Who Burnt One of South Asia’s Biggest Libraries?

Retired DIG Edward Gunewardene [EG]’s speculative allegations sans provable facts on the Jaffna library inferno in June 1981, stirred up a hornets’ nest six years ago when he accused the LTTE rebels of the crime. A memoir by the retired police officer, leaks a best-kept police top secret for three decades–was it the LTTE that torched the Jaffna Public Library? Built in stages starting from 1930s, as a private collection, the Jaffna library soon  became a full-fledged library and a repository of archrivals. With original copies of regionally important historic documents, political history and newspapers published hundreds of years ago in Jaffna, it became a place of symbolic importance.Considerable parts of Jaffna town, business establishments, State institutions, theatres and print media offices were burned down by a group of policemen along with mobs transported from South by two Cabinet ministers during the infamous Jaffna DDC elections under JR Jayewardene. Mobs rampaged without any hindrance [in fact police joined them]. The raging fires were doused and brought under control by the forces men from Navy and the Army. 
The TULF headquarters, office of ‘Eelanaadu’, the Tamil news sheet, cultural and religious figures were also destroyed. For 30 years, all parties agreed on this point, until respected former DIG Edward Gunawardene wrote his memoir, relating a totally different story accusing LTTE of the crime. The library first functioned as a private property; it was declared a public asset in 1959 by the then Mayor, Alfred Duraiappah, who was the first victim, in the hands of Prabhakaran, the Tamil chauvinist in 1975.

Chauvinists in JR Regime

JR, the Executive President, decided to contest, rather fight the elections to Jaffna DDC with specially selected Tamil candidates backed by state support.General perception among Sri Lankans in the North and South was that the unprecedented retaliatory act was in retribution for killing of three policemen in June 1981. Since April 1981, there had been infrequent violent acts on pro-government Tamil policeman and politicians. D.G.Mahindasoma, the District Minister for Vavuniya was severely assaulted  in Vavuniya on May 25. The slaying of Tamil UNP candidate for the DDC elections on May 27, the former Federal Party Parliamentarian A. Thiagarajah [The Tamil politician from Vattukkottai was shot by an unknown gunman as he was leaving after addressing a meeting held in support of his candidature and succumbed to his injuries the next day in hospital.] A few other UNP candidates were either assassinated or frightened, compelling them to withdraw their candidacy by militant youth.An unidentified group attacked three policemen, a Sinhalese, a Tamil and a Muslim, who provided security to a TULF election meeting; two died of fatal injuries sustained in the attack, in the vicinity of Nallur temple on May 31,1981. Maj.Gen. (retd) Lalin Fernando writing to a newspaper on February 10, 2013 refers to EG’s version of the Jaffna library under the title “Absurd and ridiculous tales -The burning of the Jaffna Library, states,“… It appears to be based on personal agendas, festering prejudice and conjecture. The author’s rank service in the SL Police acts as an impressive spring board from which to pounce on the credulity of readers. The result? His police colleagues especially and most citizens believe silence is golden – which is also a telling response….” 

District Development Councils and SLFP

The SLFP led opposition rejected the District Development Council system and refrained from contesting the June 1981 election, thereby giving the UNP a walk over in many districts that included, Monaragala, Kurunrgala, Kegalle, Kandy, Matara, Nuwara Eliya and Ratnapura. The election held on June 5, 1981 was peaceful in the South, while in North it was marred by violence, intimidation and mass scale vote rigging by UNP. To say the least, several ballot boxes went missing in transport from polling booths to counting centres in the city, a few of them surfaced later from under the beds of the hotel where the ministers and their close cohorts occupied during the week of horror and revulsion.   
Ten years from the knowledge hub inferno, former President R. Premadasa in 1991 accused two of his former senior colleagues in JR government of the criminal act. He blamed Gamini Dissanayake and other notorious chauvinist minister, Cyril Mathew for taking a train load of people from Kurunegala to Jaffna for creating mayhem during the peak of DDC election campaign and organizing vote rigging on the day of election. 

"DIG [Rtd] expects us to believe that it was the Jaffna rebels led by V. Prabhakaran that torched the 93,000 books, new and old, valuable collection of manuscripts including Ola-leaf varieties"

They led the UNP ‘goons’ creating  havoc and disruptions in the Northern district. UB Wijekoon, Jaffna District Minister making a statement said “it was set on fire unexpectedly and not pre-planned after one of senior UNP candidates were shot and killed”. On the night of June 3, the police arrested A. Amirthalingham, leader of Tamil United Liberation Front [TULF] for no apparent reason, but released subsequently after receiving orders from Colombo. 1981 in Jaffna and 1983 in Colombo followed a series of acts of violence from extremists of both sides, the attacks on Dalada Maligawa, Sri Maha Bodhiya, Kebithigollewa, Central Bank continued until the terrorist were annihilated in 2009.  

Who committed Arson?

A day prior to the election, authorities air lifted 10,000 lunch packets, 2000 loaves of  bread, 1000 tins of canned fish and 5000 bananas to feed the miscreants transported from South in a special train that left the Kurunegala railway station on June 2; all at the cost of poor tax payer.  
Government declared a state of emergency effective 5.00 pm on election day, also imposed curfew restricted to the District of Jaffna. The good DIG [Rtd] expects us to believe that it was the Jaffna rebels led by V. Prabhakaran that torched the 93,000 books, new and old, valuable collection of manuscripts including Ola-leaf varieties; the symbol and pride of Tamils of North Sri Lanka. He based his inference simply on caste factor. 

They torched 93,000 Books

We remember the infamous Dedigama Bye-election held in 1973 to fill the vacant seat of one of the noblest men in politics the Late Dudley Senanayake, who passed away prematurely at the age of 62. The SLFP government led by Sirimavo Bandaranaike, and supported by Marxists, LSSP and CP made Kegalle rest house out of bound to public and housed a temporary Police station with two hand-picked Assistant Superintendents of Police drawn from other areas during the election campaign to facilitate the SLFP hooligans who terrorised the opposition. On election day they went on a rampage rigging votes in open daylight—the local police watched helplessly while the make-shift police under the two ASPs provided the necessary cover for the government thugs. However, people of Dedigama resisted with the blessings of their great leader; UNP won the battle, though they tried the same tactic in their turn and lost Jaffna eight years later. 
President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumarathunga and her loyal Minister Mangala Samaraweera made some commendable work towards neutralizing the unpardonable criminal act by Sinhalese goon squads, by launching ‘pothai-gadolai’ (book and brick) project to rebuild the library. They collected large amount of money and books from the South in an effort to help re-construct the library and initiate a reconciliatory process through it.  

‘Reichstag fire’ in Germany 

 “Jaffna library, was one of the largest libraries in South Asia; 38 years is now past and the UNP which was in power which slashed the electoral process is out of power. The Library inferno preceded the rigging, all that failed. Rev. Fr. David, the scholar and community leader who treasured the collection of valuable material died of a heart attack a couple of days after the tragedy. The ‘Reichstag fire’ in Germany, an arson attack on the  home of the German parliament in Berlin named Reichstag, took place on  February 27,  1933, exactly four weeks after  Hitler was sworn in as German Chancellor. Hitler’s government accused communist agitators in general. Nazis used the fire as an excuse to claim that communists were conspiring  against the government, and the happening was considered key to the founding of Nazi Germany.  Mysterious are the ways destiny moves to downgrade the responsible to the dustbin of history. Have we learnt our lessons?