Features
Two leaves and a bud: the history of Malaiyaham as pedagogy
by Sivamohan Sumathy
And I wish to speak of a poet here. Kurinjith Thennavan is an auto-didact. He did not learn to become a writer in our schools or university. He is a worker. He was shut out of our free education mandate even as he and others like him were enabling it. He was not celebrated as a poet of Sri Lanka during his life time, and is little known outside of a small circle of the Tamil literati and political actors. In concluding with two of this poems (in translation), I offer a reading of our history that in its undoing can help us forge a shared vision of social and political emancipation.
In the year 2023, we celebrated 75 years of our independence as a country. As we broke ties with Britain, and its imperiality, we struggled to find our feet under the postcolonial sun. Much of our postcolonial history has been a history of deep-seated violence of the social structures, and the violence of the repressive state apparatus. The colonial haunts our present in debilitating ways, not the least in the neo colonial, neo liberal imperialism of the global north, renamed as globalization, masking the pernicious nature of investment capitalism and exploitation of the resources of the global south, including that of the labour.
Today, we are in the midst of an unprecedented economic slump that promises to get worse in 2024. We also witness to the steady erosion of the rights and welfare of the vast majority of the people, besieged by rising prices and dwindling social welfare programmes. Our economy has become increasingly fragile, heavily reliant on the labour of working-class women, whose rights are being steadily eroded.
The year 2023 saw another milestone, going far back into our colonial history. 200 years ago, in 1823, land was allocated for the first large scale coffee plantation in the hill country. This was followed by the steady migration of Tamil speaking workers from South India who came over as indentured labour to work first in the coffee plantations and then the tea plantations. The trickle of workers in the early years expanded to hundreds of thousands over decades. The industry boomed and came to define Ceylon, as a major producer and exporter of tea. But there is also the history of the worker and the community that needs to be reckoned with.
The history of the tea industry and the history of the estate worker and the community are deeply intertwined, and it is a history of place, displacements, and strife. The dis/placements the community undergoes in colonial times continues into postcoloniality. In a series of acts from 1948-49, roughly a million people of the upcountry plantation community and their relatives elsewhere were disenfranchised. The upcountry plantation people, today, widely named and self-named as Malaiyaha Tamils, became a large and concentrated workforce, earning, until the mid-1970s, 56% of the foreign exchange for the country, but toiling without rights. They were a people with a home, but without a state.
My entry into the question of Malaiyaham and education pivots on questions concerning a) how we understand our history, the twin history of 75 years of independence, and 200 years of the plantation industry, built on the labour of a disenfranchised community b) how we bring the two into a relationship that gives us certain answers toward educational endeavours and c) how through that endeavour we may initiate a discussion on our pedagogical practices, what our priorities in education could be, and how we face the challenges brought on by competing demands made on educational practices; on the one hand, the demands of the market place and injunctions guided by World Bank directives for instance and, on the other, the need for a transformative pedagogy.
Education and Malaiyaham
We may feel that there is nothing much to show for our 75-year-old history. Yet in the bleakness of these times, it is important to underscore two salutary developments in our civic lives that have come to play a significant role in the historical trajectories of the state: Free Education, and free healthcare provision. Yet, free education heralded as a cohesive and comprehensive state policy, empowering ordinary people and giving them a greater share in the social and political life of democracy was tragically denied to the Malaiyaha community. Even on independence, a version of the Rural Schools Ordinance of 1907, where the companies were required to provide primary level schooling through estate schools, continued to be the mechanism for this community. The Kannangara report of 1943 quite tellingly left them out of its nation building programme. Angela Little traces the lineage of the educational policy impacting the Malaiyaha people in her detailed work. According to her, the immediately preceding colonial period, from 1905-47 saw more dynamism in estate schooling than the first phase of reforms in independent Ceylon from 1947-1977. From the mid-1970s onwards, estate schools were taken over by the state system, and set the Malaiyaha community on the path toward integration. In the mid ’80s, moves were made to increase the number of Tamil medium teachers in the central hill areas, with the establishment of teacher training colleges and related initiatives.
Nevertheless, as scholars and activists have noted, estate schools continued to receive second class treatment. They continue to lack basic facilities. Outside of the central areas in the central province, many estate born children were compelled to study in Sinhala, often to their detriment. The twin features of citizenship or its absence thereof and economic disempowerment shape the nature of the community’s integration into the national apparatus of education. Until 2003, when universal franchise was extended to the people of ’Recent Indian Origin’ there was no avenue for them to gain admission to the university system and access the much-hallowed provision of free higher education. Today, education is considered the best bid for social mobility for the community. We see increasing numbers of the children of estate workers entering the universities. This is our history of free education.
English Breakfast Tea: toward a programme of transformative educational practice
A transformative educational practice needs to address the fundamental concerns of a large number of people who are being pushed out of education by the onslaught of neo liberal change. In advancing a position on how we may engage with these questions and concerns, I plot a path for a series of disruptive interventions in the discourse of our history. We may begin with the history of the Malaiyaham and its marginal status in our history and the history of tea, so pivotal to our economy and to the imagination of who we are as a country.
Here is a sketchy mapping. ‘English Breakfast Tea’ can be widely found in the global market place and blandly announces the beverage’s colonial provenance. Colonialism and capitalism, twin projects of global imperialism, are normalized here in its global routing on international flights, airports or conferences. Or it could be the branding of an exclusive elitism, as one witnesses in an intriguing advert of a few years back, adorning the highways of our travel in Sri Lanka: ‘Mlesna, Naturally the Best.’ This advert normalizes class and capital as exclusive and as natural. In the neo liberal climate of our higher educational institutes, we are being asked to set our sights on capitalist development. We are told, like the branding of Mlesna’s tea, capitalist production is normal, natural, and the most beneficial to us, the consumer, reader and a privileged few.
Two Leaves….
But there is nothing miraculous about tea nor is it natural. It is set deep in a bloody history of dispossession. In a deconstructive reading of this advert, an exercise I often set students in the classroom, we are confronted with the erasures embedded in the sign of tea as a miraculously natural consumer product. The erasure is that of the labour of the worker who toils and whose citizenship status is taken away from her. Shuttling between the celebration of tea as a sign of capitalist development and consumerism, and the disruption of that ideological understanding, I turn away from seeing tea as a consumer product, and instead, think of it as a sign of labour: the Kolunthu – two leaves and a bud. It is the sign of the producer and it speaks of the poet.
And I wish to speak of a poet here. Kurinjith Thennavan is an auto-didact. He did not learn to become a writer in our schools or university. He is a worker. He was shut out of our free education mandate even as he and others like him were enabling it. He was not celebrated as a poet of Sri Lanka during his life time, and is little known outside of a small circle of the Tamil literati and political actors. In concluding with two of this poems (in translation), I offer a reading of our history that in its undoing can help us forge a shared vision of social and political emancipation.
Dew
Dew drops
Are the sweat tears shed by
The earth’s young virgin body
Crushed by the Giant,
In Night’s violent embrace.
Revolution
The buds open,
flower, then,
fall to the ground,
from the tea bushes.
withered and burnt,
In vain.
Do we live our lives in vain?
No,
When the fat belly
Of Capital, bloated with
Sucking on our labour,
Is ripped
open,
We are born,
Blood-drenched
Blossoms.
(Sivamohan Sumathy is attached to the University of Peradeniya)
Kuppi is a politics and pedagogy happening on the margins of the lecture hall that parodies, subverts, and simultaneously reaffirms social hierarchies.
by Dr Gotabhya Ranasinghe
Senior Consultant Cardiologist
National Hospital Sri Lanka
When we sought a meeting with Hon Dr. Ramesh Pathirana, Minister of Health, he graciously cleared his busy schedule to accommodate us. Renowned for his attentive listening and deep understanding, Minister Pathirana is dedicated to advancing the health sector. His openness and transparency exemplify the qualities of an exemplary politician and minister.
Dr. Palitha Mahipala, the current Health Secretary, demonstrates both commendable enthusiasm and unwavering support. This combination of attributes makes him a highly compatible colleague for the esteemed Minister of Health.
Our discussion centered on a project that has been in the works for the past 30 years, one that no other minister had managed to advance.
Minister Pathirana, however, recognized the project’s significance and its potential to revolutionize care for heart patients.
The project involves the construction of a state-of-the-art facility at the premises of the National Hospital Colombo. The project’s location within the premises of the National Hospital underscores its importance and relevance to the healthcare infrastructure of the nation.
This facility will include a cardiology building and a tertiary care center, equipped with the latest technology to handle and treat all types of heart-related conditions and surgeries.
Securing funding was a major milestone for this initiative. Minister Pathirana successfully obtained approval for a $40 billion loan from the Asian Development Bank. With the funding in place, the foundation stone is scheduled to be laid in September this year, and construction will begin in January 2025.
This project guarantees a consistent and uninterrupted supply of stents and related medications for heart patients. As a result, patients will have timely access to essential medical supplies during their treatment and recovery. By securing these critical resources, the project aims to enhance patient outcomes, minimize treatment delays, and maintain the highest standards of cardiac care.
Upon its fruition, this monumental building will serve as a beacon of hope and healing, symbolizing the unwavering dedication to improving patient outcomes and fostering a healthier society.We anticipate a future marked by significant progress and positive outcomes in Sri Lanka’s cardiovascular treatment landscape within the foreseeable timeframe.
by Fr. Emmanuel Fernando, OMI
Jesuit Fr. Aloysius Pieris (affectionately called Fr. Aloy) celebrated his 90th birthday on April 9, 2024 and I, as the editor of our Oblate Journal, THE MISSIONARY OBLATE had gone to press by that time. Immediately I decided to publish an article, appreciating the untiring selfless services he continues to offer for inter-Faith dialogue, the renewal of the Catholic Church, his concern for the poor and the suffering Sri Lankan masses and to me, the present writer.
It was in 1988, when I was appointed Director of the Oblate Scholastics at Ampitiya by the then Oblate Provincial Fr. Anselm Silva, that I came to know Fr. Aloy more closely. Knowing well his expertise in matters spiritual, theological, Indological and pastoral, and with the collaborative spirit of my companion-formators, our Oblate Scholastics were sent to Tulana, the Research and Encounter Centre, Kelaniya, of which he is the Founder-Director, for ‘exposure-programmes’ on matters spiritual, biblical, theological and pastoral. Some of these dimensions according to my view and that of my companion-formators, were not available at the National Seminary, Ampitiya.
Ever since that time, our Oblate formators/ accompaniers at the Oblate Scholasticate, Ampitiya , have continued to send our Oblate Scholastics to Tulana Centre for deepening their insights and convictions regarding matters needed to serve the people in today’s context. Fr. Aloy also had tried very enthusiastically with the Oblate team headed by Frs. Oswald Firth and Clement Waidyasekara to begin a Theologate, directed by the Religious Congregations in Sri Lanka, for the contextual formation/ accompaniment of their members. It should very well be a desired goal of the Leaders / Provincials of the Religious Congregations.
Besides being a formator/accompanier at the Oblate Scholasticate, I was entrusted also with the task of editing and publishing our Oblate journal, ‘The Missionary Oblate’. To maintain the quality of the journal I continue to depend on Fr. Aloy for his thought-provoking and stimulating articles on Biblical Spirituality, Biblical Theology and Ecclesiology. I am very grateful to him for his generous assistance. Of late, his writings on renewal of the Church, initiated by Pope St. John XX111 and continued by Pope Francis through the Synodal path, published in our Oblate journal, enable our readers to focus their attention also on the needed renewal in the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka. Fr. Aloy appreciated very much the Synodal path adopted by the Jesuit Pope Francis for the renewal of the Church, rooted very much on prayerful discernment. In my Religious and presbyteral life, Fr.Aloy continues to be my spiritual animator / guide and ongoing formator / acccompanier.
Fr. Aloysius Pieris, BA Hons (Lond), LPh (SHC, India), STL (PFT, Naples), PhD (SLU/VC), ThD (Tilburg), D.Ltt (KU), has been one of the eminent Asian theologians well recognized internationally and one who has lectured and held visiting chairs in many universities both in the West and in the East. Many members of Religious Congregations from Asian countries have benefited from his lectures and guidance in the East Asian Pastoral Institute (EAPI) in Manila, Philippines. He had been a Theologian consulted by the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences for many years. During his professorship at the Gregorian University in Rome, he was called to be a member of a special group of advisers on other religions consulted by Pope Paul VI.
Fr. Aloy is the author of more than 30 books and well over 500 Research Papers. Some of his books and articles have been translated and published in several countries. Among those books, one can find the following: 1) The Genesis of an Asian Theology of Liberation (An Autobiographical Excursus on the Art of Theologising in Asia, 2) An Asian Theology of Liberation, 3) Providential Timeliness of Vatican 11 (a long-overdue halt to a scandalous millennium, 4) Give Vatican 11 a chance, 5) Leadership in the Church, 6) Relishing our faith in working for justice (Themes for study and discussion), 7) A Message meant mainly, not exclusively for Jesuits (Background information necessary for helping Francis renew the Church), 8) Lent in Lanka (Reflections and Resolutions, 9) Love meets wisdom (A Christian Experience of Buddhism, 10) Fire and Water 11) God’s Reign for God’s poor, 12) Our Unhiddden Agenda (How we Jesuits work, pray and form our men). He is also the Editor of two journals, Vagdevi, Journal of Religious Reflection and Dialogue, New Series.
Fr. Aloy has a BA in Pali and Sanskrit from the University of London and a Ph.D in Buddhist Philosophy from the University of Sri Lankan, Vidyodaya Campus. On Nov. 23, 2019, he was awarded the prestigious honorary Doctorate of Literature (D.Litt) by the Chancellor of the University of Kelaniya, the Most Venerable Welamitiyawe Dharmakirthi Sri Kusala Dhamma Thera.
Fr. Aloy continues to be a promoter of Gospel values and virtues. Justice as a constitutive dimension of love and social concern for the downtrodden masses are very much noted in his life and work. He had very much appreciated the commitment of the late Fr. Joseph (Joe) Fernando, the National Director of the Social and Economic Centre (SEDEC) for the poor.
In Sri Lanka, a few religious Congregations – the Good Shepherd Sisters, the Christian Brothers, the Marist Brothers and the Oblates – have invited him to animate their members especially during their Provincial Congresses, Chapters and International Conferences. The mainline Christian Churches also have sought his advice and followed his seminars. I, for one, regret very much, that the Sri Lankan authorities of the Catholic Church –today’s Hierarchy—- have not sought Fr.
Aloy’s expertise for the renewal of the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka and thus have not benefited from the immense store of wisdom and insight that he can offer to our local Church while the Sri Lankan bishops who governed the Catholic church in the immediate aftermath of the Second Vatican Council (Edmund Fernando OMI, Anthony de Saram, Leo Nanayakkara OSB, Frank Marcus Fernando, Paul Perera,) visited him and consulted him on many matters. Among the Tamil Bishops, Bishop Rayappu Joseph was keeping close contact with him and Bishop J. Deogupillai hosted him and his team visiting him after the horrible Black July massacre of Tamils.
Sri Lanka-Singapore Free Trade Agreement
By Gomi Senadhira
senadhiragomi@gmail.com
“You might tell fairy tales, but the progress of a country cannot be achieved through such narratives. A country cannot be developed by making false promises. The country moved backward because of the electoral promises made by political parties throughout time. We have witnessed that the ultimate result of this is the country becoming bankrupt. Unfortunately, many segments of the population have not come to realize this yet.” – President Ranil Wickremesinghe, 2024 Budget speech
Any Sri Lankan would agree with the above words of President Wickremesinghe on the false promises our politicians and officials make and the fairy tales they narrate which bankrupted this country. So, to understand this, let’s look at one such fairy tale with lots of false promises; Ranil Wickremesinghe’s greatest achievement in the area of international trade and investment promotion during the Yahapalana period, Sri Lanka-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (SLSFTA).
It is appropriate and timely to do it now as Finance Minister Wickremesinghe has just presented to parliament a bill on the National Policy on Economic Transformation which includes the establishment of an Office for International Trade and the Sri Lanka Institute of Economics and International Trade.
Was SLSFTA a “Cleverly negotiated Free Trade Agreement” as stated by the (former) Minister of Development Strategies and International Trade Malik Samarawickrama during the Parliamentary Debate on the SLSFTA in July 2018, or a colossal blunder covered up with lies, false promises, and fairy tales? After SLSFTA was signed there were a number of fairy tales published on this agreement by the Ministry of Development Strategies and International, Institute of Policy Studies, and others.
However, for this article, I would like to limit my comments to the speech by Minister Samarawickrama during the Parliamentary Debate, and the two most important areas in the agreement which were covered up with lies, fairy tales, and false promises, namely: revenue loss for Sri Lanka and Investment from Singapore. On the other important area, “Waste products dumping” I do not want to comment here as I have written extensively on the issue.
1. The revenue loss
During the Parliamentary Debate in July 2018, Minister Samarawickrama stated “…. let me reiterate that this FTA with Singapore has been very cleverly negotiated by us…. The liberalisation programme under this FTA has been carefully designed to have the least impact on domestic industry and revenue collection. We have included all revenue sensitive items in the negative list of items which will not be subject to removal of tariff. Therefore, 97.8% revenue from Customs duty is protected. Our tariff liberalisation will take place over a period of 12-15 years! In fact, the revenue earned through tariffs on goods imported from Singapore last year was Rs. 35 billion.
The revenue loss for over the next 15 years due to the FTA is only Rs. 733 million– which when annualised, on average, is just Rs. 51 million. That is just 0.14% per year! So anyone who claims the Singapore FTA causes revenue loss to the Government cannot do basic arithmetic! Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, I call on my fellow members of this House – don’t mislead the public with baseless criticism that is not grounded in facts. Don’t look at petty politics and use these issues for your own political survival.”
I was surprised to read the minister’s speech because an article published in January 2018 in “The Straits Times“, based on information released by the Singaporean Negotiators stated, “…. With the FTA, tariff savings for Singapore exports are estimated to hit $10 million annually“.
As the annual tariff savings (that is the revenue loss for Sri Lanka) calculated by the Singaporean Negotiators, Singaporean $ 10 million (Sri Lankan rupees 1,200 million in 2018) was way above the rupees’ 733 million revenue loss for 15 years estimated by the Sri Lankan negotiators, it was clear to any observer that one of the parties to the agreement had not done the basic arithmetic!
Six years later, according to a report published by “The Morning” newspaper, speaking at the Committee on Public Finance (COPF) on 7th May 2024, Mr Samarawickrama’s chief trade negotiator K.J. Weerasinghehad had admitted “…. that forecasted revenue loss for the Government of Sri Lanka through the Singapore FTA is Rs. 450 million in 2023 and Rs. 1.3 billion in 2024.”
If these numbers are correct, as tariff liberalisation under the SLSFTA has just started, we will pass Rs 2 billion very soon. Then, the question is how Sri Lanka’s trade negotiators made such a colossal blunder. Didn’t they do their basic arithmetic? If they didn’t know how to do basic arithmetic they should have at least done their basic readings. For example, the headline of the article published in The Straits Times in January 2018 was “Singapore, Sri Lanka sign FTA, annual savings of $10m expected”.
Anyway, as Sri Lanka’s chief negotiator reiterated at the COPF meeting that “…. since 99% of the tariffs in Singapore have zero rates of duty, Sri Lanka has agreed on 80% tariff liberalisation over a period of 15 years while expecting Singapore investments to address the imbalance in trade,” let’s turn towards investment.
Investment from Singapore
In July 2018, speaking during the Parliamentary Debate on the FTA this is what Minister Malik Samarawickrama stated on investment from Singapore, “Already, thanks to this FTA, in just the past two-and-a-half months since the agreement came into effect we have received a proposal from Singapore for investment amounting to $ 14.8 billion in an oil refinery for export of petroleum products. In addition, we have proposals for a steel manufacturing plant for exports ($ 1 billion investment), flour milling plant ($ 50 million), sugar refinery ($ 200 million). This adds up to more than $ 16.05 billion in the pipeline on these projects alone.
And all of these projects will create thousands of more jobs for our people. In principle approval has already been granted by the BOI and the investors are awaiting the release of land the environmental approvals to commence the project.
I request the Opposition and those with vested interests to change their narrow-minded thinking and join us to develop our country. We must always look at what is best for the whole community, not just the few who may oppose. We owe it to our people to courageously take decisions that will change their lives for the better.”
According to the media report I quoted earlier, speaking at the Committee on Public Finance (COPF) Chief Negotiator Weerasinghe has admitted that Sri Lanka was not happy with overall Singapore investments that have come in the past few years in return for the trade liberalisation under the Singapore-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement. He has added that between 2021 and 2023 the total investment from Singapore had been around $162 million!
What happened to those projects worth $16 billion negotiated, thanks to the SLSFTA, in just the two-and-a-half months after the agreement came into effect and approved by the BOI? I do not know about the steel manufacturing plant for exports ($ 1 billion investment), flour milling plant ($ 50 million) and sugar refinery ($ 200 million).
However, story of the multibillion-dollar investment in the Petroleum Refinery unfolded in a manner that would qualify it as the best fairy tale with false promises presented by our politicians and the officials, prior to 2019 elections.
Though many Sri Lankans got to know, through the media which repeatedly highlighted a plethora of issues surrounding the project and the questionable credentials of the Singaporean investor, the construction work on the Mirrijiwela Oil Refinery along with the cement factory began on the24th of March 2019 with a bang and Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and his ministers along with the foreign and local dignitaries laid the foundation stones.
That was few months before the 2019 Presidential elections. Inaugurating the construction work Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said the projects will create thousands of job opportunities in the area and surrounding districts.
The oil refinery, which was to be built over 200 acres of land, with the capacity to refine 200,000 barrels of crude oil per day, was to generate US$7 billion of exports and create 1,500 direct and 3,000 indirect jobs. The construction of the refinery was to be completed in 44 months. Four years later, in August 2023 the Cabinet of Ministers approved the proposal presented by President Ranil Wickremesinghe to cancel the agreement with the investors of the refinery as the project has not been implemented! Can they explain to the country how much money was wasted to produce that fairy tale?
It is obvious that the President, ministers, and officials had made huge blunders and had deliberately misled the public and the parliament on the revenue loss and potential investment from SLSFTA with fairy tales and false promises.
As the president himself said, a country cannot be developed by making false promises or with fairy tales and these false promises and fairy tales had bankrupted the country. “Unfortunately, many segments of the population have not come to realize this yet”.
(The writer, a specialist and an activist on trade and development issues . )
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