People can have freedom while not being liberated but they cannot be liberated while not having freedom

By Dr.Rajasingham Narendran

‘Liberation’ (Viduthalai in Tamil and Vimukthi in Sinhalese) has come to mean many things to many Tamils of Sri Lanka. What the word means to any individual or a group of people under normal circumstances, will depend on what they need to be liberated from.

At the level of an individual, liberation may be sought from ignorance, foolishness, poverty, disease, anger, bigotry, ego, arrogance, karmic cycles of birth and death, etc.

The cultural background and religious beliefs, social and economic conditions, and political inclinations (e.g., communist vs. capitalist) will determine the type of liberation being sought by a group of people.

The liberation sought can be of a single dimension or multiple dimensions. Within the context of a larger struggle for liberation such as ours, several sub-struggles may take place.

There can be simultaneously a struggle by the so-called low castes to be liberated from the oppression of the so-called higher castes, a struggle by women to be liberated from their traditional roles in society and the struggle of the have-nots to be liberated from want.

Liberation is a struggle that has to continuously take place within a free people, to overthrow a past that has become a burden (Dreary desert of dead habit- Tagore) and achieve a future that is promising.

Liberation is needed to over throw oppression and oppression can be of varying intensities. Only a free people can seek liberation. Slaves will never be able to seek liberation. They have to seek freedom first.

To most people living in the trouble prone areas of Sri Lanka, especially for those living in the North-East, the Tamil liberation struggle has come to signify only liberation from life- death.

Freedom (Suthanthiram in Tamil and Nidhas in Sinhala) and liberation are frequently understood to mean the same by many, and this is understandable. However, they are different. A people can have freedom, while not being liberated. But they cannot be liberated, while not having freedom.

The differences are subtle but profound. We gained ‘Freedom’ from the British, but subsequently sought to be ‘Liberated’ from the Sinhalese. By extension we were not ‘Free’ during colonial rule and were not ‘Oppressed’; and have been ‘Free’ in the post-independence era, but claim to be ‘Oppressed’. This is rather contradictory. If we did not have freedom during the colonial era, we could not have been without oppression.

We have equated the greater material opportunities available to us during the colonial era, with a lack of oppression. We were enticed with economic incentives to learn English, Latin and Greek, and to call the Tamil language teachers, ’Vernacular teachers’.

We were ready to become ‘Little Englishmen’ and mimic their ways. We were taught to look down on our language and culture. Our elite were proud they were more fluent and conversant in English than in Tamil. Tamil became a language to be spoken with servants and those below their station in life, for our elite.

However, we prospered as a minority within the country. True, no one let loose thugs and the armed forces on us during the British colonial era and wreaked havoc in our lives.

This was because we were an obedient, pliant people basking in the colonial sunlight! We were enjoying the rights of good slaves, because we were obedient, hard working and mendacious! We never challenged their right to rule and enslave us.

We were made to become different and what we were not, by various tools the British expertly used. We were the fish the British expertly hooked with attractive bait. However, we were neither free nor liberated. A hooked fish can swim to the limits of the line and may think it is yet swimming.

However, the truth is that it is yet hooked and can be hauled out of water any time to die. This situation can also be compared to a gold fish kept in a fish bowl. It is fed once or twice a day. The bowl is cleaned regularly and new water provided. The gold fish looks fat, sleek and healthy. But is it free? Is it not oppressed? Can it go where it wants and eat what it wants? Can it seek a mate it wants?

This was our life during the ‘Golden era’ of colonialism, when we think we thrived and prospered. There were limits to what we could do and aspire to. We were not free to seek what we needed. We were set on a particular course that met the needs of the British. We accepted this without protest and mistook it for ultimate bliss.

We did not also use the freedom, independence from the British provided, to seek a new and different future. We wanted the status-quo to continue in all aspects of our lives. We wanted to continue being the fish on the hook or the gold fish in the bowl.

We did not know where we wanted to go and did not have the leaders with vision to tell us where we should go. While the rest of Sri Lanka was awakening to new vistas that independence provided and sought to exploit it to their benefit, we were caught in a time warp and craved for a past that was no more.

We were not a dynamic community seeking to liberate ourselves from a colonial past and seek a modern future.

The colonization schemes, Sinhala only blitz, standardization of marks for admission to the universities, nationalization programs and constitutional experiments of the Sinhala polity were part of the attempts to assert their independence and identity, however mistaken, mischievous, misguided, malicious and short sighted these acts were from a national point of view.

The two JVP (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna- Peoples Liberation Movement) armed revolts were directed at the failures of the ruling establishment.

The JVP had a vision different from that of the ruling establishment for Sri Lanka and the Sinhala people. The established system and the nature of politics in Sri Lanka left no room for democratic dissent, discussion and enlightened decision making, even among the Sinhala majority.

The JVP revolts although largely founded on reasonable grievances, failed because they were carried out in the wrong way and over stepped acceptable norms. The tactics adopted by the JVP were wrong and not consonant with the cultural and religious ethos of the Sinhala people.

Although the Sinhala people were sympathetic to the grievances articulated by the JVP, they did not accept the violent methods used. Hence, these revolts did not resonate with the vast majority of the people. This gave the opportunity for the establishment to mercilessly crush both revolts and continue in the ways it was wont to.

The Sri Lankan ruling establishment, dominated by the Sinhalese, has reacted in the same way to the JVP revolts and the Tamil militancy- brutally, short-sightedly, insensitively and unwisely, without any attempt to resolve the underlying causes. The JVP has now re-invented itself as a regular political party in the conventional Sri Lankan mould and has become an important share holder in the very establishment it revolted against!

Subramanya Bharathy (Bharathiyar) in his song titled ‘Viduthalai (Liberation)’ celebrates the liberation that will be achieved by people belonging to various castes who were oppressed within Indian society, on gaining freedom from the British

“ Viduathali, viduthalai, viduthalai, Parayarukkum, ingu theeya pulayarukkum viduthalai, Maravarodu, kuravarukkum—–etc.,” (Tamil)

He also asks a rhetorical question, “Whether those seeking a ‘Brave Freedom’ (Veera Suthanthiram) will think of anything else?” elsewhere in his poetry. The subtle distinction between freedom and liberation has been enunciated beautifully by Bharathiyar.

Where as the following lines from a Saivite hymn widely known to Hindu Tamils, combines the concepts of liberation, freedom and courage, into a composite whole, and underlines a different dimension of thought that influenced the lives of Tamils

“Naam Yaarkum Kudiyallaum- Namanai Anjaum, Narahathil Idapadaum, —-“(Tamil)

—-“We are not anyone’s slaves,Will not fear even Yama (The God of death) and,Will not be condemned to Hell—- (Translation).

Not being anyone’s slave is freedom and not having to fear even Yama, is liberation! Refusing to be condemned to hell is courage indeed! Where do we Tamils now stand in the context of these thoughts that have permeated our lives, from childhood?

We have a cultural and religious heritage that behooves us to do what is ‘Right’ (Aram- Tamil), while standing up courageously for freedom and liberation. We have lost our way some how. We are overwhelmed by fear of every kind imaginable, have lost our freedom to do what is ‘Right ‘ and have pliantly accepted ‘Hell’ as a lifestyle.

Yes, we have been misgoverned by the Sinhala majority in Sri Lanka. They were definitely not ‘Right’. We had the right to resist and revolt against mis-government. We had the right to demand liberation from the oppression of mis-governance. We had the right to fight back when thugs and the armed forces were let loose on us.

We had the right to demand that we be permitted to manage our own affairs. We had also the right to demand a separate state, if a majority of us thought that was a solution to our problems. The freedom to do all these things was our birth right, in independent Sri Lanka.

However, these rights should have been exercised within the context of what is ‘RIGHT (ARAM)’. We have miserably failed to do so and are presently paying a rather heavy price for this folly. We made a Faustian bargain with the devil and have become the victims of this deal. We forsook what was ‘Right’ and permitted our lives to be directed by what is ‘Wrong’.

This is where we have failed. Mahatma Gandhi and a majority of the Indians did not make a Faustian bargain with the devil when they sought freedom for India, nor did Nelson Mandela and his people in South Africa, when they wanted freedom from white rule and liberation from apartheid. They were great leaders and a great people. What are we?

We are at present keeping score of the dead like in a sporting event, in a macabre fashion, with no end in sight for the match. We itch to start a war and do everything possible to instigate one.

Thereafter, if we kill more than the armed forces in any one day, we cheer. If the armed forces kill more of us, we cry foul. We have ceased to value human life and are not appalled at the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children in what is increasingly becoming a futile war.

Deaths have become the measure of success and failure in our liberation struggle. In success, which means that ‘Others’ have died more, we claim a trophy and seek monetary rewards, from those who support us. In failure, which would obviously involve more Tamil deaths, these deaths become our ‘Beggar’s wound’, to attract more support and money.

Our liberation struggle has become a successful money spinning operation in both success and failure, involving principally death! What have we achieved other than death, misery and destruction for all people in Sri Lanka, including us Tamils, through our liberation struggle of twenty five years ? We kill fellow-Tamils and our natural allies- the Tamil speaking Muslims, without any compunction, in the name of liberation.

We kill and are ready to kill any Sinhalese, as a perceived enemy. It is to be noted that more Tamils have died and have become destitute since the advent of this liberation struggle, than our perceived enemies! We have become degenerate and cruel to an extent that it is becoming shameful to be identified as a Sri Lankan Tamil.

What is ‘Right’ is ‘Might’ and this is a lesson we never learned, and probably will never learn, considering what we have become and the type of leaders we have accepted.

From a religious angle, as Hindus we want to be liberated from the karmic cycle of birth and death to attain union with the ‘Supreme or Universal Spirit’, we call God. This would require that we follow a path of ‘Aram’. The first thing taught to Tamil child with the first alphabet ‘Aana’ in Tamil is’

‘Aram Seiya Virumbu’-Auvaiyar
(Desire to do what is ‘Right’-Translation).

The word ‘Aram’ has been beautifully defined by Thiruvalluvar in the following couplets:

“Allukkaru, Avaa, Vehuli, Innaachol- Ivai Naankum,Illukkaa Iyandrathu Aram”

A life lived free of evil thoughts, excessive desire, anger & unpleasant words is Aram-(Translation).

“Aran Enapaduwathu Yaathenil- Yaathondrum,Theemai Illathu Seyal”

Aram is when your actions are absolutely harmless (Translation).

“Maranthum Piran Khedhu Seiyatka-Seiyin, Aram Soolum Soolthavan Khedu”

Aram will punish those who even unconsciously contemplate harming others (Translation).

“ Aravinai Yaathenil Khollaamai-Koeril, Pira Vinnai Ellaam Tharum”
Not killing is an act of Aram. Killing brings in its wake a multitude of bad results (Translation).

“Aravaali Anthanan Thaal Serntharku Allaal-Pirravaali, Neenthal Arithu”Unless one surrenders at the feet of the ‘One who is the epitome of Aram (God)’,

It will be very difficult to cross the sea of life (Translation).

The God we worship is one who is ‘Absolutely Right’ and to seek union with Him-Her, and escape the cycles of birth and death, we have to do what is ‘Right’. This is the essence of our religious beliefs as Saivite Hindus.

Thiruvalluvar once again says:

“Piravi Perum Kadal Neenthuvar- Neenthar, Iraivan Adi Serrathaar”
Those who will be able to cross the ocean of birth and death are those who have surrendered at the feet of God. Those who fail will not be able to swim (Translation).

Thiruvallur, with the brevity, clarity and wisdom he is admired for, has defined for us unequivocally what ‘Right’ is and who the God, the majority of us believe in and worship, is. What is the point in visiting temples, breaking coconuts, pouring gallons of milk, offering flowers and performing other rituals, in our despair, if we fail to understand these basic precepts?

If we define our God as being ‘Right’, we have to seek a path that is ‘Right’ in all our endeavours, including our liberation struggle. Rituals, poojas, archanas or yagas will not absolve us of our sins, if we continue on the path we are. This is the reason even God has failed us in our hours of need, despite our anguished cries to high heaven.

We have the right cause and absolutely reasonable grievances. However, we have taken the wrong path, absolutely alien to our cultural and religious ethos, in search of remedies. We have been force marched on the wrong path by leaders who have imposed themselves on us, at gun point. Accepting such men and women as our leaders was our fault. However, I doubt whether we have the guts and courage to tell them to get lost!

Killing innocent people is wrong. Killing unarmed opponents is wrong. Killing people, only because they disagree is wrong. Killing people because they are different from us is wrong. Suicide bombing is wrong. Sending innocent children into war is wrong. Mass murder is wrong. Exposing innocent civilians- men, women and children, to death is wrong.

Cycle bombs are wrong. Trishaw bombs are wrong. Claymore mines are wrong. Encouraging other people and other people’s children to die, while resorting to all sorts of devices to keep ourselves, our children and our kin safe, is wrong. Brainwashing children is wrong.

Raising orphaned children as suicide bombers and cannon fodder is wrong. Falsehood to seek favourable publicity is wrong. Intimidating the press with the threat of death is wrong. Kidnapping is wrong. Extortion is wrong. Bribery is wrong. Coveting other people’s property is wrong. Forcing a people to tow a line they do not accept, at gun point, is wrong. Pedaling narcotics is wrong.

Cheating in any form is wrong. Lying is wrong. Character assassination of those who dissent is wrong. Blackmail is wrong. Thuggery is wrong. The inclusion of crooks, thugs, rowdies, cads, cheats and bullies, hooligans, criminals, murderers and ignoramuses at various levels of the liberation movements is wrong. All these and more have come to characterize our liberation struggle.

There are good, dedicated and idealistic men in the liberation struggle, but they are the minority at the levels that matter, and seldom heard. The noticeable fact is that our liberation struggle has become the last refuge of many rascals! There is no doubt that a large numbers of our sons and daughters, and brothers and sisters have been brave in battle and have sacrificed their lives for us.

This was right and this was great. They have to be remembered and honoured by every Tamil. However, their idealism, bravery and sacrifice have been tarnished beyond redeem by the wrongs that have overtaken our liberation struggle. In the final count they may have fought and died in vain. We have killed everything that was ‘Right’ in our struggle and enthroned everything that is ‘Wrong’!

The task at hand now is to regain the freedom we have unwittingly lost to forces of evil. This freedom has to be regained, if we are to liberate ourselves from mis-rule in Sri Lanka. We are not a free people anymore. We are living in fear of our lives. We have become the slaves of cruel masters. We are told what to do and how to comply. We are told what to think. We are told when our children can learn and when not.

We are killed, if we disagree. We are being killed and are killing others in a war that a majority of us do not want. We have become a nation of refugees and are trying to make others also suffer the same fate. The list is endless and even the slaves of yore would pity us.

How can we think of liberation, when we have lost our freedom? Our struggle has to return to the right path and be consonant with our culture and religious ethos, if it is to bear fruit. We have to overthrow the oppression that has overwhelmed us and demand the rights to life and livelihood, before we start talking about and fighting for the other niceties of human life, such as our political and citizenship rights

The Sinhalese did not take away our freedom. We never demanded freedom from the Sinhalese. Our struggle was to liberate ourselves from the mis-rule of the Sinhala ruling establishment. We have lost our freedom through our own idiocy. Once we regain our freedom, let us fight for our liberation from Sinhala mis-rule, in the right way. The right way need not be always passive. We have the right to fight with guns, if we have no other alternatives. However, let us do so the right way, adhering to civilized and acceptable norms.

Let us not sacrifice our lives, our humanity and our money, at the ‘Altar’ of a liberation struggle that has lost its soul long ago and has become a personification of evil. The wrongs the Sinhalese, the Sinhala polity and the Sri Lankan government are accused of are not a reason or rationale for us to do wrong. I hope what I have been saying for a long time and have said here will make sense to the Tamils of Sri Lanka, where ever they may live, who yet believe in an Almighty God and whose mercy they desperately seek in various ways

This Article was originally published in August 2006 on “Tamilweek” when the Tamil “liberation struggle” was on in the form of armed conflict

Post-Geneva geopolitical challenges

by Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka


The key features of Sri Lanka’s most recent Geneva experience loom larger than the confines of Geneva and the UN system. They are the main challenges that Sri Lanka has to face in the external arena; challenges with an internal dimension. Tamil Nadu’s mood is more hostile to Sri Lanka than it is not; it is more influential in Indian politics than it has been since the years of MGR; it is and will always be next door. While the memories of the 1980s that this evokes in the collective psyche of the Sinhalese may prove a phobia, it is not a risk that responsible Sri Lankans can take, especially when those memories are reinforced by the historical memories (primordial or constructed) of millennia.


Sri Lanka is strategically vulnerable to neighbouring hostility driven by sub-regional sentiments. As an island and a relatively small one (unlike say, Cuba), our sources of supply and re-supply are vulnerable to blockade (even Cuba experienced an effective naval blockade in 1962), while our security assets in our ‘cone’ or ‘funnel’ shaped border zone (and conceivably elsewhere) are vulnerable to a conventional first strike. That ‘cone’ can be detached by off-shore force projection which does not divert into and dissipate in a Southern quagmire, and following a plebiscite as in Kosovo and South Sudan, can formally exit the Sri Lankan state formation. This is surely one of the scenarios of the global Tamil secessionist networks.


Policy and strategic planning must always take worst case scenarios onto account. What options do we have to forestall or resist such a scenario? There is no Israeli model of just saying ‘no’ and hanging tough in "a rough neighbourhood", while ‘creating facts on the ground’ in the border areas you hold —simply because Israel has a military (and nuclear) edge over its entire neighbourhood, and enjoys a virtually open-ended strategic, social, psychological and religio-cultural relationship with the world’s sole superpower. That makes Israel sui generis.


Power balancing has its utility and also its limits as an option for Sri Lanka, because its main ally China, is just too far away, hasn’t developed sufficient force projection capability and has no overland route linking it to Sri Lanka (unlike in the case of China-Pakistan).


While one can and must engage in developing deterrent strategies of asymmetric resistance, and power balancing has its role, i.e. neither option can be dispensed with, Sri Lanka cannot depend upon either of these or a combination of just the two, given the realities of geography and therefore of geopolitics. The latter realities also impose limits on the option of ‘changing (demographic) facts on the ground’.


Sri Lanka’s options then are political, social, psychological and diplomatic, and entail power balancing of sorts— not one country against another, but within countries and societies.


A scrutiny of the Indian media after the Geneva vote reveal that there are many voices, representing diverse strata and sectors, which are opposed to the vote against us. It is this side of India’s calculus that Sri Lanka must strengthen and emphasise. If these sectors and their arguments are reinforced, then they can counterbalance the pressure from their South. Furthermore, if we can reinforce moderate opinion in Tamil Nadu, it can counterbalance militant opinion against us.


This can be achieved only if a similar demarcation and situation of balance can be effected within Tamil opinion in Sri Lanka, which can have ripple effects on the neighbour and the Diaspora. This means strengthening the Tamil moderates and weakening the Tamil ultra nationalists. This cannot be achieved by militancy and radical nationalism from the Sinhala polity, but precisely by greater moderation. When faced with a parliamentary democratic competitor or rival, moderation begets moderation; extremism breeds extremism.


Progress on genuine equality of citizenship and the elimination of all forms of discrimination, as well as on power sharing at centre and periphery, will strengthen the Tamil moderates, and weaken the arguments of Tamil ultranationalist secessionists. Giving the Tamil politicians a stake in the Sri Lankan state can, on balance, help in the de-radicalisation of Tamil politics, with positive spinoffs in Tamil Nadu. If relieved of the pressure from Tamil Nadu, Delhi will feel less inclined or compelled to pressure Colombo.


While our security forces must remain stationed so as to safeguard our sensitive border zone (though minimising their own potential vulnerability to greater force), the larger Sri Lankan polity and society must be reformed and renovated so as to exert a benign gravitational pull on the Tamil North; a pull of integration that eventually proves stronger than the push towards Tamil Nadu and the Tamil Diaspora, and their pull on our island’s North.


With at least one influential TNA politician calling, post-Geneva, for ‘third party mediation’, that slogan can be most effectively resisted not by truculent assertion to the contrary – which cannot forestall anyone nominating a ‘special envoy’ and making us an offer we cannot refuse as in the 1980s. The way to defuse the idea of ‘third party mediation’ is to make it manifest and irrefutable in practice that such an external role is superfluous because political dialogue among democratic players, to resolve ethno-regional issues within our Constitutional order, is proceeding apace.

Callous pursuit of power

Does political power drive electrical power or is it the other way round? Absurd as it may sound ask any ordinary resident of energy-strapped Lahore or Delhi and they will likely acknowledge a palpable nexus between the two colluding and sometimes mutually hostile realities that shore up a citizen’s daily life.


The link between the two can in fact be framed in a slogan. Give me blood and I will give you freedom, said Indian freedom fighter Subhash Bose. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seems to have spun his own mantra, which says: give me energy, preferably nuclear energy, and I will continue to claim unbridled political power.


It is another story that Gandhi’s non-violent method demolished the youthful exuberance of Bose just as his assiduous aversion of consumerism, one pursuit that Gandhi could only be applauded for, would lay low Dr Singh’s galloping ambition for a myopic idea of a happy India.


Across the border, Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani should have read the lovely instructive story on Dawn’s website on how more and more Pakistanis are turning to environment-friendly solar energy to meet their basic needs.


Instead, he found himself holding forth at the Seoul nuclear summit on the merits of nuclear power. Never mind that Fukushima was a short flight away from Seoul, but there were this unique South Asian twosome, representing self-styled nuclear weapons states, if that has done them any good, begging the world for nuclear energy.


No surprises there, though I am not sanguine that Gilani would go to the extent of fudging a vote in his parliament to pursue the obsession with nuclear power, not that Pakistan’s National Assembly is brimming with men or women of insight and reason to challenge what is tantamount to a neo-liberal idea of progress in developing countries.


For the record, Singh’s party stands accused of bribery to win a parliamentary vote to push for laws that would invite foreign nuclear plant vendors to set up shop in India on ridiculously adverse terms.


The South Korean president, the summit’s strange choice for a host, meanwhile, beat back thousands of protesters against his pursuit of nuclear power units, both to increase domestic capacities and for sale abroad. President Obama, coming from a country that had all but disowned manufacturing of nuclear energy plants after the Three Mile Island disaster in 1979, was in attendance, not bereft of obvious double standards to cheer the contenders.


It is clear that the urbanite South Asian has abandoned the simple contraptions like the wind towers of yore, the thatched insulations, high ceilings and commonsensical ventilation as passé. Their preference for desert coolers, which run on scarce electricity and scarcer water, is heartrending.


Far higher-energy-consuming air conditioners are the new metaphors of the so-called development drive in the tropics of South Asia. Fuel-guzzling cars are another fetish. Pakistan should invite my fellow journalist and anti-nuclear activist Praful Bidwai to showcase his battery-run two-seater car, not that it has inspired many in Delhi to heed his obvious advice.


While everyone stands to benefit from a steady supply of affordable electricity, the obsession with power generation and its many uses at any cost is characterised by a class divide. There is also a clear rural-urban hiatus. In a way the divide exists between the larger neo-liberal development strategy and how it is received by the poor.


Why should the poor people of Singur, for example, vacate their land in West Bengal to make way for an Indonesia-based investor to make it an industrial hub? Why should the people of Singur in the same state be evicted from their homes so that mini cars could be assembled there? People could do with mass transport, yes, but cars…?


Delhi has more cars, an increasing number of them guzzlers, than Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata put together. Even the supposedly people-sensitive Left Front missed the point and it paid for it.


In Maharashtra, in India, the massive Jaitapur Nuclear Power Project is the focus of concern — 931 hectares (2,300 acres) of farmland will be needed to build the reactors, land that is now home to 10,000 people, their mango orchards, cashew trees and rice fields — and it has attracted many protests. Fishermen in the region say their livelihoods will be wiped out. Protests have escalated in the wake of the Fukushima tragedy. Will the people win against the state’s machinations and accompanying corporate media hype?


Thousands of protesters and villagers living around the Russian-built Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant in the southern Tamil Nadu state were blocking highways until the state government began a violent crackdown last week after supporting them initially. Prime Minister Singh has accused the protesters of being foreign agents. The people have accused him of being an IMF plant.


What is shocking in this standoff is that a Russian report has questioned the safety of nuclear power plants even as the Indian government, led by the prime minister, swears by them.


The Russian report, stunning in its candour prepared for President Dmitry Medvedev by state agencies concerned with the safety of the country’s nuclear power reactors in the wake of Japan’s Fukushima disaster, reveals that Russia’s atomic reactors are grievously under-prepared for both natural and man-made disasters ranging from floods to fires to earthquakes or plain negligence.


The report comes as several countries have given up on hopes of a nuclear future. Germany had voted to phase out its last nuclear power plant by 2022, and Switzerland plans to follow suit by 2035.


Recently, Italy sent a strong message in a referendum when 95 per cent of Italian voters turned down the opportunity to have a future lighted by nuclear power. Russians have similarly expressed in polls that they would like to see Russia pursue a different energy strategy.


In it, 31 serious flaws that make Russia’s nuclear industry extremely vulnerable to natural disasters are catalogued. The report is one of the few documents to surface in recent history that strongly contradicts Russia’s own glowing assessment that its reactors are safe.


If the fatal Chernobyl unit was made by Russia, the Japanese reactors that inflicted a nightmare on an unsuspecting people had a different genealogy. Indian and Pakistani governments have not much to choose from. Their people do.


The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.

Hunter of Sinhala literature

Simon Navagaththegama’s role in contemporary Sinhala literature should be evaluated against the backdrop of cheap Sinhala literary productions which have been readily crowned with awards at diverse awards ceremonies.


Navagaththegama was famous as a gifted novelist who was credited with introducing modern literary techniques such as magical realism and some of the prominent literary techniques used by writers such as France Kafka. Navagaththegama was also a highly talented short story writer. Although he was a gifted novelist, he displayed remarkable literary skills in crafting short stories. All in all, he wrote four collections of short stories. They are Ohuge Katawa, Sagara Jayala madi haduwa obasanda, Bavanava and Sankava.


Outstanding short story writer
Some writers were famous for one genre although they substantially contributed to other literary genres such as the novel and poetry. For instance, veteran literatus G.B Senanayake was famous for his insightful short stories rather than his equally brilliant novels.


Navagaththegama emerged against the backdrop of somewhat developed genre of Sinhala short story which was enriched and infused with much-needed tropes by Navagathegama’s predecessors such as Hemapala Munidasa, W.A Silva and Martin Wickremasinghe.


Literary rebel
Being a proverbial hunter of Sinhala literature, Navagaththegama broke away from the hitherto established mode and structure of Sinhala short story with the beginning, middle and the end in chronological order. However, this break away from the established structure of the Sinhala short story was not a pre-meditated move on the part of Navagaththegama. It was the case of a writer using his liberty to the maximum within the framework of the short story.


The subject matter of his short stories is always central to the meaning of life with the objectives of exploring the life in its manifold manifestations and interpreting complex web of life experiences. Navagaththegama’s short stories are diverse in terms of their flesh and blood. However, most of his literary productions depicted the coarse and hard life of the men and women of the Vanni in which Simon Navagaththegama was born and bred. Characters in Navagaththegama’s writings were largely untouched by the onslaught of urbanisation and globalisation.


A prominent approach employed in his short stories was the highly individualised narrative mode. Although the mouth-piece of the writer is quite obvious, significantly, it does hamper neither the content nor the tropes employed in the text. The writer’s prime objective seemed to narrate the story exploring the complexities of life. In many instances, Navagaththegama was successful in achieving his objectives.


Insightful diction
A prominent factor which made Navagaththegama’s literary productions extremely popular among readers was his outstanding diction full of subtleties that subject to plurality of readings. His remarkable diction seemed to derive its luscious prosperities from diverse literary and linguistic sources such as contemporary Sinhala idiom, folk idiom and the classical Sinhala literary idiom. However, what establishes beyond doubt within the nuanced narrative mode and style is the literary colossus of Simon Navagaththegama the writer. Navagaththegama exploited the intrinsic properties of his potent diction in almost all of his short stories.


For instance, his short story Ohuge Kathawa (His own story) in the collection of short stories of the same name, depicts the state of mind of newly married young man whose love for his wife is increasingly waning while seeking solace from a sex worker. The meat of the short story is the confused mind of the young man.


In Ohuge Kathawa, the protagonist Wimal’s character is revealed not through a lengthy description as in the case of a conventional short story but through a series of well-crafted dialogues. In the short story Sagara jalaya madi handuwa oba sanda in the collection of short stories of the same name and the short story Ohu Miyagiya Pasu in the collection was subsequently turned into a film by veteran filmmaker Sumitra Peries as Sagara jalaya madi handuwa oba sanda , is woven around a story of a teacher who falls in love with a young female student and explores the disturbed mind of the teacher who could not marry the girl.


Even in the short story Snahaya in the collection of short stories Bavanava, Navagaththegama explores the sublime nature of love; in this particular context fatherly love towards his son. The story is set against the harsh landscape of Vanni and around the lives of a peasant’s family; Rankira, Pinchi Mahaiyya and their son. The old man, Rankira becomes invalid following a snake bite and is in a delirious state. However, Rankira responds only when his wife speaks about his son. A significant aspect of characters depicted in Navagaththegama’s short stories is their unassailable authenticity as they are almost based on and born out of the arid landscape of Vanni.


His footprints in cinema
Apart from his own literary productions such as his novel Suddilage Kathawa and short story Ohu malagiya pasu which were turned into cinema as Suddilage Kathawa and Sagara Jayala Madihanduva Obasanda respectively, Simon Navagaththegama wrote scripts for the films Sirimadura and Seilama. His very first film script Neranjana which unfortunately had never became a film, was turned into a novel under the title Shira Sagaraya Kalabini. His film scripts entitled Kappetipola and Sansara Arangnaye Asabada were also not made into films. Outside the cinema, Simon Navagaththegama wrote scripts for teledramas such as single episode series entitled Bhavana by Bertrum Nihal; the series was made up of Pretavastuva, Bhavana and Akala Rathriya and Pretavastuva was from Navagaththegama’s collection of Short stories entitled Bhavana. Besides writing scripts for films, Navagaththegama played diverse roles in nine films; Sevanali Ada Minnissu, Thunveni Yamaya, Doringe Sayanaya, Bava Duka, Bava Karma, Kinihiriya Mal, Salupata Ahasata, Bambara Sanakeli and Premavantayo.


His life in brief
Simon Navagaththegama was born on September 15, 1940 and passed away on October 9, 2005. Navagaththegama commenced his illustrious as well as controversial literary career, which expanded the horizons of contemporary Sinhala literature, with Ohuge Kathawa (1960). His voluminous as well as extraordinary literary contribution included Saagara Jayala Madi Handuwa Obasanda (Short Story collection), Saahithyaya ,Samajawadaya saha kala vicharaya, Suddhilage Kathawa, Sansaranyaye Dadayakkaraya which was translated into English as The Hunter in the wilderness of Sansara by Malinda Seneviratne, Sansaranyaye Urumakkaraya, Sansaranyaya Asabada, Dadayakkarayage Kathawa, Saankawa


Sapeshani, Ksheera Sagaraya Kalabina, Himalaya tharanayakala kala Arjuna kumarayage Kathava, Wanaraya (Radio play), Acharya Bryan De Cretser , Ohy saha ohuge adahas, Kalawa, Samajawadaya saha Kala Vicharaya.


Some of his dramas are Gangawak, Sapathukabalak saha Maranayak, Puslodan, Suba saha Yasa, Sthrii (woman), Sudu saha Kalu and Pandukhabaya.

UNHRC resolution: Understanding the long term agenda

by Shanaka Jayasekara




Broadening Regional Stakeholders On the face of it, the Indian decision to vote in support of the US sponsored resolution on Sri Lanka seems a departure from its stated doctrine for the Indian sphere of influence. It was the former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, that stated, also referred to as the Indira doctrine that, "India will neither intervene in the domestic affairs of any state in the region unless requested to do so, nor tolerate such intervention by an outsider power". By supporting the US resolution, India in some sense has outsourced its regional stake to an external power.


But is this a complete change in Indian foreign policy at the behest of Tamil Nadu, or part of a new Indian approach to broaden the stakeholders in the region. India has opted to stand in the shadow of multilateral processes to deal with regional issues in recent times. In Nepal, the Indians preferred to watch the UN special mission UNMIN manage the peace process. In the Maldives, the Indians have outsourced responsibility to the Commonwealth Secretariat to take the lead.


The new Indian policy of engaging with multilateral processes on regional issues is consistent with Indian strategic interest. India which is an aspirant of a permanent seat on the UN Security Council prefers to partner multilateral processes that demonstrate a capacity to act as a responsible member of the international community. India also views the benefits of drawing the United States and western allies into a containment alliance against China and Pakistan. There is a growing convergence of strategic interest between India and the United States. In Afghanistan the Indians have played a more reliable and credible role than Pakistan. On the issue of nuclear weapons the US decision to support Indian membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) by default recognises India as a legitimate nuclear weapons state. Therefore, drawing western powers as broader South Asian stakeholders serves Indian interest.


Complacency in Sri Lanka


Sri Lanka had got into a state of complacency believing that Indian support was unconditional. India maintained a non-interventionist policy during the war which proved to be the game-changer for a Sri Lankan victory. During the conduct of the war Sri Lanka engaged closely with the Indian bureaucracy with regular visits and meetings. In the post-war period Sri Lanka adopted an indecisive approach on political power sharing. India sent several emissaries to expedite a power sharing mechanism in Sri Lanka but had limited success. The TNA talks were seen as a constructive process which India supported, however as time went by it became clear that the TNA talks were simply a prelude to the Parliamentary Select Committee process. The goal post for a political settlement kept changing and the roadmap for power sharing was indecisive and unclear.


The complacency in Sri Lanka was not a case of deception, rather a strong view within government that infrastructure development in the North will build peace and reconciliation. While the pro-LTTE lobby tends to present this as a deceptive ploy, the leadership in Colombo seems convinced that development is the key for lasting peace. Though there was not much progress on power sharing, the development in the North has been unprecedented. Keeping in mind a recession in Europe, a Euro crisis and a tsunami in Japan,that significantly limited traditional donors from supporting the reconstruction effort. However, Sri Lanka borrowed and infused capital resources to the North. Furthermore, the return of over 300,000 internally displaced persons in a short time is a notable achievement. The release of over 8000 former LTTE combatants to the care of their families is a success story and a magnanimous gesture which has gone un-noticed. There is no doubt Sri Lanka successfully delivered on, reconstruction in the North, the return of IDPs and reintegration of former combatants. However, when it comes to disarming dissident Tamil groups and a power sharing mechanism there has been limited progress. One could say it has been only three years since the end of the war and ittoo early to make a judgement.


India itself cannot hold the moral high ground on post-war reconciliation. In the aftermath of Operation Blue Star in Amritsar that annihilated the Sikh separatist movement killing thousands, the Indian government signed the Rajiv-Longowal Accord (July 1985) which agreed to transfer the capital Chandigarh to Punjab. Over 25 years since the agreement was signed, the city of Chandigarh remains a joint capital of both Haryana and Punjab.


Western Agenda


The US resolution was timed to coincide with the Indian budget, the US knew Indian support was vital and the budget provided the opportunity to break the Indian bureaucracy on this issue. It was no easy decision for India to vote against its neighbour at the UN. India has never been in favour of UN resolutions, had the timing not been so critical the Indians would have opted for a different course of multilateral action. The UN Security Council resolution 47 (1948) calling for a plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir remains unimplemented. India regularly abstains from country specific resolutions at the UN, therefore this is not the path India would have preferred but had little option when the US sponsored resolution was tabled on the eve of the Indian budget.


The resolution serves several interests, firstly to counter criticism that the international criminal court has only prosecuted Africans for war crimes. The resolution on Sri Lanka, though not binding and at this stage not referred to the ICC, the principle of accountability in conflict has been extended beyond the African continent.


However to understand the underlying reasons for the US initiative, one needs to refer to President Obama’s speech to the 65th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2010. President Obama speaking at the UN stated "we see leaders abolishing terms limits". It was inferred at the time that reference was highlighting the introduction of the 18th amendment to the constitution in Sri Lanka which took place a few days before President Obama’s speech. When the Executive branch of government attempts to stay in office beyond two terms (expect in a Westminster system) a form of entrenched authority sets-in to governance. In Africa, several executive presidents have served consecutive terms for over 20 years, such as in Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Republic of Congo, Uganda, Burkina Faso and Sudan. There is a concerted effort by the international community to reverse this trend as seen in Ivory Coast, Senegal and even in Yemen and Myanmar. This is a sequel to the Arab spring the Middle East.


The US sponsored resolution places a mandatory requirement on the implementation of the LLRC recommendations. While the LLRC recommendations are positive in general, the implementation should not be compulsory.


Furthermore, the open-ended mandate of the resolution which states "also address alleged violations of international law", places a noose round Sri Lanka which can be tightened at anytime. Even if Sri Lanka fully implements the all recommendations of the LLRC, it will still be insufficient to fulfil the resolution. The resolution is extremely ambiguous and derives an open-ended mandate, that compliance with the resolution will always be subjective and contentious.


Long Term Plan


The resolution is setting the stage with a long term agenda. In the next twelve months Sri Lanka has to present an action plan on the implementation of the LLRC recommendation and address alleged violations of international law. The latter will remain a contentious which will come under perpetual criticism. When the action plan is to be appraised in 2013, President Rajapaksa would be close on three years into his second term of the Presidency which commenced in November 2010. The US membership on the UN Human Rights Council can run for two terms of three years each which takes them to 2018. President Rajapaksa will have to contest re-election of his third term by 2016.


The long term agenda is to set in place a formal process with international trappings that can be escalated if and when required. The initial response from Sri Lanka on the resolution was one of defiance. However, this approach needs to be considered carefully. While it is politically savvy with the domestic audience the long term implications have to be far reaching.


As stated above the resolution is ambiguous and open-ended. However, Sri Lanka has an opportunity to set the boundaries and the mandate by clearly defining the goals and objectives in the action plan. Sri Lanka needs to shift the reference point from the resolution to the action plan. It is imperative for Sri Lanka to turn the attention away from the resolution and develop an action plan that recognises domestic legal processes, presents realistic expectations and only promise what can be delivered. By working towards result-oriented deliverables, Sri Lanka will have an opportunity to present achievements year-on-year that are tangible and impact positively on reconciliation.

Regional cinema of India

One distinctive feature of the Indian cinematic landscape is the existence of its vigorous regional cinemas. In no other country in the world do we find such a large number of proactive, vibrant and self-contained regional cinemas. This is not merely a matter of the largeness of the country. China has even a larger population than India, but it does not have the kind of flourishing regional cinemas that India possesses.


This is a matter bearing on the cultural uniqueness of India - the diverse languages and cultures that large numbers of different members of the nation identify with. The existence, at times even flourishing, of such a range of regional cinemas gives Indian film world is distinctiveness. To deal comprehensively with all the regional cinemas of India, something not possible in a column of this nature, is to enter into the unique film culture of India,.


Diversity
India can lay claims to a rich diversity of languages (not dialects) and cultures that no other country has. There are at least 15 languages, and over 2000 dialects spoken in India, and films are made in all the officially recognised languages. Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu languages are the three languages that are associated with most number of films. Many of these films belong to what film critics generally refer to as popular cinema. A number of studies has been published in recent times that seek to chart the growth of these regional cinemas like Bengali and Malayalam and how they respond to contemporary challenges.


Even so, it is my conviction that this is indeed a topic that is under-theorised. Hence, both as a way of extending the discussion of Indian cinema and providing an intellectual framework for the understanding it we need to examine this topic.


The central point of regional cinema is that it is regional - that it deals with local cultural geographies. As we all know, there is no cultural geography without a cultural history; hence any discussion of a cultural geography locks us into a discussion of a cultural history as well. Regional cinemas seek to capture the force of local languages, local frames of awareness, role of cultural imagination. Hence these films tend to focus on symbolic systems that are associated with distinct regions.


One thing interesting about cinema is that it is generally regarded as a universal medium that speaks a universal language. However, at the same time, it is firmly culturally-grounded. This duality points to a significant fact about regional cinemas, namely, its interplay between regional, national and international imperatives.


Cosmopolitant intents
Regionalised cinemas are territorialised cinemas. At the same time they harbor cosmopolitan intents as well. As with Indian cinema in general, regional cinemas too consist of two streams - the popular and artistic.


The artistic filmmakers are interested in reaching a national, and if possible, international audiences.


The more successful among them, say, Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen, Aparna Sen (Bengali cinema), Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Aravinadan and Shaji Karun (Malayalam cinema) have accomplished precisely that. Hence, any meaningful discussion of regional cinemas of Indian has to contend with this fact.


One can re-phrase this in a different way; in Indian regional cinemas we can discern a creative tension between a vernacular imagination that seeks to focus on the culturally and linguistically unique traits and a cosmopolitan imagination that seeks to embrace a much wider field of interest. Indeed, this interplay gives many of the more successful regional cinemas their vitality. To be sure, not all regional cinemas in India are equally vibrant and artistically successful.


Some like the regional cinemas in Bengal and Kerala have achieved greater national and international visibility than others. However, the important point is that these regional cinemas point to a unique feature of Indian film culture. They prefer not to compete for acclamation on any terms but their own.


Conventions
In order to understand the true nature and significance of regional cinemas we need to examine the cultural imaginary projected by them. Using culturally-grounded narratives, codes, conventions, semiotic of representation, myths, fables etc. regional filmmakers are keen to construct a regional cultural imaginary based on their Assamese or Punjabi or Maharashtra experience. At the same time, it has to be recognised that cultures are not timeless entities but products of history, politics and geography. They are sites in which frames of meaning relevant to everyday life are constantly made, unmade and remade.


What this means is that it is of the utmost importance that we explore this cultural imaginary projected by regional cinema in relation to the march of modernity.


In other words, culture and modernity are mutually constitutive. What is interesting about the more successful and accomplished regional films of India is that they vividly demonstrate the truth of this statement.


In order to understand the true power of regional films we need contextualise them culturally. This is, of course, not to imprison them in nostalgia or static cultures but to make them both reflectors and shapers of their respective cultures on the move. Films are necessarily interventions into ongoing cultural conversations.


The relationship between the national cinema and regional cinemas of India raises fascinating questions. Hindi is the closest to a pan-Indian language in India, although many in the south would contest this statement. If so, what is Indian national cinema? Satyajit Ray made films largely in Bengali, but he is regarded as a national filmmaker; Adoor Gopalakrishnan made films largely in Malayalam, but he is considered a national filmmaker.


Hence there is an evaluative component to our understanding and description of regional and national cinema. When regional filmmakers achieve success, win awards at international film festivals their works begin to be re-described as national films rather than regional films. This is indeed an interesting aspect of this discussion of regional cinemas.


Of the Indian regional cinemas, the two, in my judgment, that are most interesting are Bengali and Malayalam cinema. Hindi cinema or Bombay (Mumbai) commercial cinema which has grown into Bollywood, is more national than regional. Let us first consider Malayalam cinema which is in some ways, culturally speaking, closer to Sinhala cinema. The cinema of Kerala has achieved international visibility largely due to the highly commendable efforts of film directors such as Adoor Gopalakrishnan, G. Aravindan, and Shaji Karun.


Malayalam films
While popular Malayalam films bear the imprint of melodramatic romantic musicals- and they are produced in large numbers – the artistic cinema continues to grow within a neo-realistic framework. It is important to bear in mind the fact that the Kerala literacy rates are the highest in the country, and that there has been a vigorous literary and theatrical tradition that have contributed to the constitution of a vibrant film culture in Kerala.


Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s Elippatthayam (Rat Trap), made in 1981 brought him international critical acclaim and the British film institute award for the ‘maker of the most original and imaginative film.’ His other works such as Mukhamukham (Face to Face) and Ananrhram (Monologue) explore the concept of the self and its struggles to adapt to changing and demanding social circumstances.


Gopalakrishnan was closely identified with the New Indian Cinema. Those filmmakers who were identified with this movement sought to, following the lead of Satyajit Ray, create a realistic, non-melodramatic cinema that was marked by self-restraint. Filmmakers associated with the New Indian Cinema were keen to go beyond Ray and address issues of social significance and political relevance.


As in Satyajit Ray’s films, in Gopalakrishnan’s films too, we find remarkable use of understatement , a slow meditative camera that weighs patiently the meaning of the most mundane of events, avoiding the flashy exuberance one normally associates with popular films. In Mukhamukham, for example, Gopalakrishnan probes the theme of self and modernisation, this time taking a different tack from Elippathayam.


This film deals with the life and death of Sreedharan, a devoted Communist Party worker who was deeply loyal to the cause and much respected by his fellow-workers. He leads the trade union at a tile factory, and suddenly, to the utter astonishment of everyone, begins to shun politics. Once again the style of the film is deeply reminiscent of neo-realism. Gopalakrishnan was criticised by some for implicitly maligning the Communist Party politics.


Shadow Kill
A more recent film that demonstrates Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s innovative impulse is Nizhalkkuthu (Shadow Kill) made in 2003. It is a film that probes into the deep recesses of the human consciousness in a way that few filmmakers are willing to undertake.


In this film he explores the life of a hangman, Kaliyappan, a human being burdened with anxiety and anguishing over the memories of the many people he has hanged, especially one innocent young man hanged some twenty five years ago. What makes this film particularly interesting is the moving allegory that is inscribed in it. It addresses issues of human responsibility and human freedom through the experiences of a hangman overcome by guilt.


There are rich contrasts in the film: the hangman’s rope that kills the condemned also cures the sick. The rope has curative powers; when burnt before an image of Goddess Kali it tends to give away a magical ash that has the power to cure human ailments.


It is evident that the hangman himself is a reflection of the Goddess Kali; he is both destroyer and protector. As he ministers to others, he himself sinks further and further into mental anguish and physical discomfort.’ Anantharam’ is another interesting film by Gopalakrishnan that explores the intersecting themes of selfhood, memory, representation and fragmentation. There is a post-modern feel to the texture of the film.


G. Aravindan was the other filmmaker who contributed significantly to the creation of a strong art cinema in Kerala in the 1980s. His films such as Thampu (The Circus Tent), Kummaty ( The Bogeyman), Esthappan (Stephen) Pokkuveyil (Twilight Shadows) display his versatility as a film director. The Circus Tent examines the complicated and in many ways lonely lives of circus-players; he does so with an almost documentary authenticity in representing the world and the lives of the people he is imaginatively reconfiguring. Kummaty deals with the legendary figure of a mysterious wizard who figures prominently in children’s stories. Aravindan is able to depict his activities and the reactions to him with a sense of poetic charm. Esthappan is set among the Christian fishermen in Kerala and narratives the life and doings of a wandering spiritualist who exudes a sense of mystic aura. Pokkuveyil captures the life of a young poet who is increasingly finding it difficult to confront the harsh realities if life. Consequently, he is compelled to seek refuge in fantasy and day-dreaming. What is interesting about the film is that it has very little dialogue; the director relies on the creative use of visual registers and colors to narrate his story in cinematic terms.


Social order
Chidambaram, one of his finest films, is set on a commercial farm and it is evident that the characters are not tethered to a secure and stable social order; they are uprooted, alienated and transplanted into an artificial social context where they are forced to cultivate their individual selves improvising as they go along.


This film examines with great sensitivity the complex relationships among four characters; Shankaran is an office superintendant on a farm, Jacob is a field supervisor who is authoritative, Muniyandi is a labourer who is deeply religious and Shivagami, Muniyandi’s wife, who comes to live on the farm. Chidambaram deals with their convoluted relationships and the marvelously effective final sequence of the film takes pace at Chidambaram, the famous Hindu temple in South India where Lord Shiva is reputed to have been transformed into the famed cosmic dancer who enables human beings to free themselves from their mundane embroilments and experience the ecstasy of supra-mundane reality.


Aravindan who has always been deeply interested in exploring modes of religious and mythic consciousness in his films, is here clearly introducing a metaphysical note into his film. This film illustrates how a religious sensibility and cinematic sensitivity can come together in a fruitful union.


Shaji Karun is another film director associated with Malayalam cinema who has helped to gain international recognition for this regional cinema. When he first emerged as a filmmaker, he had already distinguished himself as a skilful cameraman. His first feature film, Piravi (The Birth) made in 1988 won for him great international acclaim. Based on a true story, the killing of Rajan that took place during the Indian emergency in the mid-1970s, it explores with great poetic sensitivity and cinematic understanding the anguished search of an old man for his lost son who was reported to have been taken into police custody.


The film is at one a study of human psychology and social injustice; and the director communicates his experience visually with great lyrical beauty. It is hardly surprising, then, that Piravi went onto win top awards at numerous prestigious film festivals in the world.


Artistic films
While art film directors in Kerala were busy with their artistic films, the popular cinema in Kerala was vigorously catering to the escapist desires and tastes of the majority of film-goers, producing what can only be described as cheap entertainment. These films offer romance, action, melodrama, seduction and murder in plentiful supply. As in many other sites in India, the film industry in Kerala has had its ups and downs, at one point, money from the gulf states began to pour into the film industry, but it is no longer the case.


As with most popular cinemas, the appeal of films was contingent on the drawing power of the actors and actresses. In Kerala, actors such as Mammooty and Mohanlal, who have had the privilege of acting in hundreds of films, were eagerly sought by film producers. However, we need to bear in mind that it is the art cinema that we are primarily concerned with.


The second important regional cinema that I wish to discuss is Bengali cinema. Of all the regional cinemas of India, it is Bengali cinema that has attracted the most intense attention both inside and outside India. Filmmakers such as Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and Mrinal Sen have brought global fame to India.


And filmmakers belonging to a younger generation such as Gautam Ghosh, Aparna Sen and Buddhadeb Dasgupta, who contributed significantly to Bengali cinema in the 198s and 10090s, carried forward the art of cinematography put in place by Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen. What I would like to do is to discuss briefly the work of the three Bengali filmmakers Ray, Ghatak and Sen as a way of conveying the strengths of this regional cinema. When we talk of art cinema in India, the first name that springs to mind is that of Satyajit Ray. This is because he was primarily responsible for fashioning this genre and gaining international recognition for it. His first film Pather Panchali, ( The Song of the Road) made in 1955, was the first such film. In a poll conducted by the well-known British film journal Sight and Sound, this film was voted one of the ten greatest films of all time.


Pather Panchali represents the world of Apu, a little boy whose life and fortunes are recounted in two subsequent that form what is popularly referred to as the Apu trilogy. The second film in the trilogy, Aparajito (The Unvanquished) examines the evolving world of Apu from the age of ten to seventeen. And the third film in the trilogy Apu Sansar (The World of Apu), narrates his growth into adulthood, his marriage and fatherhood against the backdrop of city life in Calcutta.


It is important to note that these films offer a sharp contrast to Indian popular films. There is a pervasive visual lyricism and a deep humanism that marks these films and sophisticated lovers of cinema throughout the world found these features compellingly alluring.


Aristocracy
Ray went on to make such outstanding films such as Jalsaghar (The Music Room), Mahanagar (The Big City), Devi (Goddess), Charulatha and Ghare Baire (The Home and the World). Jalsaghar deals with an arrogant member of the decaying aristocracy and depicts both his refined taste and ruinous self-indulgence.


Mahanagar is given over to an examination of the impact of urban consciousness on human behaviour and sensibility, while Devi explores themes of religiosity and suppressed sexuality. Charulatha, which in many ways is one of the most accomplished films by Ray, deals with great sympathetic understanding and cinematic virtuosity the life of a young woman straining to come to terms with her enforced upper class idleness, unrealised artistic desires and forbidden love for her husband’s cousin.


Ritwik Ghatak was a different kind of filmmaker from Ray. His films such as Meghe Dhaka Tara (Cloud-Capped Star) Komal Gandhar (E Flat), Subarnarekha display his abundant talent and independence of mind. He was a deeply socially conscious filmmaker who was keen to make use of cinema for the purpose of moral edification and consciousness-raising. In addition Ghatak was able to use melodrama effectively in the service of high art, a definite departure from Satyajit Ray’s aesthetic. He deployed his soundtrack’s density which was often full of anti-naturalistic sounds and unusual focal techniques to focus on his Marxist-inspired political thinking. In his use of melodrama, he harked back to the Indian theatre traditions and myths and archetypes. He was deeply distressed by the partitioning of India and that finds poignant expression in his cinema.


The third important Bengali filmmaker that I wish to comment on briefly is Mrinal Sen. He started out as radical filmmaker and was bent on making cinema a site for social engagement. In some of his films such as Interview he was able to accomplish this objective with cinematic persuasion. He is the author of such well-known films as Bhuvan Shome, Akash Kusom (Up on the Clouds), Interview, Calcutta, Akaler Sandhaney (In Search of Famine). Ekdin Pratidin, (And Quiet Rolls the Dawn), Khariji (The Case is Closed) and Genesis.


To give a sense of his interests and style as a filmmaker let me cite ,one of his early films, Akaler Sandhaney. It was made in 1920 and depicts an idealistic middle class film director who is deeply convinced of the power of his chosen medium to bring about social change. He comes to a village with the aim of recreating the great Bengal famine of 1943. The film he is determined to make is called In Search of famine. As he begins to shoot the film it dawns him that nothing very much has changed since 1943 famine. The way Sen explores this narrative attests to his imagination and skill as a filmmaker.


Variety
I have given you a glimpse of the strengths and variety of Bengali cinema. What is interesting about these films is that they are both regional and national films at the same time, and as I pointed out earlier, there is indeed a fine line between regional cinema and national cinema. I would like to conclude these observations by commenting on a new book on Bengali cinema titled, ‘Bengali Cinema: An Other Nation.’


It is by the film scholar Sharmistha Gooptu. There have been many books and monographs written by journalists, film critics and film scholars and cultural commentators on this regional cinema; however there have been relatively few academic explorations of this topic. Sharmistha Gooptu’s book on Bengali cinema, which is based on her doctoral research at the University of Chicago, clearly belongs to the rare category of scholarly investigations into Bengali cinema. It is full of new and interesting information; its analytical approach which focuses on the discursive formation of Bengal cinema is fresh and insightful. She has sought to situate Bengali cinema in its proper social, political, cultural, economic and ideological contexts. She has, for the most part succeeded in her attempt.


The book consists of an introduction, a discussion of the early years, the idea of a Bengali cinema, Bengali and national cinema, the transition to regional cinema, Bengal love stories in film, common man’s comedy, Satyajit Ray and the Bengali cinema, changing contexts and new texts. There is an epilogue and afterword to round out the discussion.


Thus, it can be described as a comprehensive treatment of the growth of cinema in Bengal. Bengali cinema, to be sure, has produced outstanding film directors such as Ray, Ghatak and Sen. The author of this study has patiently explored their work as well as other gifted filmmakers from Bengal, never losing sight of her declared goal of examining the discursive production of Bengali cinema.


Bengali cinema
Sharmistha Gooptu, at the beginning of the book, makes the following assertion.’ This book re-examines the Bengali cinema. It makes the argument that Bengali cinema, from the time of its inception, has been a key economic institution which must be considered for what it brings to bear upon our existing sense of Bengali and Indian history.’


This is indeed a very constructive approach to Bengali cinema; it is the kind of approach that is conspicuously absent from many of the other books on this subject which are often confined to plot commentaries and broad historical growths.


One of the strengths of the book – and there are many – is the interesting way in which Gooptu juxtaposes the widely circulating concepts of Hindi national cinema and that of Bengali cinema. It is her conviction that Bengali cinema furnishes us with a counter-argument to the influential valorisation of Hindi films as constitutive of national cinema.


Through this juxtaposition, she is able to deconstruct the popularly held notion of Indian cinema in productive ways .Through a careful de- coding of important concepts such as modernity, nationhood, indigeneity, social formations and cultural logics, the author succeeds in examining the discursive production of Bengali cinema lucidly and cogently.


Sharmistha Gooptu’s study contains much useful information related to Bengali cinema and she has opened potentially productive lines of inquiry that others could pursue with confidence and profit. There are a few areas that in my opinion deserved more careful attention. For example, although the author refers to the relationship between visual culture and the public sphere, she does not follow that insight with the commitment it deserves.


Miriam Hansen, in her remarkable study of early Hollywood cinema, titled Babel and Babylon, (which Gooptu cites in relation to the idea of vernacular modernity), demonstrates persuasively how the emergence of spectatorship can be usefully linked to the historical transformations of the public sphere.


Issues
Bengali cinema has played and continues to play a very important role in the public sphere in the Habermasian sense. The films of Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen and Satyajit Ray, among others, contributed hugely to the generation of a broad range of issues related to Bengali society as it transformed itself in response to newer challenges.


I also felt that the classical roots of Bengali cinema and the impact of theatre could have been explored more fully. After all, a filmmaker such as Ghatak started in the theatre and drew on its plentiful resources. A third area is the attempt by some film directors to work towards an indigenous poetics of cinema. The work of Ritwik Ghatak, for example, which drew on certain visual registers associated with traditional art and painting and his penchant for melodrama deserve nuanced analysis. He sought to fashion an indigenous poetics of cinema and non-Bengali filmmakers like Kumar Shahani have been inspired by this effort..


All in all, Bengali Cinema: An Other Nation can be recommended as a useful addition to the growing body of exegetical writing on Indian cinema. It is historically informed, theoretically sophisticated, and forcefully rigorous in its interpretations.


It enables us to re-think the concepts of regional cinemas and national cinema in interesting ways. A study of regional cinemas of India is a topic that invites deep and sustained study.