{"id":9716,"date":"2012-08-19T10:32:06","date_gmt":"2012-08-19T14:32:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=9716"},"modified":"2012-08-19T11:17:50","modified_gmt":"2012-08-19T15:17:50","slug":"ethnic-conflict-and-tamil-poetry-in-post-colonial-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=9716","title":{"rendered":"Ethnic Conflict and Tamil Poetry in Post-Colonial Sri Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Prof. M A Nuhman<\/strong><\/p>\n

T<\/strong>he ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka has had a direct impact on literary production in Tamil, comparatively greater than in the case of Sinhala. This is largely due to the fact that it has been the Tamil-speaking communities who were most directly and severely affected by the ethnic conflict throughout the postcolonial period.<\/p>\n

The Tamil language is shared by three distinct ethnic communities in Sri Lanka , namely the Sri Lankan Tamils, the Muslims and the Malayaha (= hill country) Tamils, with their own dialect variations. This linguistic pluralism and the associated ethnic distinctions reflect in literary production too. Hence, when we speak of Tamil literature or Tamil poetry in ethnically divided contemporary Sri Lanka , the term encompasses a multi-ethnic socio-political context and reality.
\n
\nIn my essay, I briefly discuss the historical background of the ethnicity formation and polarization of the Tamil-speaking communities and their literary production, with special reference to poetry.<\/p>\n

Sri Lankan Tamils: Linguistic Nationalism, the Separatist War and Poetry<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Sri Lankan Tamils are among the early settlers in this country (Indrapala 2005), coexisting and interacting with other social groups from the beginning of the historical period. Although Tamil has coexisted with Sinhala from the early historical period in Sri Lanka , a continuous Tamil literary history can be dated only from the 13th century. However, a few poems appearing under their author\u2019s name, Eelaththu Puuthan Theevanar (Puuthan Theevan from Elam [ Sri Lanka ]) are found in the Sankam anthologies that belong to the first three centuries of the Christian era. Even though the author\u2019s Sri Lankan identity cannot be firmly established from his poems, we can assume that there probably would have been Tamil literary activity in ancient Sri Lanka, since we have strong archaeological evidence for the existence of a rich megalithic culture parallel to the one found in South India that produced a rich amount of classical Tamil poetry during that period (Ragupathy1987). Apart from this, a couple of Tamil verses are found among the Sigiri Graffiti that belong to the period from the 8th to the 10th centuries, providing further evidence for the existence of Tamil literary activity in the country before the 13th century (Paranavithana 1956).<\/p>\n

Although there is a fairly long history of Tamil literature in Sri Lanka , there is no evidence of an ethnic consciousness or conflict finding expression in Tamil literary works until the late 19th century. Ethnic awareness and ethno-nationalisms emerged in the form of religious and cultural revivalism in Sri Lanka from the mid-19th century (Wilson 2000). Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic revivalist movements were active in formulating and consolidating ethnic identities with political overtones in the respective communities. As far as Tamil writing was concerned, Arumukanavalar and Siddhi Lebbe played a major role in this respect in the late 19th century.<\/p>\n

Ethnic consciousness and polarization based on political interests gradually developed in Sri Lanka during the first half of the 20th century owing to the introduction of universal franchise and electoral politics in 1931 under the Donoughmore Constitution (Russell 1992). Political opportunism led political parties to mobilize the people on ethnic lines. The mishandling of ethnic issues by the parties for their immediate political benefit intensified the conflicts and paved the way for the emergence of political militancy, terrorism and civil war in post-colonial Sri Lanka . The Official Language issue was one such mishandling, leading shortly after Independence to the first ever Sinhalese-Tamil riots and ethnic polarization ( Kearney 1967). The Sinhala Only Official Language Bill was passed in Parliament in June 1956, and it was a turning point in the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka . From the early 1950s, Sri Lankan Tamils were politically mobilized against the Sinhala Only official language policy of the major Sinhala political parties, which, giving into pressure from chauvinist factions, changed their earlier policy of Sinhala and Tamil as official languages.<\/p>\n

In the general election held in 1956, the Official Language Policy was a major issue and the MEP (Mahajana Eksath Peramuna \u2013 Peoples\u2019 United Front) led by S W R D Bandaranaike, who promised to implement the Sinhala Only policy within 24 hours if he came to power, won the election with a great majority, while the Tamil Federal Party (FP) swept to victory in the (largely Tamil-speaking) North and East. Tamil nationalism emerged thereby as a political ideology of the Sri Lankan Tamils. In Colombo and the North and East, the FP organized agitations and hartals against the government\u2019s policy which were violently suppressed by the police. In one such incident, I remember, a promising young poet, Eruvil Moorthy from Batticaloa, lost both his eyes in the firing carried out by police in front of the Kachcheri in 1961.<\/p>\n

Increasingly, Tamil literature, especially Tamil poetry, in Sri Lanka began to reflect the ethnic sentiments of the Tamils and linguistic nationalism became a dominant issue in their articulations. Throughout the period from the 1950s to the early 1960s, which includes the race riots of 1958, hundreds of Tamil poems reflecting with verbal militancy the poets\u2019 devotion to their language and the ideology of linguistic nationalism were produced by a number of poets from the North and East, including Mahakavi, Murugaiyan, Neelavanan, Sillaiyur Selvarajan, Rajabarathi and Kasiyananthan. Suthanthiran, the official weekly of the Federal Party, was the main vehicle for this form of nationalist writing. Some of these poems were included in a few anthologies under the titles Thamil Enkal Aayutham (Tamil is our Weapon), Uyir Thamilukku (Life is to Tamil) and Senthamil Selvam (The Treasure of Tamil), published in the early 1960s.<\/p>\n

The main themes of these poems were the poets\u2019 devotion to the Tamil language, protest against the domination of Sinhala and the victory and the freedom of Tamil and the Tamils. Some of the titles and lines of these poems given below may give the reader an idea of the content and the verbal militancy of these poems.<\/p>\n

Urimaik kuralai thirukath thakumoo
\nIs it possible (for you) to crush the voice of rights?<\/p>\n

Padaiyoodoru padayaay nada
\nMarch with an army as an army<\/p>\n

Paathi Ilankaiyai aalka
\nRule one half of Lanka<\/p>\n

Saavathu poorinil sarkkarai enroru sankoli keedkuthada
\nMy friend, I hear the sound of a conch
\nTelling
\nDeath in war is sweet.<\/p>\n

Parayelaam athirka nam palamelaam thiralkave
\nPaathinaa denkaluk kaakaven relukave<\/p>\n

Let the drums sound, let our strengths gather
\nLet us rise, to claim our half of the land.<\/p>\n

The poet Neelavanan in one of his poems tells his wife, referring to his son by his name, to send him to the front if he dies in the battle to win the rights of Tamils. To many of the poets, the denial of their language rights was equal to the denial of their very existence and it was their duty to fight unto death for them. They used some of the motifs and diction of the heroic poetry of the Sangam age in their poetry. They were also motivated by the language devotion and linguistic nationalism cultivated by the Dravidian movements in South India against Sanskritization and Hindi domination. The poets created an imaginary warfare, and aroused the people using highly sensitive and emotive language and rhythmic verses to induce them to involve themselves in the battle. Thamil Arasu (the Tamil State ), the political agenda of the Federal Party, was transformed into an aesthetic image in their poems.<\/p>\n

However, the poetry of the linguistic nationalism of the \u201950s gradually came to an end after the 1958 riots. The reason might be the poets\u2019 realization of the inhuman and violent consequences of the ethnic political upsurge and the developing progressive trend in mainstream politics from the early \u201860s with the coalition of the left political parties. It is interesting to note that none of the major poets like Mahakavi, Murugaiyan and Neelavanan wanted to include their poems of linguistic nationalism in their poetry collections published later during their life time. This exclusion indicates a change in their political ideology.1<\/p>\n

Long before the entrenchment of Tamil nationalism as a political force and the cultural expression of the Tamils in the 1950s, Marxism and left wing politics had enjoyed widespread popularity among the Sri Lankan literati, dating from the \u201930s. The Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) was formed in 1935. Owing to ideological differences, a breakaway group, the United Socialist Party was formed in 1940 and it was renamed the Communist Party of Ceylon in 1943. There was a strong left political and cultural tradition among the Tamils from the late 1930s. A. Vaithialingam, P. Kandiah, M. Karthikesan and N. Shanmugathasan were some of the founders of the communist movement in Sri Lanka and among the Tamils.<\/p>\n

The impact of Marxist ideology on Sri Lankan Tamil literature can be seen from the late 1940s. A.N. Kandasamy and K. Ganesh were the pioneers of progressive writing in Tamil. The Progressive Writers\u2019 Association was formed in 1946 on the initiative of K. Ganesh and P. Ramanathan and it was reactivated in 1954. Ilankeeran, S. Ganesalingam, K. Daniel, Dominic Jeeva, N. K. Ragunathan and Neervai Ponnaiyan were the prominent writers who wrote fiction in the \u201950s and \u201860s on the themes of class and caste contradictions from an avowedly Marxist perspective.<\/p>\n

There was an important change in the political content of Sri Lankan Tamil poetry during the 1960s and 1970s. Marxist or Socialist ideals were in the foreground of the literary activities in Tamil during this period owing to the change in the political climate in the country. Marxism and Maoism were playing a prominent role in the post-colonial Third World during this period, in the struggle against imperialism and its local allies. Sri Lanka was not an exception to this political trend. In the \u201960s, the left parties that chose the parliamentary path to socialism joined the major Sinhala nationalist party, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) to form a coalition, and this came to power in 1970. The numerically minority Maoist groups which rejected the parliamentary path to socialism adopted Mao\u2019s concept of New Democracy and propagated a revolutionary path to achieve socialism through uniting workers and peasants across ethnic boundaries. It was during this period that thousands of Sinhala youth, mainly from the rural poor in Sri Lanka , took up arms to topple the government, many sacrificing their lives for their revolutionary idealism.<\/p>\n

Most of the writers and poets were under the influence of socialist ideals in varying degrees and aligned with or were sympathetic to the left movements. They identified themselves as progressive writers. The Sri Lanka Progressive Writers\u2019 Association played a leading role in propagating Marxist ideals in Tamil literature. They believed in social equity, ethnic integration and national unity. They also firmly believed that socialism was the only solution to the ethnic conflict. Social issues such as caste oppression, class contradiction and economic exploitation were some of the main themes in Tamil fiction and poetry during this period. Pasupathy, Supaththiran, Puthuvai Ratnathurai, Saarumathi, Shanmugam Sivalingam and S. Sivasegaram were the prominent poets of the communist movement of this period. They thought that the proletariat would unite across ethnic boundaries on the basis of class consciousness and fight for their liberation. The following poem by Puthuvai Ratnathurai is an example of their writing.2<\/p>\n

Podimenike will take up the gun in Matara
\nKandiah will take up the rod in Mathakal
\nCassim Lebbe will take up the knife in Nathandi
\nThe unwilting philosophy of Karl Marx will guide them
\nThe toiling proletariat will reach the heights
\nDefinitely, wait and see! <\/p>\n

Here the personal names Podimenike, Kandiah and Cassim Lebbe symbolize the working class of the Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim ethnic groups, respectively, and the poet proclaims that they will join hands to establish the socialist state.<\/p>\n

However, Tamil nationalism in politics did not fade away during this period. In fact it was alive and some times burst into flames because of the failure of successive governments to address the ethnic issue and because the Tamil nationalist party wanted to keep that issue alive for its political survival. Parliamentary opportunism played a major role in activating Sinhala and Tamil nationalisms during this period. The parliamentary left parties also compromised their socialist ideals, allying with Sinhala Buddhist chauvinism for their political survival. The 1972 constitution, drafted by the leftist Minister, Colvin R de Silva, was patently discriminatory with regard to religion and language. For the first time in the post-colonial Sri Lankan history, Buddhism was constitutionally elevated to the status of state religion, transforming the secular nature of the earlier constitutions; Tamil was not afforded the status even of a national language. In the same year, the Government adopted a policy of standardization for university admission, which severely affected the Jaffna youth. These developments paved the way for the emergence of Tamil militancy in the North and separatism among the Tamils. In 1976, the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) was formed and declared its policy of a separate Tamil state, Eelam. In the general election of 1977, the Tamil nationalist TULF swept to victory in the North and East and became the main opposition party in parliament. The incumbent left-oriented United Front government was severely defeated, obtaining only 8 seats, not because of their ethnic policy but because of their economic failure, and the right wing United National Party (UNP) overwhelmingly won the election, with 80% seats in parliament. This was the first and last instance when the rival Tamil and Sinhala nationalisms were in opposing positions in parliament.<\/p>\n

The UNP, with its vast majority in parliament, had a good opportunity to address the ethnic issue and resolve the conflict. Unfortunately, this did not happen and the conflict developed into a protracted separatist war that took thousands of human lives, displaced nearly a million people internally and externally, and seriously damaged ethnic relations, economic development, democracy and human rights in the country.<\/p>\n

1977 was a turning point in the ethnic conflict and Tamil literary production in Sri Lanka . Tamil nationalism became the dominant ideology in politics and literature, marginalizing the leftist ideology that was prominent in the 1960s and early 1970s.<\/p>\n

1977 was the beginning of a second phase of the frequent anti-Tamil riots that took place after 1958. Jaffna town was set on fire and looted by government security forces. The riots spread to the South. Tamil refugees were sent to Jaffna by sea. Sinhala students and lecturers from the University of Jaffna and the Sinhala civilians who were settled in Jaffna were moved to the South. The physical separation of Tamils and Sinhalese started. The Government introduced the repressive Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) in 1979, giving the armed forces unlimited power to finish off terrorism in Jaffna by arresting, abducting, torturing and killing hundreds of youths and terrorizing the people in a short span of time, events that fertilized the ground to grow militant movements in the North and East. The 1977 riots were followed by further riots in 1981. Violence directed against Tamils reached its peak with the 1983 pogrom. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and other militant groups emerged as strong separatist forces after 1983, with training and arms provided by India . Ultimately, through suppression of the other militant groups, the LTTE became the strongest force, starting after 1985 to control certain \u201cliberated areas\u201d and entering into a war with the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in 1987. For more than the past two decades the war between the LTTE and the Government forces has continued, resulting in hundreds of thousand of deaths and the displacement of millions internally and externally.<\/p>\n

This was the political background for the emergence and development of a new genre of poetry of political protest in Sri Lankan Tamil literature from 1977 onwards, different in form and content from that of the poems of linguistic nationalism written in the 1950s.<\/p>\n

The literary landscape changed drastically in the 1980s. Tamil nationalism took over Marxist ideology in literature. Some of the extreme left poets transformed themselves into extreme Tamil nationalists. For example, Puthuvai Ratnathurai, a \u2018revolutionary poet\u2019 of the \u201970s became a bard of the LTTE, the extreme Tamil nationalist militant group, in the \u201980s. Some of them became frustrated and even committed suicide. Subathiran, a committed poet of the communist movement was depressed by the changed political environment, became an addict, got involved in a petty family dispute and ultimately committed suicide. Others, for instance Sivasegaram and Shanmugam Sivalingam, managed to keep a balance and wrote poems critical of nationalism, ethnic chauvinism, violence and war.<\/p>\n

I wrote two poems in Tamil entitled The Devil of the Gun and the Fate of Man and Yesterday\u2019s Evening and Today\u2019s Morning immediately after the atrocities committed by the security forces in Jaffna in 1977. These were some of the very first instances of the genre of the poetry of political protest in Sri Lankan Tamil literature. Following these, during the past three decades thousands of poems and more than a hundred poetry collections were published in Sri Lanka and abroad, leaning towards a mixture in varying degrees of the ideology of Tamil nationalism with Marxism. A large number of poets of the younger generation, male and female, emerged from the late 1970s on. V. I. S. Jayapalan, Cheran, K. P. Aravindan, Balasooriyan, Urvasi, Selvi and Sivaramani are some of the prominent names among them. Writers and poets also emerged from the militant movements.<\/p>\n

The first collection of such poems, Maranaththul Vaalvoom (Let Us Live Amidst Death), consisting of 82 poems by 31 poets, was published in 1985 (Cheran, et al). The main editors of this anthology, R. Cheran and A. Yesurasa, were two of the prominent poets of the younger generation that Tamil nationalism and the ethnic conflict produced. Of the 31 poets included in this anthology, only three are from the East, one is from Malayaham and one from the Muslim community. The others are from Jaffna . This shows that the poets from the North dominated the production of protest poetry.<\/p>\n

Below I give few examples of the poems of political protest.<\/p>\n

The first one is by A. Yesurasa, an important poet from Jaffna who started writing in the late 1960s. He also edited, for more than a decade, a Tamil literary journal Alai (Waves) promoting Tamil nationalism in literature which had a pronounced impact on modern Sri Lankan Tamil writing. His poem Your Fate Too tells the reality under the reign of the PTA in the North and the feelings of the people.3<\/p>\n

Your Fate Too<\/p>\n

You stroll back home
\nfrom the beach
\nor may be from the cinema.
\nSuddenly a rifle cracks
\nboots scamper away.
\nYou\u2019ll lie dead
\non the road.
\nIn your hand
\na dagger sprouts
\na pistol too may blossom.
\n\u201cA terrorist,\u201d
\nYou\u2019ll be dubbed.
\nNo one
\ndare ask questions.
\nSilence freezes.
\nBut
\ndeep in the people\u2019s mind
\nindignation bubbles up.<\/p>\n

(trans. A J Canagaratna)<\/p>\n

Cheran is one of the prominent poets of the younger generation who emerged in the \u201880s. His was among the strongest poetic voices of protest against state oppression in the 1980s. He was also critical of the internal conflicts among the militant groups and of their violations of human rights. His poem, Amma, Do Not Weep, expresses the angry mood of an oppressed people. The inter-textual reference to the anklet and the Pandyan king from the Silappathikaram, a classical Tamil epic, gives the poem a Tamil nationalistic texture.<\/p>\n

Amma, do not weep.
\nThere are no mountains
\nto shoulder your sorrow
\nno rivers
\nto dissolve your tears.<\/p>\n

The instant he handed you
\nthe baby from his shoulder,
\nthe gun fired.<\/p>\n

On your tali, lying there in the dust,
\nblood spread.<\/p>\n

In the heat of the splintering bomb
\nAll your bright dreams withered.<\/p>\n

What splattered from your anklet
\nwere neither pearls
\nnor rubies:
\nthere is no longer a Pandiyan king
\nto recognize blood guilt.<\/p>\n

On sleepless nights
\nwhen your little boy stirs restlessly
\nscreaming out, \u201cAppa\u201d.
\nwhat will you say?<\/p>\n

When you pace the night, showing him the moon
\nand soothing him against your breast,
\ndo not say,
\n\u201cAppa is with God.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tell him this sorrow continues
\ntell him the story of the spreading blood
\ntell him to wage battle
\nto end all terrors.<\/p>\n

(trans: Lakshmi Holmstr\u00f6m)<\/p>\n

Another prominent poet of protest, S. Vilvaratnam, has recorded many of the violent incidents against the Northern Tamils in his poems. The Grief-stricken Wind, a somewhat longer poem by Vilvaratnam, narrates the story of a lonely, deserted village, left with the corpse of an elderly person after a military strike. It is a narration about the confused wind searching with desperation for the human smell in the village. Here are its last few lines.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026..
\nHow could the wind know
\nThe people
\nHad sneaked out of the village
\nTheir belongings bundled in gunnies<\/p>\n

In the dead of the night
\nWhen it was slumbering?
\nSighing deeply
\nThe wind went back inside
\nAnd hunching like a corn
\nSat beside the corpse.
\nThen it came out
\nBurying its face
\nA thorny bush peeping into the street
\nThe wind walked slowly
\nLike a grief-stricken mother
\nSearching for her runaway son.<\/p>\n

(trans: A J Canagaratna)<\/p>\n

The well-known poet, V. I. S. Jayapalan, began to write in the mid-1970s. He started within the left movement and became a Tamil nationalist with leftist ideals in the 1980s. His voice for Tamil-Muslim unity, and against violence directed against Muslims is very strong. He became a wandering Tamil diasporic poet in the late 1980s. The Song of a Refugee is one of his collections of poems about his refugee life. The lines given below are taken from his poem The Memory of Autumn and poetically depict the agony of the displaced life of the Tamils.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026..
\nMy son in Jaffna
\nMy wife in Colombo
\nMy father in Vanni
\nAt this old age
\nMy mother in Tamilnadu
\nRelatives in Frankfort
\nOne sister in France
\nBut me
\nIn Oslo
\nAs a camel that has strayed to Alaska losing its way.
\nWhat is our family?
\nIs it a cotton pillow
\nTorn and flung into the wind
\nBy Fate the monkey?
\n\u2026\u2026..<\/p>\n

Ethnic Conflict and the Muslim Voice in Poetry<\/strong><\/p>\n

The ethnic conflict was mainly restricted to the Tamil and Sinhala nationalist forces until 1985. However, after 1985 the Muslims were also dragged into the conflict and it became a more complex one in the North and East. This came to be reflected in literary production too.<\/p>\n

The Sri Lankan Muslims, formally known as Ceylon Moors, are the second largest minority community in Sri Lanka . They constitute 8% of the total population and are distributed in a scattered fashion all over the country. Nearly one third of them live in the predominantly Tamil-speaking North and East and most of them are monolingual Tamil speakers. The other Muslims who live predominantly in the Sinhala-speaking areas in the South are mostly bilinguals, speaking Tamil and Sinhala with equal fluency though most of them invariably use Tamil as their home language and for their in-group communication. Moreover, nearly 80% of them have chosen Tamil as their medium of education.<\/p>\n

The Muslims have been asserting their separate ethnic identity on the basis of their religion since the late 19th century, in response to Sinhala Buddhist nationalism and Tamil domination in the socio-political domain during that period (Nuhman 2007).<\/p>\n

Although the Muslims have lived in this country for nearly 1000 years (Dewarajah 1994), their continuous consolidating literary activities in Tamil are evidenced only from the early 19th century. We may assume that that was the period during which their social formation finally consolidated. Before the 19th century, the Sri Lankan Muslims might have been using Arabic Tamil, the variety that was widely used in Sri Lanka and South India for literacy and for religious education. They might also have been using the religious literary works produced by the Tamil-speaking Muslims in South India from 16th century.<\/p>\n

Traditional scholar poets like Badurdeen Pulavar, and Asanar Lebbai Pulavar from Jaffna, Sinna Alim Appa and Ahamadu Kuddi Pulavar from the East, Abdul Cader Pulavar and Abdul Rahman Pulavar from Kandy and Shaihu Ismail Pulavar from Puttalam were some of the important literary personalities who produced a rich variety of religious poems during the 19th and early 20th centuries. This trend of producing religious literature continued till the middle of the 20th century. These poets\u2019 concern was more with religion and religious moral values than with voicing the socio-political development of the community. However, their work contributed to the consolidation of the religious-cultural identity of the Muslims. The canon of Islamic religious poetical works produced in Tamilnadu and Sri Lanka , later identified as Islamic Tamil literature, became one of the symbols of identity of the Muslims from 1950s, first becoming a subject for academic research in Sri Lanka .<\/p>\n

M. M. Uwais, a Sri Lankan Muslim scholar, dedicated his whole life to the study of Islamic Tamil literature. He submitted his M.A. dissertation on the Muslim Contribution to Tamil Literature to the University of Ceylon in 1949. That was the beginning of his search. When he started his study, only two Muslim literary personalities, Umaru Pulavar and Masthan Shahib, were known to the outside world. As a literary archaeologist he was able to unearth more than 2000 titles of Islamic Tamil literary works with the help of others before he died in 1996. He also produced three volumes on the history of Islamic Tamil literature (Uwais 1986\/1990\/1994). His appointment as the first Professor of Islamic Tamil Literature at the Madurai Kamaraj University in India in 1979 also helped him in his endeavours.<\/p>\n

The Sri Lankan Muslim intelligentsia actively participated in establishing a genre of Islamic Tamil literature as an aspect of their identity politics. The first ever Islamic Tamil Literature Conference was held in Maruthamunai, a Muslim village in the Ampara District, in 1966. Subsequently, two international conferences on Islamic Tamil literature were held in Colombo , in 1979 and 2002. These conferences reflected the aspirations and the identity politics of the Sri Lankan Muslims.<\/p>\n

The impulse of Islamic literature is exclusively religious and traditional. However, a new trend of producing non-religious but socially committed literature associated with a new generation of modern Muslim writers and poets emerged in the 1950s. Puradchik Kamal and Annal, two prominent poets from the East pioneered modern Muslim poetry in Sri Lanka , starting in the early \u201950s. Annal, from Kinniya in the Trincomalee district, was known for his love poems. He also wrote poems on social themes. Puradchik Kamal, from Eravur in the Batticaloa District, was inspired by Kamal Ataturk of Turkey and, prefacing his pen name Kamal with an adjective Puradchi (meaning \u201crevolution\u201d), wrote some dynamic poems expressing his ideas for the social mobility of the Muslim community. He wanted to transform society from the ritualistic to one that was value-based. Unlike Ataturk, who tried to completely westernize Turkey in the name of modernization, Puradchik Kamal was a reformist deeply rooted in the Islamic faith. He may be considered an Islamic modernist who advocated the socio-economic and political advancement of the Muslim community through the emancipation of men and women from traditional and conservative bonds. Some of his poems are directed against the veiling of Muslim women. He strongly reflected the emergence of a Muslim ethnic consciousness in the \u201950s in Sri Lanka . In a sense Puradchik Kamal can be considered the poet of Muslim identity in the \u201950s and \u201960s. However, his ethnic and religious footing did not hinder his egalitarian vision and humanist idealism. It is worth quoting a few lines from one of his most famous poems Naalai varuvaan oru manithan (A man will come tomorrow) in this respect (1963):<\/p>\n

A man will come tomorrow
\n To adorn the directions of the globe,
\n A man will come tomorrow<\/p>\n

A scientist who rules the world as
\nOne caste and one colour
\nOne religion and one language
\nOne justice and one status\u2026<\/p>\n

Under the roof of the sky
\nIn the large home of the world
\nTo embrace humanity\u2019s children
\nAs his own child
\nA man will come tomorrow. <\/p>\n

There were a number of younger generation Muslim poets who emerged in the 1960s and 1970s from all parts of Sri Lanka , and many of them are, understandably, from the East, where the Muslim concentration is high. As I mentioned earlier in this paper, this was the period of left ideological domination in Tamil literature. The Muslim writers and poets too were affected by this trend to varying degrees. Prominent writers like Ilankeeran, H. M. P. Mohideen and Abudalib Abdul Latheef who started writing in the 1950s had close associations with the island\u2019s communist parties, as editors of their Tamil journals. When the communist movement ideologically broke into two camps in the mid \u201960s, Ilankeeran and Mohideen aligned themselves with the Maoist wing while Latheef remained with the Moscow wing. All had affiliations with the Progressive Writers\u2019 Association. Most of the Muslim writers and poets of the younger generation also reflected this trend. Maruthoor Koththan, Maruthoor Gani, and several others from the East had sympathies with Maoist ideology and wrote poems and short stories on the theme of class contradiction and social change. I too wrote poetry and other works of this nature during this period. A. Iqbal, Fazeel Kariyapper and S. L. M. Haneefa from the same region, M.H.M. Shams and Dikwallai Kamal from the South, M.L.M. Mansoor and Pannamathu Kavirayar from the Central Province wrote poems or short stories on social themes under the influence of socialist ideology.<\/p>\n

Dr. Badiuddin Mahmud, a prominent Muslim political leader and one of the founding members of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), who hailed from the South and who was left leaning, organized a new political party, the Islamic Socialist Front, putting forward the new concept of Islamic Socialism in the early 1970s to draw the attention of the younger generation of the Muslim left in order to get their support for the SLFP. His party also published a Tamil weekly Insaan and most of the writers of the younger generation contributed to it. Many of these poets and writers tried to maintain a Muslim identity with left political ideology, not strictly Marxist, although a few of them identified themselves as secular writers leaning towards Marxism.<\/p>\n

This trend of active participation of the Muslim left in politics and literature almost came to an end when Muslim identity politics reached a peak in the 1980s because of two distinct political developments, namely, the emergence of separatist politics with the Tamil militant movements in the North and East, and the emergence in West Asia of Islamism as a global political force contesting Western imperial power and domination. The Sri Lankan Muslim left had to choose either to involve itself in Muslim ethnic politics or to remain silent.<\/p>\n

At the initial stages of the Tamil militant movement in the early 1980s, the North-East Muslims were supportive of its cause, and a number of Muslim youths joined the ranks of the different militant groups, some of them in fact playing leading roles in their struggles. However, the situation changed quickly because of the politically unwise mishandling of Muslim community by the militant groups in the East. They used the same tactics and methods of fund raising in the Muslim areas that they used in the predominantly mono-ethnic North. They demanded money from Muslim landowners and businessmen, confiscated their vehicles and abducted them for ransom or killed those who resisted them. This led to Muslim-Tamil riots in 1985.<\/p>\n

The communal violence between Tamils and Muslims caused by militant activities had a far-reaching impact on Muslim-Tamil relations in the East. The Muslims were pushed towards the government and its security forces for their safety and protection even as the Tamils were pushed towards the militant groups in response to the atrocities of the security forces in the Tamil regions, especially the North, during the 1980s and after.<\/p>\n

The development of Tamil militancy and its hostile attitude towards Muslims from 1985 created a strong feeling of insecurity among the Muslims, intensifying and raising their sense of ethnic identification to unprecedented levels in the region. This paved the way for the formation of a separate political party for Muslims, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), which became a major political rallying point of the Eastern Muslims. The SLMC almost monopolized Muslim politics in the East after the first Provincial Council election held in 1987 and claimed the status of sole representative of the Muslims in a manner similar to that of the LTTE vis a vis the Tamils. This had a severe repercussive effect on the Muslims. The LTTE started its ethnic cleansing campaign in 1990. More than 1000 Muslims were killed in the Eastern Province that year and the entire Muslim population, more than 70,000, were forcibly evacuated from the North, preventing them from taking any of their belongings. Violence against the Muslims, killing and displacement persisted sporadically in the East even after the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan Government in 2002.<\/p>\n

The main theme of the poems by the Muslim poets after 1985 was this reality of violence against Muslims and their sufferings. A number of younger generation Muslim poets emerged from the East and also among the Northern Muslim refugees. They have published a number of poems and several anthologies during the last two decades. Solaikkili, Ashraf Shihabdeen, Oddamavadi Arafath, N. Athma, A.G.M. Sadaqa, A.M.Rashmi, Mullai Mushriba, Uwais Gani, Zulfika, Anar and Penniya are some of the pre-eminent poets of this period.<\/p>\n

Like the 1985 anthology, Maranaththul Vaalvoom, that echoed the sorrow and anger of the Tamils under the oppressive violence by the armed forces, an anthology of 100 poems by 50 poets entitled Meesaan Kaddaikalil Meela Elum Paadalkal (Songs Arising from the Graves) was published in 2002 at the World Islamic Tamil Literary Conference held in Colombo (Shihabdeen, et al. 2002). This anthology echoes the sorrow and the anger of the Muslims under the oppressive violence of the Tamil militant groups especially the LTTE. It was edited by Ashraf Shihabdeen, A. G. M. Sadaqa and S. Naleem from the East who started writing after 1980. Of the 50 poets included in this volume only 5 are Tamils from Jaffna . They expressed their feelings and protest against the violence perpetrated against Muslims. Notably, there are no poems by Tamils from the Eastern Province in this volume. Understandably, the vast majority of the 45 Muslim poets included in this volume are from the East. The two anthologies mentioned in this paragraph provide good evidence of how the ethnic conflict ethnicizes the pain it inflicts as well as the poetry that pain engenders. <\/p>\n

I myself did not write poems with specific reference to violence against Muslims, but many of the poems that I have written since 1977 are generally against ethnicism, ethnic violence, war and killing, and for peace. However, the only poem of mine included in the 2002 volume, entitled They and You, depicts the parallelism between the violent nature of the armed forces and the militant groups. Given below is the translation of the poem.<\/p>\n

They came by jeep,
\nKnocked at your door
\nAnd dragged you off
\nFor investigation<\/p>\n

Your mother cried,
\nScreamed and pleaded<\/p>\n

When she went to their camp
\nAnd asked for you
\nNo,
\nThey denied it
\nThey hadn\u2019t taken you<\/p>\n

Your flesh torn,
\nBones crushed and
\nYour blood mixed with the soil<\/p>\n

Now it is your turn<\/p>\n

You came from the forest
\nBy foot
\nYou knocked at my door
\nAnd dragged me away for
\nInvestigation<\/p>\n

My mother cried,
\nScreamed and pleaded<\/p>\n

When she came to your camp
\nAnd asked for me
\nNo,
\nYou denied it
\nYou hadn\u2019t taken me<\/p>\n

My flesh torn,
\nBones crushed
\nMy blood too
\nMixed with the soil<\/p>\n

Solaikkili emerged as a prominent poet in the 1980s from Kalmunai in the Amparai District. He can be considered a product of ethnic conflict. He is a poet of nature too. As a humanist, his poetic consciousness sets itself against all kinds of ethnic and nationalist ideologies and violence. The poem A Refugee Poet Talking to the Moon is an expression of his bitter experience as a refugee due to the ethnic violence that took place in Kalmunai in November 1989 (Solaikkili 1991).<\/p>\n

Moon, I won\u2019t write
\nPoems today<\/p>\n

In this temporary house
\nI have no doors of my own,
\nNo plant to pluck and smell
\nIts flowers by right<\/p>\n

You too an alien moon to me
\nYour light that falls on my courtyard
\nAnd your light on this alien courtyard
\nAre not the same but trouble me<\/p>\n

I am a refugee these past three days
\nAnd a victor salvaging this life
\nAnd the poems that spring from it<\/p>\n

Those who have seen my house tell me that
\nIts nose has broken
\nThe flower plants I loved
\nHave gone into the bull\u2019s stomach
\nAnd become dung<\/p>\n

Here I do not have my own sky
\nThe air I breathe too seems to
\nBelong to others<\/p>\n

Moon, how can I write poems
\nWhen I have lost nine hundred thousand stars,
\nYou and the sky,
\nLost my butterfly and
\nThe lizard that lives under my bed?<\/p>\n

Cover your face with a cloud
\nIf a poet sighs
\nEven the cold breeze
\nWill get charred<\/p>\n

Some of the poets became refugees owing to the ethnic conflict while, conversely, some of the refugees became poets as a consequence of the same conflict. Uwais Gani, born and bred in Mannar, is one of the Northern Muslim refugees who started writing poems in the late 1990s after the expulsion of the Northern Muslims by the LTTE. In his preface to his first collection of poems he writes: \u201cWhen the historic event that affected us in the late 1990s began to speak from the silence of a new poverty-stricken environment, the weapon of poetry alone began to love me very much.\u201d His poems depict the bitter experiences of displacement, but also his optimism. Below I give a few lines from his poems (Gani 2002).<\/p>\n

When the sword of grief fell
\nAt the border of my
\nTruly backward village,
\nOn the Jaffna roads,
\nIn the Vanni forests,
\nIn the places I prayed in
\nFrom the time my umbilical cord was cut
\nMy land lost its peace
\nEven for caste and religion<\/p>\n

* *
\nThis moon
\nWas born in fear
\nWithin a different intervening space<\/p>\n

* *
\nThey asked one to eat
\nHis hands were tied behind his back
\nAnd his face was bleeding
\nThey didn\u2019t know that
\nThe strength of the innocent
\nDoes not weaken<\/p>\n

* *
\nAlthough we are displaced
\nAnd scattered
\nToday
\nWe bloom as
\nWild jasmine<\/p>\n

The last poem I would like to cite is entitled A Letter to My Father, by a young poet H. M. Jabir written in his teens, in memory of his father Hayathu Mohamed, who was brutally murdered by the LTTE along with 12 other innocent villagers at Valaichchenai in the Batticaloa district in June 2002 when the Memorandum of Understanding was in operation. It is said that this was his first poem. The killing of his father made him a poet as he sought to release his grief and pain (Shihabdeen, et al. 2002). <\/p>\n

Father,
\n I remember the Thursday
\n That we lost you<\/p>\n

Father,
\nMy heart boils like a cooking pot
\nAs I think of your smile and your hard work<\/p>\n

What did they do to you?
\nDid they shoot at you?
\nDid they hack and cut your body into parts?
\nDid they smash your head with a rod,
\nPierce your body with a crow-bar?
\nAnd did they rejoice and dance?<\/p>\n

Father, the fish curry
\nMade of your catch
\nStill gives out its aroma in our pan<\/p>\n

Mother and the younger brothers
\nCry often asking about you<\/p>\n

Convey the greetings of our village to
\nAjward, Kaleel, Abusaly, Mohamed Hussain
\nAnd the others who came with you
\nConvey our salaam to brother Mubarak
\nTell him his children are well
\nTell him also the Kufa mosque
\nWeeps remembering him
\nTell all of them the village is in darkness
\nBecause their wives observe idda<\/p>\n

Father,
\nNow you are on the swings of Heaven
\nCome often in my dreams, father.<\/p>\n

Class and Ethnic Conflict: The Voice of the Malayaha Tamils in Poetry<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Hill Country Tamils, referred to as Malayahath Thamilar in Tamil, form a separate Tamil-speaking ethnic minority in Sri Lanka . According to the 2001 Census Report, which happens to exclude certain districts in the North and East, 855,025 Malayaha Tamils live in the country and they constitute around 5% of the total population. Their ancestors were brought to Sri Lanka from various parts of Tamilnadu, South India from the early 19th century to work in British-owned coffee, tea and rubber estates in the hill-country areas. At the time of Independence , there were nearly one million Tamils of Indian origin and they were a highly exploited labour force in the country, most of them illiterate and very poor. However, supported by the left political parties, they gradually organized themselves into effective labour unions. They had also formed their own political party, the Ceylon Indian Congress (CIC), which later became the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC).<\/p>\n

The political impact of the Malayaha Tamils was strongly reflected in the 1947 general election held one year before Independence under the new Soulbury Constitution. The Left Parties secured 18 seats, many of them supported by the plantation workers. The CIC won 6 seats and together they formed the Opposition in the new parliament. The ruling United National Party (UNP), representing the Sinhala nationalists, sought to curtail the political force of the plantation workers and passed a Citizenship Bill in parliament in 1948. A great majority of them lost their voting rights and became stateless overnight. Various agreements were subsequently signed between the Sri Lankan and Indian governments from time to time, and on their basis certain portions of the stateless were sent back to India while others were granted citizenship. By 1985 nearly half a million people had been repatriated to India and a few hundred thousand absorbed into the population. Eventually, the rest of them were granted citizenship by an act in 1988.<\/p>\n

Although the plantation workers significantly contributed to the build-up of the Sri Lankan economy, the Sinhala nationalist forces were opposed to their presence in the country from the beginning. D. S. Senanayake, who later became the Prime Minister in the first parliament, expressed his discontent over the influx of the Indian immigrant workers in 1926. He said \u201cunless special steps are taken this country will soon be swamped by Indian immigrants, mainly unskilled laboures. This free influx from the adjoining mainland most necessarily affects adversely not only the rates of pay and the prospects of employment of indigenous labour but even of the needed labourers themselves\u201d (Nadesan 1993: 125). This attitude of the Sinhala nationalists towards the immigrant workers continued throughout the colonial and post-colonial period. The Peoples\u2019 Liberation Front (JVP), a Sinhala nationalist party with a left flavour which was mostly constituted at the time by unemployed Sinhala rural youths, and which emerged as a political force in the late 1960s, regarded the hill-country Tamils as a tool of \u201cIndian expansionism.\u201d Owing to this hostility and the later political developments and ethnic tension, the Malayaha Tamils became quite vulnerable to ethnic violence, being severely affected by the anti-Tamil riots of 1977, 1981 and 1983.<\/p>\n

The Malayaha Tamils constitute the larger portion of the work force in Sri Lanka . The left parties and trade unions had been actively involved in transforming them into a conscious working class to fight for their labour and civil rights from the 1920s and, as we have noted earlier, they saw their political strength in the 1947 election. However, owing to the failure of the left movements in the country, the development of ethnic politics and the emergence of an ethnically-conscious educated middle class among them, they also emerged as a distinct, politically-conscious ethnic community from the 1960s. Their qualitative transformation from the derogatory thooddak kaaddaan (the term, literally meaning \u201cplantation country brute\u201d, that was once used to refer to members of this community by the upper class Jaffna Tamils) to the dignified malayaha thamilar symbolizes this very significant social change. The concepts malayaha thamilar and malayaha thamil ilakkiyam (up country Tamil literature) gained currency from the 1960s and became firmly established in the contemporary Sri Lankan socio-political and literary discourse among Tamils.<\/p>\n

The literary activities among the Malayaha Tamils, apart from their folk literature, started in the 1920s. K. Natesa Aiyar, a veteran trade unionist and journalist who represented the Indians in the Legislative Council in the \u201920s and his wife Meenadchi Ammal were the pioneers of the politically-conscious Malayaha Tamil literature. C. V. Veluppillai, a trade union activist and the elected member of the first parliament in 1947 can be considered the founder of a new genre, Malayaka Thamil Ilakkiyam. He was a poet and a novelist who loved his people and the country. When the Citizenship Bill was debated in parliament in 1948 he expressed his love for this country in very poetic terms:<\/p>\n

Mr. Speaker, nearly 85 years ago, my ancestors came to this country, and I have not gone to India . I have not crossed the Palk Strait . My love for this country is not less than that of the Hon. Prime Minister, but the difference arises here. I love the twigs and the grass and the mountains and the streams of the country, but the Hon. Prime Minister loves riches and power in this country. That is the difference (Hansard 1948. 553). <\/p>\n

His poems entitled In Ceylon\u2019s Tea Gardens, written in English, express his strong feeling for the toiling workers, their plight and their pain, and also his anger as well as his optimism. Here are some lines from his poems (Velupillai 1954). <\/p>\n

My men!
\nThey lie dust under dust
\nBeneath the tea,
\nNo wild weed flowers
\nOr memories token
\nTributes raise
\nOver their humble mould.
\nThe sons trample,
\nOver the fathers\u2019 biers!
\nO shame what man
\nEver gave them a grave?
\nOnly God in His grace
\nCovered them with his grass.<\/p>\n

*
\nMy bronze bodied men
\nNoose the morning light;
\nFrom dell to dale
\nFrom uplands and inclines
\nEchoes rise and fall
\nTo the rhythm of pickaxe
\nMammoty fork and crowbar.
\nForkers and pruners
\nFerners and sprayers
\nEach skilled in the task;
\nThey enter the field.
\nDisturbed beehives their hearts
\nTheir hands honey combs
\nDrip warm with the sweat,
\nEight hours in a day
\nSeven times in a week;
\nThus their life blood flows
\nTo fashion this land
\nA paradise for some<\/p>\n

*
\nFrom their vote less gloom
\nFrom their stateless doom
\nOf rights withered dross
\nShall wake another dawn;
\nIn that mating hour
\nWhere once life decayed
\nShall spring a fire-throb,
\nIn the breathing of men<\/p>\n

*
\nThe tears and the sweat
\nThat for a hundred years
\nScattered on the dust
\nGathered unto the night
\nOf a risen sun,
\nShall beget a million men
\nTo march upwards and on
\nTo where great mornings wait
\nFor the tom-tom\u2019s throb.<\/p>\n

These poems by Veluppillai were later translated into Tamil and published, in 1969, by Sakthi A. Balaiya, another outstanding poet from Malayaham. Veluppillai\u2019s novel Viidattavan (The Homeless) symbolizes the \u201cnowhereness\u201d of the plantation workers and their sufferings as a working class and an ethnic community.<\/p>\n

Veluppillai, as a leftist and a trade unionist, had a very close relationship with the Sinhalese. However, during the 1983 pogrom, he himself underwent the bitter experience of being a Tamil and he wrote his last novel Ini Padamaaddeen (No More Can I Suffer), an autobiographical novel depicting his personal experience of class and ethnic conflict.<\/p>\n

Malayaha Tamil poetry is a voice of an oppressed working class as well as of a discriminated ethnic community. Most of the Malayaha poets who followed Veluppillai have expressed their reality in their poetry. One of the most popular Malayaha poets, Kurinchi Thennavan, a poet from the working class, wrote hundreds of poems on the sufferings of the plantation workers. His collection of poems was first published in 1987. I give two stanzas as examples:<\/p>\n

Did I consume milk and fruit?
\nDid I sleep on a soft mattress?
\nI writhed in hunger without kuul
\nI grew up sleeping on a tattered tarpaulin<\/p>\n

*
\nWe worked at the top of the hill and
\nGot soaked there in the pouring rain
\nWe lived in a twig hut but
\nBecame a burden to this land<\/p>\n

Vannachirahu, a young poet who was one among the hundreds of thousands of exiles from their birth place, has written some fine poems on the personal as well as the collective experience of his people. The following poem, entitled Dawn, is on the personalized collective experience of fear among the people during the periods of ethnic violence (Cheran, et al. 1985, 160). <\/p>\n

Our nights are uncertain
\nDear,
\nLet us look at each other
\nBefore we go to bed
\nThis may be our last
\nMeaningful moment<\/p>\n

Firmly press your lips
\nOn the cheeks of our children
\nThen, let us think about
\nOur relatives for a moment<\/p>\n

Lastly, let us
\nWipe our own tears<\/p>\n

If we are not burnt
\nThis night
\nMay our fingers feel
\nAt dawn
\nThe touch of the tea leaves
\nThat bear the pearls of dew<\/p>\n

His farewell poem, entitled Goodbye, Land of My Birth , ends with a longing for a lost past:<\/p>\n

Goodbye, mountain ranges
\nWhen can I see you again?
\nGoodbye, comrades
\nWhen can we claim the hills together again?
\nGoodbye, rivers
\nWhen can I bathe in you again?
\nGoodbye, my people
\nWhen can we happily shake each other\u2019s hands again?
\nGoodbye, land of my birth
\nWhen can I play on your wide spaces?<\/p>\n

Religion, Ethnicity and the Politics of Reading<\/strong><\/p>\n

Buddhism is the official religion of the Sri Lankan state and the state has the constitutional obligation to promote and safeguard Buddhism in the country. Buddhism is fundamentally a religion of non-violence, preaching non-violence philosophically and practically. However, during the past three decades, the Sri Lankan people have experienced violence or have had to counter violence by the state and non-state actors. Ironically, no meaningful Buddhist voice has raised itself against this violence. In fact Buddhism is used for political purposes, as Islam is used in Pakistan and West Asian countries and Hinduism in India . Under a minority perception, Buddhism is seen as having being betrayed or sacrificed in Sri Lanka . S. J. Thambiah\u2019s book, Buddhism Betrayed? exemplifies this perception, and it was banned in this country. Poets like S. Villvaratnam, Hamsatvani, Sivasegaram and I myself have written poems on this betrayal of Buddhism, using the image of Lord Buddha. In this section I briefly discuss some of the readings of and responses to my poem Murder from religious or ethnic perspectives.<\/p>\n

1981 was one of the peaks of ethnic violence in Sri Lanka , set off during the campaign for the first ever District Development Council election in Jaffna . The militant groups that were fighting for a separate state were opposed to the election and sought to disrupt it. One candidate and two policemen were shot dead and two others were injured in Jaffna . In retaliation, on the nights of 31 May, 1 June and 2 June, the police went on the rampage, destroying and setting fire to buildings in the city. The public market, the office and printing press of the local daily, Elanaadu, and the house of the Member of Parliament for the Jaffna electorate were burnt down, with some of the top ranking cabinet ministers present in Jaffna . The major casualty was the Jaffna Public Library, one of the biggest libraries in South Asia , with more than 90 thousand books and many rare documents, including a number of Buddhist scriptures. It was completely burnt down.<\/p>\n

I was a lecturer at the University of Jaffna at that time and was one of the users of the library. The very next day I went to the town to see the destruction. It was terrible. My immediate response to the destruction was a poem Puththarin Padukolai (The Murder of Buddha). The image of Lord Buddha shot dead at the library came to my mind spontaneously. The English translation of the poem is given here.<\/p>\n

Murder<\/p>\n

Last night
\nI dreamt
\nLord Buddha was shot dead
\nby the police,
\nguardians of the law.
\nHis body drenched in blood
\non the steps
\nof the Jaffna Library.<\/p>\n

Under cover of darkness
\ncame the ministers,
\n\u2018His name is not on our list,
\nwhy did you kill him?\u201d
\nthey ask angrily.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo sirs, no
\nthere was no mistake.
\nWithout killing him
\nit was impossible
\nto harm even a fly\u2014
\ntherefore . . . ,\u201d they stammered.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlright, then
\nhide the corpse\u201d
\nThe ministers go back.<\/p>\n

The men in civies
\ndragged the corpse
\ninto the library.
\nThey heaped the books
\nninety thousand in all,
\nand lit the pyre
\nwith the Cikalokavadda Sutta.
\nThus the remains
\nof the Compassionate One
\nwere burned to ashes
\nalong with the Dhammapada.<\/p>\n

(Trans. S. Pathmanathan)<\/p>\n

The poem first appeared on the students\u2019 notice board of the Jaffna University and subsequently, it was published in Alai, a literary magazine published in Jaffna . Soon it was translated into English and Sinhala. The responses to the poem from various sections of the ethnic communities and the underlying ideologies are important from a theoretical point of view.<\/p>\n

The first Sinhala translation of the poem was published in Vivarana, a progressive Sinhala magazine, and a copy of it appeared on the students\u2019 notice board at the University of Colombo . The reaction of Sinhala nationalists to the poem was significant. I was told that a group of angry students smashed the notice board railing against the poem, leading to it being removed. Later, a friend of mine who was an interpreter in Parliament warned me to be careful since there was an attempt by some extremist Buddhists to take the poem as an issue of blasphemy in Parliament; but for some or the other reason, it did not succeed. A Sinhala professor from the University of Kelaniya , who is known to me well and who is not an extreme nationalist, expressed his discontent with the poem, when I met him at the University. However, he had not read the poem, only heard about it from others. His objection was to the use of the image of the Buddha as a victim of the violation.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, the response of liberal and progressive Sinhalese to the poem was positive. There have been a few more Sinhala translations of the poem by Sinhalese, including one by a young Buddhist monk. Professor Carlo Fonseka is an ardent propagator of the poem. He himself translated it into Sinhala and took it to the Sinhala public to arouse their conscience against the crime. He also used it during the general and presidential elections in the 1990s for his political propaganda campaign against the ruling party, the UNP, which had been in power for 17 years (from 1977 to 1994), during which period the ethnic conflict had developed into a separatist war. Fonseka wrote to me in the late 1990s that he had not read such a powerful poem during those years. Goonetilleke, a Sinhala academic, who included this poem in his anthology, New Writing in Sri Lanka (1992), comments, \u201c\u2026in Murder, Nuhman ponders the ethnic crisis and suggests how religion becomes a casualty in this type of violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Tamil nationalists, the general Tamil reading public and the critics understandably received the poem well and it was included in the collection of Tamil resistance poems, Maranaththul Vaalvoom, and, also, republished in several magazines. They see the poem from the Tamil nationalist point of view. However, one criticism of a Tamil academic, Suresh Canagarajah (1993) is interestingly important for its revelation of the poet\u2019s ethnic perceptions. Criticizing the politics of anthologizing Tamil literature on the basis of a critique of Goonetilleke\u2019s anthology (1992), he says:<\/p>\n

Tamil nationalism and the resulting armed struggle for self-determination does not find expression in this collection. The closest that comes to this theme is Nuhman\u2019s Murder – a Muslim writer\u2019s reaction to the burning of the Jaffna Public Library by the Sinhalese security forces in 1980. But this poem does not (and cannot be expected to) authentically express the aspirations such periodic state sponsored violence has given birth to among Saivite Tamils.\u201d (1993: 7).<\/p>\n

Canagarajah\u2019s exclusive Saivite Tamil nationalistic perception, one that excludes even the Christian Tamils, is interesting. It is obviously based on the author\u2019s ethnic identity, but not on the content and theme of the poem. It seems that he cannot think that a Muslim writer can be as much a victim as a Saivite Tamil. It would appear that for him the authenticity of feeling is decided by the poet\u2019s ethnicity.<\/p>\n

The Muslim nationalistic perception of the poem is also interesting. For many of them it was not their problem, but that of the other ethnic group, one that had developed hostility towards them. In an ethnically polarized society, one who is sympathetic to or supportive of the causes of the other ethnic community is not always welcome within his\/her own group. I was identified as a \u201csupporter of the hegemonic Tamil nationalist forces\u201d by a group of young Muslim writers from the Southeastern Sri Lanka, where tension between Muslims and Tamils is high (Peruveli 3, May 2007). This is, possibly, because I had written poems, including Murder, on the military oppression in Jaffna in the \u201880s. Presently, this group of writers is involved in constructing the concept of the \u201cliterature of Muslim nation\u201d as opposed to the literature of the Tamils. One member of this group, Nawas Saufi, a promising young poet, has published a few concept papers on the subject. He distinguishes the Muslim nation from other nations. According to him the \u201cliterature of the Muslim nation\u201d includes exclusively the writing of the Muslims of Sri Lanka, though he concedes that a literary work by a Muslim writer written for the other nation might also be accepted as part of the literature of the Muslim nation. He says that \u201cfor an example the poem Murder of Buddha written by M. A. Nuhman can be considered a literature of the Muslim nation written for the other nation\u201d, but he categorically excludes the poem Kathankudy written by Cheran on the massacre of Muslims at the Kathankudy mosques by the LTTE in 1990, since it is written by a non-Muslim, even though it deals with the plight of the Muslims (Peruveli 2, Nov. 2006). This kind of conceptualization exposes the literary polarization reflecting the deep divide between the ethnic communities.<\/p>\n

I never saw or thought of the burning down of the Jaffna Public Library as a crime affecting only a particular ethnic community. It was a crime committed against human values and civilization by the armed forces of a self-proclaimed Buddhist state. They committed the crime against the spirit of Buddhism itself. That is what the poem is all about. For me it was a matter of concern for all human beings irrespective of their racial or ethnic identity. But in an ethnically polarized society things are seen differently. <\/p>\n

Ethnicity, Violence and Gender: Two Poems by Women Poets<\/strong><\/p>\n

Women form the most vulnerable group and are frequent victims of the ethnic conflict and war in Sri Lanka , as in many other countries in the world. Rehn and Johnson (2002), who discuss this matter within the global context, clearly point out that:<\/p>\n

While more men are killed in war, women often experience violence, forced pregnancy, abduction and sexual abuse and slavery. Their bodies, deliberately infected with HIV\/AIDS or carrying a child conceived in rape, have been used as envelops to send messages to the perceived \u201cenemy\u201d. The harm, silences and shame women experience in war are pervasive: their redress almost non- existent (cited in Sitralega 2005). <\/p>\n

Apart from such sexual victimization, within the patriarchal social order, women have also, in most instances, to bear the burden of their family upkeep as single heads of the families that have lost their bread-winners in the conflict.<\/p>\n

Let me examine two poems by two women poets on sexual victimization. The first poem is Koneeswarikal, by Kala. This arose out of a gang rape and murder of a woman named Koneswari by the security forces in 1997 in the Amparai District. It was widely reported in the Tamil press. As usual, no Sinhala or English newspaper gave importance to this news. It was reported that, after the gang rape the woman was cruelly killed by a grenade thrown onto her genitals. The poet responds angrily to this incident. This is the poem in translation (Sarinikar, July 1997).<\/p>\n

Koneswaries<\/p>\n

Her death didn\u2019t give me pain
\nHow can it shake me
\nWhen my feelings are numb?
\nDears, my Tamil women
\nWhat have you done
\nFor the peace for this Island ?
\nSo, come
\nRemove your dress
\nAnd be naked
\nYou too, my mother,<\/p>\n

Open your yoonis*
\nFor those who follow the Buddha\u2019s path
\nAnd fight for peace
\nPity them
\nWhere can they release their perversity?<\/p>\n

Heroes, come on
\nFulfill your perversity
\nMy school-going sister is also behind me.<\/p>\n

Have you finished?
\nDon\u2019t stop there
\nTomorrow\u2019s generation
\nMay sprout out from our yoonis
\nSo, smash them
\nThrowing grenades
\nCollect the pieces and bury them
\nTo prevent our race sprouting any more<\/p>\n

Sinhala sisters,
\nYour yoonis are free now<\/p>\n

*yooni = female genitals<\/p>\n

It is obvious that the poet\u2019s angry response is highly ethnic-sensitive. The sexuality and the gender of the victim are clearly ethnicised. Tamil women are separated from Sinhala women. The religion, Buddhism, is also brought in. This kind of response may be expected and common in ethnically-polarized societies. However, sexual victimization carries beyond ethnic and religious boundaries. For instance, thousands of young Sinhala women were arrested, tortured, sexually abused or killed during the JVP insurgencies in 1971 and 1989 by the same Sinhala armed forces and police. The story of Padmini Manamperi, a beauty queen of the Southern Province, is well known. She was sexually abused, tortured, paraded along the road naked and killed. There are also some stories of sexual abuse and killings of female cadres within some of the Tamil militant groups in the 1980s.<\/p>\n

Immediately after the publication of the poem Koneeswarikal in Sarinikar, a weekly Tamil tabloid published in Colombo , a reader, Selvi Thiruchandran, a feminist scholar, responded critically to it.<\/p>\n

The poem Koneeswarikal disgusted me deeply. Rape is a violent act in relation to female sexuality. When it is used as a subject of poetry, we cannot say that it is obligatory to express only its violence, its gendered nature, its content, the unrighteousness of the state and the agony of the women. There should at least be a civilized quality. Even though there might be no delicacy in the use of words, the meaning should be decent.<\/p>\n

What is the meaning of the racial use of the phrases \u201cO Tamil women\u201d and \u201cO, Sinhalese sisters\u201d? … women\u2019s sexuality has no caste, religion, class and ethnic differences. In the violence of male chauvinism these differences disappear\u2026.No woman should open anything to satisfy another\u2019s perversions\u2026Do not seek justice for Koneswari by degrading femininity to such an extent (Sarinikar, July\/August 1997).<\/p>\n

Another reader, Dushyanthi, wrote in support of the poem:<\/strong><\/p>\n

After reading the poem I felt pain in my heart. Anger, frenzy and grief\u2026 and further different feelings tormented me for hours\u2026 what a poem has to do, it fulfilled. The feminist politics of oppressed Tamil women has emerged forcefully through the poem. I marvel at the power of the poet who could express the depth of the ethnic and gender oppression of Tamil women through such a small poem (Sarinikar, August 1997). <\/p>\n

Several readers participated in the debate and most of them were, understandably, supportive of the poet and her poem. It appears that the overt ethnic sensitivity of the poem caused it to have a great impact on readers who were also ethnically sensitive and emotionally affected by the incident.<\/p>\n

There was a similar incident in 1996, a year before this one. It happened in Jaffna . The victim was Krishanthy, a school-going girl. She was caught at an army sentry point, raped and killed. A promising young poet, Vinothini, responded to this incident with a poem (in Vinothini 2007). It is a very different response from Koneswarikal. The title of the poem, Krishanthy, is the name of the victim, as in the case of Koneswarikal, where, however, it is pluralized. But, except implicitly in the title, there is no reference to the ethnicity of the victim or the victimizers in the text. The translation of the poem is given below:<\/p>\n

Krishanthy<\/p>\n

As the birds sang
\nAnd the sun fell into the sea
\nHer death took place
\nAt the open space of white sand
\nNo one knew about it<\/p>\n

When she was born a female child
\nShe wouldn\u2019t have thought of such an end
\nHer mother neither<\/p>\n

First their look pierced her like a thorn
\nThen their terrible hands seized her arms<\/p>\n

No sound arose
\nShe fell in a faint
\nThey raped her senseless body
\nIt happened
\nAt the open space of white sand
\nShe was buried
\nAt the edge of the salty cremation ground<\/p>\n

When she was born
\nWould she have thought of such an end?<\/p>\n

It is interesting to compare the two poems. The poets\u2019 ideologies, attitudes and poetic sensitivities are different. Ideologically the poet Kala is openly a Tamil nationalist. The ethnic identities of the victim and the victimizers assume great significance in her textualization of her poem. The gender comes second, even perhaps rendered secondary. The gender, as well as the genitals, are ethnicised – the yoonis of the Tamil women and the yoonis of the Sinhala women. Thus, the poet\u2019s perception of the incident is obviously ethnically biased.<\/p>\n

The poet Vinothini is ideologically feminist rather than nationalist. The ethnic identities of the victim and the victimizers are not highlighted by her. The title Krishanthy alone signifies (implicitly) the ethnicity of the victim; but it also signifies the gender. There is no signification of ethnicity in the body of the text. The gender of the victim dominates the poem.<\/p>\n

Beyond Ethnicity and Nationalism: Poetic Responses to Ethnic Violence and War<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ethnicity and nationalism are ideological constructions that exclude the other and construct the other as enemy whenever a socio-political conflict arises with the other. These ideological constructions divide people, imposing different identities upon them, promoting hatred towards each other and degrading human values.<\/p>\n

Poetry in a time of ethnic conflict plays two different roles. On the one hand it promotes the ideologies of ethnicity, nationalism and violence, directly or indirectly. On the other hand it exposes the ugly nature of these ideologies and calls for the meaningful reconstruction of human values and unity.<\/p>\n

Some of the poems cited above, for example, Your Fate Too and Letter to My Father, can be interpreted in both ways. Some, like Koneswarikal, overtly promote ethnic sentiment and nationalism. On the other hand, poems like Murder, A Refugee Poet Talking to the Moon and Krishanthy are directed towards exposing the ugly nature of the violence and appeal to the human conscience.<\/p>\n

In this concluding section I would like to cite a few poems written during the conflict that directly or indirectly stand up to the ethnic divide and violence and promote peace and harmony.<\/p>\n

My poem Identity of a Man attempts to depict the contrast between the ideal and the real and expresses a longing for the ideal of humanity amidst the ethnic divides.<\/p>\n

God appeared in my dream,
\nOpened the doors of
\nHeaven and Hell<\/p>\n

\u201cWho are you?\u201d God asked me
\n\u201cI am a man.\u201d I said<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s your name?\u201d he asked again
\n\u201cMan.\u201d I replied
\nHe inquired after my ethnicity
\nI said \u201cHumanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s your religion?\u201d
\nGod asked me finally
\n\u201cHumanness.\u201d I replied<\/p>\n

God said with a smile
\n\u201cYes, you can enter Heaven now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alas!
\nWhen I awoke from my dream
\nI found myself
\nIn Hell<\/p>\n

Solaikkili in his poem Crying with the Pen of My Own Race expresses his contempt for the ethnic division of the society and ridicules it using the imagery of nature, his usual strategy (1993).<\/p>\n

Fence the moon
\nDivide the sun and share it
\nCount the stars
\nApportion them according to ethnic ratio
\nWe are the people of the civilized age.<\/p>\n

Measure the sea and take it
\nCut the sky into pieces
\nIf you get the chance
\nAbduct the air or
\nDestroy the brotherly race with tempests
\nOne among us may land on Jupiter<\/p>\n

Label ethnically even the ants
\nTeach caste and religion to the trees
\nLet the dove laugh at the other race
\nLet the sounds of lizard, snail, frog and insect
\nReflect hatred
\nCome, butterfly,
\nThis is the flower of your race, enjoy it!<\/p>\n

The pity of it
\nThe way mankind is divided
\nWhen I write this poem
\nThe pen refuses to write and tells me
\n\u201cI do not belong to your race\u201d
\nO\u2026 it belongs to a different race.<\/p>\n

Sivaramani, a former student of mine in the University of Jaffna , was a promising young poet in the latter half of the 1980s. She started writing poems in 1985 and actively participated in women\u2019s movements in Jaffna . She was critical of the ideology of nationalism and was opposed to violence and war. She committed suicide at the age of 23 owing to depression caused by socio-political and family conflicts. Her collection of poems was posthumously published in 1993. Her poem entitled In the Time of War expresses her deep concern for the children who lose their childhood because of the war.<\/p>\n

In the oppressive night
\nof our time of war,
\nour little ones
\ngrow big.<\/p>\n

Their lovely morning,
\nlike the shape of a little bird,
\nis waylaid by every
\nblood-soaked faceless human body
\nlying across its way.
\nTheir laughter,
\nringing with the thrill of life lived
\nis broken by
\ncrashing stone walls.
\nOur children
\nare no longer
\nchildren.<\/p>\n

The silence of the starry night
\nis shattered by the burst of a
\nsingle bullet; it shatters
\nto nought the meaning
\nof all their child talk.
\nIn the remaining light of the day
\nthey forget to make
\nchariots out of the seeds
\nof the palmyrah fruit,
\nto indulge in the raucous play
\nof killithattu.<\/p>\n

Instead
\nthey know
\nwhen it\u2019s time to shut the gate,
\nto listen to the dog\u2019s bark,
\nto know its suspicious call,
\nto not ask questions,
\nto keep quiet when there are
\nno answers
\nto their queries.
\nThey have learnt like cattle
\nto habituate themselves
\nto all of this.<\/p>\n

To pluck the wings of the dragonfly
\nfashion sticks and poles into guns
\nturning friend into foe
\nin the game of murder;
\nThis has become
\nour children\u2019s play.<\/p>\n

In the oppressive night
\nof our time of war,
\nour little ones
\nhave become adults.
\n(trans. Sivamohan Sumathy and Nirmala Rajasingam)<\/p>\n

Shanmugam Sivalingam, an important personality in contemporary Sri Lankan Tamil poetry, narrates a story of a metamorphosis, how a man is transformed into an earthworm because of the violent gun culture. His poem, entitled Earthworm, tells the story of the fall of the human person and of human values in a war-torn social environment.<\/p>\n

An earthworm like a dry leaf
\nWas crawling at the edge of the steps
\nI, being a man, looked at it with pity
\nFor a moment and left
\nSuddenly I heard a noise and
\nTurned to look at it.<\/p>\n

The earthworm was standing on its tail
\nOpening a mouth full of sharp teeth
\nAs I thought of its tongue
\nFlames came out of it
\nDoes the earthworm have a tongue? …teeth?
\nAs I pondered, it dawned on me that
\nThe earthworm had been transformed.<\/p>\n

But I wasn\u2019t afraid
\nI bent to pick up a rod
\nAs I raised it up
\nI saw a gun in the earthworm\u2019s hand
\nNo, a gun in the snake\u2019s hand
\nNo, a gun in the soldier\u2019s hand<\/p>\n

I bent and slithered like a snake
\nBecame an earthworm like a dry leaf
\nCrawling at the edge of the steps.<\/p>\n

I would like to end this essay with my own poetic proclamation, one that I wrote in 1990 when the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka had reached one of its peaks. It is on equality, peace and freedom. It proclaims that the equality of different ethnic communities is a precondition for peace and that peace is a precondition for freedom. These preconditions apply to family, community, country and the whole world, requiring that they maintain harmonious relationships.<\/p>\n

If we want to meaningfully resolve the ethnic problems and conflicts, to neutralize the tension among the ethnic communities and to create harmony and peaceful coexistence, equality of ethnic communities must be guaranteed. My poetic proclamation, entitled My last Words, reads as follows:<\/p>\n

These are my last words
\nEquality, peace and freedom<\/p>\n

Where there is no equality
\nThere is no peace
\nWhere there is no peace
\nThere is no freedom<\/p>\n

These are my last words
\nEquality, peace and freedom<\/p>\n

You deny my equal rights?
\nYou lose your own sense of peace
\nAnd your freedom<\/p>\n

You point the gun at my rights?
\nIt is the enemy of peace
\nFreedom\u2019s adversary<\/p>\n

These are my last words
\nEquality, peace and freedom<\/p>\n

Shout out loud, all you people
\nShatter the silence of the skies<\/p>\n

Equality
\n Peace
\n And freedom.<\/p>\n

footnotes<\/p>\n

1. Murugaiyan alone departed from the practice, including some of his poems on linguistic
\n nationalism in one of his latest collections (2001).
\n2. Unless otherwise mentioned the translations of the poems cited in this paper have been done by
\n the author, M A Nuhman.
\n3. The English translations of the poems included in this section are taken from Kanaganayakam
\n 2001.<\/p>\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n

Canagarajah, Suresh. 1993. Politics of anthologizing contemporary Tamil literature: A
\nreview of Penguin New Writing in Sri Lanka. In Third Eye (published by the
\nEnglish Forum, University of Jaffna ). 7.<\/p>\n

Cheran, R., A. Yesurasa, Pathmanaba Iyer and P. Nadarasan (eds.) 1985.
\nMaranaththul Valvoom. Jaffna : Thamiliyal.<\/p>\n

Dewaraja, Lorna. 1994. The Muslims of Sri Lanka : One Thousand Years of Ethnic
\nHarmony 900-1915. Colombo : The Lanka Islamic Foundation.<\/p>\n

Gani, Uwais. 2002. Manithanodu Nadanthapadi. Colombo : Yaathra.<\/p>\n

Goonetilleke, D.C.R.A. 1992. The Penguin New Writing in Sri Lanka . New Delhi :
\nPenguin Books.
\nHansard, 10-12. 1948.<\/p>\n

Indrapala, K. 2005. The Evolution of an Ethnic Identity : The Tamils in Sri Lanka c. 300
\nBCE to c. 1200 CE. Sydney : The South Asian Studies Centre.<\/p>\n

Kanaganayakam, Chelva (ed.) 2001. Lute song and Lament: Tamil Writing from Sri
\n Lanka. Toronto : TSAR Publications.
\nKearney , Robert N. 1967. Communalism and Language in the Politics of Ceylon .<\/p>\n

Durham , North Carolina : Duke University Press.<\/p>\n

Murugaiyan 2001. Ovvoru Pullum Puuvum Pillaiyum. Colombo :<\/p>\n

Nadesan, S. 1993. A History of the Up-Country Tamil People in Sri Lanka . Colombo :
\n Nandalal Publications.
\nNuhman, M. A. 2007. Sri Lankan Muslims: Ethnic Identity within Cultural Diversity.
\nColombo : International Centre for Ethnic Studies.
\nParanavithana, S. 1956. Sigiri Graffiti. London : OUP.<\/p>\n

Peruveli – a literary magazine published in Akkaraipattu.<\/p>\n

Puradchik Kamal. 1963. Puradchik Kamal Kavithaikal. Kandy :<\/p>\n

Ragupathy, P. 1987. Early Settlements in Jaffna : An Archaeological Survey. Madras :<\/p>\n

Russell, Jane. 1992. Communal Politics under the Donoughmore Constitution 1931-
\n1947. Dehiwala: Tisara Prakasakayo Ltd.<\/p>\n

Sarinikar – a tabloid published in Colombo .<\/p>\n

Shihabdeen, Ashraf, A.G.M. Sadaqa and S. Naleem (eds.) 2002. Meezaan Kaddaikalin
\nMeela Elum Paadalkal. Colombo : World Islamic Tamil Literary Conference.<\/p>\n

Sitralega, M. 2005. Conflict and development in Eastern Sri Lanka : The gender
\ndimension. In Frerks, Georg and Bart Klem (eds.) Dealing with Diversity: Sri
\nLankan Discourses on Peace and Conflict. : Netherlands Institute of
\nInternational Relations \u2018Clingendeal\u2019<\/p>\n

Solaikkili. 1991. Kaakam Kalaitha Kanavu. Oslo : Suvadukal Pathippakam.
\n_____ 1993. Aani Veer Arunta Naan. France, Asseay
\nUwais, M.M. 1986\/1990\/1994. Islamiya Thamil Ilakkiya Varalaru, Vols. 1, 2, 3.
\nMadurai Kamaraj University .<\/p>\n

Velupillai, C. V. 1954. In Ceylon\u2019s Tea Garden. Talangama: Harrison Peiris.<\/p>\n

Vinothini. 2007. Mukamuudi Seypaval. Nagarcoil: Kalachuvadu Pathappagam.<\/p>\n

Wilson, A. J. 2000. Sri Lankan Tamil Nationalism: Its Origins and Development in the
\n19th and 20th Centuries. New Delhi-Penguin Books <\/p>\n

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by Prof. M A Nuhman The ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka has had a direct impact on literary production in Tamil, comparatively greater than in the case of Sinhala. This is largely due to the fact that it has been the Tamil-speaking communities who were most directly and severely affected by the ethnic conflict throughout …<\/p>\n

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