The ‘Demonic Projection’ of 1983 - a giant exorcism

Published in my column in The Nation on July 08, 2012 

By Darshanie Ratnawalli

The duo Nissan and Stirrat and the solo Bruce Kapferer were the anthropologists who discovered a unique and distinctive dynamic in the way the Sinhalese disposed of their Enemy Other. This, they said, was directed by the compulsions embedded within the Sinhalese cultural DNA. These cultural compulsions, said they, led the Sinhalese to see the Enemy Other as demons and caused them to automatically go into demon subjugation mode, which in turn produced some interesting styles of violence, manifested most memorably in July, 1983.

In 1987, Nissan and Stirrat showcased “strong parallels between representations of the (Tamil) terrorist and representations of the demonic” in the world of the Sinhalese. This demonization, they reasoned was what caused the special “styles of violence” in which the Tamil victims were “cut into pieces” or “doused in petrol and set on fire”. July 1983, said they, was not only about teaching the Tamils a lesson, but also “forcing them to submit to a superior power” just like the demons must submit to the Buddha and his teachings.

Academic hoaxes
Parallel to N and S, between 1985 and 1988, another adventurer ventured into the demon hunting psyche of the Sinhalese of Sri Lanka. This was Bruce Kapferer. He was believed by his peers to possess extensive knowledge of sorcery myths and rituals of the Sinhalese and to have used such knowledge to expound on how the Sinhalese do to their demonized enemies what they do to their demons. Supposedly clued in by a wealth of esoteric knowledge, Kapferer described how the violent acts of July 1983 “manifest the violence of [the process of] cosmic regeneration” encoded within “the practices of sorcery ritual”, how the passionate acts of assailants can be “likened to a giant exorcism”. He declared: “Acting with the force of their own cosmic incorporation, the Sinhalese rioters fragment their demonic victims, as the Tamils threatened to fragment them, and by so doing resubordinate and reincorporate the Tamil demon in hierarchy.”

After one year spent living in southern Sri Lanka researching and despite being assisted by a local research assistant, now dead but whose expertise in the relevant fields is generally well thought of, Bruce Kapferer ended up believing that Sinhalese folk exorcism ritual involved fragmenting and disintegrating of demons. This was one of the most audacious academic hoaxes of the 1980s and 90s. Its success is due partly to the obfuscating fogs that surrounded Sri Lanka at that time and partly to the nature of Kapferer’s target audience; an exclusive constituency of his peers, mostly nonresident, non Sri Lankan and all beautifully non-cognoscenti. To most of them, the sorcery rituals of the Sinhalese of Sri Lanka and the puberty rites of the tribes of the north Amazon would be fully interchangeable if shorn of the costumes and stage trappings.

Exorcism
“In the cultural world of the Sinhalese, the disintegration of demonic beings and naraka minissu is a conventional form of punishment, a just act.” proclaimed Dr Michael Roberts (Roberts 2004:125), a staunch, non cognoscenti Kapferer follower. Most of these, subconsciously primed on the Christian exorcism traditions, where demons are forces of fragmentation and disintegration, found it only too plausible that the Sinhalese too should seek to fragment and disintegrate their demons. What they would have found implausible is the premise that Kapferer, a colleague, would try to pull the academic wool over their eyes. That Kapferer was assisted in his research by Chandra Vitharana, a repository of local expertise, in their opinion, would also have militated against such an idea.

Little did they know when they enthusiastically hitched their wagons to Kapferer’s caravan, that in the sorcery traditions of Sri Lanka, no demon is ever fragmented. Because the demons are mandated by the Buddha himself, to afflict human beings, subject to the condition that when called forth and propitiated with offerings, they should accept the offerings, cure the afflicted and leave. It is this warrant, which gives the Sinhalese exorcism ritual its distinctiveness. The Warrant prescribes an exorcism mechanism of placating, negotiating and dialogue with the demons instead of a Kapferersque ritual involving fragmenting, disintegrating, burning up, torturing or manhandling of the demons.

Buddhist tradition
In common with the Christian exorcism tradition, the sorcery myths of the Sinhalese too, declare that no demon can withstand the power of the Lord Buddha. They cannot stay in a place where the Buddha’s power is in the ascendancy. Invoking His name makes the demons to burn all over. To subjugate the demons entering the world and afflicting humans, the Buddha visited their habitat, ‘Sakwala Gala’ and made it burning hot. Then the demons were intimidated and appealed, “Lord, we are wretched creatures. Spare us. Have mercy”. The Buddha was compassionate and granted The Warrant, which said in effect, “Go forth and afflict but...”

Yet, in the Sinhalese exorcism ritual, this original subjugation scene never finds expression. It starts, stays with and ends with The Warrant, because unlike the Christian exorcism ritual where the priest is a proxy for a Higher Power, the ‘kattadiya’ is merely an executor of the human part of the bargain laid down in The Warrant. The Warrant has two inbuilt limitations, one is that the demons are expected to hold up their end of the deal; cure and leave, if the humans hold up theirs; propitiate with ritual and offering. Demons, also, are forbidden ever to ask for human sacrifices.

Kapferer’s thesis that the assailants of 1983 and 1989 both JVP and State, saw the victims targeted for literal fragmentation, i.e. mutilation and dismemberment, as demons of some sort, metaphorically speaking, is untenable. If those Sinhalese assailants had indeed seen their victims as demons due to some deep-seated cultural conditioning, their physical response to them would not have been cutting, chopping, hacking, stabbing or dismembering. The Sinhalese cultural response to demons flows from the concept of The Warrant and involves recognizing and fulfilling to the extent that is practicable, a basic need of the demon, which has been legitimized by The Warrant. Fragmenting or disintegrating the demon is never an option. The folk Buddhist tradition does not confer even on the Buddha, the will to fragment a demon. All this Kapferer could have learnt by saving his research grant and reading among others, ‘The Folk Drama of Ceylon’ by Sarachchandra, in the comfort of his Australian home.

Communal claims on a common land

Published in my column in The Nation on July 1, 2012 

By Darshanie Ratnawalli

However it may be defined elsewhere in the world, power sharing in Sri Lanka is about drawing up constitutional title deeds to enshrine communal claims on a common territory. Consequent to this local twist, there are many barriers to power sharing in Sri Lanka. One major barrier is the wide, nonexclusive dissemination of knowledge. Knowledge diffusion is mainly via Sri Lankan dialogues. The following dialogue had the following catalyst;

“The Kokila Sandesaya narrates the longest of the journeys from the southernmost point on the island, Devinuwara (Dondra) to its northernmost city, Yapa Patuna (Jaffna). It names seventy-two places along the journey. Some of the Sinhala place-names on the northern leg of the journey are no longer identifiable, because these areas are now home to a mainly Tamil population.”-

(Pieris, Anoma (2010) 'Avian Geographies: An Inquiry into Nationalist Consciousness in Medieval Lanka', South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 33: 3, 336 — 362)

‘I have mailed you that article by Anoma Pieris’.
‘She is the granddaughter of G. C. Mendis isn’t she?’
‘Yes. She is at Uni of Melbourne. Thought the bit about the northern leg of the journey might interest you’.

‘That the 15th century Kokila Sandesaya should list Sinhala place names on its northern leg? Hardly a revelation. Take a look at that 17th century Dutch map; Kaart van Jaffanapatnam en onderhoorige landen en eilanden (Map of Jaffanapatnam countries and islands and dependencies). The manuscript is in the Nationaal Archief, Netherlands, but you can get a fairly large view at beeldbank.nationaalarchief.nl/na:col1:dat516410. Certain browsers let you translate the web page into English. Get it full screen and start spotting the Sinhala place names.

The first name to hit you is Welligamo. As one of the four main divisions of Jaffanapatnam, it’s written larger. No big news there. Everyone knows about Valikamam and Weligama, but everyone may not know the transition happened post 17th century. The real revelations are the smaller print locations; Cottiewatte, Watane, Vimangamo, Walandale, Lilagamo, Tangode, Tambale, Batecotte, Anecotte, Naloer(Nal oya), Oergavature, Nagamoene, Tambegamo, Coylacandy (Kohila Kanda), Mepale, Pollopalle, Alipalle, Malwattoe, Anungay, Walewitakepoelo, etc. etc. These are just the ones that stand out without ambiguity to my naked eye on the computer screen. There are more names that are clear like Kenalavil, Ambellipattoe, Inkelampitty, etc. but with my limited linguistics, I can’t exactly slot them. Yet more names that I can almost identify, but my Times New Roman adapted eye won’t grant 100% certainty. I’d love to go over the original manuscript with a magnifying glass. Better still, I’d love to have someone with an eye for handwritten script and etymological expertise subject the manuscript to a magnifying glass.

And yet, in essence all this is old news. H. W. Codrington for one would have yawned. (The place-names in the peninsula indicate that it was held by Sinhala inhabitants at no very remote date, …- Chapter VI, Short history of Ceylon, 1926). I imagine he yawned from The Great Beyond in 1965, when the PhD student K. Indrapala highlighted “the toponymic evidence involving over a thousand place names of distinctly Sinhalese origin ‘in Tamil garb’” presented by the Jaffna peninsula. But then most people are not Codrington. For one thing, primary evidence such as the Kokila Sandesaya and the 17th century map impacts like a bullet between the eyes, while pronouncements by an expert, however respected, merely wait politely by your head for admittance. You can either take it or dismiss it as personal whim or idiosyncrasy of the expert. D. B. S Jeyaraj for example, responding to someone’s web comment about place name evidence went, “oh place names? But that PhD thesis has been superseded now by the Indrapala 2005”. It’s nothing of the kind. 2005 Indrapala merely maintains an undignified and deafening silence about the whole place names motif.

I am pretty sure that even scholars specialized on 17th century Lanka would find Sinhalese place names in 17th century Jaffna a trifle odd. On a purely academic, bloodless level, they may know of the distinctly Sinhalese origin place names in Tamil garb thingy, but in their minds the ‘garbing date’ would be long, long ago; the mid 13th century or the 14th century at the latest. There is this surgical deadline drawn in the time stream of Lanka. By 14th century latest, all Sinhalese place names in Jaffna should be decently covered in Tamil garb, all surviving Sinhalese populations should neatly die by assimilation. A clean amputation followed by cauterization. A definite closure to the Sinhalese chapter of the peninsular.’

‘Why don’t you write an article about these things?’

‘But the people know these things! And I wrote an article, I said; “While a Chechen may have much to celebrate in his historically entrenched, uniform and consistent association with Chechnya, I hold that he is also poorer because he is deprived of the experience of being part of a region with diverse and multi-cultural associations, such as our Northern Province. He will never know the experience of living in a land whose identity exists in layers, where the earlier layer still peeks through the current layer as enticingly as a camisole does through a sheer blouse.”’

‘Hmm..I don’t remember this.’
‘You aren’t supposed to forget!’
‘But, do the Colombo intellectual elite know?’

‘Shall we take a specific example, as not to offend any genuinely intelligent intellectual elite? My example is an intellect like a train. A train may be fast or slow but it is not truly mobile. It has to run on a fixed rail. It has to pass promising pathways without turning into them. Supposing that such an intellect comes across the devolution diamond in the course of its reading? In those books, the diamond would be presented in an ideal setting; an Ethnic Other, a Territory, a historically entrenched and exclusively predominant Association. Supposing that just like a train, this intellect is also relentless, maybe to compensate for its limited mobility? It cares little what kind of setting actually exists over here for this diamond. If it’s not here, it must be imagined into being. Mind over matter. Power of suggestion. And that’s what Dayan Jayatilleke was doing in 13/06/2010 Lakbima, when he conjured for the masses, a Lanka that had Ethnic Other areas since 2nd century B.C. with concessions being made even then to the cultural otherness of ‘those’ areas; Dutugemunu appointing a ethnic other Yuvaraj after the war to administer ‘those’ areas.’

UTHR (J) forges ahead without narrow ethnic agendas!

Published in my column in The Nation on June 10, 2012 

By Darshanie Ratnawalli

This is a horror story. It follows a classic plotline of the genre; the gradual emergence of the hidden revenant from under the guise of apparent goodness. At night, during a thunder storm, the hero would be necking in the car with his beautiful girlfriend (who is really the female revenant, a malignant supernatural force in human guise). Suddenly, in a flash of lighting, for a fraction of a second, he would see the beloved face as the face of a rotting corpse. The next moment, it would be the familiar beautiful face and he would dismiss the revelation as a trick of the light. But these sightings will intensify during the coming days, until…

The equivalent moment in my horror story comes when an intense bloke with little warmth but earnest and assiduous, a Calvinist to the bone, enjoying extremely good press for passionate defense of human rights, the recipient of an Amnesty International award in recognition of same, tries to straddle the moral high ground and slips. He pontificates in glorious vein (doing the beautiful girlfriend number); “Social and political forces with narrow ethnic or religious ideological trappings continue to undermine democracy in most of the developing nations… There is only one way forward. An initiative to forge a broad multi-ethnic and multi religious movement that challenges these narrow ethnic and religious agendas… While the Government and Sinhalese chauvinism must be fought through alliances with Muslims and Sinhalese who understand the dangers…” And then voila, the sudden glimpse of the rotting corpse underneath in the shape of an earnest invoking of the Tamil community’s claim on the North and the East. The bloke is none other than Rajan Hoole and this horror flick is shown in UTHR (J) special report 34.

The paragraph that afforded me my first, fleeting glimpse of the revenant under the skin of UTHR(J), straddles pages 9 and 10 of the special report 34; “Instead of showing generosity, the Government made maximum mileage of the misery it imposed on Tamil civilians to solicit funds from reluctant donors to pay for the extralegal incarceration of IDPs and for other projects with ulterior aims, such as resettlement or development schemes that could change the ethnic demographics of the north and east to further weaken the Tamil community’s claim on those areas.

The fear that the Government will not allow the IDPs to resettle in all the areas they inhabited before the war, and will instead introduce new Sinhalese settlements and their familiar consequences would remain a real fear for the Tamils. …Meanwhile the Government appears totally indifferent to the squalor of the IDPs. The effect of its actions amounts to the decimation of a people by crippling them from birth through deprivation, routine harassment and dirt.”

What left such a profound impression of horror on me was the fact that they were not even bothering to camouflage the chauvinism with a democratic spin, i.e. ‘demographics confer political clout in a democracy and systematic plans to deprive minority communities of regional political clout they have traditionally enjoyed by changing established demographics are not exactly cricket’. Even that would have sounded dodgy without definite evidence of a systematic agenda. For example it’s not enough to show that the President got up one morning full of plans for Northern development and North-South highways and remarked to his brothers, “you know what all this would ultimately lead to, don’t you fellas?” and they remarked with relish “yes demographic change!” and looked like cats with cream. You need to show systematic manipulation of the system, to exclude or sideline the Tamil component of the population from participating in the enterprise, in order to bring about the desired demographic result.

However, where was I? Ah yes being horrified at Hoole’s chauvinism and hypocrisy. This horror led me to ask the opinion of someone who (in my perception) had always been liberal with the scorn for Sinhala chauvinism but trodden softly, like through fields of Tulip, when it came to anything that could be reasonably be interpreted as Tamil chauvinism. This person is none other than Dr. Michael Roberts who replied to my query in an email dated August 2011;

“Note that Rajan and the UTHR cluster in the north were caught in the middle in the period 1987-2009; and that both Rajan and Sritharan had to go into hiding from the LTTE. In short they were in extreme danger once Rajani T was assassinated. Even in Colombo Rajan moved around and when I set up a meeting with him once circa 2001 had to wait his call via Nesiah and for them to arrange a meeting.

He is an intense bloke with little warmth but earnest and assiduous. A Calvinist to the bone. This does not of course preclude errors of judgment but he will in my view never concoct material in the manner of Channel 4, Darusman etc. Whether he accepts or reprints testimony from liars is another matter.

If Rajan is buying into the standard claims re the Eastern Province as part of the “traditional homelands” then I would challenge him.

Re the present fear that the present govt is going to settle Sinhalese in areas that housed Tamils in the recent past (not just the pre-48 past): in voicing this fear Rajan is moving with the tide of articulate Tamil opinion (and some anti-govt Sinhalese). As far as I know this fear is unsubstantiated and has not come to pass but I have an open mind on the issue.

As for his comments on the IDP camps as “extra-legal” and having terrible conditions, my response would be (a) yes extra-legal but requisite in the interests of the rest of the population on a short-term basis and (b) the conditions were not that terrible and a remarkable job was done by govt and NGO and INGO agencies in catering to those people. On this issue he is speaking from the cloisters in Colombo or wherever.

In 1987-20009 Rajan and Co were in a crunch sandwich situ between Sinhala-dominated state and the LTTE (with latter as greater threat). NOW with the LTTE out their structured political situation is that of a former Tamil dissident faction that pursues its Tamilness by taking up Tamil grievances and thus liable to press exaggerations, pedantic claims and unrealistic demands.”

Hoole is not cool

Published in my column in The Nation on May 27, 2012 
By Darshanie Ratnawalli

“When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back..” - Friedrich Nietzsche

The testimonies of the hoards of civilians who recounted their NFZ experiences to the LLRC contradict the set of testimonies culled by Rajan Hoole and Co and included in the UTHR(J) special Report 34. It’s not a case of a lot of blind men trying to describe an elephant. The two batches of testimonies are plain irreconcilable. They do not complement but contradict each other on the most fundamental level.

We do not know Hoole’s methodologies of collecting testimonies. The popular impression is that they are insider testimonies culled from a more aware inner circle. For example, a common feature of LLRC civilians is not being able to tell exactly from which direction shells came while being shelled. The typical LLRC dialog on shelling; ““We were running in fear because there was continuous shelling.” In response to a question as to who was shelling – she stated “we can't tell you definitely because shells were being fired by both sides – Tigers and Army.”” Ditto on shelling of hospitals. None of the LLRC civilians were sure who shelled. In contrast Hoole’s insider civilians were extraordinarily aware; “…Within three minutes shells were fired by an MBRL further east of where the first shells fell, just north of Charles Mandapam (Hall), killing all together 16 persons. He is certain that the shells were fired by the Army from Kalliady, which is across Nandikadal lagoon, south of Puthukkudiyiruppu…” However let us concede the point. We know that any civilian community consists of a clueless majority and a sharply observant minority. Only where were the latter when the LLRC was moving around?

The whole point of appointing a public commission and having them move around holding public sittings is to obtain a representative, across the board sample of voices that will accurately represent the slice of life under investigation. We know that of the hundreds and thousands of civilians who wanted to meet the LLRC, not all were given the opportunity. But that opportunity denial was not through systematic screening. There was no pre-LLRC board that the people first had to pass, so that dangerous material could be filtered. Subject to inevitable limitations, people went and told their stories unhindered. They said we surrendered together but now my husband is missing, we were waiting in line in the NFZ to get Thriposha and the Navy shelled us and so many expectant mothers died, we went in a boat with white flags towards the Navy and they fired. One witness even recounted a cluster bomb experience and it was given wide publicity in a Tamil Newspaper. None of these civilians have disappeared.

Meanwhile Hoole’s civilians who told him that much of the government shelling into the NFZs were independent of any LTTE provocation, that NFZs were roomy places where combat and civilian spaces were generally well separated, that SLA shelling mostly fell on these civilian spaces, that punitive, vengeful and indiscriminate shelling was the norm; where are they? They were conspicuous by their absence before the LLRC. Since telling their stories to Hoole these civilians seem to have disappeared. Which is strange, because they can’t have been some niche group of random carpetbaggers. They had to have been a representative cross section of IDPs for Hoole to treat their account as an accurate representation of the general reality in the NFZs and a bedrock to base the conclusions in his executive summary;

“…But this time, from January 2009, indiscriminate brutality causing huge civilian casualties was used when the LTTE was virtually broken and was merely prolonging the war by throwing in conscripts. This time, moreover, the bombing and shelling of areas full of civilians seemed almost vindictive. The largest civilian losses came at the last stages due to indiscriminate fire when the LTTE was virtually finished…”- (Pp.16-17)

Is this bit of executive summary actually based on a representative cross section of IDP testimonies? Less than two years later the LLRC, whose transparency in opening the door to civilian voices remains uncontested, throws the issue into serious doubt. It uncovered a narration, which categorically contradicted not a mere detail but a major pillar of Hoole’s narrative.

Apart from 6 specific episodes recounted by witnesses of shell attacks on civilian assemblies allegedly by government forces, the everyday reality experienced by civilians who came before the LLRC was that the Army never initiated attacks into the No Fire Zones. In the life-world of even an accusing LLRC witness, the ultimate accusation against the Army re NFZs was of retaliating; “…The LTTE infiltrated this security zone and they came inside along with the ordinary people and used it as a base to attack the Army. When this happened the Army retaliated and this act of the Government despite the announcement that they have already announced the area as a security zone, how can they start retaliating when the civilian population was there and this is the main question we wish to pose to you as this cannot be justified. … From my point of view it is the Government that gave the LTTE an opportunity to use the civilian population as pawns and as a human shield... the people went into that area because the Government had made the announcement that it was a safe place. As a result of this that area became besieged by the LTTE…”.- (LLRC 4.58). It was not only from this but from the entire body of the NFZ experiences relived before it, that the LLRC reconstructs the firing practices of the SLA;

“4.271 It further transpired from these and other representations that the Army had never initiated attacks in the Safety Zones and return fire was in response to LTTE attacks.”

Why didn’t Hoole encounter these civilians? There is not a shadow of a doubt that they existed and walked and talked while Hoole was collecting testimonies for his report. Even the US State Department picked up their voices;

“May 14-18 – An organization reported that, at the beginning of the final operation, the SLA used shelling that resulted in some civilian casualties. However, the IDPs to whom the organization spoke were uniformly emphatic that the SLA shelled only in reply to the LTTE’s mortar and gun fire from among the civilians. Civilians also said that on May 15 the SLA stopped shelling when the LTTE began destroying its own equipment. The organization also reported that some LTTE cadres were going to bunkers where civilians were sheltered, asking “So you want to run away to the Army do you?” and then opening fire against them.”-(Report to Congress on SL-Pp. 46)

Why didn’t Hoole hear any of the civilian voices that would have challenged his thesis on vindictive, pointless, brutal SLA shelling of civilians and his conceptualization of NFZs as vast, rolling planes with clearly segregated civilian and LTTE zones?

“Several civilians who were interviewed by the Commission stated that right up to the final stages, the LTTE had used heavy artillery from civilian populated areas in the NFZs to start firing at the Security Forces.”- (LLRC 4.51)

“A civilian, who was interviewed by the Commission referring to the Mullaivaikkal East area, stated that at the last stages there was no space at all and the LTTE and the civilians had been in a very congested area and the LTTE had continued to fire at the Army from this area and the Army had returned fire.”- (LLRC 4.53)

I think it was the abyss. You think you can stare into it with impunity. But it gets you eventually.

Travelling between the Planets UTHR (J) and LLRC

Published in my column in The Nation on May 13, 2012 
By Darshanie Ratnawalli

Marga in their analysis of the Darusman report says that it presents possibly the strongest case against the Government and the Army. This is wrong. The strongest case is presented by UTHR (J) special report No.34. It came before everything; Darusman’s, The Cage, Marga Seminar report and the LLRC.

In 2009 December, UTHR (J) proclaimed to an impressionable audience (Thisaranee Gunasekera et al.) that a comfortable separation between the combat targets and the non combatant civilian presence was the norm (what is usual, general) within the NFZs. This separation was clearly detectable by SLA’s technology (UAVs, counter battery radar). “Witnesses report the LTTE firing mortars from among them, but they were usually out of sight or at a distance outside the error in detection systems. In general they were far enough to avoid danger to civilians, if civilian safety had been one of the Government’s aims.”-(pp. 18)

Could such a generalization be made? Should ‘the artillery in proximity to civilians’ factor be demoted to a position of negligible importance? Was firing artillery in proximity to large groups of IDPs and civilian installations, not the norm for the LTTE in NFZs? If you read the UTHR report uncritically, worshipfully (like Thisaranee et al.) you will come away believing this. In fact you will feel like taking out your Darusman’s, turning to the 3rd core category of potential serious violations against the LTTE; ‘Using military equipment in the proximity of civilians’, and writing in the margin; ‘but in the vast majority of shelling incidents involving civilians and civilian installations, this was not a contributing factor to the death toll because the LTTE artillery was at a considerable distance (outside the error in detection systems) and precision guided mechanisms used in SLA artillery should have ensured that only enemy artillery was hit ’. But even as you write this, you would remember the Darusman account of the shelling of the famous 11th convoy, how the Tiger artillery was a full 500m away from the ‘UN hub’ and wonder about the nature of cross fire. Then you’d remember reading in page 11 of the Marga report; “The seminar panellists noted that 500 metres is not a huge distance in such a restricted battle space, and it is very possible for even a single shell, or two or three, that could have devastating effect on concentrated civilians, to fall 500 metres off target. One or two shells could kill and injure a hundred civilians, and seem to indicate deliberate intent even when it isn’t so intended.”

At this point, all would become clear. How do you show that instances of the LTTE firing at SLA from the proximity of civilians are ‘rarer than hen’s teeth’? Narrow down the meaning of ‘proximity’ and curtail its range to the ‘probable error in hostile artillery detection systems’. A neat way to puncture the ‘proximity’ balloon.

“Modern detection systems for hostile artillery have a circular probable error of about 0.45% of range (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-battery_radar). This roughly means that detection of hostile fire 6 ¼ miles (10 km) away could be measured to a working accuracy of 50 yards (45 m). This is again a probabilistic measure, inadequate for firing at enemy positions among civilian concentrations. LTTE had its large artillery guns usually in isolated places. Civilians on their own kept well clear of LTTE mortar positions… 


The Government had the technology to avoid hitting civilians; the fact that it did so almost daily points to a deliberate intention…” (pp. 17-18 UTHR (J))

Reading that last sentence was a profound experience, because I knew that I was seeing incontrovertible evidence of deductive failure in Rajan Hoole and Co. To be able to write this sentence a person had to make three ridiculous presumptions
1) The LTTE always kept the proper distance (outside the error in detection systems) between their artillery and civilians. (They didn’t. Specific instances when they did not is given in the UTHR(J) report itself)
2) All artillery strikes are directed by counter battery radar (No.Some are only called in by direct observations of UAVs and other aircraft, as well as ground troops)
3) When artillery fire is directed by counter battery radar, accuracy of the latter is the only thing that matters to the accuracy of the former. (Wrong. There have to be separate margins of error for the artillery crews and mortar teams that do not depend on technology alone. Counter battery radar is not a fire control radar and does not control the artillery, which is also at the mercy of human fatigue, human error, faulty fusing, etc.).

Comparing the two reports the UTHR (J) and the LLRC, you become conscious that they have taken testimonies from civilians inhabiting two different planets with no interplanetary communication. UTHR(J) civilians insist that ‘much of the shelling was independent of any provocation’(pp.32), that ‘worse than shelling from the army side was regular small arms fire’ which ‘changed positions but was usually not a response to LTTE provocation.’ (Pp.61-62), that ‘In almost all instances not involving direct combat, the Army’s return fire was directed at civilian presences, something it would have known from UAV information.’(pp.17). LLRC civilians maintain ‘SLA never initiated attacks in the NFZs and return fire was in response to LTTE attacks.’ (4.271) (However incidents of seemingly targeted SLG attacks on civilians emerged from planet LLRC too; 4.106, 4.107, 4.109, 4.110, and 4.111)

From planet LLRC; “…After January 2009, fighting areas were not clearly defined because the dimension of the war has expanded to that extent. … at the last stage of the battle, the people converged to a very narrow area of Mathalan and Pokkanai. The LTTE launched their shelling attacks on the Army from these places. The Government forces retaliated to the spot that the LTTE was staying, as a result there was a number of deaths...” (4.84).

From planet UTHR (J);
“2nd Week of March, LTTE’s Two Deep Penetration Missions 
The civilian victims of shelling were well outside the zone where fighting was going on. …. the LTTE fired only a little above ten shells in support of the two related operations as they were short of ammunition. …During these two attacks civilians in the north of the zone near Valaignarmadam were subject to reprisal shelling, although the LTTE’s guns (130mm and 122 mm) were generally to the south of the civilians.” (pp 45-46)

A civilian in planet LLRC had a different take on Valaignarmadam; “Another civilian who was interviewed by the Commission stated that the LTTE had gun boats in Valayanmadam area as well as heavy artillery.”(4.75)

Suspension of disbelief a must for Darusman fans

Published in my column in The Nation on April 29, 2012 
By Darshanie Ratnawalli

There is one part in the UN report on Sri Lanka that even should one have passionate crushes on one or all three members of the panel one should find hard to read without wincing. That is when they talk of the Government shelling of the 11th UN convoy. From paragraph 79 to 91, the report details the adventures of this convoy, 50 lorries full of essential goods accompanied by 7 international staff that had travelled from Vavuniya to PTK. When they offloaded and most of the international staff went back, leaving behind two international UN staffers to wait it out with the National staff in the PTK, until the LTTE should permit them to leave, the fun starts. The fun is in the telling of it in the UN report, not so much in the actual happening (highlights include dead babies blown up into tree tops).

“In the early morning hours of 24 January, hundreds of shells rained down in the NFZ. Those with access to the United Nations bunker dove into it for protection, but most IDPs did not have bunkers and had nowhere to seek cover. People were screaming and crying out for help. The United Nations security officer, a highly experienced military officer, and others present discerned that the shelling was coming from the south, from SLA positions…” That is paragraph 84. But almost in the next breath, in para 86, this crux statement that the shelling was discerned by those present to be coming from SLA positions is contradicted; “…The LTTE did fire artillery from approximately 500 meters away as well as from further back in the NFZ…”. This schizophrenia, this almost Hollywoodian manifestation of a multiple personality disorder, this two handed writing, the left hand contradicting what the right writes, is the besetting sin of the Panel report throughout.

An opinion held even among the severest critics of the Panel is that, rather than evidence of bad faith, it could be simple ignorance of warfare, the Panelists being from legal backgrounds. It is believed that their training simply did not qualify them for the insight that if it was being discerned that shelling was also coming from LTTE positions (as revealed in 86) the statement that a highly experienced UN security officer discerned that ‘the shelling’ was coming from SLA positions became farcical, inviting the lowest contempt on heads (of the Panel) that should be held the highest.

“..all we were told about the incident – other than the calls made by the UN to which we responded, and which culminated in the UN Resident Representative sending us a text to say they believed the bulk of firing had come from the LTTE – was the description given by Chris du Toit when we called him in to the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights, to discuss the figures that were being bandied about of civilian casualties over a month’s period. He told us then that they could not be sure from the trajectories where most of the shells had come from, but the one shell of which they could be sure – and he showed us the crater of a blown up photograph – had come from the LTTE.”

– (Rajiva Wijesinha, ‘Inconsistencies and deceit in the Darusman Panel/Weiss account of Convoy 11’)

But I can’t see that it is a matter of legal knowledge vs warfare knowledge. It’s simple composition the rules of which should have dictated to the Panel that when describing a scene which featured shells coming from LTTE positions as well as SLA positions, an act of collation was called for. Such collation would have produced a sentence such as; “So and so discerned that the shelling was coming from SLA positions as well as from LTTE positions”. Throughout the report such collations are conspicuous by their absence. In fact this practice is so the norm in the report that it deserves to be identified as a special ‘Darusman’s Law’: By keeping two co related facts physically separated instead of collating them in a single sentence, you can cook up a credible allegation.

It gets worse. Even when two such factors are present in the same sentence, the Panel obliterates the proper co-relationship of those factors through the use of inappropriate grammatical conjunctions in order to cook up a credible allegation. The Review by Marga Sri Lanka has pinpointed one such ‘incongruous’ instance in paragraph 94 (re PTK hospital) of the UN report.

It reads; “The LTTE also fired mobile artillery from the vicinity of the hospital, but did not use the hospital for military purposes until after it was evacuated. Yet in its eagerness to capture the area, the SLA repeatedly shelled the hospital and surrounding areas.” It should have read; “The LTTE did effectively use the hospital for military purposes by firing mobile artillery from the vicinity of the hospital, though they did not convert the hospital into a military target until after it was evacuated”. Such a composition would have compelled the Panel to make a distinction between collateral damage and systematic and deliberate targeting. If such a compulsion had moved the Panel, they would have been coy about ; “Yet in its eagerness to capture the area, the SLA repeatedly shelled the hospital and surrounding areas.” They would have specially blushed to use ‘yet’. Their report would have acknowledged “a trend whereby the LTTE had merged protected premises to be an integral part of their combat strategy;”(LLRC 4.287- ii). If we had been able to read such words of judicial acumen in the Panel report, we wouldn’t now be speculating on the aggregate IQ of the Panel. And preening and congratulating ourselves about being smarter than a UN appointed panel.

As it was, “None of the persons making representations was able to state with certainty that they were in a position to definitely confirm that the shells which fell on the hospitals, originated exclusively from the side of the Sri Lanka Army or from the LTTE. Civilians who appeared before the Commission stated that there had been shelling from both sides. One civilian stated that ‘when a shell lands, the general anticipation was that it was the Army – cannot state exactly’. Another ex LTTE cadre in the course of his representations had stated that the Puthumathalan hospital was in fact accidentally shelled by the LTTE for which they had subsequently apologized.”- (LLRC 4.292 ii)

Can you forgive her?

Published in my column in The Nation on April 08, 2012 
By Darshanie Ratnawalli

How did the UN Panel report on Lanka affect the local commentators? I say nothing about foreign commentators because all cultures across the world have popular tropes that depict foreigners as credulous fools (the Brooklyn bridge story, the ‘parangiya kotte giya’ story, etc.) and we can draw on this common heritage to come to terms with the acts of some foreign commentators. But what about the natives (who are savvy individuals full of native cunning according to the same tropes)? I suggest that the report made sucklings out of some local commentators and caused them to imprint on the UN Panel as dispensers of absolute wisdom. Just so do animal cubs imprint on the first moving object they encounter as ‘MOTHER’. It has little to do with reason and all to do with blind instinct.

For instance take Tisaranee Gunesekara (http://www.thesundayleader.lk/2011/08/14/lies-agreed-upon-but-whose-lies/ ). In chiding the Government for positioning the Fourth Eelam War as a ‘humanitarian rescue operation’ with a policy of ‘zero civilian casualties’ she says; “The lies were unnecessary and the excessive measures taken to sustain them needless. Truth, with all its scabs and warts, would have served Sri Lanka better…More damagingly, the lie of ‘zero-civilian casualties’ was maintained, against all logic and reason. Assuming perfection was unnecessary; claiming infallibility was unconvincing. These poses were, in the final analysis, far more damaging than acknowledging mistakes and apologising for misdeeds.”

Look carefully and you will find hidden among the words of moral rectitude and good sense, like a gun among lingerie, the UN report’s legacy to Tisaranee. There is an unauthorized item in her chain of reasoning which she has surreptitiously smuggled in. Did you spot it Watson? By unauthorized, I meant not authorized by the normal rules governing chains of reasoning. Such rules would direct a person critical of the denial of civilian casualties, to urge…acknowledging civilian casualties. Instead Tisaranee urges…acknowledging mistakes and apologizing for misdeeds. Probably unknowingly and qualifying herself to be included in a case book for Freudian slips, Tisaranee reveals a conceptualization, which equates acknowledging civilian casualties with acknowledging mistakes and apologizing for misdeeds. Ipso facto categorization of Fourth Eelam War civilian casualties as Government mistake and misdeed is an act of positioning, a market spin, a selling proposition and the lady slips it in such an unobtrusive, taken for granted manner, that one wonders what to do. Sneer and express the wish that some mentor had succeeded early, in encouraging her to find avenues of self expression other than political analysis? Or whistle in admiration and nominate her for the Sri Lankan subliminal propaganda awards?

The last stage of Eelam War IV was a context made impossibly, unprecedentedly complex by the hellish juxtaposition of four irredeemable factors; a civilian hostage situation, a progressively decreasing battle space, an orchestrated merging of civilian and combat spaces and a fraught international situation throbbing with interventionist potential. One day they will invent a proper slot, a correct classification that can comfortably sum up such a unique circumstance. Mistake and misdeed don’t even begin to do it.

Which is the actual Thisaranee? Clever smuggler of presumption disguised as basic reality or a genuine cognitive failure? Perhaps the following long quote (from Godfrey Gunatilleke in 'Truth and Accountability : The Last Stages of the War in Sri Lanka', an evaluation of the UN panel report on SL) will give us some light;

“THE PANEL REFUSES TO CONSIDER THE OTHER CREDIBLE EXPLANATIONS AVAILABLE FOR CIVILIAN CASUALTIES.

As stated earlier the panel’s own account of the fighting on the ground and LTTE’s use of civilians for various military purposes in order to defend themselves were leading to high civilian casualties. At this point the options that were available for minimizing civilian casualties short of stopping the military operation, would have posed dilemmas of inconceivable proportions. The Panel does not grant that the GOSL might have acted on its judgment that if it did not move in to destroy the LTTE’s military and defence capability as early as possible, the plight of the civilians would have deteriorated and the LTTE would have engineered a major humanitarian crisis. On such a premise, issues of intentionality and proportionality take on a different character and would have to be examined in much greater depth than what the Panel has been able to do, given its rejection of the government version and the circumstances in which it had to operate.”

Now hold that light steady and read more of Tiisaranee; “…As a civilian stated, “If the Government openly admitted that it had crushed and injured these people, it would be easier to accept than what it does now. It claims that it rescued the civilians without a single casualty, is caring for them, feeding them, resettling them and looking after all their needs. That kind of lie is the lowest thing you could inflict on another human being” (UTHR Special Report No. 34 – 13.12.2009).” Admitting that there were civilian casualties is not interchangeable with admitting to ‘injuring and crushing these people’. It doesn’t automatically follow Watson. A government can admit civilian casualties without admitting to ‘crushing and injuring these people’. What transforms civilian casualties into ‘crushing and injuring a people’? Not magic. It’s a premise, a presumption that transforms it. This presumption, of murderous intent, of ruthless, criminal disregard of civilian life, flows from the UN Panel Report and is accepted and used insidiously as a fundamental principle by Tisaranee as well as by the civilian proxy of the UTHR report she quotes.

There are serious credible allegations against the UN Panel: viz., that knowingly and deliberately while in the grip of the above presumption and to give credence to such presumption, they have committed gross intellectual misdemeanors including the following;

Failure to correlate in a manner indicating cause and effect, the strategies and actions of the LTTE disclosed in the Panel’s own account, i.e. use of civilians as a buffer, shooting of civilians who were escaping, conscription of civilians and pushing them to the front lines as cannon fodder, fortifying the no-fire zones, using mobile artillery, shooting from proximity of hospitals, with the courses of action open to a government pursuing a military goal.

Omitting or sidelining significant details from the Report that could provide a different explanation of the government’s strategy and actions. Such as the erasure of vital contextual details from the picture of civilian casualties within the NFZs. Thus firmly placing civilian casualties in a vacuum and giving ‘no information of Tiger units coming under fire in close proximity to the civilians, something which many eyewitnesses have admitted to seeing themselves’. Inferring in this way ‘that there was very little or no military activity in the areas around the civilians, and that therefore there was no reason for any shelling by the SL Army’.

Inability to form complete cognitive pathways incorporating such facts as ‘a lot of UAV footage as well as SL military statements point to the fact that the Tiger units were actively fortifying and defending terrain even in the NFZs, often relocating high value weapons and ordnance within the NFZs and in close proximity to the civilians, and that far from the civilians and hospitals being easily recognizable islands in a sea of calm, they were right in the middle of an intensely contested battlefield’. (See http://www.margasrilanka.org/Darusman-Seminar%20Report.pdf Pp. 10-13)

Such cognitive failures are starkly manifest when placed alongside functioning cognitive pathways of contemporary commentators close to the thick of the action, such as the Bishop of Jaffna, who in asking the government to extend the safe zone, ‘declared that he and his colleagues “are urgently requesting the Tamil Tigers not to station themselves among the people in the safety zone and fire their artillery-shells and rockets at the army. This will only increase more and more the death of civilians thus endangering the safety of the people”.(http://www.peaceinsrilanka.org/press-releases-details/press-releases-details/1520 )

Can you blame him?

Published in my column in The Nation on March 25, 2012 
By Darshanie Ratnawalli

I wonder if it behoves me to say something about THE CURRENT ISSUE instead of being so stuck in the past and its different presentations. I could, but then there is very little emotional satisfaction to be had in holding up a spotlight to mediocrity. “To employ Pinter’s language, too many Sinhala wives and too many Sinhala children wanted peace, and so we killed as many Tamils as necessary. We just killed them. And for so many today, that’s ok.” That is Sanjana Hattotuwa providing the mediocrity (in his column last week in this very newspaper). And here’s Godfrey Gunatilleke providing the spotlight (in 'Truth and Accountability : The Last Stages of the War in Sri Lanka', an evaluation of the UN panel report on SL);

“…it is difficult to understand how the Panel ignores the facts given in its own account of the LTTE regarding its use of the civilians as buffer. …all clearly indicating that the LTTE deliberately integrated the civilians into the battlefield. The Panel…describes the army action in breaking into the NFZ and dividing it into two to separate the civilians from the LTTE cadres and freeing about 100,000 civilians. (para 109)It also reports how soldiers rescued civilians who escaped the LTTE killings during a mass attempt by civilians to break out. It also accepts that the eventual outcome of the operation was the release of the vast majority of civilians over 290,000 who were held by the LTTE. And after all this evidence which the Panel itself has collected, it concludes that the operation was aimed at the indiscriminate and systematic killing of a large section of the Tamil population and that the release of hostages was not an objective of government. The panel refuses to consider the government position that the military operation was launched with the objective of defeating the LTTE in order to free Sri Lankan citizens from LTTE control. In the panel’s view the government was operating in total disregard of the civilian population.

…There are significant omissions in the report. The report omits all mention of past actions and polices that may provide a more informed approach and better understanding of the actions of government in the Vanni operation than what is provided by the panel. There is no mention of the transformation the army had undergone and their visible improvement in discipline in respect of humanitarian rules of war. There is no reference to the war in the East immediately prior to the Vanni offensive and the very low level of civilian casualties in that operation which also had a hostage situation in Vakeneri. Such an account would have given credence to the government’s policy of “zero civilian casualties”. There is also no mention of government’s uninterrupted delivery of social welfare services to LTTE controlled areas prior to the commencement of the operation.”

Back to Sanjana; “Accountability is most stridently demanded and advocated today by an international community that tacitly supported the present government to treat collateral deaths of Tamil civilians as inevitable and necessary to end the war.” This is an untruth, the result of retrospective projection. There was no tacit acceptance at the time. The particular international community he means, best exemplified by Hilary Clinton were foaming at the mouth, braying for cease fire and pawning the ground preparatory to charging. They would have charged if they could have but were strategically held at bay and checkmated at every step of the way. The next spotlight (Michael Roberts: Realities of war: Frontline: written end April 2009) is switched on to show how.

“On April 22, Hillary Clinton told the world that “a terrible humanitarian tragedy” was taking place in Sri Lanka and demanded a halt in the fighting so that “we could secure a safe passage for as many of the trapped civilians as possible”.

The lady didn’t know it but she stood checkmated;

“Remarkably, for a superpower leader with access to up-to-date information Clinton appeared to have been some 48 hours behind breaking events: namely, the escape of some 107,000 Tamil “civilians” (doubtless including Tiger cadre who had given up the fight) from their hell-hole situation after a commando operation carried out by the Sri Lanka Army on the night of April 19-20. Alternatively, one must conclude that Clinton read this miraculous tale as something that spelt a humanitarian disaster – hence the use of the egg metaphor.”

Today, it may be convenient to forget the totally unexpected and innovative twists that deterred much awaited responses by challenging the stereotypical base on which they were invited;

“As I arrived in Sri Lanka on April 17, I told Kumari Jayawardena that the ground situation facing the army was labyrinthine. I could not, I said, see how it could move forward without generating disastrous death rates. Yet, today, we know that the commando operation was one for the textbook: it resulted in relatively few non-combatant deaths and created a path for streams and streams of Tamils to cross the lagoon and the beach over the next 2-3 days, roughly 110,000 people making this little epic journey. This, for me, was better than the tale of Moses crossing the Red Sea. It was both elevating and saddening.

It was distressing because of the condition of some of these people, displayed so starkly on camera, bespeaking the privation they had undergone in the immediate past. Indeed, as one or two died of dehydration or starvation while being bussed or airlifted by the military to the nearest hospitals in Vavuniya, one knew, now, why “the people of Tamil Eelam” had turned their back on the Eelam demand and the LTTE.”

Then too, the numbers game itself, as played at this stage, held the interventionists at bay.

“Take Nirmala Rajasingam’s passionate appeal in the British newspaper Independent on April 24. … Rajasingam also insisted that the government’s claim that there were few civilian casualties “defy reason,” and spoke of “huge civilian losses through indiscriminate fire”. …But what exactly is the count of those “civilians” killed as against those who have fled the coop in the past 5-6 months? A U.N. report dated April 24 estimated the death toll among civilians at 6,432, with those injured being estimated at 13,946. These figures must be qualified by two sets of facts: (a) they include individuals who stepped on LTTE mines and those shot by Tigers (or killed by suicide bombers) as they fled; and (b) a few of these civilians would be new conscripts who had not been issued with uniforms. Our adjectives must be relative. So, let us place these numbers in a comparative context beside the figure of 1,75,714 people who reached the government lines by April 24, with roughly 68,000 having escaped before April 20 and 107,000 in that remarkable moment between April 20 and 23.

The dead 6,432 make up roughly 4 per cent of those who have survived. Add the injured, some 13,000 according to the same U.N. report, and one has 20,000 casualties [caused by both sides] set against roughly 170,000 freed. While the figures are not to be laughed at, the death score is not “huge” while talk of “extermination” in “Dark victory”, displays mind-boggling bias and/or credulity… If there had been no restraint at all in the army offensive during the past six months, I can assure her that we would have had a death toll in the 30,000-50,000 range. As caveat let me stress that this claim does not mean that there was no cavalier bombing and artillery fire on some occasions.”

Indeed it was only after the war was over that somebody got savvy about the inadequacy of the pickings accruing from the numbers game and belatedly upped the stakes to 40 000 and more to fit the charge of unrestrained violence.

Talking of proportionality, I am sure to be in violation of its rules in using these particular spotlights on this particular mediocrity. Much too powerful for the task. Instead of merely showing up the mediocrity in the target statements, they also reveal the primary source of that mediocrity and end up exposing the dimensions of Sanjana’s mental equipment. Now did we really need to see that? This is why I prefer looking at the distant past. Much more exciting and the exposures are rarely so indecent.

History from under the carpet

Published in my column in The Nation on March 11, 2012 
By Darshanie Ratnawalli

In 1984, Gamini Iriyagolla accused C. R. De. Silva of suppressing something. Some evidence. Historical not litigious. Probably because Gamini Iriyagolla was a lawyer, it looked a bit convoluted. So that at first it confounded even me. (And I am quite brilliant). But finally I got it. (I always do). The charge was, on the first count, that C. R. de Silva being a historian and in full possession of all the facts, deliberately set out to deceive the public that the Arya Chakravarthi who ruled Jaffna in the mid 14th century enjoyed suzerainty over the king of Gampola and that this is Senarath Paranavithana’s own conclusion, knowing full well but covering up the fact that Paranavithana’s final word on the matter(1961 The Arya Kingdom in North Ceylon JRASCB Vol. VII (New Series) Part 2) was the exact opposite.

Paranavithana had actually shown 10+ years before C.R.’s intervention that force alone could not change vassal-overload equations, that they were much more entrenched and stable because sustained by de-jure convictions and conventions rather than who had the de-facto power advantage of the moment. Paranavithana, basing his conclusion on the Madavala inscription (1359 according his computation) had said;

"A noteworthy point in the Madavala inscription is that Marttandam, the Arya Chakravarti is referred to as a perumal only, while Vikramabahu is styled Chakravarti Svamin. This indicates that the Arya Chakravarti, though he was powerful enough to dictate terms to the Gampola monarch, had not assumed regal titles. The de jure right of Vikramabahu to the sovereignty over the whole island is recognized by the treaty…The Kotagama and Madavala inscriptions are thus witnesses to the utmost expansion of the Aryachakravartis of Jaffna".

On the second count, Gamini Iriyagolla targeted the following statement by C.R, "However, what Iriyagolla does not mention is that in the mid-fourteenth century 'the chieftain of this remote province' was powerful enough to control the Western coast of Sri Lanka almost up to the Kelani river, and to force Vikramabahu III (1357-74) king of Gampola to accept his tax collectors in the Sinhalese king's domains". Iriyagolla charged that C.R. in a deceptive sleight of hand, cited Rajavaliya as the source for the historical information contained in this statement, knowing full well that the bit about Vikramabahu being forced to accept the Arya Chakravarthi’s tax collectors into his domains did not come from Rajavaliya at all, but from the Madavala inscription (which records Vikramabahu III agreeing to have the Aryachakravarti's tax collectors in some of the hill country districts). C.R. de Silva, charged Iriyagolla, intentionally refrained from mentioning this inscription because doing so would let the Chakravarthi Svamin vs Perumal equation out of the bag. The whole sprawling article by Iriyagolla is accessible here

For a long while I thought Gamini Iriyagolla was being paranoid and ungracious. Didn’t he understand the impossibility of suppressing anything while the twin flowers of print and cyber capitalism were in full bloom? But a recent occurrence (not at liberty to disclose) has convinced me that nothing is impossible, that the list of scholarship on Sri Lanka specially foreign based and foreign to whom the Madavala inscription is a closed book would be as long as it is impressive containing DPhil (Oxon.)s from the 1960s as well as the 2000s. 

This practice of artificially compartmentalizing the time stream into periods; the Portuguese period, the Ancient period, the Kandian period, etc? So not working for foreign and foreign based scholarship on Sri Lanka. Among them, especially those whose interest in things Sri Lankan was sparked by topical concerns, we see too much of this parachuting into a period. Their ‘period’ would exist in a vacuum. In reality, there would be roots and threads mooring it to the previous and subsequent periods. But they would not see. A more distressing problem with foreign scholarship is that, some of them in addition to being short of holistic knowledge, are also a little short of analytical skill.

Let me give a telling example. This is a Dennis McGilvray citation from ‘Sri Lanka’s Eastern Province: Land, Development, Conflict Asia Report N°159 – 15 October 2008’ by International Crisis Group (Working to prevent conflict worldwide);

“That Buddhist remains can be found throughout the east is not necessarily evidence of Sinhala political control. Given its coastal location, Batticaloa and Trincomalee regions “would also have been accessible to immigrant traders and settlers from South India, many of whom would have been Buddhists as well, since both Tamil Nadu and Andhra were major centers of Theravada and Mahayana teaching for the third to the seventh centuries CE”. Crucible of Conflict,: Tamil and Muslim Society on the East Coast of Sri Lanka (Durham, 2008)., p. 57.”

This is an example of a foreign scholar’s mind at its most flexible and nimble due to being unencumbered with unnecessary knowledge. The blocks of knowledge that could have weighted down McGilvray’s mind and cramped its acrobatic style are; 1) this region in addition to the Buddhist remains also manifests a pretty hard to miss embodiment of a centre oriented state apparatus and political control, the extensive irrigation network with all that the concept of 'network' implies 2) Buddhist remains that are to be found throughout the east do not exist in a context less vacuum. There is an accompanying lithic record of who built them and why with extensive cross referencing with the chronicles.

Dennis McGilvray is an American anthropologist specialized on the Tamil and Muslim society (along matrilineality, thus kinship, inheritance, etc.) in the eastern province, that is Batticaloa and further south. Since then he seems to have established himself as an all-round expert on the eastern province and cited as such by the Crisis Group. By 2008, when his ‘Crucible of Conflict’ came out D. G. B de Silva’s ‘New Light On Vanniyas And Their Chieftaincies Based On Folk Historical Tradition As Found In Palm-Leaf Mss. In The Hugh Nevill Collection’ had been10 years in print. He has not glanced at it even once and thought that Vanniyars were Vellalas (Crucible of Conflict, op. cit., p. 9). Dennis is in his 60s so that hot headed imprudence of youth is a non issue.

Tales of fusion under a hegemonic umbrella

Published in my column in The Nation on March 4, 2012 
By Darshanie Ratnawalli

Some historians are good people who are ideologically excited by how harmoniously the multicultural motif lies on the landscape of this country’s past. They contemplate the Nayakkar accession to the throne of Sinhale, the medieval incorporation of South Indian immigrants and religious cults and the whole cultural syncretism thing with uncontaminated delight;

“Dravidian influence on Sinhalese society appears quite considerable…The Sinhalese literature of the period, specially works like the Pujavaliya and the Saddharmalankaraya, bear evidence of Tamil influence in so far as Tamil words are identifiable in these works. Indeed certain whole passages in the Dambadeni Asna are more akin to Tamil than to Sinhalese…..A whole range of personal names in use among the Sinhalese such as those which bear the prefix Tenna, Ponna, Alaha and the suffix peruma, koon and the like are distinctly of Tamil origin…….dictum of the sixteenth century Sinhalese poet Alagiyawanna,….a fool he is who has not mastered the Simhala, Tamil, Sanskrit and Pali languages…Throughout the long history of Sri Lanka Buddhism and Hinduism,…coexisted side by side, literally almost, in an atmosphere of harmony and concord. Hindu deities, particularly Siva and Visnu, in addition to an extensive minor pantheon, were housed in the premises of Buddhist temples and continued to be venerated by Buddhists throughout the island. In the medieval Sinhalese court Hindu ritual occupied the pride of place…”

- (A. Liyanagamage, Society State and Religion in Pre-modern Sri Lanka: 106-107)

When they carry on like this it acts as an incitement for other historians to pour some cold water on their euphoria. For, of course, the whole thing is much more layered and a big part of being an adult is being attentive to layers.

You won’t see the cohabitation of Buddhism and Hinduism in pre modern Lanka in its proper perspective unless you viewed it in the contrasting illumination thrown off by the whole ash thing.

“the sangharajjuruvan (Saranankara) and (other) leading monks, having failed in the attempt to preach and persuade the king to give up his heretical practice of anointing himself with ash, declared ‘we cannot sustain the sasana in cooperation with this heretical Tamil,’ and the monks of (the) Malvatte (temple) and radalavaru (“aristocrats”) taking counsel (decided) ‘Let us place some other worthy person as our king…’”

– (Sasanavatirna Varnanawa/K.N.O Dharmadasa 1979).

This ash episode featured in the 1760 rebellion against Kirti Sri Rajasinha, the second king of the Nayakkar lineage . One outcome of the rebellion was that “… the Sangha were reconciled after Kirti Sri gave up his ‘heretical’ practices and continued with added zeal his policy of being the lavish patron of Buddhism…..The king placed the blame for the rebellion upon himself and not only gave up the practice of anointing ash, but went so far as to ban the use of ash in preparation of ola-leaf manuscripts!...”- (K.N.O.-1979).

 Kirti Sri (as well as all the Nayakkar kings) was probably always in a state of dynamic equilibrium between ‘heretical Tamil’ and ‘amhakam sihalindo’ (this is what the author of the late 18th century installment of Culavamsa calls Kirti Sri, meaning ‘our Sihala king’ and ‘our happy, sublime Sihala ruler’), and after getting over the ash hurdle ruthlessly steered the equation towards ‘amhakam sihalindo’. Apparently as a definitive marker of Saivism, ash was a ricocheting, corrosive motif regardless of how many Hindu gods dwelt inside Buddhist temples. It were to surface again in 1815, attached to Sri Wickrama Rajasinha’s Nayakkar relatives who were all “anointing ash and appearing like matured ash-pumpkins” and “having anointed ash like dogs who had lain in (an abandoned) fireplace”-(Kirila Sandesaya/K.N.O 1979).

If you are partial to the incorporation motif present in Lankan history, however you’d like it served, with layers or without, you will always enjoy the Vanniyars. If you are a genuine multicultural fetishist, their story in Lanka will make you writhe in ecstasy. They came;

“It is significant that in the late thirteenth century some of the Sinhala kings appear to have induced a few immigrant chiefs to move across from southern India in order to re-settle specific districts that had been abandoned. The Malavara dignitaries, for instance, are described in one of the documents as having “cleared the jungle when there was no one else” (D G B de Silva 1996: 158, 172-73, 177). The Sinhala kings granted them land rights to these areas or, alternatively, responded to requests for land in this manner. Parakrama Bahu II (1236-70), in particular, pursued a programme of irrigation works and resettlement that attempted to recover the Nuvarakalaviya and Tamankaduva regions so that this migratory influx seems to have been linked with such policies.”

– (Michael Roberts: Sinhala Consciousness in the Kandyan Period: 74).
They fused;

“What language the Vanniyās used; or customs they followed; and private laws they used could have varied according to circumstance; but as Vanni chieftains they had received Sinhalese names on their investiture. They were supported by a hierarchy of local officials in the Rata Sabhās, when they adjudicated over matters concerning violations of local custom including failure to oblige with duties in respect of maintenance of irrigation work and agriculture. Some of them like the Malalas had fully assimilated into the local social and cultural milieu as seen from the positions they held at the Court and outside; one of them as the leading Vanniyā at Kaluvila; and two of them as the prelates of important places of learning. However, one also finds the Vanniyās retaining their original language (as Knox found at Nuvara väva); and some of their laws of succession, (as Hugh Nevill found existing among the chieftains of Hurulla which were similar to those of Malabārs and the Mukkuvās).”

- (D. G.B de Silva 1996: 190-191).
They remained distinctive;

“… Vanniyās formed a single class or caste intermarrying within their families, irrespective of whether they lived in the king’s territory or outside, whatever language they spoke; or what laws and customs they followed, the only exception being the Mukkuvās of Puttalama area and on the eastern coast.”

- (D. G.B:1996: 191).
And they were loyal;

“The “väddan” and “vannilayō” were among the forces of Rājasinha I of Sītāvaka (SH 1999:v.565); and in describing Rājasinha II’s preparations for battle against the Portuguese in the year 1638, for instance, the Rajasiha Hatana describes how he assembled forces from various regions, including

From Ratdala, Kitulāna, Yāla, Panama and Māgampura; from Wellawāya, Pālugama and Tirukkōvila from the Vädipattu and the great harbour of Kottiārama; and from many a land of the famed Vanniyäs.

P E Pieris’ reference to the “King’s Vanniyās,” albeit a passing remark, is in line with this information (1995a: 45).”

- (Roberts: 74-75)

And Jaffna belongs to…

Published in my column in The Nation on February 19, 2012 
By Darshanie Ratnawalli

Sometimes a geographical space acquires an equation of predominant association with a certain identity and when this happens it enables an alien motif to come into existence in the plane of perceptions and take the other identities under its shadow. For example;

"The inhabitants of Jaffna consist of a collection of various races. The greatest number are Malabars of Moorish extraction, and are divided into several tribes, known by the names of Lubbahs, Belalas, Mopleys Chittys, Choliars, and a few Brahmins… There is also a race of Malabars found here somewhat differing in their appearance from those on the continent. These different tribes of foreign settlers greatly exceed in number the native Ceylonese in the district of Jaffna. The Malabars are employed in manufacturing cotton cloths, &c. The Chittys and the Lubbahs trade in cloths, calicoes, handkerchiefs, &c. The Lubbahs are Moors and Mahometans. The Choliars. and Chivias do the hard work; are porters, palankeen bearers, and water carriers; All these in some measure partake of the Ceylonese habits and customs of life, mingled with their own " (p.47) .... Those that I mentioned first were induced many years ago, by the encouragements held out to them by the Dutch, to pass over from the Coromandel coast and carry on here a variety of manufactures..." (p.48).

-Robert Percival; An Account of the Island of Ceylon (London, 1803)-

I detect two pulse spots within this passage. One is an insidious and powerful tendency to treat Ceylonese and Sinhalese as synonyms. The other is the taken for granted, thus insidious and powerful manner in which the alien/foreign motif is inserted into ‘the district of Jaffna’ to encompass the 'Malabars of Jaffna'. The first one is pretty commonplace in the colonial narrative both British and pre-British; whereas the second one is much more intriguing. Less than 200 years ago from Robert Percival, ‘the chronicler of Portuguese Sri Lanka par excellence’ Fernao de Queiros writing about Jafanapatao was guilty of the same hegemonic act of alienation. What Queiros did was to see all the other collective identities of Jafanapatao under the shadow of an alien motif or through a glass darkly of un-belongingness while seeing the Chingala identity more vividly in the powerful aura thrown off by that dominant brand.

This caused him to commit the fairly significant slippage of treating Jaffnese and Chingala as synonyms, equating part of Jaffna (the Sinhalese part; e.g. Boccaro writing in 1632 notes that the Portuguese in Jaffna employed two interpreters, one Tamil and one Sinhalese) with the whole. In page 366 of ‘The Temporal and Spiritual Conquest of Ceylon’ (Trans. 1930), the Portuguese walk into a fortalice, which the king of Jafanapatao had just abandoned to find among other things a block with12 heads, which are of course not just any heads but Chingala heads. Just 3 pages before, in page 363 those heads had been12 Modeliares who the King had had arrested because they ‘had represented to him the complaints and losses of the natives’. In fact Queiros seems unable to mention nonspecific characters in Jaffna without calling them Chingalaz. In Chapter 28; ‘The Conquest Of Nelur Described’ “…the Prince of Jafanapatao instructed a Chingala and he came to have speech with the Viceroy and…” as a result of that speech two Portuguese sailors go ahead as scouts and “…landed with all precaution, but were at once surrounded by the Chingalaz within sight of the Manchua in which they went…”

This didn’t mean that Queiros was blind to other identities or that there was no discernible distinctiveness between the different ethnic identities. He could totally classify. He could and did register the gradations of power and dominance presented by the different identities; “As for the character of the Chingalas, they are generally proud, vain and lazy…because of the antiquity of their Kingdom and nation and the liberty in which they were always brought up…In obeying their native Kings they have always been various and inconstant, but most stubborn in not admitting foreign domination, and when the Portuguese entered Ceylon..they did not hesitate to submit to any bold rebel, in order to recover their liberty…their greatest occupation is soldiering, and they enjoy peace only as an accident, and war is the custom.” (Vol 1, pg 21-3). Now compare; “They are very poor people and extremely weak, because they are Balalaz, a race different from that of the Chingalas, and they are said to originate from Bramenes of the continent a people who never fared well at arms, because they never professed them … and neither in language nor in religion are they at all like the Chingalas, though they are equally superstitious…”. (Bk I, Chap.7, p.50).

Hegemony is a nice word but still it does not explain everything. When a certain identity is disassociated from a geographical space, it is also because there is a lack of bonding, an absence of belongingness in that identity’s equation with that geographical space. For, not all Portuguese treated Jaffnese and Chingalaz as synonyms. Some of them committed an au naturel act of hegemony and equated part of Jaffna; the majoritarian part in its demographic configuration, with the whole of Jaffna. And said that the Jaffna man was fraco. “The defence arrangements the Portuguese made for Jaffna were greatly influenced by the assessment made by the leading Portuguese officials in that kingdom on the nature and character of the native inhabitants of Jaffna. Oliveira considered the Jaffna man as generally passive or weak (fraco). His successor as captain-major, Lancarote de Seixas, came to the same conclusion: he found the Jaffna man “quiet and mild, without any military training” and therefore unlikely to rebel unless instigated by outsiders. To them, the post-conquest history of Jaffna bore this out clearly. Luis de Freitas de Macedo, with many years of experience in Jaffna, came to a similar conclusion about the Jaffna man’s nature, as did the chronicler Fernāo de Queiros, basing himself on the observations of those who knew Jaffna well. The result of this assessment was that in Jaffna fortification was begun later, proceeded more slowly, and when it was completed, Jaffna, for its population and area, had fewer forts than was the case in the southern territories the Portuguese held in the island.” – (Jaffna under the Portuguese, T.B.H Pg. 17)

Now watch the sands of time. Watch the transformation of this identity. Watch the emergence of a powerful brand. Watch how this has caused the alien motif to undergo total transmutation in this region within the relatively short span of about 300 years. 200 years after Percival, 330 years after Queiros, watch Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka in 2010 June 13 Lakbima, not because it’s the loudest or the most strident expression of the transformed alien motif but because it’s so taken for granted and thus insidious and powerful. “In respect of the North-East the Rajapakse Government is committing in toto the same mistakes George Bush committed re Iraq. We don’t have a clear program of action regarding the salvaged areas of the N/E or the people there….. The world sees the GOSL as an alien invader.” (my translation).

In this critical conceptualization, the aftermath of an intervention, which was indisputably foreign is equated with the government of Lanka’s intervention in the ‘North-East’ aftermath. This act of lumping together is presented in a taken for granted manner thus creating the alien motif insidiously and powerfully. The world is then brought in as an impartial attester to confirm and endorse the alien motif. Neat.

A Sri Lankan celebrates Sri Lanka’s Independence from Chechnya

Published in my column in The Nation on February 04, 2012 
By Darshanie Ratnawalli

Being Sri Lankan means different things to different people, which I think is totally fine. The only aspect of Sri Lankanness worth insisting upon is that all persons, stories, theories and analyses should place their contexts within the actual, real Sri Lanka which exists in reality not in dimension –X. A lot of people are simply not acquainted with this Sri Lanka as evidenced by the analogies they deploy. For example, Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka is fond of talking about the Chechen solution. He’s made himself much clearer in 'Hostage to the past. The Devolution Debate and Historicism'.

“His diagnosis of why the bulk of the international community urges a solution of territory based political autonomy, leads him to three conclusions: Eelamist agit-prop, Marxist intellectual influence and politicians with a “here-and-now” perspective. None of these explain India’s secular state, quasi federalism and linguistic regions, Chechen autonomy, Spain’s autonomous Basque region, or Mindanao’s autonomy in the Philippines, to name just four disparate examples.”

In this critical conceptualization countries that incorporate into their polity regions that are powerfully, undeniably, unambiguously, unmistakably, inalienably and historically associated with a particular collective identity are equated with Lanka. This act of lumping together is presented in a taken-for-granted manner, thus, insidiously and powerfully in an attempt to impose on Lanka, an equity dictated obligation for political autonomy via forced association. Sri Lanka’s remarkable points of divergence from this segregated territory model (these areas-these people, those areas-those people) are ruthlessly denied mental house room. 


While a Chechen may have much to celebrate in his historically entrenched, uniform and consistent association with Chechnya, I hold that he is also poorer because he is deprived of the experience of being part of a region with diverse and multi-cultural associations such as our Northern Province. He will never know the experience of living in a land whose identity exists in layers, where the earlier layer still peeks through the current layer as enticingly as a camisole does through a sheer blouse. (“The place-names in the peninsula indicate that it was held by Sinhala inhabitants at no very remote date”- Chapter VI, A Short history of Ceylon by H. W. Codrington)- 


Conditions of severe multiculturality that can cause the terms Chechen and Russian to be used interchangeably and as synonyms by informed and specialist sources will forever be outside the cultural legacy of a Chechen. Not so our Northern Province or more specifically the region corresponding to the kingdom of Jaffna. On 15 March 1634, the King of Portugal addressed a letter to his viceroy laying down the decision of Lisbon regarding certain innovations suggested for Jaffna. This was based on their conceptualization of the Jaffnese as Sinhalese and as such their assessment of the character of the Sinhalese. Remarkably this decision was preceded and influenced by consultations with “two old Asia hands, one of them being Belchior Botelho da Silva, who counted at least a decade of experience as a captain in many parts of the island”. “A principal factor they took into consideration in arriving at their decision was the possibility that the implementation of the two proposals would lead to rebellion. This is clear from a statement in their letter of 15th march 1634 “…se nāo deve fazer novidade….porque de outro modo escandalizar junta tanta gente e de animos tāo inquietos e pouco fieis…” (no innovation ought to be tried…because otherwise people of such restless spirit and little faith will be scandalized…) But in referring to people of restless spirit and little faith, the Lisbon authorities were thinking of the Sinhalese of the Kotte Lands and not of the Tamils of Jaffna, as the phrase “como sāo os chingalas” (as are the Sinhalese) which follows the extract quoted above makes clear. Three decades of rebellion in the Kotte lands had implanted among the Lisbon authorities a wholesome fear of attempting anything likely to cause unrest among the Sinhalese.” Apparently “such misintelligence was not confined to Lisbon. The Count of Vidigueira, after serving as viceroy at Goa for 7 years (in two terms) and after a term as President of the India Council in Lisbon, still believed in 1626 that the inhabitants of Jaffna were Sinhalese”.– (See 'Jaffna under the Portuguese', T.B.H Abeyasinghe pages 24, 25, 26, 27). 


I hold that a Chechen’s horizons are narrower because his life world holds no frame of reference to enable him to comprehend conditions that led ‘the chronicler of Portuguese Sri Lanka par excellence’ to use Chingala as a generic term for Jaffnese, a term of primary reference to be used when describing Jaffnese contexts (much the same way he would use ‘Negro’ when describing Africa). So we have “These terms [written] in the Portuguese and the Chingala languages, were signed and authenticated and the Prince was handed over and sent in a ship with the Modeliar in good custody…..” in page 371 of Queiros’ work describing a treaty between the Portuguese and the King of Jafanapatao. 


There is nothing intrinsically superior (nothing intrinsically inferior either) about the Chechen experience in relation to the Sri Lankan experience with the region centred around the Kingdom of Jaffna. They are just different. Let Chechnya celebrate the homogenous uniformity of the Chechen association with Chechnya within Russia. Let us celebrate an association which is infinitely richer, more exciting and diverse (more intellectually challenging too to judge from the inability of certain people (who shall remain unnamed) to comprehend it.). There is no reason whatsoever to resort to naked lies to establish cultural homogeneity in the region along a temporal axis like Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka did in his Lakbima interview of 13 June 2010. Lack of cultural homogeneity is nothing to be ashamed of. It may render the Chechnya analogy facile. But so what?

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.