJVs who ruled the  peninsula with an\niron-fist from the feudal ages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The grab  for disproportionate power in the public service\nand the legislature was a peculiarity confined only to the SJV elite of\nJaffna.  Hence Ponnambalam\u2019s cry for 50-50\u201d \u2013 fifty per cent of power for\n11 per cent Tamils of the North. Trying to grab  power both in the\nadministration  and in the legislature was not a characteristic of the\nother layers of Jaffna Tamil society which consisted of the low-castes, or the\nBatticoloa Tamils, or the Indian Tamils, or the Tamil-speaking Muslims. All the\nissues raised by Ponnambalam in packaging his 50-50\u201d demand, from\ndiscrimination in the public service jobs to power-sharing at the centre,\nconcerned essentially the English-speaking Saivite, Jaffna, Vellalas and no\nother Tamils.  The Batticoloa Tamils, the Indian Tamils, and the\nTamils-speaking Muslims had their own political agendum which were not related\nto white-collar jobs in the public service or a 50% share of seats in the\nlegislature.  This explains why S. J. V. Chelvanayakam\u2019s Thamil\nPayasoom Makkal<\/em><\/strong> (Tamil-speaking people) Movement failed. The\nnon-Vellala Tamil-speaking people resented the hegemony of the Vellala\nsupremacists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides, the SJVs were obsessed with the fanciful belief that\nthey had descended from a superior culture wrapped in the Tamil language which,\nthey believed, would make them the equal to the Sinhala-Buddhists,  if\nnot  superior. The Tamils could claim 50\u201d of power only if they could\nprove to the British that they were equal to the Sinhalese.  In the\nabsence of a great and glorious historical past that could match that of the\nSinhala-Buddhists, claiming the legacy of the Tamil culture and language created\nin S. India has been the only defensive position they could take in order to\nclaim equality with the Sinhalese. It was  the mainstay of Tamil pride\nand  politics. Basking in borrowed feathers make them feel superior. It is\na hollow claim of a sterile culture that produced only ant-hills compared to\nmonumental achievements of the Sinhala-Buddhists. The Tamils of Jaffna could\nfind refuge only in the greatness of the Tamils of S. India. They failed to\nproduce anything great that could make them stand out as a noteworthy\ncivilising  force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, they were forced to claim greatness not on any achievements\nof their own but on the genius of Tamils in another country. The Sinhalese take\ncredit for the genius of their ancestors who created a new civilisation, new\nculture and a new language on Sri Lankan soil, overcoming all the challenges of\ntime and nature. Americans, Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders, for\ninstance do not claim to be great and  take pride in the culture made in\nBritain. They claim greatness for turning the virgin land into a new\ncivilisation and a new culture and to some extent a new language. Churchill put\nit elegantly when he said that America and England are two nations divided by\none language. The Tamils cannot even claim to have made a substantial\ncontribution to the Tamil language. They never made an original contribution to\nenrich the Tamil language. Their biggest boast is about Arumuka Navalar and V.\nThamotherampillai rediscovering some of the forgotten Tamil texts and\nreprinting them in Jaffna. On this count, some Jaffna Tamils  even claims\nto be superior to the S. Indian Tamils, the founding fathers of the Tamil\nlanguage. Jaffna Tamil bragging about their culture and language is full of\nsound and no substance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other Tamil-speaking groups  resented the arrogance \nof  the  SJVs posing as a superior breed of human beings \ndescending from a glorious Tamil culture articulated in one  of the\nancient languages. Finding sanctity in antiquity has been their last resort. This\nis a fallacious argument. Other modern languages which had  risen to\ngreater heights as a civilising force are dismissed as not being in the same\nclass as Tamil because they lack antiquity. Well, what\u2019s the difference between\nan old snake and a baby snake? What matters is the sting not the age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All this is symptomatic of the desperate search of Jaffna Tamils\nfor greatness. Unable to provide any evidence of their monumental achievements\nthey are wont to chant mantras of their imaginary greatness.  This is pure\nTamil show-vinism\u201d. Ponnambalam\u2019s attack on the Sinhala-Buddhists and lauding\nTamil greatness in the same breath is typical of cheap Tamil show-vinism\u201d. He\ntook to Tamil show-vinism\u201d  because he had no other viable and\nprogressive policy to offer the oppressed Tamils. He was also aware of the\nrising resentment of the oppressed castes against the SJVs. Tamil show-vinism\u201d\nwas a tactic to deflect the blame on to the Sinhalese to cover up the evils of\nthe Jaffna society ruled by the SJVs. Besides, the bankrupt Tamil show-vinists\u201d\ntook to demonising the Sinhalese and downgrading  the Sinhala-Buddhist\nhistory as their main plank, partly to claim a superiority over the others and\npartly to garner votes in the peninsula. Ponnambalam\u2019s show-vinist\u201d legacy\nlasts to this day. C. V. Wigneswaran and Ponnambalam\u2019s grandson survive in\npeninsular politics by selling Ponnambalam\u2019s Tamil show-vinism\u201d. All this\nbegan with GG\u2019s\u201d speech in June 1939 in Navalapitiya. His legacy has been a\npowerful force in determining the form and direction of Jaffna Tamil politics.\nTamil politics since the been within the framework drawn by Ponnambalam. Other\nvariations of Tamil politics has been either an extension or and adjustment of\nhis anti-Sinhala-Buddhist greatness of Tamil mediocrities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tragically, the  thirties saw the decline of Jaffna Tamil\nYouth who, inspired by Gandhism, rejected both casteism  and communalism.\nHistory would not have taken the route it did if the  Jaffna Youth of\ntwenties succeeded. Instead Ponnambalam of the thirties spun the theory of\nTamil superiority to make-believe that they are not only equal to the\nSinhala-Buddhists but also superior. That was the gist of his provocative\nspeech at Navalapitiya. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second event was the birth of the Sinhala Maha Sabha in 1935\nwhich will be explored in the next article. It was a counter to the rising wave\nof Tamil show-vinism\u201d. The Tamils who broke away from the Ceylon National\nCongress, which consisted of the elite drawn from all communities, established\nthe first communal party, Tamil Mahajana Sabhai, in 1921. This Tamil elite was\nin the forefront  of demanding more seats and more power for the Tamils to\nbe on  par with the Sinhalese. The first decades of the 20th<\/sup> century\nwas marked by constitutional changes in which the Tamils launched their\ncampaigns to grab an equal share of power on the fake claim that they were not\na minority but a majority community. Though they constituted only 11 % they\nclaimed, believe it or not,  that they too were a majority community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prof. K. M. de Silva, Sri Lanka\u2019s foremost historian, has\ndocumented this claim in his scholarly analysis of the break-up of the Ceylon\nNational Congress. He wrote that \u2026 Arunachalam shared the prevailing opinion\nthat the Tamils were not a minority but were one of two majority communities.\u201d\n(p.115 – The Ceylon Journal of Historical and Social Studies,\nJuly-December 1972<\/em><\/strong>). It is this kind  of hallucinatory politics\nthat led to divisive politics on communal lines. Distorting the known\nhistorical and political facts has been a prime necessity for the Tamils to\nsustain their exaggerated claims for an equal share of power. Claiming to be a\nsuperior breed because they speak the Tamil language, claiming to be founders\nof Sri Lankan  history from the dawn of time\u201d,  claiming to be makers\nof a culture  far superior to that of the Sinhalese, claiming to be a\nmajority\u201d community equal to that of the Sinhalese, claiming  to be \nintellectually superior because they occupied a disproportionate share of jobs\nin the public service and professions, claiming to be divinely chosen by God to\nbe at the top of the casteist hierarchy in Jaffna, claiming to be the trusted\nfavourites of the colonial masters because they knew the art of sideling up to\nthe colonial masters etc., gave them the illusion of being a superior breed\nstanding way above the rest of their fellow-citizens. It made them inordinately\narrogant and treat some of its own people as unworthy pariahs not fit to be\nmembers of the Tamil community. The Tamil supremacists spat on  their own\nTamils. The low-castes were kicked out of Tamil society as a subhuman species\nthat should not be seen or heard. In one tragic incident when the low-caste\nHindus demonstrated non-violently at Maviddipuram Temple in 1968, pleading for\nthe right  to worship the same God\/s in the Vella-managed temples, \nthe organised Vellala gangs enforcing Vellala taboos,  cracked their heads\nwith iron rods and bottles filled with sand.  It is these supremacists\nthat go around the world saying that the Sinhalese had discriminated against\nthem \u2013 the most privileged elite in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tamil tendency to wallow in their own myths has been one of\nthe primary causes that led them to their political misery. Wanting to be \nthe greatest, wanting to be superior to the rest, wanting to be the makers of\nhistory because they do not have a great history of their own are some of the\npolitical tools they use to pursue their political goals. In the process they\nalso tend to denigrate and downgrade those who  are projected as their\nenemies. Fabricating myths against their rivals have been the  usual\ntactic to gain political mileage. Ponnambalam was the first to fabricate the\nmyth of discrimination against the Tamils when he went before the Soulbury\nCommissioners  \u2013 a cry which claimed that the Sinhala state\u201d had not been\nfair by the Tamils in the public service. This cry was raised to appease the\nSJVs who were fixated on government jobs, with a pension, three railway tickets\nper annum for the family, and a big fat dowry. This was not an issue that affected\nthe other Tamil-speaking communities. The major issues that divided the\nNorth-South communities \u2013 job discrimination, language, power-sharing,\ncolonisation \u2013 were not common to all Tamil-speaking communities island-wide.\nAll these issues concerned only the SJV elite in the North. These issues did\nnot relate to even the low-castes in Jaffna. They were not fighting  for\njobs in government service because the public servants were, by and large, the\nEnglish-speaking Saivite Jaffna Vellalas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Soulbury Commissioners who\nlistened to Ponnambalam for nine hours dismissed his accusation of\ndiscrimination as having no substance. Clearly, the cry of discrimination was\nlaunched in British colonial times. It did not begin with Bandaranaike\u2019s\nSinhala-only policy, as touted by the anti-Sinhala-Buddhist propagandists. But\nthis mythology has become a truth among to the hired academic and NGO pundits.\nIt became one of the key accusations against what they called the Sinhala\nstate\u201d.  The accusation persisted and it is still in circulation. \nApart from Soulbury Commission in the forties a study on this  issue of\ndiscrimination was made in 1985. The date is important because it was after the\nTamil leadership had declared war in the Vadukoddai Resolution in May 14,\n1976  on this issue, in particular. The study was made by the Citizens\nCommittee and MARGA an independent think-tank engaged in social research. After\nexamining in detail the claims of discrimination\u201d against\nthe Tamils, their report, titled Inter-Racial Equity And\nNational Unity in Sri Lanka MARGA Institute, Jan. 1985, authored by Godfrey\nGunatilleke,<\/em><\/strong> revealed, inter alia :<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. \u02dcthe average levels of living of\nthe Tamil community are in no way inferior to those of the Sinhalese\ncommunity.  p. 10<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Both communities are, more or\nless, of the similar levels of well-being and face similar problems of social\nand economic development — p.10<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. The Sri Lankan Tamil community\nof approximately 600,000 working in Sinhala areas, particularly in the\nSouth-West enjoys a relatively higher level of well-being than the average\nSinhala households in these areas, as the Tamil segment falls largely into the\nlower-middle class, middle and upper-middle income levels.– p.9<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. The Tamil politicians have\nexpressed the view that the problem of language in so far as it applied to the\nTamil-speaking areas has already found satisfactory solutions in the more\nimportant areas. For all practical purposes, Tamil has now become the language\nof the administration and the courts in the Tamil-speaking districts. —\np.12.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. In 1980 the schools in the\nJaffna District had approximately 6,202 students in grade 12 of the science\nstream as compared with the total of 45,979 for the whole country. This\naccounts for approximately 13.5 of the total number of students at this level.\nThe share of the population of the Jaffna District in the total population\nis only about 5.5. per cent.– p. 18. Clearly, 5.5 per cent of the student\npopulation occupying 13.5 per cent isn\u2019t discrimination, is it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6. The welfare state which was\nexpanded in the post-independence period reached out to all parts of the\ncountry and to all Sri Lankan citizens, irrespective of community or creed. The\nfacts and figures as well as the socio-economic changes that have taken place\nover the past 30 years validate this position beyond any serious\ndoubt.–   p.10\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also listed the facilities\navailable in Government schools in 1980.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Educational\nDistrict                                         \nNo of\nschools                               \nLibrary                               \nScience Labs<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Colombo                                                                    \n251                                           \n126                                       \n128<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jaffna                                                                         \n559                                            \n116                                      \n100                                                                                                                                 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(p. 18 Inter-Racial\nEquity And National Unity in Sri Lanka, MARGA<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The evidence is there to arrive at\nrational conclusions. But not all the mountains of evidence can convince those\nwho prefer to  believe in their comforting myths. In  other words, it\nis possible to take all horses to water but no one can make all of them drink\nit. They prefer to wallow in their own myths which leads them to their own\nmisery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

mahindapala8@gmail.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be continued<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

H. L. D. Mahindapala Taking an overview of  the 20th  century it can be argued that the seeds of the major forces that shaped the political landscape of post-independent era were sown in the thirties. Three events in particular stand out from the thirties as defining points of departure from the semi-feudal, semi-colonial, semi-capitalist past […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-h-l-d-mahindapala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107725","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=107725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107725\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}