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by Victor Karunairajan
(June 05, Toronto, Sri Lanka Guardian) On this day sixty one years ago, Velupillai Kandasamy of Moolai Road, Vaddukoddai, a member of the Government Clerical Service Union (GCSU) was shot dead when the colonial government of the day headed by the Acting British Governor ordered a strike action to be crushed without mercy.
The strike action followed the failure of the government to honour some of the promises made to help bring an earlier general strike the previous year to an end.
The negotiation that followed the 1946 General Strike was obviously made in bad faith by the government that became concerned that if this was not controlled, the entire country could be paralyzed. The chief spokesperson for the Government Workers Trade Union Federation (GWTUF) was Dr N M Perera who was promptly arrested. The workers refused to negotiate a settlement until Dr Perera was released and allowed to be their spokesperson as the adviser to the GWTUF.
When the country became independent in 1948, Dr Perera became the first Opposition Leader in Parliament.
When the second strike action was launched in June 1947, the government, no doubt on the orders of the colonial authorities in London’s Whitehall ordered the Ceylon Defence Force that was believed to have been on some form of inaction or leave from action, to support the police to break up the strike with whatever force or facility they deemed needed to bring the workers back to work.
Following a strike meeting at Colombo’s Hyde Park, the workers marched to Kolonnawa but at Dematagoda the armed forces engaged them with fire during which Velupillai Kandasamy of the GCSU fell as a martyr.
A warm and friendly young man and a bachelor, Kandasamy had six siblings, five of them girls and he was the only breadwinner of the family. In his memory, June 5 was declared Kandasamy Day and a monument were erected in Colombo at the very spot he was killed. But both the Kandasamy Day and the Kandasamy Memorial soon became victims of pan-Sinhala racism.
Where the Kandasamy Memorial was erected, racist vandals thought it fit to place a statue of Lord Buddha on it and Kandasamy Day has been promptly forgotten. Velupillai Kandasamy became not only a victim of the British colonial outrage and arrogance but also of the Sinhala/Buddhist racists and jingoists.
Sixty one years have gone by since this young Tamil was felled. Sri Lanka’s problems have multiplied uncontrollably since and there seems no end of a lesson from forces that are wrecking the country.
What a great gesture it would be for the Government of Sri Lanka to have the Kandasamy Memorial re-erected where it really belongs!
- Sri Lanka Guardian
This article highlights that even the British government has acted to crush any protests in the country, and no wonder the past governments of Sri Lanka has continued the British traditions.
The problem with the writers suggestion is that if we started to erect statue of all these "heroes" of Sri Lanka, then we have to go back thousands of years and look at people who has sacrificed their lives for Sri Lanka.
If we start erecting statues to all these people then there will be no room for roads, houses or businessesin Sri Lanka. The difference of having a Budddha statue is in my view is not because of Buddhist racism. I understand that this man was one of the many thousands who participated in this rally and what if hundred or so people died on that day, are we suppose to erect all their statues around Colombo, or in this case if they were all killed at the same spot then whose statue would go first, and will there be enough space to erect them all?
My suggestion is having a statue will not honour this man, but people closer and around him should do something useful in his memory. How many statues are in Colombo and does the writer knows how many people in Sri Lanka knows who they are. Statues are there for birds to rest "Pooh" on them and insult the person by covering even the face with "Pooh". I beleieve Mr. Kandasamy must be happy that it is not happening to him.
So let us all be more practical and not try to create unwanted racism hatred at this juncture in the Sri Lankan history. The writer should be more responsible when writing things as the pen can be very poisonous.
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