Dr Muralidaran Ramesh Somasunderam, whose chosen title is “The Liberation Ttigers of Tamil Elam.”
The LTTE was the worst thing that destroyed Sri Lanka and its people for nearly forty years.
The LTTE killed many high caste Tamils, including Sinhalese and Muslims. They believed in children and women soldiers and suicide killing.
In fact, the 1983 ethnic riots were blamed rightly or wrongly because the LTTE killed about twelve to thirteen army soldiers in the North of Sri Lanka. Anyway, when innocent Tamils like me faced the brunt in Colombo in July 1983 the LTTE never came to our rescue. Many thousands of innocent Tamils were killed and their properties destroyed totally. In fact, my father Mr Rama Krishna Somasunderam was Senior Assistant Secretary in the Ministry of Mahaweli, but our family home located at no 16 Elvin Place, Nugegoda was totally burnt, including a magnificent private library of ancient books and teak furniture was totally destroyed or looted all together.
The 1983 ethnic riots and the burning of the Jaffna Library is what gave popularity and support for the LTTE by moderate Sri Lankan Tamils like me after the 1983 ethnic riots against Tamils in Colombo and where the Tamils had settled in Sinhala infiltrated areas around the country.
The LTTE was not only an ethnic ordinated organization but was infiltrated predominantly by lower caste Sri Lankan Tamils from the fishing caste community.
The LTTE and its leader late Mr Prabhakaran wanted Sri Lankan Tamils to have no caste system and wanted higher caste villages to be infiltrated predominantly with lower caste Sri Lankan Tamils in the North and East of Sri Lanka. He and his organization were the same like the JVP who were also fighting a caste and class battle in Sri Lanka. But the key factor that late Mr. Prabhakaran was emphasizing was the ill treatment of [the Tamils meted ou– t by the majority Singhalese voted governments carrying out ethnic riots in 1958, 1977 and the 1983 ethnic riots against the Tamils – [in a context where]e the police and army also supported the looters and gave the impression that it was a government-sponsored ethnic riots against the Tamils.
This was used by late Mr. Prabhakaran or his political yardage, but the real issue was caste and class based. This is why he got arms from the government of Sri Lanka Ranasinghe Premadasa who himself was not from the majority caste of Singhalese to use to kill the traditional Tamil leadership in Colombo when peace talks engineered by the Central Government of India were taking place in Colombo in 1989. Late Mr Prabhakaran realized that he will not be able to defeat a Vellalar leader and that if he wanted the lower castes to dominate in leadership in the North and East, which is the traditional homelands of Sri Lankan Tamils even today, has to done by the barrel of the gun and not by democratic vote.
This is why the LTTE killed the late Mr Rajeev Gandhi after he had done and given so much to the Sri Lankan Tamils based on the Gandhi/Jayewardene pact of 1987.
Many moderate Sri Lankan Tamils thought that after the LTTE defeat that, apart from peace, a political solution will be brought between the Sinhalese and the Sri Lankan Tamils in the North and East of the country based on the 13th Amendment which the Indian governments always speak about, but nothing has been achieved in this regard to date.
In conclusion, I believe if the relations between the majority Sinhala people and the Sri Lankan Tamil people in the North and East of Sri Lanka is [sic] not solved, the Indian government will always play on the differences for their political and strategic interests.
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Ramesh Somasunderam lives at 254 Vahland Avenue, Willetton 6155, Western Australia.
A NOTE from Michael Roberts, 7 January 2025: He is the son of Rama Somasunderam, a Peradeniya Arts graduate who secured entry to the prestigious Sri Lankan Civil Service and served in the dry zone for many years. Rama was senior to me at Ramanathan Hall in 1957 et seq. Our depths of friendship deepened when he hosted my wife and myself at Polonnaruwa during one of our trips to the dry zone in the 1960s or early 1970s.
The Somasunderam’s resided in a house at Elin Place in Nugegoda within Colombo. This house was attacked, ransacked and burnt by a gang of racist hooligans (presumably Sinhalese for the most part) during the 1983 pogrom. Apart from the economic blow, Rama lost a valuable stock of books. But we must also consider that which is immeasurable: the searing blow to the “Sri Lankanness” within their being.
The Somasunderam’s migrated to Perth at some point thereafter.
ALSO NOTE
Michael Roberts …..https://thuppahis.com/2023/07/24/the-agony-and-ecstasy-of-a-pogrom
https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/en/document/massacres
Hoole, R. et al., 1990, The Broken Palmyra, Claremont, CA: Sri Lanka Studies Institute. Also available at: http://www.uthr.org/BP/Content.htm
Mcgowan, W., 1992, Only Man is Vile: The Tragedy of Sri Lanka, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Piyadasa, L. 1984, Sri Lanka: The Holocaust and After, London: Marram Books.
Senaratne, J. P., 1997, Political Violence in Sri Lanka, 1997-1990: Riots, Insurrections, Counter-insurgencies, Foreign Intervention, Amsterdam: VU University Press.
Sri Lanka Co-ordination Centre, 1983, Sri Lanka- ‘Paradise’ in ruins, Kassel: Sri Lanka Co-ordination Centre.
Tambiah, S. J., 1986, Sri Lanka: Ethnic Fracticide and the Dismantling of Democracy, London: I. B. Tauris & Co. Ltd.
Wilson, A. J., 1988, The Break-Up of Sri Lanka, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
A timely piece that prompts me to provide an excellent analysis by Thomas Sowell, an American scholar, historian, economist and social philosopher. Entitled “The man who single-handedly destroyed a nation,” it focuses on the political ambitions of SWRD Bandaranaike and his nationalist agenda. The 14-minute-video will be particularly valuable to the younger Sri Lankan generations who often have difficulty understanding why the Sinhalese-Tamil problem exists. It reminds us all that wedge politics can be catastrophic, particularly at a time when Donald Trump is about take the reins in America.
Whereas Dr Somasunderam’s account focuses on the destructive campaign of the LTTE and of the impact it has on his own personal situation, Sowell’s account asks why and how it all came about.
I’m interested in knowing whether “Dr Muralidaran Ramesh Somasunderam” is a medically qualified individual, or a Veterinarian or an academic with a Ph.D degree. Such a gibberish junk, that’s all I can write here.
If LTTE was the ‘worst thing that destroyed Sri Lanka’, how about the activities of Rajiv Gandhi’s muscle-flexing IPKF and RAW gumshoes who planted their feet in the blessed island early 1980s, and are still active covertly?
The LTTE killed Rajiv Gandhi who did do much for Sri Lankan Tamils. This is not mentioned by you, as the LTTE apart from being a terrorist organisation killed the traditional Tamil leadership in Colombo in 1989 and assassinated Rajiv Gandhi for recognising the traditional Sri Lankan Tamil homelands, including language. I yet believe that our good name and reputation as a law abiding race of people was killed becuse of the LTTE and they have left the Sri Lankan Tamils in a worser position before they took up to arms and killed so many innocent Tamils, Sinhalese, and Moors in the battle they had, which brought no one any good, except make Sri Lanka a worse country particularly economy and safety wise because of their extremist views, which were caste and race driven. this is a fact, which you cannot deny.
Sowell’s analysis is the typical simplistic analysis that puts all the blame on SWRD’s 1956 government.
Sowell’s analysis encapsulates the simplistic approach to the Sri Lankan ethnic problem favoured by western analyists, “Human-Rights” writers, and also by some academic writers of Sri Lankan origin. They put the whole blame on SWRD’s “opportunism”, his Sinhala Language policy, and single him out, whereas the seeds of the conflict had been sown much earlier [See, Dr. Jane Russell’s book on “Communal politics under the Donoughmore Constitution (1982)”]. Populism in politics was fashionable in the 1930s in Europe and also in Sri Lanka (both SWRD and GGPonnambalam had been labeled “pocket Hitlers” by their respective admiring follwers, at a time when Hitler was viewed as a model of a politician who stood to support his ethnic group.)
The World War-II as well as the political sagacity and astuteness of the D.S.Senanayake-OliverGoonetilleke combine successfully delayed any ethnic anger flairing until the unfortunate death of DSS. Senanayake had hoped to settle the Sinhala-Buddhist versus Tamil demands (pushed by elite Christian Tamils, and NOT by Hindus) through backroom negociations, away from the dangers of electoral politics. We must remember that the first Sinhala-Tamil riot occurred in 1939 due to provocative and racist speeches by GGPonnambalam. It could have had serious outcomes but for the rapid action of the British Raj in restoring law and order. GGP lost his political standing and looked a clown after his extreme demands from the Soulbury Commission, as well as his claim that the Tamils were “discriminated down” by the British.
It was DS Senanayake who gave a fresh political booster to GGP by inviting him and several Tamils into his first Cabinet of Independent Ceylon, with an ethnicity ratio in the cabinet quite favourable to Tamil speakers. Even by today’s standards of how immigrant workers are treated in the west when it comes to citizenship, the Indian Citizenship Act was a model of democratic treatment for its time. It allowed citizenship to all estate workers who had continued residence in the country for 7 years if they were unmarried, and I think 6 years if they were married. By contrast, in the 1940s, an immigrant worker in the US or Europe had no chanced of getting citizenship at all. Even country-born Japanese and other foreigners were arrested and held as prisoners during the war and had limited rights in peacetime. Native Indians (“red skins”) had no citizenship rights and were held in “Native reserves”. Black Americans were still under the Jim-Crow rules at that time and even into 1965. So, for Sowell or others to criticize the Indian Citizenship act of the 1940s (drawn with consultation of GGP, Vaithiyalingam and others, as well as Up-Country Sinhalese “Radala” leaders and Tamil Planter politicians who were opposed to Indian citizenship) is pure hypocrisy. What we hear from Trump today about immigrant workers is very moderate compared to the attitude of Western people in the 1940s. They believed in the inherent superiority of Whites, just as Tamils and Sinhalese believed in their inherent superiority over “coolie” estate workers.
So, a fair assessment of the immediate post-independence era in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) is to say that its leaders acted in a more enlightened manner than the USA of the 1960s, and respected many of the liberal sentiments of the more enlightened segments of the British Raj, with people like Ivor Jennings and B. H. Farmer acting as its advisors. The Donoughmore Commission of 1931 was way ahead of Jim Crow. But the extremism and polarization of racism had already been planted in the 1930s by the Racist Politics of GGPonnambalam, and the politics of the Sinhala Maha Sabha that came into being as a reaction to the racist politics of GGP Ponnambalam. After GGP accepted the politics of the “Ceylonese concept” of DSSenanayake (as seen from his acceptance speech after the Soulbury Commission, F. Rees, Senanayake memorial number), GGP and the Tamil congress (formed in 1944), as well as many Colombo Tamils, were ready to follow a policy of moderation.
But it was SJV. Chelvanayagam, EMV. Naganathan, M. Navarathnam and others, some of whom had boasted of their Chola origins in the State Council (this includes GGPonnambalam, see Hansard 1935, Column 3045) who took over the Tamil extremist mantel of GGPonnambalam. SJV, who had been deeply radicalized by Thambimuttu’s history of Tamils in Sri Lanka (published around 1940 and in 1945, entitled “Dravida, a History of the Tamils from prehistoric times to 1800”, and containing views similar to Today’s renderings by ex-NCP chief minister C. Wigneswaran) formed the new political party named Ilankai Thamizha Arasu Kadchi in 1949 and brought out the Maradana declaration where the first musing of the Tamil Arasu (Eelam) to be established in the “exclusive homelands of the North and East” were sounded out.
In fact, initially, the ITAK was regarded as a fringe racist party by most Tamils, and it was their post-1956 antics, as well as the violent reaction to those antics by Sinhala goons, with no attempt to restore order by the state that escalated the problem, with people like JR Jayewardena, KMP Rajaratne et al taking an extreme nationalist position against SWRD. The ITAK also played a double game, with negotiations to find a moderate solution (e.g., Banda-Chelva pact aka BC pact) while at the same time undermining it all by engaging in inflammatory actions (e.g., the tar brush campaign against the SRI registration plates) to coincide with the announcement of the Banda-Chelva agreement. These included printing of Eelam stamps and unleashing “hartals”, blocking Kachcharis (offices of the Govt adminstrative system), forming “Makkal Padai”, distributing toy pistols etc, all these also coinciding with the BC-pact. The book by M. Navaratnam, published in the late 1950s, spells out what he considered to be the “Irreconcillability of the Sinhalese and the Tamils”, although, ironically, M. Navaratnam, the ITAK theorist of the time, was also involved in drafting the BC-pact although he believed that the Sinhalese and the Tamils were irreconcillably distinct.
These anti BC-pact acts were echoed by JRJ and others who organized Buddhist monks to demonstrate against the BC-Pact. JRJ’s family was strongly linked to the Kelaniya Temple and the Eksath Bhikku Peramuna. Instead of hartals and tar brushes, if the ITAK had given support to SWRD just after the Banda-Chelva agreement and buttressed him and worked with him, a very different outcome would have been achieved (see the “Peking-wing” Communist-party leader N. Shanmugathasan’s book on the History of Ceylon during this period).
We must also remember that the ITAK opposition to SWRD Banda, as well as the unleashing of civil disobedience in the North did not come immediately after the Sinhala Only act. It came after only the outlawing of social discrimination (caste system, see: http://www.srilankaguardian.org/2011/10/tamil-caste-discrimination.html ) that greatly angered the upper caste Tamil leaders who were Landlords of the North, living in Colombo 7, and profiting from the exploitation and discrimination of a less-previlaged stratum of Tamils that was possible within the caste system, for cheaply fulfilling their agronomic needs. This caste system has unfortunately now come back after the end of the Eelam wars, with the return of Tamil leadership to the TULF/TNA leaders.
So, if we are to single out individuals responsible for planting the seeds of racism and division, I would put the blame on GGPonnambalam, SWRD, JRJ, and emphatically on SJVChelva, EMVNaga, MNavaratnam and other early ITAK leaders .
We must also note how the Muslims cooperated with SWRD, while also admiring the very astute politics of Thondaman Sr., who maintained excellent relations with all the leaders and obtained success for his people in a peaceful manner, avoiding the attempts to radicalize them (e.g., by the Marxists with their insertion of Bracegirdle and other militants into the estate system, and by the Tamil liberation groups later on). The Marxists of the day preached violent takeover of the state, and were viewed by Senanayake and others in much the same way as the Muslim Jihadists are viewed today. The Marxist actions of the time frightened moderate leaders and made the citizenship of estate workers even more difficult. The estate Tamils were never integrated into the ITAK activism because, although the ITAK leaders were happy to condemn the Indian Citizenship Act, they themselves regarded the Estate Tamils as being of lower-caste “coolies”.
The Sowell analysis points out that the 40% of all admissions in the Sciences was taken by the Tamils, 49% of medical admissions also by Tamils, and that this fell to about 14% due to the introduction of disrtict-based admissions to Universities, and that this was discrimination against the Tamils. Given that the Tamil population is indeed 12-15% (in the 1950s, and now, in spite of emigration of Tamils for economic and war-related reasons), the “after-the fact” statistic of 14% seems to be more in accord with national demographics. In fact, the previous statistics of 40-49% do not reveal the fact that the 40-49% Tamils who got admitted to the coveted medical, engineering and science faculties, were also almost entirely from privileged Elite sections of Tamils, with virtually no Tamils from lower castes, or from rural areas like Mullativu or Mannar and Vavuniya entering the Sciences prior to the enactment of district-based admissions. The Mavattipuram confrontations (late 1970s) between the ITAK and the Peiking-wing Communits on Temple entry and school entry shoed howd the then existing system discriminated within the Tamil commuinity itself.
While the initial affirmative action in University admissions seemed to have a racist/linguistic element (being based on language), a corrected version was introduced within an year. Tamil academics like Prof. Ratnajeevan Hoole have stated that the district-based admissions policy opened the door for Tamil (and others including the sinhalese) students from impoverished districts. Prof. C. R. de Silva has made a more objective study of the University Admissions Enactments, and in the light of his writings, I believe that what Sowell says here is misleading, and reflects the usual propaganda of the Eelamist lobby and NGO writers. The current district-based admissions system does not discriminate against Tamils.
CHANDRE has provided us with an excellent, grounded historical survey HERE. It deserves article-length presentation with a battery of photographs and a bibliography to embellish and consolidate its arguments. …… Bravo.
The individual with the tag ‘thoughtfullypink,,,’ which thuppahi identifies as Chandre, has muddled the elegant findings of Prof. Chandra de Silva. I suggest thuppahi to post the complete paper of Prof. de Silva.
EMAIL NOTE circulated by RAMESH, 8 January 2025
”
“Dear all,
Wish you all a very Happy New Year.
I am very sorry for my article in regard to the LTTE that it was a caste-based organisation. I was corrected by a lady today who had very close connections to the LTTE and its leadership.
We are all God children in the eyes of God and I went on statistics, but I was correctly informed by this good lady that many high caste people were also part of the LTTE.
So if I hurt anyone’s feelings based on my article as a Christian I ask for your giveness unequivocally and with total humbleness. We all can make mistakes, but we must stand up, accept it and ask forgiveness from God and the person or persons we unknowingly targeted.
God Bless and love,
Ramesh Somasunderam.”
To the best of my knowledge, there was a strong KARAIYAR core at the leadership levels in the LTTE in the 1980s-to-1990s; and the Vellalar component was limited. But it is up to competent Tamil personnel and Specialists from India and abroad to provide a detailed picture of the situation over time. One ‘fair’ lady’s opinion does not constitute a definitive conclusion.
It seems that I erred in thinking that the COMMENTS inserted by “THOUGHTFULLYPINK” were by CHANDRE DHARMAWARDENA [a “Professor” who does not flag the title]. My error may stem from the incisive character of that PINK MAN’s comments — a feature of Chandre’s writings in the social science field.
IT would be a help if “ThoughtfullyPink” blows his cover.
Clarification by Chandre Dharmawardana.
I do not understand how the tag “thoughtfullypink71e944e361” came when I submitted my comment in the usual manner. I immediately asked Michael (Roberts), and he explains to me that he does not know (presumaly, the ins and outs of the “wordpress” algortim) how or why a pseudonym tag got created by the “system”.
So, while the comment is mine, the pseudonym was not put in by me or created by me.
Now that Prof. Chandre Dharmawardana had acknowledged that he was the individual with the tag ‘thoughtullypink..’, please allow me to correct [only] two errors in his long comment.
Chandre writes about ” The book by M. Navaratnam, published in the late 1950s, spells out what he considered to be the “Irreconcillability of the Sinhalese and the Tamils”, although, ironically, M. Navaratnam, the ITAK theorist of the time…” Will he provide the correct name of the author and the correct title of this dubious Federal Party guy tagged as M. Navaratnam, for us?
There were two recognized Navaratnams. One was Vaithianathan Navaratnam (former MP for Kayts). Other one was Vallipuram Nallathamby Navaratnam (former MP for Chavakachcheri). This individual ‘M. Navartnam’ is Prof. Chandre’s delusion, should I say. The ITAK theorist of 1950s was V. Navaratnam.
Also, as I had mentioned in my previous comment, Prof. Chandre should NOT distort the findings presented by Prof. Chandra de Silva about the district quota system adopted by Sirimavo’s Department of Education, then headed by un-elected Muslim minister Badiuddin Mahmud, who had a Rasputinic hold on Sirimavo B.. Chandre should check what was written in Prof de Silva’s 1974 paper. Here is the exact reference.
C.R. de Silva ‘Weightage in university admissions Standardisation and district quotas in Sri Lanka. Moden Ceylon Studies, 1974; 5(2) 152-178.
Here is a paragraph from Prof. Chandra de Silva’s thoughts. “There are several gaps in our knowledge of the working of the district quota system. For instance, the Ceylon Daily News 22 of December 1973 quoted the Minister of Education, Al Haj Badiuddin Mahmud, to the effect that district quotas would not apply to Muslims. This might well explain the sudden rise in the number of Muslim students admitted to science-oriented courses in 1974 but the rationale for such a decision, if it was really made, has not been subsequently explained.” (p. 165)
Michael, I presume that you may have a copy of this Modern Ceylon Studies 1974; 5(2) number. Because, I note that your paper on ‘Labour and the the politics of labour in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries’ follows Prof. Chandra de Silva’s paper on the district quotas system. In the wider interests of fact checking and unwanted spreading of spurious data in the Net, why not provide the complete text of Prof. Chandra de Silva’s paper, to correct the distortions made by Prof. Chandre Dharmawardana?
The ensuing discussion is much more insightful. SWRD’s move towards giving pride of place to the native people was hijacked by the racist in his government and SWRD went along for political power. It is a pity that parity between the Sinhalese and Tamils were not maintained in going Swabasha. The loss of English as the language of commerce and administration will only be moaned by the ruling classes. Though no single person can be held responsible for permanently ripping apart the social fabric along racial line, JRJ should take the greatest blame. Some of his ministers orchestrated the violence and he allowed the racial violence to go on without stamping it down with the armed forces. For the first time the government abrogated any semblance of representing the whole nation. However much I tell myself I helped Tamils in my neighbourhood, I still carry the collective shame and guilt of the 1983 riots.
I cannot understand how a vile article like this even gets published. The article is high on how “High Caste” Got infiltrated by lower castes. The world is moving towards an egalitarian society.
Reading this article gives me a good feel about Prabhakaran. Looks like he was a revolutionary. He was destroying the caste system and also liberating his people.