| by Charita
Wijeratne
( October 21,
2012, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Approaching politics in the North, the first
images to appear, habitually, are of those who claim to a patent right of
representing the Tamil people. Rather belatedly does one realize that the Tamil
community has gifted to Sri Lanka noble men of calibre whose widened horizons
enabled them to view the issues of the Tamil people as integral to the broader
national issues and the struggle of progressives for social justice. Of those
sages V. Karalasingham, whose death anniversary fell on September 8th, stands
out as a colossus
In his day, he
worked indefatigably to raise the level of social consciousness of the Tamil
people, and of others, and draw them out of the quagmire of parochial politics.
Through writings, public addresses and other means he tried hard to bring the
Tamil people into the national movement against exploitation. His decision to
contest S.J.V. Chelvanayagam, the founding father of the Federal Party, in
Point Pedro and the F.P. Stalwart Dharmalingam in Uduvil was a part of this
campaign. In 1963 he published his provocative and challenging work the way out
for the Tamil speaking people, in which he exposes the reality that their
protracted struggle has failed to win their fundamental rights, because, it was
waged as a solely Tamil affair and assumed an anti-Sinhala posture. An
inevitable result was the corresponding inflammation of communal sentiments
among the majority community. This narrow attitude eventually restricted
successive governments from conceding even the limited concessions that they
were inclined to. When the ED called upon the Tamil people to refrain from
learning Sinhala, Karalasingham came out fiercely to denounce the move as an
attempt to keep the Tamil commoners out of competitive job opportunities while
the sons and daughters of the leaders were secretly getting tuition in Sinhala.
He appealed to
the Tamil people to rely on and join hands with their true friends among
workers, farmers and students in the south. The book insists that the
fundamental rights of the Tamil People, and of other minorities, are integral
to the manifesto of the struggle of progressive masses in the south. This,
indeed, is an appropriate time for all Sri Lankans to read and re-read that
monumental work which traces the real path to reconciliation.
The Russian
Revolution of 1917 and the heroic struggle of its leaders to defend it from
imperialist attacks inspired peoples in both industrialized countries and
colonial countries. In Sri Lanka, then Ceylon, the advent of the plantation
economy, accompanied by trade and commerce, and the emergence of an insipient
native capitalist class led to the growth of a proletariat in the plantations
and in Colombo. From those sources was born the first generation of
revolutionaries who formed the Lanka Sama Samaja Party in 1935.
V.
Karalasingham, born in July 1921,joined the LSSP in 1939 when he was only 18
years old. Preceding him his brother V. Balasingham, a brilliant student of
history in the University College, had joined the LSSP but was sadly killed on
the spot by an army truck during the war. Another brother was ‘lamp-posted’ by
a LTTE kangaroo court. The youngest was a highly acclaimed English language
teacher in Ananda College and all past Anandians never failed to pay homage at
the feet of Thanabalasingham. At Ananda he was allowed especial privileges by
the then Principal L. H. Mettananda. Karalasingham, or Karlo as he was lovingly
called, abandoned his schooling for revolutionary politics, but was much later
called to the bar as a Barrister in London.
Radical ideas
Though born in
Jaffna, Karlo attended schools in Kalutara, Pannipitiya and Colombo, because of
his father’s transferable job. His student career in Ananda College may have
inculcated in him radical ideas. But I remember Karlo telling me that at the
Pannipitiya school he over heard a teacher explaining Prince Siddharatha’s
renunciation and that the seed of that intriguing event imbedded in his subcouscience
to nag him momentarily until he came to grips with Marx’s German Ideology.
Whatever that be, his career in these schools must have led him later in life
to rely on the youths from central colleges and universities to lead the
revolution in Sri Lanka. So much so that he sat about with a crusading spirit
to get Sinhala impressions of noteworthy books in English. I was ‘commanded’ to
translate S.H. Carr’s What is History?, Isaac Deutscher’s The Unfinished
Revolution, Marx and Engel’s The German Ideology and Plekhanov’s The
materialist Interpretation of History. Sessions of reading back to him the
translated manuscript were ordeals. Any ambiguity and he would flare up with
substitutes and other interpretations. Once, when the term ‘saviour’ had been rendered
as ‘gelavumkaru’ he went into spasms,charging me with abysmal ignorance of
oriental concepts, and gave the ‘correct’ rendering as ‘chakravarthy’. I was
flabbergasted, because, in common Sinhala usage chakravarthy meant a sort of
emperor and I decided for once to assert my will and not to give in. Seeing my
stubborn resistance he left the book and went into an ante-room. His
compassionate wife gave me a consoling cup of tea. At the end of three weeks
Karlo came to my office and placing a huge book in front of me sat down saying
‘I ordered it from India’. I opened the book titled Chakravarthy and true
enough, it dealt with the concept of ‘chakaravarthy’, the saviour of mankind,
and with diagrams to boot. I yielded, but when the book came out in print my
version was there. Even among his comrades, Karlo was reputed for his
remarkable impetuosity. Typical of West European classical Marxist Karlo went
into polemics until he clinched the argument.
However, all
that fire only amused everybody, because, he never had a trace of malice. He
was the most humane and compassionate friend one could ever meet.
Younger fugitive
Karlo was the
youngest fugitive of the Sri Lankans in Bombay-or Mumbai-during the war years,
and was known as the ‘mascot of the Indo-Ceylon revolutionary leadership’.
There he edited the journal Permanent Revolution, produced in Culcutta. Soon he
was arrested in Bombay with Doric de Souza and deported for a stint in the
Badulla prison.
In 1964 Karlo
disagreed with the LSSP’s decision to join in a coalition with the SLFP and
left the party with Edmond Samarakkody’s group. He published Politics of
Coalition in which he predicted that Mrs. Bandaranaike will discard the LSSP
‘Like a squeezed lemon’. It became true in 1975. But all along, his idea had
been to remain in the party and function as a separate platform. He left
because he wanted to be with some advanced youth to save them from doom. His
opportunity came when Edmond and Meril Fernando voted with the UNP to topple
the coalition government. On coming back to the party Karlo justified this
position by writing senile leftism.
Shocked and
frustrated
Karlo was deeply
shocked and frustrated when Soviet troops invaded Chekoslovakia in 1968 to
crush the reform movement, and he wrote Chechoslovakia ’68. He disagreed with
the manner in which the lake house group of newspapers was nationalised and
brought under the sole control of the government, and he expressed his
discontent by publishing the freedom of the Press. Karlo improved his Sinhala
in the course of translating books. By a freak of things the first lawyer to
address a jury in Sinhala happened to be a Tamil – V. Karalasingham,
Attorney-at-Law.
As a member of
the Political Bureau of the party Karlo used his position to implement a
massive educational programme for the youths and workers. The content of the
curriculum included history as an approach to Marxism. To him, revolution is to
be the product of the highest consciousness of man.
Karlo left
behind a daughter, Nina, named after the great revolutionary who demonstrated
against the blood curdling tyranny of Stalin, and a son, Chakravarthy, named after
the bitter controversy over the Sinhala impression of the term saviour.
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