When D S Senanayake & F R Senanayake, were jailed by the British(1915 RIOTS), Sir Pon.Ramanathan(TAMIL LAWYER) went to LONDON to plead SINHALA CASE!!!


Innocent Tamil leadership



“Innocence” can, in certain contexts, be another word for “not knowing”, for being unaware. It took a long while for Tamil leaders and Tamils to realize (a) how widespread and (b) deep the resentment harboured by the general Sinhalese population was. This resentment was nurtured by, among other factors, myth and ancient (South Indian) invasion. There was (and still is) the desire to exact historical revenge, to “put things right”. It took Tamils a long time and repeated experience to recognise and realize these powerful and destructive feelings of injustice, resentment and revenge (abstract but very real), and the drive to power and domination. So it is that when D S Senanayake and his brother, F R Senanayake, were jailed by the British authorities (1915), Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan went to England to plead their case. Ramanathan saw himself not as a Tamil but as a “Ceylonese” fighting for fellow Ceylonese. (Successful, on his return, he was placed in a carriage, the horses were detached and the crowd pulled the carriage themselves.)

Tamils fondly (“fondly” also in the earlier sense of “foolishly”) believed that, while being Tamil had meaning, what mattered most to them, and to the majority Sinhalese community, was being Ceylonese: one was first a Ceylonese, and then a Sinhalese, a Tamil, a Muslim or a Burgher. The mistaken belief in an equally shared and fully participatory “Ceylonese-ness” was helped by surface (superficial) calm, and by personal, inter-ethnic, friendship. Often, such friendship was genuine and deep - as I know very well - and led to Tamils not sensing the general resentment and ethnic determination that lay outside and beyond personal relationship and social interaction. (Of course, private friendship and group prejudice can exist side by side, the friend being seen as unusual; made into an exception. By definition, an “exception” is different from the generality. Indeed, a “good” exception can serve to prove that the rest are bad, and deserving of maltreatment. )

It took Tamils and Tamil leaders a long time to realize the real nature of belief and attitude towards them, and the resulting long-term plan and determination to exclude and subordinate them. In Biblical terms, the writing was on the wall but not read and understood. I quote from my essay, ‘Reign of Anomy’:



In 1919, Ponnambalam Arunachalam, on behalf of the Tamils, and James Pieris and E. J. Samarawickrama on behalf of the Sinhalese, agreed to provide a seat in the legislature for the Tamils of the Western Province. When in 1922 it came before the Ceylon National Congress for ratification (before it was forwarded to Whitehall), it was successfully opposed by H. J. C. Pereira and others. That was the end of the 1919 pact.

There followed “the Mahendra Pact” in 1925. C. E. Corea, accompanied by others such as George E. de Silva and P. de S. Kularatne, entered into a pact in Jaffna with a Tamil delegation. The meeting took place at the residence (known as ‘Mahendra’) of Waithilingam Duraiswamy, and so the agreement is known as the Mahendra Pact. The proposals agreed to at this meeting were placed before a general session of the Congress (Kandy, 1925) but ratification was postponed to the next meeting. This took place in Galle (1926), but the proposals were rejected.



Over the following years, betrayal and disappointment continued. Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar shrewdly never contested an election, not even at the local (municipal) level. For all the praise lavished on him, electorally opposed by a Sinhalese Buddhist, he would have lost.

Using ‘The Ramayana’, one could read British imperialism as a King Dasharatha who did not see (Britain pretended not to see) the unjust schemes and plans; the ambition and determination of Kaikeyi. For Tamils, “Mother Ceylon” metamorphosed into cruel and discriminatory Stepmother Sri Lanka, a Kaikeyi whose attitude and conduct forced and force thousands and thousands of Tamils into exile in search of freedom and a better life - if not for themselves, then, hopefully, for their children and grandchildren.

Sri Lankan (Eelam) Tamils feel they are “motherless”, delivered to the care of a cruel stepmother. They are a nation but without a land of their own - as the Jews were before the founding of the State of Israel. (Professor Gananath Obeyesekere writes of the “threat of the cultural and political colonisation of the north by the Sinhala Buddhist majority”: Economic & Political Weekly, Mumbai, 28 January, 2012.) The future will reveal whether, like the Jews, Eelam Tamils succeed in preserving their ‘nationhood’, despite (seemingly) hopeless circumstance.



Charles Sarvan March 2012