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Pirapaharan |
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By: T. Sabaratnam
Chapter
3.
The Unexpected Explosion Karikalan Thangathurai,
known as mama, uncle, was in
charge of the secret group. There
were about 25 youths, most of them from Valvettithurai and relatives. In
early 1970, Thangathurai bought two revolvers, of .22 and .38 calibre.
They were used for shooting practice and as models for local
manufacture. Thangathurai
ordered the group to manufacture similar revolvers. Kannady, a radio
mechanic, was in charge of that project. Thamby
Pirapaharan was his assistant. They dismantled the revolvers, piece
by piece and assembled them. They mastered the technology quickly. I
asked Thangathurai and Kuttimani, whom I met during their trial in
Queen’s Club, Colombo in 1982, about revolver manufacturing
experiments. Thangathurai said: We knew nothing about making revolvers.
In fact, most of the boys saw those weapons for the first time. I asked
Kannady and Pirapaharan to try. They sat on the verandah of the house we
regularly met with a few screwdrivers and hammers. They dismantled the
revolvers in no time. They placed the pieces carefully on a newspaper
and then assembled the revolver. Both
possess remarkable power of observation and very good memory. The
group mastered the art of manufacturing revolvers. They did manufacture
some of them. They also discovered innovative methods to manufacture
bullets. They experimented with the chemicals found in matchsticks. In
the end they used the chemicals found in firecrackers. They preferred the moolai
vedi, the triangular crackers, The
revolvers Sivakumaran used during that time and the one Kuttimani used to kill
Ulaganathan, Tisaveerasingham used to shoot Vaddukoddai MP A.
Thiyagarajah, and Pirapaharan used to slay Alfred Duraiappah were all locally
manufactured. The
group also perfected the art of making bombs. The entire group was involved in
the project. It was riskier than the manufacture of revolvers. There were two
unexpected explosions. The first occurred in 1970, in the palmyrah grove
behind Thondamanaru Vidyalayam from where they stole the chemicals. They
were packing the explosives when the bomb went off. Sinna Sothi was
injured. Next year’s blast was more serious. Thangathurai, Sinna Sothi,
Pirapaharan and Nadesuthasan were burnt. Pirapaharan’s injury was on
his right leg. It took some time to heal and left a black scar. Pirapaharan
was proud of it. He showed it to all his friends. He joked, saying that
he is now a karikalan. It
meant black-legged person. He was
an admirer of the famous Chola King Karikal Cholan. This king had a black scar
in his leg and took the name Karikal Cholan, the black-legged Cholan. He
built the Chola kingdom into a mighty empire. Pirapaharan adopted the
name 'Karikalan' as his nom de geurre. He
was charge-sheeted as Karikalan in
the 1982 Pondy bazaar shoot out. The police learnt about the story and
searching the leg for the black scar formed an essential part of the
Pirapaharan search. Pirapaharan’s
interest in the manufacture of weapons and bombs continues even today. He
personally examines the new weapons captured from the army and decides
on the modifications that could be effected to make their use more
effective and economical. He had effected modifications to the heavy
guns and artillery pieces captured during the LTTE's attacks and camouflaged
them in such a way that even the advanced direction finders the army
purchased from Western countries failed to detect them.
Pirapaharan
was 14 years old when he was introduced to the secret group by Periya
Sothi, his cousin, and was in the GCE OL class. He absented himself from
school and attended political meetings and discussions. Political debate
had intensified in the Jaffna peninsula after the Federal Party quit the
Dudley Senanayake government in September 1968 and decided to support
the government from the opposition. Infuriated youths challenged that
stand and called it hypocrisy. Thanthai Chelva’s explanation that
their agreement with the UNP held failed to pacify the youths,
especially those of V. Navaratnam’s Suyadchi Kalagam. Separate
State Pirapaharan,
an ardent convert to the vision of a separate state went round meeting
youth agitators like Eelaventhan and Kovai Mahesan, arguing that the
Federal Party should put an end to its humbug and adopt the separate
state solution to the Tamil problem advocated by Suntharalingam and
Navaratnam. Suntharalingam
was the first to propose the establishment of a separate Tamil state. In
1958, soon after the riots, he moved a motion in parliament calling for
the establishment of a separate state for the Tamils and named it Eelam.
He declared firmly that Tamils would never accept subservience. Based on
his experience of dealing with Sinhala intellectuals and politicians, he
declared that the aim of the Sinhalese was to make Sri Lanka a Sinhala
Buddhist country. He said Sinhalese would never honor political
agreements and never concede to the Tamils their language rights.
Suntharalingam called for the restoration of the status quo ante: a
separate Tamil state of Eelam, comprising the ancient Tamil areas of
North and East Lanka. His
call for a separate state for the Tamils failed to click. Voters of
Vavuniya rejected his party, the Eela Thamilar Ootuman Munnani in 1960 March
and in the 1965 parliamentary elections. In the first election, he polled 4231
votes against the independent candidate, T. Sivasithamparam’s, 5370 and
in the 1965 election his support slipped to 3952 against T.
Sivasithamparam’s 7265, who contested on Tamil Congress ticket. In
1970, he shifted to Kankesanthurai to challenge Federal Party chief
Chelvanayakam, but could only collect 5788 votes against
Chelvanayakam’s 13,520. Navaratnam’s
Suyadchi Kalagam (Self-rule Party), which contested the 1970 polls fared no better. It was
also rejected by the Tamil people. Navaratnam contested the Kayts
constituency which he had held since 1963, but his supporters refused to move
along with him in his new party. He polled 14,946 votes in the 1963 by-election and 13,558 in
1965, but in 1970 collected only 4758 votes. The bulk of his supporters
remained with the Federal Party and voted for its new candidate, K. P.
Ratnam. The entire Jaffna peninsula rejected Navaratnam’s call for a
separate state. The
Federal
Party took up a definite position against separation and asked the
people to continue their backing for federalism, which they had been
doing since 1956. The Federal Party election manifesto released in 4
April, 1970 stated: It is our firm
conviction that division of the country in any form
would not be beneficial, neither to the country, nor to the
Tamil-speaking people. Hence, we appeal to the Tamil-speaking people not
to lend their support to any political movement that advocated
bifurcation of our country. Navaratnam,
conceding the rejection of his call for a separate state, told the Daily
News, the setback was temporary and recalled what he said in his speech
on the White Paper on District Councils: … it is also an
opportune moment to tell the government and the Country at large, that
Sinhalese governments and political leaders could no longer be trusted
to honor their plighted word to the Tamils and that the two peoples have
reached the parting of the ways. Suntharalingam and Navaratnam, though they lost the election,
had successfully sown the seed of separation in the minds of the youths.
Some of them were made to think seriously of alternative means of
attaining that goal. They argued that non-violence had miserably failed.
Sinhalese had used force to silence peaceful protest. Force should be
met with force. That is the only way to make the Sinhalese respect the
Tamils. Hit back hard, to stop them hitting, they reasoned. Standardization The
Federal
Party won 13 and Tamil Congress 3 seats in the election held on 27 May
1970. The United Front comprising the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP),
the Lanka Sama
Samaja Party (LSSP) and the Communist Party (CP) won 106 seats and, with the
six nominated members, had 112 members, a clear two-third majority in the
151-member parliament. United National Party was reduced to 17. Sirimavo
Bandaranaike, the United Front leader, formed the cabinet. She appointed
Dr. Badi-ud-din Mahmud, former principal of Gampola Zahira College, as
the minister of education. One
of his first acts was the announcement of the cabinet decision to
introduce media-wise standardization, which created the environment
suitable for the germination and growth of the seed of separation.
Badi-ud-din told Parliament that Sinhalese were discontented with the
university admission scheme which resulted in Tamil dominance of the
prestigious professional courses, especially medicine and engineering.
He gave three reasons which he said favoured Tamil students. The first
was, due to historical reasons, Jaffna possessed some of the country’s
best schools. The second, Tamil examiners over-marked the scripts of
Tamil students. The third, Tamil university teachers, who conducted the
practical examination for Tamil students, helped them. He said the
cabinet felt the need to correct these injustices done to Sinhala
students. He announced the abolition of practical examination for
science subjects and media-wise standardization. The
Sirimavo
Bandaranaike government was only reacting to the pre-election campaign
conducted by Buddhist pressure groups which alleged that Tamil dominance
in the professional and science study courses was due to favouratism by
Tamil examiners and who wanted the merit system in university admission
abandoned. The charges that Jaffna possessed better-equipped schools and
that Tamils got a bigger share of the places in the professional and science
courses were true. In 1974 Sri Lankan Tamils held 37.2 percent of the
places in science and engineering courses, 40.5 percent in medicine and
dentistry, 41.9 percent in agriculture and veterinary science courses in
the University of Ceylon. The trend continued until 1971 when Tamil made
up 35.2 percent of all admissions to the science-based courses in the
university, obtaining 40.8 percent in engineering and 40.9 percent in
medicine. Badi-ud-din Mahmood’s charge that Tamil students obtained
this bigger share by deception- favouratism in the practical examination and
by the over marking of their scripts angered Tamil students, who claimed
their better performance was due to their diligence and training. From
1942, when the University of Ceylon was founded, until 1957, university
teaching was in the English language, and Sinhala and Tamil students
answered the same entrance examination question papers in English. From
1957, when Sinhala and Tamil were introduced as the languages of
instruction, the procedure underwent a change. Students of both mediums
answered the same question papers, but in their respective languages.
Marks obtained by the Sinhalese and Tamil students were compiled into a
single list and arranged in descending order. Available university
places were filled from the top. This arrangement was called the merit
system. In the media-wise standardization, the lists of marks obtained
by the Sinhala and Tamil students are compiled separately and
standardized against each other. Jaffna
students realized that media-wise standardization would benefit the
Sinhala students and be discriminatory to them. Ponnuthurai Satyaseelan
and Sabalingam, then university students, saw the danger posed by
media-wise standardization and organized a massive student protest. The
protest march, which commenced at Jaffna Vaideeswara College, proceeded
to Jaffna Hindu College, then to Canagaratnam Madya Maha Vidyalayam
(then Stanley College), St. John’s, St. Patrick’s and Jaffna Central
Colleges and ended at Jaffna Esplanade, where a public meeting was held.
The effigy of Bad-ud-din Mahmood was burnt. Satyaseelan declared at the
meeting: The scheme of
standardization signals the doom of the whole of the Tamil community. It
has deprived thousands of Tamil youths with GCE Advanced Level
qualifications, the opportunity for either further higher education or
employment. Standardization has wiped out the last resort of the Tamils,
that is professional qualifications and professional employment
opportunities. Youths
approached Federal Party leaders and wanted them to protest against
media-wise standardization. There was no ready response. Frustrated, a
few youths met at the Jaffna Public Library Auditorium to take stock of
the situation. Satyaseelan told them: We never had any faith in the Tamil
Congress. It is too conservative and insensitive to new ideas. The
Federal Party too is getting fossilized and is losing grip on the
problems of the youth, especially students. We need a new organization
to voice our grievances. The
group resolved to form themselves into a new organization. They named it
Thamil
Manavar Peravai, (Tamil Students Union – TSU). Satyaseelan was elected
its president and P V Tissaverasingam the secretary. Sivakumaran,
Ariyaratnam, Muthukumarasamy
and fa ew others were present. Membership was restricted to GCE Advanced
Level students. Sivakumaran dropped out in a few months and Pirapaharan,
15, joined the TSU after it extended its membership to students in lower
classes and recent school leavers. A
TSU delegation met Amirthalingam in December 1970 and urged him to take
up the matter with the Federal Party General Council, which was scheduled
to meet on 12 January 1971 in Jaffna. Amirthalingam, who was handling
the youth, told the General Council that standardization had angered the
youths and urged the parliamentary group to raise the matter in
Parliament. Amirthalingam was then out of parliament after his defeat in
the 1970 election by former Karainagar Hindu College principal A.
Thiyagarajah. The General Council failed to realize the seriousness of
the standardization problem and decided to raise it along with five
other matters that affected the Tamils. The
General Council appointed a 11-member committee headed by Thanthai
Chelva to meet the prime minister and raise those matters. Prime
Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike directed the committee to meet
Badi-ud-din Mahmood, who agreed to make adjustments in other matters but
not in standardization. He told them that this was a cabinet directive
and he was only implementing it. He had no authority to adjust or alter
it. The
TSU
stepped up its agitation as the impact of media-wise standardization was
felt in 1972. Sinhalese
historian K. M. de Silva has pointed out that the qualifying marks for
admission for the medical faculty in 1972 was 229 (out of 400) for the
Sinhalese and 250 for the Tamils. For dentistry, it was 215 for
Sinhalese and 245 for Tamils and for veterinary science 200 for
Sinhalese and 230 for Tamils. This depressed the intake of Tamil
students to the university, and in 1972 Tamils secured 33.6 percent of
the places in the science-based courses against 63 percent by the
Sinhalese. This dip continued in 1973 when the share was 29.5 percent
Tamils and 67.4 percent Sinhalese. The
two did not meet. They moved in two separate circles. Their friends
confide they had certain common characteristics. They were restless.
They wanted action. They admired Subash Chandra Bose. They would sit up
the entire night discussing armed struggle. Rudramoorthy Cheran has said
this of Sivakumaran. He (Sivakumaran) would discuss all night
, emphasizing the need for an armed struggle. A
former Pirapaharan aide said this:
Once he began speaking, it was very
difficult to stop him. He would talk about the past glory of the Tamils
and conclude saying that such glory could be restored only in a separate
state which could be achieved through armed struggle. Burning
of a bus Pirapaharan’s
first act of violence occurred in early part of 1970 when he and three
of his friends decided to burn a state bus. They agreed that destruction
of state property was the best way to show one’s disapproval to the
actions of the state. They decided that such action should not cause
harm to the innocent public. Burning an empty bus returning from
Valvettithurai to the shed in Point Pedro after its last night trip was
what they decided to do. Pirapaharan
and his friends, armed with a can of petrol and a box of marches, waited
in a dark corner on a lonely spot in the road near Valvettithurai. They
saw the headlights of the bus. Pirapaharan’s friends panicked. They
melted into the darkness. Pirapaharan rolled the coconut log they had
kept ready onto the road. He chased away the driver and the conductor
when they got down to remove the log, splashed the petrol on the bus and
set it alight. That won him the admiration of his friends. Sivakumaran’s
first act of violence was in September 1970. Deputy Minister of Cultural
Affairs, Somaweera Chandrasiri, paid a visit to Urumpirai Hindu College.
He was a Sinhala extremist. Sivakumaran placed a time bomb below his car
and slipped away. The car was blown to pieces, but no one was injured. Sivakumaran
followed this with an attempt to assassinate Jaffna Mayor Alfred
Duraiappha in February 1971. He threw a hand grenade on to Duraiappah’s
car The
Republican Constitution While
TSU was organizing street protests and conducting poster campaigns, the
United Front government initiated steps to implement its election
promise to establish a Constituent Assembly to enact a new constitution
that would “declare Ceylon a free, sovereign and independent
Republic.” The Federal Party, which had obtained a mandate from the Tamil
people for a Federal Constitution, decided to cooperate with the
government in the constitution-making process. There
was strong opposition to that decision, especially from the youth. The youths wanted Tamil MPs not
to have anything to do with the constituent assembly and said
participation would be useless because Tamils would be outvoted and defeated and that would undermine the moral
strength of the Tamil case in the eyes of the world. Navaratnam and
Suntheralingham tried every possible means to persuade the Federal Party
to keep away, but the Federal Party was firm in its resolve to
participate. In a last ditch effort Navaratnam and Suntheralingham
met Federal Party leaders at the residence of Jaffna Mayor S.
Nagarajah, but Amirthalingam
forcefully told them, 'Nobody can dictate to the Federal Party whether
to go the Constituent Assembly or not.' Amirthlingam
told the two MPs that LSSP deputy leader Dr. Colvin R. de Silva, who was
appointed Minister
of Constitutional Affairs in addition to Minister of Plantation
Industries, had told Tiruchelvam that various concessions would be given
to the Tamil community through the new constitution and they did not
want to miss that opportunity. Amirthlingam
and other Federal Party leaders had a soft corner for Dr. de Silva
because he was bold enough in 1956 to oppose the Sinhala Only Law
warning:
Two languages would help build a single nation and a single
language two
nations. Soon
they realized that their trust in Dr. de Silva was misplaced. |
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