What is going on in the north that the government doesn't want the people to know? And how long is it going to hoodwink the people by saying that elections are just around the corner?

On Monday, the Daily News carried as its lead story, an interview with Deputy Defence Minister Anuruddha Ratwatte, in which he gave vague promises on when the islandwide state of emergency would be lifted, and provincial council elections held.

``Maybe in a month's time, maybe two. Elections will come sooner than people think,' Ratwatte's promises are as vague as they are endless.

Operation Jaya Sikuru continues...

Ratwatte has said that while Operation Jaya Sikuru is going on, there aren't enough police and soldiers in the rest of the country to guarantee security for the elections. This is the government’s excuse for postponing elections. To postpone elections, the president needed to proclaim a nationwide state of emergency.

Meanwhile, the censorship of all articles relating to the armed forces, continues to hide what is going on in the north from the people. The censorship is now more than three months old, and doesn't look like it's going to be lifted anytime soon.

The government clearly believes that the combination of the state of emergency and the censorship will be enough to fool enough of the people into believing that elections really cannot be held now. Meanwhile, the vague promises keep flowing, intended to satisfy the voters for a little while longer.

How long can this last?

Every one of the government's arguments and actions we have mentioned, are false.

Let's take the censorship for starters. According to all reports of the Defence Ministry, the LTTE and the NGOs operating in the north, and also people travelling from the north, there has been no major battle since early June.

In fact, the defence ministry's daily propaganda bulletins speak of fighting going on in the same area where battles were being fought in January! 'Troops operating in general area Mankulam' has become imprinted in the minds of the public, since it is being parroted by newspapers, radio and television for so long.

Clearly, according to what the Defence Ministry says every day, the army has not moved forward at all since January. If they have, then they haven't gone more than a few hundred meters, or a couple of kilometers. Unless of course, the defence ministry is deliberately lying about the location, which it doesn't seem to be doing, since the Tigers are refering to the same area in their propaganda.

At the same time, the Tigers haven’t launched any mass attacks on the forces either. Neither have they claimed to have done so.

Thus, it is quite clear that both sides are literally exhausted of men and women, and haven't been able to move much.

This is what the government is trying so hard to hide from the public, through the censorship.

A glance at a map shows that Jaya Sikuru has captured less than 50 of the 70 kilometers from Thandikulam to Elephant Pass, or roughly two thirds, according to what the defence ministry says.

Yet, Ratwatte and many other members of the Cabinet keep talking of 'one big thrust' which will clear the rest of the road, split the Tigers into two areas, open an 'MSR' (main supply route) to Jaffna, and release troops for the elections.

And all this, in a month or two, according to what Ratwatte told the Daily News!

The government, in trying to fool the people, is quite obviously fooling only itself.

Sri Lankans know how to read maps. Those who don't, can ask those who do to explain to them where Mankulum is. With nothing but Mankulam being the most mentioned town this year, when it comes to the warfront, everyone knows that nothing much seems to be happening, since the troops are evidently stuck there since January.

Thus, if Ratwatte believes that the people believe him when he says that it will take only a month or two to clear the rest of the road, he is fooling himself.

Maybe he is talking about some other strategy. But definitely, no-one believes that the strategy that has been followed for one year and four months now, can succeed in clearing the road in two months.

At the same time, almost no-one believes that the elections were postponed for security reasons. The United National Party, as well as all the other opposition parties, and even several of the PA's own allies, have made sure that the people understand this, with politician after politician speaking on it at public meetings.

Phrases like 'crisis of credibility,' 'constitutional coup,' 'dictatorship,' etc, are being thrown at the government, with ease. Only the most diehard of PA supporters are voicing opp-osition to this.

Yet the government has not batted an eye lid in the face of all this criticism. No elections, have censorship have emergency. That's the stand.

So, what is the government's plan?

The first most obvious option is to continue like this until Jaya Sikuru succeeds. But no-one knows how long that will be despite Ratwatte's soothsaying.

Other cabinet ministers have said that they don't expect Jaya Sikuru to take more than a few months. But their vagueness on the actual time frame clearly shows that they have not given Ratwatte any sort of deadline.

Just suppose that the operation drags into the middle of next year. Then what? Are we still going to be living under emergency, censorship and no elections?

On the other hand, if Jaya Sikuru fails, or goes on into next year there is no way that the PA will win the elections. Voters who are already angry at the subversion of their right to democracy, will defintitely throw the PA out of the Provincial Councils, if elections are held without winning in the north.

From the point of view of the PA, it has backed itself into a disastrous position, politically, from which there is no going back without losing face and probably losing elections.

The talk of holding Presidential Elections early or even a general election is all hogwash. A ruling party which is afraid to lose a provincial council election is not going to risk it all in a nationwide election.

So what does this mean to the war?

Ratwatte is now assured of the PA's total commitment to the censorship and state of emergency, which suit him best given the dismal record of Jaya Sikuru. He knows that the PA cannot risk election until he wins in Jaya Sikuru.

Until then, the country will have no choice but to read his promises in the front page of the Daily News, Unless of course you choose to turn the page, in which case you can read the promises of some lesser minister in an inside page.

But then, there is always the sports page. At least that has good news, and no promises. For the moment.

At any forthcoming election, one of the factors which the UNP will have to face is the very considerable political skills of the PA. The UNP has never been able to match the campaign style of the SLFP and related parties. It can be said that throughout the past five decades, power was seized from the UNP with relative ease. But when the UNP managed to prevail over the SLFP, it has always been the sufferance of the people that the UNP had got back into power. So far, the SLFP has seized power from the UNP on three occasions - 1956, 1970 and 1994. The UNP has prevailed over the SLFP on two occasions - 1965 and 1977.

Whenever, the SLFP won, the UNP was crushingly defeated. 1956, 1970 and 1994 were all debacles for the UNP. Whenever the UNP won an election, the performance was not that spectacular. In 1965, when the UNP managed to get back into power after nine years of SLFP rule, they barely managed to scrape together a coalition government of seven political parties. In 1977, they did win a decisive victory, but the percentage polled was just a little above the 50% mark. Now if we examine the circumstances under which the SLFP defeated the UNP and the UNP defeated the SLFP, something does not appear right.

Take 1956 for instance. By 1956, the country had no major economic worries. The plantaion sector was bringing home the bacon and as a World Bank study in the mid fifties indicated, unemployment was negligible. The country was doing quite well by Asian standards. Yet when it came to election day, the UNP which had presided over this placid state of affairs for nine years, was almost obliterated. The SLFP romped into power and began to overturn the established order. All kinds of economic experimentation was initiated. Socialism suddenly became fashionable.

Investors and experts in the plantations sector fled to more accommodating environments in East Africa. Within a few years, new competitors had come up in the world market, thanks to the investors and experts who had fled from Sri Lanka to Africa. The goose that laid the golden egg was dying. By the end of the SLFP's nine year stint in power from 1956 to 1965, the country had deteriorated to such an extent that Sri Lanka had the highest unemployment rate in the whole of Asia. In fact it was this first SLFP stint in power that brought this country to the brink of ruin from which it never recovered.

But the people kept voting the SLFP back into power. By the time Prime Minister S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike was assassinated in 1959, the ruin was already manifest. Gunadasa Liyanage has said in his inimitable style that Bandaranaike died in order that the SLFP may live. Had Mr. Bandaranaike lived until the elections of 1960 he would almost certainly have been defeated says Liyanage. But his assassination enabled the SLFP to come back to power for a second time on a wave of sympathy. Be that at it may, the upshot of this was that the people voted for the SLFP regardless of its abysmal record on the economic front. On the other occasion when the SLFP once more came into power in 1970, they did so after spending only five years in the opposition.

During those five years, the Dudley Senanayake government had initiated a major resurgence in domestic agriculture in one of the most successful short term projects ever launched by a Sri Lankan government. It was during those years that Sri Lanka experienced the highest economic growth rates ever. The UNP was confident that the people would appreciate what they had managed to achieve after the preceding nine years of economic ruin. Yet when it came to polling day, the SLFP led coalition won again - only this time with the biggest majority ever! What makes the SLFP tick? How did they manage to do that?

The secret behind this is their special political skills. The SLFP has mastered the art of appealing to the irrational, instinctual and emotional side of the public. Nobody can beat them at the fine art of rabble rousing. Sahodarawaruni! Prathigaameen! Duk, Kandulu, le, dahadiya, hadavatha, manushyathvaya and other such emotionally charged words make up their vocabulary. SLFP orators shriek and stomp on stage, they thump their chests and even shed tears and claim to have the interests of the people at heart. An SLFP led election campaign is more like a tornado than anything else. This is what J.R. Jayawardene was to find out in 1982 when he held a Presidential election after five golden years in office. The economy had done better than ever before, revolutionary changes had been initiated and the SLFP was in disarray with a major split in the party and a second rate candidate for President. With all that, when the votes were counted, the UNP had increased its vote by 350,000 over the 1977 level, while the SLFP had increased its vote by 700,000! What had the SLFP done to deserve this increase in votes? Nothing! Their past was one where they had led the country into economic ruin, and the people had hardly forgotten what SLFP rule was like.

Of course, even the most successful government would have to face some fallout after five years in office, but the arithmetic was wrong. It is the UNP that should have increased it votes by 700,000 and the SLFP should have got an increase of 300,000. That would have been a proper reflection of the times. yet it happened the other way about. The SLFP with nothing to their credit, with nothing to show for their years in power, were able to win twice as many new voters than the UNP at the zenith of their popularity and success.

In 1994 once again, the SLFP came back into power with an unprecedented majority. JRJ got only 52% of the vote in 1982 at the height or his success. But Chandrika Kumaratunga got 62%. It is true that Chandrika's contender in 1994 was weak. But then so was JRJ's contender in 1982. What had Chandrika done of achieved to deserve 62% of the vote? It should have been the other way about. JRJ should have got 62% in 1982 and Chandrika should have got 52% in 1994. That would have been a better reflection of what the respective candidates deserved. The SLFP election campaign may not have substance, but it does have vote catching power. It is only after a change of government that people realise that the SLFP does not have substance, but by then its too late. The situation of the past five years amply bears this out. The usual pattern has been that the SLFP seizes power, and almost immediately starts to decline. As the SLFP collapses upon itself, the badly mauled UNP is once more rehabilitated. The UNP in fact has survived entirely on the inabilities of the SLFP. Despite the crushing defeats it has suffered repeatedly at the hands of the SLFP, still the UNP has never been without a role to play.

Today, with the fortunes of the SLFP in wane, many people think its going to be a cakewalk for the UNP at a future election. It would be so if the masses were rational. But what the UNP always forgets is that the masses are not rational. When the rational course of action is pointed out the masses may miss the point. To think the SLFP is just going to fold up in the face of rationality is a pipe dream. They have mastered the art of defying rationality. And the UNP will have to learn to face this before they can hope to get back into power.

Last week, Dr. Rajitha Senaratne regaled us with a ludicrous display of obscenities and homophobia (hatred of homosexuals) totally unworthy of a medical professional, a politician and a man of the late 20th century. But then, why are we surprised? The Cats Eye column, which focuses on current issues, has had to face hate speech and abuse of a racist, misogynist kind which ranges from calling us agents of the Tigers, to Lesbians, to promiscuous women, to frustrated bitches in need of a good lay (take your pick). This has become the method a la Sri Lanka of replaying to women critics, and is one of the unexplored dark regions of local patricarchy. (Some of these recent hysterical outbursts of local males are currently being 'deconstructed' as texts in women studies programmes around the world).

If Rajitha did not learn decency and manners at dental school, he must have at least learned that there are sexual preferences among human beings, and that at least five percent of any population consists of homosexuals/gays. If he did not know that, he must have at least known that same-sex schools, religious organizations, prisons, etc. are conducive to homosexual encounters. If he didn't even know that, he may have noticed in his own party, in politics and public life, in the professions, in the creative arts, and amongst writers, that not only were there many homosexuals, but that this was public knowledge.

What he should have been yelling about as a member of parliament is not whether his opponents are gay, but why the Penal Code makes homosexuality a criminal offence.

The Penal Code
When the PA government started changing archaic colonial laws, including personal laws, an attempt was made to delete the old law which criminalizes homosexuality. Instead of doing this, in keeping with other enlightened societies, the Minister of Justice, under pressure from the Muslim lobby, not only kept the provision, but made his contribution to gender equity by making homosexuality illegal for women too! So it is not only Dr. Rajitha, but Dr. G. L. too who has yet to enter modern world as we approach the year 2000.

Homophobia
Where do societies such as our get their homophobia? Is it a part of local culture, or is it a Judeo-Christian importation? Cross-dressing has been a part of South Asian culture and at many events rituals, and festivals, the appearance of men dressed as women is an accepted part of the celebrations. But, how can we be sure that gays are an accepted part of society, if we tolerate penal laws that persecute them?

Inspite of this, there is a widely prevalent feeling that homosexuality goes against the 'norms' of society, and gays are often subjected to, at the very least, verbal abuse and harassment.

British Legacy
Colonial Sri Lanka was influenced by Christian and Jewish attitudes which condemned homosexuality as sinful, pagan practices, as seen in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah that pervades the Christian and Jewish heritage. In 19th century Britan, under the Offences Against the Person Act (1861) and the Criminal Law Amendment Act (1885), homosexual acts were crimes and misdemeanours. These archaic laws were abolished in the late 1950s when the Wolfenden report (on homosexual offences) recommended that homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private should not be a criminal offence.

In post-colonial Sri Lanka, the old colonial laws remained, and the wave of enlightened attitudes that swept Britain did not reach our shores. We are still at the stage when archaic laws back-up archaic attitudes. In the 1890's Britain punished Oscar Wilde for his homosexuality ' and regrets it to this day. In 1915 the British, before hanging Sri Roger Casement, the Irish patriot, released his diaries which revealed his homosexual tendencies. And the British authorities even alleged that Anagarika Dharmapala was homosexual in order to smear him. But times have changed, and in Britain it is no longer a smear to be called gay. In fact currently the British parliament is considering legislation to reduce the age of consent in homosexual relationships to 16.

Pontificating about 'ponnayas'
Rajitha Senaratne is a well-known maverick, and perhaps nobody takes anything he says seriously. Perhaps, also, his recent remarks about 'ponnayo' may be forgotten by next week-as yet another exchange of insults between rival politicians. On the other hand, the virulent homophobia the remarks exhibit may signal a new phase in the debate about homosexuality in this country. Either way, they should not go unchallenged.

Sri Lanka has long been tolerant of its homosexuals _ especially if they were upper class, male and quiet. Gay bashing is almost unknown in this country; though the group 'Companions on a Journey' has reported the harassment of some of its members. Seen in this context, the frankness of one of the leading figures in the cabinet, who appears to be openly gay, is both unsurprising and admirable. And this frankness, in turn, may have prompted the spokesman of the 'Companions,' Sherman de Rose, to believe that we have indeed entered a new phase in this country, one in which talk about same sex desire and practice need to be private any more. That, therefore, the time is right and ripe to call for changes in the penal code ' where homosexuality is currently outlawed.

Senaratne's argument, that he was merely pointing out that some people were avowedly breaking the law, is unconvincing, if not simply mendacious. His speech was lewd, crude, hurtful, hateful and utterly homophobic. The refusal of his party leader, Ranil Wickremasinghe, to discipline him for it is also shameful. For, the real issue at stake is not whether people are breaking the law, but whether the law in question should be considered relevant and necessary. After all, it is a routine matter in human affairs for outdated legislation to be taken off the books. Just as the statutes against homosexuality now extant in Sri Lanka are a result of colonial rule there are laws against vagrancy, which decree that a woman, any woman, can be arrested for walking the streets alone after 6 p.m. Indeed, they should have been gotten rid of long ago.

GL: It's about justice
Which is why we find the Justice Minister's response to this whole affair incomprehensible. As feminists we find his views untenable. G. L. Peiris now says that there are 'more pressing problems' for the government to solve, like the war. This is, not to put too fine a point on it, a staggeringly impotent argument. If it were truly the case, then the entire government should be put on a war footing, and all routine governmental business halted, until the war is over.

But this will not happen. Which is why we cannot agree with Mangala Samaraweera when he says that the government should not 'worry' about what consenting adults do in private. As long as such acts are criminalized, no Sri Lankan gay or lesbian can ever feel completely secure ' even if they are never prosecuted under these laws. These statutes are simply outdated; indeed, they were never justified. Minister Samaraweera should take the lead in eliminating them. And he could very well begin by remind Minister Pieris that what is at stake is a question of justice.

The colonial expansion of Europe into Asia led to the discovery of significant Asian civilizations. This led to the rise of a group of European scholars who studied Asian civilisations. Those who specialised in the civilisation of the Indian sub-continent were known as Indologists. The first of these oriental scholars were from Europe. Many of them were missionaries. The first Sanskrit scholar was Heinrich Roth (1620-1668), a German missionary who went to India. The first Pali scholar was also a German missionary, Paulinus. In France there was Burnouf, a Pali scholar and Senart (1847-1928) a Sanskrit scholar. (Heinx Bechert 'Wilhelm Geiger' p 2,3). One of the first western scholars of Sinhala was a Dane, Rasmus Rask (1787-1832). He visited Sri Lanka in 1821, and took back with him a valuable collection of manuscripts, including several manuscripts of the Mahavamsa. Those were deposited in the Royal Library, Copenhagen, Denmark.

Subjects such as Pali and Sanskrit were thereafter included in the curriculum of European universities. The first chair of Sanskrit was at the university of Bonn, in 1818. Indology was included in the discussions of learned societies, such as the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. The oriental scholars also met regularly at the International Congress of Orientalists. The 1886 Congress was held in Vienna and the 1889 one in Stockholm and Oslo. (Bechert p 13) Further these scholars did not work in isolation, they corresponded with each other across countries.

Research interests were interconnected and comparative. They covered all of Asia. For example, at the turn of the century, the famous Swedish explorer and geographer, Sven Hedin and the Frenchman de Rhins had unearthed the ruins of towns and monasteries in East Turkestan. This was followed by other expeditions from Britain, Russia and Germany. The resulting manuscript fragments were pieced together to provide an initial picture of the culture of Buddhist Central Asia. This provided the oldest existing Buddhist manuscripts, a wealth of early Buddhist Sanskrit literature. Starting with this, it became possible to reconstruct, around 1912, the earliest forms of Buddhist scriptures. (Bechert p 16). It was only after considerable work had been done on Buddhism that in 1881 the Gautama Buddha was seen to have been a living person. Till then he had been seen as a supernatural person. (Bechert p 9) Bechert also points to that the interest of German scholars, like Wilhem Geiger, in the civilisation of Sri Lanka was closed bound with their growing interest in Buddhism. (Bechert p 3).

With this background in mind let us look at Sri Lanka. The British did not come to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in search of civilizations. They were attracted to the island, due to its strategic position in the Indian Ocean and its possibilities for trade. Initially they were interested in the island's cinnamon trade, later in the 20th century this was followed by coffee, rubber and tea. In the process of opening up the Nuwarakalawiya area in North, Sri Lanka they stumbled on the Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa ruins, also the tank fed irrigation system. They also got hold of a copy of the Mahavamsa.

When the British got interested in this early civilisation, on which they had unwittingly stumbled, they sensibly turned to the more knowledgeable European scholars. Sir Alexander Johnstone, Colonial Secretary, commissioned the British bookseller, Edward Upham to negotiate an edition of the Mahavamsa translated by the French scholar, Burnouf. This did not materialise. In 1833 Upham edited an English translation of the Mahavamsa, the Rajaratnakaraya and the Rajavaliya, based on a Dutch paraphrase. This was not satisfactory. Thereafter George Turnour's translation of the Mahavamsa was published in Colombo in 1837.

George Turnour translated the first section of the Mahavamsa and it was published in Colombo in 1837. The rest of the Mahavamsa was edited by Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala There and D. A. de S. Batuwantudawe in 1877 and translated into English by L. C. Wijesinghe in 1889. In the meantime, Herman Oldenburg, in Germany, edited and translated the Dipawamsa in 1879. G. C. Mendis stated that Oldenburg's work was the true beginning of scientific work in this field. (Bechert 69-71)

The British got down another German, Eduard Mueller, to decipher, the Sinhalese inscriptions.

His work was published in 1883. Thereby uncovering for the first time, the wealth of Sinhalese epigraphical material. The British also sent off Ayrton, designated as the future Archaeological Commissioner, to Germany to study epigraphy. (Bechert P. 17, 85) It is therefore quite clear that the British, though woefully inexpert in Oriental learning, were anxious to research as broadly as possible. They looked at rock inscriptions as well as the written material. Another important feature of this period, was that several of the British Civil Servants took an interest in the ancient civilization. Three British Civil Servants, George Turnour, R. D. Childers, and T. W. Rhys Davids learnt Pali, Sanskrit, and Sinhala from Scholar monks such as Yatramulle Dhammarama, Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala and Waskaduwe Sri Subhuti.

The role played by the Buddhist temple libraries in protecting and preserving the ancient texts should be kept in mind. the British first considered inviting Wilhelm Geiger to catalogue the manuscripts in the Buddhist temples. (Bechert P. 85) Our knowledge of our ancient past has depended heavily on the material safeguarded in these temple libraries. The Mahavamsa Manuscript was found in one such library near Mulkirigala. Of the three Culavamsa manuscripts looked at by Geiger, two were from temple libraries, those of the Asgiriye Vihara, Kandy, and the Mahamatindra Pirivena in Matara. (Bechert P. 95). In recent times, the 'Asgiriye Talpata' manuscript was found in Mulkirigala Vihare, Hambantota. (P. A. T. Gunasinghe. 'The political history of Yapahuwa, Kurunegala, Dambadeniya.' p. 17) This was useful for the later history of Sri Lanka.

Geiger's Mahavamsa translation was prepared using ten Mahavamsa manuscripts. Six in Sinhala, two in Burmese, and two in Cambodian script. Some of these were sent from libraries in Britain and Denmark. (Bechert p. 76) We are also told of a Thai translation of the Mahavamsa which was completed in 1797. (K. Malalgoda in 'Sri Lanka collective identities revisited.' Vol. 1 p. 64) The Mahavamsa edited by Wilhelm Geiger (1856 - 1943) is considered the definitive edition. The scientific editing of a manuscript like the Mahavamsa is a demanding work. Scholars like Geiger were not naive admirers of Indian culture. They came to the subject with considerable research experience in related fields. Geiger was initially a student of Old Iranian.

Geiger did not merely translate the Mahavamsa. He also evaluated its worth as a historical source work. Therefore Geiger's translation of the Mahavamsa 'won universal acclaim throughout the world of letters.' (Bechert p. 77) The Mahavamsa was not mechanically accepted as the sole historical text for Sri Lanka. It was examined together with several other Pali chronicles. These Pali chronicles included the Dipavansa, the Samanthapasadika, and the Vamsatthappakasini. The interpretation of these Pali chronicles went on for a long period of time, after they were discovered. Historians were obliged to struggle, initially of with dates and periods. For one thing, it was necessary to first work out the chronology of the Pali chronicles themselves. Thereafter, it was necessary to decide when the Buddhist era commenced. G. C. Mendis, for one, concluded that the dates upto Elara given in the Pali chronicles were 'altogether unreliable' (G. C. Mendis. 'Pali Chronicles of Sri Lanka, 1996)

Some of the anthropologists re-examining the ancient history of Sri Lanka, put forward some novel views about the Mahawamsa. Pradeep Jeganathan, in his essay titled 'Authorising history, ordering land, the conquest of Anuradhapura' comments, on the Mahavamsa. ('Unmaking the nation' Social Scientists Association, 1995). Jeganathan states that European writings on Sri Lanka from the 17th to early 19th century are unanimous that no texts that can be read as historical can be found among those available in the island' (p. 111) John Davy has said that the 'Singhalese possess no accurate records of events, are ignorant of genuine history, and are not sufficiently advanced to relish it' (111)

To This we can add the observations of Elizabeth Nissan. Nissan, in another article titled 'Anuradhapura and the Sinhala Buddhist nation'' has the following to say. She points out that Turnour had commented that' I have never yet met with a native who had critically read through and compared their several historical works, or who had till lately seen a commentary on the Mahavamsa.' Also that it was 'seldom consulted by the priesthood, and consequently rarely found in the temples' ('Identity, consciousness and the past' ed by H. L. Seneviratne. p. 32)

We return to Jeganathan, Jeganathan doubts the value of the Mahavamsa as an authentic historical text. He states that the 'available evidence indicates that the Mahavamsa, together with its commentaries, was not read as a text, from a physical manuscript, at the time of its discovery by Turnour. Multiple, indigenous conceptions of the past clearly existed at the time, and while some concepts overlap with the Mahavamsa, others do not' (p. 112) However Jeganathan does not tell us what these other texts are. He is silent on that matter. Thereafter he says that there was distortion and suppression of information when translated from Pali to English. However he does not give any concrete examples of such distortion nor does he seem to know any Pali himself. (p. 113)

The Mahavamsa is summarised by Jeganathan as 'a history of kings and battles, plagues and famines.' He states that it reinforces the 19 century notion of 'race'. The Mahavamsa tells us of the colonisation by the Bengalis, who metamorphose into 'Sinhalese'. The story thereafter is the battle between Sinhala kings and people against the Tamil kings and South Indian peoples.' Thus the Mahavamsa is reduced, for the benefit of foreign readers, into an epic which is devoted solely to the fight between Sinhalese and Tamils. The fact that it is primarily a religious chronicle is not mentioned. (p. 116) Jeganathan sees the Mahavamsa as 'positivist history'. This could be treated as a howler, in view of the fact that the Mahavamsa was written centuries before modern history writing started.

Anuradhapura was another target of the Tamil separatist movement. Anuradhapura was the capital city of Sri Lanka from 2 century AD to 10 century AD and is an important element in the much admired 'Sinhala-Buddhist' civilization of the time. Anuradhapura is situated in the North of Sri Lanka, close to Trincomalee. The Tamil members of the State Council objected to the Anuradhapura Preservation Ordinance of 1942. However they could do nothing to stop the momentum. Not only was Anuradhapura 'preserved' but it was also turned into a 'Sacred City' in view of the fact that it held the Sri Lanka Bodhi.

The Tamil separatist movement has taken a bash at the current Sacred Buddhist cities of Sri Lanka. The work of Nissan and Jeganathan reflect this. Nissan suggests that Anuradhpura became important not because it was important but because the British made it important. Jeganathan elaborates on this. He says: When the Nuwarakalaviya region was opened up by the British a 'Landscape of ruins' emerged. The British consulted the Mahavamsa with regard to these ruins. The ruins were identified as those mentioned in the chronicles, and they started excavating and conserving. Jeganathan describes that as 'excavated history'. The mounds, or rather dagobas were thereafter measured and classified, the proportions declared to be perfect. 'Unjungled, marked, sanitised and aesthetised, Anuradhapura as a commodity was now ready for large scale consumption' (Jeganathan p. 127). It became one of the 'ruined cities' of the world. Upham had declared Anuradhapura equal to the wonders of Egypt and Kinghton compared it to Greece and Rome. (Jeganathan p. 116, 120) Anuradhapura was one of the most photographed sites of the South Asian colonies. Discovered in the jungle, and embodying many secrets of the past, the ruined cities appealed to the European romantic imagination. (Nissan p. 32)

The implication thus far is that Anuradhapura is something which was cooked up by the British. 'Anuradhapura came to represent the heartland of the Sinhala Buddhist nation through the conjunction of European historical imagining and local chronicles of history.' (Nissan p. 30) Thereafter, the 'Sinhala-Buddhists' got hold of Anuradhapura and insisted that it be made a Sacred City. Nissan describes this process somewhat sarcastically. She points out that it was felt that only Buddhists should undertake the conservation and development of Anuradhapura. (Nissan p. 35) There was objection to the siting of Christian churches within Anuradhapura. Nissan gives much space to this. She points out that in 1894 as memorial was presented by a 'Buddhist lobby' in Colombo, protesting about a church within the sacred precincts of Anuradhapura.

Further that after the Anuradhapura Ordinance of 1942, the churches, Hindu temple and mosque were eventually removed from the sacred city and their former sites obliterated. The Sacred City became an exclusive Buddhist City.' (Nissan p. 39, 35).

Nissan suggests that in the 1930 State Council debates there had been a possibility for Anuradhapura to be considered sacred to all Sinhalese, whether Buddhist or Christian, but that later developments excluded the Christians from any place in Anuradhapura.

Nissan also points out that it could have been sacred to Tamils as well, since King Elara was honoured there. (p 39). This tendentious observation calls for a comment. Past civilizations are not considered 'sacred'. The world 'sacred' is normally used with reference to religion. Anuradhapura can not be 'sacred' to Christians because Christianity was entrenched in Sri Lanka only in the 16 century. Anuradhapura can not be sacred to Tamils, because King Elara was a trader or adventurer, who came in from South India, and ruled over a limited area in the North. He constituted no kingdom of historical distinction. Anuradhapura became a sacred city only because it contained the Sri Maha Bodhi. The rest of the Atamasthana are relatively unimportant.

(Continued tomorrow)

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