I am interested in the larger social phenomenon of lack of bridge between the English educated on one bank and the Sinhala/Thamil educated on the other. As particular instances, I took Nan’s tale ‘…That was how it was thirty years ago. Political expediency, the kaduwa inferiority complex (totally uncalled for and unjustified) and plain envy and dog-in-the manger smallness of mind brought in divides we did not feel sometime ago, particularly when education was in English;’ and the Galle Literary Festival.

These are ‘facts’ that can be contested and had better be contested because they from part of the social history of this country. I am aware that the nature of facts is not clear cut now as it was in 1900. Both natural scientists and literary theorists have made things more difficult for us ordinary mortals. Yet, I am at a loss to understand Nan’s statement ‘I presented no stark facts’. If someone says "My perception is that the Donough-more constitution functioned without imperfections and up to thirty years ago’, that had better be contested. Similarly, here. Several questions came to mind as I read Nan’s essay. First did ‘….smallness of mind…’ not exist ‘especially when education was in English’? Second, does the time limit of ‘thirty years ago’ make sense?

Kaduwa and life in Peradeniya

In my memory, when ‘…education was in English’ did not accord with facts. I looked for evidence and found some which flatly contradicted this statement and mentioned those briefly. However, I found none regarding undergraduate life in the places one would expect to see them and those I recorded in my note. It was open for anyone to say I was flat wrong because the evidence pointed otherwise. A few days ago, a friend sent me the following paragraph written by Imran Markar, ‘For my non-English medium colleagues, having studied the same course, often getting better results, the door to the job market was often slammed shut. They faced the kaduwa – the lack of a proper knowledge of English was the kaduwa (the sword) that decimated their hopes and aspirations of a better life- the weapon we had, which denied them the same opportunities in life though they were qualified in every other respect. (In a land where the Constitution [Chapter IV] lays down that Sinhala and Tamil shall be the National Languages of the country! Why don’t we give up this hypocrisy and say ‘English shall be the sole official language of this Republic’? That will leave one more law observed less in the observance than in the breach!).The immense frustration, helplessness and sense of alienation this caused can never be fully appreciated by us on the other side of the divide.

For them they start off disadvantaged to be finally victimized by the system. I began to, empathize with them. I also began to understand their hopes and aspirations. They believed that they could never carve out a place in society as it was structured at present. The alienation was reinforced at every turn and corner, often giving way to paranoia. It was this alienation and paranoia on which the JVP capitalized. Sadly the system continues to operate even today, with our children enjoying the benefits of a system which are denied to their children, perpetuating the injustice in a vicious circle’. (Markar wrote in 1997 and he was a student at Peradeniya 1983 -1990(?). This is the closest I can get to the attitudes of mind among the disadvantaged that I had in mind and it is recorded by some one who understood it with empathy and not by some one who went through it. There are some glimpses of it in Sarachchandra’s ‘bandula nohot…..’ and Asoka Amarat-unge’s ‘rakusa pilisinda’ and I wrote a short note in Marga Journal in 1972.

As I could not find evidence about undergraduate life, I presented my own story, about a man who had been at university ‘when education was in English’ well over 50 years ago, as Exhibit P in the case. Exhibit P was not presented to show ‘the negatives of elitism that he suffered’.

Needed: a bridge...

It was evidence which contradicted Nan’s assertion. To the best of my knowledge he did not suffer any negatives. He observed a social pathology but was not infected by it much as a person with immunity may live in an epidemic of cholera uninfected by it. In fact he may have re-hydrated a few back to normal health! The purpose was again to contest the assertion made by Nan. Finally, it is flat wrong again that ‘much of the article was about himself’. Learning to count helps. There were 1282 words in my note. Of them, some 140 words dealt with the writer. Does roughly 10 percent of the total sums to ‘much’? Now that the case has been made, let us remove the ‘me’ from it which almost always is a hindrance to conversation.

Sinhala learning among the English educated

Well, of course, none can object to anyone enjoying a Literary Festival without let or hindrance. Yet all these are social phenomena of which a person may seek the ‘natural history’. I find it extraordinary that men and women who go to school and university here ‘can luxuriate in English literature’ without a good knowledge of the writings in this country. Foreigners here for a few months or a few years go to their next destination without being soiled by the language and literature of the place. We ourselves have done that. But does it not surprise the average person that persons of high learning, high priests of culture (because they perform the relevant rituals), in this society have no idea of what most people read and write here? There are two living languages here of great antiquity (The other living language of matching antiquity is Chinese.) each of which has a rich though limited literature and the English literati go on regardless as if they lived in Kigali or Bujumbura! That is a phenomenon well worth investigating.

I use names because I have to identify the evidence in much the same way as a prosecutor may present her/his evidence before a jury who can judge for themselves. I have no interest in Nan or others, I have no idea who Nan is. But I am interested in social phenomena.

Nan asked, ‘On what premises or criteria does he make these damning statements? How does he know that we-meaning those that were at the GLF- have read or not read in our native language literature?’ I never made the statements that Nan attributed to me that those who went to the Galle Literary Festival had not read our ‘native language literature’, simply because I did not know. I had no need to look for premises as I was not examining a theorem. I had no need for criteria as I was not judging anything. I was looking for evidence in support of or contradicting what I said. I have no allegiance for either position (dittincha anuupagamma). Whatever the evidence supports I will accept. I know it is more complicated than that simple statement. But let us start from simple things. Gananath Obeysekere, then in the English Department, wrote in Sinhala to Samskrti beginning with its first issue in March 1953. I am aware of some translations from Sinhala and commentary thereon by others for purpose of anthropology. But very few, so far as I know, who write in both Sinhala/Thamil and English and are educated in English -in contrast to being educated in the English medium- come from among those who ‘luxuriate in English literature.’

There are large numbers of books translated into Sinhala mostly from English. For evidence, walk into the many bookshops in Maradana and read the short announcements about new publications in Lankadipa on Tuesdays. There are very few people whose university education was in English (as distinct from those who studied in the English medium) who translated from English to Sinhala. Clearly, there is a problem. One expects the English educated to undertake this task unless handicapped by a poor knowledge of Sinhala. That is the problem I have been talking about.

Oh no, he is a gentleman

Last weekend, together with several friends and acquaintances I went to dalada maligava in Mahanuvara, with Totagamuve Sri Rahula ringing in my ears, ‘veda dalada geta dala da vandu mitura’. There were several security kiosks at which we were rightly screened before being let in. At all of them, there was the notice ‘pirimi (male), aankel (? male) and Gents’! Quite apart from the danger that a British may mistake the kiosk for a lavatory, what is wrong with ‘male’ or ‘men’? No, an English speaking man, in contradistinction from a man speaking Sinhala/Thamil, must be a gentleman (gent) and so identified at every turn. It is that feature of this society that needs explanation.