• New York-based author and associate professor Nimanthi Perera-Rajasingham talks about the deepening crisis and the ever-growing protests 

By Jennifer Anandanayagam Colgate University, New York Associate Professor of English and Women’s Studies Nimanthi Perera-Rajasingham often hid the fact that her father was Tamil when she was a child. She feels she has lost out on many aspects of a Tamil childhood because she tried to pass off as Sinhalese to avoid being looked at differently.  In her book, Assembling Ethnicities in Neoliberal Times: Ethnographic Fictions and Sri Lanka’s War she explores how globalisation and free markets contributed to Sri Lanka’s war, a fresh and uncommon perspective, to say the least.  Perera-Rajasingham, although based just outside of New York City in Jersey City, has visited Galle Face Green to join the ongoing protests asking incumbent President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to step down.  “They are really inspiring and remind me of my time in the Occupy Wall Street Movement. The energy and creativity are wonderful,” she shares. When people say “give us back our money”, they are making a working-class claim, she says.  “For the working classes know that they are exploited and underpaid. It is their sweat that has made the wealthy rich. So while the focus is on corruption and how the Rajapaksas stole wealth, the reality is that the elite has always stolen from working-class people. I think this consciousness is really there at the protests.” This week on Write Home About, I speak with Perera-Rajasingham about her early years on the island, her mixed-race upbringing, her unique inspiration for her book, and Sri Lanka’s deepening turmoil.  Following are some excerpts from the interview. Tell me a little bit about your life in Sri Lanka, before you moved to the US? I grew up in Colombo. I went to St. Bridget’s Convent. I come from a Catholic family on my mother’s side. My father’s family were Hindus. When 1983 came to pass, we lived in Kotahena, which was terribly impacted by the pogrom. I was seven years old then, so I did not understand much, but I do remember my father hiding and I was sent to a neighbour’s. I grew up in a working-class family. My mother was the main income-earner of the family, and I was an only child.  I actually did my undergrad in the US too, but came back because I really wanted to work and live in Sri Lanka. I spent two years doing my Master’s at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and then worked at the International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES) for about four years.  When and why did you move to the US? I moved to the US again, 10 years after my BA, to get a PhD. I was working at the ICES from about 2002 to 2006. At the time, it was a very vibrant space for intellectual growth. However, like most non-profits, donor demands can drive activist and research agendas. The director then – Radhika Coomaraswamy – was excellent at obtaining funds while giving us the freedom to do research. This is where I first read Sunil Bastian, who tried to connect the liberalisation of the economy and the rise of racism in Sri Lanka.  Yet, I felt a lot of questions were not being asked about ethnonationalism and free markets. I had also done some work for The Social Scientists’ Association at the time, and the thinking of Kumari Jayawardena really influenced me. So I took off to do my PhD, in the hopes of having time to do the necessary reading and thinking.  One of the other struggles I had was that many research institutions are largely focused on social sciences, especially anthropology. I wanted to think of the relationship between anthropology and fiction. Since anthropological discourses dominated the study of violence, I had to think of the place of fiction and narrative in relation to it. Most importantly, however, I really wanted to think about the importance and significance of fiction in thinking about Sri Lanka’s war, liberalisation, and nationalism.  Your mother was Sinhalese and your father Tamil. Did this shape your experience of the ethnic tensions in Sri Lanka? It really did shape so much of my childhood. I grew up a lot with my mother’s side of the family, though I had regular contact with my paternal grandmother. I think because Colombo was full of checkpoints and suspicion of Tamils, I often hid the fact that my father was Tamil. I never learned to read and write in Tamil, and I was in the Sinhala medium throughout. So I would say that I lost out on many aspects of a Tamil childhood, because I tried to pass as Sinhalese to avoid being looked at differently.  If I had studied in the Tamil medium, I would have been friends with other Tamil kids and known how to tackle some of the comments, etc. But we never discussed these issues openly at home, so I did not know how to deal with the ways people treated me when they found out what my last name was. I just felt shame.  Every time a bomb went off in Colombo, I heard people around me talk about how much they hated Tamils. People often did not differentiate between the actions of militants and ordinary Tamils, nor think about the parallel and worse bombings happening in the North, perpetrated by the State. Because I spoke Sinhala and was raised to be culturally Sinhalese, people forgot what they said in front of me.  So I learned to try to pass as Sinhalese when I could during my childhood. I guess that is why I use the hyphenated name. I want to remind everyone so they don’t say such things in front of me again. Why did you want to show how globalisation and free markets contributed to the war, a rather uncommon and unexplored aspect, through your book? The arguments I make may be under-developed today, but I do draw from a number of scholars who have made these connections. I am thinking of people like Newton Gunasinghe, Kumari Jayawardena, Ambalavaner Sivandandan, and Sunil Bastian, to name just a few. The Social Scientists’ Association was a central place that discussed the relationship between political economy and race and class.  Scholars like Nira Wickremasinghe and R.A.L.H. Gunawardena have also done very important work to demonstrate how ethnic identities, being Sinhalese or Tamil, etc., are modern constructs. They show us how during colonialism, scholars and administrators created knowledge to suit the needs of a colonial administration. Classifying people and producing them as opposed racial groups is an example of this from Sri Lanka. So race or ethnicity is a technology for governing populations, a means of dividing them into enclosures and contained units.  If we have learned that during colonialism, race/ethnicity was produced in rigid ways to divide people and rule them, then we have to ask ourselves who benefits from contemporary racism. What capitalist and neocolonial ends can it serve? So in many ways, my book expands and extends what I learned from this rich scholarship. What are your thoughts on the current economic crisis Sri Lanka is facing? I would say these are the predictable and terrifying results of free markets and neoliberalism. I think a lot of debates are wrongly focused on corruption. Of course, corruption is high. I do not dispute this. However, it is not corruption alone that got us to this place. Over 30 years of an import-export economy, dismantling welfare that shielded people from market instability, and neglecting agriculture and fisheries have really led to this.  We need a State that promotes local production as much as possible. We do not need to keep relying on tourism, garments, tea, etc., to save the economy. This kind of import-export, free market model makes us extremely vulnerable to global trends. We need to think of what people in this country need for their livelihoods. Under neoliberalism, inequality in this country and globally has increased. We need to address this through greater redistribution of wealth and resources to the poor, working classes, women, and war-impacted minorities. We really need a different economic model.  More debt and free markets will just prolong our present tragedy. Loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) come with more and more conditions that will negatively impact people. In the long term, more debt will deepen the crisis, not resolve it. How has your experience in the US been different from your experience here in Sri Lanka, particularly concerning race relations? My husband is an African American, and a photographer. Marrying him completely changed my experience of America. I spent time with his family and friends and was accepted in ways I never would have been otherwise. It also opened my eyes to thinking about race in the US, and to really learning from African American scholars who have done so much critical work theorising racism there.  Of course, the history of racism and capitalist exploitation in the US is different from Sri Lanka. The US is, and remains, a settler colony, a country that enslaved people to make its wealth; it is an empire that colonises other countries and disposes of anyone who dares disagree with it. Really, the scale of American violence on this planet is unparalleled. Yet, the scholars who study race, racism and empire have taught me how to think of issues in Sri Lanka too. What are your thoughts on the current protests across Sri Lanka, specifically #GotaGoGama? I finally see posters highlighting Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s alleged war crimes. Indeed, we need to link our present economic crisis and minority rights and justice together. So while I want to see even more connections of this kind, I do see them more and more. The atmosphere at “GotaGoGama” is festive at times. I do not think this is because Colombo people are having fun as others starve. Really, many different people are present. At times I feel I have seen a million people there in one evening. So, it is a broad mix of people across class and ethnicities. But joy is an essential component of revolution and change. To be hopeful and to have a belief in change, we must also experience collective happiness.  We are lucky and blessed to be together in this space, to be with one another and to be part of the multitude. Revolution is a utopian project, full of hope. Without this jouissance, revolutions could never be possible. —---- Jennifer Anandanayagam is a journalist and editor with over 15 years of experience in Sri Lanka’s print and digital media landscape. She is also a freelance contributor with the SaltWire Network in Canada. She spends her time between both countries.