Features
A People in-between East and West
The Dutch Burghers in Sri Lanka:
by Prabhath de Silva
“We are a vanishing tribe in Sri Lanka. The first paternal ancestor of my father’s family who arrived in Sri Lanka in 1774 was Pieter Scharenguivel. He was a Quarter Master in the service of the United Dutch East India Company which ruled the maritime provinces of Sri Lanka from the middle of the 17th century to 1796. The Dutch Burgher identity and consciousness within the family I grew up was extremely significant. It played a role in the conversations, traditions, customs, food, perceptions and social interactions. During the British colonial rule, our community produced eminent surgeons, doctors, legal luminaries, judges, engineers, sportsmen, musicians , historians and artists etc.” , said Anne-Marie Scharenguivel, 65, a management accountant and a member of Sri Lanka’s tiny Dutch Burgher community of less than 30,000 people. The people known as ‘Dutch Burghers are descendants of the Europeans who arrived in Sri Lanka as servants of the United East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie- VOC) which ruled Sri Lanka’s maritime provinces from 1656 to 1796 or merchants and married native women or women who were children of mixed marriages between European men and native women.
Sri Lanka’s largest ethnic group is the Sinhalese, constituting 74.9% of the population of 21 million. The Sri Lankan Tamils, who live predominantly in the north and east of the island, are the largest ethnic minority group at 11.1% of Sri Lanka’s population. The Muslims are the third largest ethnic group at 9.3% of the population. Indian Tamils comprise 4.1% of Sri Lanka’s population. Smaller minority groups include the Malays, Burghers, Chetties (an originally trading community whose ancestors arrived from the southern parts of India) and the Veddahs -Sri Lanka’s indigenous people. Malays are descendants of Malay settlers brought by the Dutch colonial rulers.
The Dutch Connection with Sri Lanka
The Portuguese were the first European colonial power to arrive in Sri Lanka in 1505 when Sri Lanka had been divided into three kingdoms, namely the Kingdom of Kotte, Kingdom of Jaffna and the interior Kingdom of Kandy. Their presence in Sri Lanka’s maritime provinces between 1505 and 1656 CE, which began as an interaction of trade and commerce, later developed into a colonial rule in the maritime provinces (sans eastern coast from Trincomalee) downwards from 1597. Admiral Joris van Spilbergen (1568-1629), the Dutch circumnavigator, who commanded the fleet of ships’ Ram’, ‘Schaap’, and ‘Lam’ belonging to the Dutch company named Balthazar de Moucheron (a trading company that had been in existence before the establishment of the United East India Company -VOC in March 1602 ), landed in Batticaloa in Sri Lanka’s eastern coast on May 31, 1602, after a 12 month voyage at sea. Van Spilbergen met King Vimaladharmasuriya I, the King of Kandy (interior native kingdom of Sri Lanka), and negotiated the possibilities of trade in cinnamon and pepper and of providing military assistance to the King of Kandy to expel the Portuguese from the coastal regions of the Island. Van Spilbergen’s visit was the first Dutch visit to the Island. Spilbergen was followed by the visits of the fleets of Dutch ships commanded by the Dutch navigator, Sebald de Weert in November 1602, Jacob Cornelisz in 1603 and Marcellus de Boschouwer in 1612.
On May 23, 1638, the Treaty of 1638 between the Kingdom of Kandy and the United East India Company was signed by King Rajasinghe II for the Kingdom of Kandy and Adam Westerwold and William Jacobsz Coster, a commander and vice commander of the Dutch Naval Forces representing the United East India Company (VOC) in Batticaloa. The treaty secured the terms under which the two nations would cooperate in defending the Kandyan Kingdom from the Portuguese. The writer vividly remembers visiting the Dutch State Archives in The Hague in 1985 accompanied by a Dutch Burgher lady friend (64 at that time) settled down in that city, to see one of the original copies of this treaty handwritten in medieval Dutch. This friend whose father was a Ceylonese Dutch Burgher named Kriekenbeek and whose mother was a native Dutch lady, having left Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in 1948 at the age of 24 and having lived in The Netherlands for almost 37 years, was able to translate the contents of the Treaty for me from Dutch to English. I can also remember the courtesy and kindness extended to me (then a 25 year old lawyer) by the Staff of the Dutch State Archives.
The key points of the 1638 Treaty were (a) the Dutch should provide the King of Kandy with military and naval assistance to drive the Portuguese from the Island; (b) the Kandyan King should fully settle the military and naval expenditure incurred by the Dutch for onslaughts against the Portuguese by way of providing the Dutch with commodities such as cinnamon and pepper etc (c) the King of Kandy should grant the Dutch the monopoly of collecting spices and other commodities except elephants from the territories that constituted the Kingdom of Kandy; and (d) the Dutch should vacate the fortresses that would be captured from the Portuguese if the King would desire to take them over. Between 1640 and 1658 the Dutch completely expelled the Portuguese from the maritime provinces of Sri Lanka and ruled until 1796 when the British in turn replaced the Dutch and eventually took the whole island, including its holdout interior Kingdom of Kandy.
The maritime provinces of Sri Lanka came under the rule of Dutch East India Company after its armies defeated the Portuguese in a series of battles between 1640 and 1658. When the Kandyan King, Rajasinghe II demanded the Dutch to vacate and hand over the captured Portuguese Fortresses and territories, the Dutch presented a bill of military and naval expenditure involved in the battles to oust the Portuguese and asked the King to settle the bill first. But Rajasinghe II who was unable to settle the bill, would say that the Dutch had exaggerated the expenditure. The Dutch would maintain that they could hold the territories and fortresses captured from the Portuguese until the King Rajasinghe II and his successors would fully settle their bill of military and naval expenditure of onslaughts against the Portuguese. This was the legal foundation upon which the Dutch justified their occupation of the maritime provinces in the southern, western and northern coastal areas. Later they formulated another legal argument in their search for a legal basis for their rule in those regions.
They argued that Rajasinghe’s Treaty of 1638 with them was a nullity with regard to the Kingdom of Kotte as King Don Jao Dharmapala had gifted it to the King of Portugal in 1591 and the Portuguese had acquired the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Jaffna by conquest by war 1621, and as such Rajasinghe II, the King of Kandy had legal status (locus standi) to sign a treaty claiming the sovereignty over former territories of the Kingdom of Kotte (south western coastal areas of Sri Lanka) and the Kingdom of Jaffna (northern coastal areas). After a war between the Kingdom of Kandy and the forces of the United East India Company, the dispute over the sovereignty of the maritime provinces was permanently settled by the Treaty of 1766, by which the King of Kandy conceded the territorial control of the western, southern, northern and eastern coastal areas to the Dutch. The maritime provinces were ruled by the Dutch East India Company from 1656 to 1796. During their period, a canal system was developed, a judicial system was introduced with the Roman-Dutch Law. The Roman-Dutch Law still remains to be the residuary common law in civil matters, though much of it has been replaced with English Law by statutes during the British rule.
A number of Dutch words have become naturalized in the Sinhalese language . Among many such words are: Kamaraya in Sinhalese is derived from the Dutch word ‘Kamer’ for the room, Kanthoruwa in Sinhalese for office is derived from the Dutch word ‘Kantoor” for office, ‘ boodalaya’ in Sinhalese is derived from the Dutch word ‘Boedel’ for the estate of a deceased person, ‘Kakkussiya” in Sinhalese for lavatory is derived from the Dutch word’ Kakhuis’. The British captured the maritime provinces of the Island in 1796. Among other legacies of the Dutch rule are Dutch forts and a few buildings preserved for posterity. The Dutch Burgher community in Sri Lanka is a living legacy of the Dutch period. When native feudal Chiefs ceded the sovereignty of the interior native Kandyan Kingdom to the British Empire by the Kandyan Convention of 1815, the whole Island came under the British rule. Sri Lanka gained independence from the British in1948.
Who are the Burghers and the Dutch Burghers?
The word ‘Burgher’ is derived from the Dutch word ‘Vrije Burgher ‘, meaning “free citizen” or “town dweller”. The Burghers in Sri Lanka are an Eurasian community of mixed origin, whose first paternal ancestors were European colonists (mainly from Portugal, The Netherlands and the UK) who had married native Sinhalese or Tamil women. The Portuguese men who opted to remain in Sri Lanka had married native Sinhalese or Tamil women because there were no Portuguese women in the Island. The children who were born in a marriage between the Portuguese colonists and native women in Portuguese colonies overseas were called Mesticos. The second and subsequent generations of Portuguese colonists who opted to remain in Sri Lanka preferred to marry the Mestico women and their second preference was the native women. The servants and soldiers of the Dutch East India who arrived in Sri Lanka were not only Dutch but belonged to other European nationalities too including German and French Protestants known as Huguenots, Scandinavian and Italian. Marriages between them and native women were less frequent with the passage of time.
The descendants of the European servants of the Dutch East India Company and Mestico women and native women ( Sinhalese and Tamil) became known as ‘Dutch Burghers’. In order to be considered as a Dutch Burgher, one’s father ought to have inherited an European family name from an European paternal ancestor who had come to Sri Lanka during the period Dutch East India Company ruled the maritime provinces of the Island. During the Dutch colonial period, the mother tongue or the lingua franca of the Dutch Burgher community in Sri Lanka was an Indo-Portuguese creole, though the Dutch Burghers later adopted English as their first language during the British colonial period.
Dutch Burghers during the British colonial rule in Sri Lanka
Although many portray British rule here as ‘exploitative’, of our country, they ignore the vast economic, social and educational developments that facilitated the transition from feudalism to capitalism and a parliamentary democracy. The contemporary progressive political trends in Britain with her social movements like utilitarianism, social, democratic and labour movements, too influenced colonial rule here. The British empire was an extension of British capitalism to the colonies including Ceylon. Lenin in his book “Colonialism: The Advanced Stage of Capitalism” presented a similar argument. Today, we beg for foreign investment. This is not a new phenomenon. During British colonial rule, British companies invested in the plantations and other sectors in Sri Lanka. These capitalists paid taxes to the British colonial government here on the profits they earned. Later parallel to the British and European capitalist class, an indigenous native entrepreneur class emerged. The colonial government managed the economy with its own tax revenue without borrowing from outside. The Dutch Burghers who were a sort of ‘people in between’ the west and the east were able to achieve eminent positions in the public service, medical profession, legal profession and judiciary during the British colonial period in Sri Lanka. They held a proportionately higher percentage of positions as clerks, engineers, surveyors, journalists, locomotive engine drivers and railway guards in the public service. Their presence was significant in the employment of mercantile sector. It was the eminent Dutch Burghers like Charles Ambrose Lorensz were the pioneer constitutionalists who agitated for more liberal and democratic constitutional reforms during the 19th century British colonial Sri Lanka.
The Dutch Burghers in Post -Independence Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka gained independence from the British in 1948 and inherited from the British a democratic form of government based on the Westminster parliamentary model. At the time of Independence, Sinhalese majority constituted 66% of Sri Lanka’s population and the Buddhists who were almost exclusively Sinhalese constituted 60% of the Sri Lanka’s population whilst the remaining 6% of the Sinhalese population were Christians. Sri Lanka’s ethno-religious and ethnic minorities ,at the time of independence constituted 34% of Sri Lanka’s population. Sri Lanka’s first Prime Minister, D. S. Senanayake, a Sinhalese Buddhist, was a pragmatic leader who did not want to upset the ethnic harmony prevalent at the time of Independence. He and his political party the United National Party formed coalition governments with the major Tamil and Muslim parties and formed the cabinet of ministers representing Sri Lanka’s majority Sinhalese Buddhist community and other ethno-linguistic and religious minorities.
He and his two immediate successors, Dudley Senanayake and Sir John Kotalawala after Senanayake’s resignation refused to accede to the demands of the Sinhalese Buddhist nationalists for making Sinhalese the only official language replacing English, making Buddhism the State religion and for immediate take over of Christian denominational schools by the State. The Sinhalese Buddhist nationalists approached Solomon West Ridgway Dias Bandaranaike, who had broke away from D. S. Senanayake’s United National Party and had formed a new political party named Sri Lanka Freedom Party. Bandaranaike promised to implement all these demands of the Sinhalese Buddhist nationalists in the event his party would come to power at the next General Election. Bandaranaike was a Sinhalese born to a highly anglicized Christian aristocratic family. Educated at Oxford (1919-1925), Bandaranaike was a Barrister-at-Law and an eloquent speaker at the Oxford Union. A few years after his return to the Island from Oxford, Bandaranaike adopted the national dress, learned the Sinhalese language and began to tread on a path of communal politics based on Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism.
In 1956, a coalition led by Bandaranaike’s on communal sentiments and slogans of the Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism and socialism, was elected to power and Bandaranaike became the Prime Minister. One of the first things his government hurriedly did was to enact an Official Language Act making Sinhalese the only official language disregarding the Tamil and English , and the demand for making both Sinhalese and Tamil as official languages put forward by the Tamil political parties and Marxist political parties were rejected. The enactment of this piece of legislation deprived the English educated intelligentsia of Tamils, Dutch Burghers and Sinhalese of public sector jobs unless they passed an examination to prove their proficiency in Sinhala language.
Bandaranaike who began to experience the initial destructive consequences of his short sighted policies ,could not live long to witness the long term consequence of the whirlwind of communal tensions he set in motion through his unwise initiatives.
In September 1959, Bandaranaike was assassinated by a Buddhist monk named Talduwe Somarama, a misguided instrument or a cat’s paw of a conspiracy by a group of Sinhalese Buddhists (led by a prominent Sinhalese Buddhist monk) who helped him come to power , but developed an enmity with him, when in power, Bandaranaike refused to help them form a shipping company. The enactment of Bandaranaike’s ‘Sinhala Only’ and the events that followed drastically changed the political landscape of Sri Lanka, with his SLFP’s rival, the UNP’s governments too pursuing the same policies when in power, resulting in communal riots of 1958, 1977 and 1983 disturbances and tensions culminating in a 30-year civil war. Mrs. Bandaranaike who became prime minister in 1960, pursued policies of her husband rigorously, and took over the denominational schools of which an overwhelming majority were Christian in 1961. This entailed further appeasing the demands of the Sinhalese Buddhist nationalists by withholding State grants and subsidies for such schools if they opted to remain private. As result only 51 Christian school out of hundreds could remain independent.
Christians, particularly Catholics considered the take over of their schools by the State a discriminatory blow. Mrs. Bandaranaike, elected to power again in 1970 with a two third majority in parliament, severed the constitutional links with the British monarch as the ceremonial head of the state and abolished right to appeal the decisions of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom. Her government enacted a Republican constitution granting Buddhism the foremost place in the Sri Lankan State, casting a constitutional duty upon the State to protect and foster Buddhism. Her government went further to perpetuate the Sinhala Only policy of her late husband by making Sinhala the only official language in the Sri Lankan State by incorporating provisions for such status in the new constitution of 1972. History has shown that issues of race, caste, religion, language and blind political affiliations have always been exploited by the leaders, and that these machinations have not originated from the ordinary people or peasants. Innocent peasants may be misled, misguided and mobilized by the leaders to achieve their narrow self–serving interests and ambitions by exploiting ethnicity, religion, caste and language in the South Asian political context. The Dutch Burghers, having experienced anxieties and insecurities of their future prospects, opted to emigrate mainly to Australia.
(To be continued next week)
by Jehan Perera
The Batalanda Commission report which goes into details of what happened during the JVP insurrection of 1987-89 has become the centre of public attention. The controversy has long been a point of contention and a reminder of the country’s troubled past and entrenched divisions that still exist. The events that occurred at Batalanda during the violent suppression of the JVP-led insurgency, remain a raw wound, as seen in the sudden resurfacing of the issue. The scars of violence and war still run deep. At a time when the country is grappling with pressing challenges ranging from economic recovery to social stability, there is a need to keep in focus the broader goal of unity for long-term peace and prosperity. But the ghosts of the past need also to be put to rest without continuing to haunt the present and future.
Grisly accounts of what transpired at Batalanda now fill the social media even in the Tamil media, though Tamils were not specifically targeted at that time. There was then a ceasefire between the government and LTTE. The Indo-Lanka Accord had just been signed and the LTTE were fighting the Indian peacekeeping army. The videos that are now circulating on social media would show the Tamil people that they were not the only ones at the receiving end of counter-terrorist measures. The Sinhalese were in danger then, as it was a rebellion of Sinhalese against the state. Sinhalese youth had to be especially careful.
It appears that former president Ranil Wickremesinghe was caught unprepared by the questions from a team from Al Jazeera television. The answers he gave, in which he downplayed the significance of the Batalanda Commission report have been viewed differently, depending on the perspective of the observer. He has also made a statement in which he has rejected the report. The report, which demands introspection, referred to events that had taken place 37 years earlier. But the ghosts of the past have returned. After the issue has come to the fore, there are many relatives and acquaintances of the victims from different backgrounds who are demanding justice and offering to come forward to give evidence of what they had witnessed. They need closure after so many years.
MORE POLARISATION
The public reaction to the airing of the Al Jazeera television programme is a reminder that atrocities that have taken place cannot be easily buried. The government has tabled the Batalanda Commission report in parliament and hold a two-day debate on it. The two days were to be consecutive but now the government has decided to space them out over two months. There is reason to be concerned about what transpires in the debate. The atrocities that took place during the JVP insurrection involved multiple parties. Batalanda was not the only interrogation site or the only torture chamber. There were many others. Former president Ranil Wickremesinghe was not the only prominent protagonist in the events that transpired at that time.
The atrocities of the late 1980s were not confined to one location, nor were they the responsibility of a single individual or group. The JVP engaged in many atrocities and human rights violations. In addition to members of the former government and military who engaged in counter-terrorism operations there were also other groups that engaged both in self-defence and mayhem. These included members of left political parties who were targeted by the JVP and who formed their own para-military groups. Some of the leaders went on to become ministers in succeeding governments and even represented Sri Lanka at international human rights forums. Even members of the present government will not be able to escape the fallout of the debate over the Batalanda Commission report.
If the debate becomes a battleground for assigning blame rather than seeking solutions, it could have far-reaching consequences for Sri Lanka’s social and political stability. Economic recovery, governance reform, and development require stability and cooperation. The present storm caused by the Batalanda Commission report, and the prospects for increased polarisation and hatred do not bode well for the country. Rather than engaging in potentially divisive debates that could lead to further entrenchment of opposing narratives, Sri Lanka would be better served by a structured and impartial approach to truth-seeking and reconciliation.
NATIONAL HEALING
Earlier this month at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the government rejected the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights assertion that the external evidence gathering unit would continue to collect evidence on human rights violations in Sri Lanka. This evidence gathering unit has a mandate to collect information on a wide range of human rights violations including intimidation and killings of journalists but with a focus on the human rights violations and war crimes during the course of the LTTE war and especially at its end. The government’s position has been that it is determined to deal with human rights challenges including reconciliation through domestic processes.
Addressing the High-Level Segment of the 58th Regular Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva in February this year, Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath said: “The contours of a truth and reconciliation framework, will be further discussed with the broadest possible cross section of stakeholders, before operationalisation to ensure a process that has the trust of all Sri Lankans. Our aim is to make the domestic mechanisms credible and sound within the constitutional framework. This will include strengthening the work towards a truth and reconciliation commission empowered to investigate acts of violence caused by racism and religious extremism that give rise to tensions within Sri Lankan society.”
The concept of a truth and reconciliation commission was first broached in 2015 by then prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government. In 2019 after winning the presidential elections, former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa too saw merit in the idea, but neither of these two leaders had the commitment to ensure that the process was completed. Promoting reconciliation in Sri Lanka among divergent political actors with violent political pasts requires a multi-faceted approach that blends political, social, and psychological strategies.
Given the country’s complex history of armed conflict, ethnic tensions, and political polarisation, the process must be carefully designed to build trust, address grievances, and create a shared vision for the future. A truth and reconciliation process as outlined in Geneva by the government, which has teeth in it for both punishment and amnesty, can give the country the time and space in which to uncover the painful truths and the path to national healing.
Our universities are characterized by hierarchies. They manifest in formal and informal ways, reinforcing power asymmetries based on class, ethnicity and gender, and placing inordinate authority in those with higher status. In medicine, a ‘hidden curriculum’ orients undergraduates to hierarchies from their early days in training, placing professors over lecturers, ‘clinical’ over ‘non-clinical’ teachers, consultants over medical officers, and so on. While hierarchies are needed at universities (and hospitals) to streamline decision-making, dysfunctional hierarchies create unhealthy learning environments and a culture of fear that discourages students from asking questions and voicing concerns. They also legitimize mistreatment, humiliation, bullying, and other abuses of power. A few months ago, when I invited a medical student to participate in a session on ragging and harassment for incoming students, she asked me (quoted with permission), “What’s the point of doing a programme like that if ragging happens in official level by teachers with everyone knowing, Madam?” Her question led me to explore the avenues available at state universities for undergraduates to counter abuses of power by teachers and university administrations.
What can undergrads do?
The University Grants Commission (UGC) and all state universities have established mechanisms for reporting complaints of ragging and sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV). The UGC’s online portal entertains complaints on “all forms of ragging; sexual harassment; sexual or gender based violence; threats and intimidation; bullying; and harassment.” Complaint procedures for ragging and SGBV are described in detail on the websites of each university, as well as the websites of some faculties. Students may also take any complaints directly to the Dean, student counsellors, academic advisors/mentors, and teachers. In addition, many faculties have portals to submit online complaints on ragging and harassment, while others rely on informal mechanisms, like complaint boxes, to protect anonymity. While these systems are used by students to some extent, rarely do they function as checks and balances against abuses of power by teachers and others at the pinnacle of the university hierarchy.
Anyone who works at a state university would know that students (and the university community more broadly) have very little confidence in existing complaint and grievance procedures. While the minority of incidents that get reported may make it to the inquiry stage, the complaints are often withdrawn under threat and intimidation from the authorities or simply brushed under the carpet. More recently, certain universities and faculties have worked towards establishing formal student grievance procedures outside the SGBV/ragging reporting systems.
Newer grievance mechanisms
Sabaragamuwa University appears to be the only university with a university-wide policy for grievance redressal. The protocol described in the standard operating procedure (SOP) requires that students submit their complaint in writing to the Dean or Deputy Senior Student Counsellor of the relevant faculty. On receiving a complaint, a Committee will be set up by the Dean/Deputy Senior Student Counsellor to conduct an inquiry. The Committee will comprise five senior staff members, including “two independent members (one representing another department, and one may represent the Gender Equity and Equality Cell of the Faculty where relevant)…” The SOP further states that “any student can oppose to have his/her mentor and/or any faculty member to be in the five-person team handling his/her issue.” However, this information is available only to the discerning student who is able to navigate the university’s complex website, hit the Centre for Quality Assurance tab, view the list of documents and click ‘best practices’.
Several faculties of medicine appear to have introduced grievance mechanisms. The Grievance Committee of the Faculty of Medicine, Colombo, considers complaints regarding “a decision or action that is perceived to adversely affect the grievant in her or his professional academic capacity.” The procedure requires that students submit the grievance in writing to the Dean. The Committee comprises “persons who are not current employees of the Faculty of Medicine” and the complainant may request the presence of a member of the Medical Students’ Welfare Society. The Faculty of Medicine, Ruhuna, implements a grievance policy that is more expansive in scope, covering concerns related to “organizational changes in the teaching and learning environment, decisions by academic staff members affecting individuals or groups of students, changes in the content or structure of academic programmes, changes in the nature and quality of teaching and assessment, supervision of students undertaking research projects, authorship and intellectual property, [and the] quality of student services and access to university facilities and resources.” While the policy notes that incidents related to harassment, discrimination and bullying, come under the jurisdiction of the university’s SGBV policy, it does not entertain complaints about examinations. The medical faculty of the University of Sri Jayewardenepura (SJP), has an online grievance system that investigates complaints related to “any physical, psychological, academic or any other problem related to the University life”. The system commits to maintaining confidentiality, pledging that “information will not be divulged to members outside the Student Grievances Committee without the student’s permission.”
Gaps in existing systems
The university-wide SGBV/ragging reporting system could be used to address harassment and intimidation of all kinds. Sadly, however, undergraduates appear to be unaware of these possibilities or reluctant to use them. It is unclear as to whether the newer grievance mechanisms at universities and faculties have managed to achieve the desired outcome. Are they used by students and do they lead to constructive changes in the learning environment or do they simply exist to tick the check box of quality assurance? None of the websites report on the number of cases investigated or the kinds of redressal measures taken. If these mechanisms are to be used by students, they must fulfill certain basic requirements.
First and foremost, all students and staff must be made aware of existing grievance mechanisms. Policies and procedures cannot simply be included under a tab buried in the faculty/university website, but need to be placed front and centre. Students should know what steps the institution will take to ensure confidentiality and how those who come forward, including witnesses, will be protected. They should be confident that swift action will be taken when any breaches of confidentiality occur. Inquiries need to be conducted without delay and complainants kept informed of the actions taken. All in all, universities and/or faculties must commit to ensuring integrity and fairness in the grievance process.
Second, the independence of inquiries must be guaranteed. Some universities/faculties have SOPs that require the inclusion of ‘independent’ members in grievance committees—members who are currently non-faculty, academics from other faculties and/or student representatives. Whether the inclusion of non-faculty members would be sufficient to safeguard independence is questionable in fields like medicine where there is a tendency to cover up professional misconduct at all levels. Permitting complainants to have a say in the makeup of the inquiry committee may help to increase confidence in the system. It may be advisable for inquiries to be handled by ombudspersons or others who do not have a stake in the outcome, rather than by academic staff who are part of the university hierarchy.
Third, grievance mechanisms must address the very real possibility of retaliation from university administrations and teachers. The TOR of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Ruhuna, states that the Committee must ensure “students do not suffer any victimization or discrimination as a result of raising complaints or grievances,” but provides no guidance on how this might be accomplished. Any grievance mechanism must address what recourse to action complainants (and witnesses) have in the event of retaliation. At present, there are no regulations in place to ensure that persons alleged of misconduct are not involved in examination procedures. Neither do universities provide any guarantee that complainants’ academic/employment prospects will not be compromised by coming forward. This is especially concerning in medicine where practical assessments of clinical skills and interview-based examinations (viva) are common, and those at higher rank are usually trainers at the postgraduate level.
Going forward
Student grievance mechanisms provide a structured process for students to voice concerns and seek redress when they feel they have been treated unfairly or unjustly by university staff or policies. The mechanisms currently in place at state universities appear to be weak and insufficient. The UGC could call for universities to participate in a consultative process aimed at developing a policy on handling student grievances in ways that promote fairness in academic matters, faculty conduct, and administration at state universities. While such a policy could foster supportive learning environments, build trust between university administrations and students, and protect students from bullying, intimidation and harassment, it must be accompanied by efforts to address and undo dysfunctional hierarchies within our universities.
(Ramya Kumar is attached to the Department of Community and Family Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Jaffna.)
Kuppi is a politics and pedagogy happening on the margins of the lecture hall that parodies, subverts, and simultaneously reaffirms social hierarchies.
By Ramya Kumar
The months literally keep flying and, before long, we will be celebrating Oktoberfest.
In our scene, Oktoberfest is looked forward to by many and the five-star venues, especially, create the ideal kind of atmosphere for the celebration of this event, held in late September and early October.
Suzi Croner, who was in town last month (February), is already contracted to do the Oktoberfest scene at a popular five-star venue, in the city.
She says she will be performing six consecutive nights, from 23rd to 28th September, along with a band from Germany.
Suzi’s scene in Switzerland
According to Suzi, the organisers have indicated that they are looking forward to welcoming around 1,500 Oktoberfest enthusiasts on all six days the festivities are held.
“I’m really looking forward to doing the needful, especially with a German band, and I know, for sure, it’s going to be awesome.”
In fact, Suzi, of the band Friends’ fame, and now based in Switzerland, indicated that she never expected to come to her land of birth for the second time, this year.
“After my trip to Sri Lanka, in February, I thought I would check things out again next year, but I’m so happy that I don’t have to wait that long to see my fans, music lovers and friends for the second time, in 2025.”
Suzi spent 11 amazing days in Sri Lanka, in February, performing six nights at a five-star venue in Colombo, in addition to doing the ‘Country & Western Nite’ scene, at the Ramada, and an unscheduled performance, as well.
Suzi Croner: Colombo here I come…in September
Her next much-looked-forward to event is ‘Country Night,’ Down Under.
It will be her second appearance at this ‘Country Night’ dance and music lovers, in Melbourne, in particular, are waiting eagerly to give Suzi a rousing welcome.
Suzi’s bubbly personality has made her a hit wherever she performs.
In her hometown of Spreitenbach, in Switzerland, she is a big draw-card at many local events.
Suzi was the frontline vocalist for the group Friends, decades ago, and this outfit, too, had a huge following in the local scene, with a fan club that had over 1,500 members.
The band was based abroad and travelled to Sri Lanka, during the festive season, to keep their fans entertained, and it was, invariably, a full house for all their performances in the scene here.
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