Why Do I Oppose 20th Amendment?

By C.V. Wigneswaran –OCTOBER 1, 2020

Justice C.V. Wigneswaran MP

Someone asked me three questions; A. The majority of this country are Sinhala Buddhists. What is wrong in calling this country Sinhala Buddhist? B. You welcomed certain aspects of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s policies. Yet you oppose the 20th Amendment which clothes him with power to carry out his policies. Why? C. You are on record as a person wanting peace and reconciliation in this Country. Why have you started on the wrong foot? You have already been branded as an extremist, separatist and a friend of terrorists. How are you going to retrieve the respect and goodwill that you have lost in recent times?

My responses were: I thank you for these questions. They are very comprehensive to answer yet topical. Let me deal with them one by one. 

A. Is this Country Sinhala Buddhist?

Reply: This country at one time in History was majority Buddhists. But the Country was never Sinhala Buddhist. Those who received Buddhism into this Country were the Tamils. Devanampiya Theesan was certainly a Tamil. His father was Mootha Sivan. The Westerners who wrote our History did not realize that the Sinhala Language and the Sinhala people came in much later in History. Almost a thousand years after introduction of Buddhism into this Island did the mixed language called Sinhala come into being. Sinhalese are those who spoke the Sinhala language. Nowhere have those who spoke Pali been called Sinhalese. They were Tamils who spoke Pali. In any event when this Country was divided into 3 or 4 kingdoms the Citizens were of those Kingdoms. They were not identified as Tamils and Sinhalese as we do today. 

In recent times there is a new language being formed in Chennai in Tamil Nadu. It might be called Tamlish. They speak Tamil interspersed with lots of English words. And that language is very popular in TVs, Films, Radios and at various public meetings. Soon with a Tamil background English will be spoken or with an Anglo Saxon background Tamil would be spoken. And that would take the form of a new language.

The Sinhalese language came about by speaking the Tamil and Pali languages interspersed with each other. Tamil with Pali or Pali with Tamil. Even certain Dialects contributed to the formation of the new language called Sinhalese in the 6th and 7th Centuries after Christ (Anno Domino).

So to speak of this Country being Sinhala Buddhist is erroneous. Original Buddhists throughout the Country were Demala Baudayos or Tamil Buddhists. There were no Sinhalese then. Thus Dushta Kaamini was a Tamil Buddhist while Ellalan was a Tamil Saivite.

All this certainly will sound crazy to many Sinhalese who have been conditioned to believe otherwise. We now have many historical evidences which confirm that those who received Buddhism into this Island were Tamils. There was no Sinhalese language at the time of arrival of Buddhism. I have suggested the formation of a Commission to probe into this and write a true history of this Country. 

Simply because the majority in this Country are Sinhala Buddhists does not give the right to call the Country Sinhala Buddhist. The North and East have been majority Tamil speaking areas throughout history. They jettisoned Buddhism at some stage of our history.  May be because of the rise of the Bakthi Cult in South India which spilt over into the North and East of this Country.   This Country had been blessed with five Shivalingams from pre historic times. The Naguleswaram at Kirimalai in Jaffna District; The Thiruketheeswaram in Mannar District; The Thirukoneswaram  in Trinco District; The Thondeswaram in Matara District at Dondra and Munneswaram in Chilaw . Until 100 years ago Negombo, Chilaw and Puttalam Districts were majority Tamil speaking areas. When I went to my friend’s house in Negombo as a boy the parents spoke to me in good Tamil. I found even later the grandparents of modern day Sinhala Catholics there spoke Tamil and used the Tamil Bible at Services.  Their old title deeds were in Tamil.   

The miracles performed by Saivite holy men among Hindus must have attracted the Tamil Buddhists back to Hinduism in the early days.

Even in recent times it were the miracles performed by Sai Baba which attracted many Buddhists towards him. Therefore the areas in the North and East to which our Sinhalese brethren were only brought in recent times under the guise of colonization and other means must not be termed Sinhalese areas. North and East have been traditionally Tamil speaking areas. Now Buddhism does not exist in those areas. Islam, Christianity and Hinduism are the religions of the North and East. Not Buddhism. How could you then call the entire Country as Sinhala Buddhist?

The Country came together as one Country only in 1833 under the British. The Jaffna kingdom was not Buddhist. Therefore we must allow North and East to be secular while you call the other seven Provinces Sinhala Buddhist if you want or in the alternative make the entire Country secular. If majority in numbers must be considered, the majority in the North and East have always been non Sinhala Buddhist.  Certain Sinhala areas in Amparai District were added for Political reasons. But by and large the North and East are non-Sinhala Buddhist areas. Therefore this Country being referred to as Sinhala Buddhist is factually wrong.

B. Why do you oppose 20th Amendment? 

Reply: Supporting good aspects of an administration does not mean we must help to corrupt such administration to indulge in anti- social activities in the future. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely said Lord Acton. This is true unless the Head of administration has a religious background like Sita’s father King Janaka. He was a saint at heart but an administrator by profession. Such People would never act against the interests of any human being however much they may be clothed with power and authority. In this respect the present President has a lot of minus points. (1) He has a military background. Therefore by nature he cannot brook any opposition. He is used to commanding and others carrying out his commands. Democracy would suffer under him. (2) He belongs to a political family which has taken over from the Bandaranaikes the whip hand with regard to governance. He would consider himself divinely brought to power to do as he pleases. Twentieth Amendment would clothe him to jettison democracy to the dustbin.  All in the name of the people! (3) He is already conditioned to believe this Country is Sinhala Buddhist which it is not. He would go on to do much mischief and harassment in the North and East clothed with so much of power wanting to transform Non Sinhala and Non-Buddhist North and East into Sinhala Buddhist areas. Though he would be committing genocide by his acts he would not bother much about it because majority Sinhala Buddhists of other seven Provinces would support him.  (4) He is a suspect in the eyes of the UN as having been connected to the war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide committed during the War which ended on 18th May 2009. He would do everything to save himself and his acolytes with so much of power reposed in him.  

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