Educational Reforms and Politics

First published in The Island on Friday 7, December 2007

There is talk about a new Education Act being introduced soon. Education reforms are not new to us. Significant changes have been made in the field of education in this country many times before, especially over the past seventy-five years. The 1931 grant of universal franchise led to reforms in many spheres that focused more attention than ever before on the welfare of the dispossessed majority of the indigenous population. These included reforms in the education field. The Free Education Act of 1944, the change of the medium of instruction in 1945, the takeover of private schools in 1961, and the various revisions introduced in the education system by successive governments both UNP-led and SLFP-led including the 1997 General Education Reforms were all sincere, well-meaning attempts at improving general education, implemented with varying degrees of success.

Broadly speaking, however, the history of educational reforms has not been one of steady progress, although some progress has definitely been achieved. The earlier initiatives such as the introduction of free education, the restoration of the native tongues as the mediums of instruction, and the takeover of private schools generally succeeded in achieving the expected results. These innovations maximized the participation of suburban and rural children in national schooling, and at least partly guaranteed some equality of opportunity for them in accessing education, which made it possible for many talented young men and women from hitherto neglected sections of the population to gain admission to the university in order to qualify for prestigious positions in the country. This enabled them to make a positive contribution to national development. Thus a fairly high level of success was witnessed during the first two decades following independence. Since about the early 1970’s a general slackening of the momentum of forward movement has been in evidence, with a widespread decline in the quality of education, student unrest, crises in school management, and a host of other ills. Some of these, no doubt, have been, paradoxically, concomitant with the rapid expansion of the availability of educational opportunity, and the government’s relative failure or ill-preparedness to accommodate large numbers of students with its insufficient resources.

Various governments, however, have made genuine attempts to fix these and other problems as best they could. In spite of this many problems still remain. Hence the perceived need for a new education act. In any case, reforms are the rule rather the exception in a fast changing society like ours.

In my opinion the relative failure or the imperfect success of educational reforms, especially over the last nearly four decades can be generally attributed to two major factors: the failure, on the part of legislators, to arrive at any consensual agreement about policies in the interest of the nation rather than that of their individual political parties, the result of which is a general lack of commitment to the continued pursuit of reforms enacted by one government when it is replaced by another (however, I will qualify this statement later); and the various drawbacks at the implementation level such as the poor quality of instructional materials, the lack of physical resources, inadequate training and motivation among teachers, absence of meaningful and supportive supervision of personnel, and so on.

Before going on further I would like to state a truism relevant to our subject: Not all problems affecting the youth of the country (in whom we are specifically interested when we talk about education) – the majority of them are receiving education in schools or in centres of higher learning - cannot be blamed exclusively on the shortcomings of the education system. Certain issues in education itself may be due to extraneous causes such as the poor economic performance of the country, political unrest, armed rebellion, natural disasters, etc. The education system of any country has no independent existence; it is inextricably bound with the general fortunes of the country as a whole. The rampant student unrest in our universities is partly due to frustration born out of fear and uncertainty about the future, and also to political opportunism which exploits such situations.

The general failure of many well-thought out, well-meaning development programmes , including those relating to education, in this country is due mainly to partisan politics and poor management. There are other negative factors that bear on the fate of well laid- out plans, but these two are the most important.

There is a tendency among the majority of our country’s political leaders to sacrifice national interest for the sake of their own personal political gain. We, the masses, elect our representatives expecting them to make our life better by exercising on our behalf our inalienable right to govern ourselves. We don’t send them to Parliament in order that they divide themselves into two rival teams called the government and the opposition and do nothing but scuttle the ship of state. Yet this is what usually happens.

The opposition seems to believe that it is their bounden duty to bring down the government by any means possible, not caring whether the government is doing right or wrong. But something that they have intentionally or unintentionally forgotten is that the majority of the common people of this country are literate thanks to free education, and are not so naïve as to fall for their mean stratagems all the time.

Unfortunately for us everything including what we eat is being politicized by self-seeking politicos; even food should not be accepted for its own sake unless it is grown locally or imported from abroad marked with a particular party label. What I mean by this hypothetical absurdity is that our politicians fail to reach a consensus when they ought to do so particularly in matters of vital national interest such as education, health, and public security.

The calamitous national malaise of mean politics which prevents wholehearted agreement on common people-friendly policies, whoever their progenitors, even when they subscribe to identical political views (such as those shared by the two main parties, the UNP and the SLFP) is one of the principal causes that have aborted a number of sound projects launched by different governments in the interest of public good.

In the decades immediately after independence the present level of mindless politicalization had not yet infected the Sri Lankan body politic. Therefore the changes introduced during what the late Mr Bandaranaike called the period of ‘transition’ (The country had only recently emerged from foreign domination then and was charting her own independent course) came to fruition without being foiled by political opportunists.

This problem of Sri Lanka’s own children fighting among themselves over her prostrate body in the name of resuscitating and defending her has not been totally ignored by all politicians. Some of them have even tried to do something about it. The circumstances of the 1997 educational reforms provide a good example. Work on these reforms started in 1991 under a UNP government, and came to a conclusion in 1997 during a PA government. Following is an extract from the introduction to the 1997 reforms:

Realizing the importance of pursuing a settled policy for Education which should

remain outside the ambit of day to day politics, a National Education Commission

was established in 1991. The mandate of the Commission was to advise the Government

on overall policy covering all aspects of Education in the country.

(General Education Reforms 1997 p.4)

True to the spirit of this statement the new administration under President Chandrika Bandaranaike accepted the documents produced by the first Commission, which she re-constituted at the expiry of its term. The new government also began the implementation of the recommended policies, as the introduction referred to above points out.

So the 1997 Educational Reforms, at least initially, enjoyed the best chance of success. Yet here too success has been partial. In this case the second factor I mentioned at the beginning seems to take a greater proportion of responsibility than the first (the ‘malaise’ I have dealt with above) for the reforms falling short of the target: namely failure in carrying through the reforms at the most vital school level, and this is not totally unrelated to the first.

The improvements proposed were very ambitious; the zeal of the reformers was unquestionable too. But whether they succeeded in inspiring the same level of motivation and commitment among the personnel responsible for implementing the programmes is a moot point. My feeling is that more attention should be paid by the architects of the new act to this aspect: the need to ensure the quality of instructional resources – textbooks, teachers, supportive materials, their equitable distribution across the country, etc -, the strict supervision and evaluation of the whole process, and its constant enrichment in response to the changing needs and conditions of the target population, i.e., the youth of our country.

On the whole however, the 1997 reforms have not been a total failure. In some respects constructive measures have been implemented successfully to remedy certain chronic shortcomings of the education system.

For example, a longstanding criticism of our schooling system is that there is a mismatch between the courses offered by our institutions of higher learning and the real needs of the society with the result that the young people who pass through this system are unemployable because they don’t possess the expertise that they require to perform in the jobs on offer outside. It was a senior Sri Lankan university don who commented, ‘The university has departments, the society has problems’. The 1997 reforms made an attempt to address this problem among others.

By a welcome coincidence, when I was halfway through this essay, I found the text of the speech by Minister of Higher Education Professor Wiswa Warnapala at the convocation of the SLIATE on 23^rd November at the BMICH reproduced in The Island (Tuesday 4^th December, 2007). He served as a member of the ‘Presidential Task Force on General Education 1997’ in his capacity as the then Deputy Minister of Education and Higher Education.

The establishment of the SLIATE during President Chandrika Bandaranaike’s first term of office (1994-2000) was a result of these reforms. Today as a premiere institute of technological education in Sri Lanka it turns out trained young men and women who stand a good chance of gainful employment both here and abroad as Professor Warnapala proudly points out in his speech.

He also reiterates the eminently supportable opinion that the mere development and transmission of academic knowledge is not enough; the new technological changes demand new types of human resources, i.e., new practical skills. (This is a confirmation of the argument in my previous contribution to this paper under the title ‘Language, Education, and Civilization’ Midweek Review, Wednesday 5^th that education is a combination of knowledge and practical skills, to put it roughly. In other words, education means both ‘academic’ knowledge comprising all the conceptual experiences of humanity such as science, art, engineering, and so on, plus practical skills based on the physical application of such knowledge for the benefit of all.)

It is hoped that the authors of the latest educational changes will maintain the 1997 momentum of initiating an apolitical approach to nation-friendly policy improvement and implementation so that we can put an end the cannibalistic practice of politicizing national issues and the curse of perfunctory plan implementation without any patriotic feeling.

Rohana R. Wasala

LANGUAGE FOR PEACE AND PROGRESS

First published in MIDWEEK REVIEW of The Island on November 3^rd, 1999

It is often asserted than an important cause of the current crisis in our
country is the so-called lack of understanding’ between the Sinhalese and
Tamil communities. This view leads to the conclusion that promoting
inter-communal communication should be an essential component of a possible
solution to the problem. So the teaching of Sinhalese to Tamil
school-children and Tamil to their Sinhalese counterparts is upheld as a
good practical measure that will ultimately contribute to the establishment
of lasting peace in the land.

No sane person would deny that mutual understanding is a good thing for
private individuals or whole races to achieve, because such understanding
is a prerequisite for the creation of an atmosphere of mutual respect,
accommodation, give and take and fair play so vital for any friendly social
relationship to flourish. Language certainly can be exploited as a means of
moving towards better communication between different groups of people.

However, we must not forget that politicians sometimes tend to make
simplistic analyses of serious problems and propose fantastic solutions to
them. Norman Tebbit, who later became the Chairman of the Conservative Party
in Britain, during a radio address in November 1985, traced the cause of a
popularly perceived rise in football hooliganism to a decline in the
teaching of English grammar in British schools! What caused him to make
this strange link between grammar and personal behaviour? The answer might
be that he equated the discipline that he believed would be generated in
school-children through the teaching of grammar with such manifestations of
obedience to authority as respect for elders, school discipline, personal
cleanliness, etc.

In our own country, under a previous regime, Lovadasangarawa’ (an ancient
Sinhalese compendium of religio-ethical instructions in verse form) was
made compulsory reading for school students, following violent youth unrest
(which, incidentally, on two occasions, was suppressed by the authorities
with the worst excesses of brutality imaginable defying every canon of
civilised conduct.)

The current policy of teaching Sinhalese to Tamil students and vice versa
can easily be shown to be a facetious solution to our problems. A moment’s
reflection is enough for us to see that a common language will by no means
guarantee peace anywhere in the world. Think about Northern Ireland where
for decades a separatist conflict has been devastating an ethnically
homogenous community that speaks the same language. Think about the Middle
East, Algeria, Afghanistan, Burma, Cambodia and the newly independent
former Russian republics where internal fratricidal conflicts are engulfing
people sharing the same language. On the other hand, the people of
Switzerland speak four different dialects, but still there is peace in that
country. So language by itself is no guarantor of communal harmony.

Suppose we teach all our children both the national languages and thus
enable them to break down the alleged language barrier between them. Then
do you think we are going to be able to cheer ‘Hey Presto! The problem is
gone!’? Not likely in view of the above evidence unless certain other
things are put right first.

In reality instruction in grammar or ethics, or building linguistic links
between races, has little to offer by way of a solution to a country’s
problems, when these measures are introduced in isolation. Problems facing
a country arise from a complexity of political, social, economic and other
causes. These need to be seriously studied and remedies must be formulated
and implemented.

Nonetheless I do not deny that language can be used for promoting peace and
progress. Obviously the policy of teaching Tamil and Sinhalese students
Sinhalese and Tamil respectively as a second language does not seem to be a
very well thought out proposition. How can we motivate our children to
address themselves to this task of learning an additional second language,
when that additional second language is either Sinhalese or Tamil? Can we
offer our Sinhalese speaking children as an incentive for learning Tamil,
or our Tamil speaking children for learning Sinhalese anything other than
the distant prospect of ‘national unity’ which, they know better than we
would care to admit, is only a pipedream in the context of the present day
realities of our country such as economic poverty and chronic political
corruption?

What do we learn a language for? It is rare that we learn a language for
the sake of a mere knowledge of that language. Rather, we learn a language
to get something else through it such as a job, to acquire a knowledge
of sciences, technologies, skills etc. that are not available in the
languages that we already know. We need not be so blindly patriotic as to
assert that either Sinhalese or Tamil has much original information to
offer in modern science, technology, business, engineering, medicine and
other similar fields. This is not to disparage our own national languages.
The same is true about thousands of the world’s other languages including
such widely used languages as Chinese, Hindi and Arabic. The reason is
nothing intrinsically defective in these languages. What prevails today is
the scientific, technological, industrial system that evolved through
centuries of mainly western domination of the world. The major players in
this arena have been the English speaking peoples. It is predicted that by
the year 2000 about one billion all over the world will be learning
English. The purpose for which they will learn English is too obvious to
explain. Although numerically English is not perhaps the most widely used
language in the world today, it is certainly the most powerful global
medium. It enjoys the most widespread dominance economically, politically
and culturally.

If we envisage a linguistic component for a broad-based solution to the Sri
Lankan ethnic crisis, the simplest and surest way to achieve that would be
for us to do a better job of our teaching of English in schools, colleges
and universities. That would be far more useful than trying to impose on
our children something that they are naturally inclined to reject. Children
of all communities will generally be more receptive to English than to
either Sinhalese or Tamil as a second language for reasons already outlined.

Learning a language is greatly facilitated by constant exposure to that
language. In Sri Lanka, there are a lot of opportunities for students to be
exposed to English in education, sports, entertainment, communication and
other fields. This situation naturally makes English attractive to us.

While paying special attention to the teaching of English we must not
neglect our own local languages. Language is an inalienable part of any
culture. We must do everything in our power to protect and foster our
respective cultural identities, but we should not get unnecessarily

circumscribed within a narrow shell in the name of ethnicity
or culture. So my opinion is that our children, while being instructed in
their own mother tongues, should be taught English as a compulsory second
language. Provision must also be made for those who wish to study Tamil or
Sinhalese as an optional second language.

At the university level, science, engineering, medicine, agriculture and
similar professional subjects should be taught entirely in English.
Subjects such as religion, history, philosophy, local languages and
literary arts can be taught through the medium of national languages, but
even here students must be equipped with a sound knowledge of English in
order that they will be able to utilise sources of information beyond the
limits of their own languages. The same emphasis on English must be
maintained in all institutions of higher education including teacher
training colleges, technical institutes, etc.

However, we all know that this is easier said than done. Is it reasonable
to expect students who qualify to enter university and other centres of
higher learning to be able to follow courses in English or at least to do
reference in the library in that language, when they have been instructed
only through the medium of their mother tongue from the beginning to the
end of their school career? A clear ‘no’ is the answer to this question
considering the state of English language teaching in our schools today.
This has to be remedied first.

A three year course of intensive English language training could be a good
foundation for the type of English medium higher education I have in mind.
The first part of such a course may be conducted in the last two years of
school, i.e. in the GCE (Advanced Level) class. The syllabi of this course
must be drawn in such a way that the English that the students learn will
be oriented to the subject areas they are likely to follow at the higher
education level. The third and final year of the intensive English course I
am suggesting will coincide with the first year of lectures at the
respective institutions (i.e. universities, technical colleges, etc). Such
an English course will be so designed as to make possible a smooth switch
over from vernacular languages to English as the medium of instruction as
well as a natural passage from school to higher education. It will
definitely save the new entrants of these centres of higher education the
frustrating shock of the three or six months of intensive English that is
being administered now on a rather perfunctory basis.

The importance of English for national progress both in terms of
educational achievement and economic development has been well understood
by our people. Unfortunately, its popularity is being exploited by
businessmen as clearly shown by the proliferation of private tuition centres and
international schools in their thousands in all parts of the island. State
educational authorities have hardly any control over them: private
tuition providers, apparently, need only be registered as business
establishments. This parallel system of education which has emerged in
response to urgent public demand for more and more English education
remains to be investigated in earnest with a view to regulating it in order
to accommodate the broader national interests.

Education is a supreme national need and it should not be left in the hands
of private individuals whose only motive is money-making. The government
school system should take cognizance of the realities regarding the
position of English in education and introduce and implement the necessary
measures to make it available to all our students, thereby eliminating
their exploitation by unscrupulous businessmen who have intruded into the field
of education.

While discounting the efficacy of teaching Sinhalese to Tamil children and
Tamil to Sinhalese children, I have here tried to outline the advantages of
teaching English as a ‘lingua franca’ to all our children whether they are
Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim or Burgher. If mutual understanding is the aim of
teaching our children the vernacular languages as second languages, that
goal may be better achieved by teaching them English instead. Although a
common or shared language can help promote mutual understanding between
communities, it will not necessarily ensure peace by itself. The real
causes of communal division, to my mind, lie elsewhere. In fact, any lack
of mutual understanding may not even be among those causes. What is actually
required is the creation of conditions that will bring people together:
common interests and common goals, and a democratic environment in which to
pursue these ends in freedom and equality.

In the past there were situations in our country in which Sinhalese,
Tamils, Muslims and Burghers lived and worked together in complete peace
and harmony in spite of their divergent ethnic backgrounds. Even now,
ordinary Sinhalese and Tamils realise such peaceful co-existence. From
history, we know that the English-educated, mostly westernised elite of our
country under the British formed a close-knit community despite their
varied racial backgrounds. In such harmonious situations, what is important
is not race or language, but the community of interests and the opportunity
to promote those interests without hindrance. Of course social elitism,
which depends on a system of exploitation of the majority by a privileged
minority, cannot be a model for us to follow. I merely alluded to it here
as an illustration of my belief that shared goals and mutually beneficial
means of reaching them are a more potent factor in generating communal
harmony, than language.

What we need to do is to create democratic conditions for the people of all
communities without discrimination. In such an environment, no community,
whether a majority or a minority, can demand special treatment. All
communities should be allowed to enjoy the same rights and privileges.

This degree of democracy is closely bound up with economic development.
Where there is need and poverty there cannot be harmony or happiness. If
Sri Lanka were an affluent country, perhaps these conflicts would not be
there; then people would not fight for separatism, or try to migrate to
rich western countries as genuine or false refugees, because no one would
want to leave or spoil a sound economy. So perhaps, our poverty is at the
root of all these troubles.

To create healthy political conditions and a sound economic set-up we need
a broadminded, educated younger generation free from backward insularity.
This is where a high level of education has an important part to play. In
this connection, the value of English is immense; not only will it enhance
our educational standards, it will also widen the horizons of our
knowledge. The adoption of English as a more productive vehicle can thus
contribute to national unity through the education of our young by training
and allowing them to pursue common goals in peace, harmony and equality.
The forced teaching of Sinhalese and Tamil to the unmotivated young is not
likely to produce the same result; it could even be counterproductive.

Rohana R. Wasala

The Kandy Esala Perahera

First published in The Daily News on Friday 3^rd August 2001

The period July-August (Esala-Nikini in the traditional Sinhalese calendar) is the Esala Perahera season in Sri Lanka. The Sinhalese term 'perahera' means a train of musicians, dancers, acrobats and other performers usually accompanied by a number of elephants parading the streets in celebration of a religious or secular person or event. During this period Esala Peraheras are held in many places of worship. Among these the Kandy Esala Perahera occupies the foremost place because the Sri Dalada Maligawa - The Temple of the Tooth Relic - is located there and also because it was the last capital of the Kandyan Kingdom.

The Kandy Esala Perahera is held in honour of the Tooth Relic and the four guardian deities Natha, Vishnu, Kataragama and Pattini. It therefore consists of five components: the Maligawa perahera followed in order by those of the Natha Vishnu, Kataragama and Pattini devalas (temples) situated in the neighbourhood of the Maligawa.

The Dalada perahera, the main part of the Kandy Esala Perahera, has a long history. It dates from the time that the Tooth Relic of the Buddha was brought to Sri Lanka. This most precious object of veneration among the Sri Lankan Buddhists was carried from Kalinga in India to Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka in the ninth year of the reign of King Kit Siri Mevan (304-331 CE), who was a contemporary of the great Indian emperor Samudragupta. The Tooth Reilc, which was brought concealed in the tresses of Princess Hemamala King of Kalinga’s daughter), she and her husband Prince Danta travelling disguised as ascetics, was housed in a specially built shrine within the outer walls of the Thuparama, in the vicinity of the royal palace. King Kit Siri Mevan initiated an annual celebration in which the Tooth Relic was carried in a procession through the streets of Anuradhapura to the Abhayagiri Monastery.

As a result of the security of the state being threatened by invaders, the seat of government was moved from place to place and with it the Tooth Relic. By the twelfth century a tradition had evolved according to which the custodian of the Tooth Relic had the right to sovereignty over the island.

The Tooth Relic continues to be housed in Kandy, which was the last royal capital of the Sinhalese. The Dalada Maligawa Perahera harks back to the Dalkada festival appointed by King Kit Siri Mevan about 1700 years ago.

Another historical precedent to the Kandy Esala Perahera is said to be according to popular belief, the victory parades that King Gajabahu the First (174-196 CE) ordered in the wake of a successful invasion of South India, something disputed by scholars for lack of corroborative historical evidence.

It was King Vimaladharmasuriya the First (1592-1604 CE) who ceremonially installed the Tooth Relic in Kandy. The Relic had previously been hidden away in various secret locations in the Kandyan Kingdom for safety.

Under the Nayakkar rulers in the eighteenth century the Kandy Esala Perahera assumed a strongly Hindu character, the ceremonies being conducted mainly in order to propitiate the gods of the Hindu pantheon. However, it was another great Nayakkar ruler, King Kirti Sri Rajasinghe (1747-1781), who brought about a revival of Buddhism and Buddhist education in the Kandyan Kingdom with the help of Venerable Velivitiye Sri Saranankara. He restored the Higher Ordination (Upasampada) ceremony in Sri Lanka by inviting Buddhist monks from Siam for the purpose. Venerable Upali, who headed the Siamese Buddhist mission, expressed his profound disappointment with the Kandy Perahera being dedicated to Hinduism instead of Buddhism in a predominantly Buddhist country like Sri Lanka. The king listened to the monk's words and took steps to transform the Perahera into a mainly Buddhist festival. This was the beginning of the Kandy Esala Perahera as we see it today.

'Kap situweema' (planting 'kap') is the first ritual that is performed in preparation for the Perahera. Certain specific traditional details are observed in this connection. First a young 'jack' tree is selected and its neighbourhood is cleared and cleaned. The tree is sprinkled with water perfumed with sandalwood scent. An offering is made of nine kinds of flowers; an oil lamp with nine wicks is then lighted. The priest of the Maha Vishnu Temple recites his prayers to all the deities, after which the jack tree is felled. The trunk is then cut into four separate pieces. (The 'milk' or the latex that flows is regarded as a symbol of prosperity.) These four pieces are taken to the four 'devales', i.e. one to each temple. Each piece of the jack tree ('kap') is then planted under a canopy decorated with leaves, flowers and fruits in the temple premises dedicated to each deity. This is what is known as 'kap situweema'. The ritual is performed at an auspicious moment decided by astrologers.

Fifteen days of Perahera follow. During the first five days the perahera is held within the precincts of each temple; then five 'kumbal' peraheras and five 'randoli' peraheras are held outside the temples. All these peraheras take place in the night. Of these the five 'randoli' (golden planaquin) peraheras are the most spectacular and it is to see these that the largest crowds throng the streets of Kandy.

A group of men cracking whips lead the Maligawa Perahera. This serves to herald the arrival of the procession and to clear a path for it. Next come some men bearing flags representing the various provinces of the then Kandyan Kingdom. The elephant that follows these carries on its back a Buddhist flag, which shows that the perahera is a mainly Buddhist event.

Fourth comes the 'peramunarala' on the back of an elephant. He carries an ola leaf book wrapped in a piece of white cloth. This is immediately followed by the 'hewisi' band of the Maligawa led by its four official tom-tom beaters. The 'Gajanayake Nilame' (the official responsible for the elephants taking part in the perahera) wielding a goad rides on an elephant next. The brightest, most outstanding feature of the perahera is 'Raja', the Maligawa Tusker carrying the relic casket. This casket does not contain the actual Tooth Relic (which is too august an object to be taken around so frequently), but it receives the homage due to the sacred relic from the watching crowds. The majestic Maligawa Tusker is flanked by two other companion elephants. Following the relic casket marches the 'Diyawadane Nilame' (the lay custodian and the chief administrator of the Dalada Maligawa) amidst a troupe of dancers and drummers.

The other four temple peraheras follow in the aforesaid order. The whole spectacle takes more than three hours. It constitutes a memorable cultural pageant that integrates the Buddhist and Hindu ritual practices. At the end of the last 'randoli' perahera the Maligawa Perahera enters the 'Adahana Maluwa' and stops there. This tradition is in remembrance of the fact that King Vimaladharmasuriya I, on his way from Delgamuwa to Kandy carrying the Sacred Tooth Relic, stayed the night on this spot, having temporarily deposited the Relic in the Gedige Shrine there, before ceremonially proceeding with it to his palace the next day.

After the last night perahera the four peraheras from the four 'devales' go to the ford of the Mahaveli River at Gatambe near Peradeniya. The chief 'kapuralas' (priests) of the 'devales' then wade to the middle of the river. One of the 'kapuralas' describes a circle in the water with a 'golden' sword. The priests empty into the river the 'golden ewers' (ran kendi) which they had filled with water at the same spot the year before and fill them up again with water. (The ewers thus filled will be emptied and refilled here at the end of the Esala Perahera the following year). This ritual is known as the 'diya kapeema' (water cutting).

Then the four peraheras start their way back to Kandy. On their way they stop at the 'Pulleyar Kovil' (Selvavinayagar Kovil) at Katukelle. Then at the astrologically computed auspicious moment they proceed to the Adahana Maluwa, where they join the Maligawa Perahera.

The five peraheras parade along the D. S. Senanayake Street and King Street three times. The Maligawa Perahera enters the Maligawa and the devale peraheras wind up at the respective temples, bringing the annual Kandy Esala pageant to an end.

by Rohana R. Wasala

The Way Forward

First published in The Island on Wednesday 11^th February 2009

The government, for its part, must break free from the evil spell of the bankrupt racist political elements masquerading as patriots wrapping themselves in the flag. The JHU, the JVP etc., which are anachronisms in modern politics ought to be neutralised politically if ethnic polarisation is to be checked. The same goes for mono ethnic and mono religious outfits like the SLMC and the TULF. These political malformations that have resulted from the failure of the two main parties to do away with the ethno-religious glass ceiling which has prevented non-Sinhala and/or non-Buddhist leaders from reaching the topmost notches of government, inter alia, have put paid to the efforts made since Independence to bring about the much needed national integration and to create a Sri Lanka where people can live in peace and dignity, irrespective of their ethnicity and/or religion.

(from The Island editorial of February 9, 2009)

As always, the Island editor has hit the nail on the head. “Political malformations” indeed! For they have blighted the Sri Lankan body politic since even before Independence by going against our ingrained pacifist, tolerant, non-violent, accommodating common cultural heritage.

The overwhelming majority of our people – comprising the Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims, Burghers, Malays, and the rest of well over twenty different ethnic groups that share this little island as their native land, represented in the procession that paraded before the President on the Day of Independence (February 4, 2009) when he opened the Dayata Kirula (Sovereignty to the Nation) Exhibition at the BMICH - are not racist. However, to be sure, there are potentially dangerous fault lines in the polity, mainly the legacy of nearly half a millennium of foreign colonial rule; but these could have been easily fixed by now, had the more patriotic and enlightened politicians of post-independence Sri Lanka who understood and followed the implicit commitment of the general body of citizens to the principles of hospitality, caring and sharing, and generosity that they have inherited from centuries of a common culture of harmonious coexistence and religious and ethnic tolerance.

(Mr D.S. Senanayake, the Father of the Nation, and the first Prime Minister of independent Sri Lanka, was one of these rare statesmen; the incumbent President Mr Mahinda Rajapakse appears to be ushering in a new era of national resurgence following, in some important sense, in the footsteps of the late Mr Senanayake, though, as should be expected, against infinitely more formidable obstacles.)

We have occasionally heard the desperate cry that divisive politics is the bane of this country, and that a benign dictatorship could be the remedy. Though there is no doubt that the worst form of democracy is potentially superior to the best manifestation of any dictatorship, it is also true that unscrupulous politicians do flourish by sowing division among the populace. In the matter of inter-communal relations within a society such as ours, power hungry politicos should be expected to be in their element. Hence the crop of tribalist political gatherings that plague this country today.

Of these, the JHU and the JVP, are of comparatively more recent origin than those monoethnic Tamil and Muslim political parties, and differ significantly from the latter in terms of their raison d’etre. The advent of the JHU and the recent metamorphosis of the JVP as its ally could be interpreted as reactive, rather than proactive, developments in that they were actually in response to the perceived failure of the two main national parties (the UNP and the SLFP) to successfully and democratically neutralize the racism of the more pronounced, and, within their respective communities, more popular and hence more potent, political formations of the country’s ethnic minorities.

It is to the credit of the majority Sinhalese that they will never allow any extremist racist political party to flourish. The two main parties are not racist in any significant way. The smaller parties that seem to advocate a rather narrow racist slant in favour of the majority community always find it necessary to lean on one of the main parties for their survival in politics. We can safely predict the possible fate of the JHU and the JVP if they decide to contest by themselves at the next general elections: their parliamentary representation will be drastically reduced! When the minority communities are given a chance to show that they care more for the wider national interest, rather than narrow communalism, the fate of those ethnicity-based parties will be the same.

In today’s context, the UNP and the SLFP have an epochal role to play. They must form a united front to absorb all or most of the patriotic elements from all the communities (i.e. the majority of the common people) and create a truly democratic country where racist outfits and political parasites will be wiped out of the political arena. That, I believe, is the way forward for us at this juncture.

Rohana R.Wasala

*‘Prabhakaran’ *is worth seeing

first published in The Island on Friday 23rd May 2008.


RICE PADDY



“US Airborne’s not there to escort

kids to school,” snorts Condoleeza.

“No, not to school,” I counter-snort,

“but to the mortuary freezer.”



From ‘The Krieg
Anthology’ in *Under the Clock-*

* New Poems *by Tony Harrison (2005) Penguin Books



When I saw Thushara Peiris’ *Prabhakaran,* I felt that it is a film worth
seeing, and even writing about. Though the adoption of the name Prabhakaran
seemed a mere advertising gimmick before my viewing of it, it now reveals
itself to me as a well-thought-out choice of a title that gives an ironical
twist to the usual connotations of that name, which are due to its
association with the leader of the most ruthless terror outfit in the world.
That name is quite appropriate for the film in terms of the central concern
of Peiris’ cinematic *tour de force. *Though the description *tour de force
*might seem somewhat of an exaggeration, the fact remains that Peiris , as a
young film-maker, has made a conscientious attempt to artistically
communicate, as best he could, a deeply felt experience through his chosen
medium. My point is that though *Prabhakaran * is obviously not of the
highest quality it displays signs of informed effort on the part of its
author to turn out a good film.



*Prabhakaran *is not at all about the terrorist boss of that name. He is
only a menacing presence in the background, which is occasionally invoked to
exact obedience from those serving him under coercion. The film is based on
an internal division in the terror organization between the bigoted
leadership and the free thinking young disillusioned with its terror
tactics.



Kamalani and her younger brother Prabhakaran are children of ethnically
mixed parentage (father Tamil, mother Sinhalese) . They live in a so-called
border village as members of a mixed community. Having lost their parents in
their childhood to communal violence, they are brought up in an orphanage.
Subsequently, Kamalani secretly joins the LTTE’s suicide squad known as
the Black Tiger Unit. She also gets her brother enlisted in the rebel
movement. She is forced to marry Piyasoma, a young Sinhalese. The terror
outfit tries to use both Prabhakaran and Kamalani in their campaign of
terror through subjecting them to a kind of brainwashing about the
necessity of avenging the murder of their parents. But when they see that it
is poor people like themselves on both sides who get killed in communal
violence, they lose faith in the terror outfit. Despite traumatic memories
from the past, they do not now relish their part in rebel violence from
which, however, they can’t extricate themselves under the circumstances.



Kamalani becomes pregnant. The child inside her and her husband’s love give
her new hope. Prabhakaran, who is a child combatant, rebels against the
repression of the terror group.



Isolated and stranded between their natural human passion for life and love,
freedom and fulfillment on the one hand, and on the other, the relentless
coercion of the terrorists they struggle heroically against their fate in
their own way while events move inexorably to their tragic end.



The drama is unfolded against a rural, jungle setting. The time is the
present time when Tamils, Sinhalese, and others coexist as peaceably as
ever, despite the alleged ethnic conflict raging around them in the name of
which a small section of the population is fighting a terrorist war against
the government. The incidents of violence shown in the film like the killing
of innocent civilians in rebel hold-ups , landmine attacks, night raids on
villages in which sleeping villagers get knifed, and other similar outrages
are plausible reconstructions of cases often heard about.



The people are unsophisticated rural peasants who bear the brunt of these
terrorist attacks. These people care little about race distinctions among
them. They eke out a meager living in unenviable circumstances, but still
live a life of sharing and caring. When an elderly man among a group of
villagers including the seven month pregnant Kamalani riding in the open
back of a tractor jolting along a rough road, urges the driver to drive
slowly saying, “Otherwise Piyasoma’s wife will give birth to her baby here
and now!” (The feeling of intimacy and camaraderie of his plain, perfectly
explicit, unedited, colloquial Sinhalese does not come out in this clumsy
English rendering), he expresses their collective concern for her comfort
and wellbeing.



The jungle-covered, isolated, primitive rural setting is appropriate for the
depiction of the most fundamental human instincts of fellow feeling, trust,
and sympathy that are being violated by terrorism. The jungle setting suits
the rare atavistic nature of such violation of norms of civilized conduct.
Besides, it is the very jungle terrain where the terrorist violence in
question is actually taking place.



Terrorism sows suspicion among neighbours setting them against one another.
What could be a more telling expression of this than Piyasoma’s casual
remark to Kamalani, while bathing in the tank about his apprehensions
concerning her: “Who knows if you are secretly helping the terrorists”? It
is inconceivable that Piyasoma of all people suspects Kamalani of
involvement in the terrorist movement. But his ingenuous, childish words
betray the deep, insidious mistrust of one community by another that is
inevitably generated at a time of turmoil.



It is not only the social fabric that terrorism threatens. While vitiating
the social atmosphere it turns innocents into killers. Prabhakaran kills
civilians in cold blood because he is forced to do so by the terror outfit
whose prisoner he is. Kamalani also kills, but for a different reason. Her
act of killing Abe, who has been stalking her despite her attachment and
marriage to Piyasoma (who, unaware of the man’s secret passion for his wife,
still treats him as a trusted friend), always lurking in the background, is
something she is compelled to do by Abe’s thoughtless, self-centred pursuit
of her attentions merely because of his own infatuation with her. It proves
her absolute devotion to Piyasoma. It is also an indication of the intensity
of her suffering on account of her having to conceal from her husband her
involvement with the terrorists, because it is nothing less than a betrayal
of his trust in her. Abe’s murder removes any lurking suspicion in us
that Kamalani’s chafing at the LTTE demand for her undertaking of a suicide
mission is due to her tenderness or cowardice, or that she is capable of
betrayal of a cause that she could genuinely pledge allegiance to. She kills
Abe because her loyalty to her husband is total; she can’t stand anyone who
belittles or tries to call her devotion to him into question. It
demonstrates that if she was truly committed to the terrorist cause she
would not fail to serve that cause faithfully. The same goes for
Prabhakaran. Therefore the rejection of the terrorist campaign by both of
them is because of their unwavering loyalty to the truly meaningful values
of humanity, love and respect for life.



For Kamalani and Piyasoma her pregnancy is the natural fruition of their
love. But when she pleads with her handler or commander in the rebel
organization that she be allowed to give birth to her child before the
accomplishment of her mission, he reminds her of the fact that it was their
stratagem to have her made pregnant for use as a suicide bomber in their
terrorist scheme (her pregnancy would save her being searched by security
personnel, which would facilitate her access to her target), and tells her
not to worry about the unborn child.



What is more natural than the birth of new life? What is more unnaturally
cruel than a terrorism that uses a pregnant woman as a human bomb to
massacre innocents?



The image of the expectant woman present from the beginning to the end of
the film is a central symbol in this film. Her survival at the end of the
movie strikes a positive note. Kamalani is made to turn tables (by fate or
some mysterious process of natural justice) on her tormentors by
inadvertently blowing them up with a time-bomb that they have meant for her
(delivered to her hidden in a bag supposed to be that of her dead brother);
she walks home thus miraculously saved from the deadly treachery of her
handlers. The important thing is that Kamalani has survived all the chaos so
far, and that her survival holds out some hope for the future.



Any artistic creation is a fusion of art and artifice. A film is no
exception. But film, in comparison with other forms of art, which have
existed for hundreds or even thousands of years, is of relatively recent
origin, and hence naturally utilizes elements derived from those older
modes. Film borrows from painting, plastic arts, photography, drama,
fiction, poetry, and music, etc. This makes cinema an unusually complex, an
unusually powerful artistic medium. Basically, of course, a film is a piece
of visual art that depends on images, and that usually taps the resources of
language and music.



It is the film-maker’s business to blend all these elements into an
effective vehicle for the conveyance of his or her innermost responses to
striking experiences real or imaginary that excite our aesthetic sense. A
good film like any other good work of art engages the connoisseurs’ critical
imagination for the reward of an apprehension of beauty in its
contemplation, and a deepening of insight into an aspect of human
experience.



*Prabhakaran * is an attempt in this direction. The ancient Latin poet
Horace (65-08 BCE) held that the worth of a work of art could be gauged in
terms of two criteria: an artistic work is of value if it ‘*pleases’* and ‘*
instructs*’. In my opinion Thushara Peiris’ film fulfills these criteria.
Some critics may tend to see it as mere anti-LTTE propaganda. My own view is
that the film’s real focus is not the LTTE. It is not a critique of the LTTE
cause. The LTTE campaign of terror is presented from the point of view of
its direct victims represented by Prabhakaran the child soldier, and his
sister Kamalani. The separatist cause – the oft repeated “a country for
ourselves” - is simply a threadbare, vacuous slogan for these victims, like
the soundless lip movements of the rebel commander in the film. What the
viewers of the film, through its artistic devices, are made to emotionally
experience is the tragedy of the needless dehumanization and destruction of
blooming youth in the name of a single deranged megalomaniac’s dreams of
imperial domination.



The nature of our aesthetic sense is such that though the theme is bleak our
sensitive response to its artistic presentation ‘delights’ us. At the same
time the contemplation of the common humanity of the terrorists, and their
victims (with whom we identify ourselves as vicarious sufferers) is a
sobering thought for us.



A literary text – be it a poem like Homer’s epic *Iliad, *T.S. Eliot’s *The
Waste Land, *Tony Harrison’s *Under the Clock* (from which my epigraph to
this review comes), or a prose work like Joseph Conrad’s novel *Heart of
Darkness* – uses the resources of human language, mainly in the form of
words that refer to things in the world of human experience; but a film
principally relies on the arrangement of images on a screen which
reconstructs situations in the same domain. In both cases the creative
artist’s role is the same: shaping out of his or her raw materials (words
and images) an object of beauty – i.e. a finished poem/story/drama or a film
for the contemplation and enjoyment of the aesthetes (at whatever level of
sophistication they are capable of reaching).



Thushara Peiris has been conscious of this in the making of
*Prabhakaran. *Though
I don’t think that I am competent enough to talk about the cinematographic
aspect of film-making the shooting of the various scenes of this film has
been attended to with care to highlight the really significant aspect of
each shot. For example, we may consider the various shots of Kamalani
waiting for her rendezvous with terror activists in the jungle. In one she
stands under a large tree, and soliloquizes (Soliloquy is a device borrowed
from drama that is used to reveal to the audience the innermost thoughts
that pass through the mind of a character). This image of Kamalani, among
other things, shows her smallness (vis-à-vis the huge issues she is
confronting), and her isolation in a vast world of private misery. In
another shot she is shown hiding in the hollow of a tree; she is
unpleasantly surprised by the sudden appearance of the person from the rebel
organization that she has been waiting for, and she tells him how frightened
she is. The talk of fear irks the man. Her ingratiating attempt to make it a
bit amusing is pathetic: “You frightened even the one inside me”. The night
raid on the sleeping village is another effective shot. Flickering points of
light dancing in pitch darkness orchestrated by sounds of shouting and
wailing actualize the numbing fear and terror of that experience for those
who have only heard or read about such atrocities.



There are other signs of the film-maker’s commitment to cinema as art. The
use of symbolism is one. Trees, water, the moon, light, darkness, and many
other details assume symbolic significance, which does not escape the
average discerning viewer’s notice. The film also uses such devices as the
flashback technique, contrasts, parallels, and juxtaposition in its
narration in order to highlight the relevant themes. All these invite the
creative engagement of the audience with what is projected onto the screen
by the director.



My ‘reading’ of the film is that it is mainly a criticism of the use of
children by the terror organization. Even when Kamalani’s self-immolation is
demanded, the equally pitiable but more outrageously exploited victim is
the unborn child (because, if it is merely a young woman they need for the
mission, any other young woman would do; but here Kamalani qualifies for the
mission because her pregnancy is an essential part of the camouflage, so
diabolically planned by terror agents).



To the terrorists children count for nothing except as conscripts. When they
get killed in clashes with the army, they are shown to the world as
innocent school children massacred by the army, not as heroic fighters who
have laid down their lives for a cause (even though they did so under
duress). That is, the terrorists exploit them even after their death for
propaganda purposes. So in my view, what is being held up for our
condemnation is not any identifiable political cause (right or wrong), but
the terrorists’ sacrifice of children on the altar of some political
ideology.



The young boy and the young woman playing the two central roles of
Prabhakaran and Kamalani respectively do a commendable job by bringing these
two characters alive for the film-goers in a convincing manner.



Therefore watching *Prabhakaran *should be a rewarding experience to many.



*Rohana R. Wasala *

In the Aftermath of the War on Terrorism ( an ordinary citizen’s perspective)

First published in Midweek Review, The Island, on Wednesday 18^th February 2009

The following is not a reply to any article or articles that appeared in this paper or elsewhere about the subject discussed. It is meant to represent my personal response as a Sri Lankan citizen to what I see as partisan reactions of certain members of the ‘international community’ and their local/native representatives who are alien to our way of thinking about the matter; these biased attitudes are evident in the local as well as foreign media.

A loud chorus of such spurious slogans and warnings as ‘amnesty’, ‘reconciliation’, ‘danger of triumphalism’, ‘need to address the grievances of the Tamil people’, etc., can be heard these days from certain brazen LTTE supporters, especially in the NGO fraternity.These dealers in charity of the NGO cartel are still trying to throw the few remaining terrorists a lifeline in order that they might live to resume their terrorism in the future so that there will be enough victims to justify the continuation of their business of raking in dollars among the international gullible in the name of charity. (The numerous genuine voluntary relief organizations sharing the same name are excluded from this general condemnation.)

If these elements talked about the need to treat the defeated LTTE members including their leaders in a humane way no one would object to that; but humanitarian concerns about the civilian population should have engaged their attention even before this. However, few of these spoke about them except when civilian concerns coincided with those of the terrorists. What is objectionable today is that foreign and local LTTE sympathizers try to pretend that the terrorists and the Tamil people are identical.

However, it is quite certain that no sensible authority, least of all the government under the wise and able leadership of President Mahinda Rajapakse, will fail to see through their false façade, and to treat their unsolicited advice with the cautious cynicism it deserves.

On the other hand, there is no doubt that the leaders of the present administration who are achieving a decisive military victory over terrorism amidst various constraints and restraints (the resistance offered by the local and international backers of the terrorists being not the least of these) will be equal to the task of managing the aftermath of the current successful humanitarian operations. They are sensitive to the yearning of the common people of this country for an early end to the terrorist problem followed by political and economic stability. The end of the LTTE terrorism must see the beginning of an era of economic prosperity and social well-being for the whole country.

We, the ordinary citizens of Sri Lanka, know better than any of our international mentors and their local mercenaries, what should be done now. As a democracy we are free to elect our rulers who will decide on a suitable plan of reconstruction and restoration for the North and the East. Already, vast development programmes have been launched in the East, and its civil administration as an integral part of the Sri Lankan state restored. Even though the liberation of the North from the terrorists cannot be said to have been completed yet, a reversal of the fortunes of the terrorists is not likely. Reconstruction and development work has already been initiated in the North with the instant repair of damaged roads and bridges, and the building of houses for the fugitive Tamil civilians fleeing LTTE captivity.

In Mr. Rajapakse we have a leader who has great empathy with the common people, and thinks like one of them. People of my generation, to which Mr. Rajapakse himself belongs, generally share a higher level of literacy than our parents as a result of the rapid expansion of state sponsored free education in the post- independence years under successive governments, and are sufficiently well educated and well informed to participate actively in a modern democracy by exploiting its various political institutions.

In addition to a general awareness of our democratic rights and responsibilities, we possess common cultural traditions that uphold altruistic, humane values.

The successful humanitarian campaign launched by the present administration under Mr. Rajapakse to liberate the people of the North and the East from mindless terror is about to end. The government’s resounding success at the Northwestern and Central Provincial Councils elections, that effectively became a virtual national referendum on its policy of following military victory with immediate tangible economic development of the liberated areas in dealing with the terrorist problem, is testimony to the people’s trust in the current stewardship of the President.

Though the LTTE and its Western dupes have always represented Mr. Rajapakse as a war monger, the truth is that he, like all his predecessors, gave the Tigers every possible opportunity to negotiate with the government, short of giving in to their usual stratagem of agreeing to peace talks only in order to gain a breather to recoup and rearm, and continue their terror campaign with renewed vigour. When Mr. Rajapakse seemed to initially dillydally with the military option (which probably was a part of his deliberate strategy), the Tiger leader in his imbecility put it down to his weakness.

The Tigers’ closure of the Maavil Aru sluice-gate (Mahaveli Amuna) which destroyed thousands of acres of lush paddy, thereby depriving the peasant population of the area of their age-old livelihood and, even of their drinking water was perhaps meant to provoke a military response from the government in the face of human misery; they must have thought that this would lead to a final showdown in which they hoped to defeat the armed forces, and establish their Eelam. But for them fate decided otherwise. They were well and truly beaten in the East, and then got holed up in the North.

The present ignominious lot of the erstwhile Sun God is to cower in a bunker to save his wretched life, surrounded by a human shield that he himself commandeered consisting of men, women and children, reluctantly relying on the strict policy of the country’s defence forces that they would not mount an attack on him if it could lead to indiscriminate civilian casualties.

Mr. Rajapakse left the doors open for negotiations even though the Tigers were being soundly beaten and confined to an ever shrinking piece of landlocked territory with no escape route, until he decided to ban the terrorist organization in Sri Lanka at the eleventh hour recently. The present predicament of the Tigers is of their own making; they forced the government’s hand.

All along we, the ordinary people, knew that the Tigers had to be defeated militarily if we were not ready to concede their demand for a separate state, which they consider non-negotiable, and that the LTTE never talked peace with the government in good faith. However, it was also clear to us that the government was not free to deal with the terrorists in the only way it would yield results because of outside meddling occasioned by our economic vulnerability. Misinformed by the Tamil diaspora and the NGOs largely controlled by the terrorists (who were mainly responsible for their coming into being) the Western governments, media, and other organizations discouraged the Sri Lankan government from resorting to the obvious solution. As a result, the country has had to pay a heavy price over a period of some thirty years in terms of human suffering and material loss.

The misplaced compassion and ill informed concerns shown by the international community and certain other elements , by their biased meddling in our internal affairs at this juncture, could similarly scuttle the Sri Lankan government’s genuine efforts to restore normalcy to our terrorism ravaged country.

The government has successfully called the LTTE’s bluff. This is something that the foreign and local friends of the terrorists cannot digest. The humane treatment of the terrorists themselves by the Sri Lankan government is only now being internationally acknowledged. The fact that the terrorists have been sustaining themselves on the food and medical supplies provided by the government for the civilians in the areas illegally held by the LTTE came to light only when they were forced to flee abandoning their posts in the face of the army onslaught. (The government agencies had sent more supplies than actually needed for the civilians because the government officers working in those areas were forced to furnish inflated civilian numbers at the behest of the LTTE, which wanted to create buffer stocks for their own use during their military campaign against the very government that fed them.)

The callous disregard of the Tigers even for the basic survival needs of the people they claim to protect is evident in the fact that they used rice-filled bags stolen from government stores to fortify their bunkers in the jungle while innocent Tamil civilians were left to starve. It is now being revealed that under the LTTE the Tamil civilians trapped in the areas they occupied have been living a life of abject misery. They shoot and kill Tamil civilians who try to escape to the government controlled areas. Children were forcibly removed from their parents under conscription orders by the LTTE; adults were used as forced labour in making earth bunds, trenches, moats, and bunkers. The Tigers have used the money they had collected from their supporters abroad and ostensible charities for smuggling in arms shipments, building clandestine airstrips in the thick jungle, and luxury bungalows for their leaders to live in clover. There is no sign of any new civilian housing having been built to be seen. Thousands of valuable trees have been felled to construct bunkers and training camps for the LTTE. Rails and electricity posts stripped from public utilities have been used for making military installations.

All these and other crimes of the LTTE are being exposed by our young journalists reporting from the battle front. I wish the diaspora Tamils, held to ransom by the Tamil terror activists abroad, had a chance to visit the North and see firsthand what the LTTE have done with the money they were forced to contribute for the separatist cause!

If this stark contrast between the humanity of the government of Sri Lanka and the inhumanity of the Tigers fails to convince our international mentors and ‘aid’ donors, the humane way the Sri Lankan armed forces have conducted their military operations against the LTTE over the past two and a half years may be referred to for further proof of that humanity. In spite of the fact that the terrorists launch their attacks from among the civilians, the army has always desisted from retaliatory fire. The terrorists have attacked the army from temples, churches, and hospitals No such building has been damaged by any deliberate retaliatory army fire. What the army usually does is to clean, and restore places of worship damaged and desecrated by the terrorists.

The implementation of the zero-civilian-casualty policy urged by the Sri Lankan President contrasts sharply with what is reportedly happening in Iraq and Afghanistan where the Americans are fighting their so-called anti-terror war. But since the thousands of civilian casualties caused in those places should perhaps be excused as mere collateral damage such a comparison may not be acceptable to our western advisors. Yet if the Sri Lankan armed forces did what the Israeli army did in indiscriminately targeting the Hamas militants mingled with civilians (ignoring the thousands of civilian fatalities), they could have finished off the Tigers overnight. We, as a nation, are averse to wanton killing like that.

Appointing biased individuals as special envoys (as the British wanted to do), or trying to impose their own ill conceived solutions on us (as the so-called Tokyo co-chairs did when they reportedly called upon the LTTE to accept the amnesty offered by the government and lay down arms, when in reality no such offer had been made by the Sri Lankan government) is not the best way to help the country at this critical moment. If they want to help us, let them do so by giving us substantial material help. At the same time it would be best if they allowed the Sri Lankans themselves to evolve their own solutions to their problems.

Rohana R. Wasala

Is the Mahavamsa a tissue of Myths?

Previously published in MIDWEEK REVIEW of The Island on Wednesday 23^rd January 2009

The Mahavamsa or The Great Chronicle of Ceylon (to use the title of the English translation by Wilhelm Geiger of the ancient classic) is a book of history in the form of a poem in the Pali language composed by a Bhikkhu named Mahanama at Anuradhapura around the latter part of the 5^th or the beginning of the 6^th century CE (Common Era). This work was commissioned by King Dhatusena (c. 460 -478 CE). Professor Wilhelm Geiger translated into German his own revised critical edition of the Pali original, which had been published in 1908. He added an introduction, appendices and notes to the German version. Mabel Haynes Bode put Geiger’s German translation into English. Professor Geiger then revised Mrs Bode’s English translation. Geiger’s Mahavamsa is in prose. Its first edition, prepared by T.W.Rhys Davids , was published in 1912.

Naturally the Mahavamsa is the envy of many nations in our region because “for hardly any part of the continent of India is there such an uninterrupted historical tradition as for the island of Ceylon”, as Professor Geiger states in his foreword to the first edition of Dr G.C. Mendis’s The Early History of Ceylon or The Indian Period of Ceylon History (1932). In fact few countries in the whole world can boast of such a continuous tradition of history and culture as our little island.

The Mahavamsa is a cherished symbol of the national identity of the Sinhalese, the builders of the unique two and a half millennia old island civilization. This land abounds in the ruins of ancient monuments and also restored edifices that bear testimony to that unbroken island-wide historical achievement. There is no evidence of any other independent parallel civilization within its boundaries. The Mahavamsa gives the Sinhalese a feeling of continuity of nationhood.

The danger of the Mahavamsa becoming an unnecessary casualty of ethnic politics is real, but such a fate is something unthinkable for us as a race with a distinct history. It is criticized by some because it does not provide a historical precedent that might support their unjust political claims. Some others treat it with contempt claiming that it divides the Sri Lankans. The truth is that the Mahavamsa refers to the close links that existed between Lanka and South India in propitious circumstances in early times, which should actually unite rather than divide different races. Then there are those enlightened individuals who just cannot tolerate even the mention of the legitimate claims of the Sinhalese!

The Mahavamsa is a serious book of history. Bhikkhu Mahanama, the author, at the very opening relates himself to the existing historical literature and popular traditions thus: “That (Mahavamsa) which was compiled by the ancient (sages) was here too long drawn out and there too closely knit; and contained many repetitions. Attend ye now to this (Mahavamsa) that is free from such faults, easy to understand and remember, arousing serene joy and emotion and handed down (to us) by tradition, - (attend ye to it) while that ye call up serene joy and emotion (in you) at passages that awaken serene joy and emotion.”

Mahanama’s Mahavamsa comes to a conclusion in Chapter 37, which deals with the reign of King Mahasena (c. 325 – 352 CE). The subject of the Mahavamsa is the early phase of the history of the Sinhalese race and that of the establishment of the Buddhist faith in the island. But the Mahavamsa was later continued up to the end of the 18^th century by different authors at different times (in the form of the Culavamsa ). The Culavamsa opens in the middle of the 37^th chapter where the earlier Mahavamsa came to an abrupt end, and completes the 101th chapter which ends thus: “After they had brought the King, the torturer of his people, to the opposite coast the Ingirisi by name seized the whole kingdom” (i.e. the British took possession of the whole island with the capture of the last king of Sinhale Sri Wickrema Rajasinghe). The Mahavamsa has been updated since, and now comprises the whole history of the island to date.

So the 6^th century Mahavamsa covers roughly the first eight hundred years of the island civilization since the legendary Vijaya, which period ended about one hundred and fifty years before the reconstruction of its history by Mahanama. However, the book cannot be dismissed offhand as a mere imaginative concoction by a partisan Buddhist monk obliged to obliterate certain important details unflattering to his royal patron or his own race.

In any case, since the Mahavamsa is not sacred dogma it can be subjected to academic and scientific scrutiny, as it has already been. What is of enduring significance to the Sinhalese, however, is the fact of its existence, not the presence or absence of absolute historical validity of its contents, which is something nearly impossible for any historiographer to achieve. It is also a fact that it remains the principal source of the island’s history. And that is a rare treasure for any particular nation.

Narration of historical events, especially events said or believed to have happened in another age or in another place than those in which the narrator happens to live involves the use not only of tangible sources such as literary works and popular traditions, but also of imagination. In other words history is, at least partly, a form of story telling: it is literature, the use of the creative possibilities of human language. The Mahavamsa can be regarded as both literature and history. As literature it conforms to the conventions of a particular literary genre. It is a kavya constructed according to alankara conventions accepted in ancient Indian literature and as such it harks back to earlier models. Professor Geiger warns us (in his foreword to Dr Mendis’s work referred to above) that we should remember this in judging the more recent parts of the book.

This is not to belittle the value of the Mahavamsa as history. In western literature also there are books that are acclaimed as histories, but are admired as artistic masterpieces as well , e.g. Herodotus’ The Histories and Thucydides’ The Peloponnesian War. (I mention the last two because they seem to enjoy readier acceptance as history among some local scholars than our own Mahavamsa. )

The fact that Bhikkhu Mahanama used the Pali language to write his poem does not necessarily mean that the Sinhala language was at that time too primitive for that purpose. Professor Geiger refers to Atthakatha (commentary literature) composed in old Sinhalese prose as one source that was available for the author of the Mahavamsa. Bhikkhu Mahanama’s adoption of Pali may be compared to our use of English as the chosen medium for a special purpose such as education or business.

The grand purpose of the monk’s whole endeavour was, after all, to compile this history “…for the serene joy and emotion of the pious”, (as the less than ideal English rendering of the original Pali phrase tells us). The book is intended to generate ‘serene joy and emotion’ in the pious. Each chapter of the Mahavamsa and its sequel the Culavamsa ends with the postscript “Here ends the … chapter, called ‘…….’, in the Mahavamsa, compiled for the serene joy and emotion of the pious”. (Prof. Geiger glosses the two terms pasada (serene joy) and samvega (emotion) thus: ‘Pasada signifies the feeling of blissfulness, joy and satisfaction in the doctrine of the Buddha, samvega the feeling of horror and recoil from the world and its misery’. So the Mahavamsa does not sound like political propaganda bolstering the claims of one race against those of another.

The Mahavamsa author makes Buddha’s Passing Away coincide with Vijaya’s arrival with his followers in Lanka. The Buddha, on his death bed, requests Sakka, the king of the gods, to ‘protect him (Vijaya) with his followers and Lanka’. The king of the gods entrusts this task to ‘the god who in colour is like the lotus’ i.e. Vishnu. By this the poet historian seems to be accommodating a contemporary popular belief of the Sinhalese that they had been assigned a special destiny as the Protectors of the Buddha Sasana by none other than the Guide of the World Himself. So what better medium than Pali to record the history of the ‘chosen’ race of the Sinhalese (Pali being the language of the sacred texts of the Buddhists)?

In his introduction to the Mahavamsa Professor Geiger avers that both the anonymous author of the fourth century CE Dipavamsa and Bhikkhu Mahanama of the Mahavamsa used an older work ‘a sort of chronicle of the history of the island from its legendary beginnings onwards’ in compiling their works, and that this work formed part of the Atthakatha (commentaries) ‘in the canonical writings of the Buddhists which later Buddhaghosa took as a basis for his illuminating works’. Geiger thinks that the author of the Mahavamsa not only knew the Dipavamsa , but also consciously and intentionally rearranged it, so that the Mahavamsa is a sort of commentary to the earlier work (i.e. the Dipavamsa ).

Professor Geiger refers to the various degrees of skepticism with which the European orientalists of his time treated the Ceylonese Chronicles as historical sources. His own opinion about these works supports the more favourable judgement of Rhys Davids, which he represents with a quotation from the latter’s Buddhist India (1903): “The Ceylon Chronicles would not suffer in comparison with the best of the Chronicles, even though so considerably later in date, written in England or in France”. Geiger also refers to another contemporary researcher in the same field H.C.Norman as sharing similar views.

Both the Dipavamsa and the Mahavamsa contain many stories of miracles orchestrating the historical events that they record, like the arrival of Arhant Mahinda with his companions flying through the air by their miraculous powers, and his making his followers invisible to the King until he was prepared to face them without fear. Such normally incredible details are only part of a tradition . They are meant to reflect the attitude of owe and piety of the faithful towards those events which were extraordinarily significant for them. The coming of Buddhism to the island, whether it happened over a period of time or during a single visit of some missionaries, actually took place; it is a historical fact. So is the conversion of the King of the land to the new faith. The extraneous mythical, legendary details express a people’s unconscious desire to emerge out of their own insignificance.

In the Prologue to his book The Footprint of the Buddha (Buddhist Cultural Centre, Dehiwaela, 2000) Professor E.F.C. Ludowyke writes:

The myths and legends which accompany every stage of a people’s history need not be accepted as anything but the mode in which a people has attempted to satisfy its unconscious needs. Not only the poet who has given the legend artistic form, but all those who have handed down the tradition of some mythical event, like the descent of the founder of the race from the sun-god, receive gratification for the deepest unknown longings through their fantasies. And if for man there exists something that is supernatural, then he may be able to raise himself from his insignificance through participation in this supernatural. The garb in which these fantasies appear says more perhaps of the cultural and social circumstances of a people than its recorded history. To discard legend, and myth, and fairy tale would just as much rob one of one’s most valuable sources of information about a people as to reject its art and literature as unimportant (p.1)

So the presence of myth and legend in popular tradition or literature including the Chronicles serves an essential function, and it does not falsify by itself the history that the Mahavamsa records. It is the historian’s job to remove the external additions and check the remainder for trustworthiness through internal and external evidence (to borrow from Geiger again).

That the authors of the Chronicles wished to tell the truth and that they did not intend to deceive the hearers or readers is clear, as Geiger points out. Both the Dipavamsa and the Mahavamsa represent the deadly enemies of the Sinhalese kings – the foreign conqueror Elara, and the usurpers Sena and Guttika – as righteous rulers. Geiger also mainatains that there is a clear and consistent endeavour to make out a systematic chronology so as to inspire confidence at the outset. Whole sections of the Dipavamsa are devoted to the purpose of synchronizing the history of the Buddhist church with the secular history of the island, and the latter with the history of India, an exercise that would lend more credibility to the contents of the book.

There is more important external support for the Chronicles. For example, the list of Indian kings before Asoka, and the statements about Bimbisara and Ajatasattu as contemporaries of the Buddha agree with the canonical writings according to Geiger. A Chinese pilgrim by the name of Hiuen-thsang mentions the name Mahendra as the missionary who spread the true doctrine in the kingdom of Sinhala. Also the history of the Missions in the Dipavamsa and the Mahavamsa is corroborated by inscriptions discovered in India.

This brief reference to internal and external evidence is meant to demonstrate the fact that the Mahavamsa is not a mere imaginative fabrication that deliberately omits to mention actual events that support one racial community’s claim to the sovereignty of the whole island in order to reinforce another’s similar claim. If the book was considered such a fabrication, why didn’t this allegedly misrepresented group write their own equivalent of the Mahavamsa , especially when they were supposed to be of a superior culture? (This is not meant to be so much a challenge as a suggestion for further inquiry.)

Any racial or ethnic community has an inalienable right to assert its particular identity as a distinct group and realize its human potential, while acknowledging the right of other communities to do the same, and promoting friendly coexistence with them as members of the same human race. The past history of any particular race is part of its unique identity. No racial community, large or small, should be asked to forget or ignore its past on fabricated evidence in order to gratify ephemeral political sensitivities. The ability to live in harmony with others in spite of differences of culture is an essential characteristic of civilized humanity. A community’s enjoyment of its distinct identity is not bigotry. Bigotry results when members of one group refuse to recognize the worth of another group because of a strong belief in their own racial or other superiority. The vast majority of ordinary Sinhalese are not guilty of such bigotry. They may appear bigoted to the really bigoted.

Partisan judgements on the Mahavamsa range from popular uneducated scoffing to more serious academic stigmatization. An example of apparently serious academic censure of the classic is its inclusion (Chapters 6 to 14 of the Mahavamsa ) in the External GAQ syllabus (2003) of the Sri Jayawardanepura University under ‘Mythology’.The syllabus for the First Examination in Arts of the External Programme of this university offers four subjects for study, out of which the students must select three for their examination (English I – English IV). Of these English III covers ‘Classical Literature’. It has two papers: Paper I – An Introduction to Epic, and Paper II - An Introduction to Mythology.

The Mahavamsa is prescribed for Paper II, i.e. under Mythology. The other texts recommended for this paper are Greek Myths by Robert Graves, The Metamorphosis by Ovid, and The Book of Genesis from The Authorized Version of the Bible.

Following are the titles of the nine chapters from the Mahavamsa :

Chapter 6: The Coming of Vijaya

Chapter 7: The Consecrating of Vijaya

Chapter 8: The Consecrating of Panduvasudeva

Chapter 9: The Consecrating of Abhaya

Chapter 10: The Consecrating of Pandukabhaya

Chapter 11: The Consecrating of Devanampiyatissa

Chapter 12: The Converting of Different Countries

Chapter 13: The Coming of Mahinda

Chapter 14: The Entry into the Capital

So according to the scholars who drew up this syllabus the arrival of a north Indian conqueror in the island, and the introduction of Buddhism by a group of missionaries from India, and the other events recorded in the book are just myths like those Greek myths, and the stories in the Bible (Whether the wisdom of classifying the Genesis chapters from the Holy Bible as mere mythology is acceptable to the Christian faithful is doubtful ).

The same scholars prescribe Herodotus’ The Histories (Books 1 to 5), and Thucydides’ The Peloponnesian War (Books 1 to 3) for Paper II of English III – Classical Literature for BA Part II of the said External Degree Programme, which covers ‘Greek and Roman History’. Both these works predate the Mahavamsa by about a thousand years. Herodotus has been considered as the Father of History in the Western World, but he has also been ridiculed as the Father of Lies by his successors. It is said that he traveled extensively in the Middle East in order to collect data for his great pioneering work, which deals with the wars between the Greeks and the Persians (490, 480 – 479 BCE). Just as our Mahanama, the author of the Mahavamsa, refers to supernatural events in his narrative, so does Herodotus meditate on divine interventions and other similar miracles in his; he also records popular beliefs when evidence is lacking. Herodotus’ immediate successor Thucydides (c. 460 – 400 BCE), was obviously more committed to accuracy of information. His work is a factual record of the Peloponnesian War (431 – 404 BCE) waged on the imperialist Athens by Sparta and its allies on land and sea, that devastated the entire Greek world.

The Mahavamsa shares the ‘defects’ of Herodotus’ The Histories (if its inclusion of myths and its dependence on popular beliefs can be called such) and the strengths of Thucydides’ The Peloponnesian War ( its commitment to the representation of events as they really occurred). It also stands comparison with the other two in terms of a clearly conceived and well articulated authorial purpose: Herodotus writes so ‘that the great deeds may not be forgotten … whether Greeks or foreigners: and especially, the causes of war between them’ (Herodotus – The Histories , Penguin Classics, 1972 ed. Intro. P.7); Thucydides aims to produce a piece of writing that would last for ever, not one devoted to the ephemeral dreams of an immediate public; Thera Mahanama of the Mahavamsa compiles his book ‘for the serene joy and emotion of the pious’.

Of the three monumental works the Mahavamsa comprehends the widest scope, being an attempt to record the entire history of a people: whereas Herodotus and Thucydides deal with two wars of a few years’ duration and some related events, Mahanama initiates a history that extends over many centuries. Although it is a work of history in conception, in tone it is more a work of religion intended to generate ‘serene joy and emotion of the pious’. This partly accounts for the author’s attitude towards the material he is dealing with: apparently he sees the history of the island as a fusion of the Buddhist faith and the Sinhalese nationhood. Of course as history Mahanama’s Mahavamsa is lopsided in that the author focuses on the rulers’ acts of devotion towards Buddhism such as the building of viharas, dagabas, preaching halls, hospices for monks, etc. to the almost complete exclusion of problems of statecraft and economy, the stability of which he seems to take for granted; at the same time it should be pointed out that the ancient classic enjoys a high level of credibility in its representation of the succession of Sinhalese monarchs who held general sway over the whole island despite temporary breaches of its continuity due to foreign invasions or internal divisions.

The Mahavamsa records the historical and cultural heritage of the Sinhalese which spans over two thousand five hundred years. It gives them a sense of continuity from time immemorial to this day. It is a treasured national possession which they cannot allow to be devalued or desecrated as a mere tissue of myths by those who wish to obliterate that unique history.

Rohana R. Wasala