Prof Shantha Hennayake`s six-part article on `Dry Zone colonization and myth of demographic displacement of Tamils` is like the proverbial curate`s egg. Mr. Gaston Perera, a good English scholar turned historian of the early Kandyan Period, has busted the myths about the eastern province in the Portuguese Period. The point at which Prof. Hennayake had started his thesis is the Census of 1871 according to which all the Districts in the Northern and Eastern Provinces had a Tamil majority.

In the section, entitled `Establishment of permanent Tamil settlements`, he has formed a mental construct that they had `originated in the early Christian era.` His averment that `there is no disagreement` on this, is however, a very subjective statement. The distinguished archaeologist and historian, Prof. Senarat Paranavitana, has positively disagreed with such a theory, for he had found absolutely no evidence of permanent Tamil settlements on this island before the 11th century.

What the good Professor should have done here is to read up what English writers had written about the ethnic composition of this island before the Administrative Report of 1876, which is the real starting point of his M.A. thesis, based on fact. All that he writes about permanent Tamil settlements during the `Pre-modern Period` (and also the early part of the Modem Period) constitute the bad part of the egg. The following extracts from British writers before 1871 could have helped him to form a different opinion.

Emerson Tennent, writing in 1859, says: `The ancient [Sinhala] organization for rice cultivation known as `village system,` exists in undiminished vigour throughout the Eastern Province. The chief of the district supplies tools, hatchets, cattle, and seed-grain the people repair the dams and channels which lead water through the rice ground plough it, tramp the mud, sow and fence it, and complete the work by their joint labour. One portion (generally one-eighth) is cultivated exclusively for the lord of the soil. The residue of the harvest is then divided into conventional shares amongst the villagers and their hereditary officers, including the doctor, school-master, tomtom beater, barber, and washerman` (Ceylon: p.923).

Even the Wanni District did not seem to have a sizable Tamil population at that time: `If the deserted fields and solitudes of the Wanni are ever again to be re-peopled and re-tilled, I am inclined to believe that the movement for that purpose will come from the Tamils of Jaffna` (p.98.8). The population of North Central and Eastern Provinces was so depleted that there had been also a proposal to effect `colonisation from the coast of India... but the suggestion is uncongenial of attempting the revival of agriculture through the instrumentality of Tamils, the very race to whose malignant influence it owes its decay and any project, to be satisfactory as well as successful, should contemplate the benefit of the natives, and not strangers in Ceylon` (p.903). Therefore even as late as 1859, this British scholar considered Tamils from India as strangers to Sri Lanka.

Robert Percival, one of the officers who arrived here along with the occupation of the maritime districts of the island by the British in 1796, says: `During a residence of upwards of three years I visited almost every part of the seacoast and before I left the island, I was quite familiar with its general appearance, its productions, the present state of its cultivation, and the manners and dispositions of its inhabitants.` (An account of the Island of Ceylon 1803, Tisara Publications, page 2.)

What Percival had to say of the ethnic composition of the island even in 1505, is noteworthy: `The situation in which Almeyda found the island was not essentially different from its present state, except in those changes which have been introduced by its successive European inmates. The inhabitants consisted of two distinct races of people. The savage Bedas [Beddhas, the Jungle Folk or Veddahs] then, as now, occupied the large forests, particularly in the northern parts the rest of the island was in possession of the Cingalese` (p. 05). He repeats this remarkable statement again in chapter VIII of his book. `When the Portuguese first arrived on the island, the whole of it, with the exception of the woods inhabited by the wild Bedas, was possessed by one race` (p. 122).

What then about the people of Jaffna at that time? It is true that the Arya Cakravartis ruled there from about the 13th Century. They did not claim to be Tamils, and, the people of Jaffna whom they ruled over, were for the most part Sinhalese. The first Tamil to rule Jaffna was an illegitimate son of the last ruler of this dynasty, by a Tamil concubine. This upstart, called Sankili murdered that last ruler of the later Arya Cakravarti line setup by Prince Sapumal. Using the confused state of affairs, following the murder of King Vijaya Bahu VII in the year 1519, Sankili declared himself to be the King of Jaffna, really sub-king under the Emperor at Kotte. Although Sankili was a Tamil on his mother`s side, he did not make Tamil the official language of Jaffna. For all purposes, Sinhala was considered to be the official language throughout the island, including the Jaffna Peninsula. When Sankili`s conduct became intolerable, the people of Jaffna (mostly Sinhalese) petitioned the Portuguese Viceroy in Goa, asking him to replace Sankili with a Sinhalese Prince `because Jaffna belonged to the Kingdom of Kotte`. This led to the genocide of the Sinhalese inhabitants of Jaffna by Sankili. `After the massacre of the Christians, Sankili`s, insane fury longed for more victims and he fell upon the Buddhists of Jaffna who were all Sinhalese. He expelled them beyond the limits of the country and destroyed their numerous places of worship,` says Rasanayagam, quoting Yalpana Vaipava Malai.

Even after these atrocities of Sankili, the official language in Jaffna Peninsula continued to be Sinhala. This is a fact attested to by the Portuguese historian, Fr. Fernao de Queyroz. With the intervention of the Portuguese Viceroy, who invaded Jaffna in 1561, Sankili agreed to become a vassal of the King of Portugal. The document that Sankili put his signature on this occasion was drafted only in Sinhala and the Portuguese languages. There was no Tamil place for the Tamil language in that agreement (The Temporal and Spiritual and Conquest of Ceylon p.371).

The reason why Britishers, like Percival and the Portuguese rulers did not think that the people of Jaffna were ethnic Tamils, is because they were considered to be temporary residents, and at best, `foreign settlers` who formed the majority of the population there, especially after the Dutch Period. Percival has also made the following observation:

`The inhabitants of Jaffna consist of a collection of various races. The greatest number are Malabars of Moorish extraction, and are divided into several tribes, known by the names of Lubbahs, Belalas, Mopleys Chittys, Choliars, and a few Brahmins. These different tribes of foreign settlers greatly exceed in number the native Ceylonese [i.e. Sinhalese] in the district of Jaffna. The Malabars are employed in manufacturing cotton cloths, &c. The Chittys and the Laubbas trade in cloths, calicoes, handkerchiefs, &c. The Lubbahs [Lebbes] are Moors and Mahometans. The Choliars. and Chivias do the hard work are porters, palankeen bearers, and water carriers All these in some measure partake of the Ceylonese [i.e. Sinhalese] habits and customs and habits of life, mingled with their own ` (p.47) .... Those that I mentioned first were induced many years ago, by the encouragements held out to them by the Dutch, to pass over from the Coromandel coast and carry on here a variety of manufactures...` (p.48). This also illustrates the role played by the Dutch in altering the demographic composition of the North and the East.

Even Tamil writers have contributed to the view that the Jaffna Peninsula was originally inhabited by the Sinhalese people from the 6th Century BC up to the Portuguese Period. Rev. S. Gnana Praksar, O.M.I., has said: `Mr. Horsburgh`s article on Sinhalese Place Names in the Jaffna Peninsula [C.A. Vol. 11 Part 1, pp54-58] places beyond doubt the fact of `a Sinhalese occupation of the Jaffna Peninsula antecedent to the Tamil period`. Mudaliyar C. Rasnayagam says `That Jaffna was occupied by the Sinhalese earlier than by the Tamils is seen not only in the place names of Jaffna but also in the habits and customs of the people. The system of branding cattle with the communal brand by which not only the caste but also the position and family of the owner could be traced, was peculiarly Sinhalese. The very ancient way of wearing the hair in the form of a konde behind the head, was very common among the people of Jaffna till very recent times` (Ancient Jaffna, p. 384).

Today, racial purity of any ethnic group is only a myth. Ethnicity is related to the particular culture and language of a people. When people of one ethnic group abandon their language and culture in favour of another, their ethnicity gets merged with the new culture and language. Two of the major Sinhalese caste groups in the south of the island had migrated to this country from South India after the fifteenth century. Their caste distinctions were related to their original occupations. But now they have produced some of the outstanding Sinhala scholars. They are also among the most patriotic groups of the Sinhalese people today.

`According to Raghavan (196 1) the major waves of immigration [of fisher folk] to the west coast occurred after the fifteenth century today they are, in our region, mostly Sinhala speaking Buddhists or Catholics. It is therefore very likely that before the fifteenth century South Indian immigrants were also converted into Sinhala Buddhists` (G. Obeysekara in `The Cult of the Goddess of the Pattini` p.381...