SJV Father of Tamil Nationalism

SJV  Father of Tamil Nationalism

Expansion of  speech by V. Thangavelu, President Canada TNA at the 125^th birth anniversary of SJV held in Toronto

தந்தை செல்வநாயகத்தின் குடும்பத்தாருக்கும் அவையோர்க்கும் மாலை வணக்கம்!

தந்தை செல்வாவின் 125 ஆவது பிறந்த நாளை கொண்டாடும் முகமாக இந்த நிகழ்ச்சியை ஒழுங்கு செய்த Chelvanayakam Memorial Trust     (CMT) (செல்வநாயகம் நினைவு அறக்கட்டளை)  மற்றும் Chelvanayakam Charitable Foundation (CCF)  (செல்வநாயகம் அறக்கட்டளை) இரண்டுக்கும் எனது பாராட்டுதல்களை தெரிவித்துக் கொள்கிறேன்.

திருக்குறளில் மகன் தந்தைக்கு ஆற்றும் உதவிபற்றி ஒரு குறள் இருக்கிறது.

மகன்தந்தைக்குக்கு ஆற்றும் உதவி இவன் தந்தை
என்னோற்றான் கொல்எனும் சொல் (அதிகாரம் மக்கட் பேறு, குறள் 70)

மகன் தன் தந்தைக்குச் செய்யத் தக்க கைம்மாறு, இவன் தந்தை இவனை மகனாகப் பெற என்ன தவம் செய்தானோ என்று பிறர் புகழ்ந்து சொல்லும் சொல்லாகும்.

தந்தை செல்வநாயக்தின் பிள்ளைகள், பேரப்பிள்ளைகள்  தந்தைதாயார்களது பெயரில் ஒன்றுக்கு இரண்டு  அறக்கட்டளைகளை நிறுவி அறப்பணியில் ஈடுபட்டு வருகிறார்கள்.

இந்த நிகழ்வில் ஒரு பேச்சாளனாக எனது பெயரை என்னைக் கேட்காமலேயே இதன் ஒழுங்கமைப்பாளர் மைதிலி வில்சன் நிகழ்ச்சி நிரலில் போட்டுவிட்டார்.

நான் தமிழில் பேசுவேன் என்று சொன்னேன். இல்லை, இல்லை சிலருக்குத் தமிழ் தெரியாது, பாதி தமிழ் மீதி ஆங்கிலத்தில் பேசுங்கள் எனக் கேட்டுக் கொண்டார். ஆங்கிலத்தில் பேசுவதில் சிக்கலில்லை. ஆனால் ஆங்கிலத்தில் பேசினால் தமிழ் படிக்க வேண்டும் என்ற எண்ணம் அவர்களுக்கு வராது. கனடாவுக்குப் புலம் பெயர்ந்த இளையோர் அல்லது இங்கேயே பிறந்த பிள்ளைகளில்  90 விழுக்காட்டினர் வீட்டில் ஆங்கிலேய மொழியிலேயே பேசுகிறார்கள்.  தாய் தந்தையர்களுக்கு முற்றாக ஆங்கிலம் தெரியாது போது மட்டும் அவர்கள் தமிழில் பேசுகிறார்கள். ஆனால் தமிழைப் படிக்க எழுதத் தெரியாது. விதிவிலக்கு உண்டு.

ஒன்றை மட்டும் கூறிக் கொள்ள விரும்புகிறேன். தமிழ்மொழி வெறுமனே ஒருவரோடு ஒருவர்  கருத்தைப் பரிமாறிக் கொள்வதற்கான கருவி அல்ல.  அது மனித பாரம்பரியத்தின் கடத்தல் (அடையாளம், வரலாற்று, கலாச்சார மற்றும் மொழியியல் பொருள்) கருவியாகும்.

 தமிழ் மூவாயிரம் ஆண்டுகள் பழமை வாய்ந்த மொழி. உலகில் 2021  இல் எடுத்த கணக்கின்படி 7,139 மொழிகள் பேசப்படுகின்றன. அவற்றுள் 293 மொழிகளுக்கு மட்டும்  வரிவடிவு (script) உண்டு. இந்த மொழிகளில் செம்மொழி எனத் தகுதி பெற்ற 7 மொழிகளில் தமிழ் மொழியும் ஒன்று. மற்றவை அரபு, இலத்தீன்,கிரேக்கம், சீனம்,  கீப்புரு  மற்றும்  பாரசீகம் ஆகியவை. இந்த ஏழு செம்மொழிகளிலும் தமிழ்மொழி மட்டுமே உயிர்ப்போடு வாழும் மொழியாகும்.

தமிழ் புரியாதவர்களுக்கும், தமிழ் தெரியாதவர்களுக்கும் ஒன்று மட்டும் சொல்ல விரும்புகிறேன். உலகில் உயிரோடு இருக்கும் மொழிகளில் தமிழ்மொழி முதல் இடத்தில் உள்ளது.  தமிழ் மொழி உலகம் முழுவதும் 9 கோடி மக்களால் பேசப்படுகிறது. இது இந்தியா, குறிப்பாக தமிழ்நாடு, இலங்கை, இந்தியா, சிங்கப்பூர், ரீயூனியன், கனடா, பிரிட்டன், அமெரிக்கா, அவுஸ்திரேலியா போன்ற நாடுகளில் பரவலாகப் பேசப்படுகிறது. தமிழ் திராவிட மொழிக் குடும்பத்தைச் சேர்ந்த மொழியாகும்.

எனவே தமிழ்மொழியில் பயிற்சி இல்லாதவர்கள் அந்த மொழியில் உள்ள  இலக்கிய வளத்தை, வாழ்வியல் நெறிகளை, அறங்களை  அறிந்து கொள்ள முடியாமல் போய்விடும்.  மனித வாழ்க்கைக்கு இவை மிகவும் அவசியமானவை.

தந்தை செல்வநாயகம் அவர்கள் ஒரு அபூர்வபிறவி. மனிதருக்குள் ஒரு மாணிக்கம். வாய்மை, நேர்மை, பற்றுறுதி படைத்தவர். தமிழ்மக்களுக்கு ஒரு கலங்கரை விளக்காக விளங்கியவர். மொத்தம் ஒரு 12 ஆண்டுகள் அவரோடு நெருங்கிப் பழகியவன். அவர் தொடக்கிய இலங்கைத் தமிழ் அரசுக் கட்சியின் வளர்ச்திக்கு துணையாக இருந்தவன்.  அன்றைய காலகட்டத்தில் அரச ஊழியர்களுக்கு அரசியல் உரிமை இருக்கவில்லை. இருந்தும் அரசாங்க ஊழியனாக இருந்தாலும் மறைமுக அரசியலில் தீவிரமாக ஈடுபட்டவன்.  இந்த இடத்தில் எனது தமிழ் உரையை நிறுத்தி ஆங்கிலத்தில் உரையாற்ற விரும்புகிறேன்.

As I was saying in Tamil firstly, I would like to express my appreciation to Chelvanayakam Memorial Trust (CMT) and Chelvanayakam Charitable Foundation (CCF) Chelvanayakam Charitable Foundation (CCF) for organizing this program to celebrate Thanthai Chelvanayakam’ s 125th birth anniversary.

In Thirukkural there is a Kural about father-son relationship.

To sire, what best requital can by grateful child be done?
To make men say, ‘What merit gained the father such a son?’ (Kural 70)

The way of showing filial devotion is to make others exclaim within the hearing of the father what penance the father must have performed to beget such a son. What is said about the son applies equally to daughters as well.

Thanthai Chelvanayakam children and grandchildren have established not one but two Charities to engage in charitable activities in his name.

Maithili, the organizer of this event, put my name as a speaker on the agenda without asking me. In Tamil there is a proverb that in a village where there is no sugar mill, then the flowers of Iluppai tree (Butter tree) will be called as sugar.

I told Maithili that I will speak in Tamil, since Prof. Chandrakanthan will be speaking in English. She said some people are not proficient in Tamil, they don’t know Tamil, speak half in Tamil and the rest in English. I have no problem is speaking in English, but if I speak in English, they want think of studying Tamil.  A majority of young people who migrated to Canada when they were in their teens or those second generation born and bred in Canada speak English at home. They speak in Tamil only when their parents do not know English at all. Even then the children do not know how to read and write Tamil. There are exceptions. A few do speak fluent Tamil.

In this respect I just want to say one thing. Tamil is not just a tool for communicating with others and exchanging information between two or more people.  Tamil is at least two thousand five-hundred-year-old language. We have a grammar book Tholkappiyam which is about 2,200 yeas old. As of 2021.

There are 7,139 languages spoken all over the world. Among them only 293 languages have script. And Tamil is one of the 6 languages that are recognized as classical languages along with Arabic, Latin, Greek, Chinese and Persian.

According to Prof. George Hart Tamil is a classical language based on 4 criteria among others.

 (1)  Considerable antiquity, it predates the literatures of other modern Indian languages by more than a thousand years.  

 (2)  It has its own poetic theory, its own grammatical tradition, its own esthetics, and, above all, a large body of literature that is quite unique. 

 (3)  The quality of classical Tamil literature is such that it is fit to stand beside the great literatures of Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Chinese, Persian and Arabic. and

 (4) Tamil is one of the primary independent sources of modern Indian culture and tradition. 

Language is a carrier of human heritage (in identity, historical, cultural and linguistic material. Language is the instrument of transmission of human heritage (identity, historical, cultural and linguistic material).For those who are not proficient in Tamil or don’t know to speak Tamil, I would like to say they are losing a part of the rich Tamil heritage.  Tamil Language is the oldest living language in the world. Tamil language is spoken by 9 crores of people all over the world. It is widely spoken in countries like India, especially Tamil Nadu, Ceylon, India, Singapore, Reunion, Canada, Britain, USA, Australia etc. Tamil belongs to the Dravidian language family.

My first brush with politics and political parties was during the elections for the first parliament in 1947. In the Jaffna electorate there was battle royal between the All-Ceylon Congress Party (ACTC) and the United National Party. The contestants were the charismatic and popular leader GG Ponnambalam, QC the leader of the of the ACTC and Arunachalam Mahadeva contesting on the UNP platform. A. Mahadeva, Home Minister in the DS Senanayake is the son of Ponnambalam Arunachalam, brother of Ponnambalam Ramanathan. The battle cry was “Down with Mahadeva, the traitor who killed Kandasamy!”  (“கந்தசாமியைக் கொன்ற துரோகி மகாதேவா ஒழிக”).

On 05, June 1947   Kandasamya young member of the GCSU, was killed while participating in a demonstration called by the left parties.  The Police fired several rounds at the demonstrators injuring quite a few and killing Kandasamy. A bullet went through his left eye to shatter his brain.

ACTC leader GG Ponnambalam lost no time to exploit the brutal death of Kandasamy. He carried his body to the Fort railway station and flew to Jaffna to receive the remains of Kandasamy. Unfortunately, Mahadeva has to accept responsibility since he was the Home Minister in charge of law and order. (To be continued) (Canada Uthayan – April 28, 2023)

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SJV Father of Tamil Nationalism

An expansion of the speech by V. Thangavelu at the 125th birth anniversary held in Toronto

Continued from last week………..

During the1947 parliamentary campaign, I recollect joining a procession of ACTC supporters carrying the cycle flag and shouting slogans at the top of their voices “Down with traitor Mahadeva”. The most popular slogan was “எங்கள் பலம் பொன்னம்பலம்” (Our strength is Ponnambalam”) a spin on the Tamil word ‘பலம் ’. During the campaign trail I saw A. Mahadeva, dressed in white sherwani with a walking stick in hand looking speck and clean. He was going around meeting voters canvassing and speaking in smattering Tamil. Born in an aristocratic family, he spoke in smattering Tamil. In contrast, GG Ponnambalam was an eloquent orator in Tamil. Though black in complexion, he wore silk verti, salvai and national shirt. He also used to place a sandal-wood pottu on his forehead to show is a staunch Hindu.  His charismatic personality and oratorical skills always mesmerized the crowd. When the results came GG Ponnambalam soundly beat A. Mahadeva, polling 14,324 (73.28%) votes as against 5,224 for his opponent. 

In the same election (1947) contesting as a candidate of ACTC, SJV Chelvanayakam won in Kankesanthurai electorate beating his nearest rival P. Nagalingam by a majority of 6,986 (12,126 – 6986). S. Nadesan who contested on the UNP platform came third polling 4,605 (21.04%) votes. He is the son-in-law of Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan. He was first elected to the State Council in a byelection held in 1934 and subsequent election in 1936 for the KKS constituency. No election was held in 1931 because of a boycott called by the Jaffna Youth Congress.

S. Nadesan avenged his defeat at the next parliamentary election held in 1952 by a majority of 3,766 votes. It was widely reported during the election campaign S. Nadesan played the Hindu card against his Christian opponent asking voters to choose between Spear (வேல்) and Cross (சிலுவை).

SJV lost this seat in 1952 but continue to hold from 1956 to 1977. Hindus formed a predominant majority (82.6%) of voters in KKS electorate, yet SJV won in 1947, 1956, March 1960, July1960, 1965 and 1970 and 1975.  This earned him the title ‘Christian leader of Hindu Tamils.’

My first encounter with ITAK was in 1949, when I was studying at St. John’s College. I attended a rally organized by the ITAK in Muththurai santhai, Jaffna. There was a procession and I was given a small flag with an image of a bull embedded in the middle. I did not know the significance of the bull flag; it was years later I learnt that this flag was the flag of the kings of Jaffna kingdom ruled by the Aryasakravarthy kings (1215 – 1619).  

Unfortunately, the meeting was wrecked by supporters of the ACTC and I saw Dr. Naganathan receiving a blow to his chest and others thrown out of the platform. It came as a shock to me and only later I learnt that GG Ponnambalam was directing operations from the Jaffna Rest House to disrupt the meeting.

I will skip history from 1949 to 1955 for sake of brevity. The introduction of Sinhala Only as the official language of Ceylon in 1956 and the attack on peaceful satyagrahis by Sinhalese goons came as a bolt from the blue. I was then working at the Ratnapura Kachcheri as a clerical servant. Like myself many Tamils public servants were members of the Government Clerical Service Union. The enactment of Official Language Act 33 (1956) and making Sinhala as the language of administration made Tamil public servants illiterates overnight. The cordial relationship that existed between Tamil and Sinhalese public servants suddenly turned sour, if not hostile. The political atmosphere got heated up. There was bad blood between the Tamils and the Sinhalese. Newspapers reported dire warnings by Sinhala – Buddhist extremists that river of blood will flow.

Riots broke out in Colombo, Batticaloa, especially in Gal Oya in the East. Sinhalese hoodlums attacked Tamils, their homes and business establishments. Colombo was flooded with Tamil refugees in their thousands. The 1956 anti-Tamil pogrom was the first state organised violence against Ceylon Tamils after independence. The worst of the violence took place in the Gal Oya valley, where local majority Sinhalese colonists and employees of the Gal Oya Development Board commandeered government vehicles, dynamite and weapons and massacred minority Tamils.

D.S. Senanayake was the brain behind the creation of Gal Oya colonization scheme. It commenced in 1949 to settle landless peasants in formerly jungle land. Gal Oya river in the Batticaloa district   was dammed and a tank was created with 40,000,000 acres (160,000 km2) of irrigated land. The development scheme, which encompassed 120,000 acres was divided into 40 settlements and in each settlement 150 farmer families were allocated five acres each. Only six of those settlements were allocated to 900 Tamil families mostly local residents. Over 50,000 Sinhalese families were settled in the settlements allocated to the Sinhalese. They were mainly brought from Kandy and Kegalle. Thus, D. S. Senanayake, whom the Sinhalese call the father of the nation, became the father of state aided Sinhalese colonization of the traditional homeland of the Tamils.

During the 1956 riots, Tamil settlers were chased away from their homes. Subsequent attempts to resettle in their lands proved futile.

The Official Language Act (No. 33 of 1956), commonly referred to as the Sinhala Only Act, was an act passed in the Parliament of Ceylon on July 07, 1956. The passing of the Sinhala Only Act in 1956, brought about a profound change in the political history of Ceylon. It took 22 years to make Tamil also as an Official language, at least on paper. The 1972 constitution was amended by an act of parliament on September 07, 1978 which added Tamil also as an official language along with Sinhalese. Tamil public servants who joined the service through English medium sought the help of GCSU leadership controlled by Sinhalese who were supporters of the Ceylon Communist party and later by the LLSP. There was no responsive. We were advised to learn Sinhala, write exams and fall in line. It is at this stage some of who were very active in the GCSU decided to break away from the GCSU and form the Eluthuvinaignar Sankam (AES). The first meeting was held at a restaurant in Fort and S. Sivanandasunderam was elected president. I was elected to the executive committee. Later when the AES decided to start a newspaper, I was appointed as the editor. I continued in that post till I left the service in June, 1966. (To be continued) (Canada Uthayan May 04, 20263)

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