Gajalakshmi
Paramasivam
24
September 2019
Dr
Rajani Thiranagama’s Nation – Tamil Nation or Sri Lankan Nation?
Recently , I said to a Vaddukoddai trainee – that if
she overrode the rule I gave her she would kill her job opportunity to that
extent. This came to my mind when I read the Island’s publishing of ‘Thirty Years After: Rajani’s Lasting Impact’
- (Speech delivered by Rajan Hoole at Trimmer Hall, Jaffna, on 21st September
2019)
Rajani’s
plight in many ways was/is also Jaffna’s
plight. It boils down to the question of whether education is for a living or
for life? Most of us start off with ‘Education for living’ as our goal. I
myself openly declared when I was in high school – that I sought to go into the
best paid profession. That brought me lesser status than those who declared that
they wanted to be doctors or engineers. But my declaration was my needs based truth.
It was that truth that promoted me to apply my
knowledge - for Life after I fulfilled my duty as a parent. To me, replacing
ourselves in family and community to the extent they contributed to our
development is a fundamental duty.
Dr Rajan Hoole states as follows about Dr Rajani
Thiranagama:
[She was an
academic extraordinary, not one whose fame owed to a numerical count of obscure
papers. She wrote in the Broken Palmyra:
"In
this sketch an encompassing view is attempted, within the framework of
historical analysis. … [It] rather breaks into emotional and descriptive
scenarios. This has been inevitable for us, as we are participants in the pain
and agony of a nation. This sketch is attempted principally to bring out into
the open the little known side of our nation (already people are adapting
themselves to living with reality, pushing and smothering the pain into the
recesses of memory) and the underlying causative processes and forces."]
The confusion to my mind is which nation Dr Rajani
was referring to – Tamil Nation or Sri Lankan Nation. The following details
published by Wikipedia shape my thoughts to form a relationship:
[Rajani was
born in Jaffna,
in northern Sri Lanka, to middle-class Tamil Christian
parents. She was the second child of the four female children. She followed her
primary and secondary school education in Jaffna and in 1973, she entered
the University of Colombo to study
medicine. At university, she became actively involved in student politics.
During
her stay at Colombo University she met a politically active student leader
from Kelaniya University named Dayapala
Thiranagama. Dayapala was from a rural Sinhala Buddhist background. Rajani
broke ethnic and religious barriers and married Dayapala in 1977. ]
That marriage is like the JVP and the LTTE living
together in the same space. Hence the ‘nation that Dr Rajani referred to is
taken as Sri Lanka where Tamils and Sinhalese coexist. More importantly –
Rajani used the resources of University
of Colombo and therefore owed Sri Lanka – the Common Nation. That contribution
would have reduced the risk of premature declarations in public.
Dr Rajan Hoole provides the following analysis in
relation to the above mentioned
conclusion by Dr Rajani :
[As ‘pain and agony’ in
the passage suggests, for Rajani, intellectual activity was entwined with our
emotions and feelings, and flowing with these it gives direction to our
actions.]
In my yesterday’s article I wrote as follows:
[Knowledge is processed at three levels. (1)
Hearsay, (2) Intellectual logic (3) Belief. Likewise our intake of the outside
world through our senses.]
Our expression likewise are at three levels (1)
emotions (2) Intellectual (3) Feelings. For Dr Rajani to express feelings she
needed to Believe at the academic level where there is no room for emotions. Dr
Rajani’s marriage was between equals.
But with militants – it varied between being junior and senior. I was very particular
to leave Vanni when the LTTE indicated that it was going into ‘fighting’ mode.
I gave my reports to UNDP – with a copy to LTTE chief.
I believe that by culture – I respected my elders
and distanced myself from those who were disrespectful of their elders. I was
in Vanni in 2003. The LTTE killed their elders in 1989. When we respect our elders
– we inherit their mind-structure. In Academic terminology – this prevents
plagiarism which confirms that knowledge has been downgraded to ‘substance’
level. Unless we do the work from zero base – we have duty to pay our respects
to those before us before adding our work to theirs.
In Hinduism – we learn that one must renounce ‘attachment’
to identify with our soul. In Academic
work unless one seeks and finds the truth from scratch – one needs the past
work of others. Where we have knowledge of who said something we pay our
respects by attributing that to those person/s. Where we do not – we need to
pay our respects quietly to the Spirit of the issue. In Dr Rajini’s case – was it
Medicine or was it – armed rebellion? Did Dr Rajini develop academic leadership
or Armed rebellious leadership?
The following passage in Wikipedia gives us a strong
indicator:
[Inspired by
her elder sister Nirmala, then a member of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam,
Rajani became involved with the LTTE, administering
care to those wounded in action. In 1983, Rajani travelled to England under
Commonwealth scholarship for postgraduate studies in anatomy at Liverpool Medical School. There she
launched a major international campaign for the release of her sister who was
imprisoned in 1982 under Sri Lanka's Prevention of Terrorism Act. She also
maintained her links with LTTE by joining its London Committee to educate human
rights groups and other international organisations about the atrocities
occurring in Sri Lanka. While continuing to write and publish scientific
papers, she also became implicated in grassroots organisations fighting for
women's rights and against the discrimination of Britain's black people and
became involved in the international campaigns of other liberation groups.]
The above is a common pattern with many migrant
academics known to me – including those from America. They seek to be big shots in small kuttai/puddle
than be small fry in the big pond. LTTE
suffered due to such tendency which led to partnerships with the very Sinhalese
they claimed to oppose. The actual opposition was soldier to soldier at their
level. When it came to political governance – they carried negative genes due to their killing of
political leaders who gave form to the Independence claim through the political
pathway. The most serious one was Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. When one’s
skills are raised largely through technicalities – the mind of the original
discoverers of truth is left behind. Free Association with such technical cleverness carries the
risk of our own mind structures being demoted to that level.
When the pathways are different – we need Separation
– which prevents us from becoming juniors or seniors.
Dr Hoole states :
[The
key to understanding Rajani as an intellectual is her compassion for the
downtrodden, and those ridiculed and oppressed because of their birth. She was
in spirit and action part of their struggle to emancipate themselves and was
harshly critical of leaders who misguided and misused them. This comes through
in her section ‘No More Tears Sister -The Experiences of Women’]
Those who seem oppressed because of their birth may
not seem to be oppressed to their parents and therefore themselves. The
Toddy-tapper village of Thunaivi seemed oppressed to me – one of Vellala /
Farmer caste. I lived as part of that village but without deviating from my lawful
pathway. They had their own system of justice – which usually was emotion
driven. Unable to bear the insolence of the youth – whose mates stole our solar-lighting
and the fence wires – I reported them to
the Police. Our cottage was stoned. But
I did have the warning much earlier during Pongal / Harvest festival – when they
played loud music as if that whole environment was theirs. To my mind that kind
of freedom came through militants who ‘stole’ the work of politicians and
became possessive of their ‘freedom’ to express themselves – especially with
women. This kind of disrespect for women – including their mothers was part of
LTTE culture.
Dr Hoole presents Dr Rajani’s construction of this
as follows:
["Unlike
in the other groups, however, in the EPRLF, women were taking a more assertive
role and putting forward clear, honest political positions in times of crisis.
For instance, after the massacre of the TELO cadre by the LTTE, the EPRLF was
the sole movement in the ENLF (the United Front of the EPRLF, the EROS, the
TELO and the LTTE) that protested and organised demonstrations and other
protests. This campaign was led by their women members. This position contrasts
with that of the other members of the ENLF, such as the EROS who tactically
decided to keep quiet and co-exist with the LTTE. Later when the EPRLF was
crushed by the LTTE, many EPRLF. women were beaten-up by the L.T.T.E.. One
prominent member of the L.T.T.E. had said while beating some women:
"What,
liberation for you all. Go and wait in the kitchen. That is the correct place
for you."
She
adds, "Therefore the armed women's sections developed either in terms of
"use" as in the case of the LTTE. or in a mechanical fashion, as a
graft of an idea borrowed from other liberation struggles as with the EPRLF.
Thus, the passive stand by the LTTE women can be understood, as the movement
approved of them exactly as their society did. The fact that the EPRLF,
possessing an advanced consciousness, was unable to transplant it in the
community, is a general phenomenon in all EPRLF activities - in the armed
struggle, the mobilisation of people and the construction of people's
structures, among others. In every major aspect, the EPRLF exhibited
estrangement between its theory and practice. Therefore neither our material
reality nor our history had the basis to support a fully blown women's section
in the armed movements. It is tragic that these women's sections themselves did
not make any attempt to grasp their reality; an analysis of the position of
women, the crucial social issues confronting them in Tamil society and women's
history, would have enlightened them and cleared the way to laying down the
fundamental tasks and priorities."]
The statement "What, liberation for you all. Go and
wait in the kitchen. That is the correct place for you." confirms that
women power which was a minority power within Armed groups – led by LTTE – was a
‘substance’ that men could use for their own purposes and then throw away. This
was seriously disrespectful of Northern Tamils from whom we inherited
Thesawalamai law. The parallel of this
demotion in the civilian Tamil society is
demoting dowry to ‘donation’ and therefore ‘trading value’. To the extent
mothers contributed to their children’s education – militants who were disrespectful
of women were disrespectful of Education itself. This was apparent in Mr Velupillai Thangavelu
in relation to Mr Wigneswaran whom he treated as his junior. It is significant that
the former lives in Canada and the latter in Sri Lanka’s North.
Like Dr Rajani – Mr Wigneswaran also demoted himself
in the name of service. Unless we renounce the titles that give us the status –
we confirm imprisonment in that system – but at the lower level where the
outcomes are visible. In the case of Mr Wigneswaran it is his status as Justice
and in the case of Dr Rajani – it was her status as an Academic. Both suffered
due to duality which eventually leads to bipolar tendencies. Gandhi renounced the
higher benefits including status as an educated person. Hence he became one of
the junior castes who were ‘abused’ by the rulers. That renunciation made
Gandhi eligible for the support of Divine powers of masses.
In contrast – I had duty to Jaffna and if I had
stayed on in Thunaivi – I would have failed to replace myself in Jaffna –
especially through education. It is significant that Rajani who studied at
Jaffna College – Vaddukoddai and whose father was Vice Principal of Jaffna
College is not known at all in Thunaivi – where most of the folks of her generation
did not go past primary school. Knowing those folks as if they were a part of
me - I am not surprised that Dr Rajani
was killed by LTTE. They – the academic and the militant were both Rajani. One killed the other – the same
way SWRD Bandaranaike was killed and indeed Gandhi was by a Hindu.
Academic heritage should not be used for military purposes.
This is the risk Sri Lanka faces if Mr Gotabaya Rajapaksa became President.
Those who seek to enjoy freedom at the higher level – need to separate
themselves from the benefits of that presidency. Otherwise we would have the
parallel of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution which happened
through Indian influence using Mr Varatharaja Perumal – who was recognized as
Indian Tamil. Dr Hoole presents Dr Rajani’s insight into this as follows:
[She
saw India historically as a would-be superpower, whose limits were defined by
other actors:
"The Indian Tamil labour who built up the plantation sector … were simply
grafted on to Sri Lankan society by their colonial masters and were rejected as
aliens by the local population. … [Post independence] they were disenfranchised
and became the most exploited and oppressed social group within the country …
the growing contradiction between the local subsistence agriculture and the
plantation sector manifested itself in the most fierce antagonism towards this
under privileged group. Unscrupulous political elements used this contradiction
to their advantage by portraying this dispossessed poverty stricken group as an
arm of Indian expansionism. Even opposition to Indian supremacy in the region
was expressed by victimising this minority group."]
Whether
it is caste, race or gender – minorities who are supported by strong ancestral
powers – would invoke divine powers that are Absolute in value. Each group
works best in its own environment. Hence we need firm separations of powers to successfully
merge instead of assimilating and becoming juniors.
