By S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole –

Incorporating a Book Review: D.B.S. Jeyaraj, Change in Gradation of Political Power Distribution, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, The First Left-wing President of Sri Lanka, Colombo and Chennai: Kumaran Book House, 2025. 112 pages in Tamil – Arasiyal Athikarathin Varkka Matram, Translated into Tamil by Veeragathy Thanabalasingham.

We Tamils wonder if a communalist Sinhalese electorate would ever elect a Tamil as President of Sri Lanka. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) was elected President on Sept. 21, 2024. Renowned journalist D.B.S. Jeyaraj brings out that the JVP is a rank communalist party and its current leader is certainly Tamil in part. He states (p. 25) that DBS’ sister’s name is Siriyalatha (that is, small Latha) and his mother’s Seelavathi. These are indubitably Tamil names.

Thanabalasigham himself has published a Review (March 24, 2025). The book is based on six articles on AKD’s early life and political rise and three on the historic victory of NPP at the Parliamentary Elections in the Northern and Eastern Provinces last year.

Political Manipulation of the Electorate

Pretentiously perhaps, AKD who DBS claims is an avid follower of the Rationalist Association’s Abraham Kovoor, carries the story of his horoscope put out by Seelavathi for electoral gain. As DBS narrates at least twice in the book, 31-year-old Seelawathi went in 1969 to an astrologer to get her 6-month-old son’s horoscope. Based on planetary changes in the previous year, the astrologer looked at the mother with awe and astonishment and said, “Your son’s fate had Raaja Yoham” (an auspicious planetary combination, translating to “royal union,” that signifies success, power, authority, and prosperity). “He will rule this country one day,” predicted the astrologer.

Should AKD who is an Abraham Kovoor follower and admires Abraham Lincoln as a great president, look the other way as these vote-getting stories are paraded? Should DBS, an honest journalist, even repeat the presidential mother’s tales?

Another Hindu dimension to AKD is caste. Among the Sinhalese a long name reinforces the bearer’s high caste status. AKD’s name is (p. 3) Dissanayake Mudiyansalage Anura Kumara Dissanayake, born on Nov. 24, 1968. Socially active Sinhalese informed me that he has shortened his name to Anura Kumara Dissanayake to show that as a Communist he is against caste. I asked my friend Bimal Ratnayake (the present Leader of the House) to verify this, but he said he does not know and has avoided me since.

The Wijeyawardene Publishing House (The Sunday Times, Sept. 29, 2024) names the mother as Seelawathi and the sister as Sriyalatha. A slight twist that does not take away from the Tamil roots of the names and reminds me of Senarat Parnawitane twisting Madurai epitomising high Tamil culture into Mathura to make it North Indian as part of how Peradeniya’s historian Prof. Ananda Guruge described Paranavitane: “[A] Writer of Historical Fiction in Sanskrit.”

A Fantastic Book

This is a fantastic book from an experienced and well-respected Tamil journalist DBS Jeyaraj. It makes short, light reading, so it is easy to digest. DBS is a rare journalist who was independent of the LTTE, explaining why he gets a column in The Daily Mirror often. He is reliable and insightful.  He paid for his independence when LTTE-ers in Toronto beat him up for running his hot-selling weeklies, Senthaamarai and Manjarie.

LTTE thugs broke his leg because his Tamil writings had reach. I visited him in hospital at the time. After that he was in hiding and tended to write more in English, with less reach. In this period, to meet him I went to a restaurant in an isolated corner of Toronto and even there took a secluded table. That is how brave he is.

Said a reader, a faculty Dean no less, of DBS during the height of the war. DBS wrote of going down a lane in Vavuniya, describing the many turns he took down that lane. The Dean found it doubtful, so he went down the same lane and found that every turn was exactly as DBS described! This book awakens the past we tend to forget.

R. Sampanthan and K.S. Kuhathasan: Devolution

I am particularly glad to read of the election of Trinco MP Kuhathasan, despite hopes not being too high. Nominated by Sampanthan as Chief Guest to the graduation ceremony at Baldaeus Theological College in Nilaveli, he honoured us by coming.

We were an isolated college some 5 km from the main road with no bus service or road beyond the Eastern University Trinco Campus. My wife and I asked Mr. Sampanthan and Mr. Kuhathasan for help in getting the road extended to spare students the long walk. We now have a carpet road.

We like to think that they had something to do with it.

In teaching at the college, I use this as a lesson to my students on the importance of close connections between us and our rulers so that our needs are freely expressed and addressed easily.

The JVP government is proving to be the antithesis of this lesson where we do not know the people appointed to rule us. We cannot even speak to AKD who it is said speaks neither English nor Tamil, but then how is he a genuine science graduate if he cannot speak to us in English?

Translator Veeragathy Thanabalasingham and Author D.B.S. Jeyaraj

An old boy of Hartley College, Point Pedro, Thanabalasingham is the former chief editor of The Thinakkural (daily and weekly).

Having served there as a sub-editor and parliamentary reporter for twelve years, he joined The Thinakkural as its first news editor in April 1997, and in April 2004, took over as the editor. In retirement, he served Virakesari again as an editorial consultant till December 2020. He also edited the fortnightly socio-political magazine Samakalam, a publication of Express Newspapers (Ceylon).

K. Pooranampillai (KP) who came as my principal in 1967 after retiring from Hartley, left an indelible stamp on Hartley students as being good in English including neat handwriting, script-letter by letter. Thanabalasingham missing the better part of KP’s time, was a beneficiary of the KP heritage through the teachers KP trained.

Thus it was that when free thought in Tamil vanished under the LTTE, Thanabalasingham quickly adapted to English writing for The Island, and now writes regularly for Sunday Morning and contributes to online digital publications in English and Tamil. He made a name for himself and sustains free thinking among Tamils to this day through writing and organizing seminars, especially in Colombo and Jaffna.

Thanabalasingham has been writing to Tamil newspapers, magazines and digital publications on local and international political affairs regularly. In the field of journalism for more than four decades, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Sri Lanka Press Institute and Editors Guild of Sri Lanka in 2015.

The author of this book, David Buell Sabapathy Jeyaraj (born May 21, 1954; aka D. B. S. Jeyaraj or DBS) is a Tamil Canadian freelance journalist from Sri Lanka. The Buells and Hooles are intermarried. He currently writes articles for two Sri Lankan newspapers, The Daily Mirror and the Daily FT.

He is from a Methodist family, his mother being from the Kaddaively in northern Jaffna. Still claiming the Methodist appellation he says he married a Hindu woman in November 1992. His bio is widely available.

Some Criticism, Meaning No Detraction

Activist Swasthika Arulingam made a somewhat critical comment on the title of the book, that AKD’s assumption of the executive presidency or the formation of the Government by the NPP is not a class change of political power.

Moreover, AKD was not the first left-wing President as claimed in the book title. It was Chandrika Bandaranaike. Running as the People’s Alliance candidate, she won with a record 62.28% of the popular vote, bettering  AKD’s 55.89%.

DBS has improperly conferred a doctorate on Abraham Kovoor. He also says Kovoor migrated from India and taught for many years at St. Thomas’ Mount Lavinia. However, he first came to Jaffna and taught for some 15 years at Jaffna College (1938-43) whereas he taught only from 1947 to 1953, six years together, at Richmond College and St. Thomas’ – details from Wikipedia. His son and my boss Aries Kovoor (truly a professor) has mentioned a connection with Jaffna Central College.

As to the claim that AKD would “often swim the entire length (3 km) of Nuwara Wewa tank constructed by King Valagamba in the first century,” the actual length is 4 km. Is “entire length” an exaggeration of AKD’s stamina?

The book is also weak on dates and tends to repeat material because, I think, the articles were written on different dates and the same material had to be reinforced on the different dates as they appeared. The preface date is off by 2 decades.

Another example is the claim (p.4) that that a few weeks before the presidential election around 1990, AKD’s teachers feted him and that is one reason he won the election. This is far-fetched as he would not go to Parliament until the year 2000.

There is a little elasticity on his university selection. DBS says (p. 15) that AKD took one year’s break from Peradeniya and then resumed in1992 at Kelaniya. That is his break began in 1991 at age 23 or so. Then he says (p. 15) the  JVP organized its convention in Tangalle in 1995 and at the same time [this cannot be] he resumed his degree studies in 1992 and got his physical science degree in 1995. If he truly studied at Peradeniya, did he get credit for that? If he got credit (unless he passed no exam at Peradeniya) why did his Kelaniya B.Sc. general degree take the normal three-years?

Like the dates, the numbers are also weak. DBS says (p. 10) that in the 3-year second JVP rebellion, thousands were killed by the JVP and the police, the para-military and the military forces. He adds that there is no good estimate of those killed by the security forces and other government front groups and that there are definitive figures on the numbers killed by the JVP. That is not fair reporting.

Then on p. 11 he enumerates that those Killed by the JVP are 487 public servants; 343 policemen; 209 home-guards; 16 political leaders; 2 Catholic priests; 52 school principals; 4 doctors, and 4945 citizens.  Were the others not citizens? These include, he confusingly says, 30 Buddhist monks, two doctors, 18 estate superintendents and 27 trade unionists; besides 93 soldiers and 69 family members of soldiers.

Ramalingam Chanthirasekar

DBS’ description of now Minister Ramalingam Chanthirasekar is incorrect – DBS avers that many fisherfolk voted for him and this must be related to Chanthirasekar’s appointment as minister. No! I have known him for years and he kept in touch working hard for the party. I was present at the JVP’s Columbuthurai meeting just before the parliamentary election when AKD promised he would be nominated and made a minister. That was before any fisherfolk voted for Chanthirasekar. I am a little disappointed that there are now unverified corruption complaints from my press friends against a man who worked so hard.

The Three Phases of the JVP: The First

DBS lists the JVP’s three phases – in 1971, in 1988 and now the third, its gentrification following Premadasa’s obliteration.

Having lived through all three JVP phases, I have witnessed some of the JVP’s most egregious atrocities in Phase I when I was at Moratuwa Hostel. Close upon every midnight a fellow came on his motor scooter to train the JVP-ers. I found a box of bullets hidden behind the commode and took it because it seemed a nice souvenir. A senior friend scolded me and asked me to return it where I had found it lest I was attacked by either party. He was subsequently arrested as a JVP-er!

I am aware that these activities were reported to police high-ups who did nothing because the JVP had been campaigning for the ULF’s election in May 1970.

Except for one or two whom I had befriended, JVP-ers were rowdies imbued with Sinhalese communalism so typical in the standardisation era. For example, in the dining hall there were rows of tables in line with benches in front and behind to eat from. The JVP-ers would lounge on one bench and stretch their legs across to benches for the next table thereby blocking our way. This forced us to come back from the other end of the table rows.

Unfortunately for the JVP, one group attacked on the morning of 5 April 1971 the Wellawaya Police Station assigned to it for attack whereas the coordinated surprise attack everywhere was to be in the evening at 11 pm.

Surprise was lost. The army easily crushed the rebellion. We were asked immediately to vacate our hostels. My brother and I began our journey to Jaffna, taking one short bus ride after another as long-distance buses were cancelled. Even on these short rides the forces stopped passengers to inspect our bags as the LTTE would do 30 years later.

Unlike in the LTTE days when we were thoroughly examined, we were let off in 1971 as soon as we were identified as Tamil. It was the first time Tamils were favoured by the Sinhalese forces.

We finally made it to Puttalam where a Tamil family accommodated several dozens of us on their veranda. The next day in the Nochiyagama jungles we saw JVP-ers on trees with their guns. At a roundabout entering Anuradhapura were murdered JVP-ers radially stretched out neatly like 20 or more hands of a clock. We were terrified.

We were relieved when Mr. Vijeyanathan Hensman from St. James’ Nallur came by in his A40-Devonshire car and gave a ride home.

After the university reopened, I would go for the weekends to the home of Ernest B. Anketell at College Avenue in Mount Lavinia. He had been the President of the Tamil University and IESL President. He was my Periappah (Big-Father). In the mornings around 4 am we could hear blazing machine guns. We were told it was hardcore JVP-ers being executed at the Mount Lavinia bus stand.

It would have been enlightening if DBS had covered the first insurrection which few today know of. I suppose that is because AKD was still young although it is verily a part of his heritage.

The book is very upbeat about AKD. I understand that because I too, having received promises from the UNP and the SLFP with nothing delivered, was exhilarated in the aftermath of the Aragalya, with the potential to see change. Today, a year after AJD assumed reins, there are no signs of that change for Tamils and Muslims. However, we have no choice but to dream for the promised land.

The JVP’s Communalism

DBS brings out forcefully the JVP’s communalism. He is definitive about its anti-Tamil stance (p. 30-31); that it took a very harsh communalist stand in matters concerning Tamils. It was under the leadership of the vicious communalist Somawansa Amarasingha. The JVP took a hardline position against the merger of the Northern and Eastern Provinces. At the time, says DBS, the JVP tried to explain that its positions were not against ordinary Tamils but only in opposition to the LTTE’s terrorism and separatism. Tell it to the Marines, as Americans would say.

DBS explicates, the JVP organized numerous seminars against the North-East merger, putting up thousands of wall-posters and distributing lakhs of handbills. They claimed it their duty. However, it is the undeniable truth (in DBS’s words) that the JVP adopted positions against the Tamil people, and that this is beyond question.

DBS points out (p. 22) that JVP-ers including AKD filed a Fundamental Rights Plaint giving 5 reasons against tsunami relief under the LTTE.

The strongest indictment against AKD (p. 38) is that the arch-communalist Somawansa Amarasingha proposed Anura as the next JVP leader, at the expense of AKD’s seniors.

The JVP helped campaign for Rajapaksa in Nov. 2005 (p. 23) and helped him win. Imagine! It sabotaged Chandrika claiming they were against the LTTE and yet they worked for Rajapaksa with the LTTE when the LTTE prevented Tamils from voting and took some Rs. 800 million for that! The JVP and LTTE were Rajapaksa’s Thomson and Thompson of Tin Tin.

The US $300 crores for tsunami relief (p. 21) with the LTTE controlling funds for Tamil areas was sabotaged by the JVP when it left the government on June 16, 2005 opposing P-TOMS.

Several Matters of Interest

Reading the book is for the reader. On p. 19 a foreign ambassador is said to have helped Mangala Samaraweera form a united party with the JVP for the 2004 parliamentary elections. The triumph of the Federal Party in the East and rout in the North are the best parts of the book.

Transliteration

I see some transliteration inconsistencies. Without correct transliteration, the next generation will use wrong pronunciations in speaking English – like a VC (later UGC Member) with a British doctorate who always pronounces the word “the” as “thi” as if it is stylish and she has never heard of “tha” or the difference.

I have been struggling with translating the book Heritage Histories. This makes me appreciative of Thanabalasingham’s work. Mine is a struggle in its fourth round. Although I schooled in Tamil till university and entered answering in Tamil, Bishop S. Jebanesan’s telling me he cannot understand anything, made me realise that translation is no easy task. The name Percival itself issues many challenges. Our children’s future is at stake. May God grant me the strength to get the 4^th attempt right.