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The newspaper "Island" carried an article by me under the title "The Fiction of Traditional Homelands and Land Use" in three installments on 3rd, 4th and 6th August 1984. It contained excerpts from an 88 page memorandum given to the late Mrs. Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India and to Mr. J. R. Jayewardene, President of Sri Lanka at New Delhi on the eve of their talks on 30th June 1984 on the "ethnic" problems of Sri Lanka. Some points were amplified for the benefit of readers of the newspapers. After the publication of the article, several individuals and groups suggested that it be reprinted, so that the complex issues relating to the concept of, and claims to, separate traditional homelands for the different communities.in the island of Sri Lanka might be better understood by more people. This booklet is a response to these suggestions. I have changed the title, added notes and made essential corrections to the article.
Most non-Tamil people in Sri Lanka are still not aware of the basis of the claim of Tamil extremists for a separate state. The claim is not founded, as many believe, on allegations of harassment and discrimination by the Sinhalese majority, but on an audacious falsification of ancient and modern Sri Lanka history. It may be briefly summarized as follows :
Tamils had a Sovereign State in the island from pre-historic times. Even after the advent of the Sinhalese, there were Tamil kings who ruled the whole Island. Thereafter, for over a thousand years Tamil kings ruled the whole island at times and Sinhalese kings ruled it at other times. Out of this background of alternating fortunes, there emerged at the beginning of the 13th century, a separate Tamil kingdom, the territory of which has since been the exclusive homeland of Tamils The territory of this Tamil State stretched from Chilaw in the north-west to the northern regions and thence to the Kumbukkan Oya in the present Yala Sanctuary in the south-east, to include the northern half of the modern Puttalam District, the whole of the modern Northern Province and the whole of the modern Eastern province3 - one third of the territory of Sri Lanka. The rest of the island was "Sinhala land". Thus there were 2 countries in the island till 1948. The Portuguese captured the Tamil State in 1619. Neither the Sinhalese king nor the Sinhalese people offered any assistance to the Tamil king Singili against the Portuguese as it was the view of the Sinhalese that they had nothing in common with the state of Tamil Eelam. The Tamiles want the Sinhalese people to reiterate that now4. The Portuguese, Dutch (who captured the Tamil state in 1658) and the British (who seized the Dutch possessions in 1796) governed the conquered Tamil territory from Chilaw to Kumbukkan Oya) as a separate state till 1833. In that year, following the Colebrooke-Cameron recommendations and in violation of history, tradition and psychology, the British brought the separate states together under one administration to suit their convenience5. This unification laid the foundation for the "Ethnic" conflict of the present time6. In 1948, the British granted independence to the Sinhalese state, and handed over the Tamil state to the Sinhalese who naturally converted it into a colony of theirs and exploited both Tamils and their country as imperialists would. Thus politically the Tamils are entitled to recover their independence. The old sovereignty of Tamil Eelam was revived in law as well in 1972, when the Queen of the United Kingdom ceased to be the repository of sovereignty and a Sinhalese Republican Government was forced on the Tamil people7. All the grievances the Tamil people now have are incidents of Sinhalese colonial rule since 1948. These grievances are as follows:
(1) Within 6 months of the transfer of political power to the Sinhalese, they enacted legislation depriving the Indian Tamils of citizenship and the franchise8.
(2) Lakhs and lakhs of Sinhalese people were planted in the homeland of the Tamil nation once ruled by Tamil kings9.
(3) In 1956, Sinhala was made the sole official language. The republican constitution of 1972 gave the Sinhala Only Act constitutional status. The real intention of this Sinhala Only Act was to keep Tamils out of government service.10
(4) Buddhism has been given pre-eminence in the constitution.11
(5) The Tamils demanded balanced representation12 before the British withdrew but this was refused.
(6) S.J. V. Chelvanayakam toiled for 25 years through the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi13 to safeguard Tamil rights through federalism but this was denied; He entered into agreements with the S.L.F.P. and the U.N.P. to obtain regional autonomy but these were abrogated because of Sinhalese opposition.
The only alternative is to see that "Sinhalese Imperialism........ Quit our homeland;" the independent state of Tamil Eelam stretching from Pottuvil to Puttalam will be established by peaceful means or by armed struggle.14
Such is the faisfied history based upon which a world-wide political and propaganda campaign has been launched. Inspired by the same falsehoods that are the foundation of the political claim, several hundred young people have become terrorists in a racist cause. One would expect Sri Lanka historians to discuss the alleged historical basis of Tamil claims, expose the falsehoods and endorse the truths (if any). They have avoided the issue, though some of them have become active in the politics of the problem which are outside the area of their knowledge15.
A teacher of history called C.R. de Silva, however, recently attempted a discussion of historical writing in relation to "ethnicity". with bizarre results.16 De Silva completely ignored the alleged history which has founded the present Tamil Ealam struggle and Tamil terrorism, though the title of his essay was "Ethnicity, Prejudice and the Writing of History". He compliments historians such as G. C. Mendis for "setting a fine example" of freedom from prejudice.17 He then gently chides Satchi Ponnambalam, a reckless purveyor of Tamil communalist propaganda, for "breezily ignoring the work of numerous historians who preceded him" in writing that "Devanampiya Theesan, the Tamil Hindu king of Lanka at that time accepted the missionaries from Asoka and became converted to Buddhism".18 De Silva not only implies that Ponnambalam is a historian but also fails to say that to make Devanampiyatissa a Tamil is a plain and deliberate untruth.19 Then de Silva reaches the main point of his Mendis Memorial Lecture ; " ......... numerous instances of distortions of history can be found among Sinhalese writers as well. I have selected a recent article by Gamini Iriyagolle-an article which argues against the theory of the traditional homelands of the Tamil" De Silva then plucks out the following paragraph20 (completely out of context) from my article which is reprinted in this booklet:
"Although for most of its duration as a political unit, the 'kingdom' or principality of Jaffna was de jure part of the dominions of the Sinhalese kings whether ruling at Gampola, Kotte, Sitawaka or Kandy, during the course of its existence from the end of the 13th century to the beginning of the 17th century, there were periods in which the chieftain of this remote province asserted his independence of the Sinhalese overlord. At the beginning he was a feudatory of the South Indian Vijayanagara Empire. At other times the incumbent chieftain acknowledged the suzerainty of the King of Portugal".
Our historian opens his attack by conceding that "It is possible that every statement made by Iriyagolle in the above paragraphs is true". De Silva's complaint is that I have distorted history by omitting important historical facts which, if disclosed by me, would have shown that the Arychakravarti who ruled Jaffna in the mid-l4th century was much more powerful than I make him out to be. His most damning criticism runs thus: "If the ruler of the North was merely a Chieftain at least from 1357 to the early 1370s this chieftain probably enjoyed suzerainty over the king of Gampola". In the note to this sentence, de Silva states, "This was the conclusion of S. Paranavithana, see university of Ceylon, History of Ceylon, op. cit. at pp.644-645" (published in 1960). Here C.R. de Silva tampers with his evidence, supressing Paranavithana's conclusion based on the Medawala inscription of 28th November 135921 and presented in his major article entitled "The Arya Kingdom In North Ceylon" published in 1961 in the Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (New Series, Vol. VII part 2 pp.174-224). What is suppressed reads as follows :
"A noteworthy point in the Madavala inscription is that Marttandam, the Arya Chakkaravarti22 is referred to as a perumal23 only, while Vikramabahu24 is styled Chakravarti. Svamin25. 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 RECOGNISED BY THE TREATY".
In manipulating his sources, de Silva also conceals the all important Medawala inscription from his audience and his readers.
De Silva also says "However, what Iriyagolle 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 upto the Kelani river, and to force Vikramabahu III (1357-74) king of Gampola to accept his tax collectors in the Sinhalese king's domains". The source cited for this proposition is the Rajavallya edited by A. V. Suraweera.26 This source yields the following information on this point 'Subsequently, as there were no kings in (of) Lanka, the Minister Alakeswara lived in the city of Raigama. King Parakrmabahu's nephew was at Gampola. The Aryachakravarti king was at Jaffnapatam. When, of these kings, the Aryachckravarti King's forces caused tribute to be brought by force from the hill country, the low country and the nine ports,27 one day Alakeswara viewed his forces...."
There is no mention here of Vikramabahu or of control of the western coast or of acceptance by a king of Gampola of Aryachkravarti's tax collectors.
De Silva omits reference to the Medawala inscription, according to the currently accepted reading of which, Vikramabahu III agreed to have the Aryachakravarti's tax collectors in some of the hill country districts, If he mentioned this inscription at all, he would have had to admit that according to it, in the mid-l4th century, the Sinhalese king was de jure suzerain over the Aryachakravarti (as I have said). The other distortion of de Silva's is that "Kotte was originally founded not as a capital city but as a frontier fort to defend the South against inroads from the North". The situation in which a fort is built for purely defensive purposes is entirely different from that in which a fort is built in order to launch an offensive; According to de Silva's source (the Rajavaliya), Kotte was built (by Alakeshvara, whom our 'historian' fails to mention) preparatory to launching an offensive against the Aryachakravarti. The last sentence quoted above from the Rajavaliya continues thus "......one day Alakeshvara viewed his forces and thinking it is not fitting to pay tribute to a king, while there are such forces as these, built the fortress of Jayawardane, constructed dams and -. moats, collected paddy, coconut and salt to last several years and expelled the tax collectors placed by the Aryachakravarti king at various places". According to the Rajavaliya, the Aryachakravarti imported mercenaries from the Chola country, 29 and sent a force by land to Matale and another by sea to Dematagoda, via Panadura. The Sinhalese army of the hill-country slaughtered the Tamils at Matale, the survivors fleeing all the way to Jaffna. Alakeshvara routed the Tamils at Dematagoda and destroyed their ships which lay off Panadura. "The Kotagama and Madawela inscriptions" writes Paranavithana "are thus witnesses to the utmost expansion of the Aryachakravartis of Jaffna"30. De Silva could also have cited de Queyroz whom historians of his school of history 31 place a great value on : "Of these (The 'kings' of Jaffnapatam") the first that tried to free himself from the subjection to the king of Cota32 was Ariaxaca Varti33 who being naturally proud and not brooking haughtiness of the officers of that king, took the life of the one that governed there, and the king of Ceylon preparing to punish him, they say, he went to meet him at Ceytavaca34 and took him some verses wherein he so flattered him .......... that he left him completely vainglorious and satisfied .......he not only made him desist from war, but also obtained olas from him (what we should call Provisions) and the title of king of Jaffnapatam which his successors preserved paying in acknowledgement only some tribute, and because this was the beginning of their greatness, his descendants from the name Aria, were called Ariavance, 35 which means, the generation of Aria".36
There is no worse sin an academic could commit than to falsify the very sources he claims to rely on. To do so in order deliberately to attempt discredit another writer is still worse. Its commission in the particular circumstances now prevailing in Sri Lanka is ominous. The question that begs an explanation, before all else, is why a teacher of history should so risk his standing with easily discoverable misdemeanours. One must conclude that the motivation or inducement must have been very great indeed.
There is another point to be made My article was published in the newspapers as excerpts of a memorandum. This should have warned de Silva that there was much else in the memorandum. Had he only inquired, as he should have, he would have found that in the very next section of the memorandum (which was, and still is, with the printer) the following account was written by me: "Ibn Batuta, the traveller from Tangier visited Ceylon in 1347 and found the contemporary Aryachakravarti the most powerful potentate in the country. This was a period of confusion in the kingdom and the Sinhalese king was too weak to control his chieftains. The Arya Chakravarti pushed his authority to the South, controlled some of the West coast ports and even levied taxes in his own right in places close to Kotte. The king Wickramabahu III (seat at Gampola) was weak but he had a great Minister Alakesvara whose seat of administration was Raigama ........."
Our historian, after manipulating history, now strays into an area beyond his competence and outside his subject - the Tamil claim for traditional homelands. In the paragraph immediately following his juggling with my writing, de Silva turns "briefly to the concept of the 'traditional homelands'." In one sentence, he transforms the concept into a "doctrine". In the next paragraph it becomes a "theory". This complex subject is disposed of by this 'professional' historian in two paragraphs. He required only three sentences to provide a footnote for future Tamil claims to the Northern and Eastern Provinces created by the British in 1874 "The early (1951) 37 version of the 'traditional homelands' theory has some support from history. There is a (sic) little doubt that the Jaffna Peninsula and most of the present Northern Province has (sic) been a Tamil majority area since the 13th century.38 Moreover there is evidence of large scale Tamil settlements on the eastern coast about the same period and subsequently. 39 There is therefore (sic) a region where Tamils have predominated for a number of centuries." C.R. de Silva is not a singular phenomenon but a symptom of a much deeper disease that.has afflicted certain layers of Sri. Lanka society for several generations. G.C. Mendis was one of the earliest victims, who took to the study of history, misled generations of students in schools and in the University, and inspired the falsifications by Tamil politicians. Even Paranavithana had his own obsessive hypotheses. 40 The time has come for an authentic history to be written for the of benefit students and general readers of today and tomorrow.
NOTES
1. Circa 6th century B.C.
2. The authority cited for this segment of 'history' is "the great work of Sinhalese history - the Mahavansa" (The election manifesto of the Tamil United Liberation Front, 1977). The Mahavansa however says none of these things. According to this work the island was a Sinhalese kingdom during the entire period referred to. It was ruled for most of the period on the "one sovereignty" (literally "one umbrella) principle. There was not one local Tamil ruler. Anuradhapura, the seat of government (5th century B.C.to 11th century A.D.) was seized just tour times in the 16 centuries by invaders from South India who temporarily held the north-central and northern parts (the Province of Rajarata) and were driven out. The longest occupation was that of the Cholas from 993 to 1070 A.D. The falsification of this history to one of alternating fortunes was necessary to make the emergence of a Tamil kingdom in the 13th century credible.
3. The source cited for inclusion of these regions in a 13th century Tamil kingdom is Cleghorn's Minute. The Tamil extremists and their supporters do not say what that Minute was nor when it was prepared. This document was prepared in 1799 by Cleghorn, a British official, to describe the division by the Dutch of their coastal possessions for Judicial and administrative purposes after the Sinhalese - Dutch treaty of 1766. It gives no indication of the hinterland ruled by the Dutch and has no relation either to any political division of the 13th century or to the modern Northern and Eastern Provinces created by the British in 1874. Tarnil Eelamists are now generously prepared to give up the Chilaw area.
4. Note that Tamil rancour is directed against the Sinhalese as a people, not just against a Government. But funds generated by taxing the Sinhalese poor have always been welcome for the education, economic development etc. of the Tamils and have never been denied.
5. No lie could be so bold or so blatant. Portuguese, Dutch and the British ruled all their coastal possessions (in the South and in the North) as one political unit, under a Portuguese Captain - General, a Dutch Governor and a British Governor, respectively, at Colombo. These possessions called the "Maritime Provinces" by the British were a single Crown Colony from 1801. It was the territory of the Sinhalese kingdom of Kandy, ceded in 1815, that was administered as a separate unit called "the Kandyan Provinces" under a Board of Commissioners from 1815 to 1833. Consequent to the Rebellion of the Kandyan Sinhalese (1817/18) which nearly drove the British out, the British amalgamated the Maritime Provinces with the Kandyan Provinces in 1833 to strengthen the British hold over the latter, in accordance with the Colebrook-Cameron recommendations which are common knowledge. By a Proclamation of 1833, the united territories were divided into 5 Provinces, parts of the Kandyan territory being included in Northern, Eastern, Western and Southern Provinces. Only the Central Province was constituted by wholly Kandyan districts.
6. Memorandurn of the terrorist group called Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to the Summit meeting of Non-Aligned Nations, March, 1983.
7. The alleged history has been accepted and the legal claim based thereon has been upheld by international associations such as the International Commission of Jurists. See "Report of Mission to Sri Lanka", June 1983 on behalf of the I.C.J., reprinted August 1983. Most people of Sri Lanka are quite unaware of these developments. The few among the western educated minority who are aware suppress them but hold seminars and publish writings advocating regional autonomy as an alternative to the claim for a separate state. Acceptance of the main case is implicit in the advocacy of a "viable alternative."
8. Before independence all residents of Ceylon, India and Pakistan were British subjects, Citizenship of these states were a new status created by new laws enacted for the purpose in each country. It was acknowledged that each country had the right and duty to prescribe the qualifications for citizenship. The Indians in Ceylon had only a limited franchise even under British rule. They had to prove five years' continuous residence at the time of registration as voters each year, as well as an intention of living permanently in the country. Under the citizenship laws of independent Ceylon, residents of Indian and Pakistani origin had to prove only 7 years' continuous residence in the country prior to 1.1.1946. (10 years for unmarried persons) and thence to the date of application (the last date being 5th August 1951), absence from island for a period not exceeding 1 year on any one occasion not being regarded as an interruption of residence. Most of the Indians in Sri Lanka were a floating population and could not satisfy these residential qualifications (in the period 1923-38, 3, 145, 850 immigrants arrived in Sri Lanka from India while 2, 821, 669 went back from this country to India - "Indians in Sri Lanka" by H. Chattopadhyaya, Calcutta 1979, p.113) Both in India and Ceylon franchise is dependent on citizenship. A test of residence.