{"id":121631,"date":"2021-12-29T17:26:10","date_gmt":"2021-12-30T00:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=121631"},"modified":"2021-12-29T17:26:10","modified_gmt":"2021-12-30T00:26:10","slug":"jaffnaites-hid-the-evil-history-of-mediocre-tamils","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/12\/29\/jaffnaites-hid-the-evil-history-of-mediocre-tamils\/","title":{"rendered":"Jaffnaites hid the evil history of mediocre Tamils"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Jaffnaites have a rather ambivalent attitude towards\ntheir history. Either they go over the top  to glorify their origins and\nraise it to an imagined past that never existed, or they withdraw into a shell\nlike the snail unable to face their ignominious and inhuman past. Their claims\nto a glorious past are derived mainly from the brief kingdom of Jaffna ( 1215 –\n1619 ) \u2013 the only period they were independent. It failed to produced anything\ngreat to crow about. No original artistic tradition grew  in Tamil\nCeylon,\u201d wrote Prof. S. Arasaratnam. ( p.115 \u2013 Ceylon,<\/em> Prentice Hall,\nInc.) Stating that the Tamils did not indulge in any great architectural work,\nhe added, rather apologetically, that culturally, the Tamils of Jaffna\nconsidered themselves to be a part of the Dravidian tradition\u201d. In other\nwords, the Tamils of Jaffna stagnated as mere imitators of the grand Dravidian\nculture. Jaffna, also, is a land without heroes. Unhappy is the land that breeds no\nhero!\u201d (Bertolt Brecht). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They\nhave, of course, produced (1) Magha of Kalinga, the first Tamil king who destroyed\nnon-Saivite institutions, destroyed Sinhala Buddhists temples, expelling them\nfrom Jaffna, and gouged the eyes of dissident Tamils, (2) Sankili who massacred\n600 Tamils including babies, and, of course, (3) Prabhakaran who marched to the\ndrums of his two tyrannical predecessors. Going  further, even those\nTamils who boast about their history have failed to produce a comprehensive\nhistory book, according to historian Dr. Murugar Gunasingam. Writing in 2008,\nhe said: The most important shortcoming at this time is that no historian, or\narchaeologist or even social scientist, whether Sinhalese, Tamil or western\nscholar has written a complete or comprehensive history of the Tamils in Sri\nLanka.\u201d (p. 14 — Tamils in Sri Lanka, A Comprehensive History  (\n300 B.C. \u2013 C. 2000. A. D.)<\/em><\/strong>). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This \nwas written to substantiate his claim that he was writing the first\ncomprehensive history of Tamils of Sri Lanka in 2008. Nevertheless, the failure\nof Jaffna University to produce a history book is pathetic. It was established\nin 1972. Jaffna is still waiting for an authoritative history from the\nUniversity of Jaffna which is not likely to happen soon as the pressures of\ncontemporary politics are inhibiting it from producing an authoritative and\ncredible record of its past. It seems that the Jaffna University is stuck\nbecause it cannot agree on its past. It does not know how to present its dark\nand grim past with warts and all. It is faced with the grim task of writing a\nhistory which is haunted by a subhuman  culture. Reports claims that the\nUniversity is surreptitiously editing out any research that present Jaffna in a\nbad light. In the main, it cannot write a history without acknowledging the\ndominant role played the Vellalas who ruled Jaffna with a fascist fist. Jaffna\nbelonged to the Vellalas. Not to the oppressed Tamils. Its history has been\nwritten as the history of the Vellalas, marginalizing the persecuted low-caste\n(Panchamar) Tamils. The Panchamar<\/em><\/strong> Tamils were suppressed by the\nVellalars who wrote a patchy history of Tamils hiding the Vellalar crimes\nagainst their fellow-Tamils. No other community leaders of Sri Lanka had ever\noppressed, suppressed, persecuted and massacred their own people as the\nVellalar rulers of Jaffna.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even\na cursory glance at the history of Jaffna, from Magha (1215) to Prabhakaran\n(1975 \u2013 2009) will reveal that there are no redeeming features in the Tamil\npolitical culture. It is a culture that reduced fellow-Tamils into subhuman\nfactotums with no dignity, justice or equality. Sanitizing the history of\nJaffna to make it look civilized or glorious is not an easy task for the Tamil\nintellectuals. For instance, how can they be proud of the fact that the Panchama<\/em><\/strong>r\nTamils never had the elementary pleasure of occupying a seat in a bus in Jaffna.\nPanchamar<\/em><\/strong> are the five untouchable  castes: Nalavar (toddy\ntappers), Pallar, (agricultural workers), Pariyar, (drummers) Ambattar,\n(barbers) , Vannars (dhobies)<\/em><\/strong> and Thurumbars (scavengers).<\/em><\/strong>\nThese Tamils did not have the right  to take a seat in a bus in the North.\nThe Panchamar<\/em><\/strong> Tamils had to sit on the floor boards. They had to\ncome to the Sinhala-Buddhist South to get a seat in the bus. With a history of\ndenying the basic rights to their fellow-Tamils it is rather embarrassing for\nTamil intellectuals to face their past. Their only alternative has been to hide\ntheir history. This explains why Jaffna has not been able to produce a standard\nbook on its history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\nis this subhuman culture that deflates their claim to be legatees of a great\nculture. The desperate bid of Tamil intellectuals has been to create a past\nthat would make them look great in the eyes of the world. But their abhorrent\npast makes the Tamil and the pro-Tamil moralists look like a tailor\u2019s plastic\ndummies with no hair or clothes on to cover their bald nakedness. They have no\nrespectable history to back up their present political agenda, demanding\ndignity, justice, and equality. Each time they raise this issue they are faced\nwith a question they can\u2019t answer: how much of dignity, justice and equality did\ntheir rulers \u2013 from Magha to Prabhakaran \u2013 give the Jaffnaites? Take dignity\nfor instance. The only time that all the Tamils enjoyed the dignity and\nequality is when they came down South. They had the equal right to ride on a\nseat of a bus only when they came down to travel in the Sinhala state\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most\nof all, it confirms  the fact that the Tamils of Sri Lanka never had a\nsense of history that had inspired them to create an identity of their own\nuntil the early 20the century. The Malabari migrants who flooded Jaffna and\ndominated the landscape from 1215 were drifting between two worlds \u2013 one foot\nin Malabar and other in Jaffna. The birth and growth of Jaffna with the mass\nmigration of Malabaris debunks their claim to be the first occupants of Sri\nLanka. Dr. Gunasingam\u2019s claim that he has written the  first comprehensive\nhistory in 2008 confirms that the Tamils had no sense of history.  This\nleads to the conclusion that the Tamils tends to dwell smugly in a multitude of\nmyths and legends than in the realities of history. Besides, how can one\nmeasure the greatness of a community which is yet to produce an authoritative\nhistory book? According to reports, the Jaffna is inclined more towards hiding\nthan in revealing its history. Rather late in the day, when the Jaffna Tamils\ndiscovered  the necessity of history to back their political claim for a\nseparate state, they have discovered the importance of history and they have\nbeen labouring tirelessly since then to manufacture a history that fits into\ntheir present political agenda. Tamil intellectuals have been theorising about\na past that goes way back in time to the dawn of history to claim territory in\nSri Lanka. One of their aims is to prove that they are superior to the\nSinhala-Buddhists. But it is rather difficult to validate their manufactured\ntheories about Tamil greatness because the monumental history of\nSinhala-Buddhists debunks Tamil concoctions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jaffna\nis Vellalarism. And Vellalarism is peculiar only to Jaffna. But what has\nVellalarism done to Jaffna? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\nwe are left with is the likes of C.V. Wigneswaran crying hoarse about the\nantiquity of the Tamil language, taking antiquity as a marker of greatness\ncompared to the other languages that came after it. He uses this factor mainly\nto impress that the Tamil language is far superior to that of the Sinhalese\nlanguage which flowered in the 5th<\/sup> century. No one can challenge the\nantiquity and the great Tamil culture that flourished in S. India, the original\nhomeland of the Tamils. But the ultimate test is to find out what the Tamils of\nJaffna have contributed to the glory of this ancient language. Basking in the\nglory of another culture doesn\u2019t make the imitators of that culture great, does\nit? Jaffna culture has at all times been a third-rate imitation of the first-rate\nS. Indian culture. The Tamils, in short, did not contribute anything original\nor creative to the greatness of Tamil language. The Tamils of Jaffna have been\ncovering up their mediocrity by shining in borrowed feathers. They had nothing\noriginal or creative in them to make a new civilisation like the Sinhalese who\ngave the world a new language, new culture and a new civilisation. If the\nTamils had achieved any greatness on the scale of the Sinhalese they would have\nbeen dancing the kavadi <\/em><\/strong>until their bottoms fell out of their\nanatomy into the streets of Toronto, London, Paris and Sydney! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nTamils of Jaffna latched on to language because they have nothing else to make\nthem feel great. Their empty history is as appalling as their fascist Prabhakaranist\npolitics  Of course, the Tamil language goes way back in time to a few\nthousand years. (Circa 5th<\/sup> century BCE). Jaffna, however, popped up\nonly in 1215. So, if the Tamil language originated and developed into a great\nlanguage long  before Jaffna was born what great contribution did Jaffna\ncontribute to the glory of the Tamil language? Their argument to claim\ngreatness is like that of the descendants of King Rajasingha in S. India\nclaiming greatness because their ancestors once were the kings of Sri Lanka. It\nis a claim that is good enough to massage their egos. But what else is there in\nit? The Jaffna Tamils, however, claim that they speak pure Tamil compared to\nthe corrupted spoken Tamil of S. India. My Tamil wife used to tell me that the\nS. Indians were fascinated when she replied with an Om\u201d instead of Aam\u201d. But\nthese are trivial regional differences which are blown up like balloons filled\nwith empty air. It is the utility and creative values of a language that make\nit great than mere antiquity. For instance, English is the international\nlanguage of aviation. A plane can be landed in any international airport in\nEnglish but a plane can\u2019t be landed even in Tamil Nadu in Tamil. Consider also\nthe classics that other languages have produced. Have the Vellalars of Jaffna \u2013\nthey determined the Jaffna culture — produced a single piece of literature\nworthy of recognition? The outstanding novel, Kanal<\/em><\/strong>, (MIRAGE) was\nwritten by a low-caste Turumbar<\/em><\/strong>, K. Daniel who exposed the\nvicious and vile culture of the Vellalars. The Vellalars who dominated the\nintellectual, social, religious and political domains of Jaffna failed to\nproduce a vibrant and creative Tamil culture. Prof. K Indrapala, the first\nProfessor of History of Jaffna University, has confirmed the mediocrity of\nJaffna Tamil culture. He wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nbody of Tamil writing which existed in Ceylon prior to the nineteenth century,\nthough considerable in itself, cannot be considered as literature in its own\nright. The early productions of Ceylon Tamil writers were not \ndistinctive, in that they failed to appear sufficiently different from South\nIndian Tamil literature, either in subject matter or style, to be called Ceylon\nTamil literature. Ceylon Tamil led a second-hand existence on themes that were\nmainly derived from Sanskrit\u2026.Although several poetical works were written in\nthis period, Ceylon Tamil poetry continued to be convention-ridden and\nmonotonous till the second quarter of the twentieth century\u2026..Though several\nplays were written in this period, their literary quality cannot be rated\nhigh.  Similarly, the few novels and  short stories that were written\nas a direct result of European influence do not bear the mark of quality\u2026\u2026.the\nwritings of the Ceylonese scholars did not exhibit any distinctive characteristics\ntill after the attainment of independence.\u201d(.pp.356- 357, History of\nCeylon, Volume Three, 1973). <\/em><\/strong>In other words, whatever achievements\nthere are in Tamil culture of Jaffna evolved only under what the Tamils calls\nthe Sinhala state\u201d. The Tamil state, run mainly by the dominant political\nleadership of Vellalars, failed to produce anything original, adding to the\nglory of the Tamils. The renowned  Tamil savant, Ananda Coomaraswamy,\nwrote his magisterial monograph on Medieval Sinhala Art. <\/em><\/strong> He\nhad nothing to say about the greatness of Tamil art. Can Wigneswaran, the\nloud-mouth gnat pretending to be a gigantic elephant, cite one worthy or\noriginal creation to prove the superiority of the culture of the Tamils of\nJaffna? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\nis nothing left in the Jaffna Tamil culture for it to be  rated as a great\ncreative cultural force that can stand shoulder to shoulder with the rest of\nthe world.  On the contrary, they will have to hide their head in shame if\nthey dare to take a serious look at the violent and fascist political culture\nthat has ruled Jaffna from their first King Magha. They feel great only because\nthey have been kept in the dark about their sterile and brutal past. The\ninstinctive response of the Jaffna intellectuals who live in a vacuous and colourless\nhistory has been to cover-up the past to make Jaffna look great. And those who\nhave politicised the past of Jaffna have deviated into theoretical factories to\nmanufacture a mountain out of a molehill. They have failed to critically\nanalyse the internal dynamics that caused Jaffna to stagnate in its own bilge.\nThe main struggle of Tamil intellectuals has been to create a common a Tamil\nidentity from the beginning of time. It has taken them only as far as the\ndead-end of a billabong<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dragging\nthem across time into a dim, distant past has been their means of giving a\nveneer of greatness to the Tamils of Jaffna. Their main aim is to forget the\nembarrassing fact that their history began in the 13th<\/sup> century. As\nrecorded in history, they are a band of Malabaris who migrated in successive\nmass waves to Jaffna after 1215 with their first King Megha of Kalinga and\nmanufactured a Tamil identity by (1) merging with the remnants of the Tamils\nwho came with the Cholas and other Tamil adventurers and (2) borrowing everything\nfrom Dravidian Tamil culture to bond into  one cohesive unit. Ever since\ntheir arrival they have lived in the shadow of Dravidian culture. They have\nproduced nothing of their own. The failure of Jaffna to create a new and\ndynamic culture of their own is the reason why the Jaffnaites latch on to Tamil\nlanguage because that is the only historical legacy left to make that make them\nlook great. The mediocracy of  their paltry history makes them look like\nculturally dismembered eunuchs. They hang on to language dearly because if you\ntake the language out they have nothing to boast about. The empty boast of the\nJaffna Tamils is that their dialect is greater than even that of the Dravidians\nin Tamil Nadu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\nhas Jaffna produced anything great on its own? Yes, but what is has produced\ndoes not add glory to either Tamil identity or history. Tamils are now shy to\nadmit that the greatest force that came out of Jaffna and determined its\nculture, history and politics is Vellalarism. The Tamilness came from the Tamil\nNadu but Vellalarism came from the soil of Jaffna. The enormity and the power\nof Vellalarism that ruled Jaffna throughout its history has not been given due\nconsideration. Jaffna has been dominated by the Vellalars and it is they who\ndefined the overarching contours of its society and history. All its primary\ninstitutions, customs and laws, its hierarchy, rituals, ideologies, births,\nburials, form of address in speech, dining, worshipping, dressing, seating in\nchurches or buses, etc., were determined and enforced by the Vellalars \u2013 the\noverwhelming force that ruled Jaffna from 1215 and through the colonial period\nto Prabhakaran. In essence, Jaffna consisted of the Vellalars, by the Vellalars\nfor the Vellalars. The non-Vellalars were there to serve the Vellalar masters.\nEntire society of Jaffna was structured by the Vellalars for the Vellalars to\ndominate the peninsula, with all the other castes assigned to lower places in\nthe hierarchy as factotums delegated to serve the Vellalar masters. The revered\nTamil Holy Man of Jaffna, Arumuka Navalar, a caste fanatic, even went as far as\nanointing the Vellalars as those of the supreme caste even though the Vellalars\nare the Sudras who came from the feet of Brahma. The non-Vellalars had no say\nin the making of Jaffna at any time in its history, except in the latter part\nof the 20th<\/sup> century when the Panchamar<\/em><\/strong> and Prabhakaran\nresisted Vellalarism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\nis against this background that one of the most illuminating studies of the\nVellalar caste has come out, Caste and its Multiple Manifestations<\/em><\/strong>\nThough Western scholars like Prof. Bryan Pfaffenberger and Jane Russell have\nexposed the horrors behind the cadjan\u201d curtain of Jaffna the Sri Lankan\nintellectuals have refused to recognise the vile Vellalar force that spilled\nover from the neck of Jaffna into the South in the post-Independent era and ran\ndown like a juggernaut destroying everything in its path. The Vellalar\nideologues exerted maximum pressure to hide the grim realities of their past.\nFor instance, the International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES) which\ninvested  millions to track down every bit off evidence that would\ndemonise the Sinhala-Buddhists never once attempted to explore the evils of the\nNorthern society dominated by the Vellalars. The Vellalar intellectual elite \u2013\nand the ICES was run by the Vellalar elite \u2013 hid the corrosive and destructive\nVellalar culture  that dehumanised the Tamils and denied them their basic\nhuman rights. The violent political fascism inherent in Vellalarism had denied\nthe Tamil people their dignity, justice, equality and liberty from the time of\nMagha to Prabhakaran. It has been the most devastating force that warped Jaffna\nsociety. The ICES intellectuals and their cohorts in National Peace Council and\nCentre for Policy Alternative, et al, however, opted to blame the\nSinhala-Buddhists of the South for the violence that came down from  the\nNorth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hiding\nthe evils of Jaffna society and glorifying it as a great culture has been\nmission of the Tamil and anti-Sinhala-Buddhist intellectuals. It needs great\ncourage to challenge the overpowering Tamil establishment. And that is why\nSelvy Tiruchandran, the daughter of one  of the great Tamils, S. Handy\nPerinbanayagam, should be hailed as a path-breaking intellectual. Her latest\nbook, Caste and its Multiple Manifestations, <\/em><\/strong>is a brilliant \nin-depth study of the casteist forces of Northern Sri Lanka that set fire to\nthe nation. Perinbanayagam pioneered the first anti-caste movement in the\ntwenties. He was a towering figure of the twenties who  challenged the two\nevils of Jaffna: communalism and casteism. His daughter is following in her\nfather\u2019s pioneering footsteps. This brilliant book will be reviewed next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

H. L. D. Mahindapala Jaffnaites have a rather ambivalent attitude towards their history. Either they go over the top  to glorify their origins and raise it to an imagined past that never existed, or they withdraw into a shell like the snail unable to face their ignominious and inhuman past. Their claims to a glorious […]<\/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-121631","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\/121631","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=121631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121631\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}