NO PROTECTION OF THE CONSTITUTION: NO LAW, NO ELECTIONS
What went wrong to make Chivan lose his original happy life? He lacked the protection of the law.in this country anyone can bash Tamils and getaway with it
In essence, this election is about promising to break laws to win votes. Surely there are laws against promising to break laws?
My greetings to Sivarajah, or Chivan as we called him, the brain behind this Simon Ranaweera Sivarajah Institute of Tamil teaching Tamil to Sinhalese. Let me start my story with Nallammah. According to an uncle of mine, well before I was born, she was a beautiful widow with a year-old infant. Of the Vellala caste and a strict Hindu, it was the end of the road for her, as by Hindu law few would willingly marry her. Then along came Simon Ranaweera from Matale. He married her; giving her a new lease on life.
The Simons ran a bakery together, and raised hens, cows, and goats. They did well. The children were raised as Hindus. Chivan’s sisters went regularly to the Nallur Temple to offer flowers and sweet rice. We lived across each other, and feasted on their pukkai (sweet rice) and other goodies for their festivals. Only the neighbourhood knew who they were, as Simon was their surname. They were so Tamil that Sivarajah was called Chivan in authentic Tamil fashion. None of the children knew Sinhalese. Chivan was like an elder brother to me. His younger brother my bosom friend. Chivan went to Jaffna Central College where he studied under the Rev. Dr. D.T. Niles and soon joined the Sri Lanka Police force. He sent money home. The family did well.
There the story changes. During the 1983 riots, Chivan’s bag from the upper floors of Colombo’s Police Quarters went flying out of the window to the ground. No one was apprehended or punished. He idled in Jaffna fearing to go back to the police who broke the law rather than uphold it. Then he went to the Middle East as a Security Officer. Tired of separation from the family, he returned and set up this school to teach Tamil to Sinhalese with his
Tamil wife. Like his parents, he was enterprising, seeing and creating new opportunities.
What went wrong to make Chivan lose his original happy life? He lacked the protection of the law. In this country anyone can bash Tamils and getaway with it. Impunity, it is called.
Recently, there were reports of a Buddhist monk trying to take over a Hindu temple at Chemmalai near Mullaitivu, the way Kathirkaamam and the temple by the University at Peradeniya were taken over, and the way the Hot Water Springs at Kinniya and Koneswaram Temple in Trinco are being shamelessly taken over. The Mullaitivu Magistrate issued a stay order when the aggressive monk died, and his followers tried to cremate him on temple premises which was polluting by Hindu law. As the problem was brewing at election time, through the Election Commission a warning was sent to the Acting IGP who promised to look into it. He did nothing. Court orders were not served. And Buddhist monks joined by Gnanasara Thera violated the court orders. No punishment. Impunity if you are a Tamil basher.
Now a private plaint has been filed by MP Shanthi Sriskantharasah, who lived through the carnage of the last battles of Mullaitivu and came out with one leg missing and with haunting memories of rows and rows of dead civilians drawing flies, lined up on the floor after being killed by our army. Where an independent Attorney General not looking for elevation to the Supreme court should have moved court for contempt but failed us, she attempts to give justice to the Hindus of Chemmalai by charging the SP and OIC who failed to serve the warrants, and Gnanasara Thera, who in a charade promised good behaviour after going to prison for contempt of Court was let loose by the President, came out, and did exactly as he was expected to do – break the law in Mullaitivu and threaten Hindus. I have lost hope.
We, all of us, lack the protection of the law. Tomorrow it will be our turn.
Colvin R. de Silva famously said, “Two languages one nation. One language two nations”. He forgot his own dictum and paved the way to separatism through his constitution. The armed forces and the police who are to uphold the law, regularly violate the thirteenth amendment by refusing to recognize that Tamil is the language of administration in the North and East. Today we heard schoolgirl Miss Akashini Fernando (who was speaking of Tamil dicta and their equivalents in English) tell us “The law maker cannot break the law.” The opposite is what is happening in Sri Lanka. Our parliamentarians are like the chainsmoking father who tells his son not to smoke. We have no protection of the law. When the Palaly airport opening had all speeches by our political leaders in Sinhalese with no translations provided, our leaders violated the constitution recognizing that Tamil is the official language in Jaffna.
Our top leaders do not understand what Miss Fernando knew. They break the law and we lack the protection of the law.
The law says that murderers must be punished. Veluppillai Prabhakaran broke the law and had to be punished by the law. Instead, all indications are that he was executed without due process. The law requires an inquiry, but the law failed him and therefore failed all Sri Lankans. When Meera Srinivasan, correspondent for The Hindu, asked of a candidate the serious question (which in any democracy the media would pursue) about what happened to the hundreds of LTTE cadres who surrendered, it became a laughing matter. Our media failed us by not following up. Several cases of rape and murder in the North-east are falling by the wayside through seeming police collusion and judicial fear to uphold the law when judges do not know who the next President will be.