{"id":119503,"date":"2021-10-23T16:05:42","date_gmt":"2021-10-23T23:05:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=119503"},"modified":"2021-10-23T16:05:42","modified_gmt":"2021-10-23T23:05:42","slug":"reply-to-c-v-wigneswarans-attack-on-prof-g-l-peiris-part-3-revealing-the-hidden-history-of-jaffna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/10\/23\/reply-to-c-v-wigneswarans-attack-on-prof-g-l-peiris-part-3-revealing-the-hidden-history-of-jaffna\/","title":{"rendered":"Reply to C. V. Wigneswaran\u2019s attack on Prof. G. L. Peiris \u2013 Part 3. – Revealing the hidden history of Jaffna"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0H. L. D. Mahindapala<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

All Sri Lankans are descendants of migrants. We are a nation of\nmigrants. Even the  Jaffnaites who claim to be descendants of Tamils who\narrived in pre-historic times filled the northern strip of land, which they\ncalled their sacred homeland, with S. Indian migrants only in the 12th<\/sup> and\n13th centuries. There were no significant Tamil settlements before. During the\nDutch and the early British periods the colonisers were known as Malabaris\nsince they came from Malabar, not Tamils. They had no links to the Demalas\u201d\n(Tamils) mentioned in the Mahavamsa.<\/em> The Demalas\u201d cited in\nthe Mahavamsa<\/em>  lived in the ancient and middle ages as\nmercenaries, merchants, marauders and political adventurers. Tamil historian K.\nIndrapala has labelled the two horse traders, Sena and Guttika as usurpers and\nElara as a political adventurer\u201d. (p.46 — Journal of the Ceylon\nBranch  of the Royal Asiatic Society<\/em>, Vol XIII, 1969). That stream of\nTamils dried out. They either integrated with the Sinhalese or went back to\nIndia. Though the Tamil mercenaries poured in the seventh century it was in\ntenth century that we get more definite  literary or epigraphic evidence\nregarding any Tamil settlement\u2026..The Culavamsa <\/em> too has another\nvague reference to Tamils living scattered here and there at this time.\u201d (Ibid\n\u2013 49).  The stragglers who stayed behind did not organise themselves into\na political unit to establish a separate state or to carve an ethnic enclave of\ntheir own. Left to themselves, without any military support from S. India, they\ncoexisted with the majority Sinhalese as peaceful citizens. Besides, they were\nnumerically insignificant, without any power to challenge the dominance of\nthe Sinhala-Buddhist majority. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is of  historical significance is that the first\nJaffna settlement was established not by indigenous Tamils but by the invading\nforces of Kalinga Magha in 1215. The Malabaris migrated in waves in the 12th<\/sup> and\n13th<\/sup> centuries and colonised Jaffna which was populated by the\nnumerically substantial Sinhala-Buddhist community. The Jaffna Tamils of today\nare descendants of the Malabaris who migrated during this time from S. India.\nThey are not the Demalas\u201d of ancient and middle ages who could lay claim to\npolitical rights based on their historical connections to the Tamils of the\npre-Christian era. The Jaffna Tamils of today are descendants of Malabari\ncolonisers who  invaded the Northern strip and colonised it mainly by\nethnically cleansing the  peninsula. The insane fury\u201d of the\noccupying  forces drove the Sinhala-Buddhists out of the Jaffna, after\nthey had massacred the Catholics first. Then they went for the Muslims. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The available evidence points to the fact that Jaffna Tamils of\ntoday is filled with the descendants of the Dravidian invaders who colonised\nJaffna in 13th<\/sup> century. The ethnic cleansing of Jaffna after their\narrival  is recorded in Yalpana Vaipava Malai<\/em>, the\nmini-history of history written during the Dutch period. History of Jaffna as a\nseparate political entity began with the influx of new Malabaris from S. India.\nThe numerical strength of Tamils increased after the new waves of Malabari\nmigration flooded Jaffna in the post-12th<\/sup> century. Modern Jaffnaites\nowe everything to these colonisers and not to the early Tamils who did not\nestablish an settlement. In other words, Jaffna was created by the S. Indian\ninvaders and not by the descendants of the original Tamils who showed no signs\nof settling down. In the late British period, after the Tamil revival led by\nArumuka Navalar and C.W. Thamotherampillai, the new English-speaking Vellala\nelite dropped the Malabari connection and became Tamils, proud of their new\nidentity derived mainly from the purity of the Tamil language preserved in\nJaffna. These new Tamils of Jaffna, in fact, then turned against their\nhomeland. They resisted the S. Indian influences and pressured Mrs. Sirimavo\nBandaranaike to ban the import of cheap Indian magazine, literature and films\nas it was polluting the pure Tamil culture of Jaffna<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Kalinga Magha invaded Jaffna with his colonising forces and\nestablished his Malabari colony in Jaffna he opened the gates for mass\nmigration of Malabaris. Yalpana Vaipava Malai<\/em> states that they came in\nwaves. They had no connection to the indigenous Tamils who lived in scattered\npockets. That line had petered out. Kalinga Magha\u2019s invaders established a new\ncolony for the new settlers. Consequently, present day  Jaffna is\nsaturated with the descendants of the Malabari colonisers and not those of the\nhistoric Demalas\u201d mentioned  in the Mahavamsa<\/em>. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Malabari descendants and the Mahavamsa<\/em> descendants\nare two separate streams who migrated in two different periods. Unlike the\nDemalas\u201d in the Mahavamsa <\/em>who came as invaders, marauders,\nmerchants, mercenaries, political adventurers usurpers  etc., the\nMalabaris came as colonisers or as slaves to the Dutch and Sudra Vellalas\ndomiciled in the Jaffna kingdom. There is no unbroken continuity of one\nsegueing into the other, or passing its heritage to the other. In any case,\nthere was nothing much in the history of the Mahavamsa Demalas <\/em>to hand\nover to the Malabaris. The  Mahavamsa<\/em> Demalas\u201d who were\nactive participants in Sinhala-Buddhist history, either as adversaries or as\nsettlers, had not created anything of their own to be handed to the new\nDravidian settlers. The modern Jaffnaites, the direct descendants of Malabaris,\nbelong to the post-12th<\/sup> century colonisers with no connection\nto the early Tamil settlers.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Demalas\u201d in the Mahavamsa<\/em> came as\nitinerant explorers. They went back home after their jobs or adventures were\nover.  They did not come en masse<\/em> as permanent settlers.\nThe Malabaris, or the modern Jaffnaites, came in 12th<\/sup> and 13th<\/sup> centuries\nsolely with the idea of colonising and making the Northern strip their home.\nThe geographical proximity to India made it the natural and the easiest\nlocation for the Malabari migrants to hop across. The short 20 km Palk Straits\nmakes it a breeze to cross over. In reality, Jaffna began to make a history of\ntheir own only after the Malabaris settled down in the 12th<\/sup> and\n13th<\/sup> centuries. K. Indrapala wrote his first thesis on the\nhistory of the Tamils based on this historical reality. But he had to recant it\nas it did not fit into the political agenda of Tamil separatists who needed a\nhistory going beyond the 12 the century to the dawn of time\u201d (Vadukoddai\nResolution) to boost their political claims.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The history of those who claim to be Tamils today began with the\nMalabari waves of migration from S. India. It is this mass migration that makes\nJaffna the haven of the Sudra Vellalas, the lowest caste in the classical caste\nhierarchy of India. The influx of Malabaris in the post 12th<\/sup> century\ngave numerical and political strength to Jaffna to emerge as a formidable\npolitical unit. Recruiting the poverty-stricken Malabaris was cheap for the\nVellala tobacco planters and the Dutch traders. Besides, the Sudra Malabaris\nwere not restrained by religious taboos. The other three higher castes \u2013\nBrahmins, Kshatriya and Vaisya \u2013 did not cross over because Hinduism tabooed\nthe crossing  of seas. The elite of India adhered faithfully to their\nreligious code and stayed at home. It was the Sudra Vellalas, the lowest caste,\nthat came over to Jaffna. This explains the dominance of the Vellalas who form\nthe majority in peninsula. Their numerical strength went a long way to create\nthe new identity of Jaffna as a separate ethnic enclave. Consequently, the\ncasteist politics of the Malabaris, who were the Sudra Vellalas, came to be the\nmost powerful force in Jaffna. The story of how the lowest caste became the\nhighest in Jaffna is another saga.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The combination of linguistic and mono-ethnic politics with\ntraditional casteism steeped in Saivism was the standard Jaffna socio-political\nrecipe that produced Vellalaism \u2013 a unique political dish that was the staple\ndiet of the ruling Vellala elite. Vellalaism of the ruling elite was sold in\nthe Jaffna political market as the best diet for the survival and success of\nthe Tamils. In the political market it triumphed over all other ideological\nproducts. Ideologies of liberalism, socialism, or any other ideology based on\nhumanism could not get even a toehold against the overwhelming forces of\nVellalaism which crushed rivals with ease.  <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In peninsular politics it was the Sudra Vellala interests,\ndecisions and actions that determined the political consequences which flowed\ncollectively to make the post-independent history ofJaffna.  As the ruling\nmasters of Jaffna, it was the Sudra Vellalas who made history and subsequently\nwrote it, describing it as the history of the Tamils. This was inevitable\nbecause no other caste \/community had the power or the space to play any\nsignificant part in the decision-making process at the highest, or even the middle\nlevel in Jaffna \u2013 both of which were dominated by the Sudra Vellalas. It is a\nmisnomer to label the politics of the North as Tamil politics when a sizeable\nsegment of the minority Tamils were ostracised and kept out of the political\nprocess. The Jaffna political landscape was dominated and determined\nexclusively by the Sudra Vellalas, leaving the non-Vellala Tamils out of the\npicture. Which makes the politics of the North Vellala politics\u201d and not\nTamil politics\u201d. Some of the ostracised non-Vellalas were not even recognised\nas Tamils. They had no rights or status in the Sudra Vellala political order.\nSo how could it be Tamil politics\u201d when the Tamils ostracised from Tamil\nsociety had no part in the decision-making process of the Sudra Vellalas who ruled\nJaffna? From the Dutch period, when the Sudra Vellalas consolidated their power\nunder Thesawalamai<\/em> as the overlords,  Jaffna remained as\nthe land of the Sudra Vellalas, by the Sudra Vellalas, for the Sudra Vellalas.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Armed with the political power they wielded with force, if\nnecessary, the Vellalas succeeded in grabbing total power into their hands and\nrunning Jaffna according to their norms. But the absence of a priest caste,\nlike the Brahmins, at the top left a huge gap in the Jaffna Hindu caste hierarchy.\nThe vacuum was filled by Arumuka Navalar, the dynamic Hindu revisionist, who\nelevated the Sudra Vellalas, the lowest, to the highest level of Brahmins. His\nrevision of Saivism resulted ultimately in placing the Sudra Vellalas in the\nhighest rung of the caste hierarchy of Jaffna. In the absence of the Brahmins,\nthe lowest became the highest. When the lowest rose to the highest rung, the\npower generated by religious authority elevated secular Sudra Vellalas to be\nthe equivalent of the Brahmins \u2013 a divine force anointed by Hinduism. Navalar\u2019s\nact of ritually anointing Vellalas as the equivalent of Brahmins inflated the\nSudra Vellala egos with an unwarranted sense of superiority. To be anointed as\nthe Brahmins of Jaffna was the highest social status achievable in the casteist\nhierarchy. Later the Sudra Vellalas reciprocated by elevating Arumuka Navalar,\nthe Hindu\/Tamil revivalist, to the level of an iconic religious guru of Jaffna.\nHe became a revered hero of the Vellalas, though the low castes rejected him.\nWhen his statue was taken round Jaffna in 1968 by the high-caste Vellalas the\nprotesting low-castes stoned the statue and the Sinhala-Buddhist state\u201d had to\nsend its Police to save the face of the Vellalas.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vellala political power was reinforced with religious sanctity\nwhen revised Saivism of Navalar elevated Vellalas to the peak of the casteist\nhierarchy. Vellalaism rose above that of being an orthodoxy. It left the human\ndomain and rose to divine heights. Like Saivism the authority of Vellalaism after\nNavalar could not be questioned. To question the authority of Vellalism was to\nquestion the divinely ordained casteist hierarchy. In India Hinduism made\nBrahmanism into a divinely ordained force. In the absence of the Brahminism in\nJaffna the revised Vellalaism of Navalar placed the Vellalas as the equals of\nthe Brahmins — a formidable force that could not be questioned.  In\nshort, the religious act Arumuka Navalar, the revered  Hindu\ntheologian\/priest of the dominant Sudra Vellalas of Jaffna, turned into a\npolitical act that empowered the Vellalas to rule Jaffna with divine authority.\nInvigorated by their belief in caste superiority the Sudra Vellalas assumed\nthat they were the divinely ordained rulers of Jaffna. They came to believe\nthat they were not merely the secular heads under Thesawalamai<\/em> but\nalso the religious heads under revised Saivism of Arumuka Navalar. Besides,\nthey owned the temples and they could use religion as a political force to keep\nthe low-castes in the place assigned by God at birth. Deluded by the arrogance\nof caste superiority and political power they assumed that they were born to\nrule. It was Navalar who white-washed the Sudra  Vellalas with caste\npurity, blessing them with the power to rule from the peak of the social hierarchy.\nThis made the Vellalas the most formidable force in peninsula politics.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Vellala dominance of Tamil society is complete,\u201d wrote\nProf. Ratnajeevan Hoole. (p. 45,  Heritage Histories, A\nReassessment of Arumuga Navalar, a.k.a. Candar Arumuganavan<\/em>, Prof. S.\nRatnajeevan H. Hoole, Thesam Publications, U.K.). Vellala laws, customs,\nrituals, norms controlled every aspect of Jaffna society from the womb to the\ntomb. Besides, they monopolised power in Jaffna because they were in control of\nall the levers of politics, administration and religious institutions. \nLand, temples, plum jobs in the administration, schools, professions were in\nthe hands of the Vellalas. It was their abuse of power from these commanding\nheights that turned them into a fascist oppressive force. They took to the\npervasive Sankili cult of violence like duck to water and pursued power\nruthlessly. The power struggle of the Vellalas to retain their grip on Jaffna\nmade them the cruellest ruling caste\/class, with power to determine the fate of\nthe oppressed Jaffnaites from birth to death. Their abuse of power, of course,\nled to resistance. At the core of major political clashes, whether with the\nlow-castes in the colonial and feudal times, or colonial rulers (Modely Tambi\u2019s\nrebellion against the Dutch), or the post-colonial rulers in the South, the\nclashes were essentially with the Vellalas. Their omnipresent power was\nIneluctable. Its overwhelming pressures forced even the Churches to succumb to\nits demands. To preserve the superior status of the Vellalas, the Churches\nallotted the front pews to the Vellalas and the rear pews to the low-castes.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sudra Vellala politics centred on the fear of them losing their\npower over the low-caste minority in Jaffna in feudal and colonial times first,\nand then losing power to the Sinhalese majority in the South in the\npost-independent era.   It is the excessive and aggressive power of\nthe Sudra Vellalas that was under threat, not that of the Tamils, or the\nTamil-speaking people. All demands that were put forward as that of the Tamils\nwere framed and pursued intransigently to its bitter end by the Vellalas \u2013\npolitical strategy that has boomeranged on them. Their relentless pursuit of\nthe politics defined in the Vadukoddai Resolution \u2013 the ultimate political\nmanifesto of the Sudra Vellalas — ended in Nandikadal.   It is their\naggressive and excessive demands that bedevilled North-South relations.\nHistorian Dr. G. C. Mendis wrote : The real problem arose not because the\nSinhalese were not prepared to compromise, but were not prepared to concede as\nmuch as the Tamils demanded.\u201d (p.12 \u2013 Journal of the Branch of the\nRoyal Asiatic Society<\/em>, Vol XI, 1967.) A typical example of Vellala\nextremism is G. G. Ponnambalam\u2019s 50-50\u201d demand. The demand of 50% power by a\nminority of 11% is tantamount to insane extremism. Despite that the Sinhalese\noffered 45 % to the Tamils which was rejected by Ponnambalam who refused to\nbudge from his 50-50 demand. This validates the argument that it is the\ndisproportionate and excessive Tamil demands that exacerbated the North-South\nrelations. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later Tamil political judgments realised the mistake of not\ntaking the offer of 45%. Nevertheless, it is the Sinhala-Buddhists who are\nblamed for not giving into the Tamils demands.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Vellalas disguised their sectarian mono-ethnic extremism as\nan ethnic issue affecting the entire Tamil-speaking community. But the issues\nof the Vellalas were not relevant either to ostracised Tamils of Jaffna or to\nthe regional Tamils. This is why the pan-Tamil movement of S. J. V.\nChelvanayakam, the father of the separatist movement,  failed to take off.\nBesides, the Sudra Vellala contempt for the rest of the Tamil-speaking\ncommunities \u2013 the low-castes, the Batticoloa Tamils, and the Indian Tamils \u2013 is\nwell documented. Overall, the dominant Vellala politics lacked the binding\nforce to hold all the non-Vellala Tamil communities together. They were hoping\nto hang on to their grip on Tamil leadership by claiming to be the founding\nfathers of the Tamil nation. They even traced the origins of their mythical\nhistory  to the dawn of time\u201d in the Vadkoddai Resolution. This\nhistorical positioning was to claim a superiority over the non-Vellala Tamils\nwho, as latter-day migrants, would be reduced to a lower status. Fabricated history\nwas used extensively and intensively by the Vellalas to boost their imagined\npolitical status and power. History was essential for them to be make their\naggressive and excessive demands. The arbitrary and unwarranted elevation \nof the Sudra Vellalas to the level of Brahmins gave them a false sense of\nsuperiority. The disproportionate share of government jobs gained with British\npatronage gave them the illusion of being intellectual geniuses. Their minds\nwere saturated with concoctions of fabricated political myths. The Vellala\narrogance and their sense of superiority came out of myths fabricated by their\npolitically perverted imagination.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is valid, however, is that they had acquired, especially\nthrough the learning of the English language in the missionary schools of\nJaffna, a higher degree of knowledge, experience and power to be in the\nforefront of Tamil political movement. Even the colonial masters recognised the\nVellalas as the leading political force and they were consulted and\naccommodated as far as possible to keep the natives quiet. For instance, when\nthe Dutch codified the laws and customs of Jaffna they consulted the 12 Vellala\nmudliyars and it was with their advice and consent that Thesawalamai <\/em>came\ninto force as the law of Jaffna  \u2013 an act that legalised Tamil\nslavery.  Besides, after the riots of Modeli Tamby \u2013 the Vellala rebel who\nrioted against the Dutch for not giving the job of canakepulle<\/em> in\nthe Dutch administration  to a Vellala \u2013 the Dutch tilted the proportion\nof government jobs in favour of the Vellalas, playing down the claims of their\nrivals, the Madapallis. With legalised slavery the Vellalas had all the powers\nand privileges of feudal casteism to rule Jaffna with an iron-fist, suppressing\nand oppressing the low-caste Tamils. The powerless low-castes were\nostracised and kept aloof, outside Tamil society, as the virtual enemies of the\nVellalas. Before the Vellalas turned against the South, the Vellalas were\nengaged in a low-intensity battles with the low-castes who were sporadically resisting\nVellala oppression. The low-castes did not have the organised power to\nchallenge the Vellalas. The fascist Vellalas, however, used all the power they\nhad to keep the low-castes in their caste-assigned place.  The Vellalas,\u201d\nwrote Prof. S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole, dominate intellectual life. They control\nwhat is taught in schools. \u2026.. The Vellala dominance of Tamil society is\ncomplete. \u2026.. When Vellalas dominate intellectual life, it is natural for them\nto twist history. It is the human condition to not accept anything negative\nabout ourselves\u2026.\u201d P. 45-46,  Heritage Histories, A Reassessment\nof Arumuga Navalar, a.k.a. Candar Arumuganavan<\/em>, Thesam Publications, UK.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is the politics of the Sudra Vellalas that over-determined\nthe overall politics of the peninsula. They used the power they derived from\ntheir dominance of Jaffna to determine  the North-South relations. Their\npower, intransigence and arrogance spilled over from the North into the South\nand ruined all possibilities of peaceful co-existence. With their\nintellectual prowess and command of the  English language they defined the\nTamil demands which, incidentally, came down to the basic interests of the\nVellalas.  What was presented to the world as demands of the Tamils was\nnothing but the demands of the Vellalas. The Vadukoddai Resolution which\ndeclared war against the nation in urging the Tamil youth to take up arms until\nthey achieved Eelam was purely a Vellala demand. The upper-caste Tamils were\nexpecting the low-caste Tamil to pull out their political chestnuts from the\nfire. The Vellalas were hoping to ride into power on the backs of the\nlow-castes. So, they backed the Vadukoddai War\u201d (a.k.a. Eelam War\u201d) to the\nhilt. Weaponising the Tamil youth was the last card they played to win power\nfor themselves. The ageing Vellala leadership lacked the ability to engage in a\nphysical battles. They either sat comfortably in the Parliamentary seats in the\nSinhala-Buddhist South or migrated overseas and financed their war, hoping to\ncome back to rule Jaffna once again according to their agenda. But their grand\ndream ended in Nandikadal.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the decline of casteist Vellalaism as a legitimate ideology\nto sustain their grip on power, Hinduism and the Tamil language became the most\nformidable forces of Jaffna. Prof. S. Pathmanathan says that the Hindu\ntradition, along with the Tamil language, forms the basis of the Tamil\nidentity.\u201d (Quoted by Prof Ratnajeeevan H. Hoole in p. 28 of Nethra<\/em> Ibid).\nIn the same page Prof. Ratnajeeevan Hoole  says that the belief of the\nmany Tamils (is that) unless one  is a Saivite, he is not a Tamil and\nunless one is a Vellala, he is nothing.\u201d The Vellalas continued to exploit both\nHinduism and language to maintain their dominant place in  politics. These\ntwo forces were hijacked by the Vellalas when they realised that casteism, the\ndivinely ordained order, was losing its power to sustain them in power. It is\nthese two factors that bonded all layers of the fragmented Tamil communities\ntogether. The Sudra Vellalas were able to bring the non-Vellalas under their\npolitical wing by weaving the new Tamil identity under the cover of these two\nideologies. But power did not slip out of the Vellalas until the arrival of\nPrabhakaran. The first time that power slipped out of the Vellalas since they\ntook command of Jaffna from feudal times was when they asked the Tamil youth to\ntake up arms in the Vadukoddai Resolution of May 14, 1976. The armed youth not only\ntook up arms they also took command of Jaffna with the gun. And they turned\ntheir guns first on the Vellala fathers who legitimised their violence and gave\nthem guns. Other than brutal violence and the ideology of Vellalaism the\nVellalas had not offered the Tamils any other liberal, democratic, socialist\nalternatives to the Tamil electorate. They succeeded in surviving as a caste\nelite under Hinduism in feudal and colonial times. They added linguistic\npolitics to casteist Hinduism in the post-colonial period. But modernity\nundermined casteism as a political force. So they clung on to linguistic\npolitics desperately. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the force of casteism declined in the 20th<\/sup> century\nthe Vellalas turned to language for political survival. Tamil language became\nthe most exploitable issue in national politics because the  Vellalas\nfound it to be the most unifying force of Tamils that can cut  across\ncaste divisions. It even appealed to the Westernised Sinhalese and the\nEnglish-speaking elite in Muslim and Burgher communities. But it was the\nVellala leaders who, in the absence of any progressive political\nprogramme,  went all out to exploit the language issue. It was also an\nissue confined mainly to the elitist Vellalas in the professions. It was not an\nissue that affected the Tamil traders because those running shops communicated\nwithout any difficulties with the Sinhala customers. It was not an issue that\naffected Tamils who had settled in the South to live in Sinhalese\nneighbourhoods. As neighbours the Muslims and the Tamils communicated with the\nSinhalese without any linguistic problems. It was not an issue at the highest\nelitist level because they communicated with each other mainly in English, with\nSinhalese thrown in.  So, language was not really a divisive issue that\nthrew communities apart. It was really a class issue that brought the elite of\nall communities together against the use of Sinhalese.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dead hand of history lies heavily on the present and there\nis no way of escaping it unless you are prepared to renounce the past. The\npolitics of the past comes down in many forms. It is the distorted history that\nwreaks havoc on the present. The Tamils became the victims of their distorted\nhistory. It is their fake history that led them all the way to Nandikadal. Their\ninflated arrogance blinded them to the grim realities of history. The alien\nMalabris who became Tamils of Jaffna believed that they were even superior to\nthe Brahmins. The Jaffnaites thirst for history is to cover up their Malabari\norigins. So, they skip the Malabari invasion, which does not give them any\nhistorical legitimacy,  and leap to the dawn of time\u201d to claim nebulous\nhistorical legitimacy. The manufacture of history became a huge industry in the\npost-independent era because the Jaffnaites were desperately in need of some\nsort of history, or anything that sounds like history, to legitimise their\nbogus claims.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

C.V. Wigneswaran has suggested <\/strong>the <\/strong> formation\nof a Commission to probe and write a true history of this Country.\u201d His idea\nof a true history\u201d is one that confirms his beliefs of Tamil superiority.\nAccording to his gospel history was made by the Tamils and the\nSinhala-Buddhists had hijacked it by Sinhalacising the names of the kings and\nplaces to glorify their past.  For instance, he says, the Sinhalese had\nrechristened Devanampiya Theesan as Devanampiya Tissa. This is what Tamils did\nto Bata Kotte. They changed it into Vadukoddai. In his history he changes\nDutugemunu to  Dushta Kaamini, a Tamil Buddhist. He is hoping that a new\ncommission will write history according to his version. The Tamils have two\nuniversities and not a single has produced a history of Jaffna \u2013 a project that\nshould have been prioritised by any one of them since history is at the heart\nof the burning politics of the day.  They, however, cannot produce a \nhistory because they do not know how to hide the demonic Sankili cult in Tamil\nhistory. Besides, an objective history will not substantiate their claim for a\nseparate state. The only way out for the Tamil separatists is to rewrite a\nhistory that would  fit into their political agenda. This is why\nWigneswaran wants a commission to produce his version of history.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is time that the Tamil intellectuals realised that history is\nunforgiving. They cannot liberate their Tamil people by distorting reality. For\ninstance, the history they wrote in Vadukoddai on May 14, 1976 did not redeem\nthem because it was fake. It ended in Nandikadal. The time has come for them to\nwrite a new history of Jaffna acknowledging the truth. They can begin by asking\na fundamental question vital for the peaceful coexistence of all communities:\nWhy did Jaffna fail to produce a democratic, liberal and humane society that\nblessed all Tamils with dignity, justice and equality? Also, there is another\nsimple question that Wigneswaran has to answer to sustain his thesis of Tamil\nsuperiority: If the Tamils came first and if Tamil language was here before\nSinhalese why did Tamil language go down and why did Tamil history decline\nmaking Sinhalese the superior force in history? Those who triumph in history\nare superior to those who lose or come second. All of Sri Lankan history prove\nthat the Sinhala-Buddhists triumphed all the way. For instance, the\nSinhala-Buddhist triumphed in building a tolerant, liberal democratic society\nthough with infirmities. They even fought the longest war within a democratic\nframework. The Tamils of Jaffna never in their history built a democratic ,\nliberal and tolerant society. On the contrary, their war was fought under the\nruthless leadership of a Tamil Pol Pot who killed more Tamils than the others.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is the inability of Tamils to read and understand history\nthat led them to Nandikadal. The hard lesson to be learnt from Nandikadal is\nthat those who fail to  read and understand history will end up in more\nNandkadals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0H. L. D. Mahindapala All Sri Lankans are descendants of migrants. We are a nation of migrants. Even the  Jaffnaites who claim to be descendants of Tamils who arrived in pre-historic times filled the northern strip of land, which they called their sacred homeland, with S. Indian migrants only in the 12th and 13th centuries. There […]<\/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-119503","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\/119503","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=119503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119503\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}