One myth goes out: another comes in Ramayana Trail is on Track, but where has the Vijayan story gone ?

Former Indian Cabinet Secretary, B. Raman, seemed to complain recently that the Indians were not performing too well in Sri Lanka. He was comparing the situation with the Chinese presence. The whole argument seemed to surround the idea that India had a monopoly in the Indian Ocean area. That is a subject to be discussed on another occasion.

But, looking around, India does not seem to be doing badly in Sri Lanka. For the present purpose, I shall take only the cultural and religious aspects, leaving out political and economic domains. 

Army and Archaeology –Allegations

The Times report entitled "Archaeology sparks new conflict between Sri Lankan Tamils and Sinhalese" by its South Asia Correspondent Jeremy Page dated April 6, 2010 on archaeology of Sri Lanka should be given serious attention by our authorities.

The Tamil Net picking it up reported on April 10, under the caption Army and Archaeological Department at work in Tamil homelands. Tamil Net quotes a Jaffna academic asking why a monument put up [by the LTTE] in memory of Tileepan at Nalloor who fasted unto death in the struggle against Indian imperialism had to be destroyed. This academic draws an analogy between this "monument" which he says was "built by Tamils" in "their own land" [he does not admit it was the LTTE which built it] and the "Jaffna Fort which was a symbol of colonial and post colonial oppression of Eezahm Tamils and which continued to be the seat of occupying forces of Sinhala State". [I suggest that the slur on the Tamil people caused by Prabhakaran should be removed from memory as done with Hitler’s memory and more recently with the removal of statues of Lenin and Stalin in Russia. That is important for reconciliation, considering the carnage caused by this megalomaniac]. 

The significance of the Tamil Net report that President Rajapaksa’s government should take note of is that though the war on terrorism was won, Eelam forces are masquerading among the Tamil academia in a big way. The potential of regenerating terrorism through academic work as Nazism was so generated in Germany should not be overlooked.

Vijaya or Rama? –The choice for the government

There is no money in the Vijayan story just like there is no money in the story of a Buddhist temple complex at Sigiriya. Just as the idea of a fortress /palace at Sigiriya brought money for book publishers, Ramayana sale is going to bring Indian paisas to the depleted kitty of tourism. That is what the Tourism Development Authority Director General, Seenivasagam Kalaiselvam, tells the Sri Lankans.(Daily Mirror, April 10, 2010). What agenda is behind it one does not know. The Tamil Net /The Hindu ascribe a different motive to it as we shall see below.

A few years back commenting on the opposition of a group of Tamil teachers to the inclusion of the story of Vijaya in the history text books, I expressed a contrary view. What is the situation today? Has the Vijayan story disappeared from school texts? Prof.R.A.L.H. Gunawardana has referred to it in his recently reprinted 60 paged pamphlet on Historiography in a time of ethnic Conflict, (1965, Social scientists Association ) as something which was needed for national harmony. How is that the Ramayana myth is not considered so but peddled in a big way by the Tourism Promotion Authority? A big question, indeed! The present government should find an answer to it.

First, the Ramayana story was recently re-introduced to the public here through a private TV channel which is known to have strong links with India. That was alright. No one raised questions that it was going to dampen Buddhist thinking moulded by reasoning: hetu-phala vada (cause and effect theory), with such monstrosities as 10-headed human beings and armies of monkeys. One cannot forget how the government of India officially objected when Radio Ceylon beamed popular Hindi Music to India as dampening the cultural tastes of the Indians! It is not suggested that we ourselves take such steps. After all,Ramayana has its own clientele and popularity though, it was not allowed to take root here as we shall see later.

But the issue is an arm of the Sri Lankan government, the Tourism Development Authority, promoting the idea of a presence of a strong Ramayana tradition in the island and trying to perpetuate it.

I protested through these columns several years back when the news first appeared in the media when the Tourist Board proposed to develop a park behind the Hanuman temple, by clearing the forest reserve to create a Ramayana ambiance. Already, an Army officer was reported expanding the Hanuman temple – an earlier tea kiosk built on a road reservation used by labourers as one remembers within our memory - using Army resources [to expiate his sins!].

I protested again last year when the project was resurrected. Since then, the Royal Asiatic Society went into the issue at an in-house seminar which opposed the project. Kalaiselvan uses the fact that Indians form 15 per cent of the tourist arrivals in the island. The quality in terms of Dollar earnings is not an important aspect. So this important element of tourist earnings is flaunted as the raison d’Etre of the Ramayana Trail project. I remember Japanese Tour organizers telling me and the Tourist Board Director Samaradiwakara that Colombo was a dull city and there was no sex life here. Now 30 years later, that requirement is also met as one would find at any Casino and many massage parlours which have mushroomed. We are catching up it seems!

But the Tamil Net quoting The Hindu of Thursday (April 8th] tells a different story. It ascribes, by implication, the authorship of the ‘Ramayan Trail" to the Rajapaksa government, though it ascribes a negative motive to it. This is how it puts it:

"a news report in The Hindu (Thursday), about the tourism Department ‘identifying Ramayana sites’ in the south to attract Indian tourists to Ravana’s Lanka, shows how the ‘balancing’ is going to be – fake and myth to Tamil Hindus to balance the crafty Sinhala-Buddhist colonization and denial of the nation of Eezham Tamils in the north and east…… the process is accelerated after the war, with Colombo having clear agenda of establishing Sinhala army cantonments and Sinhala colonies in the ‘conquered land’ to keep Eezam Tamils under permanent subjugation. …one of the first acts of the government after the war even before caring the people affected in the war was archaeological survey."

What ‘balancing’?

Doesn’t the Tamil Net, by implication, accuse the government of engaging in diarchy? One is the accusation of getting the cultural Advisor to the President, (Indian-connectivity man), Prof. Sudarshan Seneviratne (‘a smart politician’ as Jeremy Page describes him), to address the University of Jaffna on the preservation of heritage and to ‘put the Colombo agenda in place in subtle ways’.

This is the ‘balancing’ act quoted from The Hindu ‘identifying Ramayana sites’ to lure [the gullible] South Indians to Ravana’s Lanka. How the balancing’ is going to be – is to sell the "fake and myth to Tamil Hindus to balance the crafty-Sinhala –Buddhist colonization and denial of the nation of Eezham Tamils in the north and the east."

So, the big question is who is responsible for creating the new Ramayana myth in Sri Lanka on the lines of the "Cultural Triangle" project? (See later). Isn’t it the government of Sri Lanka? There is no question over that. The questions raised are over the motives of doing so.

This is where we are presented with two different versions. One, the idea presented by Kalaiselvan that it is to spin money out of Indian tourists. The other presented by Tamil Net /The Hindu is that it is part of balancing act [by the government] to cover up "Buddhist colonization and denial of the nation of Eezham Tamils in the north and the east".

If the latter version is not correct, shouldn’t the government clear its name of using the "Ramayana Trail" as a cover up for ‘ engaging in for decades "building modern stupa complexes in [such] sites and in other imaginary sites so that they become Sinhalese colonies intended for the demographic genocide of Eezham Tamils and Tamil speaking Muslims in the island et al. …."as the Tamil Net accuses.

Vijaya defeated; Rama Victorious!

Rama has used the Rama-seraya (the deadly arrow) and defeated Vijaya. That is the situation today, whether one likes it or not. So Vijaya is no longer the hero; Rama is on top. In India, even a beggar begs quoting ‘Ram.’ Isn’t there something far more symbolic in Vijaya’s defeat? That is that Sri Lanka has come under Indian domination not only politically and economically with Trincomalee and the oil tanks gone to Rama – that is at the very spot where the Tamils say Ravana worshiped Lord Shiva-; but also culturally, speaking, we have surrendered our little romantic origin myth also whether true or not, which helped to give the Sinhalese people an identity that is to install India’s great Rama on this land!

A parallel exists in the erosion of the validity and importance of the Vijaya story as a result of archaeological discoveries which make the origin story look very unimpressive when placed against a wider Mesolithic and Megalithic and proto-historic background. So the 500 years B.C. beginning for a people is nothing in the spectrum of man’s history in these parts! The result is our little beautiful origin/identity myth has suffered all round. But, is it necessary that we allow it to be superseded by another myth like the Ramayana myth whose historical validity is even more questionable? No. This is not the place to go into it.

Why do I say the Ramayana story a canker?

I referred to Tamil Net’s accusation that the Sri Lankan government was engaging in a ‘balancing’ act.

Using the same argument presented by Tamil Net, what one could then ask is notwithstanding whether political motives are behind the Ramayana project as ascribed to The Hindu; or economic motives as claimed by the Director General of the Tourism Development Authority, these Ramayana sites could in future "become ……temples of Tamil colonies." Perhaps, the day will come when an Hindutva army from India might be persuaded to intervene in Sri Lanka in their defence as mythical Hanuman did; or Subramanian Swamy is trying to do from time to time during Eelam War by landing Indian flotillas bringing men to fight on the side of the LTTE. The memory of Masjid mosque in the name of Rama is alarming! 

Source:http://www.island.lk/2010/04/21/midweek7.html