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What is Justice - where is she? I have for a long time taken a negative attitude to the several ''black'' headlines in your paper. With the enormity of what is wrong in our land one reaches a kind of saturation point. Sometime ago, it was said that 80% of those in public administration are corrupt. Now it is that pensioners wasted their time eating , drinking and idling, whoever did so, should have been dealt with, when in employment. Those sweeping statements don't earn anything except resentment. Each case of corruption should be dealt with individually. It is too late to make pensioners work who idled in their hey-day! G. K. Perera's article ''The President and the Pensioner'' (23 July 1998) thrusts with a quiet force the reality about Govt. servants who gave off their best when in service. As he says everyone can't be tarred with the same brush. I have worked in government departments of Govt. sponsored Corporations for about 7 years and have a fairly good knowledge of how they run. There are those who escape to the canteen for longer than a cup of tea, or are not at their desks when need. I myself have gone to the Y.M.C.A for a cup of tea but the work I did never earned a salary commensurate with it. I earned compliments of course, which is at least something! During lunch hour I ate with my co-mates and saw them unwrap their food parcels. The parcel a friend of mine brought seemed to contain only rice wrapped in gravy. He had a wife and two children. This was in 1967 or 1968. With today's phenomenal cost of living, I don't know what he eats now. Another friend brought rice and just one vegetable or two cooked by her early morning. I came from a home that was financially better off and never ate a meal without meat or fish or an egg. I am glad G. K. Perera has referred to all the advantages parliamentarians have and the lack of return to the country from the enormous sums of money spent by them. Of course they don't have a conscience about that. Henry Jayasena in his article ''The perennial unkept promises'' (your edition of 8.7.98) talks of the inadequacy of the pension attached to his substantive post in government to meet today's cost of living-in fact he says he is a little more fortunate than the average pensioner because of the money he earns from acting writing etc. Bandula Jayawardena in his article ''Apatta Pothay Magak Nethay?'' (your edition of 27 July 1998) concentrates on artists, dramatists and writers have a greater impact on people than say painters sculptors, musicians etc. but they are all artists. In 1993 Mr. Fowzie as Minister of Transport of the Western Province Provincial Council had in mind exempting film actors and pressmen from paying bus fares. I thought this unfair and my letter titled ''Isn't this discrimination?'' appeared in your edition of 27 November 1995 I asked ''what about other categories of employment, nurses and attendants in hospitals, postmen who deliver vital communication, post labourers, etc. etc., etc? They also contribute to public life they also have to travel.'' When I think of rights the postman looms large before me, as without him we will all be lost won't we? At a time when ''rights'' are being disputed I had occasion to employ a woman of about 30 (she came with two children of about 12 and 10) to do weeding in the garden. I gave them a plantain each and three cups of tea. Halfway through her work she said ''I have a hole in my heart and I am supposed not to do hard work.'' I keep asking myself why I did not stop her work immediately gave her some money and let her go home. Instead I only kept shouting ''Mahansinang navaththanne'' (if you are tired, stop work). Who is there to speak for this woman or the many like her or for Susila whose husband has left her and their four children, all below 12,-the only wage earner in her house being her mother, who is daily help in another house. The government of their country is blind to their existence. From cradle to grave they suffer want. The dole paid in England must have conditions governing it. I believe it was meant to cover people like those mentioned above all the able-bodied unemployed till they find employment. What Jayasena says in his article about the dole makes me think that our lazy Sri Lankan brethren in London have snatched at the dole as an easy way out. The impression I had in 1965 was that the English themselves would gather not be on the dole and they looked down on such a situation. I knew a Sri Lankan then who went (unwarranted) for the dole. A dole is necessary for people who don't have earning capacity due to some factor or for people who have all the will in the world to work but yet have no job. This can happen in our country. In about 1955 I went to thirteen interviews, (it took one year) before I got my first job in the Department of Industries-this with a first grade Cambridge (senior) school certificate with four distinctions. Of course I did not use ''influence'' Not that I needed a dole-my mother would have fed me but unemployment was a reality then, what it is today I do not know with so many new avenues of employment. The ideal would he ''from each according to his ability to each according to his need.'' But then that's Utopia, about which we need not dream. Coming to terms with the Tamils Without prejudice to Mr. Susantha Goonatilake, I take this opportunity to refute the "misinformation-campaign" undertaken by this learned author, through his article "The Traditional Homelands Hoax," that appeared in "the Island" dated 16th July 1998. The content and the title of the article shocked and dumbfounded me, when I observed that the writer had transgressed beyond the limits of an academic discourse, into a partisan and communal political rhetoric. Also, I noticed that, he failed to consider the historically well founded genuine aspirations of the Tamils, but he went on to allege that, the Traditional homeland a hoax, thus disparaging the sanctity of the Tamils' national sentiments. Also, the author has strayed on several topics, other than his main contention of dealing with the article of Dr. S. K. Vadivale, an effusion that cannot be tolerated to stand on its tottering feet, unchallenged. To begin with, he accepts that his earlier critical views on Mahavamsa and Dipavamsa, also his assumption that dominant North Indian cultural influences came only with the introductions of Buddhism in the time of Emperor Asoka, 3rd century BC, were all wrong. In any historical research, it is natural to change the views and assumptions, because up to now, we have no definite answer to so many unanswered questions in history. Furthermore, daily we stumble across several new findings and they contribute to new historical vistas. Therefore, based on new facts, one's earlier conclusion has to be compromised to adopt changes. History is a continuous process of investigation without any end in sight. "Our word history comes from the Greek word historia, which originally meant 'inquiry, investigation,' and only later came to be applied specifically to the investigation of the past." The Histories by Herodotus, Translated by Aub De Selincourt, revised by John Marincola, Introduction p. Xiii. Unfortunately, when the earlier views and the new findings the author came across were all based on speculative a assumptions, with bits and pieces of informative diggings, might tend to lead to a new speculate assumption, in the end may lead to further the complexities of the issue. Therefore, it is difficult even to accept the changed idea of the writer would be his ultimate and conclusive view in the years to come. Furthermore, the writer of the article deals with "Jaffna kingdom" that did not exist in any early Tamil annals, at any given historical period. However it is excusable even the Tamils use to write about the same non-existed kingdom due to the influence expected by their history Guru's and to please their patron-saints in the university, like Dr. K. Indrapala, for academic appellation, he wrote his "Early Tamil Settlements in Ceylon, subsequently published in the Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1969, New Series, Volume XIII, Pp 43-63. As far as my research goes, there was only a Tamil kingdom that had its capital after the Irama-Rawana war at Mantai, later at Skanderodai, Singainagar and finally at Nallur. After the arrival of the Western colonialists only, we come across Jaffna and the so called Jaffna Kingdom. Irugalkulaprivena, the priestly author of Kokila Sandesa was the first to mention about Yapapatuna. Sapumal Kumaraya (ruled the Tamil kingdom from Nallur 1450-1467 and later as Bhuvanekabahu VI, 1469-1471) was the ruler at Nallur at that period and it is not clear whether the priestly author used Yapapatuna to mean the capital as well as the kingdom, ruled by Sapumal Kumaraya. Moreover, he deals with the Tamil names and about the Koviar caste. I pity the writer's ignorance of the meaning of the Tamil words. The name Chunnagam is the corruption of the Tamil words Soozh + Nagam, means - Soozh surrounded, Nagam heavenly; a region surrounded with a heavenly environment. That is why the Tamil kings occupied the region and made Skantherodai, the main city in the region, their capital. Skantherodai means - Skanda's + Odai - the city where Lord Skanda's odai, (a small rivulet Valukkai Aru flow into the sea, which was earlier a rivulet, but today, a narrow dry channel and during the rainy season rain water flows into the sea) existed. The name Koviar, derived from the Tamil word Koviyam, means - bonded-service. Earlier, they called Kovilar those people, who rendered their services in the temples. Later, this word became corrupted and people began to call them Koviar. The word Koviar has nothing to do with the Sinhalese word Goviya or Goija. to write that Koviar were former Sinhalese, kept enslaved, is indeed a fanciful stretch of imagination at the expense of the Koviar caste. When the Tasawalamai Code, or the customary laws were codified in 1707 by Claasz Issacs, at the instance of the Dutch Governor, Cornelis Jan Simons (1702-1706), Koviar, Chandar, Nalavar, Pallar and others were all termed as Kudimakkal or Adimaikal i.e. slaves to the socalled high caste Tamils. According to the Yalpana Vaipava Malai, Kovilar the earlier slaves of the Kovil, were originally servants of the temples. When more than 500 Hindu temples were destroyed and razed down by the Portuguese, after their capture of the Tamil Kingdom at Nallur in 1621, the temple authorities began to sell the temple slaves to the affluent high caste Tamils and thus the Kovilar became Koviar. After the Irama-Ravana war, the caste system was introduced in the midst of the Tamils. The fanciful stretch of imagination that Koviar, were the Sinhalese, enslaved by the Tamil King (Cakli), is a distortion of fact, to suit the communal grist to the mill and even a few Tamil historians have unwittingly fell victim to his malicious campaign. After the issue of Koviar, Mr. Susantha Goonatilake drops several names of historians to conclude that the traditional Tamil Homeland is a hoax. Why May be the writer lay emphasis on these historians and drag them to his side to prove his malicious contention that, the Tamils never had a homeland of their own and the issue cropped up only after the advent to Tamil militancy in the political landscape of the country, a biggest hoax ever imagined for the international consumption. I will deal with this subject, in the concluding paragraphs of this article. The writer unashamedly goes on to state about ethnic cleansing and about his "out of the way support to Professor Thurairajah, to make him the President of Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science (SLAAS), more over he shed tears about the future of the Tamils, who are presently refugees in the Western countries. The ethnic cleansing of the Tamils started far back as 1815, the Sinhalese chiefs who were party to the infamous Kandyan convention of 2 March 1815. According to Clause 3 of the Convention "That all male persons, being or pretending to be relations of the late Raja Sri Wickrema Singhe, eitherby affinity or by blood and whether in ascending, descending or collateralline, are here by declared enemies to the government and excluded and prohibited from entering those provinces on any pretence whatever, without a written permission for that purpose by the authority of the British Government under the pains and penalties of martial law, which is hereby declared to be inforce for that purpose and all persons of the Malabar Caste (Tamils) now expelled from the said provinces, are under the same penalties prohibited from returning, except with the permission before mention." The Sinhalese chiefs, Ehelepola Molligoda - first Adikara & Dissave of the 7 Korales, Pelime Talawe - 2nd Adikara & Dissave of Saffregam, Pelime Talawe - Dissave of the 4 Korales, Monarawila - Dissave of Uva, Ratawatte - Dissave of Matele, Molligoda - Dissave of the 3 Korales, Dulleywe - Dissave of Walapane, Millawas - Dissave of Wellase and Bintenne, Gaagama - Dissave of Tamankada and Galagoda Ð Dissave of Nuwara Kalawiya, signed the convention, along with Robert Brownrigg (1812-1820), the British Governor. Several Chiefs signed their names in Tamil - get rid of the Tamils from the Kandyan kingdom. (" - an Indian officer of 'high standing' who serving under the King of Kandy and bearing the name Neela Perumal., was made high priest of the Temple of the God of Saman, and commanded to take the name of Nayaka Pandaram (Chief Record Keeper) in 1454. If this tradition has truth in it, we may surmise that the Indian name of Nayaka Padaram came in time to adopt the form of Pandara Nayaka. By the time it has turned into the Sinhalese Bandaranaike." - Relative Merits by Yasmine Goonaratne, p.3) The Sinhalese chiefs, by placing their hands in the infamous convention, ceded the sovereignty of the last kingdom in Ceylon, also heralded the first ethnic cleansing campaign in the kingdom, by being party to rid the Tamils from the Kandyan kingdom. Subsequently, after the independence, disfranchising 800,000 Tamils of the Indian origin, thus made them stateless and voteless, moreover, up to date, several thousands of these Tamils are still lingering by this despicable act, originated by D. S. Senanayake, who clung on to power with the consent and blessings of the British colonial masters. I need not go into the other details of colonizing in the Tamil area, also about the riots of 1956, 1958, 1977, 1979, 1981, 1982 & 1983, as these are all public secrets, a design organized to chase the Tamils from the Sinhalese dominated areas. Faceless and headless racial violence with impunity, was organized by the ruling elites of that particular period in power and thousands of Tamils died, furthermore thousands of them were displaced. It is a pity that Mr. Susantha Goonatilake overlooked all these dark patches in our country's history, before harping on to the so called ethnic cleansing, initiated by the Tamil militant organization. We the Tamils, very strongly condemn the Sinhalese political leaders, who were behind the killings and displacement of the Tamils, but also we very strongly condemn the LTTE for chasing from the Northern province, the Muslims, our brethren, who lived with us for a thousand years and more, also our Sinhala brethren, who earlier constituted part of our society. I still remember the owners of Ananda Bakery, Point Pedro, Matara Bakery, Chunnagam and the City Bakery, Jaffna, and my motor-car mechanics, Simon and Peter of Chunnagam, who lived with in our midst for three to four generations, before leaving for down South. |
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