By Shenali D. Waduge   While a substantial portion of the Tamil population of Sri Lanka, especially those in the North and East, claim that they belong to a Tamil “homeland” in the country that they have occupied since ancient times, there are several questions that raise doubts over the veracity of such claims.  Five such questions are given below:    

• How can Tamil Eelam homeland lobbyists claim two provinces as their “homeland” making use of two provinces created in 1833 by colonial Britain?

    It is very clear that while the regions within the first kingdom of Anuradhapura, and second kingdom of Polonnaruwa included northern Sri Lanka, the last kingdom of Kandy too included part of the North, and this explains why the Kandyan king dispatched his army here to defend his people from the Portuguese. The last battle for the defense of Jaffna before it fell to European powers was fought not by a Tamil army, but by Sinhalese forces sent by the king of Kandy. Portuguese historian Father Queroyz said: “As long as Rajapure (Anuradhapura) was the capital of Ceylon, the whole island was subject to one king.” If this was the case with Anuradhapura, it was the same with the rest of the capitals. When the Portuguese arrived in 1505, there were 15 “kinglets” subject to the King of Kotte and independent or separate from the rest, of which the Jaffnapatao kinglet was one.  The first kingdom was in Anuradhapura, the second kingdom was in Polonnaruwa, and the last kingdom was in Kandy – the kings of these kingdoms were the sole ruler of the entire island. There was no separate or independent Tamil kingdom, and the so-called “separate” area being claimed as a “Tamil homeland” was ruled by the Sinhalese kings. A separate kingdom must provide evidence of food/water supply (agriculture), a system of government, culture, belief and traditions, a written language, and structures/monuments. The kingdoms of Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa leave us to cherish some of the world’s earliest man-made irrigation systems and water tanks, and even animal hospitals – as these exist even to this day, where are those of a so-called Eelam kingdom? There were no separate independent kingdoms in Jaffna or anywhere else; there were no provinces. The provinces were created by the Colonial British in 1833. Thus, there was nothing termed the Northern or Eastern province until five provinces were created in 1833 by Colonial Britain. Therefore, how can the Eelam lobby claim to have ruled two provinces that did not exist until the colonial British demarcated them in 1833? This is a key argument to debunk the demarcation of a Tamil Eelam homeland.      

• How can Malabars, rechristened as Ceylon Tamils in 1911, claim a separate homeland in Sri Lanka?

    There is no record in ancient Sinhalese chronicles, Tamil chronicles, or even records of the Portuguese, Dutch, or British to claim an ethnic group called “Ceylon Tamils” lived on the island before they landed. All of the colonial records refer to both Tamils and Muslims as “Malabars”. This was the term given to people who came from the Malabar coast of South India, or Coromandel coast, also in South India. Malabars were indigenous to South India. Therefore, those termed Malabar were descendants from South India. Thus, the Tamils living in Sri Lanka were referred to as Malabars by the Portuguese, Dutch, and British. The term “Ceylon Tamils” was coined only in 1911, when Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan, who was registrar of census, inserted the term “Ceylon Tamils” instead of “Malabars”. The term Ceylon was coined by the British only after the Kandyan Convention in 1815. Malabars cannot claim any “homeland” in Sri Lanka, as they were immigrants from the Southern coast of India. Their homeland is in South India. The quest for self-determination in India for Tamils started in India. The same ethnic group cannot claim two homelands in two sovereign countries (or plan to annex Sri Lanka to create a Greater Dravida Nadu).       

• The Tamil caste system originates from South India, and thus, if Malabars are from South India, Vellalars and the Thesavalamai Law is too, so how can customary laws applicable to foreigners become mandatory customary law in Sri Lanka?

    We have established that Malabars are not indigenous to Sri Lanka, but to South India. The Vellalars are a low caste in South India, but became an elite caste/class in Sri Lanka. Not stopping there, the Vellalars went on to oppress their own, dictating how other castes should function at kovils, funerals, weddings, etc. If Tamils are marginalised or discriminated against, it is by the Vellalar Tamils and not the Sinhalese.  The Thesavalamai law encoded by the Dutch in 1706 claiming to be Tamil customary law is actually not applicable to all Tamils, but to only Malabar inhabitants from Jaffna. What is the percentage of Tamils covered by this definition, and how many Tamils does this law exclude? If so, why should this be referred to as a customary law for all Tamils when it is not so?  More importantly, the Thesavalamai law is applicable to Malabar inhabitants in Jaffna only. Malabars are from South India. Vellalars are a caste originating from South India. How can anyone quote these to claim theories of a homeland? It is good for Tamils to realise who is discriminating against them instead of falling prey to propaganda. How deeply the caste system has marginalised Tamils against each other is a question Tamils themselves need to honestly answer. When Tamils are not welcomed into Tamil homes, when even cutlery and crockery are differentiated, when even kovils disallow their own, when people are reluctant to share a toilet with their own – is this not discrimination?      

• If the Dravida Nadu term was coined by colonial missionaries, isn’t the Tamil Eelam quest (an offshoot of the Dravida Nadu movement) a similar missionary-infused agenda?

    The term “Dravidian” did not exist until it was coined by the Church. The Church missionaries, after creating the term Dravida, went to great lengths to promote a fictitious history. The Dravidian theory was an artificial theory implanted by the Church, and it is possible the same was done to create a Tamil Eelam notion to separate both Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka along ethno-linguistic lines. Bishop Caldwell plugged the South Indian languages of Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, and Kannada as Dravidian languages. If the Dravidian movement was led and controlled by the Church, is it a surprise that the Tamil Eelam lobby has the blessings of the Church apparatus as well? It is the Tamil Christians/Catholics who are mainly operating this quest. In 1939, the “Dravida Nadu for Dravidians” commenced, a quest for a separate sovereign and federal state. In 1940, a Dravida Nadu map was released. In 1947, Britain rejected appeals for a separate Tamil State, which led to Dravida Nadu Secession Day being passed on 13 July 1947, demanding an independent Dravida Nadu. Two years later in Sri Lanka, the Ilangai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) was created, seeking a separate Tamil state in Sri Lanka. In 1960, Dravida Nadu Separation Day was held, which led to the Tamil Nadu Liberation Army, while the Tamil Eelam movement in Sri Lanka resulted in Tamil militancy with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) taking leadership. Dravida Nadu was replaced with “Tamil Nadu for Tamils” and then the “We Tamil Movement” that led to demands for an independent Tamil Nadu, which the Government of India stopped through legislative enactments in 1963. The demands for Dravida Nadu were identical to demands by the LTTE during the Thimpu talks in 1985. If the Dravida Nadu movement and map were created by the Church, was the map of Tamil Eelam also their creation? This implies that both movements in South India and Sri Lanka did not originate from the people but from one external source – the Church.      

• If the Eelam area was borrowed from the colonial British map, if Global Church planted the Dravida Nadu movement and Greater Tamil Eelam initiative, if Malabars, Vellalars, and Thesavalamail were imported from South India, is it so difficult to realise that Tamil militancy was also exported from India to Sri Lanka to pass on India’s headache to us?

    The Jain Commission interim report following the LTTE’s assassination of then-Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, memoirs by the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) former commanders and even former Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka J.N. Dixit prove a Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) hand in Tamil militancy in Sri Lanka, from training, to the supply of weapons, to even logistical support and funding. These lies are what lay the foundation for a bogus homeland quest, which is kept alive because of the benefits to key players promoting it. The geopolitical and conversion motives are clear. Unfortunately, so-called academics and historians have been party to the lies, or reluctant to negate these with historical facts and arguments. So let’s bring these into the open and demand facts, not propaganda.     (The writer is an independent political analyst who writes on a broad range of topics, and was previously the International Human Rights Commission’s Goodwill Ambassador for Sri Lanka) ………………….. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication.