Ahilan Kadirgamar on Sri Lanka

So the first book you chose was written back in colonial times: The Story of Ceylon by Evelyn Frederick Charles Ludowyk. Why choose such an old book?

This is my favorite history of Sri Lanka, or Ceylon, as it was then called. It was written in the late 1950s, just at the time of the escalation of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism. Ludowyk grew up in Sri Lanka, he was a Shakespearian scholar, half Sri-Lankan, half British, I believe, who taught at the University of Ceylon. He taught my parents’ generation, the generation that saw Ceylon gain independence from Britain in 1948 and after he retired he returned to England and died there. But before doing so, he wrote this book.

And for me, it is like reading something written by someone from an unimaginable era. Ludowyk tells the story of Ceylon, and he is conscious where it all might be heading, and you have glimpses of where 50 years later it could all end. But what is so refreshing for me is that it is also clear from the book that it didn’t have to go in this direction. That for people of that generation, and my parents’ generation, it would have been almost impossible to imagine the militarized conflict that would subsequently erupt. And looking back, it makes me wonder what went wrong: Why couldn’t we resolve our problems politically? Why did Sri Lanka’s history become so tragic?

I read this book a number of years ago and it made an enormous impression on me. Also because it takes a very sobering look at the history, which is at the centre of many of the claims made by both sides in the conflict.

History is at the center of the conflict? In what way?

Nationalism was used to polarize the two sides, and that nationalism was partly based on history.

On one side there is the myth of Sri Lanka’s origins. This idea that the country was blessed by the Buddha. That’s a large part of the basis for Sinhala nationalism. And on the other side the Tamils claim that certain areas always belonged to them, that they have had a clear homeland since time immemorial. And what Ludowyk points out is that in reality society was very mixed, very hybrid. The nationalists used history to polarize everything, but in fact the two sides were very interlinked, even by marriage.

So your next book is written when the conflict is already well under way.

Yes, The Broken Palmyrah - the palmyrah being a palm tree and a symbol of Jaffna. So the civil war really started in July 1983. This is when we had the horrendous anti-Tamil pogroms in Colombo, with over 2000 civilians killed, and it really marks the beginning of the full scale armed conflict. It was then that lots of young Tamils start to join militant groups - including the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or LTTE.

So The Broken Palmyrah was written in the late 1980s, and by then the conflict had already escalated quite a bit. It was written by four professors: Rajan Hoole, Daya Somasundaram, K. Sritharan and Rajani Thiranagama. They were the founding members of the University Teachers for Human Rights, based in Jaffna. Jaffna, by the way, is the main Tamil town - on the northern most peninsula of Sri Lanka.

By this time the LTTE campaign to marginalize other militant Tamil groups was already well under way. So these four individuals--two of them were mathematicians, one was a psychiatrist and Rajani, the last one, taught medicine—felt that at least within the university, they should be able to talk openly about things, and keep space for dialogue. And in their book, they take on all the armed actors and stand up for the rights of the civilians. So they document abuses by the Sri Lankan military, the Indian Peace Keeping Forces, by LTTE, and by other Tamil militant groups. Rajani, in her chapters, also raised questions about the role of women in the conflict – she argues that they were just being used cynically as armed cadres; that contrary to their claims, the LTTE really weren’t interested in women’s liberation at all, that women were just being used as fighters.

And I talk about Rajani in particular, because she was my neighbor when I grew up in Jaffna. She was only 35, and she had two small daughters. And, in 1989, she was assassinated by the LTTE for writing this book.

She was killed for writing The Broken Palmyrah? Why?

The Tamil Tigers killed her for questioning them. She was a doctor, she had set up a refuge for women called Poorani and she had a very dynamic personality. And I think that’s partly why they felt threatened. And this year marks the 20th anniversary of Rajani’s assassination by the Tamil Tigers. And she really is a beacon for the younger generation. She was only 35 but she had already done so much by then. Her life and work is the subject of a recent documentary by the National Film Board of Canada called 'No More Tears, Sister'.

And her death was really a watershed, because afterwards, dissent became much harder within the Tamil community. Her funeral is remembered as the last time there was a major protest in Jaffna. After that everything went quiet. There was no more open protest against LTTE within the Tamil community.

So, your next choice is Lost Opportunities by Kethesh Loganathan.