Daya Wickramatunga to Jayantha Somasundaram, 14 July 2024, in Response to Jayantha’s Circulation of the DAILY MIRROR Item on the 1958 Riots: viz. …………………………. https://www.dailymirror.lk/opinion/Black-July-facing-the-moment-of-truth/231-287106
The ‘Sinhala Only Bill’ by SWRD was ridiculous. SWRD could hardly speak Sinhala when he returned to Sri Lanka from Oxford. That [the Sinhaal Only campaign] was obviously a political move by SWRD.
Photo shows Tamils being ridiculed and assaulted on Galle Roadin Colombo by Sinhala çitizens’…but check if this is from 1983
The GG Ponnambalam 50:50 request was misunderstood by many. The Brits preferred the Tamils, because they could speak English better and they were better educated. When the Portuguese and the Dutch conquered Sri Lanka, the Sinhala kings were against them. They went to Jaffna to spread Christianity and also educate the Tamils. The Tamils were better educated than the Sinhalese. That’s the reason why the Brits preferred Tamils for government jobs. Following Independence, GG Ponna thought it would be best to advise the Sinhala politicians to provide equal opportunities to both communities. Not to favour either. I didn’t see anything wrong with that. The Sinhala politicians who took office failed to do that. Next, when SWRD, after having chats with Chelvanayagan, was prepared to make both Sinhala and Tamil the national languages, JRJ was against it. These events and shifts are what brought about the racial discrimination and also religious discrimination in Sri Lanka.
Next, Amithalingam created the terrorist movements in the North, because he didn’t like racial discrimination. LTTE became a strong opponent. Following the IMF discussions, Ranil was prepared for an amicable solution, but not Prabakaran. Amirthalingam wanted Prabakaran to go for a negotiated solution. LTTE was not prepared for it, and they killed Amirthalingam. Terrorism has no place in Democracy.
That’s the mistake that was made and we continue to have racial discrimination.
PS: he ‘Sinhala Only Bill’ of SWRD affected all the minority communities, not only the Tamils. Many of my Burgher friends in Sri Lanka left for Australia as a result.
Tarzie Vittachi …
- Also note Fruitful Droppings: From the Legacy of Tarzie Vittachie by Matthew Barry Sullivan (1997) …. & ….
- https://sangam.org/60th-anniversary-1958-anti-tamil-riots-part-2/
…. and this picture of burnt-out shops presented in RAVAYA … while trying toascertain whether it is from mid-1958 or from July 1983
ALSO NOTE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_anti-Tamil_pogrom
A. Sivanandan, (July 1984). “Sri Lanka: racism and the politics of underdevelopment”. Race & Class. 26 (1): 1-37…… doi:10.1177/030639688402600102. ISSN 0306-3968. S2CID 143870163.
Neil DeVotta (2004). Blowback: Linguistic Nationalism, Institutional Decay, and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka. Stanford University Press. pp. 114–117. ISBN 978-0-8047-4924-4.
W. D. Soysa (4 September 2003). “1958 Riots in Polonnaruwa and Sinhala Muslim unity in Valachenai” (PDF).
Tarzie Vitachi: Emergency ’58: The Story of the Ceylon Race Riots. Andre Deutsch. 1958 OCLC 2054641.
Michael Roberts: Exploring Confrontation: Sri Lanka: Politics, Culture and History (Studies in Anthropology and History, V. 14). Routledge. ISBN 3-7186-5506-3.
James Manor: The Expedient Utopian
It’s worth stressing that fifty-fifty did not mean half the seats in the legislature to Tamils and the other half to Sinhalese, but half to the Sinhalese while the minorities split the other half between them. This is not made sufficiently clear in the article.
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