It is not easy to do this because there are too many threads to follow. However, there are a number of valuable comments here and I will try my best.

#1 reply to raj
Indeed, Catse system is an Indian cultural phenomenon which exists in our part of the world, even if yoiu are a Christian, not only among Tamils, but also among the North Indian Hindus. But the Jaffna Tamil Christians were a bit less caste-conscious than the Hindus. We should take a modern interpretation of Hindusim (e.g, Vivekanada) instead of, say, Navalar.
Thank you sir.

#3 reply to Sri;
We all get tired after one hour of writing it out in long hand and getting one’s grand-daughter to type it into the internet..

But now I will gladly reply your comments.
Indeed, I agree that the war in the North has turned Tamil society upside down, with the place of women, lower castes etc., all modified. All social up heavels have this effect, and Marxists and other people claim that all social progress occurs by such periodic clashes (caused by the inherent contradictions in society). They think such conflict is NECESSARY. That is where I disagree. Given the right leadership, one can achieve change without excessive conflict. The “constituionalist” approach to getting independence from the British worked in Sri Lanka without the bloodshed and fire that happened in India. The Marxists were not happy with it and wanted a revolutionary, violent process sealed in blood, to make it a “true independence from the imperialist”. Colvin, NM Perera and others continued to claim that Ceylon had secret clauses with the British and there was no true independence.
The Soviet bloc continued to block our admission to the UN.
As for majoritarian rule etc., I don’t quite follow your reasoning, and berhaps I will be able to touch on them in answering the other comments.
Thank you sir.

#4 comment by Murugan.
I like your write up, it is logical and would form an excellent basis for further reflection.; and no one really has the answers to all the difficult and valid questions you raise. I will give my thoughts on some of them.
Do not for one moment think that I am putting all the blame on GGPonnambalam. Ity takes two to Tango.
In fact, there were other communalist upstarts in the early Donoughmore era. But GGP and SWRD were two extremely talented and effective leaders, even when it came to racis! . But Baron Jayatilleke and DSSenanayake managed to keep the lid on Sinhala nationalism in the 1930s. This was partly because even GGP and SWRD were not true ingrained racists – they were debating-club types who were ready to use the racial stick to further their political ends. When DSSenanayke showed that he can contol the Sinhala extrimists by shutting them out during the Soulbury commission (where GGP was give full reign to attack the Sinhala, while DSSennayake ordered a dignified silence), I think GGP developed the confidence that he can work with DSS. I strongly doubt that GGP joined DSS’ government purely for personal gain. He felt that he could perhaps achieve some thing, and little by litlle he had become a moderate politician who did NOT have to use the racial ploy to gain a top place among the Tamils. But SJV and EMV were the younger generation. They were subject to the racial rhetoric of the 1930s, and their racism was definitely ingrained, and they had a reason to attack GGP and capture the leadership of the tamils.

SWRD was basically a democrat with a racist cry for oppotunistic reasons. The Satyagrahas and civil disobedience programs of Arasu Kachchi
(this is how they write this word in english newspapers, and somebody had criticised me for it) produced a very heated political situation where SWRD or anyone else could not do anything.
Later on Dudley too failed. You cannot have political
deals if there is no basic trust between the communities.
SJV and friends thought of the Sinhala as invaders of the “homelands” and decided to adopt the tactics used by Nehru and others against the Britsh invader. The sathyagraha method works if you are the Majority, fighting a minority (e.g., the british) who is in power. The Tamils were a minority, fighting a majority. History shows that direct confrontation using civil disobidience does not ever
work in such circumstances. It would be like some small group of people in China attempting to confront the chinese government.
Minorities have to use more subtle methods. The Jewish community in the USA have done that. They
basically control many aspects of US administration, foreign policy etc.
see my article:
http://lankaguardian.blogspot.com/2008/03/response-lost-battle-for-tamil-eelam.html

Finally, although democracy and one vote for one man is a very bad system, it is the best we have ( so said, I think, Churchill).

#5 reply to Ilaya seran senguttuvan

In the old days an Indian “cooolie” could not just come to Ceylon, or just leave as they wished. In fact by 1939 India shut off all arrivals of “coolies” from India, and this and other matters were taken up in the 1941 Indo-Ceylon talks between Senanayake and Bajpai.
Incidentally, even in the 1930s, many estate workers did not “just take the train”, but walked it through in the “Paadayathraa” style.

The concept of “unexpressed rights” was NOT introduced by Michael Roberts, but by Wilson.

Senguttuvan’s comment about historians suggests that we should only go by our (i.e, tamil ?) historians, while they have their (sinhala?) historians. It is also said that we need to study the “history of the historian”.
I must very humbly BEG TO DIFFER shraply. The worst thing is to set up this kind of ethnically acceptable histories, and begin “witchhunts” against historians who are labeled as “traitors to the cause” or what ever. It is of course true that people can have biases, and worst still, they can actually have political agendas which means they will suppress parts of information and present only parts favourable to their case.

But this is a standard problem in the law of evidence and court procedure.
How to handle is well known.
The defending lawyer will make up the best case for the accussed and supress all the evidence against his client. The prosecuting counsel will put the best case to damage the accussed and not bring out stuff that would weaken the presecution. The Jury is expected to weigh the evidence and arrive at a conclusion. The jury does not have to study the “history of the prosecuting lawyer or the defending lawyer”. In the same way, we need not study the “history of the historians”. But we need to study the history written by Tamil authors, Sinhalese, Englsih, French Indian and other writers, and we (the JURY) have to make up our conclusion. The histroians are the experts consels. The public are the jury.
I fully agree with Ilaya seran senguttuvan that Dr. Nalin de Silva writes nonsense. His recent articles in the Island claims that “western” truth in particular is not relavant to us ( and fogs it up with irrelavant allusions to quantum science and relativity), and claims that the only point of view applicable in SriLanka is the “SinhalaBuddhsit” point of view. This is a Maths Prof. who has failed to excell in maths, but succeeded in cheap polemics.
It is both true that Tamils came here 400 years ago,
and obviously much earlier, even according to the Mahavamsa. As for the year 4000 BCE, anyone can believe anything htey want. In fact, the Indian citizenship act of Senanayake says that 7 years permanent residence makes the Indian worker a citizen. So you don’t need 4000 or 400 years. Once you are a citizen, ALL citizens have equal rights, and this debate about who came first is as stupid as the question of weather a stone has a male lingam or a female lingam. You can make it inot either shape.

The “homelands” claim of Chelvanayakam and others was the most divisive and unnecessary claim of all. I disagree completely with it. But that will need a whole article. You ndon’t argue about it, but you occupy it, instead of living in Colombo 7.

However, let me thank you, Ilaya seran senguttuvan for expressing your views clearly and politely.

#6 and #7 by Fairplay and satheesan.
Thank you for your nice appreciative comments.
Fairplay is absolutely right in noting that we need “cosmopolitan” societies for growth to occur. Mono-ethnic enclaves based on misplaced nationalism is the death warrent on such self-isolated ethnic groups. This is why I believe that the “Ceylonese concept”, or equivalently, he “Sri L:anka concept”, is the way for the futur.

I don’t know enough about Mr. Mano Ganesan’s politics. But if he has the breath of vision to at least occassionally speak out about the iniquities often heaped on other (i.e., nonTamil) communities, then you have a politician who can become a statesman.

#8 Thank you Mr. harshana Somapriya. You have interesting inputs about this standardization problem. But I think people are making too much of a fuss about getting into university. This one-track mentality of getting a job in the govt. or the professions was an old, outdated Jaffna concept. But today with the open economy, people who didn’t go to university are often doing better than those who went there and spend 7 years trying to get a degree that should have taken onlt 4 years, because of LTTE or JVP campus strife.

I think the other comments need no reply from me.

Thank you very much.

S. Rasalingam.

Mr Rasalingam mentioned that Badi’s Ministry should have introduced quotas for depressed classes, referring to non-enfranchised estate workers of Indian origin.However, you grasp the monkey’s tail by referring to the standardised marking system introduced by Badi. Please note that this sytem was introduced to prevent widespread abuse by Examiners from predominantly Tamil areas who made a mockery of the merit system by unfair script markings to give their candidates an advantage over those from the other areas. Now who is distorting facts here, i wonder.

Cutoff marks for 2006/07 are available at: UGC

But still I do consider this standardization is something positive, because we donot have a school system with equal facilities in Sri Lanka. And since we have a free education even at university level, it is vital that all sections of our country are given a fair chance. ( It is the tax money of all citizens that pay the costs of all graduates)

It is wrong to say, ‘(govt.) simply wanted to reduce the intake of Tamil youth into the Medical, Engineering, Dental, Agriculture Faculties’. You may not know that there’s a saying among Sinhalese villagers, ‘Kolombata kiri, apata kekiri’, which means that the priority is given to Colombo & the villages are illtreated. This is a measure to allow the poor under previleged rural youth to shackle the barriers & bear the fruits of higher education. It is extremely rude to summarise it as a fascist act of then govt. Those who benefited from it, include students from all communities of this country.
True, that there are short comings, for example even the students from shanties in Colombo have to take the hightest marks in the island to enter Universities. But since we are a poor country we cannot afford to have perfect systems. What we should strive is to let all who pass A/L to proceed with higher education in areas they like.
So please don’t try to portray this standardisation process as a pure injustice to Tamils. ( since the students from all communities are in both sides of advantaged & disadvantaged from this system)

I would like to thank Mr.Rasalingam for writing to this forum. Your views will bring a new dimension to our thinking.
We can build a strong solution to our problem only on basis of truth. A solution crafted on false foundation will not last long, or bring peace to the unfairly advantaged community.
Having said all these I have to ascertain my Tamil friends that almost all Sinhalese (90%+) accept that there are specific problems faced by the Tamil community which require fair solutions. What is required is to provide constructive support & stimulus to draft & implement a ‘fair solution’ (or at least to take a single step in the right direction) & to stop the deaths of poor Sinhala & Tamil youths who are dying for the wrongs of others.
( who ever started the communal politics first it is the elites of both communities, but those who suffer immensely today are those from the less fortunate groups of both communities)

Colombo knew nothing about caste system and I myself have not experienced such discrimination in SL until I came to Canada and became fully aware of such a disgraceful notion and confronted those who tried to influence me into such a phenomena.

Again, yes ,the Kallathonis are on the reverse path. Those who called the Indian Tamils as “Vadakkathaiyaan” Northerners and ” “Thottakaattaan” Estate coolies are falling at their country and feet for refuge.
This may be called retribution for the disgraceful treatment of your own origin.

Colombo Tamils stood neutral for everyone.

The drawback during the Srima regime was that there were Leaders to represent the Indian Tamils and Jaffna Tamils only.

Had there been a Leader to represent the Colombo Tamils, like Mano Ganeshan, the state affairs toward Tamils would have turned a different dimension in handling Tamils affairs.

In fact most from the Northern peninsula would have reached colombo and prospered in all dimensions.

Fairplay