By Michael Roberts –
Dr. Michael Roberts
The full-frontal challenges from Janaka Perera and Daya Hewapathrane[1] to my advocacy of the National Anthem being sung in Sinhala and Tamil are on different scales, the one moderate and the latter extremist/chauvinist. But they are not totally apart. Both indulge in cherry-picking examples from the world beyond Sri Lanka to bolster their prejudices. More significantly, the moderate claims of JP work insidiously to bolster the extremists like DH and, worse still, to alienate moderate Tamils (the extremist Tamils, in my assessment, are beyond conversion to amity or sanity).
Perera desires the national anthem to be presented lean – in the official language Sinhala. Here, “lean” is “mean” — miserly, exclusive, hostile and dominating. It is a rejection of the Buddhist spirit of almsgiving and the Sinhala New Year practices of dana, where one and all are presented with one’s food and where one feeds strangers.[2]
Moreover, it denies voice—and thus SPACE—to the second of our official languages, namely, Tamil (the mother tongue for most SL Tamils, Indian Tamils and Muslims). As DBS Jeyaraj tells us from Canada[3] that it was Pundit M. Nallathamby who translated Ananda Samaraakoon’s “Namo Namo Maathaa” into Tamil as “Namo Namo Thaaye.” That was in 1950. Nallathamby passed away in May 1951 a few months before “the poem was approved officially as the national anthem by the then UNP Govt in November 1951.”[4]
The rescinding of this important symbolic gesture by some governments that followed and now by the Gotabaya Presidency is inexcusable, foolhardy, mean and uncharitable.
Janaka Perera defends this decision by pointing to the use of one language in near-neighbour India and by a globetrotting question about the number of countries that resort to multiple languages on such occasions. This is a specious defence. Sri Lanka must pursue what is best for herself. When I referred to the example of dual language anthems at South African and Kiwi rugger matches it was in order to emphasize the manifest multi-racial enthusiasm that one witnessed on those occasions among (and within the hearts of) the players as well as the home crowds amassed at the stadiums. In brief, it was to provide the potential for the dissemination of currents of amity in states such as South Africa that had been racially fractured.
So, the comparative ‘trip’ was meant to underline the prospect of some fellowship across the ethnic divide being generated by a meaningful and moving melody. Clearly, such a step would not transform Sri Lankan politics like some magic wand. It would be one small step, a beginning.
Perera, to his credit, recognises the force of the Sinhala Only movement in the 1950s and 1960s in generating the political divide between the Tamil and Sinhala peoples in the island. But he then dismisses the link between that movement and subsequent acts that have jettisoned the dual presentation of Sri Lanka Maathaa – a symbolic gesture of equivalent status – at a momentous heart-warming moment of self-reflection.
In his miserly meanness, therefore, Perera becomes an ally of those forces which took the “1956 Revolution” to the extremes – extremes which eventually consigned the island state to periodic ethnic clashes and decades of war. The causes of this divide, of course, were complex and included the upsurge of the underprivileged lower middle classes challenging the snooty English-educated and Westernized upper classes holding the reins of power. The jettisoning of the Tamil voice at Independence Day has been one victim – but not the only one – of these complex currents of history.
Today, it seems, that Daya Hewapathirane is one of the drumbeaters of the forceful Sinhala Only currents of the 1950s to 1970s-and-thereafter – currents that had lineages going further back in time. That he cites and lauds Medagoda Abhayatissa Thera is truly in step with this current of history. Such Buddhist monks as Baddegama Vimalawansa, Devamottawe Amarawansa, Talpawila Seelawansa, Mapitigama Buddharakkhita, Mottunne Indasara, Medagoda Sumanatissa, Kotagama Vachissara and Walpola Rahula[5] were at the vociferous cutting edge of virulent Sinhala extremism.
As we know only too well, those extremist claims, and the push for the reins of government in ways that reduced Tamil ‘space’ and position, widened the ethnic political divide.
Recognising the historical force of these Sinhala and/or Sinhala Buddhist-strands of extremism should not blind us to the hand of Tamil extremism in the divisions that developed from the 1930s and 1940s. Among these factors were the fifty/fifty demand pressed by Ponnambalam and the Tamil Congress from the 1930s and the outrageous and ahistorical claims to “Tamil homelands” presented by the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi at its inaugural rally at Maradana on 18th December 1949.[6]
ITAK stood for “The Federal Freedom Party of the Tamil-speaking People of Sri Lanka” …. and is more widely known as the “Federal Party.” This initial step into the public domain by the Tamil political spokesmen of that day is highly significant in marking their own local ‘imperialism’: a brazen encompassment of the Muslim peoples within Sri Lanka without any assent or encouragement from those people or their leaders.
I stress, here, that the historical assertions within the Federal Party’s set of demands in 1949, especially those pertaining to Tamil inhabitation of the lands identified in British times as the “Eastern Province,” have been dissected and eviscerated by Gerald Peiris –beginning with his original article in 1985.[7] Nevertheless, the Tamil intelligentsia has continued to press their historical claims in insidious, and even dishonest, manner. The concept of “Tamil homelands” still lurks as a prominent pillar in the platform of leading elements of the TNA, while Wigneswaran (Chief Minister of the Northern Province at one stage recently) has been vehement in presenting this argument;[8] and there is little doubt that it is an axiom among Tamil extremists in the diaspora.
These Tamil extremists, the sneaky lot as well as the vociferous lot, are part of the problems we face today. Reconciliation and concession are anathema to their mode of thinking. Mutatis mutandis, this assertion applies to Sinhala extremists of the calibre of Medagoda Abhayatissa Thera and Daya Hewapathirane. As so often in politics, the extremists feed off each other.
It is sad, then, that Janaka Perea cannot see how his more moderate reading of the politics of the last seventy years feeds into the adamantine positions of Daya Hewapathirane et al. When Hewapathirane asserts that the “Tamils are a small non-indigenous minority community” residing within this our island, he is postulating an outrageous hegemonic claim. It is Hitler-like in its exclusivity and possessiveness.
Hewapathirane is not alive to the possibility that some playful critic could pursue his mode of thinking to a logical conclusion and claim that the island belonged to the descendants of the stone-age aboriginal people who resided in the island before migrants from northern India arrived at some point in the millennium BC. Behind this type of assertion one can perceive extreme danger: within its bland concoctions, one sees (A) ahistorical assessments and (B) fascist modalities of thought.
While Janaka Perera is not in this category, his lean meanness feeds such Sinhala and/or Sinhala Buddhist extremists. ….. and the latter thereby sustain Tamil extremists. Our world is a vicious circle.
PS: It follows that President Gotabaya has been quite unstatesmanlike in insisting on the National Anthem being rendered n Sinhala on the 4th of February. He has missed a wonderful opportunity just like his elder brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa. at the moment when the armed forces had defeated the Tamil Tigers. The latter’s Victory Day Speech was quite vacuous and full of shibboleths. I made my criticisms public then.[9] This note, here today, marks my disappointment and criticism of President Gotabaya for his failure to embrace both indigenous languages expressed in an evocative medium at a momentous occasion.
I witnessed a North African standing next to meat Galle Face Hotel during the opening ceremony for a conference organised by a German Foundation exclaim in delight when “Namo Namo Maathaa” was presented by a small choir. When Brian Gilbertson, a talented Australian operatic singer, rendered the anthem in Sinhala at Adelaide Oval in 1996 the You Tube recording presented in my website Cricketique drew these responses
- “Simply fabulous. Had goose pimples when the SL anthem was sung” – Sadha Ratnasinghe
- “As a Sri Lankan New Zealander thanks” – Lily Edwardes
- “Heart-warming and uplifting” – Ajit Alphonsus
- “Wow!” Sachitra Waralwaththa
So, Gotabaya and his advisors missed a wonderful opportunity to set the programme of reconciliation rolling.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Lily de Silva: “Giving in the Pali Canon,” ……. https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/various/wheel367.html#pali
Sooriya Gunasekara 2017 “Elara was not a Tamil – Part I and Part II,” 10 April 2017, http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2017/04/10/elara-was-not-a-tamil/
DBS Jeyaraj 2020 “Tamils Want To Sing The National Anthem In Their Mother Tongue,” http.//dbsjeyaraj.com/
DBS Jeyaraj 2020 “Singing the National Anthem in the Sinhala and tamil Languages,” 4 Feb 2020,http://dbsjeyaraj.com/dbsj/archives/66925
Steven Kemper, 1991 The presence of the past. Chronicles, politics, and culture in Sinhala life, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Asko Parpola: 2002 “Pandaih and Sita On the Historical Background on the Sanskrit Epics” in Journal of the American Oriental Society),
Gerald H Peiris 1991 “An Appraisal of the Concept of a Traditional Tamil Homeland in Sri Lanka,” Ethnic Studies Report, IX (1): 1991: 13-39.
Gerald H Peiris 2006 “Disputes over Territorial Claims’ in Sri Lanka,” in Challenges of the New Millennium, Kandy: Kandy Books, pp. 385-412
Gerald H Peiris 2017 “Land Policy and Territorial Claims,” in Sri Lanka: Land Policy for Sustained Development – to strengthen the struggle for survival, Colombo: Visidunu Prakashakayo, pp. 293-322
Harim Peiris, 2018 “Chief Minister Wigneswaran breaks with the TNA and forms the TMA.” 31 October 2018, https://groundviews.org/2018/10/31/chief-minister-wigneswaran-breaks-with-tna-and-forms-the-tma/
Michael Roberts, 1993 “Nationalism, the past and the present: the case of Sri Lanka,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, January 1993, 16: 133-161.
Michael Roberts, 2001 “Sinhala-ness and Sinhala nationalism,” Colombo: Marga Monograph Series on A History of Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka: Recollection, Reinterpretation and Reconciliation, Colombo: Marga Monograph Series, No 4.
Roberts, Michael 2009 “Some pillars for Lanka’s future,’ Frontline, 19 June 2009, 26: 24-27.
Roberts, Michael 2009 “Sinhala mindset,” 9 Dec. 2009, https://thuppahi.wordpress.com/the-sinhala-mind-set/
Michael Roberts 2013 “Mixed Messages and Bland Oversimplification in President Rajpaksa’s Independence Day Speech,” 11 February 2013, https://groundviews.org/2013/02/11/mixed-messages-and-bland-oversimplification-in-president-rajapaksas-independence-day-speech/
Michael Roberts 2014 Tamil Person and State. Pictorial, Colombo, Vijitha Yapa Publications, 2014, Appendix V, pp. 273-92
Thevarajah 2019 “Sri Lanka: Tamil People’s Council calls rally to stir up Tamil nationalism,” 14 September 2019, https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/09/14/tpfw-s14.html
Shenali Waduge 2018 “ITAK’s separatist demands & pro-LTTE statements,” 20 December 2018, https://www.shenaliwaduge.com/itaks-separatist-demands-pro-ltte-statements/
END NOTES
[1] SEE https://thuppahi.wordpress.com/2020/02/05/for-the-singing-of-the-national-anthem-in-sinhala-only-two-adamant-voices/. ……..I have not met either Perera or Hewapathirane and do not have any biographical information about them.
[2] See Lily de Silva, n. d.
[3] See http://dbsjey[3] Jeyaraj was a frontline journalist in Colombo and a keen rugger fan in the 1970s and 1980s — before he migrated to Canada. He was, and still remains, a moderate Tamil. He paid for his moderation: he was assaulted severely at one point in Toronto.
[4] See http://dbsjeyaraj.com/
[5] This list has been compiled with the assistance of my Aloysian mate KK de Silva.
[6] For the full text of their inaugural programme, see Roberts, Tamil Person & State. Pictorial, 2014, pp. 273-82.
[7] See Peiris 1991 which presents the original essay from Proceedings of the international conference on ‘Economic Dimensions of Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka, (International Centre for Ethnic Studies, August 1985). Note that Radhika Coomaraswamy assigned a Tamil geographer to examine the detailed argumentst in the Peiris work. She did but could not fault it.
[8] See Goonasekera 2017; Thevarajah 2019, and Waduge 2018. Wigneswaran was a member of the TNA but broke away in late 2018. It is my conjecture that he is a Colombo Tamil who is trying to be more nativist and Jaffna Tamil than all the local Jaffnese in one boiling pot. He was born in Colombo in 1939 and attended Royal College (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._V._Vigneswaran).
[9] See “Some Pillars for Lanka’s Future” in Frontline, 2009. Also see Roberts “Mixed Messages,” 2013
ajith / February 8, 2020
“So, Gotabaya and his advisors missed a wonderful opportunity to set the programme of reconciliation rolling.”
for them, the word “reconciliation” is poisionous. They built up their power based on buddhist Sinhala fundamentalism and violence. As former Northern Governor pointed out half of the Sinhala will get heart attack if they know the truth that Lord Buddha is not Sinhala and King Viyaja is not Sinhala.
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Adrian / February 8, 2020
Ajith you have completely misunderstood the position as have many. It doesn’t matter whether the Buddha and Vijaya were Sinhala or not just as it doesn’t matter that Sri Vickrama was South Indian. Was St George English? No he was a Turk. If you listen to the hymn Jerusalem you will think that Jesus visited and blessed England.
You have to understand that every race (even the Tamils) are entitled to their myths. We are humans not robots.
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Dr. Gnana Sankaralingam / February 9, 2020
“The historical assertions pertaining to Tamil habitation of the lands identified during British times as eastern province has been dissected and eviscerated by Gerald Pieris” – What a stupid statement from a confirmed racist, especially when evidence have emerged to make this GP fellow a fool. The original inhabitants of eastern province are the Veddhas, who unfortunately for Sinhala racists like Pieris and Roberts have been Tamilized and are living in an area extending from Mutur to Kumana. Recently seat of rule of Veddhas was found in Vaharai proving that they were a civilized people. There had been three stone inscriptions in Tamil dated more than 2000 years found in Mahiladitivu and Kathiraveli in Batticaloa and in Weber stadium in Trincomalee while not a single stone inscription in Sinhala has been found in anywhere in eastern province till now. This proves that Tamils were the next ethnic group to inhabit eastern province after the Veddhas. Census done shows that Sinhala population was 3% in Trincomalee district (Gomarankadawela) and 5% in Batticaloa district (Lahugala and Inginiyagala). (There was no Amparai district then). It was only after independence demographic pattern was altered by Sinhala colonization and also by detaching two revenue districts from Uva and attaching them to East in order to create a Sinhala majority Amparai district. These are clear cut evidence to show that eastern province is a traditional area of Tamils and not that of Sinhalese. With modern technology you cannot hide the truth.
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Eagle Eye / February 9, 2020
Ajith,
“for them, the word “reconciliation” is poisionous.”
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What you say is applicable to racist Malabar Wellala politicians. Despite spending lot of tax payers’ money to promote ‘reconciliation’, the kind of comments e.g. Sinhalayo are not welcome in the North and demands put forward by racist Wellala bigots e.g. Buddhist temples in the North and East should be removed show that all the money and effort went in to promote reconciliation have gone down the drain. Some money may have gone down the drain and ended up in bank accounts of ‘Champions’ of reconciliation.
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rbh / February 8, 2020
Our Anthem For Hearts And Minds
To make people feel they are important, if you speak in a language to man he ponder some understan some not if you talk in his language it will be in his heart, If objectives cannot be handled, don’t adjust the objective, adjust the steps.
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Lankan / February 8, 2020
Suggestion for anthem- sing first verse in Sinhala, second in Tamil.
I think first two verses are enough for most occassions, but if whole anthem needs to be sung, follow the same pattern with remaining verses.
Is there anything that makes above impractical?
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rajash / February 8, 2020
one of the cricket commentators famously said that the Sri Lanka national anthem goes on and on and on…
as you suggested lets truncate it to two paragraphs.
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Eagle Eye / February 8, 2020
If National Anthem to be sung in another language, it should be in Vedda language because they are the ‘Native Minority’ in Sinhale who lived with Sinhalayo from time immemorial and fought in liberation struggles with Sinhalayo against British colonial rule.
It is a pity that our politicians do not give due place for Vedda Eththo. When our politicians refer to minorities they say ‘Demala, Muslim, Burgher and Malay’ but do not mention Vedda Eththo. This is really unfair. During British rule, Demalu and Muslims were with British and helped them to oppress and kill Sinhalayo. Malays are mercenaries brought by Dutch and British to kill Sinhalayo.
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I am curious to know whether Uruwarige Wannila Eththo was invited to the Independence Day celebration.
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Adrian / February 8, 2020
A simple way to sort the anthem problem is to learn Sinhala, it will be useful in many other ways too. Don’t the Burghers and Muslims sing the anthem in Sinhala?
.
The USA has more Spanish speakers than Spain (53m). Can you imagine a day when the Star Spangled Banner will be sung in Spanish?
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Native Vedda / February 9, 2020
Adrian
Aged 13 3/4
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“A simple way to sort the anthem problem is to learn Sinhala, it will be useful in many other ways too.”
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In what way do you consider Sinhala will be useful,
develop artificial intelligence,
send rockets the Moon/Mars and return,
make commercially successful Holly/Bolly wood movies for international market, work at the UN bodies or Google,
….
….
Genetic editing,
Drip irrigation,
…
If it is so useful why don’t you convince BJP adapt Sinhalese as the official South Asian regional language.
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In an interview to Hindu Clever Dick Mahinda told,
“look around the world, the national anthem is sung primarily in one language. In India, you have so many languages, yet on your national days, you sing it one language. Our structure is the same.”
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If this smartass believed in what he was saying then the National Anthem should have been sung in Tamil for Indian National Anthem is sung in Bengali (population is about 7%).
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Next time around please send Wimal Sangili Windbag Weerawansa to advise Modi change the Hindian national anthem from Bengali to Hindi, else the Bengali anthem would become a joke.
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Don’t you think it is better to keep Mahinda’s mouth shut and focus on the primary purpose of the visit to Hindia (with his begging bowl)?
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What’s wrong with you people?
Why can’t you people not sit on your brain?
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Tamil from the north / February 9, 2020
Adrian, why don’t you learn Tamil? The rights the Sinhalese have to this island is the same rights the Tamils have to this island, which is ZERO!!!!!! This land belongs to the Natives and we and you stole it from them. So just let it go and live in peace with everyone.
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Rohan / February 10, 2020
Sinhalese racist the Burghers and Muslims are recent immigrants to the island and trying to compare them to the Tamils who have far older history in the island than the Sinhalese and have ruled their lands is silly , only someone stupid will try this. This is like comparing to Scots in the UK with Indian and West Indian immigrants. Funny the biggest anti Tamils advocating Sinhalese only are all the recent Sinhalised descendants of South Indian immigrants . Eg; Berewa Weerawansa , whose ancestors were dancing , at various funeral processions , to the beat of the Para Melam in Tamil Nadu . They were given some money and some food. May be you are one of them
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Chola Dynasty / February 8, 2020
Let us review a nasty secret about how the wired wiring of brain functions for most Tamils and Sinhalese in SL.
Tamils normally thrive in hostile environments but they will under perform if no one challenges them.
Sinhalese normally perform exceptionally well in known environments but they would stumble if someone mess-up with their routine before they figure that out.
In order to taken advantage of this as old as Chola time animosity between these two communities, northerners came up with a simplified secret formula.
In 70s, Tamils complained about losing less than 100 engineering and medical seats at third grade SL universities. Now they have created a multimillion dollar diaspora economy to provide a life line to their cousins in SL. Someone joked that now a day tens of thousands of Tamil kids are attending elite universities. Most of them are first generation university graduates and sadly we still couldn’t crack a SL university name with three digits ranking in World University ranking.
Now we can guess why Raja’s dominance in SL was preferred at the expense of poor Rani in 2004 election even that would had been a one way ticket with no return for those election influencers!
Raja #1 fell into the trap in 2010 and now Raja #2’s turn in 2020 to ignite the Chola flam again to wake up the Tamils to follow Gandhi route to do what they are good at in SL.
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JD / February 8, 2020
What I understand here, not only Europeans but also Eurasians know what is exactly good for Asians. It is simply superiority complex which says, after the almighty, we run everything else. So do that way. But, Eurasians can not force their great grand fathers living in their native countries. Grand children have forgotten how they ripped, raped, seduced, destroyed the poor colonies. Now, not native to any country, yet preach the superiority ideology. They can not be humble to accept, understand, do not feel empathy to say, natives feel some thing that is theirs’ own. Unfortunately, I do not feel it. Christian mentality where it says Almight created everything and those he ran it and now we have to run it as their humble subjects.
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Lester / February 9, 2020
“the extremist Tamils, in my assessment, are beyond conversion to amity or sanity…”
Exactly. They are just using this anthem issue for propaganda purposes. They will never acknowledge a shared anthem with Sinhalese or Muslims, just like they have their own Tiger flag and so-called Eelam map. For these people, the “anthem” is another way to claim “discrimination” and get “federalism”, the first step towards a separate country. In any case, the language of the anthem is not an important issue. The anthem is only sung at a few official functions, at most 3 or 4 times a year. The anthem has no effect on government or economic policy.
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C. B. Goonatilake / February 9, 2020
An interesting issue with language, and its status in the context of the broader society, concerns mainly to those of the so-called “lower middle class”, and to those on the upper rungs of the class ladder. People at the bottom couldn’t care less, generally. Their concerns are economic, how to get the basic food, medicine, schooling etc. And this segment is the majority in the country. I know, because I live among them.
The lower middle class is the most politically influential class in the country. Lacking a broader education and an enlightened upbringing, they are generally marrow-minded. It is easy for politicians, therefore, to stir up this group on an inane issue such as language and its other manifestations, such as singing the national anthem. Religion is another of such issues. And politicians have used language and religion as their main political tools because they are otherwise bankrupt with regards to ideas for development, be it economic, social, environmental, security or anything else that matters more to a majority.
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Native Vedda / February 9, 2020
C. B. Goonatilake
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“People at the bottom couldn’t care less, generally. Their concerns are economic, how to get the basic food, medicine, schooling etc.”
–
However these are the people who form part of the lumpenproletariat, ready to sacrifice their life to protect the interests of racist noisy minority the Sinhala/Buddhist racists. They are ready to kill and be killed in racially motivated riots and mostly serving the armed forces.
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“And politicians have used language and religion as their main political tools because they are otherwise bankrupt with regards to ideas for development, be it economic, social, environmental, security or anything else that matters more to a majority.”
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Not only they are suffering from constipation of ideas but they mostly crooks, murderers …………….. are hiding behind language and especially religion.
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Rohan / February 9, 2020
An article from a well known pro Sinhalese , war crimes denying anti Tamil , half caste Burgher now living in Australia. Look at all the responses , other than one or two the rest from other fellow Sinhalese racist and extremists. So far not a single Tamil even your so called extremists ones and this includes the late LTTE leader , has ever advocated or denied deprivations of Sinhalese rights or their right to their land and their history. On the contrary even many of the so called moderate Sinhalese and their supporters and this includes you , constantly want to deny the island’s Tamil people their rights , history and want to marginalise them and keep them under Sinhalese rule. This is what you are also stating very cunningly, give Tamils some space , so that they do not rebel but firmly keep them under Sinhalese rule. This the reason the Sinhalese racists have rushed to support you. Funny all these bloody half caste Burghers were the first to flee Sri Lanka to the west , to escape Sinhalese racism and forced imposition of Sinhalese but now support Sinhalese racism and Sinhalese Buddhist Fascism and the marginalisation of the island’s indigenous Tamils , from the distance , comfort and safety of their western homes. Bunch of moronic hypocrites. May be because 99% of the Burghers have partially Sinhalese. Stating the truth about the ancient history of the Tamils , their homelands and their marginalisation , in not extremism . May be for pro Sinhalese half caste Burgher anti Tamils like you, as you do not want the truth to be told. Justice Vigneswaran is an educated learned judge , fluent in all three languages and comes from a renowned Jaffna Tamil family and is far more educated and learned than bigoted you . You are the racist extremist and bigot. Lastly the Eastern province has always been Tamil ruled by Tamil chieftains and neve been Sinhalese.
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Rohan / February 9, 2020
Lastly the Eastern province has always been Tamil ruled by Tamil chieftains and neve been Sinhalese. It came under the Jaffna kingdom and with the fall of the Jaffna kingdom , the Tamil chiefs of the east , requested the loose protection of the Tami-Sinhalese kings of Kandy but they were never under his rule. The Dutch when they took over the east from the Portuguese , gave the eastern areas and ports again under the loose protection of the Kandyan king ., in exchange for the spice estates down south. This was loose protection and the Tamil_Sinhalese kings never attempted to or dared to change the Tamil character or rule of these regions. These Kandyan kings only wanted access to a sea port , that they lost with the fall of Jaffna ( their allies). It was the Sinhalese kings and rulers who invited one European power or another , for their petty power games, just like they way they invited their Tamil kin from South India during ancient and medieval times. They created all this mess. It was the Tamil Jaffna kingdom what fought against European colonialism . Do not distort history. Using state power to ethnically cleanse hundreds of thousands of Tamils in the east and them settle Sinhalese on these lands and now state the east is ours will not work. Still 72% of the east speak Tamil and the Tamil speakers are the majority in all three eastern districts.
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Dr. Gnana Sankaralingam / February 9, 2020
He has no Burgher ancestry at all, but an African Sinhala hybrid who is suffering from inferiority complex and is trying to please the Sinhala gallery by being more Sinhalese than Sinhalese themselves. Ganging him with Burghers is an insult to that community. When white only policy was there in Australia, only those who had fair skin, and could prove that they are of pure Dutch or Portuguese ancestry were given immigration. it is only after 1970 when Australia opened up for others with darker complexion, that this fellow with African features was able to step in there.
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Eagle Eye / February 9, 2020
According to my findings, it is compulsory for Sinhala students to learn Demala language up to Grade 9. A monk studying in a Pirivena told me that they too have to learn Demala.
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According to my understanding, teaching Sinhala language to Demala students is discouraged by not appointing teachers which is the responsibility of Provincial Councils.
As a solution, graduates that will be appointed by this Government who have studied Sinhala should be sent to teach Sinhala in Demala schools.
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It should be made compulsory to hoist Sri Lankan flag and play/sing the National Anthem in Sinhala at the assembly in schools that receive public funds. No public funds should be given to schools that do not follow this requirement.
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Native Vedda / February 9, 2020
Eagle Brain Dead Blind Eye
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In a recent interview to Hindustan Times Mahinda said “that India is Sri Lanka’s relation while other nations are friends.”
Strangely enough I have to agree with him on this occasion.
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Even your hero the bastion of Sinhala/Buddhist fascism Mahind believes he is a descendant of South India. .
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Whats the matter with you dumbass?
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Eagle Eye / February 10, 2020
We can tell the truth to the don key about origin of Sinhalayo but cannot force the don key to accept the truth.
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Read:
Ithihasaya: 10 Shreniya, Adyapana Prakashana Departhamenthuwa, 2018.
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kebab / February 9, 2020
Like cutlery and plates a national anthem is copied from the British. Our kings had no national anthem.
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