K. Indrapala; Dancing in front of the Sigiri Mirror Wall

Published in my column in The Nation on September 16, 2012 

By Darshanie Ratnawalli

Sigiri. A rock turned into a sitting lion and a secure palace complex by Kasyapa in the 5th century A.D. After his death, Sigiriya stood abandoned to the forest, the palace complex falling to ruins, desolate but not fully. During the 8th, 9th and 10th centuries A.D., the site became a visitor magnet, drawing the populace in un-orchestrated and indiscriminate flow from all over Lanka. During these centuries, the Mirror Wall of Sigiriya received the collective expressionist compulsion of the island peoples on its finely plastered surface. Because it carries the linguistic, cultural and geographic imprint of the island over three centuries, the Mirror Wall can act as a mirror for K. Indrapala’s 'The Evolution of an Ethnic Identity'. What will it show? A charlatan or a historian?

One of the most crucial missions of 'The Evolution…' is the Othering of the Northern Territory. Establishing that this part of the island was clothed in a different identity from the rest was vital for this lapsed historian in order to sustain a major premise given in his 6th chapter (covering the period from 300 to 900 A.D); that from about 300 BCE, the Sinhala identity was emerging only in the areas ruled by the Anuradhapura kings and the southern parts of Lanka while, “…In the extreme north of the island a different process, culminating in the emergence of a Tamil-speaking group, was taking place at this time…A number of factors were responsible for the strengthening of the Tamil element in northern Sri Lanka in this period. These worked against the northward extension of the process of acculturation that went on in the areas under the direct control of Anuradhapura.”

And so, the dance for the Northern Territory begins. “From about the seventh century, there are references in the Pali chronicle to three territories in the island, in addition to the ancient regions of Rohana and Malaya. These are the Uttara-desa (the Northern Territory), Pacina-desa (the Eastern Territory) and the Dakkhina-desa (the Southern Territory). There is, of course, no way of definitely identifying the geographical extent or boundaries of these territories. They were no doubt vaguely designated areas to the north, east and south of the core of the Anuradhapura kingdom over which the Anuradhapura ruler claimed overlordship.”- (p204). Here, there is a whiff of an insinuation that these were not islandwide territories. However, we know that the Jaffna peninsula was an integral part of the Northern Territory because of 1) the retention in Jaffna of the old Anuradhapura period territorial divisions like Weligama and Maracci-rata (Indrapala: 1965) 2) the occurrence in an area of only about nine hundred square miles covered by this peninsula, of over a thousand Sinhalese place names which have survived in a Tamil garb (Indrapala: 1965, building on Codrington: 1926). A considerable number of these names incidentally, was still clad in their Sinhalese garb in the17th century even after four centuries of Aryachakravarthi rule; as evidenced in ‘Map of Jaffanapatnam countries and islands and dependencies’ accessible online at beeldbank.nationaalarchief.nl/na:col1:dat516410.

“An analysis of the few notices of the Northern Territory in the Pali chronicle indicates that it was an area different from the other territories.”- (p205). An ancient period historian, who is also a reputed research scholar didn’t however have to depend on a few measly notices in the Pali chronicles to come to conclusions about the Northern Territory. These notices (It was a place where rebel princes or aspirants to the throne found ready support, the dispatch of princes to the Northern Territory is hard to find, invading armies from south India landed here, consolidated their position and marched towards Anuradhapura), do not help anyone (except a wishful thinker) to come to conclusions about the linguistic identity of the Northern Territory.

An infinitely richer source was available to Indrapala; voices from the Northern Territory, reaching us across the centuries through the Mirror Wall. K. Indrapala stands indicted for suppressing them. Let’s listen to the Northern Territory or ‘Utur pas’ through the Mirror Wall. (Paranavitana, Sigiri Graffiti)

Verse 15 (dated 8th century by Paranavitana) – “Hail! I am Samanala-bata, an inhabitant of the Northern Province. I wrote this song… (Utur-pas-vasi Samanala-batimi. Me gi limi…)”

276 (8th century) – “The song of Agala-bati, a resident of the Northern Province…”

585 (8th century) – “Hail! I am Sala Sivala who came from the Northern Province…”

288 (9th century) – “I am Gunakara (of) Ambgam-kuli (in the) Northern Provice…”

450 (1st half of the 9th century) – “Hail! The song of Agal bati, a resident of the Northern Province…”

141(2nd half of the 9th century) – “This song is of Agboy, a resident of the Northern Province…”

388 (10th century. Among the latest verses on the wall) – “I am… (name unclear) a resident of the Northern Province. I wrote this…”

Except for a single verse (558) in Sanskrit (by two traveler siblings from India) the wall speaks exclusively in a literary Sinhalese, the language of ‘a common literary culture’ (Charles Hallisey: 2003), shared between all the scattered locales represented. Hardly any influence of Pali is evident in this Sinhalese; that of Tamil is altogether absent (Paranavitana, p-clxxv). By reason of its abandoned situation, Sigiriya couldn’t filter out an Other linguistic identity. Such discrimination would have been alien during the first millennium. According to Charles Hallisey, ‘admission to Sigiriya’s “Community” was selective only in the sense that a person had to make the effort to get there…’ The Mirror Wall is democratic; kings, villagers, courtiers, monks, even women are represented while Tamil speakers are conspicuously absent. Although Indrapala:1969 too, excluded Sigiriya from his sights, his extensive researches among Tamil sources nevertheless led him to a parallel conspicuous absence; “…it is worth noting that Ceylon is conspicuously omitted in the list of Tamil-speaking areas included in the Tamil grammar Tolkappiyam, written about the fifth century A.D.” Needless to say this finding is conspicuously absent from Indrapala: 2005.

Hail! I am from the Northern Province. I wrote this…

Published in my column in The Nation on September 02, 2012 

By Darshanie Ratnawalli

“I will erase even the memory of Sparta from the histories…”

- Antagonist dialogue line from the movie 300-

Here is the storyline given in 'The Evolution of an Ethnic Identity'; “The Tamils of Sri Lanka evolved as a second ethnic group. Their evolution was parallel to that of the Sinhalese” (p 31). The start of the evolution goes back to the Early Iron Age (900-300 BC), which was a happening period. During it, ‘the Mesolithic people of the island came under new influences’ (p 56). Prakrit and Dravidian languages accompanied these influences (p147). Prakrit made rapid progress, acting as a lingua franca and unifying the various heterogeneous elements all over the island (p 101,102). The northernmost site offering evidence for unification by Prakrit is Periya-puliyankulam in Vavuniya. To the northeast, it’s Nacciyarmalai. Even Jaffna is represented through a Prakrit record made in Mihintale by a Diparajha (suggested as the ruler of Nagadipa by Paranavithane, with which suggestion Indrapala: 2005 agrees) (p 165).

Representing the diversity of the people being taken under the umbrella of unification by Prakrit are damedas and various groups/clans(of possible Tamil Nadu origin) like the ‘Baratas’, ‘Vel/Velas’, ‘Ayas’ and the people who used the Dravidian kinship term marumakan (changing into marumanaka by the 1st century CE) (p165-169).

Here, I have to interrupt the storyline and insert an explanation that Indrapala does not offer. The Prakrit phenomenon seems to have swept through the island like a whirlwind (or a cancer depending on your perspective), between 300 BC and 1st century CE, with Buddhism running through as the main motif. The evidence for this is the numerous (1234 were published by Paranavithana in Inscriptions of Ceylon Vol 1, some were published later, some remain unpublished) cave inscriptions in the Prakrit language and the Brahmi script, mainly recording donations to the Sangha. Five of these refer to donations by Damedas/Damilas. These are the earliest stone epigraphic records in Sri Lanka. The onset of the phenomenon coincides with the introduction of Buddhism to the Island by Mahinda in 300 BC as recorded by the Pali Chronicles.

The island elites local, foreign, North/South Indian origin seem to have fallen under this strong compulsion to record on stone in Prakrit. That a similar compulsion is not evidenced in Tamil points to a significant direction in the linguistic, cultural evolution of the island.

That they are all in Prakrit, while the contemporary lithic inscriptional record in Tamil Nadu is in old Tamil, marks Sri Lanka’s evolutionary divergence from Tamil Nadu. Despite positing a common cultural region encompassing SL and South India, Indrapala: 2005 lets this slip, in a Freudian way; “…The earliest stone inscriptions in Sri Lanka, datable to about the second century BCE are all in Prakrit. There are, however, traces of Dravidian-language influence in vocabulary and phonology. The earliest stone inscriptions in Tamil Nadu, also datable to the second century BCE, are in Old Tamil but betray influence of Prakrit. The graffiti on potsherds, whose dates have not been precisely determined but which belong to the EHP, are mostly in Prakrit with a few in Tamil as far as Sri Lanka is concerned. On the Tamil Nadu side the potsherd graffiti are mostly in Tamil with a few in Prakrit…”- (p 88-89).

While Indrapala: 2005 rhapsodizes about the unifying effect of the sea between South India and Sri Lanka, telling us that “…before the formation of the states (and even afterwards), people belonging to the same ethnic group would have lived on both sides of the Palk Strait. The IIla (Hela) and the Dameda in such a context, would have been freely moving between south India and Sri Lanka at the time we begin to get written records…”(p144), it’s impossible not to hear the strangled tones of the 1960s Indrapala ghost admonishing 2005 Indrapala; “But there was a difference! Even though freely moving, the same group acted differently on the two sides of the Palk Strait, reflecting the different linguistic climates. Tell this. Tell this..!” At this point, Indrapala of the 2000s would have succeeded in throttling this annoying ghost.

But luckily, he survives in JRAS/1969/Vol. Xiii and tells us that, Damedas in this side indited inscriptions in Prakrit, (the dominant language of the region), mentioning specially that they were Damedas, just like the Helas in the Tamil Nadu side indited inscriptions mostly in old Tamil, making special mention of their name ‘Illa”.

There is a strong parallel between Sigiriya and the Prakrit cave records. Just like the latter represents an expressionist compulsion in the earlier centuries, signifying a particular cultural/linguistic direction, the former represents a compulsion (about seven centuries later), for all Toms, Dicks, Harries and Janes (both elites and not so elites) from all over the island to express themselves in a certain language, once more pointing to a particular cultural/linguistic direction. More next week.

Some extra honesty about ‘Sri Lankaness’ and ‘Sri Lankan identity’

Published in my column in The Nation ‘The Painted Goose’ on January 29, 2012 
By Darshanie Ratnawalli

Sometimes, certain sentences lodge in my head until I have to exorcise them by an act of writing. The following are from an essay titled ‘Back to Basics: The Need for an Honest Conversation About ‘Sri Lankanness’ and ‘Sri Lankan identity’ by Achcharya published in Groundviews last year.

“But when those who take part in the Sinhala Buddhist hegemonic project assert ‘Sri Lankanness’, as Rajapaksha did in his end-of-the-war speech (the no-minorities in Sri Lanka speech) many quite rightly suspected the motives behind such an agenda. To assert Sri Lankanness within the present political status quo (without challenging it) is to sign up to this agenda of Sinhala Buddhist hegemonism.”

That last sentence presents an interesting idea. What interests me is how it links ‘present political status quo’ with ‘Sinhala Budhist hegemonism’ in a mutually nourishing equation. I think one may be excused in concluding that, in the writer’s conceptualization, the present political status quo (bequeathed by the departing British) placed the entire socio-political space of sovereign Lanka under Sinhala Buddhist hegemonism; a novel state of affairs not at all reflecting the pre- colonial political status quo prevailing at the time of the Portuguese advent. The political status quo the Portuguese encountered here being (I am still guessing the writer’s reasoning process) the result of centuries of political evolution and restructuring powered by the time honoured medieval mechanisms of warfare, invasion, trade, migrations, pestilence and jungle tide, it was uniquely suited to the socio-political landscape of Lanka. The pre colonial political equation was in fact a home-grown status quo, springing from the very soil of this country and by departing from it the Brits created a rip in the space-time continuum of this country leading to chaos. 

Pre-colonial equation
Let me say that there’s nothing in his essay to commit Achcharya in a concrete way to this chain of reasoning. He does not talk about the pre-colonial equation at all. (except for a tell tale, taken for granted posit he lets slip- “In fact for reasons that I hope that are obvious the Sri Lankan identity is historically a later creation”) I am only trying to reconstruct the synaptic junctions in the writer’s deductive pathway, which may have lead him to come out with the interesting duet of sentences quoted at the start. I don’t think mine is a preposterous or a far-fetched reconstruction because even a casual upward glance into the ideologisphere of this country will reveal this idea floating around like a large and pregnant cloud casting its shadow very far and wide. 

The Sinhala Buddhist hegemonic overtones present in the current collective identity brew of this country was illustrated subsequently by Dr. Michael Roberts in a complementary (and complimentary too in subtext) article to Achcharya’s; ‘Ancestry and Ethnic Identity in the Australian Census… and thus to Sri Lanka’ also published in Groundviews. (However please note that Roberts’ contains a footnote “However, I would place caveats around Aachcharya’s claim that “[the assertion of] Sri Lankanness within the present political status quo (without challenging it) is to sign up to this agenda of Sinhala Buddhist hegemonism.”) 

 It seems that Dr. Roberts has been trying for the past so many years “in deadly seriousness” to initiate a project of his own to counter the Sinhala Buddhist hegemonic project. This lovely project involves causing hyphenated Lankan identity labels (Sinhala-Lankan, Tamil-Lankan, Muslim-Lankan, Mixed-Lankan) to take root in local vocabularies. This project is intended “as a means of undermining the insidious, but powerful, tendency among some Sinhala people to treat “Sri Lankan” and “Sinhalese” as synonyms”. Dr. Roberts “spotted this tendency initially in some of the Anagarika Dharmapala’s writings in the early twentieth century”. 

 My gut feeling is that after this initial discovery he did not spot this tendency at all in a Sri Lankan context at a time post dating Anagarika Dharmapala. Incidentally I spotted a similar tendency within a USA context. The following is from ‘Sins of the Fathers’, one of my all time favorite novels (first published 1980) by Susan Howatch;

“At the age of nine I had walked into my school classroom to find that someone had written on the blackboard: HANS-DIETER KELLER IS A NO-GOOD GERMAN PIG. Then a gang of older boys had beaten me up and I had run crying all the way home…. Anti sentiment had been common in 1917 and my family had probably suffered less than other German-American families since my father had refused to be intimated. After the incident in the classroom he had hung a large American flag on our front porch and announced to the principal of my school that my constitutional rights as an American Citizen would be violated unless steps were immediately taken to reprimand my assailants. The principal, a fair-minded man, had responded satisfactorily and the rest of my school days had passed without incident. It was my father who had suggested that it would be better if I had an American name. He had favoured Hank, since it was similar to Hans, but I had insisted on Sam, the cowboy hero of a popular comic strip.”

Supra identity

I hope it’s clear that my intention is not to take a crude swipe at USA. The relevant part is the interesting juxtaposition of the American with the German-American while the other sentences are quoted just to create context. This interesting juxtaposition showcases the presence of the non-hyphanated supra identity, which enables (in the case of America) the Part (the Anglo-Saxon part) to equate itself with the Whole (American). In this critical conceptualization a part of America, the Anglo-Saxon people (actually their brand identity more than their corporeal selves), is equated with the whole of America. This (ideological? Nah I’d say natural and subliminal) act of merger is present throughout the American mosaic in a taken-for-granted, insidious and powerful manner causing even a German American to treat American and Anglo-Saxon as synonyms as in the above example. This is why one hyphenated category; English-American is obsolete in America. 

 Actually I am paraphrasing Dr. Roberts’ sentences. Let me reproduce his original sentences because a) it is unethical to paraphrase without doing that b) his sentences are crafted so masterfully to illustrate the part-whole relationship and the hegemonic overtones in the present day Lanka that by slightly paraphrasing them I can illustrate the hegemonic overtones that existed in the political unit called the Kingdom of Jaffna at the time of the Portuguese advent.

“… the insidious, but powerful, tendency among some Sinhala people to treat “Sri Lankan” and Sinhalese” as synonyms….I spotted this tendency initially in some of the Anagarika Dharmapala’s writings in the early twentieth century…..This type of slippage enables the Part (Sinhalese) to equate itself with the Whole. It is a hegemonic act, even when working without aforethought below the surface…In this critical conceptualization a part of Sri Lanka, the Sinhalese people, is equated with the whole of Lanka. This ideological act of merger is presented in a taken-for-granted manner, thus, insidiously and powerfully”

Dr. Roberts does not know it (or maybe he does) but proving that destiny sometimes creates bizarre parallels in people’s lives, Professor T. B. H Abeyasinghe spotted(see ‘Jaffna under the Portuguese’ pgs 24, 25, 26, 27) the same kind of slippage in some of the 17th century Portuguese writings on Jaffna. This was a tendency to treat Jaffnese and Chingala as synonyms. Among those who suffered from this slippage was Fernao de Queiros, ‘the chronicler of Portuguese Sri Lanka par excellence’ (T.B.H, Jaffna Under the Portuguese). In pages 356, 357, 366, 371, 374, 375, 376, 377 of his text ‘The Temporal and Spiritual Conquest of Ceylon’ (Trans. 1930), this type of slippage enables Queiros to equate the Part (Chingalaz) with the Whole (Jaffnese). So in page 377, we are told that the reason for abandoning a certain fortalice is “…because it would necessarily remain in a continuous state of siege, on account of the tenacity of the King and of Chingala courage,…” . The king here is the king of Jaffna. In page 374, in a confrontation that takes place in Jaffna “Vincente Carvalho, Captain of a foist” is attacked by 200 men who become “the delighted Chingalaz” in the next sentence. So it goes. 

Hegemonic act
 In this critical conceptualization a part of Jafanapatao, the Chingalaz , (not a majoritarian part in this region’s demographic configuration according to conventional historiography), is equated with the whole of Jafanapatao. This act of merger, which is perceptual rather than ideological, is presented by Queiros in a taken-for-granted manner, thus, insidiously and powerfully. In other words Portuguese (For it was not only Queiros but also the Lisbon authorities and the Count of Vidigueira too) identified the idea of Jaffneseness with Chingalaness, the dominant identity of Ceilao. This is an example of how natural hegemony exercised by a dominant brand influences perceptions and shapes communications. This was a hegemonic act. It did not involve those committing it buying into any ideology. Nor did it involve the present political status quo.

…THOUGH NOW I WAS DATING NOT ONLY AJITH BUT AJAY TOO.

(Actually I was not dating Ajith then, but can’t a girl dream?)
Published in my column in The Nation ‘The Painted Goose’ on January 22, 2012

By Darshanie Ratnawalli

In the afternoon of 10 October 1987, sound of shelling was once more heard in Jaffna barely three months after India enforced peace in Sri Lanka with the Indo-Lanka Accord. Most Jaffnese (records UTHR) couldn’t believe that it was the IPKF shelling them and thought it must be the SL army. But it wasn’t. It was the IPKF. On 4th October, 17 tigers travelling in a fishing trawler to or from Tamil Nadu were apprehended by the SL Navy. On 5th October, 2.00 p.m., those 17 men, who had been taken by the IPKF from the Naval base to the Palaley air base, were visited by Balasingam and Mahattaya. At the exact same time, Major General Harkirat (Harry) Singh, Commander of the IPKF, who was in Trincomalee (under orders to ‘deny the airport to the SL forces’), was getting a message; “At 2 o'clock I get a message, why is the G-o-C IPKF interfering in the 'constitutional activities of Sri Lanka? These were the exact words. This message came all the way from the force headquarters in Madras. And, 'Please lift your siege in Jaffna, let the Sri Lankans do what they want to.'”

Avenging

By late evening that day, the message bore fruit; “Our troops withdrew, the Sri Lankan troops charged, and these fellows swallowed cyanide. Those who chewed, they died on the spot, those who swallowed were saved.” According to General Harry, 13 chewed that day. Only 4 swallowed. That night the LTTE started avenging those who chewed. During the night of 5th October, the LTTE liquidated one Sinhalese baker (poor, elderly, forced to leave Jaffa in ‘83’, had come back with the dawn of the ‘87’ peace to restart his only livelihood in Chunnakam), two Sinhalese cement makers (the GM and deputy GM of Lanka Cement Ltd., come to restart the cement plant at KKS ), 8 Sinhalese soldiers (been in LTTE captivity, hopeful appeals had been made to the LTTE for release with the dawn of the ‘87’ peace) and one Sinhalese cop (serving in the VVT police station re-opened with the advent of ‘87’ peace, beaten to death with a wooden pole by Soosai and another while having a drink in the local bar). The liquidating just continued in the following days until a civilian (Sinhalese) death toll of around 200 was achieved according to BBC reportage. This included 4 Rupavahini crew members, who having been abducted in Jaffna went AWOL presumed dead, 35 long term Batticaloa (Sinhalese) residents who were gunned down, Chief of STF, Batticaloa, Nimal Silva and GA Batticaloa, Mr. Anthonymuttu killed in a landmine explosion while travelling in the same vehicle.

Operational parameters

Meanwhile, in yet another part of the forest, J.R was urging the Indian Defense Minister and the Indian Army Chief of Staff to act. Some say he even dared to articulate the possibility of re-deploying the SL army in the event of no action by the IPKF. On 7th October the IPKF had been issued directives defining their operational parameters. On 10th October 1987, ‘the war resumed, just as Prabhakaran had predicted’, though now the LTTE was fighting the peacekeepers instead of the government troops. I have paraphrased Niromi de Soyza to show up the other worldly relevance of her 2009 Telegraph statement.

“The war resumed, just as Prabhakaran had predicted, though now we were fighting not only the government troops but the peacekeepers, too.” may indeed have relevance and drip with truth in some world other than this one. The bit about Prabhakaran predicting the resumption of war however, has relevance even in this world. To every 100 inept astrologers, who wait passively for their predictions to come true, there is one enterprising astrologer who predicts something and immediately proceeds to kick destiny into shape to make that prediction happen. Prabha was one such.

Prediction

When he predicted in the early days of the Accord, that the war would resume, did he also envisage the government troops joining in? It’s possible. Prior to October before the war resumed (just as Prabhakaran had predicted) there had been scenes that were simply throbbing with potential. On 18 September 1987, the IPKF looked on while a mob attacked and set fire to the Point Pedro police station. The festivities ended with the policemen being made to walk to the nearby camp with their belongings on their heads, trailed behind by a crowd shouting abuse. That same day, the abusive crowd scenario had been duplicated in front of the SL Army camp in VVT and a single drunk soldier had stood in front of the crowd returning the abuse before being dragged inside by an officer.

Given this latent, simmering hostility to the Sri Lankan Forces and given that in a very real sense the SL state and the SL forces were the ultimate enemy of the LTTE, the IPKF being just an interlude and a fling, could it be…isn’t it possible that…of course that’s it! Eureka, Niromi de Soyza’s Telegraph statement and the Throsby statement can totally be justified!

Look at them statements; “The war resumed, just as Prabhakaran had predicted, though now we were fighting not only the government troops but the peacekeepers, too.” and “when I joined, the Indian forces had arrived and the tigers had chosen to fight the Indian forces as well as the Sri Lankan forces”. When Niromi joins the government troops with the IPKF in a single harness via the ‘not only-but also/as well as’ construct and subjects these two harnessed entities to the common verb ‘fight’, she is merely trying to convey the ultimate and enduring adversarial equation between the tigers and the SL forces while at the same time expressing the new equation with the IPKF. Whew, what a relief!

Not only-but also/as well as

But is it? All you Niromi defenders on the web, who genuinely bought into this explanation need to catch the earliest time machine into your pasts and get your younger selves better English teachers (who can correctly lay down the parameters of the not ‘only-but also/as well as’ construct) together with memberships in good libraries (where you can read those parameters demonstrated in living language across the whole gamut of human experience). Or, alternatively you could look at the model situations below and savour the existential absurdities and the internal contradictions caused when the above parameters are deployed by the linguistically challenged.

“Ajith was the ultimate love theme in my life. I have always loved him and probably always will.. But then suddenly we were …drawn asunder by outside forces. Not that I ever stopped loving him but we were not an item anymore. I was lonely and Ajay was …there. He was Ajith’s friend, reminded me of Ajith and I dare say, I even saw him as a stand in for Ajith. I dunno, whatever, the inevitable happened.
My love life resumed just as my mother had predicted though now I was dating not only Ajith but Ajay too.”

“The cancer in my rectum was in remission. But I was smoking a lot. I couldn’t seem to get through the day without twenty cigarettes. My doctor was expressing grave doubts about my ability to continue in a state of wellbeing while smoking so heavily. And so it came to pass.

My physical sufferings resumed, just as my doctor had predicted, though now I was fighting not only the cancer in my rectum but emphysema, too. Thankfully my cancer was still in remission and did not contribute to my physical sufferings. I don’t think I could have managed to fight emphysema of the lungs and cancer of the rectum at the same time.”

Someone who says ‘When I joined, Monica had arrived and my boss had chosen to date her as well as Jane’ is unmistakably painting ‘my boss’ as a minor Casanova. Protesting much later that boss was no Casanova, that Jane was his steady girl friend who was temporarily unavailable/estranged when the Monica thing was on, will only make you look silly. Similarly the 2009 Telegraph and the 2011 Throsby statements unmistakably label Niromi as an IPKF war virgin who has no awareness of the most unique aspect of that unique episode in our country’s history.

Occupational Force

Between 1987 and 1990, for the first time after the British left, part of this country was under a foreign Force. It was a palpable reality. When president Premadasa presumed to order the IPKF about in December 1989 with his ‘please be confined to your lines or else we will consider you an occupational force and deal with you’, Lieutenant General Kalkat had flashed this reality at him in the same way a cop flashes his badge; “So when the ultimatum was conveyed to me, I conveyed back that as per the Accord, the North-Eastern province is under the IPKF. I am responsible here for the safety of the entire region and if there was militant activity by anyone, any force I would respond. And that if my forces are attacked by anyone I would respond. That is as far as you can go, but it conveyed the meaning of what it meant.”. Even much earlier on in his tenure, Lt. General Kalkat had been compelled to flash his badge when he discovered unscheduled SL army presence in his territory; “…Israeli assistance was for the Sri Lankan special force. Their training camp was on the edge of Batticaloa district, my soldiers had discovered it. And I straight away took up the matter, if they don't leave in 24 hours, my soldiers will deal with them. And in 24 hours they left the place lock, stock and barrel, both Israeli trainers and Sri Lankans.”

Defining the side

It is into this occupied landscape that Niromi de Soyza blunders in with her Telegraph and Throsby statements, her weird pre-publicity blurbs raving about the Sri Lankan Army 'ruthlessly ambushing small platoons of young girls' two days before Christmases of 1987, her book with ‘government forces’ enticingly emblazoned on the back cover and her one-on- one interview accounts carrying tales of playing ‘catch me’ with government forces in the jungles of Wanni and having to deal with the viciousness of the Sri Lankan armed forces together with the brutality of her fellow Tigers in the course of the violence she’d become part of by picking up a gun.

Among a sea of web comments trying hard to insist that bull-shit is icing, there was one commenter called Vijayaraghavan Sakthivel who said; “…Is this what all that academic achievement, all that culture and all that poetry described by DBSJ has produced? A 40 something individual, who would go in front of the world and say things about a highly documented period even a kid would be able to prove wrong? Where is the intellectual sophistication, the general knowledge or the good sense education is supposed to produce?” Ageist and sanctimonious perhaps. But bracing and refreshing too.

The overwhelming impression I have of Niromi de Soyza is as someone who urgently needs some robust good sense shaken into her. When she cries in public(as she is reputed to do without fail), ‘get a grip’ are the words demanded by a context where there are tigresses who lost limbs much more recently than 23 years ago (one such is now playing disabled volleyball for Sri Lanka). So Niromi, it has been fun doing research on and around you. We will be watching your future career with considerable interest. No one expects you to play ball for Sri Lanka, but whichever side you play for, it’s imperative to ‘get a grip’.

References-
• India’s Vietnam. The IPKF in Sri Lanka: 10 Years On
• http://www.uthr.org/BP/volume2/Chapter2.htm
• http://www.uthr.org/BP/volume2/Chapter1.htm
• http://www.uthr.org/BP/volume1/Chapter9.htm