March 29, 2015 · 1:22 pm

Forging New Paths in Sri Lankan and Colonial History

NIRA W-picNira Wickramasinghe’s  Metallic Modern. Everyday Machines in Colonial Lanka, Oxford/New York, Berghahn Books, 2014 ISBN 9781782382423… 192 pages, 20 illus., bibliog., index

ISBN  978-1-78238-242-3 $70.00/£44.00 Hb Published (January 2014) ….  ISBN 978-1-78238-243-0 eBook

“This is a most engaging book from a well-known author… a timely contribution concerning an important subject that is attracting renewed and sustained interest from historians of late….” · Crispin Bates, University of Edinburgh

“This book is academically rich, analytically sophisticated and full of insightful interpretations that make it a valuable sourcefor scholars and students from multiple disciplines. It will also be a pleasant read for those who are simply curious about the dusty machines that sacredly and majestically occupy a small corner of their grandparents’ homes, still covered with a cloth.” · The International Institute for Asian Studies Newsletter … SEE IIAS-review-Metallic Modern for full version of review by  Shyamika Jayasundera  Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under British colonialism, commoditification, cultural transmission, economic processes, female empowerment, island economy, life stories, modernity & modernization, politIcal discourse, riots and pogroms, sri lankan society, transport and communications, unusual people, world events & processes

March 28, 2015 · 1:12 pm

Creeping Self–Determination? Tamil Extremism gets a Boost from Modi

Izeth Hussain, courtesy of The Island, 28 March 2015, where the title reads “Wiggie’s Thunderbolt and 13A- not + as solution”

Modi + Sirisena  This article is really in continuation of my article, “After the Modi visit,” which appeared in The Island of March 21. That article was written hurriedly while I was still convalescent and in a state of alarm. Since then I have had time to consider some important feedbacks that I have received and to study in detail an important policy statement of Prime Minister Modi. I have come to two firm conclusions. One is that seen in the perspective of promoting a political solution to the Tamil ethnic problem the Modi visit was a total unmitigated disaster. Wittingly or otherwise it strengthened the hands of the Tamil racists who have been working, stealthily and steadfastly, towards Eelam or a confederal arrangement close to it. My other firm conclusion is that Sri Lanka can come through unscathed only by occupying the moral high ground. In concrete terms that can best be done by implementing 13A minus – that is 13A without police and land powers. Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under centre-periphery relations, governance, Indian Ocean politics, life stories, politIcal discourse, power politics, power sharing, reconciliation, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, world events & processes

March 27, 2015 · 6:52 am

The Japanese Raid on Colombo in April 1942, Leonard Birchall and the Catalina Squadron at Koggala

Rob Stuart, courtesy of http://www.journal.forces.gc.ca/vo7/no4/stuart-eng.asp where the title is “Leonard Birchall and the Japanese Raid on Colombo”

Introduction

Air Commodore Leonard Joseph Birchall, Member of the Order of Canada, Member of the Order of Ontario, Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, Distinguished Flying Cross, Canadian Forces Decoration, Officer of the United States Legion of Merit, passed away in September 2004 at the age of 89. His passing was reported in most Canadian newspapers, and all of them noted that he had been nicknamed ‘the Saviour of Ceylon’ for having spotted a Japanese fleet approaching Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) on 4 April 1942 while on patrol in a 413 (RCAF) Squadron Consolidated Catalina flying boat. Unfortunately, few accounts of Birchall’s actions that day paint a full picture of the combat operations in which his sighting report played an important factor. The aim of this article is to put Birchall’s discovery of the Japanese fleet into the full context of the operations conducted off and over Ceylon between 26 March and 9 April 1942. Stuart 1-BIRCHALL Leonard Joseph Birchall in the cockpit of his Catalina– CMJ Collection

Continue reading →

3 Comments

Filed under Indian Ocean politics, power politics, security, unusual people, war reportage, world events & processes, World War II, Zen at war

March 27, 2015 · 1:13 am

A Critical Review of Devolution Issues in Sri Lanka and India

Neville Laduwahetty, courtesy of The Island, March 2015

The Island Editorial of March 16, 2015 quotes Northern Province Chief Minister C. V. Wigneswaran as having stated as follows during Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Jaffna: “Thirteenth Amendment can never be the final solution. No wonder you referred to your firm belief in cooperative federalism yesterday in Parliament…Indian Constitution provides for the facilitation of sustainable development, internal security, law and order, policing and protection pertaining to lands and so on within the State. Our inability to function in our Province to the extent you are able to help Gujrat under the Indian Constitution needs to be understood…We need the services of a guarantor and it is our considered view that the Government of India under your stewardship is best suited for this role”.

Modi + Sirisena

The Chief Minister’s statement that provisions in the Indian Constitution permit opportunities for growth and development to an extent that is not permitted in Sri Lanka under the 13thAmendment reflects a deeply flawed understanding of the facts. Similar misperceptions are reflected in Prime Minister Modi’s call for the need to go “beyond” the 13th Amendment.   To establish whether the views expressed by the Chief Minister and the Indian PM have any substance it is necessary to compare the extents to which powers have been devolved in India and Sri Lanka.   Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, democratic measures, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, legal issues, politIcal discourse, power politics, power sharing, reconciliation, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, the imaginary and the real, truth as casualty of war, world events & processes

March 27, 2015 · 12:42 am

Against Closed Doors. For Inter-Religious Dialogue in Lanka

 Amarakeerthi Liyanage, a review article from year 2014, surveying World Literature: A Reader ed, by Prof. Cesar Domingues et al (Routledge, 2013)

Boston_marathon_bombing_22 Pic from wikiislam.net

When I heard about the Boston explosions I had many hopes. First, I hoped that my teacher, who is at Harvard, was safe. Second, I hoped no one was killed. Third, I hoped there was no any Muslim connection to the explosion. Finally, I hoped Boston, one of my favourite American cities, liberal, left-wing, cosmopolitan and intellectually bent, was not disrupted by any fundamentalist attacks, internal or external.

I found out soon enough that my teacher was safe. Sadly, some people died, including an eight-year old boy- someone from my son’s generation. America has its own fundamentalists. When it goes to war, America (Washington) itself is fundamentalist. International terrorism is a real problem and all fundamentalists are party to that terrorism. America’s not-so-democratic acts in the past also keep following like the cart behind the oxen as it has in a Dhammapada verse. In Sri Lanka too we have to be mindful of our collective Karma. Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, cultural transmission, democratic measures, historical interpretation, Indian religions, Islamic fundamentalism, life stories, Muslims in Lanka, politIcal discourse, reconciliation, religiosity, security, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, tolerance, trauma, vengeance, world events & processes, zealotry

March 26, 2015 · 2:09 pm

General Daya Ratnayake in the Course of the Eelam Wars … and Amidst the Political Kusu-Kusu in 2015

Maj. Gen. (Retd.) Lalin Fernando, in The Island, 21 March 2015, where the title is “General RWD (Daya) Ratnayake WWV RWP RSP USP”

DAYA 1 General Daya Ratnayake assumes command

Gen Daya Ratnayake WWV, RWP, RSP, USP Commander of the Army of Sri Lanka, retired in February 2015 after 36 years of distinguished service. He was promoted to four star rank on retirement. Unfortunately, as it happened shortly after the new government took power, his retirement may have been seen as a political act even though his promotion negates that idea. Unfortunately this is also a trend that is in keeping with the culture of a people that revels in rumour, however implausible, gossip, cultivating tale carriers (to local and foreign leaders) and taking revenge, however inappropriate. It started to affect the forces with the 1962 real failed coup.

There was a pause in this self-inflicted wounding from 1994 while the ‘conflict’ that raged resulted in over 21,000 deaths in the Army alone. Personal survival came first, so political rather than military objectives were prioritized. Meritocracy was restored in the Army in 2005.The results showed in the cataclysmic conclusion to the conflict at Nandikadal in 2009.The LTTE ceased to exist. Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under accountability, disparagement, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, LTTE, military strategy, patriotism, performance, politIcal discourse, power politics, prabhakaran, rehabilitation, security, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, Tamil Tiger fighters, truth as casualty of war, unusual people

March 26, 2015 · 12:34 am

The Colombo Chettiyar Community via Letters received by Nicolaas Ondaatje in Exile in the Cape in Dutch Times

Herman Tieken

Between Colombo and the Cape. Letters in Tamil, Dutch and Sinhala, Sent to Nicolaas Ondaatje from Ceylon, Exile at the Capeof Good Hope (1728-1737). Dutch Sources on South Asia c. 1600-1825. Volume 6. Delhi: Manohar, 2015.

In 1728, the Ceylonese Chettiyar Nicolaas Ondaatje was sent into exile to the Cape of Good Hope where he died in 1737, only a few months before the end of his term. All these years Nicolaas Ondaatje kept in contact with his family and friends in Ceylon through letters in Tamil, Dutch and Sinhala. His own letters are lost but those he received have been preserved. These letters give an intimate picture of an early eighteenth-century elite Chettiyar community in Ceylon employed by the Dutch East India Company. By contrast, at the Cape Nicolaas Ondaatje found himself in the company of the Free Blacks at the very bottom of the social ladder. Though as a convict he was allowed to move about freely, Ondaatje had to provide his own source of income, making a modest living, first as a doctor and trader and later as a home teacher. In the letters, which are kept in the archive in Cape Town, we have chanced upon a classic case of subaltern history. Here we have a protagonist who has been denied a voice by the quirk of the availability of historical documents, but whose situation comes through in the concern his family and friends show for him in exile thousands of miles away, over nine long years. The letters give an excellent picture of the loyalty of the Chettiyars to one of their own, of their unfailing Christian faith, and of their meticulous account keeping. That we will never know what Nicolaas Ondaatje did to deserve his long exile or how he died shortly before his term ended makes his life history all the more poignant.

DUTCH source-6 (1) Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under heritage, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, life stories, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes

March 21, 2015 · 2:19 pm

The Exile of Sri Vikrama Rajasinha, the Last King of Kandy, … amidst other Banished Potentates

Robert Aldrich, University of Sydney

In 1815, in completing their conquest of Ceylon, the British deposed, captured and exiled the last king of Kandy, Sri Vikrama Rajasinha, banishing the king, members of his family and servants to Vellore, India, where he spent the remainder of his life.  I am currently doing research on the circumstances of the king’s deposition and exile, the fate of the former sovereign and his entourage in exile, and the place of the king and the Kandyan dynasty in Sri Lankan memory, history-writing and commemoration.  Of interest, too, is the exile of leaders of the 1817-1818 resistance movement against the British to Mauritius.

capture pf Sri Vikrama Capture of Sri Vikrama Rajasinha Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under British colonialism, centre-periphery relations, economic processes, heritage, historical interpretation, politIcal discourse, power politics, sri lankan society, unusual people, world events & processes

Tagged as ,

March 21, 2015 · 8:12 am

National Anthem in Sinhala and Tamil 4th February 1949

INDEPENDENCE COMMEMORATION

ALSO SEE Michael Roberts: “Ideological Cancers within the Sinhala Universe,” 13 May 2014,  https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/ideological-cancers-within-the-sinhala-universe/

AND COMPARE: “National Anthem only in Sinhala; Tamil version out,” 23 December 2010….  https://thuppahis.com/2010/12/13/national-anthem-only-in-sinhala-tamil-version-out/

Continue reading →

4 Comments

Filed under heritage, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, language policies, self-reflexivity, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, sri lankan society, world events & processes

March 20, 2015 · 2:01 pm

The Mysterious Background of the Monster ISIS

Ameen Izzadeen , courtesy of The Daily Mirror, 20 March 2015,  where the title reads: “ISIS: The mystery behind the monster”

“… when you see them pray, you will look to them and think they are better than you; when they fast, you will think that they are better than you; they will recite Qur’an very well but it will never reach their throats, and they will leave the deen (the religion) like the arrow from the bow…” This was a warning from Prophet Muhammad about a group who were to come at a later time. 

In early Islamic history, there was a group called Khwarij who fitted this description. They were zealots, but apparently failed to comprehend the spirit of Islam. Yet, hordes of youths lured by the Khwarij’s fanaticism left their homes to join the group. Ali, Islam’s fourth Caliph, declared war against them fearing their harmful ideology would destroy Islam.  Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under Al Qaeda, arab regimes, historical interpretation, Islamic fundamentalism, politIcal discourse, power politics, truth as casualty of war, world events & processes, zealotry