Should Minority Culture be sidelined?

by Sivakumaran

(July 16, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) This writer feels strongly that the print and electronic media in this country assumes perhaps that the local Thamil cultural activities do not deserve coverage, exposure and evaluation in the larger context of what could be termed "Sri Lankan Culture".

In other words the assumption and conception seem to be that such ‘minority culture’ is an alien one.

To many Sri Lankan Culture means is only Sinhala culture whether the components are either in Sinhala or English. This is perhaps due to a failure to understand that there is a unique Lankan Thamil culture different from the South Indian Thamil Culture existing in this country for centuries.

Most people misunderstand that the existence of a culture professed by nearly 65 million people in neighbouring India is the same as in Sri Lanka. So, they are not bothered to look deeply and with interest into the aspects of local Thamil culture.

It is true that in certain respects there are commonalities in both the Thamilnadu culture and the Lankan Thamil culture and yet there are sharp differences in practice. These need not be explained at present. But the point is why is that the English media (leave the Sinhala media aside for the present) does not willingly take an interest or research into aspects of Lankan Thamil and Muslim cultures in the same way as they do for the Sinhala-Sinhala culture and the Sinhala-English culture?

The immediate answer they give is that "We don’t know Thamil language to understand the differences you speak of between the Indian and the Lankan Thamil culture in Thamil studies or literature". This is perhaps an acceptable reason for the marginalization. But there are other complaints from the marginalized people such as I am.

One complaint from a person like me is: "If you don’t know Thamil, it is understandable (but still you can have a liking to know more about that ’alien’ language), but why don’t you feature or interview Thamil-speaking minorities that have contributed in English to the overall Sri Lankan Culture"

"You can’t complain like that- we feature Bharatha (some pronounce this word as "Bhaaratha) Natyam, Hindu religious events, Thamil politicians and others and sometimes even you write about Thamil writers. So, where is the discrimination?’ the English media people retort.

Yes, they are right to some extent only. It is not a willingness on the part of the English media people to oblige but a mere charitable act perhaps to fill the empty pages.

The undeniable fact is that their attitude is that they should give adequate space for the dominant Sinhala culture than for minority culture. This may be a realistic situation, but if we all are deemed to belong to the one nation, one people idea then the dominant culture could not and should not be domineering all the time and should accommodate the minority culture reasonably in space.

Another reason is the ignorance of the younger set of media people as to know who is who in contemporary culture of the island whether they represent the Sinhalas or the Thamiluians or the Muslims or the Malays or the Burghers or minority communities of north and south India. They know only Sinhala people that practise their culture in either Sinhala or English or both the languages. They can’t think of going beyond their narrow confines.

It’s not that the English media is racist or partisan or discriminative but it is lethargic to explore the unsung contributors to overall Lankan Culture.

If we turn around and look at South Asian and South East Asian media, the Minority Culture is well represented in the columns, electronic waves and the visual media.

The English media people say that they don’t have the right people among the Sinhala community in their staff that can professionally handle minority cultural events and personalities. This is a poor answer. In fact, there are a few competent Sinhala and Muslim and Malay communities in the English media that can handle such tasks. But what is preventing them is their attitude of not noticing the minority culture as they are preoccupied with the dominant culture.

Let me suggest a few names of importance in Lankan Thamil culture whom the English media journalists could care to meet and feature instead of depending on a handful of people of minority communities who spasmodically write on Thamil culture.

These names are primarily from the academic scene: Some of the retired professors of the caliber of K Sivathamby, ( unfortunately he passed away on July 06,2011), S Thillainathan, A Sanmugadas, M A Nuhman, S Maunaguru, K Arunachalam, and other academics like Thurai Manoharan, S Maheswaran, S. Santhirasegeram, Saba Jeyarasa, S Sivalingarasa, A M Anes, Nageswaran, Raghuparan, Chitraleka Munaguru and a few other new entrants both women and men in the academic institutions, chosen randomly can be tried out.

Apart from these academics,there are many writers of fiction, poetry, drama, and literary critics, essayists, traditionalists, modernisst and even post modernists and post structuralists among the large number of people marginalized.

So let’s try to make Lankan Culture not exclusively one dominant and domineering culture,but a prism of many shades.

(The writer can be reached at sivakumaran.ks@gmail.com )