It was heartening to see on television
fans in Jaffna, Batticaloa, Kilinochchi celebrating the victory of the Sri
Lankan cricket team in Dacca with the others in the country in Colombo, Ampara
and Matara to name only a few places. The Sri Lankan cricket team consisted
almost entirely of Sinhalas, but nobody whether, Sinhala Tamil Muslim or other
considered it to be a Sinhala team. The whole country thought it as a victory
of the Sri Lankan cricket team, a well deserved victory after knocking at the
door, for several years since the famous world cup cricket win in 1996. In this
regard it has to be mentioned that it is recorded that even Prabhakaran
celebrated the world cup victory with Nagalingam Ethirweerasingham, the famous
Sri Lankan high jumper, in Vanni. I do not know how authentic this statement is
but there is no harm in believing it. In any event it is known that the LTTE
supporters in London celebrated the famous victory by Arjuna Ranatunga and his team.
There may be people who do not like the
ways and means of Lasith Malinga, his participation in the IPL series and who
would not agree with his statement that the IPL experience helped him to
perform against the Indian players at the finals in the ICC T-20 tournament.
Some would argue that it helped the Indian batsmen to face Malinga. Then the
statements by Mahela Jayawardhane and Kumar Sangakkara to the press in
Bangladesh on their retirement have created a controversy and it is clear that
underneath the victory there is much politics that will come to the surface
sooner or later. A cricket spring to oust the “Rajapakse Regime” has been in
air for some time and there is much speculation on the “common candidate” at
the next presidential elections. However,
these were of not concern to the “common man” and for them what mattered
was, in the words of schoolboys of yesteryears, I presume it is the same now, we won the match, and hurrah for the merry. On Sunday night almost all Sri Lankans enjoyed themselves as schoolboys whether they were males or females, old or young, at home, Diyavanna grounds or Kilinochchi. This does not mean that all the schoolboys always behave well as it is known that there are a few who cannot come to terms with defeat. However, the Sri Lankans in general are not disturbed too much by defeat as the Sri Lankan culture teaches them to expect defeat as much as victory. Hence, we do not stone the houses of Sri Lankan cricketers even if they do not bring the world cup every time they participate in an ICC tournament.
was, in the words of schoolboys of yesteryears, I presume it is the same now, we won the match, and hurrah for the merry. On Sunday night almost all Sri Lankans enjoyed themselves as schoolboys whether they were males or females, old or young, at home, Diyavanna grounds or Kilinochchi. This does not mean that all the schoolboys always behave well as it is known that there are a few who cannot come to terms with defeat. However, the Sri Lankans in general are not disturbed too much by defeat as the Sri Lankan culture teaches them to expect defeat as much as victory. Hence, we do not stone the houses of Sri Lankan cricketers even if they do not bring the world cup every time they participate in an ICC tournament.
Ironically we were introduced to cricket
by the English colonials who in spite of rhetoric have not adhered to the adage
it is not cricket. The subcontinent with rich cultures going back to a number of
millennia must have had something in common in their cultures to absorb cricket
into their respective cultures. India is mainly Hindu, Pakistan and Bangladesh
mainly Muslim while Sri Lanka is mainly Buddhist. However, it is not the
religion that matters here as there are many Muslim countries and Buddhist
countries that have not been attracted to cricket. We have now drawn
Afghanistan into the orbit and have been able to organize a tournament called
Asia Cup though the use of the word Asia may be objectionable and not cricket
as there are so many Asian countries not playing cricket. (In the same vein the
world cup is a misnomer) The English
have been successful in introducing cricket to the subcontinent through elite schools
but there must have been something in common in these cultures to absorb
cricket. It is not only the rich and the elite of these countries who take an
interest in cricket but the poor and the rural folk as well. Is it the
uncertainties of cricket that our cultures are not unfamiliar with that draws
us to cricket? The limited over cricket and T-20s are more attractive to the
common man in the subcontinent, though the puritans among the elite would continue
to enjoy test cricket. It could be said that it is the limited over cricket
that made cricket more popular in the villages.
In the ICC tournament recently concluded
we as Sri Lankans had one objective. That was to win the cup and in this
respect the team, the coaches, the officials have worked hard though there may
have been differences of opinion (including political) among them. Whether
Dinesh Chandimal was “forced” to volunteer to withdraw from the team or not,
having been appointed as the captain, his withdrawal has to be admired as he
has not shown any resentment at least in public. In fact, he was seen taking
helmets to the middle, and appeared to celebrate the victory as much as the
other members of the team, and he should be applauded for his action.
In politics and government it is
unfortunate that we do not have a common objective. Neither Cricket nor
politics can unite people unless there is a common objective. We do not have a national
policy as such in any area and the policies are changed with change of
government. It is said by the pundits that Sri Lanka could not be united as we
did not have an anti colonial struggle as in India. Even in India there was no
common anti colonial struggle with Chandra Bose and Mahatma Gandhi taking two
different courses of action.
In Sri Lanka the situation was worse.
There was only the anti colonial struggle carried out by the Sinhala people and
mainly the Sinhala Buddhists at that. Even if we confine ourselves to the
period after the signing of the Sinhala English agreement known as the Kandyan convention in 1815 the anti colonial
struggle was confined mainly to the Sinhala Buddhists. In 1817-18 the first
independence struggle was carried out by the people of Uva Vellassa under the leadership
of Keppitipola as the English breached the agreement of 1815 by appointing a
Muslim as a revenue officer, when the agreement said the country has to be
ruled according to the Sinhala law. Thereafter the English though they had
promised to protect Buddhagama they
not only washed their hands off their responsibilities but worked against the
Buddhist culture. The 1848 independence struggle followed and later towards the
end of the nineteenth century the Buddhist revival movement began. Though it
appeared to be a religious movement, it was an independent struggle carried out
by the Sinhala Buddhists. In the twentieth century too the independence
struggle under Anagarika Dharmapala and others took a cultural appearance, and
was confined to the Sinhala Buddhists. The “Bhasha Premins” of the twenties and
thirtees also continued with the independence struggle in their own way.
The Ceylon Congress on the other hand
was confined to those who were educated in elite schools and they were
interested in limited privileges for themselves and were not involved in an
independence struggle. They were petitioners in general who tried to impress
the English colonials that they were more English than the English themselves. The
leaders of this movement towards the end of the nineteenth century were mainly
Tamil elites from the Vellala caste and the Ceylon Congress unlike the Indian
Congress had no impact on the common man, meaning the common Sinhala person who
was involved in anti colonial struggle. Ironically the common Tamil person was
not involved in any anti colonial struggle and the leftist Tamil organisations
were in general elite organisations confined to Jaffna and Colombo.
What I would like to emphasise is that
there was only one independence struggle by the Sinhala Buddhists, and the
Sinhala Christians joined the Sinhala Buddhists ironically only after the
school takeover in 1962. The Tamils on the other hand were not engaged in anti
colonial struggle, the movement of Navalar Arumugam being purely a religious
movement that did not bother the English colonials. Thus there was no one
common objective as far as independence was concerned and there is no wonder
that we have not been able to “win the match”. The biggest irony is that the
Tamils who were not engaged in any anti colonial struggle against the English
took up arms against what they called the Sinhala government, maneuvered by the
English and the other western countries. This struggle is not over as funds are
being pumped into the movement by governments with vested interests and as far
as political power is concerned, for the Tamils the Sinhalas have been
portrayed as colonials by the western colonialists. The ordinary Tamils when
they joined the celebrations on Sunday expressed their willingness to live in
harmony with the Sinhalas, as Sri Lankans but when it comes to power politics
the English have been successful in turning the Tamils against the Sinhalas,
thus weakening the anti colonial struggle against the English and other western
colonials. The English have been able to “buy over” the Tamils against the
Sinhalas and this is nothing but match fixing and definitely not cricket. It is
time for the ordinary Tamils who celebrated the T-20 victory to think of the
ultimate victory against the western colonials, unless they think of the
Sinhalas as worse colonials than the English.
Nalin De Silva
11-04-2014