{"id":117728,"date":"2021-09-01T16:32:58","date_gmt":"2021-09-01T23:32:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=117728"},"modified":"2021-09-01T16:32:58","modified_gmt":"2021-09-01T23:32:58","slug":"racism-nationalism-and-supranationalism-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/09\/01\/racism-nationalism-and-supranationalism-iii\/","title":{"rendered":"Racism, Nationalism and Supranationalism – III"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

(continued\nfrom August 28, 2021)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Misrepresentation and distortion of history by colonialists and\nseparatists<\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The\nindependence or dominion status that Sri Lanka (then Ceylon to foreigners) was\ngranted by the departing British colonials was not more than a hangover from\nthe British imperialism of the previous one and a half centuries (1798-1948)\nuntil real independence was realised through the constitutional change of 1972.\nThe promulgation of the republican constitution in that year was arguably the\nfirst most momentous event in post-independence Sri Lanka, because it\ndefinitively reversed the total loss of independence of the country of Sinhale\nthat happened in 1815 with the deposition of Sri Wickrema Rajasinghe the king\nof Kandy (1798-1815). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nsmall minority of aging Tamil separatist leaders do not like to accept this\npalpable truth. They hang on to the facile and factless two nation or two\ncountries generalization incorporated in the Cleghorn Minute of 1799 (which had\nbeen prompted by administrative convenience with hardly any regard for the\nfacts of history, based entirely on the then existing demography of the region.\nHugh Cleghorn was the colonial secretary; he must have been familiar with the\nefficacy of the imperial divide and rule strategy (which made potential allies\nagainst the invader turn against each other). Chief justice Alexander Johnstone\ntwenty-eight years later (in 1827) was guilty of an even more outrageous\nfalsehood; he thought it reasonable, on casual observation, to assume that\nTamils had inhabited the north and east provinces at the period of their\ngreatest agricultural prosperity\u201d (as claimed in a paper presented at an Eelam\npromotion London seminar in 1992).  This erroneous assumption by that\nservant of the British empire carelessly attributed the unparalleled achievements\nof the well known hydrological\/hydraulic civilization of the Sinhalese that\nflourished in the Dry Zone from at least 5th century BCE to 13th century CE to\nTamils! (It was Magha of Kalinga\u2019s invasion at the beginning of the 13th\ncentury that put an effective end to that period not only of agricultural\nprosperity, but booming trade with neighbouring countries, achieved by the\nSinhalese. Tens of thousands of large and small water reservoirs or wewas\n(Sinhala)\/wapi (Pali) and irrigation channels, whose exquisite engineering\nsophistication still amazes the world, dot the island and serve the nation, by\nenabling the cultivation  of paddy in two seasons unhindered by the annual\noccurrence of rainless months. Latest archaeological finds in the hilly Walapane\ndistrict indicate that the concept of storing water by damming streams\npre-existed even the construction of artificial lakes (wewas) by kings Abhaya\nand Pandukabhaya in Anuradhapura in the 5th century BCE, where water reservoir\nbuilding has traditionally been thought to have originated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concept of a Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka debunked<\/em> <\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Eminent\nhistorians including Professor K.M. de Silva who wrote a research paper in 1995\nspecifically addressing the subject have comprehensively debunked the Tamils\u2019\nhomeland concept. There is absolutely no historical evidence to justify the\nclaim that Tamils had total control over the vast area that now constitutes the\nnorth-eastern region. The nearest the Tamils got to that was when they\nestablished themselves in the Jaffna peninsula in the north and some areas\nadjacent to it in the south in the Vanni (vana means jungle or forest in\nSinhala) district for about three centuries between the 13th and 16th centuries\n(i.e., following the defeat and escape of invader Magha of Kalinga that put an\nend to his tyrannous occupation of twenty-one years, 1215-1236 CE).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The truth: A\nhistory of foreign invasions and dogged resistance from native Sinhalese <\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

By the time of\nthe beginning of the European involvement in Sri Lanka with the arrival of the\nPortuguese at the dawn of the 16th century, the island had survived seventeen\narmed Dravidian invasions from South India, the first of which happened in 230\nBCE (i.e., horse traders Sena and Guttika\u2019s usurpation of the throne in\nAnuradhapura; the two \u2018reigned righteously for twenty-two years\u2019 as the\nBuddhist bhikkhu Mahanama Thera, the Mahavansa author,  says in Chapter\nXXI, without any trace of anger or vengeful thoughts). There is no doubt that\nthese invasions and later European interferences and interventions in the\ninternal affairs of the island were primarily triggered by exclusive trade\ninterests, rather than political or territorial ambitions of imperial powers.\nDravidians had occupied and ruled parts of the north and east of the country\nintermittently for about 300 years of the first 2000 years of its 2500 year\nrecorded history. King Vijayabahu I (prince Keerthi born c. 1039) ) reigned\nfrom 1055 to 1110. He expelled the Chola invaders who were occupying parts in\nthe north of the country after a seventeen year struggle and brought the island\n\u2018under one canopy\u2019 as under Dutugemunu (161-137 BCE) before him. South Indian\ninvasions again came after Vijayabahu\u2019s death during the rule of his weaker\nsuccessors, until his grandson Parakramabahu I (1153-1186) beat the invaders\nback and unified the country once again. This monarch who took great interest\nin the economic and cultural development of the country  was so powerful\nthat he even invaded South India and Burma (modern Myanmar) to ensure the free\nflow of trade between the island and neighbouring states. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kalinga Magha\ninvasion<\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Kalinga Magha\u2019s\ninvasion of Sinhale in the first half of the 13th century (1215-1236) took\nplace at a particularly unstable period of royal disputes caused by rivalries\nand intrigues between pretenders to the throne, which had led, as can be\nguessed, to much internecine feuding and violence, disorder and anarchy, that\nattracted hostile foreign adventurers. Those  \u2018wicked and cruel and\ngrievous deeds that the inhabitants of Lanka had done\u2019 (as admitted by the\nMahavansa author, would have seemed, at least in the marauder Kalinga Magha\u2019s\neyes, to extenuate the enormity of the cruel excesses committed by him on his\nSinhala victims. About invader Kalinga Magha, Chapter LXXX of the Mahavansa\n(continued in the form of Culavansa) says (The author monk\u2019s language does not\nreflect the actual economic, political and military background to this event)\n: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it came to\npass that, because of some wicked and cruel and grievous deeds that the\ninhabitants of Lanka had done, the gods who had been placed in different parts\nthereof to watch over them and to protect them cared no longer for the country,\nand looked not any more after their safety. Thereupon a certain wicked prince\nof the Kalinga race, Magha by name, invaded the country at the head of twenty\nthousand strong men from Kalinga and took possession of the island of Lanka.\nAnd he was a follower of false faiths, and had a mind only to do mischief\u2026\u201d\n(quoted from Mudaliyar L.C. Wijesinghe translation\/1889). (Note again the\ndetached, equanimous tone of the monk author – it\u2019s a monk of a later age who\ncomposed this Culavansa part of the Mahavansa.) The Magha invasion dealt a near\ndeath blow to the historic hydraulic engineering based civilization of the\nSinhalese in the dry zone, which arguably had reached its apogee under\nParakramabahu I. After twenty-one year occupation of the Lanka kingdom, Magha\nwas beaten and driven away by the Sinhalese; apparently he did not return to\nhis country Kalinga unlike earlier invaders, but stayed on in the north and\nstarted ruling there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After this\nfortuitous disintegration of the country of Sinhale, there appeared in its\nsouthern part, several Sinhalese kingdoms, including the Kandyan kingdom in the\ncentral interior, which remained independent until 1815. However, the idea of\none country one state seems to have survived the post-Magha division of the\ncountry; the division was something that was not  psychologically accepted\nby the Sinhalese. The Sinhalese kingdom that emerged the most powerful at any\ntime laid claim to lordship over the whole of the island, at least in\nprinciple. No authority I have read has articulated this conception of the land\nof the Sinhalese (Tri Sinhale) as a single sovereign nation, cherished by them\nover the millennia, better than the distinguished former professor of\nanthropology Gananath Obesekere of the University of Princeton:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his 2017 book\nThe Doomed King: A Requiem for Sri Vikrama Rajasinha\u201d, he writes: ….. all\nSri Lankan kings believed that the \u2018nation\u2019 as a whole constituted an entity\nknown as Tri Sinhala (the three parts of the Sinhala land)………….. Tri\nSinhala refers to the division of the nation into three broad semi-independent\nregions in a kind of loose unity: Rajarata or Pihitirata in the north, part of\nthe ancient kingdom; Maya, the western part; and Ruhuna, the very south and\neast. In that conception foreign invaders were there on sufferance and it is\nthe duty of kings to redeem that historic unity\u2026\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this book,\nObesekere paints a positive vision of the king using both British and Sinhala\nsources until his final capture and banishment\u2026\u201d. He thinks that the king was\ndepicted by the intriguing British as a brutal tyrant who committed cruel\nexcesses against his own people that he suspected of disloyalty, and who thus\ncaused resentment and disaffection among his subjects. This was to justify\ntheir own aggressive designs on the kingdom. In reality, Sri Vikrama was ruling\nas a good king amidst many challenges he had to face because of the treachery\nof the Kandyan aristocrats engaged in intrigues with the prowling British. The\nresearcher calls Sri Vikrama a \u2018doomed king\u2019 because the dream of Sri Lankan\nkings of restoring the unity of the nation (mentioned above) which he\nalso  must have entertained had become unrealistic and futile when the\nmaritime provinces were conquered by the Portuguese and the Dutch, especially\nafter the British turned them into a crown colony under the British empire in\n1798. The king was doomed to be removed sooner or later, for they would not\nhave allowed the Kandyan kingdom to be independent, posing a threat to their\noverlordship. Both governor Thomas Maitland (1805-1811) and the spying\nintermediary between the Kandyans and the British in Colombo John D\u2019Oyly knew\nthat the Kandyan kings claimed the whole of the island as their legitimate\nright (p.53). So, what was ceded to the British in 1815 was the whole of the\nland of Sinhale. That, I think, is the reason why Obesekere says that probably\nthe deposition of king Sri Vikrama was the most momentous event in Sri Lankan\nhistory (i.e., the complete loss of independence for the first time in its over\n2500 year recorded history).     <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Incidentally,\nseparatists make much of Sri Vikrama Rajasinha being allegedly a Malabar\/Tamil.\nThat is a fallacy, too. He was not a Tamil at all. He belonged to the Telegu\nspeaking Nayaka dynasty who had come  to Tamil Nadu from the north to rule\nthere (hence called the Vadugas or northerners; they were a warrior class who\nhad come from Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka) ; they were not Tamil themselves.\nThe Kandyan kings maintained relations with the Vadugas. In the Kandy royal\ncourt, Sinhala, Telegu, and of course Tamil were used. But most ordinary\nKandyan Sinhaese were ignorant of Telegu; neither did they understand \nthese fine distinctions. They revered the Nayaka kings including Sri Vikrama as\nSinhala Buddhist kings, though they knew that they were not Sinhalese by blood,\nand though they thought they were Tamil. As Obesekere says, those Kandyan\nSinhalese labelled even the Portuguese as Tamils! Sri Vikrama was consecrated\nas a Buddhist king to rule over the kingdom of Sinhale. He was crowned king not\nbecause he was a Tamil or a Vaduga, but because he was the legitimate heir to\nthe Sinhale throne according to the rules of succession of the time.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last native\nsovereign to unify the whole of Lanka after the breaking away of parts of the\nkingdom caused by the Kalinga Magha invasion of the 13th century was\nParakramabahu VI of the 15th century (1412-1467). He was able to do this by\n1450, having conquered the northern Jaffna kingdom. However, following his\ndeath ten years later, Jaffna and Kandy broke away again. When the Portuguese\nmade their initial moves, the kingdom of Sitawaka was the most powerful of the\nSinhalese kingdoms. Despite the vicissitudes of fortunes of history over\nmillennia the Sinhalese never gave up their sovereign claim to the whole of the\nisland. From 1505 to 1815, the European imperial powers – the Portuguese,\nDutch, and English – separately occupied the maritime provinces, while the\nSinhale kingdom was reduced to the hilly interior of the island (the Kandyan\nkingdom), which still occupied more geographical territory than the invaders,\nwith free access to the Trincomalee and Batticaloa harbours in the\nEast.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Portuguese\nwere in Sri Lanka from 1505 to 1658, in which year they departed permanently,\ngiving way to the Dutch. Until about 1530, Portuguese involvement in the\ncountry was limited to trade. But it became more determined and more menacing\nfollowing the death of king Bhuvanekabahu VII of Kotte in 1551. The Dutch were\nalready dominating by 1640. But their power gradually declined. The Dutch\noccupied territories were ceded to the British in 1796. The British overcame\nthe entrenched Kandyan resistance through intrigue in 1815, and brought Ceylon\nunder one rule\/the British empire, having thus subjugated the whole of the land\nof Sinhale as a single entity. It was this unified country that was granted independence\nfrom foreign  domination in 1948, at least nominally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vaddukoddai\nResolution of 1976<\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

 The\nso-called Vaddukoddai Resolution unanimously passed and adopted at the first\nNational  Convention of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) held\nunder the leadership of S.J.V. Chelvanayagam MP Kankesanturai in May 1976 \nresolved primarily that the restoration and reconstitution of the (alleged)\nFree, Sovereign, Secular, Socialist State of Tamil Eelam based on the right of\nself determination inherent to every nation, has become inevitable in order to\nsafeguard the very existence of the Tamil Nation in this Country\u201d. It was based\non a completely questionable reading of history, which arbitrarily and\nerroneously claimed that the Sinhalese and Tamil nations have divided the\npossession of Ceylon, the Sinhalese inhabiting the interior of the country in its\nSouthern and Western parts from the river Walawe to that of Chilaw and the\nTamils possessing the Northern and Eastern districts\u2026..and \u2026..that the Tamil\nKingdom was overthrown in war and conquered by the Portuguese in 1619, and from\nthem by the Dutch and the British in turn, independent of the Sinhalese\nKingdoms\u2026\u2026 The British colonialists joined the Tamil and Sinhalese Kingdoms for\npurposes of administrative convenience on the recommendation of the Colebrooke\nCommission in 1833\u2026\u201d.  It directed the Action Committee of the Tamil\nUnited Liberation Front to formulate a plan of action and launch without undue\ndelay the struggle for winning the sovereignty and freedom of the Tamil Nation,\nand called upon the Tamil Nation in general and the Tamil youth in particular\nto come forward to throw themselves fully into the sacred fight for freedom and\nto flinch not till the goal of a sovereign state of Tamil Eelam is\nreached\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reality\nbehind the Portuguese conquest of Jaffna in the early 17th century does not\nsupport the implicit claim in the Vaddukoddai Resolution that a significant\nTamil  kingdom was then in existence there. The truth was that the\nPortuguese defeated the Pandyan ruler who had been placed in power there and\nwho was maintained by a mercenary army from Tanjore. When he lost to the\nPortuguese, that army left, and most of the inhabitants with them. Jaffna was\nalmost totally emptied of its small population. The Portuguese had to import\nseveral thousand coolies from south India to work on their tobacco plantations.\nEven the few thousands made the place congested, which prompted the Dutch\ngovernor of the time to remark how overpopulated it was in as given in \u2018Memoirs\nof Recloff Van Geons\u2019 (December 26, 1663, translated by Reimers): Jaffna was\nso full of people that they were on each other\u2019s way, on which account the\ncountry was too small to feed\u2026..\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The historically\nunsupportable wild demands of the Eelamists involved more than one third of the\ngeographical territory of the country including particularly the ancient city\nof Anuradhapura, that had remained the seat of government of Sinhale for more\nthan one thousand five hundred years, and also the eastern province the very\nbedrock of the unique hydrological civilization of the Sinhalese that made them\nworld renowned, and in addition to this, two thirds of Sri Lanka\u2019s coastline,\nand hence two thirds of its territorial waters! All this for just 11% of the\npopulation! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Task assigned\nto Tamil intellectuals by the separatists<\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The leaders of\nthe then fast militarizing separatist movement assigned a special task to the\nTamil academics and intellectuals, and harassed those who didn\u2019t agree with\nthem. This was for them to provide theoretical and ideological support through\ntheir learning and superior intellect, particularly to convince the powerful\ninternational players in world politics of the alleged justness of their cause.\nSince the established facts were otherwise, they had to fabricate lies, which\nthey started asserting with increasing vehemence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even Karthigesu\nIndrapala was compelled to virtually recant the conclusions that he provided\nmuch scientific evidence to support in his 1965 PhD thesis, that had proved\nthat Tamil history in Sri Lanka began only in the 12th century CE. So he came\nout with The Evolution of an Ethnic Identity: The Tamils in Sri Lanka\u201d (2005),\nwhich favoured the separatist cause. Stanley Tambiah of Harvard university (who\nhad graduated from the then University of Ceylon before attending Cornell\nUniversity for his postgraduate studies in the early 1950s), a social\nanthropologist,  wrote \u2018Buddhism Betrayed: Religion, Politics, and\nViolence in Sri Lanka\u2019 in 1992. It was a  shockingly shallow work of a biased\nacademic (I regret having to use that oxymoron in this context) that was\ndesigned to feed the anti-Sinhala Buddhist misinformation drive of the\nseparatists. The title itself is gravely misleading. There has never been any\nviolence committed by Buddhists on religious minorities. There was no\nconnection between Buddhism and violence in Sri Lanka. It was all politics. It\nis unfortunate that no politician in the country has thought about setting the\nrecord straight in this regard. No worthwhile Sri Lankan academic has attempted\nto answer this pseudo work of scholarship, probably because it is not worth\ntheir attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tamil youth\nmisled<\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The misguided\nTamil youth formed themselves into several separatist groups and after \nyears of internecine clashes among them, the most violent LTTE got rid of all\nrival formations by killing off their leaders and emerged victorious. Its\nleader Velupillai Prabhakaran was from the downtrodden fisher caste in the\ncaste-ridden Jaffna society. It is a fact that Tamils, especially Tamils in the\nnorth and east, actually suffer from the Hindu caste discrimination, and not\nfrom non-existent Sinhala majoritatianism. Caste-free Tamil intellectuals of\ntoday, because they are correctly informed through their scholarship, and are\nintelligent enough to know fact from fiction, know the truth about the justness\nor otherwise of the separatist cause that they are now promoting through\nacademic misinformation about everything that is important for the survival of\nthe Sinhalese with their essentially Buddhist cultural traditions and\npractices, and for the preservation of the records of their ancient history and\nthe rich archaeological heritage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bamboozling\nintervention<\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Ironically, while\nit is being demonstrated that America\u2019s policy of intervening in other\ncountries is disastrous folly as  in the case of Afghanistan, TNA MP MA\nSumanthiran was reported (The Island\/August 27, 2021) as having called for\nAmerican mediation in Sri Lanka for resolving alleged issues faced by Tamils in\nthe North and East of the country. He pointed out that pushing this during\nMichelle Bachelet\u2019s tenure as High Commissioner for Human Rights was\nadvantageous for them. R. Sampanthan had earlier urged American ambassador\nAlaina B. Teplitz to get involved in getting the Sri Lankan government to fix\nthe so-called issues affecting the Tamils in the North and East, and that those\ntwo provinces should be merged and administered by the \u2018Tamil people\u2019. The TNA\nwas asking for a meeting with the president to discuss the implementation of\nthe UN recommendations passed in respect of Sri Lanka during the previous\nsessions. This is racism taking refuge in supranationalism, for baiting\nnationalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greatest\nachievement of the Sinhalese<\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

To my mind, the\ngreatest single achievement of the Sinhalese is their having remained a single\nsovereign nation with the same linguistic (Sinhala) and cultural (Buddhist)\nidentity intact for over twenty-three centuries in the face of so many\ndevastating onslaughts mounted throughout that long period not only on its\nsovereign independence but its very survival by South Indian and then European\ninvaders (during the initial 2000 years and the last 500 years, respectively).\nThese ever-present threats to Sri Lanka\u2019s sovereignty, unity, security, and\neconomic wellbeing, mainly caused by the fact of its geostrategically important\nlocation, have not ceased yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Potential for\nSri Lankan national unity<\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

 It is\ninternal divisions that encourage external attacks on our independence. The\ngreatest potential for national unity, in my view, comes from the easy\nreligio-cultural symbiosis  between the Tamil Hindus and the Sinhala\nBuddhists. Since the last mentioned  circumstance above – geographic\nlocation – cannot be changed by any means, it must be accepted as an unalterable\nphysical reality in a nationally proactive spirit, not as a curse, but as a\nblessing. It is up to the youth of the country of diverse ethnic backgrounds\nuntainted by historical baggages  to take up this challenge and forge\nahead as one sovereign nation without allowing foreign powers to walk over us,\nas they have done over the last seventy three years. I wrote this long essay,\nnot to stoke fires of racial hatred, but to douse them by ascertaining the\ntruth about our past as far as possible, which will enable us to see our way\nforward more clearly. (Concluded)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Rohana R. Wasala (continued from August 28, 2021) Misrepresentation and distortion of history by colonialists and separatists The independence or dominion status that Sri Lanka (then Ceylon to foreigners) was granted by the departing British colonials was not more than a hangover from the British imperialism of the previous one and a half centuries […]<\/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-117728","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\/117728","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=117728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117728\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}