Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

17 December   2021

 

 

KILINOCHCHI & WAR INTUITION

 

Group power is often of greater value than individual power. Hence the formations of Family, Work Institutions and Nations. As per my discovery, when we genuinely care about the group we have intuitive powers about the group. A mother’s feelings for her children are of this nature. In Tamil, we refer to this as the Aani Ver / Tap root.

Yesterday, in response to my article headed ‘TAMIL ONLY MPS BELONG IN LOCAL COUNCIL OF VANNI’ – Australian Tamil Dr Kasinathan Nadesan responded as follows:

‘Gaja, who said all MP' s ought to know English. In the north if they can conduct the meeting in Sinhala then why not too use tamil as well instead of English. Do you know that in theory Tamil too is an official language. Your displeasure is immaterial because you are not a Sri Lankan. You talk like that low level fellow Sintharthan who utters something just for a living. Stick to principle.’

My response was as follows:

[Nada, from my articles you ought to know by now that I have wisdom in 13^th amendment through which Tamil was also declared official language. English was declared the link language. Sritharan could have used Tamil but he did not. As a Tamil why are you writing to me in English? It’s for the same reason why the governor used English. If Sritharan is your preference – then that is the Administration you will get in Jaffna. As for your guy – you seem paranoid about him. I have greater needs to address than entertain you]

Nada, to my mind, represents a vast majority of Tamils of my generation who got married to English for Economic reasons but continued to live with the Tamil Parents and siblings. If they had brought a dowry from Jaffna – they would have felt Equals in Colombo or anywhere else where Tamil is not the language of majority. Dowry in Thesawalamai system is towards this sense of Equality – so minds would merge naturally including through Equal Opposition. In any case, Dowry helps lose consciousness of the past and promotes independence in the junior gender. The dowry that Tamils and Sinhalese bring when they get married is their status at the time of departure. But to be valuable, this status needs to be preserved as heritage and not used as ‘benefit’.

This is the way I am with my Tamil after marrying into multicultural Colombo. Given that I preserved and maintained this heritage, I feel that I continue to intuitively connect to Jaffna where English was also my best subject in addition to Maths. Later, when I got married into Australia, that Dowry which includes the certificate from Mrs Margaret Saverimuthu, comes with me. Margaret Teacher is with me whenever I teach someone English. Later in Jaffna her spirit together with Mrs Hensman intuitively connected me to Sam Hensman who already had the Common culture and approached me at the Jaffna College Canteen where I was in between two Accounting sessions. Years later when Sam got married and I was also invited – without any planning on anyone’s part I happened to sit next to a beautiful young lady who I learnt was Margaret Teacher who is presented by  the Holy Family Convent Alumni as follows:

“Dr. C.C. Amirthanjali Sivapalan (Snr. Lecturer, Dept. of English Literature, University of Jaffna), dearly beloved wife of Dr. Nagalingam Sivapalan (Snr. Lecturer, Dept. of Chemistry, University of Jaffna); devoted mother of Chelvaniththilan (Snr. Lecturer, Dept. of Engineering, NSBM Green University, Homagama) and Sumithreyi (Undergraduate, University of Colombo); precious daughter of late Margaret Teacher of Jaffna Holy Family Convent and late Mr Saverimuthu (brother of Antonia teacher); fond sister of Rev. Fr. Gerard Saverimuttu (Diocese of Jaffna), Dr. Tharman Saverimuttu (Canberra) and beloved cousin of Nicoleen Saminathar passed away on 22 April 2019 after a brief illness.”

That is how heritage works. If the connections had happened through conscious and/or visible efforts – I would not have considered them to be of heritage value.

My heritage from Kilinochchi is Farming heritage. Two of my mother’s sisters’ husbands and their sons lived in Kilinochchi. One of them who was dear to me – Visvanathan Aiyah – grandson of Penang Kathiravel . Visvanathan Aiyah died when ploughing his farm. His sone Kathiravel gave up his studies at the age of 18 and took-over the farm which gave the family of six a living. My uncles retired early due to the language issue in 1956. All of them were good English language skills.  

Kilinochchi is also the place where Saint Yoga Swami invested as an officer in Public Service – presented as follows by Wikipedia:

[Around 1890, Yogaswami found a job as a storekeeper for an irrigation project in Kilinochchi.]

This is the rich farming and meditation heritage that we have from Kilinochchi. As a person representing Kilinochchi in National Parliament, Mr Sritharan needed to connect to this heritage or risked the surfacing of militant karma which displaced most of my relatives from Kilinochchi. Cousin Kathiravel who is remembered as Anna/Big Brother by us was kept in custody by the LTTE when he first refused to leave. His younger brother was killed by militants in that family farmhouse.

 

I believe that all this, in addition to my work in Kilinochchi through UNDP rendered me the natural intuitive powers to connect to those to whom Kilinochchi is home. Hence my natural opposition to Mr Sritharan walking out on Language basis. As per my family that enforcement was opposed by alternate pathway of farming.

 

On the day I responded – The Morning  published the following under the title ‘STF recovers large cache of ammunition from Kilinochchi’

 

[The Police Special Task Force (STF) has recovered a huge cache of ammunition from Ramya Road in the area of Kilinochchi.

According to the police, 84 boxes in total, each containing 750 rounds of ammunition used for T-56 firearms, were unearthed from a plot of land where concrete structures are made.

In addition, 46,000 more rounds of T-56 ammunition, 800 bullets used for M-60 machine guns, and 400 rounds of MPMG ammunition were also unearthed by the STF personnel.

It is believed that this cache of ammunition had been buried during wartime.]

 

Coupled with Mr Sritharan walking out and Mr Gotabaya Rajapaksa leaving the country – as  then President Sirisena did before the Easter Bombings, it’s a strong indicator that the unsettled, restless spirits of war karma are awakening themselves. If we had conducted genuine memorials for war victims that karma would not surface.

 Each one of us can negate this war power by genuinely completing our war-experiences by finding the causal forces through our own path . We need to travel with our Belief as our leader.