When Eelam Wave swept the 1977 General Election

Revisiting the Tamil Eelam Vote

By Sachi Sri Kantha

Introduction:

The humorous quote, ‘Statistics is like a string bikini; what it reveals is interesting but what it hides is significant’ has been attributed to Arthur Koestler. Statistics on the support for Eelam state made a big splash in Colombo following the 1977 general election. Following my first article which appeared in the Colombo Tribune of August 27, 1977, Fr.Tissa Balasuriya entered the ring, with his view-point that the 1977 mandate for Eelam was a fiction. Like Koestler’s wisecrack on statistics, what Fr.Balasuriya revealed was interesting, and what he hid was significant. He used (or should I say abused) statistics to buttress his stand. His statistics was refuted by Fr.Joseph Mary.

First, I provide below his article, which the Tribune published in its October 1, 1977 issue and a rebuttal authored by Fr.Joseph Mary which appeared in the Tribune of November 12, 1977. Fr.Balasuriya’s bias is most revealing in the first two paragraphs of the article, where he describes the 1977 torture on Tamils in Lanka, without clearly identifying who were the majority victims and who were the major aggressors.

Secondly, I provide excerpts of my additional writings on the 1977 vote for Eelam, which had appeared in the Tamil Nation (under my pseudonym C.P.Goliard, July 15, 1992) and Tamil Times (August 15, 1992). In these two pieces, I had discussed the relevance of Eelam vote (a) in terms of the validity of the 1977 vote for Eelam as a referendum and plebiscite, (b) in terms of comparison with the revolutionary history of America.

Pro and Anti views presented by
Two members of the Christian Clergy

An Anti-View:

Mandate for Eelam – Fact or Fiction?

By Fr.Tissa Balasuriya

[Colombo Tribune, Oct.1, 1977]

During the last two weeks of August 1977 many in Sri Lanka lived agonizing days and nights amidst looting, arson and lawlessness. Gangs have beaten others; inflicted horrifying injuries and even resorted to manslaughter. All this was apparently due to racial animosities. As yet the full story, how it started, how it escalated, is not known. According to official sources over a 100 have lost their lives. About 45,000 have left their homes, and moved to the North or to the East, or South. Houses, shops and residential lines have first been looted, then set ablaze. The lines of division have once again gone deep into the hearts of people. Every act of communal violence is a blow to national unity. Man, woman or child chased away from home by physical blows or fear of injury. Hatred has been generated far and wide during the past few weeks.

Innocent children have lost a mother or a father. This is a price they will pay all their lives due to the communal hatred fanned by so many consciously or unconsciously. Bewildered children will for all time remember the refugee camps – the only place of solace for their mother and father for uncomfortable days and nights, days of great privations. But there is hope.

Men and women from all walks of life have begun to affirm themselves in favour of communal harmony. They call for a peaceful resolution or our racial problems. Leaders of all religions have appealed for peace and justice for all. The common humanity in us all is leading persons and groups of every political or religious persuasion to cooperate in safeguarding life and promoting understanding.

The intensity of this national tragedy has alerted us to the deep-seated nature of the problems of race that confront us as a nation. They have grown gradually over the past 50 years or so. In the days of the Ceylon National Congress the leaders of all races worked for self-government and political independence. But shortly step-by-step the problems have got aggravated. The pan-Sinhala ministry of the 1930s, the demand for 50:50 by the Tamil Congress, the disenfranchisement of the plantation workers, the demand for federalism by the Federal Party, the Sinhalese Only Act with the provisions for the Reasonable Use of Tamil, the communal violence of 1958, the resistance by Sinhala Opposition Groups to Regional Councils and District Councils have all contributed to the present impasse. The Republican Constitution of 1972, the formation of the Tamil United (Liberation) Front, and the demand for Eelam as separate sovereign state for Tamils are all stages in this history.

In the period 1970-77 the situation was more aggravated. The government did not face the issue squarely. Sinhala-Tamil relations during the past 50 years are a sad history of several lost opportunities. Often a workable solution was within the grasp of leading political groups. On every occasion extreme views prevailed to the detriment of the national as a whole. With successive stage the Tamil demands increased.

It is necessary to examine the claim for a separatist Tamil Eelam. Did the July elections give the TULF a mandate to demand or fight for Eelam? Definitely Not.

Last week the voting analysis of July elections in the Northern and Eastern Provinces (and Puttalam) were published together with some brief notes. This week a more detailed analysis is being published with more detailed notes. This is for the record and also to substantiate our argument. Some of the points made last week are being repeated. This is also for the record.

Northern Province

(a) In the Jaffna Peninsula the TULF got a clear verdict in favour of it. The 10 electorates gave the TULF 223,463 votes out of its total of 311,235 votes. Independents got 76,103 votes; UNP 7,140; LSSP 4,529; SLFP 1,042 in the Peninsula. Hence 71.8% of the votes were in favour of the TULF. This was 58.5% of the electorate. One could therefore argue that the Jaffna peninsula responded positively to the TULF demand. Ten of its 18 seats in the National State Assembly are from the Peninsula. The absentees in the Jaffna peninsula were 70,356 or 18.5% of the electorate. This is high compared to the national average of 87.2. The absentees are more than 1/5 of the number who voted in the elections.

(b) In the rest of the Northern province in the Mainland, the position is less clear though the TULF won in Kilinochchi, Mannar, Vavuniya and Mullaitivu. In Kilinochchi it obtained 15,607 votes as against 4,006 for the SLFP and 1,499 for the UNP. In Mannar, TULF obtained 15,141 votes while the UNP and independents had 14,211 votes. The TULF got 930 votes more out of an electorate of 31,767 and a total poll of 29,352. This can hardly be a case for a separation of Mannar from the rest of the country. In Vavuniya the TULF polled 13,821 and the UNP 9,444 and an independent 151. Though the TULF has 4,200 votes more than the other two it has only 48.6% of the total electorate due to the 5,034 absentees out of the total electorate of 28,450. In Mullaitivu, the TULF received 10,261 votes while the three independent candidates together polled 9,335. The difference is 926 out of a total poll of 19,596 and an electorate of 24,698; 5,102 abstained from voting: i.e., over a fifth of the electorate. Here too the case for separation is not unanimous. It is actively supported by a little over 41% of the electorate.

Hence in the Northern province, outside of the peninsula and Kilinochchi less than half the electorate has voted for the TULF and 33,131 voted against it, while 12,548 abstained from voting out of a total of 83,915. The total poll in these three electorates is about 85% or less than the national average of 87.2%. Can this be a convincing case for separating the country specially with a frontier to be located within this area?

In the Northern province (a) + (b) as a whole 68.5% of the voters and 56.4% of the electorate were for the TULF. i.e., 278,293 votes out of 406,257 voters and an electorate of 493,176. Abstentions and spoilt votes were 86,919 or 17.5% of the electorate. In the Northern province 85% of the population is ‘Ceylon Tamil’ and 95.4% is Tamil speaking. Hence even here that one third of the votes were against the TULF has some significance. It may be of interest that the vote for the UNP, SLFP and LSSP was 40,013 in the Northern province. This is nearly 10% of the votes.

Eastern Province

(c) In the Eastern province the election results are clearly against separation. The UNP won eight seats: Sammanthurai, Kalkudah, Kalmunai, Seruwila, Battiacaloa(2^nd), Amparai, Mutur and Potuvil (1^st). The TULF won Padiruppu, Trincomalee, Batticaloa (1^st) and Potuvil (2^nd). The TULF would have lost in Padiruppu if not for the division of votes among the LSSP, SLFP and UNP which together got 16,412 votes against 15,877 for the TULF.

In terms of votes the UNP had 136,296. TULF 92,163; SLFP 81,419; LSSP 6,970; FP (Batticaloa) 11,221; and Independents 7,252. The independents have fared very badly indicating high political consciousness among those voting. The UNP, SLFP and LSSP which are definitely against separation obtained 224,665 votes or 67% of the votes and 58.3% of the electorate. The TULF had only 27.5% votes of the votes cast. Absentees were 49,792 or 12.9% votes of the total electorate. The Eastern province has clearly rejected the ideas of a separate state for the Tamil speaking people. Though 76.8% of the population are Tamils and Moors (Ceylon and Indian) only 27.5% voted for the TULF. Ceylon Tamils alone are 40.9% in the Eastern province and even they have not voted as a whole for Eelam. The Sinhala population is only 22.5% of the population and hence they could not make for the bulk of the 69.9% that voted for the UNP, SLFP and LSSP which are definitely against the division of the country into two states.

One would have expected the TULF to be quite sobered by this decision of the Tamil speaking people in the Eastern province. They have definitely no mandate to claim the Eastern province for any proposal for a ‘sovereign Eelam’.

Northern and Eastern Province together (a + b+ c)

When we take the Northern and Eastern provinces together, we see an important phenomenon. Within the Jaffna peninsula 71.8% of the votes were for the TULF. In the electorates Kilinochchi, Mannar, Vavuniya and Mullaitivu 57.7% of the voters opted for TULF; and in the Eastern province 28%. Taking both provinces together the TULF had 370,456 votes. This is 49.9% of the votes cast. But as there were 136,711 absentees, the TULF votes is only 42.2% of the total electorate in the North and East.

The voting pattern is 81.5% in the peninsula, 85.1% in the four Northern electorates outside the peninsula and 87.0% in the Eastern province. The national average was 87.2%. If we therefore take the population of these two provinces together we can say that they have not voted as a whole positively for a separate state. Just about half the votes cast are for the TULF. But 57.8% have not voted for the TULF; i.e., including the absentees.

In the Mainland and Northern province and Eastern province (b + c) excluding the Jaffna peninsula, the electorate is 496,776; the voters were 430,323 and the TULF got 146,993 votes. The TULF obtained the support of only 34.1% of these votes and 29.6% of the electorate there. Unlike in the Jaffna peninsula where only 81.5% voted, in the mainland North and East 86.1% went to the polls. The TULF is in a minority position outside the Jaffna peninsula even in the Northern and Eastern provinces. 65.9% of the votes in this area from Kilinochchi to Potuvil were against the TULF.

Puttalam electorate

The Puttalam electorate touches Mannar in the North, and has nearly 20% Ceylon Tamils, 38.4% Ceylon Moors and 2.9% Indian Tamils and Moors. Hence 61% of the population are Moors and Tamils. The TULF toyed with the idea of attracting the people of this electorate to its fold. But the TULF obtained only 3,268 votes out of 31,070 voters in an electorate of 37,177. This is 10.5% of the votes and 8.8% of the electorate. Hence even the 20% Ceylon Tamils here have not voted TULF. This is an indication that the Tamil-speaking people outside the Northern and Eastern provinces reject the proposal for Eelam.

If the Puttalam area is also taken into account the vote for the TULF in Puttalam, the Northern and Eastern provinces is 373,724. This is 48.36% of the voters and 40.8% of the electorate. Hence in the whole area claimed for Eelam less than half the vote has been for the TULF.

Tamil speaking Muslims

The 1977 election results have shown clearly that the Tamil-speaking Muslims do not favour Eelam. This is seen in the Eastern province, and in Puttalam. In Mannar, the Muslims being nearly 30% may explain the large vote against the TULF in an electorate where only 4.2% of the population is Sinhala. One can say that the TULF has failed to obtain the support of the Moors for their proposal for a separate state for the Tamil speaking people of Sri Lanka. Not a single TULF elected MP is a Moor.

A Pro-View:

Rev.Fr.Tissa Balasuriya and Eelam

By Fr.J.Joseph Mary

[Colombo Tribune, November 12, 1977]

In the concluding part of the article ‘Tamil Mandate for Eelam – Fact or Fiction’ of October 1, 1977, Rev.Fr.Tissa Balasuriya has quite correctly stated, ‘One can say that the TULF has failed to obtain the support of the Moors for their proposal for a separate state for the Tamil speaking people of Sri Lanka. Not a single elected MP for TULF is a Moor’.

In the course of the same article he states, ‘a more detailed analysis is being published with more detailed notes…for the record and also to substantiate our argument.’ He analyses the election results of the Northern province under two heads, viz. (a) The Jaffna peninsula (b) The rest of the Northern province which include Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu, Vavuniya and Mannar. Quoting the voting figures of these four electorates in (b) above, he has concluded statistically, ‘in the rest of the Northern province in the mainland the position is less clear though the TULF won Kilinochchi, Mannar, Vavuniya and Mullaitivu’.

One wonders how far statistics, confined solely to the election results alone, is a sufficient thermometer to the temperature and the tempo of the people’s aspirations to live their lives with self-respect and in peace. ‘In Kilinochchi’, asserts Fr.Balasuriya, ‘the TULF obtained 15,607 votes as against 4,006 for the SLFP and 1,499 for the UNP’. Election-result wise he is indeed quite correct regarding the figures. But is this the complete picture statistics-wise? Shouldn’t statistics, scientific statistics too, take into consideration under what pressure, favours, favouritisms and promises SLFP, for example, was able to get 4,006 votes in Kilinochchi? Further, a cabinet minister was contesting that seat on SLFP ticket. Are these votes therefore, necessarily anti-TULF votes? UNP scored 1,499 votes in the same electorate. Well, how many of these votes are also Sinhalese votes?

For that matter, the statistics which Fr.Balasuriya has quoted, precisely because it was ‘for the record and also to substantiate our argument’, should have stated how many Sinhalese voters are there in these electorates in Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu, Mannar and Vavuniya. And one cannot expect them to subscribe to the separate state demand. On the contrary, removed from the pulse of the people, with just the election results for one’s guide and on the strength of these alone to draw conclusions, is, to say the least, ‘a wishful thinking if not totally misleading.’ To come back to the ‘rest of the Northern province, in the mainland’, I wonder if the ‘position is less clear’ as all that as is stated by Fr.Balasuriya with his incomplete statistics.

I had the good fortune of mingling and moving with the people in all these electorates during the election days. It was campaign time. In two of the electorates outside the Jaffna peninsula and, for that matter, even in certain of the electorates in the Jaffna peninsula, the independent candidates publicly avowed that they too were for the separate state and the independent candidate of Kayts drew a good chunk of the votes because he went a step further on the TULF demand and wanted the winning candidates to form themselves into a Constituent Assembly of the separate Tamil Eelam.

Let us confine ourselves to the argument of Fr.Balasuriya. On the face of the election results alone, he concludes, ‘in Mullaitivu TULF received 10,261 votes while the independent candidates together polled 9,335. The difference is 926 out of a poll of 19,596 in an electorate of 24,698.’ How far is this a valid conclusion? In this particular electorate, the independent candidate who came second said in public and, as far as I am aware, issued even hand bills to the effect that ‘I am also a TULF candidate’. I am also aware that he drew many TULF votes for the personal reason the voters had against the TULF candidate. Hence, the votes of the many independent candidates are votes for the TULF rather than against it.

Thus, I feel, that Fr.Balasuriya, sticking only to the election figures, and not going beyond them into all the facts of the matter, has failed to give the reader a complete picture which could have been a more objective analysis. Hence, Fr.Balasuriya’s conclusion regarding Mullaitivu that ‘there too the case for separation is not unanimous. It is actively supported by a little over 51% of the electorate’ does not stand.

As for Vavuniya, it is vital to the statistics to state how many are Sinhalese voters, who in any case, would have voted against the TULF. And what percentage of the Tamils voted for the UNP? Against this background, that the TULF to have polled only 48.6% is indeed a tremendous ‘YES’ for the Tamil Eelam – a fact and not a fiction.

Speaking for the Eastern province, one would have appreciated if Fr.Balasuriya had analysed the electorates as he had done for the Northern province. Commenting on the results of the Batticaloa seat, he had excluded ‘in term of votes’ 11,221 from the TULF. He considers them as FP votes. But any person at Batticaloa knows that there was no FP candidate for Batticaloa in the elections. They were both TULF nominees. Because the election laws forbid it, one of them was given the FP symbol. Hence the 11,221 votes are very much TULF votes indeed.

Speaking about the Paddiruppu seat, Fr.Balasuriya makes a sweeping statement. He says ‘The TULF would have lost Paddiruppu if not for the division of votes among the LSSP, SLFP and UNP which together got 16,412 votes as against 15,877 for the TULF’. Well the fact (and not a fiction) is that this was the other UNP Tamil seat together with Kalkudah that the UNP won in the previous elections. Of course, that the winner later jumped on the [SLFP] wagon is history. An FP stalwart lost this seat to the UNPer. This time the TULF won the seat not only with a new comer, but with a majority unheard of in the previous elections for this constituency – a tremendous, over a 10,000 lead.

However, mutatis mutandis, Fr.Balasuriya’s statement regarding Paddiruppu holds good for the Kalkudah seat indeed. There the UNPer is a Tamil. In fact the only Tamil who won a seat for the UNP. With a majority of a paltry 545. In this electorate we have a good concentration of Moors and Sinhalese. Both of them combined surely make up more than a mere 545, assuming that many Tamils, if not most of them, voted UNP. Again, the TULF candidate who contested this seat is a new comer to the hustings. He was pitched against a senior man, ranking fourth in the UNP hierarchy, assured to be a minister if elected, and that bait thrown out by no less a person than the UNP leader himself during the campaign. In fact it is the only platform where JR publicly announced a minister candidate. Voting figure-wise indeed, UNP has won the seat. But given the majority of 545, policy-wise and going beyond the figure, TULF’s is an unquestionable moral majority for a separate state.

Speaking about statistics, I don’t pretend that mine is a perfect analysis either. I stand to correction. Only I wanted to complete where Fr.Balasuriya left off and ‘for the record’. A friend of mine tells me, that he has a book ‘How to cheat with statistics?’ I think we all would do well to get hold of it so that we will be better armed to sift and see through the so-called statistics. They are indeed a gauge, but only to a certain limit and no more. Finally, regarding Tamil Eelam – be it fact or fiction – it is vital to ask not HOW MANY have voted for it, but WHY people have voted for it.

15 Years after the Verdict

By C.P.Goliard

[Tamil Nation, London, July 15, 1992]

Excerpts:

“…When the then leading party of the Tamils, the TULF, announced that it would use the 1977 general election as a plebiscite for a separate Eelam state, there was much enthusiasm among the Eelam Tamils to deliver their verdict in support of this proposal. And majority of the Tamils did vote for a separate state.

However, after the outcome of the 1977 general election, the Sinhalese politicians and opinion-makers spent much energy to question the validity of the 1977 Tamil vote for Eelam. Questions were raised in the parliament and public media regarding, (a) whether a general election could serve as a plebiscite or referendum? (b) whether there have been any precedence in other countries for such a plebiscite? And (c) whether Eelam Tamils did really deliver a supporting verdict for a separate state?

The Sinhalese politicians, journalists, pundits running the public agencies and even priests turned into instant psephologists and statisticians to misrepresent the verdict given by the Tamils. Especially, Fr.Tissa Balasuriya (the Director of the Centre for Society and Religion, Colombo), vociferously projected the viewpoint, using (or better to say, abusing) statistics, that the Tamils did not vote for a separate state. A few among the Tamils, notably Fr.Joseph Mary, S.Sivanayagam and S.Sri Kantha countered the arguments presented by Fr.Tissa Balasuriya in the columns of the Colombo Tribune news magazine. Even with all the overt omissions and bias (which had been exposed by the Tamil contributors to the debate), Fr.Balasuriya concluded,

“When we take the Northern and Eastern provinces together, we see an important phenomenon. Within the Jaffna peninsula 71.8% of the votes were for the TULF. In the electorates Kilinochchi, Mannar, Vavuniya and Mullaitivu, 57.7% of the voters opted for TULF; and in the Eastern Province 28%. Taking both provinces together, the TULF had 370,456 votes. This is 49.9% of the votes cast…”

Fr.Balasuriya further noted, “The voting pattern is 81.5% in the four Northern electorates outside the peninsula and 87.0% in the Eastern province. The national average was 87.2%. If we therefore take the population of these two provinces together we can say that they have not voted as a whole positively for a separate state…”

Well, one could be sure that Fr.Balasuriya’s forte is theology and not statistics. The independent analysts of the 1977 plebiscite verdict did calculate that 57% of the population in the Northern and Eastern provinces voted for the TULF, and Fr.Balasuriya’s estimate of 49.9% was faulty. The Asiaweek’s correspondent asked the then TULF leader Amirthalingam, in an interview

“You claim to have received a clear mandate from the people of the Northern and Eastern provinces to launch a struggle for the restoration and reconstitution of Tamil Eelam? But only 57% of people in these constituencies voted for the TULF. How then can you say you represent everyone?” [Asiaweek, Sept.2, 1977]

With his adept debating skill, Amirthalingam turned back the question to the correspondent to score his point. Said Amirthalingam,

“Well, what percentage of Sri Lankans voted for the United National Party? Only 51% have voted in favour of this party which is now taking steps to draft and adopt a new constitution for the nation. If the UNP with only 51% of support can go ahead and draw up a new constitution why can’t we, who have received 57% of the vote, proceed with our struggle for freedom? Why, the previous government of Mrs.Sirimavo Bandaranaike received only 36% of votes cast in 1970. With that ‘minority’ support she too gave the country a new constitution.”

Amirthalingam’s reply was faultless. But I feel, he should have gone further. In the 1937 elections held in the Indian subcontinent, the Muslim League led by Muhamed Ali Jinnah (the founder of Pakistan), contested on an all-India basis. ‘It won 109 seats, out of a total of 182 reserved for Muslims. However it had not contested all the seats; Jinnah claimed that the Muslim League had won 60-70%, contested by the League candidates…(Altogether) of the 1,585 seats, the Congress won 716 (about 44% of the total). Of the Muslim seats it only secured 26 (5.4% of the total); and Congress contested only 58 Muslim seats…’ (see, The Partition of India: Policies and Perspectives, 1935-1947, edited by C.H.Philips and Mary Doreen Wainwright). Compared to the mandate received by Jinnah in the 1937 elections, the verdict for a separate state given by the Eelam Tamils in the 1977 elections was clear-cut and convincing.

Though we cannot compare the global and local events which followed the 1937 election in the Indian subcontinent and the 1977 election in Sri Lanka, one can see the parallels of the 10-15 years which followed those two general elections. In ten years following the 1937 election, India split into a ‘Hindu India’ and a ‘Muslim Pakistan’. Despite this split, there remained Muslim minorities in India and Hindu minorities in Pakistan. Similarly, in the fifteen years following the 1977 election there has occurred a de-facto split between the ‘Sinhala Sri Lanka’ and ‘Tamil Eelam’. Similar to the situation in the Indian subcontinent, despite the de-facto split, there remain Tamils in Sri Lanka and Sinhalese in Eelam….”

Self-Determination, Referendum and Plebiscite

by Sachi Sri Kantha

[Tamil Times, London, August 15, 1992] 

Excerpts:

“… Norman Palmer, in his book Elections and Political Development – The South Asian Experience (Duke University Press, North Carolina, 1975, pp.98-100) noted,

‘The view that elections express the will of the people assumes that elections serve as plebiscites or referenda. Obviously certain elections are specifically designed for this purpose. A standard dictionary definition of a plebiscite is a vote by which the people of an entire country or district express an opinion for or against a proposal. This may be on a fairly specific or limited proposal, or it may be on a proposal of great significance, such as the use of a plebiscite to determine whether a people wish to remain in one country or join another. When a nationwide general election is interpreted as a plebiscite, this usually implies that the election is an expression of the people’s choice of a government or an expression of confidence or lack of confidence in a ruler.

A referendum, again according to a dictionary definition, is the principle or practice of submitting to popular vote a measure passed upon or proposed by a legislative body or by popular initiative. In this technical sense the use of a referendum is provided for in the constitutions of a number of political systems. In the more general sense a national election may also be viewed as a referendum, not so much on a specific proposal or proposals of the government or ruler as on the overall record and degree of popular confidence in the government or ruler…’

In this context, the call by the TULF in 1977 that the general election be assessed as a plebiscite for a separate state is a valid one. How to find out the ‘self-determination’ of people? Is it by a referendum or plebiscite or is it determined for them by their leaders? Well, how about looking for some historical precedence on this issue.

Let us take the revolutionary history of the USA. No referendum or plebiscite was conducted in the 13 colonies of the then USA, before they waged their war against the British Crown. Out of a population of approximately 3.8 million, 56 individuals (slave-owning white males, who claimed themselves as the ‘American patriots’) took it upon themselves to sign the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, and conduct a revolutionary war against the King of Great Britain. They wanted self-determination because among many other causes,

‘He (the King of Great Britain) has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people…’

All these grievances which the American patriots had against the King of Britain, resemble the grievances of Tamils against the ruling Sinhalese regime.

About the Tamil territory in the island of the then Ceylon, I would suggest those interested to see the map presented in the Area Handbook for Ceylon – 1971, published for the United States Government, and printed by the US Government Printing Office. Fig.6, appearing on page 33, provides a 1796-map, which shows the northern and eastern provinces (from Puttalam to Pottuvil) as a single entity, labeled under ‘Jaffna Komandement’. Interestingly, this map has been adopted from the work of C.W.Nicholas and S.Paranavitana, A Concise History of Ceylon (1961), pp.208-209. And most Tamils know where Paranavitana stood in his view related to the ethnicity of Sinhalese and Tamils. If Paranavitana himself has acknowledged this historical reality, who else has more authority to challenge this 1796 map?”

Postscript in 2001 [by Sachi Sri Kantha]