Narrow And Harmful Sectarian Nationalism And The Jaffna Youth Congress

June 6, 2012

By Tissa Jayatilaka -

Tissa Jayatilaka

A revised edition of Handy Perinbanayagam A Memorial Volume & The Jaffna Youth Congress edited by Santasilan Kadirgamar, published by Kumaran Publishers, Colombo, was released under the auspices of the Indo-Lanka Foundation on the 4^th of March, 2012 at the Saraswathy Hall in Colombo. The first edition of the above publication, also edited by Santasilan Kadirgamar, was produced and distributed by the Handy Perinbanayagam Commemoration Society in Jaffna on 28 June, 1980.

A noteworthy feature of the present revised edition of the publication is its availability in all of the three national languages – - Sinhala, Tamil and English. It was the editor’s determination to make the ideals and vision of the late Handy Perinbanayagam, the founder of the Jaffna Youth Congress (JYC), accessible to all Sri Lankans that made him bring out the volume in all three languages. He endured the delay thus involved in bringing out the revised edition because of his motivation to release all three versions of the book simultaneously. It is both fitting and proper he should have done so. For Handy Perinbanayagam the Ceylonese nationalist (not, please note, a narrow ethic nationalist) would not have wanted it any other way.

The publication is most timely given that we are at a moment in our history when the need for a principled search for genuine national reconciliation is extremely urgent. To this end, the legacy of Handy Perinbanayagam and the Jaffna Youth Congress should serve as a stimulus and congenial guide. Absent such a reconciliation, our future as a united country is in far graver danger than most of us seem to realize.

Handy Perinbanayagam (1899 – 1977) pioneered the movement in Ceylon for total national independence (‘Purna Swaraj’). Inspired by and imbued with the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi, he was an educationist of the highest calibre. He fought for the right of a child to be educated in her own native language and for a people’s right to be governed in their own. The book before us today is a well deserved tribute to Handy Perinbanayagam’s long and distinguished service to the people of Sri Lanka and to our world in general. His was the voice of liberal humanism.

Handy Perinbanayagam was a remarkable Sri Lankan and citizen of the world. Among all that he has said and written, what I cherish are the two following:Read More