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A Memorial Service paying tribute to Late Thiagarajah Maheswaran MP, former Sri Lanka Minister for Hindu Religious & Cultural Affairs was held on Saturday January 5th, 2008, in Toronto, Canada.

Several members of the community attended the Memorial Service which was held at Athi Arul Neri Mandram, jointly with Canada Karai Cultural Association. Many dignitaries paid glowing tribute to Parliamentarian T. Maheswaran.

Portrait of Maheswaran MP at the Memorial Service

Cross section of community members in attendance

Several speeches were delivered, honouring and paying tribute to the late Parliamentarian:

Mrs.K. Sothinathan, Secretary, Canada Karai Cultural Association

Mr. Tharmarajah, Vice President, Canada Karai Cultural Association

Dr. Athi Kanapathy Somasundaram

Mr. K. Sivasothy, CEO, Canadian Tamil Broadcasting Corporation

Mr. Veera Subramaniam

Selva Sanithy Murugan Temple priest Mr. Bhuvanenthiran Iyah

Kanapathi Ravindran, Artist

Logan Kanapathy, Councillor-Ward 7, Town of Markham

‘Ilaya Bharathy’ Mr.K.Sivasothy paying respect at the Memorial service
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Email:toronto@monsoonjournal.com

This article is written in honour of the 125th Birth Anniversary of Mahakavi Subramanya Bharathiyar [www.monsoonjournal.com]

Mahakavi Subramanya Bharathi

Subramanya Bharathi was born on Dec 11th 1882, in Ettayapuram a village in South India to Chinnasami Iyar and Lakshmi Ammal. His birth name is Subramaniya Iyar. He is celebrated as one of the great poets of India. He was a reformer, journalist, freedom fighter and poet. Bharathi was prolific and was adept in both prose and poetry forms. His rousing compositions helped rally masses to support the Indian independent struggle in South India. He is known as Mahakavi Bharathi meaning great poet Bharathi. The word ‘Bharathi’ is another name of Goddess of learning Saraswathi in the Pantheon of Hindu deities.

Subramanya Iyar lost his mother at a very young age in 1889. He started his education at the Hindu College, in Thirunelveli town in the year 1894, and studied there till 1897.At the time of marriage Bharathi was only fifteen while his bride who was his cousin was only seven. Her name was Chellammah. Misery struck Bharathi’s life again the following year; he lost his father. After the death of his father in 1898 he moved to Benares a town in the banks of river Gangees, and lived there till 1902 with his aunt. Benares is also known as Kasi and Varnasi a holy place of pilgrimage in Hindu religion. During this stay he learnt Sanskrit, and many other North Indian Languages. Another interesting experience Bharathi had during his stay was, when he met a Sikh gentleman and was greatly impressed by his turban. From that day Bharathi started wearing a turban always. Turban became a distinct feature of Bharathi’s appearance.

During his stay with his aunt Bharathi was exposed to two important traits which influenced him to a great extent. The first is the nationalism and the other Hindu spirituality. In December 1905, he attended the All India Congress session held in Benares. Here he was privileged to meet a keen social worker Margaret Elizabeth Noble an Anglo-Irish lady who was a disciple of Swami Vivekanda, and was better known as Sister Nivedita. This encounter made him realize the Indian women were deprived and kept in ignorance of the struggle of the nation and thereby lost their contribution to the struggle. He visualized a ‘new-woman’ of India as an emanation of Goddess Sakthi, a willing partner of man to build a new India. On his return to his home town in 1902 he was appointed the court poet at Ettayapuram till 1904.

Patriotism: - Bharathi realized the need to educate the public about the Indian struggle for liberation and other happenings around the world. He started taking keen interest in journalism and the print media of the west and home land. In 1904 he joined ‘Sudesamithiran’ a Tamil daily as an assistant editor. His enthusiasm made him to join the radical Tamil weekly ‘India’ and the English newspaper ‘Bala Bharatham’, becoming the editor of both. These journals not only educated the public but were also a great outlet for Bharathi’s creative mind.

Bharathi participated in the historic Surat Congress in 1907 at which the militant’s wing of the Indian National Congress led by Logamanya Tilak, Aurobido Gosh and Lajpath Ray challenged the moderates like Gandhi and Nehru. Subramanya Bharati together with V. O Chithambarampillai and others from South India joined the militant group agitating for independence. As early as in 1908 Bharathi organized a public meeting to celebrate Independence (Swaraj) Day of India. His nationalistic poems were printed and distributed free to the audience. In the same year he gave evidence in support of his friend in the case which had been set up by the British rulers against his good friend V. O Chithambarampillai the one who launched a shipping lines in defiance of the British orders and was called ‘Kappal Ootiya Thamilan’ meaning the Tamil who piloted the ship. The same year the proprietor of the weekly ‘India’ was arrested. Faced with the prospect of arrest, Bharathi escaped to Pondichery which was under French rule.

Living in exile he continued his journalistic pursuit, by continuing to edit the weekly journal ‘India’, and Tamil daily ‘Vijaya’. At the same time Bharathi continued the editorial work on the English monthly ‘Bala Bharatham’. Bharathi edited a local weekly of Pondicherry by the name ‘Suryothayam’ too. All this he achieved in spite of the might of the British Empire stopping remittances and letters to the papers in British India. It is also believed that as a journalist, Bharathi was the first in India to introduce caricatures and political cartoons in newspapers.

During exile he had the privilege to mix with many other leaders of the militant wing of the independence struggle who have sought asylum in the French colony.

After a stay of ten years in exile he returned to British India near Kadalore in November 1918 and was promptly arrested by the British and imprisoned in the Central prison in Kadalore for thrty four days.

Literary carrier: - Before one goes to study his outpouring of poems and penmanship it is important to understand what prompted him to pursue in this field. First and foremost the motivating factor was his desire to tell the world what he felt about the various issues of the world that made him to be a journalist and a poet. He was not man with head in the clouds. He realized the prime need of his mother land was its independence. He also realized it cannot be achieved alienating seventy five percent of the country’s population. It was the lowliest and the lost that made seventy five percent of the Indian population. By lowliest I mean the Harijans, the dalits, the adivasis, and the other backward classes tagged as low caste. And the ‘lost’ implies all women who are almost lost to the political world and had no say in the matters of independence struggle. Sister Nivedita had profound influence over him in this matter, for if an Anglo-Irish woman can come all this distance and does social work then why not his own country women take part in the struggle he thought. He wrote in his songs;

‘We will destroy the idiocy

Of denigrating womanhood’

In another poem he wrote;

Those who said women should not touch books are perished

The funny men who locked the women in their homes now bow their heads’

Bharathi was totally against cast system though he was from a high cast (Brahmin).He gave up his cast identity of wearing the sacred thread. He believed the whole humanity is equal and should be free to take to any field of studies. During his time only Brahmins were allowed to learn Veda. To prove his point he performed Upanayanam (Initiation ceremony) to a young Harijan man and gave him the sacred thread and declared him a Brahmin. This action earned him the enimity of his Brahin relatives and friends. On the subject of castes he wrote;

My blood boils to think of these idiotic men!

How many divisions within us, they are more than a crore….’

Again he sang to the children;

There is no castes baby; it is sin to say low and high by birth baby’

His poetry expressed a progressive, refined ideal. His powerful words molded the thinking of the Tamils and guided to progressive thinking.

In his short life of 39 years he wrote untiringly. His writings are

A special mention must be made on his greatest contribution to Tamil poetry. Until then the poems followed the strict syntactic rules set down in the Sangam era which was about two thousand years old. The language itself had evolved and an average folk could not understand what was written. Bharathi broke away from the ranks and created a prose-poetic style known as puthukavithai meaning ‘New Poems’. This was understood by all. Previously one believed if it is hard to understand it must be good. Initially the educated men brushed him aside as childish attempt, but the masses liked his literary works and a new style of Tamil songs developed, which enriched the ancient Tamil language.

Apart from the above songs he wrote on various issues in the news papers together with many short stories to educate the public. Bharathi was very much interested in Carnatic and Hindustani music. He composed songs in Carnatic music (kiritis) in Tamil on various topics. Though he was fluent in many languages including Bengali, Hindi, Sanskrit, Kutchi, French, and English he composed only in Tamil except two songs in Sanskrit.

During his time the elite Tamil musicians believed to be a good musician they must sing the compositions by the three Carnatic music composers known as ‘The Ttrinity’, whose compositions were all in Telungu and Sanskrit. The Tamil vocalist sang without knowing the meaning of the songs, and they were singing without proper expression. Bharathi rebuked this stupid attitude of the vocalist. He wrote his observations in an article ‘Sangeetha Visayam’ (issues in music). He also observed that these compositions of ‘The Trinity’ expressed only two emotions which were devotion and love. He insisted the music is much greater than that. Bharathi observed that music should bring out other expressions such as valor, anger, wonder, fear and hatred. He took the stand musicians should not sing songs which they do not understand the meaning. Naturally his forthright condemnation brought many enemies within the high class society of musicians.

It is sad to end this great mans story in a low note. Since his imprisonment he was not in good health. Though Bharathi was released there were many restrictions on his movement and employment by the British rulers. Bharathi lived in poverty. In 1919 he moved to Madras and met Ghandi at Rajaji’s house. Finally in 1920 when a general amnesty order finally removed restrictions, Bharathi was in dire poverty. Bharathi rejoined ‘Suthesamithiran’ again. Unfortunately he was struck by the temple elephant shortly afterwards, which he used to feed regularly. Though he survived the mishap a few months latter his health deteriorated and died on September 11^th 1921. At the time of death he was only thirty-nine years old. He was a people’s person and devoted his life to his mother land India and his mother tongue Tamil, but there were only about fifteen people attended his funeral. [monsoonjournal.com]

by Kumar Punithavel~Email: kumarpunithavel@yahoo.com

Photo: Mahakavi Subramanya Bharathiyar in Nallur, Jaffna~Sri Lanka, by Dushiyanthini Kanagasabapathipillai

by Siva Sivapragasam

This article is being published in commemoration of Late Kumar Ponnambalam’s Birth Anniversary which falls this month.

“Why is this age worse than earlier ages?
In a stupor of grief and dread
Have we not fingered the foulest wounds
And left them unhealed by our hands?” -Anna Akhmatova, Russian Poet

Kumar Ponnambalam was the proud son of a more proud father.

Kumar’s brutal killing by an assassin’s bullet was indeed a tragic loss to the Sri Lankan Tamil community and it stifled the independent voice of a leader who expressed his opinions without fear or favour.

My association with Kumar dates fifty years ago when we were both schoolmates at Royal College, the prestigious educational institution in Sri Lanka. As a youngster, Kumar was a non-assertive, shy boy quite often smiling away at the school boy pranks of his fellow mates. But even at the tender age of ten, he displayed a certain amount of forthrightness and frankness in whatever he spoke or said. It is perhaps these traits in his character that blossomed in later years of his life as a lawyer and politician. His father the late G.G.Ponnambalam, the silvery tongued orator and brilliant criminal lawyer cum politician, was the founder champion of the Tamil cause with his famous political slogan of the fifty-fifty campaign, a cry for equal representation for the Tamil minorities in the Legislature. This had its effect in the classroom when Kumar was nicknamed “fifty fifty” by his Math teacher “Conner Rasa”.

In later years, Kumar once told me that he was unaware at his young age what this “fifty-fifty” was, and he gathered guts to ask Appu (fondly referred by him of his father) what was all this fuss about “fifty fifty”. The little lecture the son received from the patriarch was perhaps the foundation on which he built his political career and understanding of Sri Lanka’s chequered political history .Ponnambalam Snr. was so wedded to this fifty-fifty theory that he put forward this political dogma before the Soulbury Commission on constitution making and laboured for two long days to prove his point This is reminiscent of what the powerful and controversial former Indian Defense Miinister Krishna Menon did when he championed India’s cause for hours before the United Nations General Assembly on the Kashmir issue.(incidentally, Menon, who was running a high temperature when he spoke, slumped in his chair after the marathon speech and was wheeled out of the U.N.Assembly rostrum-(source:Krishna Menon by T.J.S.George)

History is now repenting that reasonable requests of minorities in a multi-racial country had been ignored at an early stage and now resulting in much bloodshed and almost a parting of the ways for the two communities. Astute political leaders like Dr.Colvin R.De Silva and Mr.S.J.V.Chelvanayagam were prophetic when they remarked in the Legislature on more than one occasion that if reasonable requests of minorities are not granted it could well lead to more drastic demands which can end up in requests for a separate state. Unfortunately we have now reached that stage in Sri Lanka’s troubled and chequered political history.

Kumar’s tragic death is in a way a reflection of violence in politics for differences in opinion and political thinking. Perhaps his boldness and frankness in his thoughts, speeches and writings made him pay the supreme sacrifice with his life. It is very unfortunate that our politicians have not arisen to a level to at least give the opponents their right to differ in thinking. The great French philosopher Voltaire once remarked “I may differ from what the other man says but will defend till death his right to say it”. Kumar’s contribution to the Tamil community and political thinking is that he expressed his thoughts publicly in a forthright and frank manner. Whether we agree with his thinking or not is a different question. Speaking from the capital, in an environment of fear psychosis, among the minority community, he did not mince his words or camouflage his thinking when it came to espousing the cause of his community’s rights and obligations.

Kumar’s loss to the community at this juncture of its history is both tragic and irreparable. Let us sincerely and truthfully hope that his cherished vision of fair and just rights for his community will one day come true in the near future. The future pages of History will only reveal that .In conclusion it could be said that ‘His life was gentle, the elements were so mixed in him that Nature would stand up and say-This was a man’. [monsoonJournal.com]

Justice Sharvananda – Sri Lanka’s First Tamil Chief Justice passes away in Australia

[monsoonJournal.com] Justice Sharvananda,who was the first Sri Lankan Tamil to adorn the prestigious position of a Chief Justice, passed away in Australia last month. Justice Sharvananda was living in retirement in Australia after emigrating there.

Justice Sharvananda,who was born in Kayts, had his primary education at St. Anthony’s College-Kayts and later at Jaffna Hindu College. He obtained his bachelor’s Degree in Arts and Law from the University of London. After passing out as a lawyer, he worked in the chambers of legal luminaries like Mr.H.V. Perera, Mr.H.W. Thambiah and K.C. Nadarajah.

Mr. Sharvananda enjoyed a large and lucrative practice on the civil appellate. He was called to serve on the bench in 1974 and was appointed as Chief Justice in October 1974. He represented Sri Lanka at the conference of Chief Justices in Malaysia in 1985.He was the ex- officio Chairman of the Board of Judges Institute of Sri Lanka.

Following is a message of condolence by Mr. Kandiah Neelakandan –Secretary of the Hindu Educational Society, Sri Lanka.

Message of Condolence

We were grieved to hear of the demise of former Chief Justice S. Sharvananda in Australia.

Chief Justice Sharvananda was a member of the Hindu Educational Society for many years and he has also held the office of the President of Hindu Educational Society during the year 1994.

Justice Sharvananda was an outstanding legal luminary and he was the first Tamil to adorn the office of the Chief Justice of Sri Lanka, and the only Hindu who had the honour of holding that office in Sri Lanka.

Justice Sharvananda took an active interest in Hindu religious affairs and he has also contributed valuable articles on religious subjects. His article on Saiva Siddantha to a World Hindu Conference was commended by everyone.

The loss of Justice Sharvananda is an irreparable loss to the Hindus.

We convey our deepest sympathies to Mrs. Sharvananda and the other family members of Justice Sharvananda.

Kandiah Neelakandan
Secretary, HES-Shar (Hindu)

By: Ravi Sundaralingam

[monsoonjournal.com] It is perhaps easy to compose an epitaph or a farewell note for a person who has been ill for the past six years, detached from the struggle he really lived for, but more difficult when the person is the one whose ideas and passion had gripped several generations of his people, driving them to an onward march for the restoration of their full democratic rights.

Comrade Ratna (23.11.1938 – 12.12.2006) was man of many talents. First and foremost he was an intellect and a visionary with an audacity to match. It was not through traditional education he reached such lofty heights, but by his sheer ability to combine his insights with raw experience. If there is an example of a man from an ordinary walk of life rising to perform extra ordinary feats, then Comrade Ratna was definitely among them.

His first intellectual feat was to correctly identify the Sinhala-chauvinist state and not the Sinhala working masses as the true enemy, of the all three Tamil communities, the Tamils of the Northeast, Muslims and the Plantation people; the state oppression and a common language are the link that have helped to evolve the cultures of these peoples who have more in common than differences. He then followed this line of reasoning and courageously stated that it is only when these three communities strive to fight together for a collective existence, as one people, endeavouring to belong to one nation, a modern nation based on an empowered people, individual communities can be fulfil their own aspirations.

He called this collective Eelam and the community members Eelavar. At the same instant when such an empowered people are born, he said the Sinhala masses will be set free from the bondages of their past and the inherent chauvinism of the ruling classes. To achieve these ends he founded EROS. Acronym of EROS stands for Eelam Revolutionary Organisers, which is associated in Greek mythology as a ‘Unifying Force’.

His second feat was to accept and become the strongest proponent of the ideology that proposed the toiling Tamil masses as the vanguard of this collective struggle, a strand of thinking at variance with his Federal Party traditions. Only a versatile and of courageous minds could accept new ideas or concepts and assimilate them into a whole system; Comrade Ratna could easily do that. The upshot of all these mental process was to use his creative abilities to coin simple phrases to express vibrant ideas that still echo in the minds of the masses even today.

The phrase, “A rigorous Saivar or an orthodox Christian of any tradition, religiously pious Muslim or unyielding Hindu, we are all Eelavar” is a unifying call, in his poetic Tamil is more of a command for all of us that argues well for that collectiveness, especially today.

For all his talents and skills, and his powers of reasoning and wit, he was neither able to establish EROS as a permanent organisation on the ground nor the meaning of the last letter ‘S’ in EROS among the political pundits. The institution Comrade Ratna wanted to establish may not be there, but its concepts still remain in the air, lingering on to find the right time to materialise.

However, he did achieve one of his aims, through the Indo-Sri Lankan Accord. Participating in the Thimbu talks, Butan, as part of the Tamil delegation, as the only group to champion the Plantation Tamils’ cause, without any others representing that section of the Tamil speaking people on the table, EROS and in particular Ratna was successful in establishing one of their goals as the fourth point in the Thimbu Proclamations. He did not live to see the fate of all the points in the Thimbu Proclamations. However, at his death Comrade Ratna is at least entitled to carry to his grave the satisfaction of championing the plight of the Plantation Tamils and the subsequent enfranchisement of them all.

We are Eelavar! Our language is Tamil! Our land is Eelam!

Remembering for the 58th Republic Day of India-26 January, 2007:
By: Siva Sivapragasam

When Indira Gandhi became the Prime Minister of India in 1966 she was described as a”Dumb Doll”obviously referring to her inability then to tackle India’s domestic and international issues. But barely four years later she was hailed as an invincible goddess when India won her war against Pakistan.

This writer had the opportunity of interviewing her father the First Prime Minister of India - the Late Pandit Jawarhalal Nehru somewhere around the 1960s when he visited Sri Lanka for the Non-Aligned Conference at the height of the Indo-China war.One of the questions put to him by the writer was about his successor and whether he was grooming his daughter to succeed him.With a twinkle in his eye and a smile on his face Nehru said ‘this is a not a matter for me to decide but a decision the people of India have to take.’ The people of India did decide on her later when they made her the Prime Minister of the World’s largest Democracy.

Diverse Personality

Indira Gandhi was certainly a person with a diverse personality when she took decisions for her country.From the Olympian heights of victory after the Pakistan war she plummeted down into the abyss of electoral defeat.The last Prime Minister of India Atal Behari Vajpayee even referred to her as a person who has been ‘consigned to the dustbin of history’.But he was wrong.Within two years the Indian people brought her back with pride to lead their country and the Janatha party became history. But unfortunately the decisions she took for her country were mixed and thereby created a sense of bitterness among sections of her people. Even today people remember her as a person who introduced nineteen months of nightmarish emergency in the country. Such acts clouded the benefits she bequeathed to her country. Sometimes referred to as the ‘man in the Cabinet’she took bold decisions in the interest of her country.When she ordered Lieutenant Colonel Sunderji of the Southern Command to invade the Golden Temple in Punjab she did this not because she loved the Sikhs less but because she loved India more. For this act of her’s she made the supreme sacrifice with her life when she was gunned down by her own trusted Sikh body - guards. In later life her son Rajiv too had to lay down his life for politics.

Concentration of Power

Critics of Indira always dub her as a person who wishes to have an iron grip with concentration of power in her hands.Some say that this was due to the large influence that her playboyish younger son Sanjay had on the mother and perhaps her love to ensure dynastic succession.But unfortunately she could not achieve this due to the untimely death of Sanjay who died in a helicopter crash.

Her pride of achievements was of course the liberation of Bangla Desh in 1971 and Indians are so proud of this that she was looked upon as an incarnation of Shakthi,the Goddess of Power.Her interest for the Tamils in Sri Lanka was no less. During the July 1983 riots when Tamils in the country specially those of Indian origin were being burnt, massacred and their belongings looted there was an uproar in the Indian Parliament.Members were questioning her as to why India was silent. It is said that she walked out of the Lok Sabha proceedings, went into her room , telephoned the Sri Lankan President Jayawardene and told him that if the riotimg is not controlled within the next 48 hours Indian troops will fly down to Sri Lanka to stop it. It was also rumoured that she had ordered the War Book be opened to invade Sri Lanka if the necessity arose. Jayawardene knew the seriousness of it and assured her that the rioting will stop. Both he and his Prime Minister immediately took steps to curb the violence.Gandhi also flew her Foreign Minister Narasimha Rao to Sri Lanka to ensure that Jayawardene kept his word.Thus another Bangla Desh type invasion of Sri Lanka was averted. She did not end her interest in the Tamils with this. When Appapillai Amirthalingam, the leader of the Tamil United Front was in exile in India soon after the July riots she called him to New Delhi from Madras to attend India’s Independence Day celebrations and introduced him for international exposure to the top-notch diplomats from all over the world as the Elected Leader of the Tamils in Sri Lanka. In fact she had requested Amirthalingam to purposely come a little late for the function so that he would be the cynosure of all eyes present.

A secular country

If History is to analyze the merits and demerits of Indira Gandhi both her faults and flaws may be long but at the same time her achievements and victories are even longer and impressive.The poison that was embedded in the form of the Emergency rule is now a thing of the past and the present younger generation knows little about this and cares little about it. In an irony of fate and paradox it has done some good to the Indians to realize that India has to be a secular country with its multi ethnic, diverse nationalities and has to be governed democratically.

India’s rise under Indira was dazzling and in a way the meteoric rise had even surpassed that of her predecessors including that of her father who was a man of great vision and wisdom. Her sudden and tragic removal from the scene of politics like Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar was indeed a great loss to the Indians and was perhaps a greater loss to the Tamils in Sri Lanka. [monsoonJournal.com]

An Appreciation by: Siva Sivapragasam

[monssonjournal.com] A.Y.S.Gnanam,a leading industrialist and Chairman of Express Newspapers(Ceylon)Ltd. which publishes the premier Tamil Daily in Sri Lanka “Virakesari” passed away about two weeks ago at the ripe age of eighty-four.

Arulanandam Yesuvadian Samuel Gnanam was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth. His story is that of rags to riches. He arrived in Sri Lanka from South India with his parents and siblings almost empty handed. He started life in Sri Lanka by selling scrap-iron during world-war two. The war and the shortage of scrap material in India helped him to expand this business. Gradually he went around buying scrap material and exporting it to India. When the war ended there was a shortage and he cashed on this. From selling scrap material he ventured out into the hardware business and set-up St.Anthonys Hardware stores and started dealing in hardware products.

From this point onwards it was going up the ladder in business for Gnanam. It is said that he won the Agency for the prestigious Grundig radios competing with leaders in electronic products. The import restrictions during Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s period of regime helped him to set up new industries to manufacture Hardware and Plastic products. His next line of business was Textiles and he started the manufacture of synthetic textiles like sarees, suitings, etc. under the name of Cyntex. It was during this time that he secured a loan from the World Bank for his Textile industry. It is said that he was the first private sector entrepreneur to obtain a World Bank loan. He also ventured into the manufacture of Cement with collaboration with the famous Japanese Mitsui firm. His final entry was into Newspaper business when he took over the “Virakesari” Newspaper group as it’s Chairman.

Samuel Gnanam was a man of deeds and not of words. He had a Midas touch in whatever he did. He never took “no” for an answer. He was never disappointed or frustrated over defeats. When all his factories were burnt down during the 1983 ethnic riots in Sri Lanka many of his friends advised him to migrate to India. He declined promising to re-build his Business Empire. This he did within a short time.

Gnanam had a knack to turn around less profitable businesses. During the 1970s due to import restrictions and a crippling of Government Advertising, the Virakesari Group of Newspapers had a hard time. Other Directors were pessimistic about it’s future. He told the writer who worked there as an executive and another colleague “my fellow Directors want to run away. But I have persuaded them to carry on. Please do your best to run this place profitably”. Time passed and the Newspaper was on the rails running smoothly. Although his business interests brought him into close contact with the top people running the Government he never allowed the independence of the Newspaper to suffer and he rarely interfered with the running of the Newspaper. Thus, the Virakesari was looked upon by the Tamil people as an independent, non-political Media working for the interest of the Tamil community.

The death of Gnanam creates a void in the generation of successful entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka and ends the list of Businessmen of the Tamil community of his age. [monsoonjournal.com]

A Tribute - by S. Raymond Rajabalan

[monsoonjournal.com] V. Navaratnam, former Member of Parliament for Kayts passed away in Montreal on Dec.22nd at the age of 97, creating a void in the midst of Eeelam Tamils at this hour of need.

Navaratnam born in Karampon in the island of Kayts on18 October, 1910 was educated at Ananda College, Colombo and Ceylon Law College. He was a successful civil lawyer for more than fifty years .He was the only living founder member of Federal Party (Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi) which provided political leadership for Tamils for over thirty years after independence

A man with a prophetic vision, in 1949 Navaratnam along with some other members of the Tamil Congress opposed the Ceylon (Elections) Amendment Act which deprived the voting rights of Plantation Tamils. This resulted in the formation of Federal Party under the leadership of S.J.V.Chelvanayagam.

A political activist and writer with a sharp intellect and strategic thinking, he was the brain behind Federal Party’s peaceful campaigns .His loss coming hard on the heels of the recent demise of Anton Balasingham has dealt a double blow to the Tamil speaking community. In 1956 when the government of S.W.R.D.Bandaranaike enacted the Sinhala Only Act, Navaratnam was the brain behind the planning of the Satyagraha (peaceful protest) campaign at Galle Face protesting the passage of this act.

He was a parliamentarian who refused to compromise the rights and interest of his people for political expediency. Hoping to win the rights by peaceful means he participated on behalf of the Federal Party for more than a decade .However he was disillusioned by repeated failures of each and every talk.

When the government led by Srimavo Bandaranaike declared in 1960 that Buddhism was to be elevated as the state religion followed by legislation making Sinhala to be the language of the courts, Late Navaratnam spearheaded the civil disobedience campaign in North and East. He was also the brain behind running a parallel postal service during this campaign, a unique event which made him to become a legend in the annals of the history of the freedom struggle of Eeelam Tamils.

Navaratnam, contesting in the Kayts electorate during the 1963 August bye-election, resulting from the death of V.A.Kandiah, won by more than 9000 votes. He again won the subsequent election in 1965

Soon after the 1965 elections when Dudley Senanayake formed a ”National Government”, the Federal party as well as the Tamil Congress extended their support. When the
Shrima-Shastri Pact (1964) and the bill associated with the implementation of the Indo-Ceylon Agreement was introduced by Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake, Navaratnam decided to defy the government Whip and speak and vote against it. However on the request of his leader S.J.V.Chelvanayagam, he agreed not to express his opposition on the floor of the parliament However Navaratnam’s opposition to the Indo Ceylon Act was a matter of public knowledge.

In 1967, the government in power introduced an Act relating to the Registrations of Persons Resident in Ceylon. The Act proposed a law under which every person in the island, 18 years of age and over was required to register himself with the Department of Persons and obtain a photo identity card. This was the proverbial last straw to break the camel’s back.

In 1968 when the White Paper for the establishment of District Council (DC) was submitted in the parliament he vigorously opposed it and made a clarion call to the Tamil youth to come forward to reach the ideals of achieving Tamil Eelam .When even this worthless DC bill was dropped due to anti-Tamil riots organized by Srimavo Bandaranaike, the Federal party quit the government. Navaratnam was once again proved right. This was how a soft spoken politician changed his way of thinking when every peaceful means ended up as failure

In 1969, his patience worn out thin, Navaratnam finally decided to have his own way and quit the party in 1969. He was a man ahead of his time and at that time because of the dominating influence of the Federal party among Tamils , Navaratnam’s voice was drowned and was swept away as a voice in the wilderness .He was a Moses denied of the opportunity to lead the Tamil speaking minorities, though he never aimed for fame or power.

Having realized the uncertainty of finding a political solution through long years of experience gained by short-lived meeting with Sinhala leadership, on Aug.1969, he launched his own party -Tamil Self Rule Party (Tamils Suyaadchchi Kazahagam). In fact he was the man who planted the seeds of freedom struggle which took a different dimension in late seventies

After losing the 1970 elections he faded away from politics but continued to keep himself informed about the developments in the country His views however were sought by politicians as well by newspaper editors.

Events of the past three decades have proved beyond doubt that he was a man with a vision and far sight .From time immemorial, the value of many are realized long after they are gone, a case in point being late Mr.Navaratnam, a soft spoken peace – loving man who after numerous dialogues with many Sinhala leaders realized very early the folly of continuing peace talks.

A man of honesty, who initially believed that peaceful means will bring an end to the political inequality, was reluctantly compelled finally to advocate alternate means.

The majority of Sri Lankans have expressed their hope for peace and an end to the hostilities, as proved by a number of opinion polls .There is a saying “More flies are caught by honey than by vinegar “.There is yet another saying “Hope is the basis of life”. Let us all hope that sanity will prevail in Sri lanka and the parties involved in the ethnic conflict will come to an amicable agreement sooner than later, so that there will be peace, prosperity and happiness - dreamt by Navaratnam - in the not too distant future.

May his soul rest in peace.
[MonsoonJournal.com]

By: Tony Seed *

[www.monsoonjournal.com] Veerasingam Dhuruvasangary, B.Sc, M.Sc, M.Phil, Ph.D(Candidate) was a scientist, an inventor, a writer, an artist, an internationalist and above all, a beloved friend; we called this modest, unassuming man Dhuruva or, more often than not, Inventor.

Dhuruva was the last of 12 children. His parents named him Dhuruvasangary after a poor child who was transformed by the Hindu Lord Siva into the pole star “Dhuruvan Natchathra”, a star that has helped fishers, traders and seafarers for thousands of years to navigate the oceans. - From Robin Oakley’s Eulogy, Toronto, Ontario, 10 December 2006

WE RECEIVED the news of Inventor’s passing away early Sunday morning with shock and profound sadness. We had no idea Dhuruva was in ill health. We had so much work and projects on the horizon to tackle and finish that I never once thought of him not being available. Indeed when I thought of him it was always of this modest and humble hard-working man with his warm smile, lively mind, pure heart, and his steadfast defiance and challenging of imperialist science, dogma and prejudice. Like so many of the Tamil people I have come to know, Dhuruva represented the finest convictions and emotions humankind has given rise to. I send my most sincere condolences to his beloved family, friends, colleagues and comrades.

I would like to express briefly my own appreciation for the life and work of our dear departed friend, and recall several moments in our collaboration. These projects included the publication by our New Media Publications Inc. of the English translation of his The Story of My Language. We esteemed this work highly as an important contribution not only to the defence of the four-thousand-years-old Tamil language, a patrimony of humanity, but for all those striving to preserve, renew and strengthen their languages and their right-to-be before the imperialist onslaught on the cultures, history, memory and intelligence of the oppressed peoples and nations throughout the world under the pseudonym of the “war on terror.”

We worked on and off for some five weeks together in Halifax in the summer of 2005 on this project. Dhuruva was kind enough to comment that he had never before worked in such a collegial atmosphere. Our work was intense but in an ambiance of camaraderie; a disciplined man, he walked forty-five minutes in to work early every morning, leaving late, forever turning down the offer of a ride home, without ever making any demand beyond a small space for his portable computer.

This son of the historic fishing town of Point Pedro, Jaffna on the Indian Ocean expressed an abiding interest in the trials and tribulations of the small and poor fishermen of the Maritimes, Canada and the grave problems posed by the degradation of the marine environment. Sadly, we will not see Dhuruva’s return to Halifax to take up work with our Shunpiking magazine as a science editor and columnist, a collaboration we both looked forward to with great anticipation. Of writing and analyses expressing the reality and solutions, the dreams and hopes of the coastal sectors of both our Lankan and Canadian peoples astride two oceans, marginalized until now.

Like Dhuruva, we too had been transfixed by the Tsunami of 26 December 2004. Some 40,000 of his countrymen perished (of whom 7,500 were fishermen), another 90,000 displaced, and the blue became one of the most cursed of colours. We knew something of the lively fishing communities, historic towns and refugee camps along the eastern coasts in Jaffna, Trincomalee and Amparai devastated by that enormous tidal wave, the ensuing flooding, and the grim anarchy and exploitation of state and imperialist relief. His empathy for his people, for all peoples of the littoral states of the Indian Ocean, led him, from afar, to invent simple technological solutions with the aim of preventing the reoccurrence of such a disaster. Indeed, anyone who knew this man was astonished at the innovative inventions and achievements our dear friend made. Though characterized by common sense, unfortunately, few were turned into reality, due to the block people and science face from monopoly capital.

Dhuruva was generous enough to promise unsolicited his expert scientific consultation on research I had started on the self-serving role of the Canadian neo-liberal and “humanitarian aid” in hydro-electric “development” in Sri Lanka since the Colombo Plan, e.g. the Mahaweli Ganga project, the Gal Oya dam, the Allai-Kantali project, etc. What was the outcome of this “aid”? The Government of Canada, CIDA and different multinationals have “aided” the spreading desertification of once fertile Sri Lanka with its 103 rivers, of which Dhuruva had intimate technical knowledge from his own first hand field research as an agronomist for the Ministry of Agriculture in the early 1980s. These “development” projects had another insidious feature and aim; as the violent programs of a neocolonial state to forcibly dispossess the indigenous Tamil people from their ancestral homeland and farmlands, an ethnic cleansing and colonization worthy of Zionist Israel and apartheid South Africa. Together, these contributed to the miserable conditions in which the courageous Tamil people, in refugee camps and fishing villages metres from the ocean’s edge, were exposed to and perished from that destructive Tsunami without any defence. Dhuruva’s own scientific researches reaffirm the truth bitterly confirmed by reality; the decisiveness of the human factor/social consciousness. Man’s vulnerability to such extreme but inevitable natural events has as much to do with those few men who hold in their hands the power of life and death, as with the violence and destruction of nature.

Dhuruva barely reached the age of 56, but such a productive life and glorious internationalist spirit of uniting with all, no matter what their differences in terms of way of life or benefits, led him irresistibly to become an integral part of our collective being and struggle. He had many friends because to struggle for truth, for science, for knowledge and enlightenment, for a people’s history, language and culture, and for a just world is to struggle for the hope of life for all peoples.

The life and work of Dhuruva and the transcendent ideals he represented are a pole star for the new generations to navigate the roiling seas engulfing the world and the new disasters being created for our peoples and homelands.

Thank you again, from the bottom of my heart, to all his many friends, relatives and our Tamil and Canadian communities who together have conceived and worked to turn his grievous passing from us into such a noble tribute organized out of friendship, admiration and respect, on which occasion we are congregating in Toronto. Without you and everything you stand for, Dhuruva’s work would not have been possible.

We all are standing together in this moment, treasuring Dhuruva’s life and work, and unified by his memory, his vision, his spirit and his internationalist ideals.

Let us then collectively carry his memory and our unity forward for the rest of our lives as our radiant beacon in the struggles unfolding before us.

All honour to Veerasingam Dhuruvasangary!

Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

7 December 2006
*Tony Seed is editor and publisher of Shunpiking, Nova Scotia’s Discovery Magazine (www.shunpiking.com) and of the Dossier on Palestine, and the recipient of the 2006 National Media Award of Excellence from the Canadian Islamic Conference. He visited Sri Lanka in 1999.
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