LEARNING POLITICS FROM SIVARAM The Life and Death of a Revolutionary Tamil Journalist in Sri Lanka MARK P. WHITAKER Pluto P Press LONDON • ANN ARBOR, MI Whitaker 00 PLUTO pre iii 14/11/06 08:40:31 First published 2007 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and 839 Greene Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48106 www.plutobooks.com Copyright © Mark P. Whitaker 2007 The right of Mark P. Whitaker to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Hardback ISBN-10 0 7453 2354 5 ISBN-13 978 0 7453 2354 1 Paperback ISBN-10 0 7453 2353 7 ISBN-13 978 0 7453 2353 4 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Chase Publishing Services Ltd, Fortescue, Sidmouth, EX10 9QG, England Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England Printed and bound in the European Union by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne, England Whitaker 00 PLUTO pre iv 14/11/06 08:40:31 CONTENTS Acknowledgements vi Note on Transliteration, Translation, Names, and Neutrality ix Three Prologues xi 1. Introduction: Why an Intellectual Biography of Sivaram Dharmeratnam? 1 2. Learning Politics from Sivaram 18 3. The Family Elephant 32 4. Ananthan and the Readers’ Circle 52 5. From SR to Taraki – A ‘Serious Unserious’ Journey 79 6. From Taraki to TamilNet: Sivaram as Journalist, Military Analyst, and Internet Pioneer 113 7. States, Nations, and Nationalism 157 8. Return to Batticaloa 180 Notes 218 Bibliography 233 Index 242 v Whitaker 00 PLUTO pre v 14/11/06 08:40:31 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Sivaram often used to say ‘My riches are my people. I collect people.’ The truth of this became more generally apparent to me as I was trying to remember all of the people – most, like me, members of Sivaram’s ‘collection’ – who helped create this book. Research for this project was funded by three research grants from the University of South Carolina and by an American Institute of Sri Lankan Studies Fellowship. Jeanne Merecek, John Rogers and other AISLS members helped make my time as a fellow in 2003–04 rewarding. The University of South Carolina, Aiken, graciously granted me leave for the 2003–04 school year so that I could complete my research. I want to express my gratitude to the Anthropology Department at Sussex University for making me a visiting research fellow for the fall of 2003. In Sri Lanka, the International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Kandy, kindly allowed me access to their well-stocked and thankfully cool library, as well as some much needed cups of tea. For this I want to thank S.W.R de A. Samurasinghe, the Institute’s director, and Kanthi Gamage, the centre’s supremely helpful Librarian and Documentation Officer, who often pointed me toward resources that later proved invaluable. I also want to thank K.M. DeSilva for setting set me straight about several events at Peradeniya University during the 1983 riots. My thanks to Neelan Thiruchelvam of the International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Colombo, for answering many questions when he was so busy in 1997 must be, sadly, posthumous. S. Nadarajah, Chief Editor of Viirakeesari, was extremely generous in making available to me copies of all of Sivaram Dharmeratnam’s 2003–04 columns. I want to thank the editors of TamilNet.com for answering so many questions about their operation. At Pluto Press I want to thank Anne Beech, the Managing Director, for her early and continuing interest in this project. David Castle, Robert Webb and Sophie Richmond edited my manuscript with admirable dispatch and tolerance for my various foibles. Ray Addicott and Chase Publishing Services have also been most helpful with the production. Back on my side of the Atlantic, Diane Cochrane deserves special thanks for helping me wrestle American spellings and usages into compliance with Pluto Press’s British style sheet. I am also in debt to two anonymous reviewers of my original book proposal. Their comments were brilliant, and helped me reshape the book to address audiences I might otherwise have neglected. vi Whitaker 00 PLUTO pre vi 14/11/06 08:40:31 Acknowledgements vii My larger intellectual and social debts are too many to completely enumerate. First of all, of course, is what I owe Sivaram Dharmeratnam. For 24 years he was my friend and intellectual jousting partner; I do not – I never shall – quite believe it is over. Years ago Gananath Obeyesekere, as my academic mentor, provided a wonderful introduction to Sri Lanka. This project was also inspired, in various ways, by the works of Kevin Dwyer, Kumari Jayawardene, Newton Gunasinghe, S.J. Tambiah, Susan Harding, David Anthony, and E. Valentine Daniel. Conversations, in turn, with both K. Sivathamby and the late K. Kailasapathy, though separated by sixteen years, helped convince me of the importance of studying the intellectual history of Tamil Sri Lanka. Michael Roberts encouragingly edited my first essay on Sivaram. A brief outline of this project was read to a South Asian work group at the University of California, Santa Cruz. I want to thank Triloki Pandey, Annapurna Pandey, Kristy Bright, and Dina Siddiqi for their encouragement and helpful comments. Anne Blackburn and Laura Ahearn, members of my South Asia study group at the University of South Carolina, read and helpfully commented upon other parts of this project. I also presented bits of this book at colloquia for the Anthropology Department at the University of South Carolina, and am grateful for the many useful comments I found there. R.L Stirrat, Elizabeth Nissen, Dennis McGilvray, Patricia Lawrence and Jude Fernando have all granted me not only the benefit of their superior expertise but also their congenial hospitality. Jonathan Spencer, in addition to being a kind and humorous host, also shared keen critical insight into some of the trickier issues involved in doing a biography such as this. I also want to thank Michele Ruth Gamburd, Margaret Trawick, Yuvaraj Thangaraj, Ram Alegan, Seela Aleduwaka, Ramani Hettiarachchi, and Laxman Kumara Keerthi for sharing, at various times, their professional insights about Sri Lanka. R. Cheran and D.B.S. Jeyaraj amiably answered some last minute questions. Rajes Kandiah, Bhamini Jayaraman, David Buck, Balasundaram Elayathamby, and S. Punchchalingam all helped me cope with my weak Tamil. Many journalists were generous with their advice and ideas, often in difficult circumstances. J.S. Tissainayagam, Gamini Weerakon, Marwaan Macan- markar, V.S.Sambadan, Chandana Keerthi Bandara and Rajpal Abeynayake must all be thanked. My friends and family, thankfully, have sustained me through this long and sometimes difficult project. To have parents like Burt and Hilda Whitaker, a brother like Jeff Whitaker, and a sister like Gail Wright is to be rich indeed. Ann Kingsolver, my wife, not only loyally supported my many years of work on this biography but also, as a fellow anthropologist and researcher, shaped it for the better. David, my son, put up with all our travel and loved his uncle Sivaram. It almost goes without saying that I could not have completed this book without the kind forbearance of all the Sri Lankan people I interviewed. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart. But it is to Sivaram’s far-flung family, I think, that I owe my deepest thanks. They not only put up with my Whitaker 00 PLUTO pre vii 14/11/06 08:40:31 viii Learning Politics from Sivaram presence and my probing questions, but also added their own insights and ideas – so much so that this book clearly became a collective enterprise. Meena Dharmeratnam and S. Dharmavasan both took time to read and correct the manuscript; and I must thank S. Dharmavasan and his father, Somasundaram, further, for allowing my family to stay in their lovely house in Batticaloa, and for other kindnesses while we were in Sri Lanka. In Suriyakumaran Dharmeratnam and K.O.Pillai I found gracious hospitality, intellectual companionship, and new-found kin. Lee Karu made my visit to London in 2001 truly memorable. Surendaran and Seevaratnam Vellupillai were also most kind. I must thank all the other family members in Colombo, Batticaloa, London and Toronto who have received me with such kindness. Daniel and David Poopalipillai, Bavani’s brothers, have been yet more brothers to me. Bavani, Vaishnavi, Vaitheki, and Seralaathan have become a part of our family now, and we a part of theirs. Finally, I would like to dedicate this book to the Sri Lankan journalists of all ethnicities who, like Sivaram, risk their lives every day, or have already lost them, to keep the stories coming. Whitaker 00 PLUTO pre viii 14/11/06 08:40:31 NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION, TRANSLATION, NAMES, AND NEUTRALITY The Sri Lankan Tamil words and phrases in this book are transliterated according to the scheme used in David McAlpin’s A Core Vocabulary for Tamil (1976: xix–xxc). Tamil’s long vowels are signaled by doubling letters, and retroflex consonants by capitalization. Readers of English can get a feel for long-vowel Tamil sounds if they hold doubled vowels (aa, ee, ii, oo, uu) for an extra beat. Retroflex consonants, transliterated here as ‘L,’ ‘N,’ and ‘T,’ can be approximated by rolling back one’s tongue and touching the roof of one’s mouth (which sounds more difficult than it is) while pronouncing the English sounds ‘l,’ ‘n,’ or ‘t.’ The letter transliterated here as ‘t’ sounds a bit like the ‘th’ sound in ‘thespian.’ The Tamil letter transliterated here as ‘R’ represents a lightly trilled ‘tr’ sound.