Refused Rights and Induced Desperation: A Study on Eelam War Writings

 Refused Rights and Induced Desperation: A Study on Eelam War Writings

R. Samuel Gnanaraj

II M.A English and Comparative Literature

Pondicherry University

      The word war shows the disparity in one’s life between normalcy and terrorism where normalcy is replaced by terrorism, denial of rights in the society. This paper brings out the factors of Eelam War that happened in Sri Lanka. It concentrates on the war and war writers who wrote about this Eelam War. The tyranny of the Tamil minorities brings solitude to the community. The devastation of the whole society ends in desperation. It tries to explore the referential issues for the refusal in the matter of rights by which the desperation follows. The outbreak of the Eelam War ends in the displacement of the entire humanity and how they had treated by refusing rights and induced through the desperation in the society matters a lot.

        Sri Lanka got the Independence from the British in the year 1948. But the independence is for the oral representation and for the namesake. British left in the year 1948, but the ruling government Sinhalese didn’t liberate the freedom for Tamils. The issue of communal clash begin to rise at its peak in the year of 1956 because the Sinhala only act is passed by making Sinhalese the official government and failing to recognize Tamil as an official language. From the year 1958 till 2011 Anti- Tamil riots break out. An estimation of more than sixty thousand people was killed for being a Tamil. In the year 1976 Prabakaran created the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam LTTE, a group which is against the Sinhalese government. Here the rights have been asking for the Tamil Eelams to live in the land of Sri Lanka. Then slowly the civil war begins in the land of Sri Lanka between LTTE and Government. The important thing to be discussed here is how the rights were refused and how the desperation follows them is the primary theme and also the representation of the minorities in the War. Jean Arasanayagam’s Poetry collection Apocalypse ’83 and Samanth Subramaniam’s This Divided Island are books based on the denial of rights and induced desperation and the statistical data by the critics are the primary sources for this paper. The two works is mainly based on the War happened in Sri Lanka and the atrocities which destroyed the whole community.

             This poetry collection Apocalypse ‘83 is totally different from the main stream poetry because this poem voices out the sufferers when they were in their miseries. The story This Divided Island is about like a novel based stories where the writer clearly brings out the bloody conflict. One can assume it as a history because it represents the war period and the trauma which happened in Sri Lanka. These poems uttered the sufferings and the rights which has been refused by the government of the Sri Lanka to the minority Tamils. By torturing them the Sinhalese showed their communal violence among others. The War which happened between the Tamils and Sinhala’s many unknown people and civilians were killed in an unidentified way. This brutal attack by the majority shows that they don’t have any pity towards the Tamils. Without mercy many women were molested and raped. Through this poetry the poet clearly shows the real images of the war field and the portrayal of the communal clash that happened in Sri Lanka, the land of Ezham. History says Ezham has another name, Sinhalam. Though it was called as Sinhalam, Only Tamils lived in Sinhala. Maylanathar who wrote commentary on “Nanool” said “Tamil Language was spoken in 17 lands inclusive of Sinhalam. In those days Ezham was the sole homeland of the Tamils. Subsequently people of different race started entering. So the Singhalese grew in number and this had led to the homeland of Ezham. So Tamils were started shrinking towards the northern and to the eastern parts of Ezham. At that point of time communal clash begins between the Sinhalese and minority Tamils.

       When Sri Lanka gained independence in 1948, in response to British favoritism of Tamil populations, the new government disenfranchised Tamil migrant workers and passed the Sinhala Only Act in June 1956. In light of these policies and discrimination, the Tamil minority held peaceful protests for an independent state, which later became violent. Through the 1960s and 1970s, a number of armed groups emerged; the most infamous of which, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ezham (LTTE), formed in 1976. Anti-Tamil violence sometimes sponsored by the Sri Lankan government skyrocketed, coming to a head in 1983.

In what came to be known as “Black July”, Sinhala mobs killed up to 3,000 Tamils around Sri Lanka in retaliation for the killing of 13 soldiers by Tamil separatists, an event now “commonly regarded as the start of the war between the Government and the LTTE.” Tensions in Sri Lanka first boiled over into a civil war in 1983, but the roots of the conflict extend far further than that. The conflict arises from the tensions between the mainly Buddhist Sinhalese majority and the mainly Hindu Tamil minority, who now make up 82 percent and 9 percent of the country’s population respectively. Prior to the conflict these statistics were 74 percent and 18 percent, indicating the huge numbers of Tamils who have fled the country. Prior to independence in 1948, the Sinhalese felt discriminated against by their British rulers, leading to the development of Sinhalese political nationalism. With independence and the establishment of a first-past-the-post electoral system, much of the power was placed in the hands of Sinhalese governments. These governments brought in legislation leading to the increasing marginalization of the Tamil minority, including the1956 Official Language Act. This led to increasingly strained relations between the two groups and numerous violent riots.

       Sri Lanka’s recent history has been dominated by civil war. There were four Eelam wars were happened in the history of Sri Lanka. From 1983 to 2011 the Eelam war prevails in Sri Lanka. In 1983, ethnic tensions between the majority Sinhalese population and the Tamils minority in the North led to a devastating civil war. For over a quarter of a century, the Sri Lankan government clashed with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, known as the LTTE or Tamil Tigers, who fought in pursuit of an independent state. According to conservative UN figures, almost as many again around 40,000 innocent civilians died in the Sri Lankan army’s final drop of phosphorus shells, many of which seem to have been deliberately aimed at refugee camps. More died in the appalling tidal wave of extrajudicial killings and death squad murders that followed the Tigers’ defeat, as much of the country’s Tamil population was herded into internment camps accompanied by widespread torture, rape and abuse. This Divided Island balanced, observant, good-natured, discursive and frequently witty is a wearingly angry and deeply moving portrayal of the agonies of this conflict, especially by the innocent Tamils caught in the ruthless forces. Ultimately this section deals with the attempts of the Sri Lankan military to erase all reminders of the war: houses, camps, villages and graveyards associated with the Tigers have all been bulldozed.     

       The word terror itself sounds as an unlawful terminology. The etymological meaning for terror is the use of extreme fear to intimidate people. To create fear psyche or to bully them, the terrorists can go to any extreme by handling weapons. Tormenting the innocent people without showing any pity towards them is also known as terrorism. In this collection of poetry “Apocalypse ‘83” the poet registers her protest against terrorism. In the war between Sinhala and Tamils many innocent people were killed for the unknown reason. They were tormented and brutally assaulted by the Sinhalese. As earlier said terrorism is not having any lawful codes and goals. The ultimate result for war is destruction and brutality. The attackers don’t have any sensible reason to attack. In this war many civilians are looted and raped by the strangers. History repeats and it is one of the longest running civil wars in Asia. Added to it, most globally known as the Tamil Tigers, wants a sovereign state for the island's Tamil minority. Sri Lankan government and the Sinhalese majority were opposing the Tamil Tigers for the demand for a separate state, which also brought about the bond of contention between Tamil sympathizers in Indian state of Tamil Nadu and Sri Lankan government.      

     Jean Arasanayagam is one of the refugees in the camps for the past decades. On witnessing the terror of war, she raises her voice of concern for the island nation of Sri Lanka. Sri registers her protest against the War and also the ill-treatment meted out to the Tamil minority by the Government. Her cry for human compassion and peace is expressed in her poems. In this chapter the discussion is about the terror of war where the poet raised her voices against the problems and results of war .In the poem “Innocent Victim- Trincomalee”,

My house went up in flames.

Together with

My sister. Father. Mother.

And will they come again?

Strangers? (54-58)

    Poet shares her own experience in this poem. It is clear from her words that she had lost everything that she had. She is victim of war where she lost her loved ones, she had lost her sister, father and mother. While mentioning their family members she first refers her sister as “my sister” rather than father and mother. It shows the love and affection towards her. The strangers from the majority pro government looted their home and set it on fire whatever she had. At the end of the poem she raises a question that will the strangers come back again. She raised this question in the mode of fear. Her fear and oppression is seemed through the line of the poem where a permanent fear psycho engulfs her. The observation and fear of war play heroes of their life, making them hate war in all forms.

In the poem “The Holocaust” poet shares her experiences as follows,

Screams are stifled in the shooting

Flames crackling

With burning bodies

Writhing in the marvelous

Excitation of death

They’re human

Our avengers

We’re not”.  (12-19)

  Through the poem poet confesses the terrible scene of the war field. In the above lines it shows the suppressed human value of the minority people. The whole scenery proves the Warfield and its senseless killings. Shooting, burning and looting are primary issues takes place in war fields. This particular war did not end in few days but lasted for decades. On behalf of the entire humanity poet is raises her voice against the terrorism of war. The terrorists stifled only in unkind activities like shooting and burning the houses and the bodies.  This shows their barbaric act of savagery and their inhuman treatment. In last lines of the poem poet says, that “They’re human/ our avengers/ we’re not” (17-19). It shows her emotion towards them. The stress and the irritation towards the avengers exhibit her courage and also her sadness. Innocent minorities not involved in the war above becomes the victim of the burnt and brutalities of war. It shows her stands towards the war. The message which she tries to convey through her poems has some moral value for the society and to the question of warfare. 

       The rights were dismissed for them even though they are devotee to god. In other words even God didn’t take care of them. The representation of God as follows, even though he had twelve eyes he didn’t have the omnipotent to save his devotees. The poet questions the power of man faith in god who seems to have turned blind eyes towards the sufferings of the war victims. The emotion of the poet makes one to think in a rationalistic way. No one is there to rescue them; even gods closed their eyes in the darkness. The poet here depicts a real picture of the war fare in Sri Lanka between the Sinhalese and the LTTE. This sentiment his expressed in the following,

The temple bells, the clapping hands, the

Brassy clash of cymbals,

The zing of bullets

…

Muruga, Kartikkeya

Arumuga…….

We pray, we cry, we clamour.

Oh Sri Kumaran, be not like the god

Who does not hear deaf Sandesveran.  (18-29)

      The poet draws on the changes faces of Nallur due to war and destructs on changed as the place of sufferers. The poet compares the temple bells, clapping hands and brassy clash of cymbals to the zing of bullets and the cries of death. Nallur was the ground which witnessed the ground for deadliest destruction. Like the bells, hands and like cymbals the bullets were passed to the place where civilians were staying. They are crying out of their control. There cry for help from their god yields of benefits. They are shouting towards the gods by calling by their names. The Sri Lankan government never took interest in the war fare of the government. Neither they didn’t take any safety measures for them nor didn’t stop the war. Instead of that they propagate war against the minority people for asking the land. Poet yells to the above mentioned gods but no one is there for them to help. She breaks out in emotions to the gods against the terror of war. The voice against the god and also to the terror of war is the primary issue to be found in this poem.

    The Civil had ended a couple of years earlier, after three decades of murderous fighting; the Liberation Tigers of TAMIL Eelam, gurrillas who had sought an independence state for country’s Tamils, had been defeated says Samanth Subramanian in his stories This Divided Island. This shows how the history will be place in the midst of all the greatest tragedy during these periods. From this one can find how the rights have been violated for a set of people and how they had treated by desperation throughout their life time.

Work Cited:

1.       Arasanayagam, Jean. Apocalypse '83: Poems. Colombo, Sri Lanka: International Centre    

              for Ethnic Studies, 2003. Print

2.      Subramaniam, Samanth. This Divided Island. New Delhi: Penguin Group, 2014. Print

3.      Selvanayagam, Arul.Ezham and the Tamils. Trans. Marx,T.Chennai: Sri Maruthi

      Publishers,2010. Print.

4.      "Sri Lanka: Conflict Profile." Insight on Conflict. Peace Direct, n.d. Web.

5.      "Sri Lanka." http://www.geneva-academy.ch/RULAC/state.php?id_state=206. RULAC, n.d. Web.