KAMALIKA PIERIS If Maname was  Sarachchandra’s  first experimental drama, then his next play Sinhabahu with its rich dramatic text, the powerfully complex tragic characters he created around the popular yet simple folk legend, their singing of his poignant poetry was,  I think the high point in his dramatic career, said Ranjini Obeyesekera.  Sarachchandra remained a dramatist to the end of […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS Theater enthusiasts in the newly independent states of South Asia were finding it difficult, if not impossible, to move away from the proscenium arch” theatre introduced by the western rulers. There were two types of theatre going on, traditional and modern, rural and urban. The main challenge faced by them in the 20th […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS Sarath Amunugama observed that one of the many items which made Maname special was its melodious music. [1]Sarachchandra was an   accomplished musician. He had gone to Santiniketan in the 1940s to study music.  However, in his Pin ati Sarasavi, he spoke of ‘veenawa ata pata gawa,’ so I thought he was a dilettante […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS In ‘Pin Eti Sarasavi Waramak Denne’, Sarachchandra described an incident he faced on the second or the third night at the Wendt. He was seated in the foyer while the play was in progress and all of a sudden a limousine came to a halt at the entrance and a well dressed woman […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS Revised 26.12.24 The theatre enthusiasts, who saw Maname in its maiden presentation in Colombo and before that at rehearsals in Peradeniya, saw its significance and artistic value. Many years later, this group wrote up their recollections for Sunday newspapers. They also provided contributions to publications issued to mark Maname anniversaries, such as the […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS K.W Devanayagam held a second press conference on 16th September, 1983 and announced that the situation was worsening. He said the Tamils of the Batticaloa district were getting agitated and a confrontational situation was developing. [1]  He told the press that a massive attempt was on by Sinhala farmers, led by the Dimbulagala priest, […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS Ven. Kitalagama Sri Seelalankara, chief priest of Dimbulagala Raja Maha vihara (Dimbulagala Hamuduruvo, hereafter Dimbulagala)   was a political monk. He had a continuing battle with Tamil officials and politicians of Batticaloa on illegal settlements in Maduru oya. He himself had tried to settle Sinhala farmers at Wadamunai, (Koralai Pattu west, Batticaloa district) in […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS When the Accelerated Mahaweli project started, Gamini Dissanayake, Minister for Mahaweli had asked Ven. Ellawela Medhananda    to do a history of the Mahaweli region. While engaged on this, Medhananda had met Ven.  Kitalagama Seelalankara of Dimbulagala. Dimbulagala and Medhananda decided that the best way to prevent Tamilisation of the east was to settle […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS After the colonization schemes of the 1950s and 1960s,   the government started doing Development Schemes. Tamil Separatist Movement viewed these development schemes   with great alarm, because they brought Sinhalese settlers into the area they had reserved for Eelam. State-sponsored colonization would lead to a change in the demography of the Northern and Eastern […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS Gal Oya starts in the hill country east of Badulla and flows through the south east of Sri Lanka passing Inginiyagala and flows into the sea 16 km south of Kalmunai. The idea of using   Gal Oya for development was first suggested in the late 1930s.  A technical survey on harnessing the development […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS Tamils were initially very keen on the Gal Oya Project. They thought it would help   strengthen their position in the Eastern Province. They thought it would strengthen Settler Colonization. Gal Oya scheme was in Ampara and Ampara was part of Batticaloa the time. G.H. PeIris observed that the records of the State Council […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS REVISED 18.11.24 The second Yahapalana government which started with Gotabhaya Rajapaksa in 2019, followed by Ranil Wickremesinghe In 2022 came to an end in September 2024, with the election of a new President, JVP’s Anura Kumara Dissanayake.  For the first time in our political history, a rural lad was voted into the highest […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS The second Yahapalana government which started with Gotabhaya Rajapaksa in 2019, followed by Ranil Wickremesinghe In 2022 came to an end in September 2024, with the election of a new President, JVP’s Anura Kumara Dissanayake.  For the first time in our political history, a rural lad was voted into the highest position in […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS The Tamil Separatist Movement continued the Settler Colonialism project after the British left.  Illegal Tamil settlements were established in the north and east, after Sri Lanka got its independence.   These Tamil settlements were set up silently and secretly, without the knowledge of the public. A small number knew about these illegal settlements, but […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS Sri Lanka’s development policy included state-sponsored colonization schemes which transferred people from the densely populated wet zone to the sparsely populated areas of the dry zone. The places best suited to such colonization schemes were located in the north and east of the island. These provinces were the least populated, the land was […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS Tamil Separatist Movement was highly critical of the state colonization schemes of the 1950s. They were not in the least interested in the development aspect of the schemes, only on   the impact of Sinhala settlements on their precious Eelam. Tamil Separatist Movement charged that the colonization schemes, from the very beginning, were intended […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS The Ceylon Tamils aggressively pursued Settler Colonization after the island gained Independence. The British rulers left without allocating territory to the Tamil settlers, and the Tamil settlers found themselves face to face with the indigenous group they had hoped to displace. That group was now in power. But the Tamil Settlers had no […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS The Tamil Separatist Movement was able to push forward two Agreements and two Acts of Parliament all intended to ensure that the North and East remained exclusively Tamil with the possibility of partition later on.   IN between the BC  Pact and the Dudley Chelva Pact, the Tamil Separatist Movement submitted a set of […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS In the 20th century too, the British   rulers continued to colonize the island with Tamils from India. At a Durbar with Tamil chieftains of Jaffna peninsula in 1911 British Governor Henry McCallum told them that he had reserved the Tank Country and the East for the people of Jaffna. He would bring immigrants […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS This essay looks at Settler Colonialism in action using the writings of Jayatissa Bandaragoda, a SLAS officer who came in contact with aggressive  Settler Colonialism many times  in the course of his ofifical work. He is mentioned  fleetingly in the writings of  the Tamil Separatist Movement,   as a person who keeps on obstructing  […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS There were Tamil occupants in north Sri Lanka before Settler Colonialism started. The Pandya dynasty ruled in Tamilnadu in two bouts, 6th to 10th and again from 13th to 14th century .In the second bout, they entered Sri Lanka. When they departed, in 1323, they left a military outpost in Jaffna, with an […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS The Ceylon Tamil, despite the label, is not ‘Ceylon’ at all. The Ceylon Tamil originated in Tamilnadu. The British got down Tamils to carry out Settler Colonization” in Ceylon. Settler Colonization”is the introduction of a foreign settler group, to crush the existing indigenous group and take over the country. Settler Colonialism”   is a […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS Brotherless Night (2023) by Vasugi.V. Ganeshananthan won UK’s 30,000   pound sterling Women’s Prize for Fiction in   2024. The book   was also a   New York Times Editors’ Choice. It was   shortlisted for the Carol Shields Prize and was a finalist for Minnesota Book Award and the Asian Prize for Fiction. Ganeshananthan is a journalist, […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS Brotherless Night is well written, with nice turns of phrase.  ‘I wanted the four clean walls of my Jaffna childhood, the courtyard with its cup of sunlight, the small and dear lane where I had grown up. A home full of people who considered me precious,’ wished Sashi. For authenticity and context, there […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS The book ‘Brotherless Night’ is the ‘inside’ story of   the Eelam war, written by an author who did not live through it and extravagantly praised by others who had no firsthand experience of it, either. This book is yet another novel on the Tamil conflict in Sri Lanka, written by second generation immigrant […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS  ‘Dear Children, Sincerely is   an English language   play presented by Stages Theatre Group,    directed by Ruwanthie de Chickera. It was first shown in 2016 and had been in the Stages Theatre repertoire ever since. The most recent performance was in Colombo in September 2024, just before the Presidential election, in the hope that […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS The Booker Prize, formerly known as the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a literary prize awarded each year for the best novel written in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. The Booker Prize is a high-profile literary award, it is greeted with much fanfare.  It is […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS In the novel ‘Song of the Sun God,’ at the end of the story, almost at the last page, there is a reference to an ancient   Indian kingdom called Lemuria. (p 394).   The novel said that there was a great Tamil civilization in Lemuria from as early as 50,000 BC .The South Asian […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS Shankari Chandran’s first novel Song of the Sun God” (2017) is about a Ceylon Tamil family, caught in the Tamil Separatist Movement in Sri Lanka. Shankari feels strongly about what happened to the Tamils in Sri Lanka. For me, ‘Song of the Sun God’, more than any other novel I have written since, […]

KAMALIKA PIERIS General C.S. Weerasooriya ’s memoir, ‘Duty and Devotion’ (2024) records certain valuable observations about the conduct of the Eelam war in Sri Lanka .Weerasooriya   had a successful career in the Sri Lanka army and  retired as  Commander of the Army in 1998. He participated in the Eelam war, in various locations, and in […]