Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

20 January   2021

 

UNIVERSITY OF JAFFNA & TAMIL NADU

 

Our Truth manifests in free environments. Such manifestations  happen,  to meet true needs and/or to confirm that we have reached our ultimate goal. In the latter pathway, we can make the connection between our current efforts and the goal that it took us to. Research in Universities is such a pathway. The pathway of needs based manifestation is more difficult to trace. As per my experience-based discovery – it happens through the Belief system. Hence Performance Indicators in Management. Thus one who has true ownership will identify with the need that s/he/it could satisfy. When we have a system that is based on such a mind, that would ensure sovereignty of that system largely through belief rather than through the top-down intellectual / scientific system. That is the basis of Democracy.

 

 

Dr Kumaravadivel Guruparan – a former member of staff at the University of Jaffna,  has drawn our attention to the Hindu report ‘High Commissioner ‘raises concern’ with Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa. This report published on 17 January, includes the following:

[A day after news of the late-night destruction of the monument broke, Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Gopal Baglay met Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa. The meeting was kept under wraps, amid murmurs in Colombo of India intervening. “The Indian High Commissioner met the PM [last weekend] and they discussed the Jaffna University memorial matter,” PM Rajapaksa’s media secretary Rohan Welivita told The Hindu on Sunday……

Tamil Nadu leaders including Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami, DMK president M.K. Stalin and MDMK general secretary Vaiko had condemned the move. Pointing to the development a day after External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar concluded his visit to Sri Lanka — during which time he urged the Sri Lankan government to address Tamils’ concerns — Mr. Stalin urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to “strongly condemn” the demolition. While New Delhi made no official comment on the development, diplomatic channels were activated, it appears.

Colombo-based weekend newspaper Sunday Times reported that High Commissioner Baglay told Premier Rajapaksa that the demolition “could lead to protests erupting in the southern Indian State of Tamil Nadu.” “Premier Rajapaksa went into action promptly,” according to the newspaper’s political column on Sunday.

Prof. Srisatkunarajah has said the rebuilt monument would commemorate “peace” rather than war. “We have a constituted a committee, including student members, to look into erecting the structure,” he told The Hindu on Sunday.]

 

According to the above report, Indian politicians know intuitively as to what could go wrong in their own territory when something goes wrong in a region that they have invested in, through the political pathway.  On 13 November 2018, I ‘indicated the recent outcome, under the heading ‘How about Maaveerar Naal at Jaffna Court Complex?’  http://austms.blogspot.com/2018/11/:

[Thunaivi – Vaddukoddai is a toddy tapper village. To be a senior there – one has to be senior in their culture and therefore junior in law and order. Likewise with LTTE areas. I put up with many such excesses especially from the younger generation and continue to facilitate their merger with mainstream community – starting with me as an equal with the person of highest status in their culture.  Since 2016 when our Pongal celebrations were disrupted by youth playing loud cinema songs – I stopped staying there but stayed in my home area of Jaffna – where I believe my heritage protects me. But I continued to tutor students from that area until the best of them told me recently how I should structure my teaching work!  That is the way of majority power without discipline – strongly driven by immediate outcomes. It demotes the whole.

Power through ‘ Immediate visible outcomes’ is also unjust discrimination – adversely affecting those who escalated their pathways to the highest level – by foregoing immediate pleasures. The above mentioned cultural hall that Mr Wigneswaran ceremonially opened is confirmation of such habitual occupation of others’ territory. By celebrating those cultures – through LTTE we become traitors to our own culture that carries the dignity of education as its core value. Higher education teaches us to escalate benefits as opportunities and beyond as ownership.  ]

By foregoing my higher status in the community and wider world, and living with the folks of Thunaivi, I became an owner. That is true political power. Even though no one of official status gave it structure, my research became Universal and hence continues to empower those who respect me as a senior. It is NOT limited to Thunaivi or Jaffna.

[Mourning the dead is due process in most cultures. But whom we celebrate confirms the height of our heritage. In terms of Common Law – common to the highly  educated and less  educated Tamils,  armed militants who openly opposed democracy - are ‘foreigners’. Likewise the Sri Lankan soldiers who killed for lower level pleasures but were not disciplined. By honouring  Tamil militants, their heirs are honouring also the Sri Lankan soldiers against whom the Tamil Diaspora is continuing to push for war-crimes investigation. It defeats also the ‘genocide’ claim because LTTE killed the heirs of Tamil Education. We respect our own Educational Heritage by staying away from such celebrations. Mr Wigneswaran may be part of that culture for whatever reason. This is why he did not connect to the Administrative heritage of his own family ancestors. Likewise all young lawyers who USE militant heritage for their own purposes as current costs – to derive current benefits. They include Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, Kumaravadivel Guruparan, Visvalingam Manivannan and Sugash Kanagaratnam. Good militants must be respected as being of different culture. Their culture should not be applied to all Tamils – especially as Shenali highlights –  Tamils who were killed by militants to ‘show’ power. Those Tamil elders protect me when I function in Thunaivi. I honor them as my elders.]

As part of the University education, students need to learn to attribute credit to ‘findings’ by others. A University where militants who killed politicians are worshipped, becomes a University for Militants. The University of Jaffna needs to then be renamed University of Tamil Militants.

The current pandemic has reinforced the importance of Sovereign borders – to identify with the scientific pathway through which infection happens. So long as we remain within our sovereign borders through belief – we will identify with the solutions at our level. Some may even need to die so others would live more healthily. Many elders who died during the pandemic also contributed to better living by their descendants. When celebrating those elders we are NOT celebrating the cause of their physical death but the birth of the intelligence that would help their heirs live and die more naturally.

Likewise, when the victims of war died we should not celebrate the cause of their physical death – which includes the LTTE as per evidence available. Owners would not need any evidence.  Celebrating the armed forces on either side is the parallel of celebrating the virus and its exponential spread that confirms it Universal power. Only the Universal power of Truth / Belief has the vaccine to prevent future wars not only in Sri Lanka but in the Region and beyond.