Features

Marking 125 Years of Chundikuli Girls’ College: Revitalising a Great Heritage

Published

5 years ago

2021/02/14

Sahan Weerasooriya

by Rajan Hoole

What Education is about: Think through to the end

In writing for a major anniversary of our school, we affirm its greatness, the good times we had, the eccentricities of the teachers who acted for our own good, the scenery and environment that stay etched in memory; and the achievements of fellow students who made their mark in the world. In the memory of a little boy in the age of innocence, I am awed by the beams of sunlight pouring through the foliage of tall mahoganies that seemed to reach up to the sky. It symbolised the greatness of the institution we were part of. In remembering and reaffirming this in the company of old students from all parts of the wide world, we assure ourselves of our place in it and it is no mean corner of it that is ours. I indulged in such thoughts when I wrote 25 years ago, but that seems out of place against present reality.

I now write as one of the exceptions in my class, whether at Chundikuli or St. John’s, that actually lives in Jaffna. Many people in this country, in view of the past tragic decades have decided this is not the place for their children. Being at the tail end of the Psalmist’s life span, I see very few of my old mates. A number of them came to Jaffna after the war ended to reclaim their properties, smiled, exchanged pleasantries with old friends, or thanked those who had protected their belongings and said their last good-byes after getting the best prices for their land, often to the detriment of those left behind.

Many would claim that they had no alternative, but there should be no pretence that they left behind a healthy society and schools, and share no responsibility for the fate of a people who were their neighbours for generations. On the surface things could appear normal, but behind it lurks loneliness, absence of civic sense, coupled with a fear of going beyond personal interest and standing up for what one believes is right and decent.

It has a debilitating effect on education. Another writer in this series has referred to my mother Jeevamany Somasundaram, an old girl of Chundikuli who sat for her Cambridge Senior (O Levels) about 1934. A story that moved me deeply was related by my piano teacher Miss. Abbey Hunt. She said that during lunch intervals, when the girls were amusing themselves with various pursuits, my mother sat beneath a mahogany tree, working riders in Euclidian Geometry. It was an injunction setting a standard: once you take a problem in hand, think it through to the end. It is not a story about one woman, but about a school, an atmosphere, the teachers and their personal interest that challenged students to a high level of intellectual rigor.

Until about the 1970s several schools in Jaffna had teachers who identified capable students and took a keen interest in their future. A student of my age at Hartley told me that his Mathematics teacher, R.M. Gunaratnam, once caught him in a vice-like grip in Pt. Pedro town and warned him about his absence from classes. Today that link between teachers and students has greatly diminished, and teaching has largely been sub-contracted to tutories. It has led to a marked fall in intellectual standards and the near disappearance of intellectual life in Jaffna.

Tutories are not about teaching students to think, but produce good grades in A. Levels. My experience in university teaching too has been that few students attempt tutorial questions, but wait for answers to be given in class. It has resulted in a culture of not wanting to think through a problem. The university training amounts to teaching people to apply formulae and get results, and not bother with foundations. Many of them emigrate and get jobs abroad, which makes me suspect that we are good at producing engineer-clerks and doctor-clerks who perform their routines quite well.

Leaving behind a desert

I have referred to the ongoing sale of expatriate properties in Jaffna, which are followed by the capricious appearance of high rise buildings and the disappearance of tanks and drains. Common sense points to danger. The most damning indicator was the flooding of Jaffna Hospital during the last rains when medical staff and patients were knee-deep in water.

Coming to the issue of thinking a problem through to the end, the building spree in Jaffna has been promoted by persons in authority promising modernised water, drainage and sewage systems for Jaffna. When there is prospect of huge foreign loans, perks and contracts, basic constraints are swept under the carpet. Foreign experts are all for it and, and of our own experts who sold it, few will ultimately be rooted in Jaffna. Novel possibilities were talked about for many years and dropped; such as desalination in Vadamaratchi East, water from Iranamadu Tank for Jaffna only in flood years, or finding new sources, all of which showed that something was wrong at the root of the idea. I must digress a little.

Iranamadu has an average inflow of 147 MCM (Mega Cubic Metres), adequate for cultivation of 95 percent of paddy in Winter and 30 percent in Summer (World Bank, 1984). Supplying Jaffna means pinching 10 MCM of inflow to be piped out. A very basic constraint can be worked out from variations in river flow studied by older professionals like R. Sakthivadivel. The studies which are available on the web have been ignored. I worked out in my book Palmyra Fallen (2015) commemorating Dr. Rajani Thiranagama, that the 75 percent reliable flow into Iranamadu is 80 MCM. Nature has a cycle of about four years, and once in those four years (25 percent of the time), you could get 80 MCM or less, even though the average is 147 MCM.

In such lean years sending 10 MCM to Jaffna would be very hard on the local farmer. There are years of severe flooding but that excess has to be allowed to run to the sea. That is the short explanation of the problem. Funds were rolled out, pipes were sunk and holding towers were built. Going by press reports the matter has been at standstill from before 13 January 2019 (Sunday Observer), against protests in Killinochchi.

Although we had some of Jaffna’s leading professionals on the job, they did not think the problem through. They simply defined the problem as water being available at Iranamadu (the average inflow) and laying the works for piping it to Jaffna. The cyclical variations of river flow (Kanagarayan Aru) were simply ignored by those who should have known best.

The problem comes down to present-day Jaffna lacking an educated critical mass with the motivation, ability and connections to look after their basic interests like a clean environment and drinking water. Those with money and power have their interests elsewhere. The problems faced by many residents in Jaffna are not dissimilar to those of civilians in Rathupaswala, Gampaha, three of whom were killed on August 1, 2013 over their protest for clean drinking water.

One Jaffna family saw a hotel and a high rise building coming up on the lands of well-to-do former neighbours, which they had looked after during the war. Prices offered from black money were what their left-behind neighbours could not match. The well water in the area remains undrinkable or murky in addition to noise pollution. In the absence of a sewage system they do not know how human waste is being disposed of. Excessive drawing of water from one urban well could cause others in the neighbourhood to run dry.

Black money came, according to the well informed grapevine, in post war years from funds connected to the departing rulers held by selected businessmen. In time this black money made connections to political and similar funds in the South and in an unhealthy way fills the present gap our once independent institutions are unable to fill, particularly in health and education.

The Church that sustained Jaffna’s premier institutions in education and health fell victim to emigration and division. There is no local vision or qualified presence in Jaffna to sustain the education up to tertiary level and the medical network it pioneered. Money-centred education and medicine have thrown up a class of nouveau riche, whose impact could be classed along with that of black money.

Absence of a civic voice for Jaffna

Between Chundikuli and St. John’s, it was C.E. Anandarajah who, as principal, stood forthright as a leading voice of civil concerns in Jaffna until he was killed by the LTTE in 1985. I see the two schools as having remained timid on social concerns since. Chundikuli produced in Dr. Rajani Thiranagama a rare voice of defiance, courage and compassion, whom I was close to in the path-breaking finale of her activism ending with her assassination by the LTTE in 1989. Her civic sense as a doctor led her to treat an LTTE injured when no one else could be found. She then became involved with the LTTE. Having then become disgusted with its inhumanity, she stood up and challenged it in Jaffna itself out of compassion for those it was destroying. What she was up against is illustrated by elite politics in a society that still extols an ideology; one that in its last stand in 2009 held hostage 300,000 civilians under fire, in order to strike a deal for the safety of its leaders.

I began with the importance of educational training that urges one to spare no effort in thinking a problem through. It applies equally to the state of our politics. There was no strong resistance in Jaffna society when G.G. Ponnambalam, who was our leader in 1948, cooperated with Prime Minister Senanayake in nullifying the rights of Up Country Tamils. Ponnambalam was only following the line of several notables from the North; many of them not his supporters (A.J. Wilson, Political Biography of Chelvanayakam). The damage we did to the Up Country Tamils hurt us grievously in the long term. Since then we have been crying over spilt milk – the large numbers of dead and the exile of our brightest and best to Austro-eur-america.

Our fragmentation and growing isolation is reflected in queries about how the dowry of a bride from Jaffna would translate into real estate in Colombo or Sydney. We cannot stop at observing that we have been poorly served by most of those who left us. The present girls of Chundikuli have as much talent as there was in the time of our mothers and aunts. What they need is to rediscover the tradition that questions everything they are told and reason them out to the end. I don’t think I am wrong when I say that what made Jaffna great in the 1930s and 1940s was the strong surge of sympathy for the Indian independence struggle. That was when the influence of Gandhi and liberated women like Kamaladevi Chattopadyaya and Sarojini Naidu, all of whom came to Jaffna, made a tremendous impact on its people.

My mother spoke of her teachers with great affection. When she was on the staff of the school and was engaged in 1947, the Principal Dr. Miss. Evangeline Thilliayampalam (PhD Columbia, 1929, aged 34) counselled her that an engagement should not be prolonged. Her Jubilee message in 1946 points to a woman who was silently politicised: “The forces which retard human progress are poverty, ignorance and class rivalry.” My mother also spoke fondly of the Mutthiah sisters, Kanaham and Yogam. I quote from Lorna Vandendriesen who said in a tribute to three Chundikuli teachers, ‘who really set high standards and ran the school regardless of who was the Principal. Gracious Miss. Grace Hensman, gentle Miss. Kanaham Mutthiah and beautiful Miss. Yogam. They were wonderful teachers. I know. I was their pupil.’

I.P. Thurairatnam, who was later principal of Union College, said that he won the ‘Mixed Doubles Championship with Yogam Muttiah of Chundikuli. Spurred by these victories we tried our mettle at the All Ceylon Tennis Meet in Nuwara Eliya in 1932 and 1933, and met with moderate success.’ Chundikuli girls long had a reputation as trend setters.

I may add that admitted to Chundikuli as a boy of seven I spent two golden years as a novice to the world of the fairer sex (1956/7). I too was pleasantly affected by my charming class teachers Miss. Nesamalar Seevaratnam (now Mrs. Yogaratnam) and Miss. Agnes Champion (later Mrs. Ponniah).

Today’s Jaffna could be a very discouraging place. In order to sharpen our analytical ability and think problems through without resting satisfied with half-baked solutions we need public discussion, friends and colleagues who would tell us bluntly when we are being asinine. When we become defensive and take offence at criticism, even a well-endowed institution like a university would fail to prepare students to think through problems and aspire to a just society, while the teachers themselves remain frogs-in-the-well.

We cannot change things overnight, but what well-wishers could do for schools like Chundikuli is to expose students to speakers who will encourage them to question everything. This we used to have in the 1950s and 1960s when visitors from India were frequent. It also means reversing swabasha isolationism.

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Features

The Division Bell Mystery

Published

1 day ago

2026/05/29

Thilina Walpola

Tales of Mystery and Suspense 3

The murder, in a private dining room in the house, is of a financier with whom the government was negotiating a loan. When this seemed difficult the Minister of Home Affairs agreed to lead discussions, since he had known Mr Oissel the financier when they were young. Hence the private dinner, but when the Minister stepped out for a vote, Oissel was shot just as the Division Bell rang.

The Brahms and Simon detective novels, the first of which I wrote about last week, were amongst several books by the pair that Robert Scoble gave me when I was in Australia towards the end of last year. Amongst them was another thriller of a very different sort, though that too was written and set between the wars.

Called The Division Bell Mystery, it was set in the House of Commons, the first such book I believe, and was by Ellen Wilkinson, a Labour MP who became Minister of Education in Attlee’s government after the war, having served previously as Parliamentary Private Secretary to several ministers. Her hero Robert West is also a PPS, but a conservative, and his Minister, of Home Affairs, is an old style aristocrat, not much loved by the less orthodox Prime Minister, who nevertheless needs his support on many occasions.

The murder, in a private dining room in the house, is of a financier with whom the government was negotiating a loan. When this seemed difficult the Minister of Home Affairs agreed to lead discussions, since he had known Mr Oissel the financier when they were young. Hence the private dinner, but when the Minister stepped out for a vote, Oissel was shot just as the Division Bell rang.

West was just outside the door when the shot was heard, and when he opened it saw only the dead body with a revolver beside it. The assumption that this was suicide was however challenged by Oissel’s grand-daughter Annette, who was his heir, on the grounds that he would never have killed himself. But her view was given greater credence by the Inspector put in charge of the case who said there were no burn marks on the body which would have been the case had Oissel fired the pistol himself.

Matters are complicated by the fact that Oissel’s flat had been burgled while he was at dinner, and Jenks the policeman allocated to him, who had served the Home Secretary and seemed more acceptable to Oissel than someone from the Security Service, had been killed. Matters get even more complicated when Annette says her grand-father’s notebook in which he wrote his secrets in cipher was missing.

That was found in Jenks’ pocket, and then a photographer came to West to say he had been asked by Jenks to photograph this. More worryingly for West, he finds in the Home Secretary’s drawer a few pages from the notebook with what appears to be an interpretation of the cipher.

Ellen

Overwhelmed by all this he confides in a recently created peer who knows all about the business world, who insists that they leave the house party at which they had met over dinner and discuss the matter with the Prime Minister who promptly summons the Home Secretary.

But the Home Secretary had gone to Scotland to launch a ship over the weekend, so the meeting could take place only on the morning of the Monday, when difficult questions were expected on the adjournment motion. He admits at the meeting that he had got Jenks to take the notebook, and also that he knew the code since it had been created by him and Oissel when they were young.

He thought he should resign, and even contemplated suicide, but the Prime Minister told him that that would be even worse for the government, and that he should go home to bed. The Prime Minister said that he himself would handle the question, which he did with aplomb, insisting that confidentiality was needed until the inquest. What had happened would be made clear then, he declared, leaving West and Inspector Blackit and Lord Dalbeattie what seemed the impossible task of solving the murder.

Dalbeattie had suggested that West ask a female Labour MP who was very fond of him to get what information she could from the staff. That there was some involvement there had become clear when West, going back late one night to collect a briefcase he had left in a dining room, found someone lurking in the dark in the corridor outside the private rooms. Room J, where the murder had happened, was meant to be guarded throughout by a policeman, but he had left the room having felt dizzy, and it seemed that his coffee had been drugged. West’s sudden appearance however had prevented anyone else getting into the room.

Dalbeattie decides to recreate the scene of the murder and has a dinner party in Room J on the Tuesday night, inviting West and Annette and the society hostess at whose house he had met, and also Patrick Kinnaird, an MP who was engaged to Annette, as well as the Permanent Secretary to the Home Ministry.

After coffee Inspector Blackit comes in with Grace, the Labour MP who had got the confidence of the staff, and a journalist who had also been helpful, and just as they say they think they are on the track the division bell rings. Grace jumps up and tells the Inspector that that provides the solution and they get a ladder, and sure enough find the revolver in the space where the bell is. Directed at the place where Oissel had sat, it had been primed to go off with the ringing of the bell. The waiter who had helped to set things up made clear who the murderer had been.

The reason for the murder and the confused motives of all those involved made for a fascinatingly intricate mix. But also impressive in the book were the descriptions of the isolation possible in the crowded premises of the house, the forceful characterization of the members – Grace based on the writer, the society hostess based on Nancy Astor, the first female MP – and the laid back nature of senior politicians which West realized had to change in the brave new world of high finance.

Features

The challenge of keeping value-based politics alive

Published

2 days ago

2026/05/28

Sahan Weerasooriya

Anti-migrant protests in Durban, South Africa. BBC

The current outbreak of anti-immigrant protests in Durban, South Africa is bound to have taken many a subscriber to value-based politics or political idealism quite by surprise. After all, this is evidence that despite the historic accomplishments of nation-builders of the stature of the late President Nelson Mandela it cannot be taken for granted that identity politics, including racism in its worst forms, is no more in South Africa.

At the time of this writing details are scarce on the substantive root causes of the protests but it could very well be that economic grievances, particularly on the part of the majority community in South Africa, are contributing considerably to the disaffection. Shrinking employment and material prospects are likely to figure majorly among the factors igniting the unrest.

Fortunately, the local authorities in Durban are losing no time in calling for peaceful co-existence among the relevant communities and are pointing to the vital importance of stepping-up national integration processes. Apparently, immigrants in sizable numbers from neighbouring countries are present in Durban. However, international TV footage of the protests quoted some local authorities as saying that the majority of the immigrants in some centres that housed them were not illegal migrants and had the documents that entitle them to be in Durban.

In the Durban protests the world has fresh proof of the socially divisive consequences of the gathering globe-wide economic disaffection, touched off particularly by the continuing crisis in West Asia. Going ahead, the world would need to brace for increasing identity-based unrest of the kind it is just witnessing in South Africa.

Considering that the material lot of ordinary people everywhere could only aggravate progressively, with the US and Iran showing no signs of negotiating an end to their confrontation any time soon, it will be left to the more democratic and progressive sections of the world community to initiate positive measures collectively to bring a measure of relief to the discontented.

The swiftness with which such relief will be provided would depend crucially on the importance those sections taking up these undertakings attach to value-based politics as opposed to Realpolitik of power politics.

Going by these yardsticks, Italy could be considered to be moving in the right direction. Recently Italy came to the fore in initiating the collective named, ‘Rome Coalition for Food Security and Access to Fertilizer’, which has as one of its aims the swift provision of fertilizer to economically weak African countries.

In a recent statement Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Antonio Tajani, said that a principal aim of the project was to ensure that the farmers of Africa gained easy access to fertilizer, considering that food security is a growing concern among some of Africa’s economically vulnerable countries.

The statement went on to mention that some 30 countries hailing from the Mediterranean region, the Middle East, the Balkans as well as the FAO had been invited to join the coalition. The venture is far-seeing in that food security is main among the reasons for social discontent which in turn could degenerate into endemic political turmoil and bloodshed. Separatist violence and geographical fragmentation of countries wouldn’t be too far behind these developments, as Africa itself has often proved.

It is hoped that more G7 countries would take the cue from Italy and do what they could to ease the hardships of economically distressed countries, particularly of the global South. In these efforts they would need to break rank with the US, which is today brutally indifferent to the consequences of its policy of making ‘America First’, come what may.

Going by current developments, the Trump administration seems to be blithely oblivious to the wider, deleterious effects of its policy course in West Asia. Besides rendering Iran militarily and otherwise impotent nothing else seems to matter to Washington, as regards West Asia. This is policy short-sightedness of an extreme kind. After all, right now West Asia could be said to be sitting on the proverbial powder keg.

On the other hand, Iran is not giving the world the impression that it is doing anything constructive to get out of the policy straitjacket that it wove for itself decades ago. Rather than enter into a policy of ‘live and let live’ in relation to Israel in particular and initiate a process of reconciliation with the latter, it has chosen to operate within policy parameters that continue to damn Israel. This has put Israel always on the ‘defensive’ so to speak and prevented the opening up of space for meaningful dialogue.

That said, Israel is obliged to explore the possibilities of entering into a negotiatory process with the Arab-Islamic world that could lead to a de-escalation of tensions and bloodshed. It cannot continue to look at its neighbours through lenses that distort them as archetypal enemies who should be ‘wiped off completely from the face of the earth.’

In other words, the need is urgent for Realpolitik to give way to value-based politicks. Italy is beginning to prove that the latter approach could be pursued with some success. May be the EU and the UK could throw their weight behind these initiatives as well and establish that international politics could be refashioned on the basis of humane, civilized norms. The UN would need to be fully supportive of these moves and prove an organizational nucleus of the operations that follow.

In fact the time is ripe for people of conscience to collectively stand up on the side of peace and say ‘No’ to war and violence. Organizations such as the ICRC, the WHO and Medicines Sans Frontiers have already taken up this call. Referring to the widespread destruction of health facilities and their dehumanizing results these organizations have said, among other things, that ‘This is not a failure of the law. It is a failure of political will.’

True, ‘failure of political will’ among those powers that matter accounts for the runaway, uncontrollable nature of war and destruction in contemporary times, but more fundamentally it is a failure of the human conscience. It could very well be that the phenomenal levels to which violence and war have been unleashed today have had the effect of deadening consciences. This is a matter for urgent study and wide discussion.

Features

Vesak celebrations … with Cuteefly

Published

2 days ago

2026/05/28

Sahan Weerasooriya

Perfect for celebrations, gifts, and meaningful occasions // Gift pack

I would describe Indunil Kaushalya Dissanayaka as innovative and creative, and she operates under the name of Cuteefly.

Indunil always comes up with something novel to celebrate special occasions, and she does it with candles … and that’s her profession.

She was in the spotlight when she created a happening scene, with candles, for Christmas, Sinhala and Tamil New Year, and Valentine’s Day.

As lanterns light up Sri Lanka for Vesak, the Colombo-based candle maker is quietly turning wax and wick into little pieces of the festival.

Candles reflecting Vesak themes

Her candles reflect Vesak themes – light, peace, remembrance, giving, etc., to enable you to fill your Vesak celebration with devotion and beauty.

Among her Vesak creations is a lotus-shaped soy candle, scented with sandalwood, lavender, etc., meant to burn during this Vesak Poya Day.

Indunil Kaushalya Dissanayaka: Customers
praise her for her creativity

These handcrafted Vesak candles are perfect for offering at the temple, she says.

What makes her creations so novel is that they come in different shapes, scents, themes, and all are handmade.

What’s more, her customers have heaped praise on her for her creativity.

According to Indunil, her creations are perfect as a thoughtful gift … to bring beauty, unity, and light into every moment.

Says Indunil: “Our beautifully handcrafted Unity candles are designed with premium detail and love, making them perfect for celebrations, gifts, and meaningful occasions.”

Cuteefly, says Indunil, is available online.

Readers could contact Indunil on 0778506066 for more details.

He Facebook Page is: Cuteefly.