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Telling cultural stories for understanding
(Text of a talk given at the launch of J. B. Disanayaka’s Understanding the Sinhalese at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute on Tuesday, 19 January, ‘99)Printed prominently on the card inviting guests to the launch of J. B. Disanayaka’s Understanding the Sinhalese were the very well known but nevertheless still very eloquent words from the Preamble to the UNESCO Constitution: ‘Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed’. As this fact indicates, Disanayaka explicitly projects his book as an opportunity. Against the background of the saddening ethnic conflict that is destroying our land, he expressly conceives of his book as an opportunity to pursue the noble agenda that the words quoted announces. In his Preface he recognises that the reality of ethnic identities is not to be obliterated. But, he goes on, ‘it may be possible to enlighten members of one ethnic group to appreciate and tolerate the differences of others’. And so he writes his book to describe ‘the way the Sinhalese think, speak and act and what makes them do so’. For, as he says, ‘it is only through such understanding, in a detached way, that members of other ethnic groups will be able to appreciate not only the habits and customs, manner of speech, myths and beliefs, but also the idiosyncracies of the Sinhalese. It is therefore hoped that these essays will contribute, even in a small measure, to bring about better understanding between the Sinhalese’ and the other communities in the island.
Right at the centre of the conflict which Disanayaka addresses are of course those complex and convoluted issues of competing racial identities, claims and prejudices, political contestation, power, ideology and so on. Disanayaka places his finger squarely on these central issues in his opening chapter itself, when he discusses in polar oppositionality to each other the scholar S. J. Tambiah and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lakshman Kadirgamar. The interesting thing about these two personalities is that in so many respects they are so alike. Both are Tamils who had English as one of their primary languages and grew up and spent the crucial first twenty years or thereabouts of their lives in close and valued interaction with the Sinhala people who primarily occupied the immediate contexts of their lives. Each of them went to one of the leading public schools in the island, Tambiah to St. Thomas’ College and Kadirgamar to Trinity College, both of which were Christian schools. Both distinguished themselves at cricket in school and also in their studies. Both spent a long period of time abroad, where they felt that conditions were more conducive to the careers they had chosen to pursue than in their homeland. A major difference between them is that Tambiah chose to remain in academia abroad, while Kadirgamar chose a few years ago to return to Sri Lanka to pursue a career in politics. Ideally, the world of academia which Tambiah belongs within is committed to the assiduous pursuit of truth by means of objective, rational scholarship and argumentation. Equally ideally, the world of politics which is Kadirgamar’s territory is committed to the assiduous pursuit of good governance in a state in an effort to ensure the greatest good and happiness of the greatest number of its subjects.
All of this, I think, makes it very clear that if we are at all to understand the differences in the responses of these two people to the ethnic conflict, we must look not at their ethnic or educational or social background but at the issues of power, contestation, ideology and so on which Disanayaka’s opening chapter immediately points towards. But, while recognising such issues, Disanayaka chooses not to engage directly with them. For, this would have led him into a realm of abstract intellectual argumentation which, experience shows us, has so far had very little indeed to contribute to the resolution of the conflict. The reason is that for such argumentation to succeed the ground below it, which lies in the hearts and minds and understanding of people, must be ready to receive it. The evidence is that the ground is not yet ready..
So Disanayaka chooses another method, which is to prepare the ground, by addressing directly the real, live people who are caught up in the conflict on either side. As this book as well as the 38 books he has published before it clearly show, he is always willing to range confidently and enrichingly across a whole wide set of academic fields, language, culture, the arts, society, religion, philosophy and so on; but he has little patience with high falutin theory and has consistently resisted the temptation to become narrowly academic. Instead he has elected to reach popularly out to the real live people about whom academics do their abstract research, and to speak not only to their minds but also to their hearts.
Therefore, in this book which is being launched today, Disanayaka chooses to tell other races in the island about the Sinhala people in the hope that this will help them know and understand them better. In a real sense, it is a revealing commentary on the sad plight that we, in collaboration with generations of our leaders, have reduced this country to that we need to do this at all. The point I am trying to make relates to the infinite qualitative difference that exists between, on the one hand, knowing about a thing and, on the other, knowing a thing for what it essentially is. There was a time when people did not need to find out about other people because they knew them, immediately and intimately, through good and enriching and accepting interaction with them. I remember the numerous Sinhala people who used to visit Jaffna in the good old days and come back with rave stories about the friendship and warmth and hospitality they had unfailingly experienced. I remember too a middle aged gentleman, totally Tamil in everything about him, his appearance, his accent, the food he ate, the music he listened to, his style of life, whatever. Barely one year after he had been forced to flee his home in Kandy during the 1983 riots, I remember him telling me, with a certain expressive poignance, "Jaffna is my home, and I love it; but I have lived many years now in the midst of the Sinhalese and been very happy among them. It is they whom I would be happiest to live among. "
Those times have gone and what we now see too much around us are mutual mistrust and suspicion. It is Disanayaka’s recognition of this unhappy fact that has made him write this book, to tell the other people who are equally part of this land about his people, the Sinhalese. This alone makes it an important book. For, it represents the extension of a compelling hand of friendship to these other people, and a sincere appeal to them to try to understand his people, warts and all, and to come to accept them for what they are.
But, it appears to me, the importance of the book derives from the fact that it does much more than just that. It has other very significant dimensions which I think we need to pay attention to.
These derive from the way in which Disanayaka goes about the pursuit of his aims. What he does is to tell, in simple and unpretentious language, a particular set of stories of the lives of Sinhala people, naming them and facets of their behaviour and activities, both from their past and from their current day-to-day endeavours. In doing so, he re-presentationally constitutes and constructs their subjectivities and their identities as experienced realities. From the Centre which he thus defines for them, he then projects these subjectivities and identities to the others who remain outside that centre, in immediately felt terms which would enable these others to relate to them at first hand and respond to them.
As post-colonial studies have shown us, this kind of constitution and reconstruction of the subjectivities at the centre is generally hegemonic in its workings. For, it simultaneously also constitutes and reconstructs the others as lesser, inferior objects, lacking in the desirable qualities of the subjects at the centre and, therefore, deserving of consignment to the margins.
But this is exactly where Disanayaka is laudably different. His construction of the subjects at the Sinhala Centre indeed strongly validates them and their identity. What is important, however, is that in no way at all does it simultaneously devalue the others who lie outside the centre. For, these others are themselves implicitly recognised as valid subjects occupying their own centres from out of which they may without fear or suspicion recognise, understand and accept the occupants of the centre that Disanayaka defines.
In fact, Disanayaka makes the acceptance of his extended hand all the easier by telling the stories of the Sinhala Centre in such a way that the others in their own centres will be able to recognise and identify with a great deal that they will see to be shared with the stories of their own lives. And once this happens, they might perhaps also begin to perceive that there are some common narrative threads that run alike through many of their varied stories, threads that might perhaps hold them all together in some significant, Sri Lankan, way.
This itself is already a considerable achievement from the point of view of Disanayaka’s reconciliatory aims. But there are yet other dimensions of what he does with his book which are at least as crucial as that to the task of reconciliation which he has set himself. The point is that the narration of the stories of the Sinhala centre does not speak only to those who are outside of that Centre. Far more significantly, it speaks also to the very people who occupy that Centre, it tells them about themselves, retrieves for them memories which, particularly under the conditions of change which Disanayaka repeatedly calls attention to in his book, they might well have forgotten. In other words, he reminds them again of who they truly are or could be.
Initially, this might appear to be a puzzling claim, for people generally believe quite unquestioningly that they know exactly who they are and precisely what they are about. But as the extensive literature in critical theory, post-colonial theory and various other disciplines have argued, this is not quite how it works. Let me call upon the Russian critic, Viktor Shklovskij to help me explain what I mean. Shklovskij tells us that those who live by the sea shore grow so accustomed to the murmur of the waves that they in effect cease to hear it. That is to say, things can become so vary familiar, so taken for granted, that we begin to lose sight of or forget much of what essentially defines them. The question then for us is how we might recover a sense of what we have lost or forgotten or allowed to slip out of our awareness.
Shklovskij, talking of how an artist or writer would help us do this, tells us that he/she would do so by making the object of contemplation ‘strange’, so that we are obliged to look at it more closely and carefully and with greater attention to its varied facets. Such ‘strange making’, in other words, generates in us an invaluable scepticism that allows nothing to be taken simply for granted. And as we begin to look more closely at things in this manner, we begin to recognise once again features and dimensions of them that we had ceased to notice or forgotten. Perhaps, even, we might begin to find things in them which we never suspected and so on.
And this in fact is exactly what Disanayaka does. In telling the stories of the Sinhalese, he names and represents familiar things by means of linguistic signifiers, which, moreover, are drawn from a language which was not originally immediately adapted to them. The entirely re-presentational process inevitably renders the objects of his contemplation ‘strange’, so that even the people whose stories are told would not be able to take them for granted. They would be forced to look again at themselves more closely and see themselves with a renewed sense of discovery and recognition, even perhaps discovering new things about themselves which they never knew existed. In fact, when I myself was reading the book, I experienced this at first hand. For, even though almost everything he talked of was entirely familiar to me as a person who has lived and grown up among the Sinhala people for most of my life, virtually every page kept on bringing me surprises which I did not anticipate and forced me to recognise new things in the very familiar things I was reading about.
It is in this way, I believe, that Disanayaka’s book will help his Sinhala readers rediscover who they are, discovering aspects of many familiar things which they had not entirely been aware of, or not aware of in quite the expected way. To give you an example, the very interesting section entitled ‘On their Crossings in Life’, which talks of the moments of birth or learning to read or attaining age or getting married or dying among the Sinhalese, tells us of how their ancestors had viewed these states as states of transition in which one is ‘neither here nor there’.
What Disanayaka’s unpretentious representations of these states in his book does is to awaken those of us who had taken all this for granted to the fact that these are what anthropologists call ‘liminal’ states, states which, in the words of the anthropologist Victor Turner, are ‘betwixt and between the categories of ordinary social life’. In these states, according to Turner, there takes place ‘anti-structural’ ‘play’, that is, play that is directed towards the dissolution of the ‘normative social structure’ with its exclusive bonds. And the result of such play, Turner goes on, is ‘innumerable.. forms of topsy-turvydom, parody, abrogation of the normative system’, leading often to a sense of ambiguity, unrealization, meaninglessness, alienation and so on.
What Disanayaka does in his strange-making representation of the crossings of the Sinhalese in his book is to awaken his people to a conscious sense of their significant participation in such states of liminality, something that most of them are hardly consciously aware of. More important, he also leads them to appreciate the unique nature of the kind of liminality that they participate in. In their scheme of things liminality is very far from the dissolute, alienating or disruptive thing associated with negative sensations which Euro-American anthropologists tend too often to see it primarily as, it has a fundamental positive aspect which the uncertainty never quite dislodges.
There are many such awakenings, some to positive aspects others to negative ones, that Disanayaka’s book is certain to lead his Sinhala readers to. Among these would certainly be those relating to topics such as the following which he explicitly addresses and which seem to demand closer scrutiny in terms of the realities and challenges of our times, for instance, caste and its relations with Buddhism, the place of women in the taken-for-granted scheme of things, relationships with other people and so on. In all these cases, such awakenings will be accomplished through the restoration of the invaluable creative scepticism that the process of making strange enables. This is the kind of creative scepticism which, I need hardly remind you, lies at the very heart of Buddhism, whose founder, one remembers, enjoined people to be a ‘lamp unto their own feet’ and to ‘work out their own salvation with diligence’.
This creative scepticism is crucial, for it will in turn help develop the kind of true self-reflexivity which is so central to an arrival at a state of self-recognition and self-understanding on which alone the reconciliation which the book has committed itself to can be pursued. Such self-reflexivity will help people, all people, identify those things within themselves that they could do without and, far more important, discover once again some of the best things within themselves, forgetfulness of which must surely account for the terrible plight that they have caused to be inflicted on their land. If that process of self-reflexive self-discovery and self-understanding can be pursued alike by all the communities in this land of ours, then and then alone can the ideal be meaningfully pursued. Then and then alone will our country be able to arrive at that blessed state in which, as the recently discovered Tasaday tribe in the Philippines described it, we would learn how to ‘accept all men as one man’, richly diverse in race, gender, colour, creed, religion, everything, and yet one across all those invaluable differences.
One last point. Disanayaka’s book is written in English and this entire book launch is being conducted in English. These facts must surely mean something beyond just the facilitation of communication across different linguistic groups?
One such thing is to indicate that perhaps the role of English in relation to the problems of our times must no longer be seen in the tiresomely mercenary pragmatic terms (getting better jobs, climbing the social ladder, acquiring technical knowhow, etc.) in which it is universally described in discussions of it in this country. Other things apart, simply by virtue of the fact that it is associated with other ways of seeing things that the purely indigenous, it will help break down the attitudes and mindset of a perniciously parochial monoculturalism. Nobody today needs of course to be told that there is no such thing as a purely indigenous experience anywhere. But leaving that aside, in these more enlightened, interactive times in which we and the people of our global home are fortunate to live, monoculturalism can be demonstrated to emasculate people, cripplingly obstructing any meaningful response to the complex problems which humankind is confronted with, not the least the racial problem.
This apart, English seems to be the language that gives the most direct and immediate access to contemporarily relevant modes of rational examination and argumentation and of ethical thought and experience which our interacting global family have together been difficulty seeking to fashion over the last many years. The task has by no means been easy and there have been coercion as well as contestation, resulting in both gains and losses. But, the process of the formation of the required idiom and its accompanying modes of thought, experience and ethical response is irreversibly in process. And without them, proper and effective understanding, interaction, survival and progress within our increasingly diversifying global home, even in its local arenas, become all that more difficult. In the context of the ethnic conflict which Disanayaka purposively launches his book into, this idiom and its modes of thought, experience and ethical response will valuably equip us to reclaim from our neglected traditions the finest in them and to refashion, reinvigorate and reapply it in terms which are relevant, viable and effective within our complex contemporary realities. It does not, therefore, appear to be mere coincidence that Disanayaka has sought to carry out his task in English.
All of which also seems to suggest that it is not just a book that Disanayaka has launched, but a whole set of ideas which point us all in creative directions which those who care for this land might fruitfully follow in trying to make it a truly peaceful and blessed place. And for that, we must be grateful to him.
51st Anniversary of Sri Lanka’s Independence
They fought valiantly for our freedom
Gamini G. PunchihewaThe 51st anniversary of Sri Lanka’s Independence Day falls today. Let us on this historic but momentous day look back to the pre-Independence era and recall those patriotic reformists and freedom fighters who fought valiantly to free Lanka from the fetters of the British rule.
Revolts against British rule
Ceylon became a full fledged British colony in 1815 after the annexation of the Kandyan kingdom. Kandy was captured on February 14, 1815 which coincided with the capture of Sri Wickrema Rajasinghe, the last king of Kandy which also occurred on February 19th, 1815 in Medamahanuwara. The first British Governor was Fredrick North (1798-1804).The first rebellion that erupted during the early British rule was the famed but abortive Uva-Wellessa revolt in late 1817 during the governorship of Robert Brownrigg. The insurrection against the British regime flared up in September, 1817 till October, 1818. Its patriotic but heroic leader Keppetipola Disawa and his accomplice Madugalla were captured in October 30 and November 1, respectively. Both were beheaded at Bogambara on November 26, 1818.
Matale Rebellion
Thereafter, minor uprisings flared up in 1820, 1823 and 1824 in the Kandyan and the Sabaragamuwa Provinces which were suppressed. The next rebellion took place in 1848, named as the Matale Rebellion. That was an insurrection of the Kandyans in Matale and Kurunegala districts led by another patriotic leader, the famed Veera Puran Appu. The other leaders of these insurrections were Gongalagoda Banda and Hanguranketa Dingirirala. We must not forget that heroic Buddhist monk, Ven. Wariyapola Sumangala. He was the dauntless Buddhist monk who valiantly pulled down the Union Jack of the British Empire when it was hoisted in Kandy after the Kandyan Convention was signed in 1815 in Kandy.Martyrs of reforms and self rule
The reformists and freedom fighters worked hammer and tongs for the reforms for governing the country with peoples’ participation. Such agitations stemmed up from 1830. Among the earliest of the freedom fighters we could reminisce with all gratitude, such eminent persons like F. R. Senanayake, Anagarika Dharmapala, his brothers, Dr. C. A. Hewavitharana and Edmund Hewavitharana, S. C. Obeysekera, E. A. Obeysekera, E. J. Samarawickrema, Dr. S. Marcus Fernando, E. W. Perera, H. J. C. Perera, Sir James Peiris, James Alwis, Sir Ponnambalam Arunachalam, Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan, Sir D. B. Jayatilleke, D. S. Senanayake, S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, Dr. W. A. de Silva, D. D. Pedris, Dr. C. W. W. Kannangara, George E. de Silva, K. Gomes, Sir John Kotalawela, Dr. W. M. Perera. Among the then stalwarts for such reforms were drawn from the Lanka Sama Samaja Party like Dr. N. M. Perera and Philip Goonewardena.The representations made by these above-mentioned giants of reformers and freedom fighters not only went before the Governor, but were taken across the seas by some of them in person to the Whitchall and the mother of Parliament.
As a sequel to these representations and written petitions, there appeared a silver lining over the dark clouds hovering over the destiny of the country’s governance. In 1831 began the gradual stages for country’s administration by some sort of council representations. In that year of 1831, Lt. Colebroock and C. H. Cameron were commissioned by the British government to vest greater powers of governance to the local population.
Birth of the Executive and Legislative Councils
The birth of both the Legislative and the Executive Councils took place on the Colebrooke’s recommendations in 1833. The Legislative Council comprised six unofficial members nominated by the Governor to represent the Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims, Burgher, European Planting and Mercantile communities.
In the aftermath of the riots of 1915, came the formation of the Ceylon Reforms League which was founded by Sir Ponnambalam Arunachalam. Following it came the emergence of the Ceylon National Congress. Both these councils — the Ceyloy Reforms League and the Ceylon National Congress formed the nucleus of those freedom fighters and reformists.
During the tenure of office of Sir Hugh Clifford in 1927, he had set up a Royal Commission which became a forerunner for the coming of the Donoughmore Commission. On the implementation of the proposals under the Donoughmore Commission, there was some cleavage among some members of the Legislative Council. Hence a vote had to be taken when it was debated. By a slender margin of two votes, the Donoughmore Constitution reforms was passed.
The creation of a State Council was the substance of the Donoughmore Commission reforms. The new State Council saw the light of day on 7th July, 1931. The maiden sessions of the State Council were held on 22.9.1931. Alongside the acceptance of the Donoughmore Reforms, in 1931, came universal franchise for the election to the State Council by secret vote. To celebrate the jubilee of the universal suffrage, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II graced the occasion in 1981.
University ‘Movement’
Under the educational reforms arose the formation of a university. Among the prime agitators for this laudable educational cause were the great educational reformers of the time, namely Ananda Coomaraswamy and Sir Ponnambalam Arunachalam. Initially the British government gave cold shoulder treatment towards having a university. However these educational crusaders were undeterred to reach their goal. They took up the struggle with the Legislative Council.Consequently a sub-committee of the Legislative Council was appointed in 1912 which recommended the establishment of such a university. The site for the university was proposed to be in the then new wing of the present Royal College, Colombo. With the outbreak of World War I in 1917-18 the proposal to have a university was prolonged. It was put into effect only in 1921. It was named as the University College — affiliated to the University of London. But the educational reformers were not at all satisfied with a mere university college and agitated for a full fledged university in 1931.
Its realization came true only in 1942. Its transformation into a real university was confronted with a tug of war by parties concerned as to where the site for the university was to be located. The choice fell on two sites, one in Colombo itself, while the other to be in Kandy. However, Colombo was chosen and the University of Ceylon was born in 1942. The University in Kandy was realised in 1952, when the university campus was established in Peradeniya.
From State Council to Parliament
From the State Council days, those reformers and freedom fighters were still more and more active in agitating for self-government rule. Such representations were made orally and in writing both to the Governor and Whithall in England. Their successful agitations on that score came in the wake the Soulbury Commission Report which was published on 9.10.45. It recommended the conferment of dominion status to govern the country. By virtue of the enactment of the Ceylon Independent Act of 1947, Ceylon was granted independence after 150 years’ of British rule on 4.2.1948.The first Prime Minister of Independent Ceylon was D. S. Senanayake, while its first Governor-General was Visount Lord Soulbury. The other Governor-Generals to follow were Sir Oliver Goonetileke (1956-62) and William Gopallawa from 1962-72. All’s well and that ends well when as during the life span of 51 years of independence, the name of Ceylon changed into Sri Lanka by constitutional amendments and from there to the present Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka.
Improving the Institutes of Performing Arts (Kalayathanas)
By E. M. G. EdirisingheReport of the Committee headed by Shesha Palihakkara to make recommendations for systematization and development of the Kalayathanas (Institutes of Performing Arts) registered with the Department of Cultural Affairs was recently handed over to the Minister of Buddha Sasana, Cultural and Religious Affairs Lakshman Jayakody. There are 1137 registered institutes of varying grades representing to traditional art forms such as up-country, low-country and Sabaragamuwa Dancing, folk-songs, nadagam, puppetry, music etc. which together embrace a pupilship of about 10,000 men and women mostly in their prime of youth, engaged in the practice and preservation of traditional arts inherited from their fore-fathers.
Traditional arts, specially those preserved in the pupillage under the tutelage of traditional teachers, handed down on the guru-kula basis are severely handicapped due to lack of funds, insufficient opportunities and social and state indifference both at regional and natural level. Most of the institutes which gained registration since the mid-50’s are either not functioning or mal- functioning with no proper guidance and clear state policy. Over the past half-century, little or nothing had been done for the preservation and promotion of traditional arts which form the life and soul of our national identity and carry the flag of nationhood.
The Committee in its endeavor to ascertain the reasons for the present decline and deterioration of the traditional performing arts and the supporting crafts, and to find and propose remedial and promotional measures, had several sittings in different parts of the country including Anuradhapura, Hambantota and Matale. It was an enduring experience of listening to tale of woes of the traditional artists some of whom are aging and disabled, struggling to preserve their profession at staggering cost to their spirit and energy.
In the survey, it was noted in general that the artists in the Kegalle district were the most hard hit with scant financial resources while those in the Kurunegala district were comparatively better off. The Matara district presented the most spurious and corrupt version of the traditional arts as at present with least respect for tradition, form and performance. On the other hand, Matale district preserved them in their best classical form as far as possible with devotion and dedication unparalleled in any other part of the country. The Colombo district offered the widest exposure for the artists with more avenues being opened to enhance their income and image.
All responses to questions posed to them were mostly in the form of grievances that had been afflicting the traditional performing arts over the past decades, which could be brought broadly under two heads. One, the prestige factor of social non-recognition and under-estimation of the role of the traditional artist, and the other is the financial constraints pressing the entire institutionalized system embracing all performing arts. It was pitiable to listen to them relating their prevailing financial, social and emotional state. They hoped, optimistically, that the government would try to do something substantial and positive to uplift their social and financial status to ameliorate their genuine problems. Most of the institutes battered by state apathy are tottering in their feet struggling for mere survival, leaving aside any improvement on their profession.
Merit and performance certificates issued to the students of the institutes are not recognized anywhere anytime, they lamented. Kalayathana certificates presented at either public or private sector interviews were received with total aversion. This experience of the students is sickening to tell the least. The affection and enthusiasm with which the film artists, dramatists and teledrama crews are received has paled the traditional artist into insignificance and shame. Even in the area of cultural and religious activities their services are hardly harnessed except to welcome a politician or a foreign dignitary.
The older generation of traditional artists are sad and deeply worried that their pupils are gradually abandoning their cherished profession as they do not yield them any prospect for future either in pride of performance or in the way of making a livelihood. Even some of the hereditary teachers are beginning to treat their own cherished possession preserved and carried down from generation to generation with absolute indifference in the context of diminishing importance and hope. The government grant is insufficient and they are unable to do charge a fee too. If they do, the attendance will be almost nil. It is tragic to hear that in many instances at regional level, the tendency of some state institutions is to get them to perform without a fee and sometimes without meals and transport too, with their squint eyes on the meager grant dished annually to the institutes.
There is a professional gap as well as a mutual distrust between the aesthetic teachers attached to schools and those teachers attached to Kalayathanas. The former with a handsome salary and therefore being able to maintain a higher social standard commanded the respect of students as well as the officers. Moreover, a credit pass in aesthetic studies at a public examination entitled the school-leavers for consideration of the creditable academic achievement in selection for jobs.
Furthermore, majority of the Kalayathanas do not have a proper decent place for teaching both theory and practice. Most of the classes suffer a gypsy existence being housed temporarily at odd hours on odd days at temples, schools, community centers, sheds or at the residence of the head of the institute. Can anyone expect the most revered forms of traditional arts already straining under a threat of extinction and an onslaught of degenerated forms of dance, song and music taking a toll. In the absence of a permanent place for teaching and training, it is a difficult job to realize the targets set out in a syllabus. In the circumstances, motivation of students is a near impossibility.
With all these lapses and drawbacks in mind, the Committee in line with the main objectives of preserving, fostering and improving the traditional performing arts, made recommendations to regain the form of past glory, and popularize their aesthetic and artistic essence among the local as well as the a foreign audiences. In the national agenda for culture, we believe that these art forms and the feeder-crafts would enjoy a pride of place second to none in the field. In imparting knowledge and unearthing talent and skill inherent in the pupillary secured in various schools of arts should be considered while extending the required impetus and incentives to bring out the best in creativity. And, it is also necessary to uphold the classical nature and the coveted heritage of the artists.
An uniform system of teaching (theory and practice), training and opportunities for increased participation and competition in arts are essential for development and promotion of these arts. The teachers and the pupils should be regularly exposed to representative seminars, workshops and practical tests in order to reach perfection in their learning and performing. Regional and national talent and expertise should be harnessed regularly for their benefit and that of the country. The teachers, in addition, must be given training in student psychology, principles of education, methods of teaching and elements of administration at a minimum required level so that they would conform to current requirements needed to impart knowledge providing them with a degree of competency and a competitive edge in a growing market for entertainment.
School as well as Daham Pasal education should not in any way clash with the training imparted in the Kalayathanas. The clergy should be debarred from participation in their administration they have a greater responsibility in hand to guide the laymen on a higher moral and spiritual path away from materialistic pursuits. One main grievance of the Kalayathana teachers is that their pupils passing out of the institutes do not find employment on the strength of their certificates at least to maintain themselves in the profession they gained.
Performing art groups composed of the best in the area should be formed initially at regional level with room for expansion at national level, whose services will be procured at all festivals, functions and ceremonies at which they are paid. It would make them feel proud of their career to which they took with love and dedication.
Enhanced financial assistance in tribute for acclaimed performance at national, regional and international level must be given to the institutes as a measure of encouragement and recognition. The cultural officials in charge of centers of art and culture must be from among those who have gained academic or professional distinction so that the arts will get the right recognition and co-operation. Then the communication with the artists too, would be cordial and be of mutual benefit to art and society. The administrative structure should be reorganized and geared to cope with the aspirations and the work-load increasing with possibly expanding pupilship and activity in the Kalayathanas.
Finally, it is the image the artists themselves create within the area of achievements in practical, theoretical and personal goals, that could earn them national recognition and social prestige. All what the government could do is to provide a healthy and conducive infrastructure and a peaceful environment that would basically preserve the traditional content of the performing arts, and provide ample opportunities to produce creative works aesthetically attractive and innovative so that the present generation too, would begin to appreciate traditional arts.
The several hundreds of Kalayathana heads are hopeful that at least this time their institutes will receive something special and tangible so that they can walk with their head up the play an important part in the cultural life of the country. Our traditional arts is a national asset and a part of our heritage which should be preserved and developed both for the glory of global art and our own national pride which can boast of a national and cultural identity.
