{"id":119032,"date":"2021-10-10T14:06:26","date_gmt":"2021-10-10T20:06:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=119032"},"modified":"2021-10-10T06:57:17","modified_gmt":"2021-10-10T13:57:17","slug":"a-reply-to-c-v-wigneswarans-attack-on-g-l-peiris-part-1-can-tamils-accept-the-truth-about-the-tamil-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/10\/10\/a-reply-to-c-v-wigneswarans-attack-on-g-l-peiris-part-1-can-tamils-accept-the-truth-about-the-tamil-past\/","title":{"rendered":"A reply to C.V. Wigneswaran\u2019s attack on G. L. Peiris — Part 1 –Can Tamils accept the truth about the Tamil past?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

C.V.\nWigneswaran, the former Supreme Court judge, is the odd man out in Tamil\npolitics. The  main characteristic that separates him from his rival Tamil\npoliticians is his chronic tendency to belittle and\/or demonise the\nSinhala-Buddhists consistently in a desperate bid to elevate Tamil culture and\nhistory to a superior status \u2013 a corrosive and deceitful tactic which is\ndetrimental to reconciliation, peace and communal harmony. In the absence of a\nprogressive, or constructive political agenda (as Chief Minister he failed to\ncontribute anything substantial to change the conditions of the Northern\nProvince) he pursues opportunistic politics based essentially on provocative\nracist attacks on the Sinhala-Buddhists. His notable contribution to Tamil\npolitics as Chief Minister was to pass a resolution denigrating the\nSinhala-Buddhist leaders. Demonising the Sinhala-Buddhists has been his key\ntool to score points over his Tamil rivals. This is the card he plays to\nconvince the Tamil electorate that he is superior to his Tamil rivals in\ncombatting the Sinhala-Buddhists whom he portrays as the enemy of the Tamils.\nHis relentless racist attacks are aimed primarily at proving that, after\nVelupillai Prabhakaran, he is the next best bet to confront the\nSinhala-Buddhists, the enemy. So, he acts as Prabhakaran\u2019s doppelganger bent on\ncontinuing the ethnic war against the South ceaselessly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If\nPrabhakaran who led the most powerful militarised force of the Tamils mobilised\nwithin Sri Lanka ended up as a miserable failure in Nandikadal what can the\ncheap  racist rants of Wigneswaran deliver to the Tamil people?\nNevertheless, he takes every opportunity that comes his way to devalue the\nhistorical and cultural achievements of the Sinhala-Buddhists mostly with\npseudo historical claims and theoretical yarns. His latest attack on Prof.\nG.  L. Peiris\u2019s speech delivered in Bologna, Italy, (Colombo\nTelegraph<\/em><\/strong>,  20\/9\/21) is the latest anti-Sinhala-Buddhist diatribe\nfired by him. Resorting to his habitual anti-Sinhala-Buddhist accusations, he\nasks, inter alia, whether the Sinhalese can face their past. Like all\ncommunities in Sri Lanka the Sinhala-Buddhists have their share of guilt, no\ndoubt, in exacerbating inter-ethnic relations. But before raising the calumnies\nagainst the Sinhala-Buddhists, he must first ask whether he can face his own\npast as a Tamil who had lived with the Sinhalese and benefited amply from it,\nwithout any discrimination. His case stands out as a success story of\nSinhala-Tamil relations. It indicates the possibilities available for the\nfuture  when the Tamils join the Sinhalese for the good of each other. His\npersonal history runs parallel with that of the Tamil community : both (Tamil\ncommunity and Wigneswaran) have lived with the Sinhalese and benefited from\nthat historical experience. The histories of both prove that the best periods\nin their lives were never greater than the time they spent with the Sinhalese.\nFor instance, what were his chances of being an independent judge, with freedom\nto  uphold the basic principles of law that govern civilised societies, in\nPrabhakaran\u2019s one-man quasi-state? Could he have survived in Prabhakaran\u2019s\nEelam if he gave a dissenting judgment that went against the interests of the\nTamil Pol Pot? The Tamils suffered mostly under the Tamil leadership.\nHistorical evidence confirms this (more of this later)  though the likes\nof Wigneswaran find it embarrassing to acknowledge it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\nhe and his anti-Sinhala-Buddhist clones refuse to accept is that the crimes\ncommitted by the Tamils against the fellow-Tamils throughout their history far\nexceeds the crimes committed even by the Portuguese, the cruellest of foreign\ninvaders, who went all out to destroy the Hindu culture in Jaffna in the 17th<\/sup> century.\nNeither the Sinhala nor the Muslim leaders had exercised their political power\nto oppress and inflict so much of pain and suffering on their respective\ncommunities as the Tamil leadership, right up  to the time of Prabhakaran.\nThe culture of subhuman political violence began with Sankili marching down to\nMannar on the Christmas eve of 1544 and massacring 600 Tamil Catholics. He\nchopped their heads off because they owed allegiance to the King of Portugal\nand not to him. The intolerant  cult of Tamils oppressing and killing\nTamils became the norm in Tamil politics after Sankili. It was revived and\ncontinued with vigour by Velupillai Prabhakaran. He became the 20th<\/sup> century\navatar of the  Sankili cult. He slaughtered every Tamil leader who had\ncontributed to the Tamil cause more than he ever did. For instance, Neelan\nTiruchelvam raised the profile of the Tamils internationally to a respectable\nheight. Prabhakaran dragged it down to the level of despicable terrorists\nbanned by the civilised world. S.C. Chandrahasan, son of the father of Tamil\nseparatism, S. J. V. Chelvanayakam, and V. Anandasanagaree, the veteran leader\nof the Tamil United Liberation Front, are both on record saying that Velupillai\nPrabhakaran killed more Tamils than all the others put together.\nAnandasangareee argued that under Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike they had the\ndemocratic right to protest in Jaffna when she went to open the Jaffna\nUniversity. But under Prabhakaran he could not even step into Jaffna.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Velupillai Prabhakaran was the natural off-shoot of the Sankili\ncult that darkened the history of Jaffna. Hate politics became the norm in the\npeninsula in the wake of Sankili. The Tamil historian, Mylvakanam, writing at\nthe request of the Dutch Governor, Jan Maccra (1736) delineated the Sankili\ncult of violence in detail. He wrote: By the force of their (Catholic priests)\npreaching number of families embraced the Saththiya vetham <\/em>at\nMannar. As soon as Sangkili (sic) heard of this conversion he put six hundred\npersons to the sword without distinction of age or sex\u2026\u2026.His insane fury longed\nfor more  victims and he fell upon the Buddhists. The followers of\nBuddhism were all Singhalese, and of them there were many in this kingdom. By\nan order which he issued he expelled them beyond his limits and destroyed all\ntheir numerous places of worship. They betook themselves to the Vannis and the\nKandiyan (sic) territories, and not one Singhalese remained behind nor ever returned\nhither.\u201d ( p. 33 \u2013 Yalpana Vaipava Malai,<\/em> (YVM) edited by C.\nBritto).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sankili cult that swamped Jaffna contains the insane fury\u201d\nof Tamil hate politics that excludes the other\u201d on notions of racist or caste\nsuperiority. Jaffna history is stained with the blood of the insane fury\u201d of\nthe Sankili cult. First came the massacre of the Catholics. It was followed by\nthe ethnic cleansing of the Sinhala-Buddhists. Then came the expulsion of the\nMuslims. In contrast, the Catholics and the Muslims who were persecuted by the\nDutch were given protection by the Sinhala kings in the South. In his account,\nMylvakanam records these events faithfully. The details of the Muslim expulsion\nis graphic: After a time they (the Muslims) abandoned Usan and founded a new settlement\nin Nallur, on and around the site of Kantha-Suvami-Kovil. <\/em>The\nTamils viewed their presence with displeasure, as they thought that it might be\ndetrimental to the cause of their religion when the time should come for the\nrestoration of the temple. They tempted the Sonakar (Muslims) to leave the\nplace, with money and entreaties, which when they found unavailing, they had\nrecourse to a plan that proved effectual. They put a quantity of pig\u2019s flesh\ninto the wells of the enemy by night. When the defilement was discovered the\nSonakar were in  great distress of mind. They could neither drink the\nwater nor cook their meals with it, and they saw themselves driven to the\nnecessity of choosing between starvation on one hand and emigration on the\nother. They chose the latter and sold their place for whatever money they could\nget from the Tamils and retired to the east of Navanthurai.\u201d (p.55 \u2013 YVM).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prabhakaran, the born-again heir to the Sankili cult, \nrepeated this crime against the Muslims in 1990. On the morning of October 30,\n1990, the Muslims were given two hours\u2019 notice to quit Jaffna, leaving behind\ntheir possessions or face death. The ethnically cleansed Muslim found refuge,\nas usual, in the Sinhala South. The Tamil political culture never produced a humane,\ndemocratic, liberal, pluralistic and tolerant culture in which the dignity of\nall the Tamils \u2013 let alone the non-Tamils — was given its due place. As a\nfeudatory, as a colony of the imperial masters and finally as a proxy state of\nthe Vellalas in the post-Vadukoddai Resolution (1976) period the Tamils were\ncontent to live under fascist rule as long as the rulers were Vellalas or their\nproxies. The quasi one-man state of Prabhakaran was the proxy state of the\nVellalas. He made the Vellala dream of a separate state come true \u2013 at least as\na quasi-state for a brief period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Vellala leaders like Sampanthan, and Ponnambalam had no\nqualms about paying pooja, on  bended knees, to him because they knew in\ntheir heart of hearts that it was the Vellala state which they could not \nachieve under Vellala leadership. Realising that they had come to end of their\npolitical tether in the democratic stream, the ageing Vellala leadership urged\nthe  Tamil youth, in the Vadukoddai Resolution, (1976) \u2013 the prime\npolitical manifesto of the Tamil Vellala leadership — to take up arms and\nnever cease until they achieve Eelam. The Vellala elite pinned their hopes on\nthe Tamil youth to wage the war against the Sinhalese. Prabhakaran came out of\nthat Resolution. The Vellalas backed him to the hilt to achieve what they could\nnot achieve with all their resources and political energy in the democratic\nmainstream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ultimate beneficiary of Vellala separatism was Prabhakaran.\nHe went as far as he did essentially  because he was sustained by the\nVellalas all the way. They financed him. They weaponised him. They\ninternationalised him. They white-washed him to the world as their liberator \u2013\nthe most heinous killer of Tamils. They theorised and justified his obscene\nbarbarism. In turn, he lorded over them like the way the Vellalas lorded over\nthe dehumanised low-castes Tamils since the Dutch period. Ironically, the\nmore  he eliminated the  Vellala leadership  the more they went\non their knees and worshipped him as their Surya Devan\u201d. The demonic terrorist\nleader, condemned and banned by the civilised world, was elevated to  the\nlevel of a demi-god by the Vellala Tamils because he was the last remaining\nhope of the Vellalas.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making a hero  out  of an internationally condemned\nterrorist who violated every conceivable human right, including recruiting\nunder-aged children into his futile war, reflect the innate characteristic of\nthe Tamil political culture which wallows in the cult of  Sankili\nviolence. Prabhakaranism is the ultimate manifestation of the violent Tamil\npolitical culture: it is fascist, tyrannical, vindictive and subhuman.\nHistorical and  ideological  factors make Prahakaranism a natural\npart of the Tamil political , culture.  First, the violence  unleashed\nin the Eelam War\u201d was not alien to the Jaffna political culture :  it was\naccepted as a continuation of the traditional Sankili cult that was directed at\neliminating  the other\u201d. The killing machine honed by Prabhakaran was\nseen as a divine instrument to establish the first Tamil state. The leader in\ncommand of that killing machine attained the divine status of a Surya Devan\u201d.\nThe Vellala-directed Tamil diaspora, exhilarated and buoyed by the lethal power\nof Prabhakaran,  rushed to fill up the depleted war chest each time the\nLTTE killing machine piled up corpses. The flow of foreign cash increased\nexponentially with the number of killings which was read by the Tamil diaspora\nas a positive sign of an invincible force marching forward decisively to\nestablish their elusive Eelam. Second, the  vapid and colourless Jaffna\nhistory lacks a towering hero who had glorified its past on an overwhelming\nscale. Trite and pedestrian histories do not produce epic heroes. However, in\nhis early military successes, the Tamil diaspora saw Prabhakaran as the hero\nthey never had in their history. What is more, they viewed him as the first\nTamil with a potential to establish a state for the stateless 70 million Tamils\nin the world. They lionised the Tiger because the big cat was pulling their political\nchestnuts out of the Vellala fire. Or so they thought until Nandikadal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Third, ideologically the Hindu culture sanctified militant \nviolence as  a sacred duty. The violence debated in the Bhagavad\nGita<\/em> is interpreted as an endorsement of militant violence. Fourth,\nthe cult of violence was sanctioned by the supreme guru of the Jaffna Tamil\nVellalas, Arumuka Navalar (1822 -1879). He recast Jaffna Hinduism and moulded\nthe Jaffna Saivite culture to elevate the Vellalas to the level of the\nBrahmins. The low-grade Jaffna religious culture, unlike the classical\nHindu  culture of India,  had Hinduism without the Brahmins. Navalar\nfilled the vacuum by elevating the Vellalas to the level of the Brahmins. His\nideological impact on the peninsular Hindu culture is far greater than his\ncounterpart Angarika Dharmapala in the South. He wrote that  it is duty of\nHindus to kill blasphemers and if they can\u2019t then it is their duty to hire\nsomeone else who can do it. (See p. 80 \u2013 The Bible Trembled<\/em>, R.F.\nYoung and Bishop S. Jebanesan). Fifth, the Vellala ruling class\/caste of Jaffna\nsurvived and thrived, particularly in the post-Dutch period,  on cultural\n(Thesawalamai) and physical violence. Thesawalamai which legalised caste\nslavery empowered the Vellala ruling caste to dehumanise and oppress the\nlow-caste Tamils. Besides, as the majority community owning the commanding\nheights of the economy — land, temples, schools, government jobs  — they\npossessed the political clout to impose  their political will on the\ndisempowered low-castes who  were reduced to subhuman species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance, the thurumbars, the lowest of the low-caste, were\ndenied even the right to walk in sunlight. Violence, including killings, became\nthe norm in the Vellala culture that ruled Jaffna with a fascist\niron-fist. Prof. Bryan Pfaffenberger of the Syracuse\nUniversity, USA, in his authoritative studies of the Jaffna caste system,\ndocumented the misery of low-castes. In his essay on Political\nConstruction of Defensive Nationalism: The 1968 Temple Entry Crisis in Sri\nLanka<\/em> he wrote: In Jaffna in the 1940s and 1950s, for\ninstance, minority Tamils were forbidden to enter or live near temples: to draw\nwater from the wells of high-caste families; to enter laundries, barber shops,\nor taxis; to keep women in seclusion and protect them by enacting domestic\nrituals; to wear shoes; to sit in bus seats; to attend school; to cover the\nupper part of the body; to wear gold earrings; if male, to cut one\u2019s hair; to\nuse umbrellas; to own a bicycle or car; to cremate the dead; or to convert to\nChristianity or Buddhism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The British courts and administrative reports confirm the caste\nviolence that was delineated graphically in Kanal<\/em> (Mirage) \u2013 a\nrare novel that depicted the grim plight of the powerless, helpless low-castes.\nIt was written by  K. Daniel, a thurumbar, in the eighties when the\nVellala leadership was chivvying the Tamil youth to take up arms, as stated in\ntheir Vadukoddai Resolution, accusing the Sinhala community of discriminating\nagainst the Tamils. These major factors explain why Jaffna failed to produce a\nhumane, democratic, liberal, pluralistic and tolerant culture. It is this\nviolent Tamil culture that denied justice, dignity and equality to the Tamils\nby the Tamils throughout their history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Obsessed\nby notions of the caste purity and racist superiority the Tamil propagandists\nrefuse to face this dark side of the Vellala-driven Jaffna culture. Their\nanswer to this has been to divert attention away from their cruel culture \nby accusing the Sinhala-Buddhists of discriminating against the Tamils. It\nbegan with G. G. Ponnambalam when he launched  his anti-Sinhala-Buddhist\ncampaign in the thirties, and ignited the first ethnic riots in Navalapitiya.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The standard ploy of the\nTamils was to pull the heart strings of the international community by posing\nas a minority victimised by  the majority. Playing this sympathy card\nworked to gain political mileage. It was a clever move because it enabled them\nto cover the fact that they were the most privileged community in Sri Lanka,\nhaving inherited the benefits of the patronage of the British colonial masters.\nWigneswaran is a shining example of the privileges enjoyed by the the\nTamils suffering under the yoke of Sinhala hegemony\u201d (Quote from his article on\nProf. Peiris). He knows, only too well, that without any discrimination or\nvictimisation he got a free education from the most elitist state school and\nwent through the usual loops until he ended up in the Supreme Court of the\nSinhala hegemonic state\u201d.  But it is their narrative of victimology that\nhas gained currency. It has become the orthodox explanation for the North-South\nimbroglio. A narrative of victimology is easy to market because the tear-jerker\ndelivers a simple message packed with emotion, Of course, the sporadic ethnic\nriots of the lunatic fringe of the provoked Sinhala-Buddhist community,\nrestoring the language 75% of the people replacing English, the language of the\ncolonial masters, the Indian Citizenship Act, relocating the Sinhalese in their\ntraditional lands in the dry zone, which the Tamils called colonisation\u201d,\nallegations of discrimination in providing government jobs are some of the key\nissues raised by the Tamil lobby to label the Sinhala-Buddhists as\nhegemonists\u201d.  It is this version of victimology that has gone down as\nthe orthodox political narrative. In common political folk lore the Sinhala\nmajority is blamed for discriminating against the Tamil minority. It is on this\nnarrative of victimology that the Tamil lobby goes round the world crying for\ndignity, equality and justice \u2013 the fundamental rights that were denied by the\nTamil rulers to the oppressed Tamils throughout their history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In summary, the Tamil lobby claims that the Tamils had not been\ngiven a fair deal by the Sinhala majority. But do the facts substantiate their\nclaim?  If the Tamils are ready to face their past, fairly and\nobjectively, they will agree that Wigneswaran, for instance, could not have got\nanywhere near the outermost  steps of the Supreme Court in Hulftsdorp if\nthe Tamil accusation was true. Yet, knowing that it is untrue, Wigneswaran\npretends to be a victim of the Sinhala state\u201d. He rails against what he calls\nthe yoke of Sinhala hegemony\u201d. Commenting on Professor G.\nL. Peiris\u2019s statement he wrote : He said in Bologna that ethnic or religious\npolitical parties in a Country do great damage. He referred to Muslims and\nTamils in Sri Lanka saying they reached the pinnacle of political power and\nauthority as members of (so called) National Political Parties. He said So\nthere is no need for them to detach themselves from the national polity, to\nsegregate, to compartmentalize the national polity by the formation and the\nemergence of political groupings that seem sectarian.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then he asks: Firstly to deal with Tamils in so called National\nPolitical Parties. Have they been able to obtain reliefs to the Tamils\nsuffering under the yoke of Sinhala hegemony?\u201d He has only to look in the\nmirror to find the answer: a Tamil judge wearing a wig of the Sinhala\nhegemonic state\u201d staring back at him. But can he answer the Tamils who are\nasking a similar question from him: How much relief did those in the Northern\nProvince get when he was Chief Minister?  Each time he points a finger at\nthe Sinhala hegemonic state\u201d he will discover that there are four pointing at\nhim. When he was on the bench was he not tied to the yoke of the Sinhala\nstate\u201d? When he was yoked to Sinhala hegemonic state\u201d as a judge of the Supreme\nCourt did he not pull the cart like a dumb bull without a moo? Also, when he\nwas sitting on the bench did he deliver Sinhala hegemonic\u201d law or justice? His\ndebasing hypocrisy does not elevate him in the eyes of the cognoscenti. He must\ncome clean and accept the  truth of his past (more of it next week) before\nhe decides to ask the Sinhalese whether they can face  their past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the old saying  goes, those who seek justice must come\nwith clean hands. How clean are Wigneswaran\u2019s hands?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

H. L. D. Mahindapala C.V. Wigneswaran, the former Supreme Court judge, is the odd man out in Tamil politics. The  main characteristic that separates him from his rival Tamil politicians is his chronic tendency to belittle and\/or demonise the Sinhala-Buddhists consistently in a desperate bid to elevate Tamil culture and history to a superior status […]<\/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-119032","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\/119032","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=119032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119032\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}