Inhabiting an Embattled Body: The Making of Warrior Masculinities in Sri Lanka 9780367556020, 9781032422732, 9781003362036

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INHABITING AN EMBATTLED BODY

This book offers an anthropological account of Sri Lanka’s Eelam Wars III and IV. It is based on the life narratives of ex-servicemen who fought on the frontlines. The volume approaches militarism as a practice of masculinity. It explores the sense of embattlement that young recruits feel, which stems from the inner war between notions of bodily deference instilled in childhood and having to conduct offensives on the battlefield. Thus though they wish to move smoothly into assault techniques learnt in combat training, they sometimes find their bodies are acting out a different trajectory, engaging in acts of spectacular violence or simply running away. It traverses themes such as masculinity and Sinhala society, British martial masculinity vs. the composed body in Sinhala discourse, combat training and the battlefield. The author traces the ways in which troops attempted to negotiate the thin line between valour and violence, in a context in which the entry of child combatants and female fighters transformed the battlefield and derided the very manliness of soldiers who couldn’t prevail against them. She argues that the Sri Lankan experience has resonance for soldiers on battlefields everywhere who become embattled when confronted by adversaries whose practice seems to diminish their own manliness. Rich in ethnographical narratives, this book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of war studies, gender studies, masculinity studies, peace and conflict studies, ethnic studies, political science, international relations, sociology, social anthropology, cultural studies and South Asian studies, especially those concerned with Sri Lanka. Jani de Silva is an independent researcher based in Colombo, Sri Lanka. She has a PhD in anthropology from the London School of Economics, UK.

INHABITING AN EMBATTLED BODY The Making of Warrior Masculinities in Sri Lanka

Jani de Silva

First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 Jani de Silva The right of Jani de Silva to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-55602-0 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-42273-2 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-36203-6 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003362036 Typeset in Bembo by Apex CoVantage, LLC

This book is dedicated to my mother, Kamala

CONTENTS

List of Maps ix Acknowledgementsx Glossaryxii Acronymsxvi   1 Masculinity and militarism in Sri Lanka   2 Motifs of masculinity: The imperilled body and the composed body

1 20

  3 Victorian manliness and the composed body in Sinhala discourse57   4 Growing up: Youth uprisings, social change and ethnic conflict91   5 Combat training and the battlefield

127

  6 Operation Sathjaya: Confronting child soldiers

155

  7 Operation Jayasikurui: Female fighters on the battlefield

173

  8 Unceasing Waves III: Confronting spectacular violence

195

viii Contents

  9 Operation Agnikheela: Aerial bombardment as spectacle

231

10 The final victory

246

11 Conclusion

258

Bibliography263 Index270

MAPS

1.1 6.1 7.1 8.1 9.1

Sri Lanka: Population distribution by major ethnic groups Operation Sathjaya: Elephant Pass to Kilinochchi Operation Jayasikurui Retreat from Oddusuddan Operation Agnikheela

xviii 154 172 194 230

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This study began with a post-doctoral research and writing-up scholarship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Chicago, USA, which, aimed at exploring the way in which young recruits to the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) attempted to negotiate the thin line between valour and violence on the battlefield. I planned to do so by collecting life narratives from e­ x-serviceman. The intention was to structure these stories around broad ­parameters that entailed tracking the ways in which their combat experiences ­transformed them as men over the years; identifying particular events that – in their own minds – spurred personal growth or pushed them back in some way; looking at how combat training and the battlefield changed the way they related to their families, to persons in authority, to those under them and also to civil society in general; and reflecting as to whether frequent confrontations with death changed their fear of dying. In late 2002, I  began exploring possible respondents through the security ­companies they worked for. This involved a series of preliminary discussions on the research objectives – as described above – with groups from five institutions who agreed to meet me. The outbreak of war in 2006, however, transformed the whole research dynamic. It caused security and political pits that were hard to navigate. In the end, I decided to focus on key episodes in Eelam War III (1995–2001) that I felt were critical to the way in which subsequent conflicts unfolded. Towards the end of the fieldwork period, the respondents I was working with brought along two veterans of the Final War who they said wished to speak to me. This spurred me to make an effort to connect with a number of civilians who had somehow succeeded in making their way to the Puttalam, Gampaha and Colombo districts after negotiating this difficult phase in the Vanni districts of Mannar, Killinochchi and Mullaitivu. In the end, I felt their versions of events should also be heard. I would like to thank all those ex-infantrymen who engaged with me over the next few years and who cannot be named for their own personal and employment

Acknowledgements  xi

security. I  wish to thank Chamila, Shamala, Praveena, Kaushalya and Vajira for their commitment to this difficult project despite all odds, their tireless work in transcribing tapes, the most thankless task of all, and their unqualified emotional support throughout. Finally, I  would like to convey my deep appreciation of the witness and ­commitment of Drs Rajan Hoole, K. Sritharan and Daya Somasundaram of the Jaffna-based University Teachers for Human Rights, whose impressive work underscores the stories of civilians and truly captures the impact of militarism on civilians across the northern and eastern war zones. In the family, I would like to say how much I appreciated the emotional support of Katie, who went through the first draft of the initial chapters – no easy task – and Gloria, who steadied and encouraged me at every setback. My niece Umanga did the maps – which ran to over seven versions – despite my somewhat vague instructions. Mangi, I am very proud of you, and I know your professionalism will always stand you in good stead. Jani de Silva Colombo July 2022

GLOSSARY

abhimāna  majesty abhisheka  coronation ceremony ādarѐ  love adigar  also adhikaram. Chief Minister ahimsa, ahimsaka  eschewing bodily violence akka  elder sister akuru  letters amārui  difficult amma  mother ankeliya  a game (keliya) played with the antlers (an) of the sambhur, played ­collectively by the whole village api  we, us arahant  members of the sangha who have overcome desire and therefore have extraordinary powers of locomotion arthaya  rationale, logic äs  eyes asādhārana  injustice Asela  the month of July āshāva  desire āthma-visvāsa  self-belief āthmaya  soul avadhānama  danger; avadhanamkara – dangerous, risky avadhānaya  focus; concentration ayya  elder brother bajauvak  song Bak  the month of April

Glossary  xiii

bändala  tied, married barak  burden, weight beheth  medication; medicine bhaya  fear of the unknown, of danger bhayanethi-kama  fearlessness bheeshanaya  repression Bhupathi  lord of all the land binduvā  splintered, broke brahman  also brakmana; bämunu. Caste of priestly functionaries buddhimath  educated, informed, cultured buhukeliya  a game (keliya) played with a wicket (buhu), played collectively by the whole village as part of the New Year festivities in the month of April chandiya  tough, thug, hooligan chitrakatha  comics (chitra = picture, katha = story) combos  Register of Land ownership (Dutch) dheevarayo  fisherman disāvѐ  provincial administrator duppath  poor, impoverished durāvѐ  caste of toddy-tappers Eelam  Lanka (Tamil) gamladda  village-holders ganga  river gnāna  wisdom govigama, govi  agrarian caste hayyak  strength, support hithāganna  think, imagine indiappa  a breakfast preparation iranama  fate, destiny jeevithayak  a life kachcheri  provincial administrative office karāvѐ  fishing caste karma  the theory of action and reaction that drives Buddhist notions of rebirth, affirming that every meritorious act performed by an adherent will evoke a beneficial outcome in his/her next life and that acts of evil will have similar repercussions karuna  compassion towards all beings kello  girls kollo  boys korālѐ  district in Kandyan kingdom or the official in charge of such a district koththu kundu  cluster bombs (Tamil) kshatriya  kingly/warrior caste läjjā-bhaya  deference; a fear of being (publicly) shamed lapati  young, green, tender

xiv Glossary

machan  brother-in-law, friend mahatmayā  (honorific) gentleman. Person (male) of noble birth (maha = great; ātma = soul) mahaveerar  great heroes (Tamil) (maha = great; veerar = heroes) malli  younger brother mällun  a kind of salad with grated coconut māma  mother’s brother mudalāli  shopkeeper, petite trader mudaliyār  mid-level native elite, leader of mercenary troops drawn from lesser castes muhandhiram  official in charge of a pattu nalavalā  sing lullabies nangi  younger sister nilamѐ  noble office-holder in the state (nila = office) nirvana  a state of ‘nothingness’ pakshaya  (political) party panguva  share; unit of landholding paravi  fades pattu  sub-district perahera  a religious or political procession pirivena  Buddhist educational centre, usually located within the grounds of a temple polpitta  the stem of a coconut leaf prārthanā  blessings; benedictions pooja  worship, obeisance punchi  little; also common abbreviation of punchi-amma – mother’s younger sister rā  toddy, an alcoholic brewage made from fermented coconut radala  nobility among the govi caste roga  illness, disease rājakārya  obligatory labour services to the king/state rana veera  war hero(es) (rana = war; veera = hero) ratmal  the hibiscus blossom sabda  sound, noise sadhārana  fair, just, equable salāgama  caste of cinnamon peelers sangha  members of the Buddhist brotherhood /clergy sanvara  restrained sāsana  Buddhist canon satyagraha  contemplation upon the nature of truth/God (satya  =  truth; graha = word of God). A form of political dissent shreshta  renowned, celebrated sri vibhūthiya  prosperity of the nation tätvaya  status thänpath  stable, composed

Glossary  xv

thattha  father thèvāram  (Tamil) hymn to the gods vahumpura  caste of juggery-makers vamsa  lineage varadak  wrong, injustice varna  caste, colour vāsagama  line of patrilineal descent vāsanāva  luck; good fortune vasanthaya  springtime väva  reservoir veera sebala  heroic soldier(s) (veera = heroic; sebala = soldier) vellalar  agrarian caste among Tamils, numerically dominant; corresponding to the govi vimukthiya  liberation vinaya  code of discipline for Buddhist monks, also used for discipline in the Army. vinodѐ  fun, leisure

ACRONYMS

CDF CO CPSL CR CVF CU DJV FDL FIBUA GR ICRC IED ILPA LRRP KIA JVP LSSP LTTE MBRL MIA Mi 24 PA SLA SLAF SLLI SLN

Ceylon Defence Force Commanding Officer Communist Party of Sri Lanka Commando Regiment Ceylon Volunteer Force Unit Commanding Officer Deshapremi Janatha Vyaparaya – student arm of the JVP – (1987–1990) forward defence line fighting in built-up areas Gajaba Regiment International Committee of the Red Cross improvised explosive device Indo-Lanka Peace Accord long-range reconnaissance patrols killed in action Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna Lanka Sama Samaja Pakshaya Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam multi-barrel rocket launcher missing in action Russian-built large helicopter gunship that can take eight passengers People’s Alliance Sri Lanka Army Sri Lankan Air Force Sri Lanka Light Infantry Regiment Sri Lanka Navy

Acronyms  xvii

SLNG Sri Lanka National Guard (home guards providing security for border villages) SLFP Sri Lanka Freedom Party SF Special Forces SR Sinha Regiment ULF United Left Front UNP United National Party VR Vijayaba Regiment

MAP 1.1 

Sri Lanka: Population distribution by major ethnic groups

1 MASCULINITY AND MILITARISM IN SRI LANKA

Introduction Sri Lanka lies at the tip of the Indian subcontinent. Like most tropical isles, it is a landscape of white beaches, teeming foliage and blue seas. Its aesthetic appeal is enhanced by a rich cultural diversity. But the nation sleeps uneasy. All the diverse groups that inhabit this island – each with its own history, myths and rites, inscribed on pillar, stone and text – are equally passionate about the soil. Still, the juxtaposing of rival groups within this confined terrain breeds its own compulsions: it creates a setting in which the hero of one collective narrative may acquire demonic dimensions in another. The celebration of one epic undermines another. So, the Tamil King Elara (205–161 BC) is one group’s exemplary ruler and another’s abomination. Dutu Gemunu (161–137 BC), who slew him, becomes the archetypal Sinhala warrior king, but also destructor incarnate of Tamil culture and monuments. Here perhaps lie the seeds of Sri Lanka’s present painful predicament. The chronicle Mahavamsa records that even as his courtiers are revelling, Dutu Gemunu himself looks back at his relentless quest for victory and is distraught at the destruction his wars have wrought (Geiger 1912: 177–178).1 His grief moves the sangha (monastic order), and they try to comfort him by vindicating his transgressions.2 But he is still troubled.3 He builds shrines and sanctuaries for the sangha who absolved him, on dimensions that could – metaphorically – encompass the magnitude of his sin.4 Here the monk-chronicler is describing the building of the great shrines by the king, six centuries before. His narrative depicts the expiatory torments that, for him, fuelled the creative energies unleashed in this immense architectural feat. He records the certitudes of his day. But with the mists of time, the narrative shifts and slides. For many Sinhalas today, Dutu Gamunu’s labours signify only the supremacy

DOI: 10.4324/9781003362036-1

2  Masculinity and militarism in Sri Lanka

of ancient Sinhala building technology over that of Tamil works. They are now reduced to symbols of cultural aggression. The island is peopled by not only Sinhalas and Tamils but also a range of ethnic groups such as Moors, Malays, Borahs, Parsees, Sindhis and the aboriginal Veddah tribals, who embrace many faiths, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and animism. Despite all this heterogeneity, two main languages prevail. The northern and eastern parts of the island are populated by Tamil-speaking groups – mostly Hindus and some Muslims – and the rest of the island is dominated by Sinhala-speaking Buddhists who greatly outnumber other communities. A small Christian minority straddles – rather precariously – both linguistic groups. These are the conditions that have led to one of the bloodier civil wars in a region that has witnessed immense violence over the past four decades. In this conflict, Tamil-speaking rebels grouped under the banner of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) took up arms against the Sinhala­ dominated SLA. The conflict unfolded in a series of confrontations: Eelam War I (1983–1987); Eelam War II (1990–1995); Eelam War III (1995–2001); and Eelam War IV (2006–2009). In the end, the SLA achieved an outright victory. Yet as much as the victory of Dutu Gemunu, it was bought at a tremendous human cost. Extended encounters such as this may create a collective desire for reconciliation and rebuilding, as the Mahavamsa tells us transpired in the wake of the Great Victory of 161 AD. This was due to exemplary royal comportment in the post-conflict phase, starting with a memorial to the fallen king, the justness of whose rule was not contested. This is not always the case. More frequently, unilateral victories tend to further consolidate cultures of militarism, which transform the whole nation. But how does a culture of militarism in fact unfold and sustain itself, transforming the identity of an entire community such as ‘Sinhala Buddhists’ or ‘­Tamil-speaking people’? One important way in which this happens is by subverting cultural norms of masculinity. This entails nothing less than a paradigm shift. In other words, a seismic shift in the parameters of what is deemed permissible conduct in Sinhala or Tamil men. This is a fraught, complex process. It requires the normalization of a new code of masculinity. Under what conditions then, do new norms emerge and consolidate t­ hemselves? How do young men and boys – even if they aspire to do so – suddenly transform their everyday practice and ‘normalize’ practices of bodily aggression to suit the military needs of groups in power? Or leaders of armed groups? With great difficulty and psychic costs. Despite the ubiquitous march of globalization and of ­globalized icons of masculine violence in the electronic media, the parameters of what constitutes courage, aggression and violence – or the thin lines that separate them – may not be the same in every culture. An exploit that is considered ­‘dashing’ and ‘brave’ in one particular context may be construed as rank adventurism in another. What is seen as an act of pure aggression by one group of viewers could be ­validated as ‘meting out justice’ by another. The SLA offered young boys and men a stage on which to perform the choreographed combat sequences acted out on their TV screens by icons of ­

Masculinity and militarism in Sri Lanka  3

masculine violence such as Stallone and Schwarzenegger. Combat training hardens the body. Their bodies may now begin to resemble the icon on the screen. But the perplexing boundaries between what constitutes a heroic feat and what is an act of rank brutality may become a contested space within the soldier himself. Such ­boundaries sometimes shift with each new peril he encounters on the battlefield. The soldier in the battlefield now finds himself inhabiting an embattled body. This book focuses on the embattled body, through narratives of Sri Lanka’s Eelam Wars III and IV, collected from 30 soldiers who fought on the frontlines. It attempts to explore the nature of this sense of embattlement: this inner war between bodily practices instilled in childhood and having to act out combat moves learnt in training under actual enemy fire. How does this impact on the way young recruits finally perform on the battlefield? The book will trace the ways in which such young recruits attempted to negotiate the thin line between valour and violence on the battlefield, in a context in which the culture of the battlefield itself, its parameters and notions of permissible violence, constantly shifted. It will look at their achievements in this regard and also profound failures, both of which create feelings of embattlement. For as Dutu Gemunu discovered, victory does not always liberate the victor from this sense of embattlement. This introductory chapter focuses on conceptual and methodological issues. It will explore conceptual writings on masculinity and militarism, beginning with Connell’s notion of hegemonic masculinity and going on to Butler’s theory of performance in order to learn how individual men act out such hegemonic practices. It will next look at how non-hegemonic masculinities were, on the contrary, shaped by the ‘normalizing’ strategies Foucault terms ‘biopolitics’; and disenfranchised and emasculated through ‘States of Exception’ in the colonies, as argued by Agamben. The last section will briefly discuss issues of methodology, narrative and memory.

Connell: hegemonic masculinity Issues of militarism are closely bound up with cultures of male dominance – or patriarchy – that persist in most societies across the globe. It was to address this unremitting grip of patriarchy on society that Connell developed her concept of ‘hegemonic masculinity’ (Connell 1987, 1993, 1995). Building on Gramsci’s notion of ‘hegemony’, Connell argues that in every society, a specific practice of masculinity acquires ‘hegemonic’ proportions by ‘winning the consent’ of other, lesser roles of masculinity and femininity. This reaffirms its ascendant place (ibid. 1987: 71). But how does this happen? How do those who exert hegemony succeed in ‘winning the consent’ of a range of social groups – men and women – whom they in fact oppress? By persuading such groups of the validity of their comportment as men. This validation rests on the ability of such privileged men to display certain traits that are perceived as ‘manly’ – like financial clout, technological aptitude, athleticism and sexual prowess – that usually only elite men enjoy. Together with

4  Masculinity and militarism in Sri Lanka

these learnt skills, such traits also include modes of embodiment – such as height, physique, good looks and so on – that enhance their credibility and enable them to wrest endless concessions from society. Possessing all these traits then, builds tremendous self-belief and a sense of entitlement that in itself comes to exemplify hegemonic masculinity. Since such traits are deemed so desirable, members of all these non-hegemonic groups will assign hegemonic credentials to any man who happens to have them. Most people then – rather than applying logic or reason – make intuitive judgements on those who display traits that signify that they belong to this select group. Such impulsive verdicts slide into the realm of ‘common sense’, in which they become embedded and are rarely interrogated by the person concerned. Thus almost any transgression by such elite men is explained away by the fact that they are self-confident, tall, athletic, good providers, technologically conversant and heterosexual in preference. This vindicates them in the eyes of the community. Even queer or transsexual men may come to view their own lifestyle as somehow lacking in ‘propriety’ or not being permissible conduct. While they cannot condone their own suppression, they may become resigned to the fact that it is the result of contravening a key aspect of the code of hegemonic masculinity – compulsive heterosexuality – for which they must ‘pay’. Similarly, there are other groups of men whose lifestyle, conduct or views are at odds with the patriarchal order. They also have to ‘pay’. Men who are physically inept are emasculated because they cannot survive in one-to-one physical encounters. Young men are penalized because they lack economic power and chastised because their sexual excesses cannot be allowed to bring the whole patriarchal system into disrepute. In its most blatant form, says Connell, hegemonic masculinity will impose its authority over women without compunction. But most men, she says, draw back from openly enforcing their power as a sex, or even being seen to overtly impose their power. Still, they benefit from the existing structure of gender relations. Theirs is a practice of complicity. They are happy to take advantage of the gains patriarchy offers to men (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005: 832). A key weakness in Connell’s formulation, however, is that she focuses entirely on the sexual and gendered aspects of embodiment. She fails to address the ways in which racial markers of the body – such as skin-tone, physiognomy and physique – and ethnic markers –such as dreadlocks, turbans and traditional wear – shape ­subjectivity. This is critical, since from early-modernity, the slave trade and subsequent West European incursions into Asia, Africa and Latin America had already inserted race into discourses of manliness in the mother countries. Connell argues that the relationship between patriarchy and hegemonic masculinity is contingent. This being so, the hegemonic masculinity of modern capitalist societies – in which risk-taking mostly unfolds on a rational–instrumental or intellectual basis – reflects the ascendancy of the entrepreneur and the bureaucrat over the landed class whose code of honour – built on risking-the-body – remained unchallenged until it was destroyed by the French Revolution (Connell 1987). Consequently, she says, this new hegemony is unstable and subject to shifts. Such

Masculinity and militarism in Sri Lanka  5

shifts may happen not only across historical phases but even within a given period, in times of great social and political upheaval such as war (ibid.). Connell therefore sees the driving compulsion behind hegemonic masculinity as the containing of women. She sees the subjection of other groups of men only as part of the fall-out. But is it really so? Historians of masculinity such as Tosh question Connell’s focus on subduing women as the driving compulsion behind hegemonic masculinity (Tosh 2004: 41–60). Is it not possible, he asks, that the logic of a dominant code of masculinity may be to uphold class power? Or set one racial group over another? Or to consolidate the ascendancy of one religious denomination over another? One ethnic group over another? In such cases, clearly power over other groups of men may be even more significant than power over women. Upward social mobility is equally a factor. For instance, says Tosh, the label of a hegemonic masculinity could well be applied to the Protestant ethic. The work ethic has been a fundamental masculine value in modern bourgeois societies. In its classic form, it served to validate and intensify the gulf between industrious man and decorative women. But this, he points out, was incidental. Clearly its key attraction to the rising middle class was the promise of material advancement and upward mobility through the accumulation of capital. Men’s clubs and fraternities also reinforced women’s exclusion from the public sphere. But their primary purpose, he says, was to do with the potential for networking as a means of cultivating class solidarity (ibid.: 53–54). Here the domestic seclusion of women serves to marginalize them. But it also signals to society that their husbands were economically stable enough to withdraw them from the labour market. Women’s seclusion becomes a status symbol for men in their climb up the social ladder. At the same time, lesser social groups who cannot afford to keep their women at home and off the streets are seen as somehow lacking in masculinity. Notions of hegemonic masculinity were also evoked to marginalize groups on the basis of race. Thus, by the second half of the 16th century, Shakespeare was already drawing images of a hegemonic white, Venetian masculinity in his Othello, which is invoked to impugn that of racial minorities. In this discourse, Othello is disparaged as an ‘old black ram’ explicitly because of his thick, curly black hair, Moorish complexion and linked associations of sexual excess. Similarly, in her work on colonial India, Sinha argues that the British took great pains to construct a polarized discourse of gender in which the masculinity of the colonizer is celebrated, while the Bengali upper classes are portrayed as ‘languorous’ and ‘effete’. Unlike Othello, who is vilified by accusations of hyper-virility, the Bengalis are presented as lacking in ‘real’ virility, which required men to be strong and vigorous. This was done, says Sinha, not so much because Bengali men were seen to oppress their women, but because lowering their self-esteem was a condition of enabling colonial rule (Sinha 1995: 172). Thus a discourse of hegemonic masculinity – whatever its origins – need not remain simply a strategy for subduing women. Rather, it becomes a powerful ­political and economic tool through which adversaries – defined by class, creed, ethnicity or race – may be undermined through their discursive emasculation.

6  Masculinity and militarism in Sri Lanka

Butler and performance But how are the qualities that comprise a hegemonic practice – such as self-­ assurance, athleticism, sexual prowess, technological aptitude and financial clout – in fact acquired? This brings us to performance theory, which explores the role played by the body, its postures and gestures in shaping notions of gender, subjectivity and cultural identity that come together to make up a given practice of masculinity or femininity. It also explores how modes of embodiment work in the construction of identity. The forging of identity is also a honing of agency. Here Butler’s (1990, 1993) insights into performance are particularly illuminating. Interestingly, Butler’s work does not confine itself to hegemonic masculinity or a discourse of dominant femininity. She in fact does not accept binary categories such as male/female. Her most sustained focus is on queer and gay identities. It is this focus on identities precariously placed on the margins of society that in fact enables her to uncover possibilities for building subjectivity. In her Gender Trouble, Butler argues that gender identity is not biologically ‘fixed’. It is, in fact, fluid. It is a performance, an acting out of roles chosen from one’s cultural repertoire. Here the actor’s repertoire involves diverse roles – ranging from father, son, lover and scholar to warrior – that he acts out in his everyday life.5 In the process, he may find himself constantly shifting subject-positions from one role to another. He may even – in passing – take up roles conventionally played by the opposite gender, such as cooking and cleaning roles for boys in Anglo-Saxon cultures. But, of course, a boy who cooks or cleans out his room regularly isn’t any ‘less’ or ‘more’ of a boy than one who does not, exactly in the way that a girl who can change a flat tyre isn’t any ‘less’ or ‘more’ of a girl, but simply a boy or girl who can turn their hand to anything. What the actor cannot do is act out roles that are outside his cultural repertoire, since he has not yet assimilated these. They remain beyond his compass. Such an approach frees us from the perils of ‘essentializing’ identity, as well as gender. In her subsequent Bodies That Matter, Butler refines her position further and states that this performativity is not a singular ‘act’. Rather, it is always a reiteration. It is a re-enactment of a set of cultural norms, codes, idioms, roles or practices. But in the course of being re-enacted, she says, the norms acted out are – to a greater or lesser extent – transformed (ibid. 1993: 12). Each enactment, then, is a new version of the original role. Thus, Butler’s formulation traces the process through which each new practice is assimilated by the actor. At the same time, it allows us to track the emergence of individual agency, through each effort at acting out this practice, within the frame of cultural norms.6 In this formulation, hegemonic masculinity emerges as a performance, in which men try to assert themselves vis-à-vis other men. In Anglo-Saxon cultures, such efforts are frequently based on rational–instrumental calculations of what works best for them. These may range from picking up the bill at dinner, exhibiting sartorial flair, displaying technical competence in everyday contexts to citing sexual exploits to validate their heterosexual credentials. While some men may focus on

Masculinity and militarism in Sri Lanka  7

picking up the tab at the restaurant, others will allow their Saville Row suits and designer ties to make a subtle statement about their economic weight. Either way, they reiterate their routine with minor variations, striving for a better effect the next time round. Similarly, as Sinha’s study suggests, colonial occupation in India created a situation in which upper-class Bengali men found that their hegemonic grip on society was slipping through their fingers. They became increasingly besieged. But it is Butler’s performance theory that captures the ways in which different actors tried to overcome this sense of besiegement by attempting to act out a range of Victorian practices that were quite alien to them but highly rated by the colonizers. They attempted to widen their cultural repertoire by incorporating British idioms. Thus Bengali men signed up for riding lessons, in a mimicry of the popular British upper-class pursuit of horse-riding and hunting. Wealthy businessmen set up gyms to encourage young Bengali men to take up body-building, in order to seem less ‘effete’. In other words, upper-class Bengalis tried to identify aspects of the new practice they could acquire. But why was all this so problematic? Why did these ‘bookish’ Bengali men in Sinha’s study find it so hard to adopt the trappings of Victorian manliness in order to nullify the contempt of the British who wished to emasculate them? At the start, British practices were quite outside their cultural repertoire and therefore beyond their scope. This changed over the decades as their familiarity with the occupiers’ idiom grew. But the more intractable problem involved forms of embodiment. As Butler points out, performance is inextricably tied to the body, its contours and its mien. And here, bodily differences to the British were so palpable that the Bengalis were at a loss to respond to the colonizers’ critique of their masculinity. Ironically though, the Bengali babu was not always actually ‘darker’ than the mostly fair British – many Englishmen were in fact quite dark-haired and browneyed. More significantly, the – mostly vegetarian – Bengali was typically short, slight of stature, with delicate or ‘girlish’ features. He was also ‘bookish’ and given to a ‘sedentary’ lifestyle. The Englishman, on the other hand – as befits consumers of red meat – was often taller, broad-shouldered, vigorous, hard-browed and square-jawed (Moore 1994: 107–128). In a word, the male Bengali body displayed traits that strayed into what the English mind associated with the feminine. Further, cultural validation is critical. What an Englishman would deem an act of courage, such as riding his horse over a high hedge, may appear foolhardy to the Bengali babu. Worse, it could be construed as an act of crass self-promotion. This creates ambiguities in the Bengali rider about the validity of attempting to clear such a hedge. He fears that the larger Bengali community may interpret his intentions as attempting to show-off, and this inhibits his ability to perform. But as collective shifts take place within the larger community and such acts become more ‘normal’, it becomes increasingly easier for the actor to attempt such a feat. The endorsement of the larger community then, becomes an enabling factor in the successful performance of new practices.

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Biopolitics and masculinity: Foucault and Agamben If Connell explores hegemonic masculinities, it is Foucault who focuses on how subordinated masculinities emerge. Here his concept of biopolitics is critical to a grasp of how state power shapes non-hegemonic identities (Foucault 2013b: 61–81). In his History of Sexuality (Vol. 1), where he first outlines the concept of biopolitics, Foucault argues that since late-modernity, state power has shaped notions of selfhood, sexuality and the very bodies of West European populations. Interestingly, though he is here studying sexuality, he does not specifically outline how such processes shape practices of masculinity. Still, his writings allow us to infer how biopolitics could do so. Biopolitics then, refers to the enhanced reach of regimes into the everyday lives of people. It is the product of the quantum leaps in science and technology in the modern period that generates a mass of biological data on entire populations. This corpus of personal data is centralized within the state and enables a detailed comparison of the progress of different sectors of the economy, industries, regions and social classes, and shifts in these over time. It allows states to craft advanced administrative tools. These enable regimes-in-power to gauge the impact of public policy with a high degree of precision. This new access creates a radical shift in the relationship between regimes and people. It involves a critical change in the very fabric of political power. In the West European theatre, says Foucault, the nature of political power underwent key changes between the years 1660 and 1800. The beginning of this period was marked by monarchic or sovereign power, which was based on the Rule of Law. By the end of this phase though, biopower had emerged (Foucault 2013a: 41–60). The term biopower – which Foucault uses almost interchangeably with biopolitics – refers to a more complex phenomenon. Here the law, in which the police punish those who transgress it, increasingly gives way to the ‘norm’, in which citizens internalize social and institutional rules and monitor themselves. This process of ‘normalization’ began in the early-17th century with the emergence of what Foucault describes as a range of disciplinary institutions such as schools, military corps, factories, prisons, hospitals and asylums. Here the individual is confined within the walls of the institution and subjected to a range of drills, routines and tasks. These aim at shaping him into the mould it desires. This is achieved through tools such as time-tables that divide up his day into learning, activity or productive slots, reports that track his progress, file-based record-keeping and physical and psychological assessments. Those who comply with the institutional code are rewarded and deviants are punished. The goal then, is to produce subjects who readily conform to institutional norms. In a word, the creation of docile bodies. Unlike laws, which have to be enforced by the police, since institutional norms tend to be internalized, the subject learns to regulate himself (ibid.). The establishments Foucault describes are single-gendered sites. Against a background where the Rule of Law eroded the glamour of the duel as an elitist practice, institutions such as Military Corps provided a space for privileged groups such as

Masculinity and militarism in Sri Lanka  9

army officers to exert control over enlisted men through harsh disciplinary regimes. These focused on drills and exercises that strengthen the recruit’s body and harden it, rendering his bearing straight and proud in a simulation of the stance of the warrior knight. Men are also seen to exemplify an instrumental rationality that equips them to weigh the benefits of compliance and risks of defiance, and which signifies the ‘normal’. It is posited against women, who were viewed as emotional and unreasonable, a process Foucault terms the ‘hysterization’ of women (ibid.). Further, such institutions approach heterosexuality as ‘normal’ while ­homosexuality and other sexualities are denounced as deviances. Thus the male heterosexual body that stands tall, is vigorous and strong but routinely defers to any form of official authority, is normalized as the ‘proper’ – or normal – practice of m ­ asculinity (ibid.). At the same time, the advent of microbiology and advances in science and technology created new administrative mechanisms with which the lives of the population could be monitored.7 These included the registration of births and deaths, censuses of the population, control of infectious disease, immunization programmes, child and maternal mortality reduction, universal healthcare, welfare schemes, mass literacy and public education projects and exploring the specific conditions that can cause these to vary. It is the cumulative effects of these two trajectories that Foucault terms biopolitics (ibid.: 42). As much as disciplinary institutions focused on the individual body, biopolitics builds up a picture of what should be the norm at the national level (ibid.: 72). It allows the body to be accessed from a distance. Military planners drawing up recruitment policies can now calculate at what height and weight requirements for male applicants should be pitched, to be in line with national norms. Over time, disciplinary institutions also become incorporated into the grid of biopolitics. But a contradiction now emerges. While disciplinary institutions demanded civic quiescence, biopolitics generally aimed at optimizing the quality of life of the populace (Foucault 2013b: 69). Increased literacy levels enable the rise of the tabloid media, which creates public opinion based on access to information.8 Thus a paradox persists at the core of biopolitics. While at one level it demands absolute civic compliance to ‘norms’ such as heterosexuality, respect for private property and deference to official authority, at another it focuses on nurturing, enhancing and improving the health, aptitude and productivity of populations which breeds self-belief and an awareness of their rights. On the one hand, democratic revolutions and notions such as the Rights of Man and the Citizen could not have materialized without the very specific administrative tools generated by biopolitics, which fostered mass literacy and the diffusion of information. On the other, despite the awareness of their rights, the actual rights these new citizens were able to elicit from the state remained conditional (ibid. 2013a: 45–46). Foucault’s formulation is a powerful critique of juridical-legal approaches to power, in which power is seen as played out within the parameters of the law. But Foucault’s notion suffers from at least one serious drawback. This involves his ­argument that the shift from sovereign power to rule by an elected regime entails the separating out of the regime from the state. In Foucault’s formulation of

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biopolitics, it is the state that is the repository of this intricate mass of administrative mechanisms. This is important; elected regimes may be voted out, but the state machine endures. This separation is problematic, however, because at its very edges, the boundaries between the state and regimes-in-power remain fluid. They are contingent upon the vigour of democratic forces within civil society and their will to push back against the regime’s constant and compulsive forays into the ambit of the state. For individual regimes may choose to misuse state machines to further their own narrow goals. It is the task of political oppositions and watchdog groups to challenge such incursions. But they often fail. Alternately, regimes may utilize the state for progressive purposes and to uplift fragile groups such as the homeless or nomadic peoples. Foucault himself seems to feel that the dynamic inherent in biopolitics is in fact benign (Foucault 1990: 139–143). This implies that it is only the pressures created by disciplinary institutions that have to be resisted and that prevent the realization of civic rights. Agamben, however, challenges the notion that the rise of biopolitics and elected governments implies an erasure of sovereign power at all (Agamben 1998, 2005). He defines sovereign power as the right of leaders – elected or otherwise – to decide on whether their subjects should live or die. The collapse of ancien regimes, he argues, did not end sovereign authority. What biopolitics does is cast a thin veil of normalcy – in the form of democratic legitimation – over this originary ­violence (ibid.). This implies that there is effectively no real separation between state and regime. For Agamben, the decisive event of modernity is the extension of civic rights to unpropertied groups (Agamben 2013c: 154–158). The key achievement of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen is for him the shift in the ­criteria of citizenship from ownership of property to nativity. But now disciplining ­processes are informed by surveillance measures and monitoring tools that offer the state intelligence about the extent to which the subject’s actions are ‘­rebellious’ – or outside the norm. Thus the rights evoked by the French Revolution remained ­conditional. In practice then, democracy strives to bring rights, which sovereignty – even in the form of elected leaders – is able to deny. This is done by declaring ‘Zones of Exclusion’ within which democratic rights remain in abeyance (ibid. 2013a: 140–141). Such Zones of Exclusion may take the form of States of Emergency. Here the regime is allowed to use increased executive powers – frequently entrenched in constitutions – in response to a perceived emergency. But even more perilous are States of Exception. Here sovereign power can decide on whether the situation in a given region is exceptional and if the law should be suspended in this case. Such situations arise within States of Emergency, when constitutional rights may be diminished or even disregarded by the regime in its exercise of this power. The State of Exception therefore invests one person – or a government – with authority over other citizens well beyond the scope of the law. States of Exception are in fact characterized by the indefinite suspension of the law. Consequently, those

Masculinity and militarism in Sri Lanka  11

who dwell within these zones are exposed to the arbitrary violence of the state; if deemed a threat, they may be killed by the police or Army. Such a situation erodes the notion of combatants and non-combatants in any clash between residents and officials who represent the sovereign power. All those who reside within the parameters of the State of Exception acquire a mist of culpability. As citizenship is extended to ever-wider groups, this results in the disenfranchisement of such groups in States of Exception – even as the law remains firmly in force elsewhere in the realm. In Germany, the Third Reich succeeded in extending a State of Exception for Jews in concentration camps for 12 years. Similarly, a State of Exception unfolded across Sri Lanka’s Tamil-speaking provinces during much of the Eelam wars. Here the sovereign declares a State of Exception among some sections of the population while entering into increasingly closer relations with the jurist, the doctor, the priest, the scientist and the ‘expert’ who justifies this decision (ibid.: 146). The subject is now effectively disenfranchised. He must learn to live within the norms set by the sovereign power. If not, he faces punishment and even death. Such a condition, whether based on class, creed, or ethnicity, has specific implications for notions of masculinity. Being a citizen but effectively disenfranchised becomes an emasculating condition. It impacts on the way the subject conducts himself as a man in every encounter with officialdom. He finds himself deferring to authority and assuming an acquiescent stance before officials, in order to remain a person of repute in everyday dealings outside the remit of officialdom. But soon encounters with officialdom begin to define everyday life. As they begin intruding into domestic spaces, the subject is already a broken man. Such States of Exception that emasculate entire segments of the population emerge in contexts of war and civil conflicts such as insurgencies, armed rebellions and ethnic conflicts. In the colonies, the British who constantly justified their occupation as having brought the Rule of Law to these hapless groups who were outside the law, used strategies such as States of Exception to circumvent the moral challenges entailed in actually effecting the Rule of Law in such spaces. Consequently, while lesser masculinities who learn to simulate the bodily comportment of hegemonic groups may actually succeed in achieving self-belief – through education, application and sheer hard work – state power is still able to nullify the significance of these achievements by endlessly eroding the self-confidence of ordinary citizens through strategies that devalue their human worth. The means by which states and occupying armies take punitive action against civic dissent often takes the form of violence-as-spectacle. In his Discipline and Punish, Foucault discusses the spectacular violence of the public execution in prerevolutionary France and offers a radical insight into the workings of state power as acted out in the guillotine. The function of the guillotine, he says, was not to reestablish justice. On the contrary, it in fact reactivated state power. It was a policy of state terror, which aimed at using the ghastly spectacle of the torn and tormented body of the criminal to strike such horror and dread in the watching crowds that they would be reduced to a state of total civic docility. Thus, Foucault sees the

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unfolding of the appalling sequences of the guillotine as pure spectacle, aimed at creating a state of terrorized acquiescence in the spectator. The body of the criminal himself – which is slowly dismembered – is only the terrain upon which this drama is played out. Similarly, militaries and other security forces frequently use spectacular, overwhelming artillery and mortar fire to terrorize rebellious locals into civic acquiescence. How, then, does the subject counter this insidious process of disenfranchisement? In his later works, Foucault does offer some thoughts on the construction of subjectivity. In The Subject and Power, he identifies agency with the notion of refusal. This entails refusing to accept institutional norms and struggling against them (Foucault 1982: 216). The second strategy he advocates is mentioned in his Technologies of the Self (Luther et al 1988). Here he builds upon an ancient Greek philosophical position – as exemplified by Euripides and Plato – of speaking truth to power. This involves a risk-filled practice of courageous performative statements – the principled ‘carelessness’ of the self that the Greeks called parrēsia – that consists of speech acts unadorned by rhetoric, which invoke a clear political position. Such statements could potentially endanger the very life of the speaker (Foucault 2013a, 2013b). Speaking truth to power then, demands the imperilling of the self.

Methodology, narrative and memory States of Exception are enforced by enlisted men, themselves drawn from marginal groups. This study explores such a group and their struggles to speak their difficult ‘truths’. It began with a post-doctoral research and writing-up scholarship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Chicago, USA, which aimed at exploring the way in which young recruits to the SLA attempted to negotiate the thin line between valour and violence on the battlefield. I planned to arrive at this – rather ambitious – research goal by collecting life narratives from ex-serviceman. The aim was to identify particular moments that spurred personal growth in terms of coming closer to being the kind of soldier they wanted to be or pushed them back in some way. I wanted to structure these stories around broad parameters that tracked the ways in which their combat experiences transformed them as men: looking at how combat training and the battlefield affected their decision-making abilities and transformed the way they related to persons in authority, to subordinates and to civil society at large, including Tamil-speakers, and if their view of the ‘enemy’ – or forces arrayed against them – changed over time. In 2002, a new government assumed power and a cease-fire agreement (CFA) with the LTTE was signed. After 19 years of war, this moment seemed very propitious, and preliminary work began. But the CFA became increasingly unstable, and three years later Eelam War IV had erupted. Consequently, the study methodology was shaped by events between the CFA and the end of the war in 2009, which defined what kinds of fieldwork could be attempted at different times. During this brief window (2002–2006), hundreds of servicemen who had completed 12 years of service and qualified for an honourable discharge opted to leave. This study is based on the life narratives of 30 such ex-servicemen who fought on

Masculinity and militarism in Sri Lanka  13

the frontlines with the Sinha and Gajaba infantry regiments in Eelam War III. As infantrymen, they faced the full ferocity of the LTTE’s ever-growing firepower. All participants enlisted during 1990–1991 and were demobilized between 2002 and 2004. Their names have been changed to protect their privacy and job security, but other details, such as military rank, natal village, family details, class identity, social context, caste, religion and ethnicity have been retained. Despite the CFA, over the months the security situation continued to deteriorate, with key political figures being assassinated in broad daylight and suicide bombs exploding across the Sinhala-speaking South, causing enormous carnage. The LTTE routinely denied involvement. Since no other rebel group had suicide bombers at their disposal, these strikes were seen as a relentless bid to strengthen the LTTE’s negotiating position vis-à-vis the Sri Lankan government in any future settlement. This environment created boom conditions for the emergent commercial security industry in which all study respondents were employed at the time of fieldwork. Mostly set up by ex-Army officers, such private security firms serviced five-star hotels, key facilities in the hospitality industry, private banks, factories and industrial complexes, while the SLA secured the airports, key legislative and judicial hubs, ministries and state corporations. In late-2002, I  began exploring possible respondents through the companies they worked for. This involved a series of preliminary discussions on the research objectives – as outlined above – with groups from five organizations who agreed to meet me. Rather to my surprise, though, all those who came to the initial discussions were keen to participate. Four were unable to do so because of logistical reasons and scheduling clashes, but everyone seemed anxious to have their say – to simply be heard. At the end of the session, I would mention that my research assistant was going around with a list and if they wanted to sign up for the project, they could give in their contact details. Everyone signed up. This phase of the study concluded in 2003. After much reflection, I chose to retain the queries and clarifications I requested as the interview unfolded in their entirety in the transcripts. Though I asked them whether – in general – they had participated in specific operations, the version of events they offered were entirely their own. But by this time, it had dawned on me that a serious exploration of complex issues such as this demanded a more sustained investment in time on the field. And though several research papers on the body, violence and constructions of masculinity in Sri Lanka emerged from this work, due to the increasingly fraught security climate, much of this had to be confined to their experiences outside the battlefield itself. At the same time, things were escalating on the political and military fronts. The CFA, incredibly, was causing cracks within the thus far monolithic LTTE. In March 2004, for the first time in its 20-year history, its Eastern Province leader, who fought under the nom de guerre Karuna, broke away with a group, seriously fracturing the LTTE’s fighting capacity. In December 2004, the island was hit by a tsunami, which wreaked unimaginable destruction. The mostly LTTE-­controlled Eastern rovince was hit particularly hard. In mid-2006, as paddy production slowly picked up, in a bid to control the local rice economy the LTTE closed the

14  Masculinity and militarism in Sri Lanka

sluicegates at Mavil Aru, a minor reservoir providing water for five rice-growing Sinhala villages downstream. This enraged the Sinhala electorate. Immense pressure was brought on the government to have these sluicegates re-opened. Consequently, the SLA was tasked with doing so. Eelam War IV had begun. The outbreak of war transformed the whole research dynamic. It caused security and political pits that were hard to navigate. I was then a Research Fellow at the International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES), Colombo, which was at this time very invested in looking at the kind of issues I was dealing with. And in the larger West and South Asian theatres, the US-led invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq was unfolding with catastrophic effects for young men and boys across the entire region. This fraught backdrop coloured research priorities among funding agencies, and we learnt that the Ford Foundation, Delhi, was interested in conducting a cross-national study on issues of gender and identity in South Asian societies in the new millennium. This created a space for us to draw up a study that could address what seemed to be the key research question of the day – the effects of the globalization of religio-political ideologies in creating shifts in practices of masculinity, identity and violence in South Asian societies. More specifically, to explore how icons of masculine violence – ranging from Stallone and Schwarzenegger, to Castro, Mao, George Habash, Osama and Sri Lankan Tamil leaders such as Masheshwaran and Prabhaharan – in fact shaped practices of masculinity and identity among young men and boys in South Asian societies. So, the next phase of this study, which began in early-2007, was narrower in scope in order to fit in with the frame of the ICES/Ford study and explored the stories of 15 soldiers of the Gajaba Regiment as well as 12 Tamil ex-combatants. These two studies were a part of a larger project that involved nine fieldwork sites of South Asian communities in four countries and looked at how such iconic figures impacted on the lives of young men and boys and their decision to enlist or join armed groups. This was perhaps the most difficult phase of the entire study because of the breakdown in the security situation – it was frequently not possible to take even my research assistant to the field because her safety could not be ­guaranteed – and it was somehow completed by the end of 2008. Two more research papers emerged from this phase of the fieldwork. The ­prevailing political climate sparked a debate within the ICES about what kinds of field projects should be attempted at this difficult moment, and its research portfolio shifted to areas with less security implications. At the same time, for me, the cumulative fieldwork was beginning to generate its own compulsions. In total, the narratives collected yielded more than 240 hours of tape and attempted to chart critical events in the lives of the narrators, as assessed by themselves. I therefore decided to take two years off to try to tie up this material together. In this final phase, I wanted to focus on four key military engagements in the previous Eelam War III. Thirty respondents were now identified for extended discussions on how these operations unfolded. Interviews began in early-2009, when Eelam War IV was nearing its end, and concluded in 2010. Over the three phases (2002–2003, 2007–2008 and 2009–2010), then, discussions ranged from the

Masculinity and militarism in Sri Lanka  15

childhood of participants to specific military campaigns. By this final phase, having been involved in the project, sometimes for 4–5 years, respondents had become very invested in it. Having suppressed their experiences for years, many narrators spoke almost compulsively about the challenges they faced on the frontlines on an everyday basis. Towards the end of 2010, an unexpected development occurred. One respondent brought along two friends whom he thought I would like to talk to because they had fought in the Mullaitivu operations (in Eelam War IV). Because of the highly contested nature of this final war, I began to think of including some aspects of these operations as well. All these events then, are imbedded in the soldier’s narratives. Thus the soldier – as much as the armed combatant – cannot be separated from his narrative. He is what he did. This creates issues of accountability, of victims and perpetrators. The term perpetrator signifies someone who transgresses a given moral order, such as ‘Sinhala-Buddhist’, ‘Tamil Hindu’ or the Victorian code. But today, globalization creates the conditions for a clash of moral universes as never before, which may consume all such actors. It shatters the boundaries of their moral worlds, leaving gaping holes through which they find themselves slipping. In such situations, their narratives offer us the possibility of retracing the trajectories of their lives, locating moments of agency, loss of agency and subsequent attempts to retrieve agency. Most of all, such narratives render the actions of agents intelligible. This does not remove accountability. But it creates a critical space for grasping perilous losses of agency that may unfold in the form of unpremeditated violence or forms of aggression born of dread and despair. In the last decades of the 20th century, the role of narrative in ethnographic and historiographic writings has been subject to new scrutiny by writers such as Portelli (1981), Watson-Frank (1985), Clifford and Marcus (1986) and Clifford (1988). Narrative, writes Ricoeur (2004), helps us to structure our social and cultural world. Out of the chaotic minutiae of everyday happenings, we pick particular events as relevant and give them greater weight. This allows us to discern patterns in our lives. But it also implies that we erase, dismiss or ‘forget’ other events as irrelevant. Narrative then, is our version of what happened: our take on different episodes in our lives. It is therefore contingent. It turns, firstly, on the listener, and his or her class, gender, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation and ideological positions assumed. If the listener shares the gender and ethnic identity of the narrator, for instance, the narrator may find himself sharing intimate details that he might not so readily share with someone of the opposite gender, or a rival ethnicity. Alternately, if the listener is not a member of the social categories or gender to which the narrator belongs, he may find it easier to speak to such an outsider about the taboos within his community or his fears and anxieties as a man and a member of an ethnic group that he cannot bring himself to articulate to a co-member. Secondly, the emotional condition of the narrator at the moment of narration is equally significant. If he is moved by fear or anger at the time of speaking, his narrative will reflect it in the way he views the actions of his opponents. Finally, the passage of time between the event reminisced and its re-telling is important.

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But when we repeatedly present one particular narrative to the same listener, or the same category of listener, it may begin to acquire the status of a ‘definitive’ account of our lives. Still, such a definitive account is inherently unstable and open to being subverted or even disrupted by a different kind of listener. Such a listener may evoke different memories and draw from us a different account of our experiences. At a larger national level, regimes-in-power and social, political and economic elites may attempt to construct collective memories that entail the erasure of other voices and narratives. This involves the silencing of minorities and marginal groups. But even this process again may be subverted at a later date by counter-narratives put together by dissenting voices that try to draw out a different version of events. At the same time, narration implies a measure of accountability. As Ricoeur (2004) writes, giving an account of an event also implies assuming accountability for the narrative offered. Narrative draws on memory. Still, memory is not a clear-cut, linear, re-telling of events the speaker has lived through. It is rather an account of his experience of specific events, framed by cultural metaphor, myth, motif, norm, practice and so on. But how do individual actions acquire cultural connotations such as metaphors and norms? In many ways. A Sinhala soldier speaks of an episode that took place the first time he went on home leave. He found himself confronted on a lonely street by a gang of drunken Sinhala lads. In retrospect, he feels they were perhaps just larking around, not meaning any harm. But his response at the time was filtered through past events in his life, all of which had cultural connotations. This incident, he says, evoked memories of a past encounter in school, in which he was thrashed by some older boys for not assuming a posture of (culturally apposite) bodily deference, and his feelings of helpless rage, since he felt he hadn’t done anything to aggravate them. It also brought, he says, mental images of his often-intoxicated father embarrassing the family in public – breaching, as it were, Sinhala codes of paternal propriety. Such feelings of rage may have been reinforced by Sinhala cultural taboos on alcohol-fuelled exuberance. But now combat training – also a new cultural experience – has equipped him with bodily assault techniques. Thus, his response to the lads standing in his way channelled all these past rages and unfolded with greater aggression than perhaps justified by the actual level of threat posed. In subsequently narrating this encounter, the soldier’s memories of his actions are conditioned by all those past encounters that are charged with cultural meaning. The ‘personal’ experience then, becomes internalized through cultural norms. After years of being reproved for displaying a lack of deference to his elders, who did not always act in ways that could evoke respect, he is now enraged at the lack of deference displayed by a bunch of young lads whom he feels owes him respect because – having been to the battlefield and returned – he was worthy of respect. So he proceeds to beat them up. The act of remembering, therefore, is never entirely an individual or idiosyncratic exercise, but one that holds larger collective and cultural connotations. As writers ranging from Connerton (1989) and Barthes (1991) to Bal et  al. (1998) suggest, such myths and metaphors are also ideological tools that enable

Masculinity and militarism in Sri Lanka  17

both the narrator and listener to decipher the event described, to decide who was the victim, who the perpetrator and who a spectator. Thus an event that constitutes an ‘assault’ in one cultural context may be deemed a routine combative encounter – but not amounting to an attack – in another, or even as banter. Memory allows the speaker to construct a personal narrative that is at the same time a social commentary on his life and times. Such personal narratives also reveal wider discourses on gender, on diverse practices of masculinity and femininity at work across the terrain upon which the narrative unfolds. The relationship between narrative and time is also contingent. As Brockmeier argues, categories such as the past, present and future cannot always be separated out (Brockmeier 2002: 21). The young soldier’s memory of an event in the present – being attacked by a group of teenaged boys, for instance – is mingled with recollections of the terrors and indignity of being thrashed by older boys (in the past) and could be fused with his anxiety every time (in the future) his four-member reconnaissance unit is ambushed by teenaged Tamil militants. As Pillemer (1998) suggests, such a blurring of time is all the more true if the memory is about a ‘momentous event’, such as being viciously thrashed by seniors at school for ‘lacking’ bodily deference. But if narratives are not factual accounts, are they ‘true’? Clearly, there are many kinds of ‘truths’. These include empirically valid truths, legally admissible truths and forensically verified truths, among other kinds. Thus, the truth of being thrashed by senior boys is valid for the soldier, since he endured it. Since those who thrashed him broke no law, or even school discipline, this act is not legally admissible as punishable in any way. But if there is no physical evidence of injury, the thrashing is not even forensically verifiable. In the wake of the mass human rights violations in Bosnia, Rwanda and East Timor, new work on the nature of legal memory by scholars such as Campbell (2002) and Feldman (1999) push back against notions of such kinds of ‘factual truth’ as the only kind of legally admissible evidence. I offer these narratives as a different kind of truth; as ‘truth in fable’; as a way of grasping a particular idiom of masculine performance in Sinhala culture within its own moral universe. Finally, and most importantly, I do not use quotation marks when presenting sections of the narratives collected, since what I offer the reader are my own translations into English of what a narrator said in Sinhala: my own version of his words. Radical differences in grammatical structures and the use of metaphor, idiom and simile render an exact translation somewhat problematic. Another translator may have a slightly different interpretation of the original narrative. At the same time, what unifies this study is that all such translations have been made by myself; thus, every narrator’s words have been interpreted through the same lens.

Concluding comments As Tosh argues then, notions of hegemonic masculinity, whatever their origins, never remain simply a means of oppressing women. They are in fact more likely to

18  Masculinity and militarism in Sri Lanka

be used as a colonizing strategy or a tool by post-colonial governments to oppress minorities and disadvantaged groups. In terms of Butler’s formulation, hegemonic masculinities signify the cultural repertoire of a particular kind of dominant male actor, against which the practices of a range of ‘lesser’ masculinities seem wanting. Foucault argues that in late-modern Europe, the social production of such ‘lesser’ masculinities or commoners precluded their ability to act out hegemonic codes. He links this to the emergence of biopolitics, or a critical transformation in the nature of political power. Here the Rule of Law, by which the police punish those who break the law, increasingly gives way to the ‘norm’, in which institutions such as schools, asylums and armies create disciplinary codes that are internalized by entrants, who then proceed to regulate themselves. In armies, enlisted men are trained to stand tall and straight, in a mimicry of manliness even while they remain subservient to superior officers at all times. This soon extends to submission to all forms of official authority. At the same time, advancements in science and technology created new administrative mechanisms with which the lives of the population could be monitored. These included the registration of births and deaths, censuses of the population, control of infectious disease, adult literacy, public education programmes and so on – which enhance the living conditions of people. Thus according to Foucault, a contradiction persists at the core of biopolitics. While disciplinary institutions create civic quiescence, biopolitics works to educate and inform, creating an awareness of rights. This implies that civic rights could be realized if the pressures created by disciplinary institutions are resisted. Agamben, however, denies that biopolitics is a benign development. He argues that regimes are able to subvert civic rights by legal measures such as Zones of Exception, through which the rights of citizens may be suspended for extended periods of time, even as the law continues to function elsewhere in the realm. Consequently, democracy strives to bring rights that regimes are able to deny by declaring such Zones in which the law does not apply. This book tracks the struggle of a group of such ‘lesser’ masculinities to acquire agency as soldiers on the battlefield, even as they enforce States of Exception upon other groups, through life narratives collected from 30 ex-serviceman who fought in Sri Lanka’s Eelam Wars (1983–2009). The next chapter will explore notions of masculinity and militarism across the West European continuum in late modernity, which built on valour or the practice of risking-the-body, and which the colonial incursions introduced into South Asia, and which shaped post-colonial militarisms. Sinhala hegemonic codes, on the other hand, focused on the composed body. Chapter 3 looks at the ways in which codes of British martial masculinity transformed aspects of Sinhala practices of manhood in the colonial phase. Chapter 4 explores the childhood and formative years of study participants. Chapter 5 focuses on combat training and the battlefield. Chapter 6 traces the campaign to recapture the rebel-held town of Kilinochchi in 1996. Chapter 7 looks at Operation Jayasikurui (Victory is assured) 1997. Chapter 8 describes the LTTE’s ‘Unceasing Waves III’ operation (1998). Chapter 9 looks at Operation Agnikheela, the last effort to recover

Masculinity and militarism in Sri Lanka  19

the Elephant Pass base (2001). Chapter 10 examines key strategic shifts by the SLA in Eelam War IV, which finally enabled soldiers to incorporate risk-taking into their repertoires, but the LTTE also makes important shifts. Finally, Chapter  11 offers concluding remarks on how globalization spawns the conditions for a clash in practices of masculinity across battlefields everywhere, which in turn creates a sense of bodily embattlement among soldiers.

Notes 1 The Mahavamsa (‘Great Chronicle’) [trans. Wilhelm Geiger] is a 5th-century AD epic poem in Pali, which narrates the history of the Sinhalas from their mythical origins to 302 AD. Its author is thought to be Mahanama, a monk of the Mahavihara sect. A later compilation, Chulavamsa (‘Lesser Chronicle’) – authored by several monks – recites the history of the period from the 4th century to the British occupation of Sri Lanka in 1815. The amalgamated work, often referred to collectively as the Mahavamsa, offers an unbroken historical record of over two millennia. The Mahavama’s account of events are substantiated by numerous pillar and stone inscriptions and extensive archaeological evidence across the island. It is also a key source in the dating of the consecration of Asoka, the Maurya Emperor, in the Indian subcontinent. 2 The term sangha means ‘organization’ and is used as a generic term for the Buddhist clergy. Those of the sangha who visited the king on this instance are described as eight arahants from the brotherhood at Piyangudipa (Geiger 1912: 178). Arahants are members of the sangha who have extraordinary powers of locomotion because they have ­succeeded in overcoming desire. 3 This is evinced by the fact that when the king discovers, after the arahants leave, that he has accidently eaten his entire meal without leaving the customary portion for the sangha, he is overcome by anxiety and immediately engages in penance (Geiger 1912: 178). 4 It was more than four centuries later that the two stupas which Dutu Gemunu built – the Mirisavetiya, which had a diameter of 168 ft, and the Ruwanvelisaya, which was 289 feet in diameter and approximately 300 feet in height were surpassed in grandeur. It was the work of Mahasen (274–301 AD) which finally transcended the dimensions of these structures with the Jethavanaramaya, which had a diameter of 367 feet and a height of 400 feet (de Silva, C.R. 1987: 61; Geiger 1912: 182–198). 5 Since the qualities that comprise the good father or the dutiful son are not exactly the same in every culture, each culture may have its own set of norms, idioms and practices of what connotes the ‘good father’; one may stress the authoritative father, or the impartial father who treats all offspring the same, or the just father who sets high ethical standards, or the enlightened father who allows his children the freedom to make their own choices or a composite of all these. 6 The ‘bounds’ of a given culture are of course subjective and at best a theoretical fiction, but such a concept of the ‘boundedness’ of a culture is useful to understand diverse ­trajectories taking place in radically different cultures. 7 Though Foucault himself identifies the emergence of disciplinary institutions as in the early part of the 17th century and biopolitics towards the end, his chronology is widely critiqued, and this book accepts the position that the advent of biopolitics began prior to this date, since this does not seriously impact on the validity of Foucault’s larger argument. 8 Foucault himself feels that it is this convergence of the two strands of biopolitics that enabled major developments such as capitalism to unfold in the way they did. Thus, unlike Marx, who saw capitalism as the product of the proletarianization of the peasantry and emergence of capital, Foucault attributes the success of capitalism to the disciplinary institutions such as the industrial factory that produce docile workers and the biopolitics that fosters their productivity (Foucault 2013b: 74).

2 MOTIFS OF MASCULINITY The imperilled body and the composed body

Introduction Local practices of masculinity across South Asia were profoundly challenged by successive invasions by the Portuguese, Dutch, French and British, which shaped military strategy in post-colonial wars. It is apposite therefore to trace the codes of masculinity that were ascendant across the West European continuum in the key phase 1500–1800. Connell (1987, 1993) argues that while the traits and practices that make up hegemonic masculinity today – such as financial clout, technical knowhow, heterosexual success and a vigorous physique – signify the ascendancy of the rational risk-taking viewpoint of the entrepreneur and bureaucrat, in early-modernity, it was the landed nobility’s code of honour that was ascendant. Such a code inferred affluence in that the nobility’s precedence revolved upon the extent of holdings. Since West European expansion was enabled by qualitative leaps in science, it rendered a rational, scientific outlook equally key to hegemonic credentials. Heterosexual success also implied virility. But most of all, the cult of honour exemplified valour, or bodily courage. This chapter will begin by exploring notions of masculinity and militarism across the West European continuum in late-modernity, which the colonial incursions introduced into South Asia and which built on valour or the practice of risking-the-body. It will go on to outline Sinhala codes of hegemonic masculinity that – on the contrary – focused on the composed body, signifying a radically different notion of performance – a practice of bodily quietude – that was seen as lacking by successive colonial powers.

West European militarism and masculinity in early modernity Honour inferred noble conduct in combat – or conduct befitting the nobility. It assumed, says Spierenburg, a particular kind of bodily violence which demanded DOI: 10.4324/9781003362036-2

Motifs of masculinity  21

courage (Spierenburg 1998: 6). As played out in the chivalrous tournaments of medieval times – which involved large groups of knights displaying their ­military skills by launching themselves into melees and fighting duels – defending one’s honour demanded high levels of courage and skill. The hegemonic grip of this ideal was such that foot troops grew as invested in it as the nobility themselves. But as Foucault observes, the discursive coercions of disciplinary institutions such as military training corps precluded their exerting ownership over this code. ­However, over time, a ‘democratization’ of honour did take place, which varied within each national context. What the signifier ‘honour’ actually signified also underwent shifts.

Honing honour In the late-medieval phase, practices of masculinity across Christianized Europe were of course forged in the crucible of the Crusades (1099–1297), in which the Church attempted to wrest Jerusalem from Islamic rule. With the failure of the first crusade, the Vatican set up Military Orders such as the Knights of the Temple, in order to co-opt the religious zeal of the European nobility into what was in effect the temporal goal of reclaiming the Holy Land. Such Orders signified the extension of monastic discipline into militarism. Knights were recruited from the nobility, who, as part of their education, were already trained in the martial arts and could provide their own retainers or hired mercenaries. The Orders subsequently became the ground forces in the Reconquista unfolding across the Iberian Peninsula. The Reconquista itself emerged as the frontline in the all-consuming clash between the forces of Christianity and Islam across Europe. This rendered it a site of intense religious fervour. The knight’s comportment in battle was defined by the Code of Chivalry, which was grounded in valour-based notions of honour. The Templars’ statutes, for instance, demanded that the knight should fight until victory or death and explicitly debarred him from leaving the battlefield for the barracks while the fight was raging (de Curzon 1992; Sterns 1969: 80, 118). This impelled him to imperil himself in the name of God. At the same time, his chainmail suit, helmet-and-visor and heavily armoured steed made the knight an almost unassailable foe. In keeping with their vows of poverty and chastity, knights wore a simple white habit. It soon acquired the attributes of a uniform. It stood for a code of masculinity that was willingly picked up by European nobilities across the board. Honour in battle though, held powerful class connotations and remained the prerogative of the knight; foot soldiers merely set the stage on which he performed. But the notion of being God’s chosen vehicles to destroy infidels was in itself so exhilarating that it could bond together all groups taking-up arms. Upon victory, Military Orders received ‘commanderies’. These took the form of feudal castles located in territories recovered from Moors or heathen tribes. They became estates that the Orders administrated, playing the role of feudal lords and collecting taxes and revenues from occupied peoples or new settlers. A policy

22  Motifs of masculinity

of ruthless extractions ensued. This enabled Orders to accumulate great wealth and power over the years, which began to erode the austerity of their lifestyle. By the end of the 16th century, then, many Orders had abandoned their vows of penury and even celibacy. This subsequently led to the divestment of their wide-ranging powers. In time, knighthoods became largely symbolic titles. But the ideal of risking-the-body itself had become so revered that by the 16th century, the combat ritual of the point de honneur had found its way from the military barracks into salons across Europe, emerging as a significant social practice (Frevert 1998: 38). Its scope now extended to defending the honour of women. This entailed maintaining a ‘chivalric’ distance from them. Those who failed to do so were thought to have impugned the honour of the woman concerned. In such a situation, it was obligatory for her ‘protectors’ – father, brother, lover – to challenge the offender to a duel. In the social realm, duels were often fought to win the hand of a lady. The duel came to endorse heterosexuality as the only valid practice of manliness. In fact, virility in itself became an implicit signifier of valour. As a social practice, the duel of honour became subject to rules of engagement. Frevert identifies two motifs. Firstly, she says, the duel offered a code of ethics for dealing with violence. This involved the practice of risking-the-body in one-toone armed combat as acted out in martial contests such as fencing. Since the rules are the same for both protagonists, it gave them the same odds for victory (ibid.: 38–39). Here, victory revolved on the level of skill, honed through endless practice – or in Butler’s terms, ‘reiterations’. As the fencer’s skill grows, he can gauge with precision where every blow will land. This reduces the element of risk entailed. It also creates confidence in the possibility of victory. This in turn heightens valour, or the willingness to imperil oneself in a larger cause. Secondly, says Frevert, the duel by definition did not extend to third parties. If it did, it impugned the honour of both protagonists. The purpose of the duel, she says, was to elevate a single combat of honour above ordinary quarrels and imbue it with a measure of gravity and dignity. It removed violence from the everyday and confined it to a specific ritual site. Most importantly, the duel drew a line between ‘combatants’ and ‘non-combatants’ in any dispute. This becomes a significant development in the social containment of violence (ibid.). It became a key element in the Geneva Convention of the 20th century, which for the first time differentiated between the rights and responsibilities of combatants and noncombatants or civilians in contexts of war. Consequently as well as a key mode of combat on the battlefield, the duel became a socio-judicial practice. It remained an important practice in the repertoire of European nobilities. The ideals it signified encompassed private and public sites, which led them to become norms in the societies concerned in realms ranging from sports and scholarship to lifestyles-at-large. By early-modernity, this had created the conditions for the code of honour to assume hegemonic proportions as a defining trait of European masculinity. While it united diverse nobilities, the code also began to assume national distinctions such as the manly Victorian, the

Motifs of masculinity  23

Venetian gentleman and the French gallant, whose cultural repertoire was differentiated by, among other things, language and idiom, leisure-time pursuits and sartorial style. However, with the consolidation of the discourse of the Rule of Law – ­premised of course on the notion that nobility and commoners were subject to the same laws – the legitimacy of the duel outside the battlefield came under challenge. The Rule of Law also enabled the state to wrest a gradual monopoly of coercive violence. It becomes an important tool in Foucault’s biopolitics or the state’s endless search of ways in which to monitor the lives of citizens. This had direct implications for the point de honneur. It became redefined as culpable homicide or manslaughter (­Wiener 1998: 204). Bodily violence – at least in the civil domain – was now projected as an excessive dsplay and somehow less honourable than before. It became seen as immature exhibition: a failure to attain ‘real’ masculinity. The Rule of Law actively criminalized existing codes of honour, undermining notions of masculinity built on these codes. The battlefield remained the only space where bodily violence was condoned. At the same time, as much as the visible foe, valour also entailed conquering fear of the unknown, of dark forces, uncharted waters and unexplored terrain. Here, together with advances in science, the post-Enlightenment vision of an allknowing, Almighty God, Creator of the Earth, who could guide the seeker down untrodden pathways, created the conditions for pushing back boundaries as never before. By the end of the Reconquista, the Iberian powers had acquired a powerful naval capability. This enabled successive meteorological, hydrographic and oceanographic surveys that led to advances in naval technology, including navigation techniques. Such breakthroughs, sanctioned by Papal Bulls, enabled risk-taking on the high seas in the shape of imperial ventures to the New World and East Indies. Knights became Conquistadors. They became purveyors of science. But, buoyed by their victories over Islam and science, Conquistador masculinity became infused with a sense of religious triumphalism. Fuelled by powerful ideological drivers such as the Spanish Inquisition – which constantly impugned the human worth of Moors, seen to be outside the Grace of God, and converts of all kinds, seen as always on the verge of reneging on their vows – it looked askance at the Other. The commitment of infidels, heathen groups and pagans to ‘truth’ – or the Christian vision of God – was seen as dubious. In the Americas, even native groups who were warlike did not have artillery, armoured cavalry, axes, steel swords or spears. They emerged as lesser masculinities, bereft of science and mired in ‘superstition’. This ‘lack’, however, was not the same as the limitations of European foot soldiers that precluded their acquiring honour. In terms of skin tone, physique and the very bareness of their bodies, native groups embodied difference. The seeming ‘lack’ of clothing/culture made attempts to assign human dignity upon these almost naked bodies problematic. Absence of clothing assumed sexual and moral overtones. Conquistador morality demanded (hetero)sexual virility within the clothed body. But, even more crucially, native groups dealt with their fear of the unknown in different ways. They offered blood sacrifices. For the Aztecs and Incas,

24  Motifs of masculinity

the very rising of the sun each day depended on appeasing the gods with human blood. Ironically, for the Iberians – whose Inquisitions burnt traditional healers as witches and tortured ‘unbelievers’ to death on the rack – this phenomenon evoked unspeakable dread. Worse, such groups refused to convert to Christianity, or ‘chose’ to remain unenlightened. This refusal of native groups to comport themselves as fitting moral/military adversaries then, sparked a collision of clothed/naked masculinities. It evoked a sense of bodily embattlement which rendered troops unable to contain their anger and dread, erupting in spasms of spectacular violence. Thus, in Tenochtitlan, unnerved by the discovery that the Aztecs were making preparations for a blood sacrifice, Cortѐs’ troops engaged in the mindless massacre of large numbers of unarmed nobles whose hospitality was in fact sustaining them. Conquistadors also engaged in spectacular violence in order to daze the natives into docility. In Cajamarca, when the Inca Atahualpa refused to accept the Spanish king’s suzerainty and convert to Christianity, Pizarro’s troops were enraged by his careless aplomb in the face of their superior arms. They slaughtered his unarmed entourage en masse. Atahualpa himself was executed even after paying a ransom in gold. For the Europeans, obsessed by their desire to find ‘treasure’, the natives became merely a conduit for gold, the symbol of God’s favour. At the same time, native groups lacked immunity to the deadly venereal and other diseases brought by Conquistadors, which wiped out tens of thousands of their numbers. Consequently, in this inability to endure the claims of native groups to a common humanity seemed so insubstantial as to justify any level of deception against them. In the colonies therefore, the Conquistadors – who saw themselves as God-fearing men – ­conducted themselves with an almost inexplicable level of cupidity, crudity and cruelty, d­ issipating their honour without thought. Meanwhile, the European battlefield was also changing. By the 16th century, Spain’s ability to finance its militarism with gold from the Americas rendered it the premier power in Europe. Challenges to the supremacy of the Spanish Habsburgs and their Austrian allies by the French Bourbons led to extended clashes such as the Spanish–Italian Wars (1494–1559) and the Franco–Spanish War (1635–1659). The Reformation created further cracks within the Church. The rise of Protestantism destabilized power structures across Catholic Europe and even more than its spiritual implications, posed a threat to temporal assets. The Peace of Augsburg (1555) divided-up the Holy Roman Empire into Protestant and Catholic states. But this did not stem the sweeping tide of Protestantism, leading to eruptions such as the Dutch Revolt (1568–1609), the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) and the Nine Years’ War (1689–97). The emergence of large-scale coalition warfare drawn on denominational lines once again led to the rise of local militias across the continent and created an all-­pervasive climate of militarism, but this time among the Christian nations themselves. This, as Dudink and Hagemann (2004) observe, transformed the lives of ordinary men, infusing them with martial values. The rise of Protestant cultures exemplified a different practice of military masculinity, which, as many

Motifs of masculinity  25

commentators point out, drew from a ‘Protestant ethic’ posited against the iconolatry, ostentation and venality of Catholicism.1 This ethic, which animated Lutheranism and Calvinism, focused on rationality, austerity and industry. And as Tosh argues, the Protestant ethic had profound implications for codes of masculinity (Tosh 2004: 43–59). With the advent of coalition warfare, writes Rodrigues, militarism came to provide an occupational path for second sons and lesser strata within the nobility to build fortunes and receive land endowments by fighting as mercenaries in other European armies and in the colonies (Rodrigues 2017: 323–333). This gave rise to a new phenomenon: the military entrepreneur. Officers who were veteran campaigners set up their own mercenary companies, hiring themselves out to the highest bidder. As owners of the ‘company’, they ran the financial risk of keeping it afloat, including provisioning, training, arming and outfitting their troops. This became a new kind of risk-taking. It also allowed better-off states with small populations, such as the Netherlands and Sweden, to remain militarily relevant by hiring mercenary units. As military historians such as Roberts (1995) and Parker (1996) maintain, endemic war also gave rise to successive military innovations. By the late-15th century, argues Parker (1996), the advent of artillery had made even armoured cavalry obsolete. Most European armies, though, still relied heavily on cavalry, with foot soldiers armed with halberds – axe-heads on shafts tipped with spikes – playing a defensive role. This changed with a key innovation made by the Spanish in the Spanish–Italian War. Finding that they lacked sufficient horsemen to face the fearsome French cavalry, they brought in the pike – a spearhead mounted on a pole 6–8 metres high – which allowed foot troops to keep cavalry at bay. But pikes were unwieldy for fighting at close quarters, and pikemen had to be protected by halberdiers. This problem was resolved with the advent of firearms in the form of arquebuses, soon replaced by muskets. In terms of practices of masculinity, pikes and later muskets gave infantry a more risk-taking role and positioned them to shape the military outcome better. Such developments created the conditions for the emergence of the Spanish tercio formation, which comprised of both cavalry and infantry and evolved into the key tactical unit. This transformed the pattern of combat in battle. The tercio became the precursor to the battalion. It strove to build an esprit de corps among its diverse components through symbols such as uniforms, flags and pennants. The tercio model was soon picked up by other armies. As Duffy points out, the acquisition of firearms by infantries opened new vistas in terms of a range of linear tactics that could maximize defence and attack options (Duffy 1980: 1–2; Parker 1996). Firearms raised the possibility of making infantry even more effective against enemy cavalry. This entailed complex tactical manoeuvres. Here the role played by the Dutch in reworking infantry tactics by applying the Calvinist traits of industriousness and logic was critical. They first initiated a programme of systematic drill aimed at increasing the mobility and flexibility of infantry. Continuous drilling – or, in Butler’s terms, constant reiterations – enabled troops to move e­ffortlessly

26  Motifs of masculinity

from line to column and back without losing formation. Secondly, stringent discipline was imposed to ensure that troops retained formation even under enemy fire, when they were actively imperilled. Finally, rotating column formations such as the ‘countermarch’ allowed infantry to fire continuous volleys at the enemy, preventing them from returning fire. The ground-breaking significance of the countermarch in the 1590s is hailed in the literature.2 Consequently, as many writers agree, in the decade 1595–1605 what amounted to a tactical revolution in the Dutch Army ensued, which led to increased battlefield victories (Nimwegen 2010: 57; Roberts 1995: 13–36). These developments were soon picked up by other European armies. Continuous drilling programmes further allowed armies to transform raw recruits into good soldiers in 6–8 weeks. This offered a steady supply of trained men. But even more critically, drilling demonstrated that valour itself – in terms of retaining formation when actively imperilled by enemy fire – could be learnt though sustained effort. Steadfastness also brought valour. Consequently, as Nimwegen writes, military commanders and Estates-General who had so far not been compelled to address the general well-being of mercenaries, now found that in order to get the best results they needed to invest more intensely in their training and disciplining (Nimwegen 2010: 73). This led to the spread of standing armies. States began to absorb the role of military entrepreneurs, provisioning, arming and outfitting troops. This raised national budgets, leading to the increased taxation of domestic populations and the devising of complex administrative tools to effect it; in a word, Foucault’s biopolitics. For enlisted men, this process set into motion Foucault’s ‘anatomo-politics of the human body’ (Foucault 2013a: 41–60). Since the Rule of Law enabled the state to concentrate all forms of coercive violence in its own hands, state-sponsored M ­ ilitary Corps could put in place harsh disciplinary regimes with physical and psychological dimensions that could shape the soldier’s body into the mould they desired. The soldier soon internalized this code of compliance to authority and began regulating himself. Consequently, while the soldiers’ combat repertoire is now widened with a range of risk-taking tactics, the decision to deploy them remained wholly in the hands of commanding officers. Risk-taking then, brings enlisted men a measure of agency, since it enables the exultations of ­battlefield triumphs that are however, filtered through absolute compliance to orders from above. At the same time, the greater military weight shouldered by infantries against enemy cavalry, together with advancements in the power and mobility of artillery batteries, did of course affect the role of the nobility. Cavalry corps diminished. Consequently, openings available to the nobility were increasingly in the infantry officer corps. This, as Merril argues, critically removed violence from their combat repertoire to at most, waving a sword to signal an infantry charge (Merril 2015: 132). The disappearance of a stage on which to perform then, caused much chafing and restlessness within officer ranks. As many observers remark, it aggravated a persistent problem: insubordination by junior officers who deemed their social status to be higher than that of their superior officers (Stapleton 2003: 317; Nimwegen

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2010: 66–70). Such developments, predicated as they were on the validity of bodily violence, held serious implications for notions of masculinity and honour. By the 17th century, the growing urbanization of European populations was making them susceptible to siege warfare. This involved besieging fortresses in key port cities and breaching their walls with artillery. It entailed a different mentality to assaults. The breaching of fortress walls required a methodical effort, building earthworks and trenches around battlements in order to close in undetected with artillery. It entailed the assembling of siege artillery trains manned by trained personnel. But fortress-building technology was also advancing apace with the new trace italienne fortress designed to withstand the impact of canon. This was a star-shaped structure with bastions on each point to widen the range of vision of enemy movements, and low, sloping earthen walls covered with only a thin layer of stone, so as to absorb the effects of artillery. Once again, fortresses had to be besieged the hard way by siphoning off their food supplies and starving residents into submission. In terms of practices of masculinity, then, officers and men seemed to be s­ hifting roles. While enlisted men learnt valour, officers were now teaching practices of valour they didn’t have to perform. Still, all such developments served to forge agency within both infantry and cavalry, officers and rank-and-file. They created a heightened sense of professionalism. Officers had wider options to chart military gains by deploying their men in complex battlefield manoeuvres. Though enlisted men were subjected to higher levels of discipline, linear synchronizations offered a different kind of kinaesthetic elation from that found in one-to-one encounters. It also widened their repertoire with new risk-taking strategies. This spurred military reformers like Clausewitz to argue against excessive drills and the brutal enforcement of discipline in the Prussian Army. He asserted that the ordinary soldier was an individual – a self-conscious being who had a sense of responsibility of his own, who could fight independently, flexibly and out of intrinsic motivation (Dudink and Hagemann 2004: 5). The conviction that manly, individual honour was no longer the privilege of officers but also belonged to the ordinary infantryman, then, moved distinguished soldiers such as Clausewitz to push for reform. By the 18th century, Spanish militarism was waning and France was ascendant. This phase, as Foucault states, also saw a series of advancements in microbiology and technological progress in agricultural production and industry and the further unfolding of biopolitics (Agamben 2013b). Mass education led to increased literacy and access to information. All of this led to the articulation of democratic ideals, creating the conditions for the radicalizing of Third Estates – who bore the brunt of military taxations – across the European landscape. In France, these developments led to the French Revolution. The immediate cause of the Revolution was of course the astronomical military debt run up by Louis XVI, the financing of which the nobility refused to address. It therefore took the form of prohibitive taxes that fell squarely on the already strapped Third Estate and unpropertied groups. This impelled them to take to arms against the ancien regime.

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The Revolutionary wars shook notions of what constituted honour among European armies. The link between honour and risking-the-body, already fracturing, shattered further. It rendered the practice of the ordinary soldier honourable regardless of his performance on the battlefield, simply because he had taken up arms on behalf of the nation. Consequently, what constituted the practice of honour was subject to further shifts. Such shifts in practices of masculinity and notions of honour among colonial actors like Portugal, Holland, France and Britain assumed different trajectories.

Portugal Portugal’s militarist star rose early, in the late-15th century, but was already setting by the end of the 16th. What Portuguese knights practiced then, was still very much a frontier masculinity. Feats of ‘honour’ during this phase, writes Rodrigues, ranged from single knights riding through Moorish villages at night, creating mayhem, to surprise attacks by convoys of heavily-armoured knights (Rodrigues 2017: 323). Knights aspired to perform such feats of ‘honour’, he says, because of the possibility of receiving ‘favours’ from the king (ibid.). Here honour entailed slaughtering unarmed infidels in the name of God, in return for temporal ‘favours’ such as commanderies. This suggested that violence for personal gain could bring honour so long as it was cited in God’s name. It implied that what signified was the result – destruction of infidels – rather than the practice – risking-the-body. This is not to suggest that risk-taking was abandoned entirely. On the contrary, the Portuguese empire was built on naval dominance, gained at the cost of ordinary sailors risking their lives every day on the high seas. The oar-propelled galleys of native groups were no match for Portuguese carracks and galleons armed with sometimes hundreds of heavy cannons. On land, though, Portugal’s limited population base meant that its overseas campaigns constantly confronted manpower shortages. This led to the perfecting of what Ricard describes as the ‘restricted territorial model of occupation’ which entailed the takeover of port cities (Ricard 1936: 426-437). The Portuguese would seize a fortress or build one next to a key port and extend its walls to include the port’s perimeter. They then confined their occupation to this area, which could be defended by a small garrison. When attacked, it could be reinforced with troops from neighbouring ports (ibid.). This model was effectively deployed in Ceylon’s South-Western coast between the years 1521 and 1658. Its success revolved around a Portuguese artillery edge and, as was the case in colonial Ceylon, the naval weakness of occupied groups and their inability to stop reinforcements from arriving. The Portuguese engaged in proselytization, mostly of groups on the edges of society, who became mercenaries (lascarin) in their colonizing project. By the late-16th century, lascarin were being trained in the use of European weapons and infantry tactics. This widened their repertoire with new practices of masculinity.

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Though lascarin benefited from Portuguese largesse, they were ambitious and strove to exert agency through mass cross-overs to native kings at key moments. The death of King Sebastian in 1580 was a serious blow for Portuguese militarism. Their subsequent defeat in the War of Succession brought Portugal under the tutelage of the Spanish crown, and Portuguese interests became subordinated to that of Spain. Over the next century Portugal’s energies were absorbed by the War of Restoration (1640–1668), and the Dutch succeeded in seizing many of its colonies, including Ceylon. Like the Spanish then, Portuguese colonialism unfolded at a moment when very illiberal views of non-European peoples prevailed across Christianized Europe. This allowed Portuguese hegemonic masculinity to supplant risk-taking with unmediated violence against native groups. But they were unable to retain the loyalty of ambitious native lascarin who constantly betrayed them by crossing over to native leaders.

Dutch Republic Like Portugal, the Dutch Republic engaged in a prolonged revolt against Spanish rule (1568–1648). Dutch masculinity in the early modern phase was similarly forged through war, but against Spanish Catholicism rather than Islam. The Netherlands is described as the first fiscal–military state. Its fiscal ­trajectory began in the mid-15th century with the blossoming of the Baltic trade that transformed the port of Antwerp into an entrepôt hub. This enabled the rise of mercantilism and a new merchant class. The advent of Calvinism in the 1540s offered them a creed that resonated with their ethic of diligence and enterprise. Unlike in other European states, the mercantilist bourgeoisie played a greater economic role than did the landed nobility, and consequently solvency acquired greater significance as a dimension of Dutch honour. Therefore, as Spierenburg observes, Dutch elites did not often recourse to duelling (Spierenburg 1998: 24). Still, lesser social strata remained persuaded that their honour should be defended through one-to-one encounters with fists or knives (ibid.: 103). The rise of Calvinism, however, evoked a harsh Spanish response, sparking the Dutch Revolt. The Calvinist nobility initially confined themselves to petitioning the Spanish Governor for greater religious freedoms. But as the repression intensified, the angers of ordinary people erupted in the ‘iconoclastic fury’ of 1566. A popular revolt ensued, with the emergence of local militias across the land. The nobility soon assumed leadership of the revolt, and as discussed earlier, initiated a process of tactical innovation that elevated the combat role of infantry. To finance the revolt, in 1602 mercantilist interests within the Estates-­General established the Dutch East India Company (VOC), which aimed to acquire monopoly control over the lucrative East Indies spice trade. Since the Portuguese were already entrenched along these sea routes, securing monopolies entailed clashes with them and subsequently the French and British. The VOC was therefore

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equipped with well-trained and well-armed Swiss and German mercenaries, backed by cutting-edge naval technology. Trade as a mode of surplus extraction, then, built on military force rather than symbolic violence. Thus, to defend themselves against the tyrannies of Spanish Catholicism, the Calvinist bourgeoisie set up the VOC to finance their rebellion through ‘trade’ with Asian peoples. By 1619, however, the VOC was directly attacking such groups with state-of-the-art artillery to which they had no answers. In Java, as Mostert writes, Banda tribesmen were mostly slaughtered, and the village of Jakarta renamed Batavia and made into the VOC headquarters in the East (Mostert 2007: 16). As much as the Iberian powers, then, Dutch Calvinism retained ambiguities about the human worth of the colonized, and their occupation was marked by endless legislation to curb the evils of ‘miscegenation’. In Europe, meanwhile, after the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), the Dutch Army declined. Confronted with a French invasion in 1672, Dutch commanders panicked, abandoning their posts and abdicating their code of honour. This signified a profound failure of Dutch masculinity. As Stapleton details, William III responded by rebuilding the officer corps from scratch, with higher levels of professionalism (Stapleton 2003: 98). Commanders who fled their posts were courtmartialled and assigned the death penalty; promising officers were promoted and experienced officers recruited from abroad (ibid.: 146–147). Nimwegen tracks the steps taken to motivate enlisted men with incentives such as provision of food rations, healthcare and regular payment of wages – which were always in arrears – by formalizing the role of financiers advancing funds for military outlays to the Estates-General (Nimwegen 2010: 60). A stringent application of logic and enterprise then, enabled the transformation of the Dutch military from a collection of private militias to a professional standing army (ibid.: 57). By the turn of the century, however, with London emerging as a mercantile hub, Dutch ports began to lose their leverage, weakening the VOC’s economic edge.3 This jeopardized the Estates-General’s ability to retain military expenditure at requisite levels, undermining its capacity to sustain empire. In 1741, when ­Marthanda Varma’s forces overcame the VOC in the Battle of Colachel, India, the rajah demanded that the defeated Dutch commander train his army along modern lines. This signalled the transformation of South Asian militaries. With the ­subsequent entry of France and Britain into the East Indies trade, it led to the loss of Dutch colonies. The collapse of Dutch militarism in the colonies coincided with the arrival in the Republic of the new intellectual ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity which were sweeping across the Euro-American landscape. As Dudink remarks, ­Dutchmen took inspiration from America, where ordinary citizens were taking up arms to fight for political rights and democratic freedoms which they felt were being denied to them through British ‘tyranny’ (Dudink 2004: 79–81). VOC ships carrying arms to the rebels were attacked and destroyed by the British Navy, which led to the 4th Anglo–Dutch war (1780–1784). This in turn hardened anti-British sentiment and created the conditions for the rise of a ‘patriot’ movement in the

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1780s (ibid.). With the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the patriots felt that they should again take up arms – this time not for religious but for political rights – thus reaffirming Dutch martial masculinity. They called on Dutch citizens to arm themselves (ibid.). Once again, local militias – the Free Corps – emerged throughout the country. The new intellectual climate spawned a flood of literature and poetry that linked the rise of the Corps to the re-masculinization of the Dutch citizen. But, as Dudink comments, the ease and material wealth brought by the VOC’s extraordinary commercial success also spawned anxieties of an ‘effeminacy’ created by a ‘dangerous luxury’ deemed to have diminished the martial spirit of the Dutch; many who flocked to join the militias were seen to have been drawn by the desire to wear colourful uniforms rather than to fight for their rights (ibid.: 82–85). In this Calvinist view, masculinity – or learning valour – emerges as a precarious state, easily smothered by the ‘effeminizing’ effects of wealth and luxury. What was condemned was not so much commerce itself, but the inability to control passions in the face of the wealth it produced (ibid.) Rather than imperilling the body then, the aspiration was only to adorn it. A clash now ensued between the patriots and the still pro-British Stadholder, but in the rebellion that ensued, he succeeded in mobilizing his external allies, crushing the patriots and driving them into exile in France. In 1795, French Revolutionary troops invaded the Netherlands, enabling exiled patriots to return. They established the ‘Batavian republic’ (1795–1806), which granted universal suffrage to males over 20 years. In the chaotic aftermath of this event, the Stadholder, now exiled in England, succeeded in negotiating the transfer of a number of residual Dutch colonies, including Ceylon, to the British. With the increasing significance of linear combat then, enlisted men came to exemplify Dutch masculinity more than the wealthier classes, seen as more taken up with the accoutrements of militarism such as colourful uniforms. They were perceived to be deserving of democratic rights, but not women. The Batavian revolution for the first time established masculinity as a universal category encompassing nobility and commoners. The Dutch colonial episode also exposed the dark side of Calvinism, its puritan preoccupation with miscegenation and compulsive accumulation.

France In France, the revolution impacted directly on notions of masculinity. As Dudink and Hagemann comment, in the democratization of notions of honour, two aspects of the Revolution were significant. Firstly, there was the impact of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (1789). With the diffusion of the democratic values of equality and fraternity and universal male conscription, the citizen’s right and duty to take up arms in defence of the nation fell to ordinary men. Secondly, even more than in the Batavian Republic, the revolution disparaged the military credentials of the nobility while entrenching those of commoners (Dudink and Hagemann 2004: 3–21). In the end, the Jacobins separated out bodily violence

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from valour and gave it greater weight as a trait of masculinity. All of this transformed notions of masculinity throughout Europe. In terms of masculinity, as Horne points out, for male revolutionaries, the ­Declaration of the Rights of Man did not extend to the civic rights of female ­activists. As happened in the Batavian Republic, in the post-revolutionary phase women activists were effectively marginalized (Horne 2004: 22–40). At the same time, notions of fraternity and equality transformed relations between men. Even more than elsewhere in Europe, pre-revolutionary French society was finely ­stratified into estates and classes in which other men were either superiors or inferiors. But after the Declarations of Rights, men were free to consider other men as equals (ibid.). This notion of equality was taken a step further with the levée en masse (1793), which introduced universal male conscription. As Horne goes on to point out, the Rights of Man now validated mass conscription by linking it to French citizenship. The citizen must take up arms in defence of his nation. Consequently, a military dimension is incorporated into French masculinity (Horne 2004: 23). This should again be seen against the pre-revolutionary situation, where on the one hand, citizenship was confined to men owning property, and on the other, the French officer corps was mostly comprised of nobles, and infantry troops included many foreign mercenaries. The levée took place against a background of the rise of local militias throughout France. Horne argues further that the levée was important as a political myth because it sought to turn the coercive institution of conscription into a sense of civic duty – internalized by the citizen himself – to take up arms in defence of the nation (Horne 2004: 31). The levée transformed the entire political culture and, with it, notions of citizenship. Moreover, as masculinity became generalized, notions of what constituted heroism also changed. Since the levée was introduced in the context of the Revolutionary wars, it was declared that all men who fell in war would die a ‘hero’s death’. Those who died would be honoured in the national imaginaire as a ‘warrior hero’. In the past, such titles of ‘honour’ were conferred only upon noblemen, and mostly on military leaders. The honouring of ordinary soldiers becomes another significant move towards the democratization of French masculinity. Thus, the norms of what constituted honour underwent a collective shift. Under the ancien regime, initially, the infantryman’s task was mostly to be cannon fodder or at best to set the stage on which the nobility could perform their acts of heroism. Later, his role was to assume infantry formations at his officers’ command. But now he became a war hero, regardless. The soldier no longer had to engage in an act of spectacular courage in order to qualify for the label of heroism. Further, as the revolution unfolded, the old nobility and their lifestyle became increasingly devalued. They were seen as luxury-loving and effete. Perceived as unable to cope with physical hardships and bleak billeting conditions, they were disparaged as lacking manly staying power. Against this, ordinary citizens emerged as strong, hard and aggressive defenders of the nation. Consequently, as Dudink and Hagemann remark, as in the Batavian Republic, the French Revolution established masculinity as a universal category (Dudink and Hagemann 2004: 19).

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England In England, the Industrial Revolution ensured the opposite effect. It strengthened the position of capital, from which much of the officer corps derived, while undermining weaker social groups driven to enlist through economic hardship. Though unlike in the Dutch Army, commissions could be bought, they were expensive and could only be afforded by the nobility and the rising bourgeoisie (Merril 2015: 110). As Colley writes, a cult of aggressive masculinity and heroic endeavour thrived among commissioned officers, which resonated with a British aristocratic tendency towards idiosyncrasy and eccentricity (Colley 1992: 286–287). While only a minority of officers were actually drawn from the nobility, the discourse of honour that validated such ‘heroic’ deeds was seen as essentially their prerogative. This posed something of an impasse for better-off commoners in pursuit of a ‘gentlemanly’ persona.4 The first standing army, Cromwell’s New Model Army (NMA), emerged as a result of the stand-off between (Catholic) Charles I and the Protestant-dominated Parliament (1645–1646). The NMA recruited only among Puritans.5 Honour in the NMA entailed fighting for England rather than the king, seen to exemplify Papism. It was intended that competence rather than wealth and status should define leadership in the NMA. Its elite troops were its cavalrymen, recruited not from the nobility but from the better-off yeoman strata who could supply their own horses. The NMA became known for its high discipline relative to previous armies and ability to engage in complex manoeuvres. For ordinary soldiers, however, it seemed that despite the deposing of the king, Presbyterian leaders still seemed disposed to negotiate with him, while refusing to discuss their own concerns such as arrears in wages and indemnity for wartime requisitions.6 This prompted the Levellers – a radical-left Puritan faction within the NMA – to question why, if the monarchy was to be restored, they had been required to risk their lives to restore freedoms abolished by the monarch. ­Consequently, a series of mutinies occurred between the years 1647 and 1649, but these were harshly crushed. Though the MNA was disbanded after the restoration, subsequent armies never matched its professionalism. But the move by Cromwell to ruthlessly crush dissenting Levellers within his own highly reputed NMA created a climate in which a deep-grained disdain of enlisted men or ‘redcoats’ on the part of the officer corps became entrenched. As Merril’s study of court-martial records reveal, over the decades, this itself or the right to treat redcoats with contempt, came to connote an aspect of an officer’s honour (Merril 2015: 20). Violence by officers against redcoats now signified an emergent practice of masculinity which, when dealing with social inferiors, separated out bodily violence from risk-taking under the guise of honour. In the subsequent Nine Years’ War (1689–1697), British units fought with the Confederate Army – comprised of many European powers – against France’s Louis XIV. The Confederate Army was commanded by William I  in his dual capacity as king of England and the stadholder/commander-in-chief of the Dutch Army (­Stapleton 2003: 18–22). This exposed the incompetence of British officers

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vis-à-vis Dutch and Huguenot officers, even in basics such as setting up camp; gross negligence in site preparation resulted in a large number of British soldiers dying of pneumonia before even reaching the battlefield (ibid.: 272). William attempted to bring a greater degree of professionalism into the British Army by curbing the sale of commissions (ibid.: 109–110). He introduced flintlocks and bayonets, which required the transfer of the discipline and drilling skills of Dutch troops to the British (ibid.: 101, 262). The aim then, was to bring the British Army – where officers’ contempt for enlisted men could actually cost lives – in line with European norms. By the latter half of the 18th century, the Industrial Revolution had transformed Britain’s weapons, especially artillery. A generation of veteran commanders with a professional outlook had emerged. Preparations for sieges by the British Army at this point were meticulous and detailed, including the building of sample forts to denote self and enemy positions (Merril 2015: 2). At the same time, the move away from a culture of mercenary companies made the position of officers less profitable. Only the upper classes and amateurs were able to afford being officers (ibid.: 11). This created clashes between veteran officers and a new group of ‘gentleman’ officers impatient with the increasingly technical turn in war. Careful preparations and arduous drilling were seen to affect manliness and honour and problematize what actually constituted courage (ibid.: 10). Such officers felt that being wounded in battle was in itself a badge of courage and elaborate preparations simply wasted time. Superior officers, of course, insisted that on the contrary, the criteria of a good officer involved the ability to minimize troop casualties by good judgement and proper preparation. For junior officers, such a definition of competence precluded courage and therefore lacked honour. This created serious rifts between senior commanders striving to impose discipline and junior officers who felt that their ‘honour’ as ‘gentlemen’ depended on challenging the commands of superior officers and even outright insubordination (ibid.: 195–222). At the same time, as Merril argues, linear warfare reduced the scope of infantry officers to engage in bodily violence, which now became the lot of enlisted men (ibid.: 132). Interestingly, these decades also saw a rise in the incidence of duelling among officers, which, according to Courts Martial records, presiding officers implicitly condoned as testimony to their ‘courage’ (ibid.: 195–222). Thus, for junior officers, insubordination in the barracks, including involvement in duels, became almost an index of manliness, substituting as it were, for valour in the battlefield (ibid.: 96–98). What emerged was a concept of manliness that linked insubordination or the ‘courageous’ insolence of the upper classes to true British manhood as opposed to the unmanly submissiveness of ‘foreigners’ and natives to official authority (ibid.: 34). By the end of the 18th century, musket warfare dominated, against which the most effective tactic was the linear formation. This placed greater weight on junior officers. Troops marching in columns had to move into linear formations to face the enemy. This required incessant and repetitive drilling. Consequently, a swift response by troops to orders was critical to effective performance in the field. High levels of discipline then, meant unconditional obedience from enlisted men. An

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officer’s role now involved destroying men’s individuality and creating acquiescence (Foucault 2013a: 41–60; Merril 2015: 27). This in turn reinforced officers’ contempt for redcoats. Such disdain, as Foucault suggests, was internalized by the redcoats themselves, who at court martials often agreed that they ‘deserved’ the thrashings officers bestowed so liberally (Merril 2015: 53). But whereas the Dutch Army attempted to deal with the exigencies of linear warfare with incentives such as welfare measures, the British chose another route. Class schisms in British society, further entrenched by the Industrial Revolution, created a vast gulf in the status of officers and men which enabled officers to deploy physical violence – including summary execution – against men to extract obedience even outside the battlefield. Such violence was routinely justified by British court martials (ibid.: 17–36). Thus honour as a trait of a gentlemen, was by definition thought to not extend to enlisted men (ibid.: 37–66). Still, until the middle of the 18th century, Britain’s strength was seen to be her naval might. This changed with the Revolutionary Wars. Britain suddenly confronted the possibility of a French invasion. A mass mobilization ensued. Recruits from a wide range of social backgrounds rushed to enlist in local militias as well as the Army. Britain joined the First Allied Coalition in 1793 and the anti-French wars unfolded over the next two decades. The decisive campaign was of course Waterloo (1815), with which Napoleon commenced his abortive invasion of Belgium. It was routed by the joint efforts of Prince Blücher’s Prussian Army and the Anglo-Allied Army under Wellington, in which British troops fought alongside German forces from Hanover, Brunswick and Nassau and a Belgian–Dutch contingent. In the run-up to Waterloo, says Beurden, Napoleon, who viewed his key challenge as the Prussian Army, planned to isolate them from Wellington’s Anglo-Allied troops and destroy them (Beurden 2015: 18). But events did not unfold quite as planned. Though Prussians losses were so profound that Napoleon did not envisage their further presence in the battle, they somehow regrouped to play a decisive role in the final confrontation two days later. Their arrival at the battlefield, four hours after hostilities commenced, transformed its whole dynamic (ibid.: 28–33). Waterloo was a watershed. Unlike in previous wars, increased literacy levels among both officers and men manifested itself in a new phenomenon: war literature. Newspapers, journals and books explored the military encounter from a range of perspectives, including that of enlisted men. By 1823, seven years after Waterloo, the military memoir had established itself as a distinctive genre (ibid.: 90). This again included the narratives of ordinary soldiers as well as decorated generals and commissioned officers. But most of all, the memoir served to validate the experience of enlisted men as never before. Their presence acquired visibility. The state responded by presenting everyone who fought at Waterloo a medal for their services, unlike in past wars when medals of honour were only endowed upon members of the nobility and military high command (ibid.: 6).7 This trajectory, however, was accompanied by a murkier development: the appropriation of Waterloo as a purely British victory. In the decades which

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followed, the role of other nationalities, particularly the Prussians, Germans and Belgian–Dutch units, who comprised up to 75% of Allied forces, were conjured away (ibid.: 9). The rehabilitation of the enlisted soldier in the British imaginaire then, transpired at the cost of the radical devaluation of ‘foreigners’. Meanwhile, the unfolding of empire across South Asia under the aegis of the British East India Company (BEIC) was abruptly challenged by the Mutiny of 1857. Native troops (sepoys) attached to the BEIC’s Bengal presidency rose against their officers, slaughtered them and proclaimed Bahadur Shah Zafar, the deposed Moghul king, Emperor of India. The grounds for mutiny were complex. They were linked to perceived attacks on the class, creed and caste credentials of native troops that had implications for notions of masculinity. The proximate cause had to do with sacred taboos. It concerned the paper with which the cartridges of their newly issued rifles were wrapped, thought to be greased with cow and hog fat. For Hindus, who revered the cow, this infringed a sacred taboo, and for Muslims, pigs signified defilement. Either way, the pollution/dishonour entailed had implications for their claims to hegemonic masculinity within their natal communities. Though for some groups, enlisting with the BEIC was initially an aspect of ‘izzat’ – or the shifting of their traditional fealty to overlords to the British – for others it was an investment in a new kind of masculinity. But this did not mean that they were ready to let go of the old privileges of class, caste and creed which were still the basis on which their practice gained hegemonic weight. Unlike the Madras and Bombay divisions, the Bengal presidency recruited disproportionately from the landowning classes. This included wealthy Muslims and higher-caste Hindus such as brahmans, rajputs, ahirs and bhumihars from the Bihar and Oudh provinces. ­Consequently, the BEIC’s appropriation of land through various pretexts caused much anger. In 1856, the BEIC used the controversial Doctrine of Lapse to depose the king and annex Oudh. The land reforms that followed dispossessed the landowning taluqdar class, many of whom were attached to the Bengal Army. Since ownership of land was critical to taluqdar masculinity, this raised fears of emasculation (Sinha 1995: 5). Such anxieties created a sense of embattlement. Sepoys broke the bonds of decades of instilled subservience to British officers, killing them in paroxysms of violence and going on to slaughter other Europeans and native converts. The mutiny set-off a series of civil rebellions. Princes and feudal nobility deposed by the ­Doctrine of Lapse also harboured legitimate hostility towards the British and fought alongside rebelling troops. The British, for their part, were equally embattled by the phenomenon of sepoys turning their guns on them. In the mass atrocities that ensued, up to 180,000 natives were killed. European deaths amounted to over 6,000. In the end, however, the British artillery edge proved decisive. The mutiny led to the dissolution of the BEIC. In the wake of the mutiny, the Army was reorganized. The British made a concerted attempt to separate out native groups according to modes of embodiment. They proceeded to classify the numerous Indian castes and tribes into ‘martial’

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and ‘non-martial’ races. Those in the ‘martial’ category were those thought to be well built, brave and able to fight. These, interestingly, were the groups who had remained loyal to Britain during the mutiny. They included, among others, the Sikhs, Ghurkas, Kumaonis and Pathans. Non-martial groups referred to those whom the British thought unsuited for fighting because of their ‘sedentary’ lifestyles. These referred primarily to Hindu castes in Bengal such as brahmans, ahirs and bhumihars, who had in fact mutinied against the British. The notion of ‘martial’ peoples resonated among many Indian groups in that the Hindu Vedic system enshrines four main castes (varnas), one of which is the kshatriya (literally ‘warriors’). The brahmans, of course, were a caste of ritual functionaries and scholars. Consequently, as Nandy (1983) remarks, despite their great respect for the ‘martial races’ of India, the British were disdainful of the ‘effeminate’ intellectuals of Bengal and Tamil Nadu. Hence, says Sinha, it was the virile, adventurous kshatriya groups, such as the rajputs, Sikhs and Muslim frontier tribesmen, who were seen to approximate most closely to upper-class British practices of masculinity, in which horse riding and fox hunting played a significant role. Against this, the brahman-dominated Bengali babu emerges as a foil: effeminate, bookish, languorous, lustful and lacking in bodily self-control (Sinha 1995: 1–21). In the post-colonial decades, the martial races theory has been duly debunked as racist. Yet, the link between embodiment and emasculation that the British so unerringly put their finger on remains as problematic as ever. Though the relevance of bodily valour on the battlefield diminished, its accoutrements, such as ‘manly’ embodiment, comportment, one-to-one encounters and sartorial codes, remained emblematic of manliness in the colonies. In sum then, within the code of honour, the thin line between valour and violence shifted over time. With the advent of linear formations, risk-taking became increasingly practiced by infantry troops. The phasing-out of cavalry removed ­r isking-the-body from the repertoire of the nobility, even as their role as officers in infantry regiments also detached them from risk-taking feats. Instead, their efforts were aimed at disciplining enlisted men. Thus risk-taking became the practice of enlisted men, who were at the same time subject to bodily violence by their own officers. This was especially so in the British instance, where under the guise of honour corporal violence was meted out to redcoats, all of which was to impact on how order was maintained in the colonies. In the decades that followed the French revolution, honour became less of a personal attribute. It acquired larger collective dimensions. It became a signifier of the ennoblement of the nation on the global stage (Spierenburg 1998: 12) – in a word, nationalism.

Sinhala conventions of masculinity Sinhala codes of hegemonic masculinity, on the other hand, were essentially nonmilitaristic and stressed bodily composure. This brought them under challenge in the clash with West European militarisms.

38  Motifs of masculinity

The name Sinhala is glossed as ‘of the lion’.8 The allusion stems from an originary myth in which the role of progenitor of the nation is ascribed to a lion (Geiger 1912: 51–54). Ironically though, the Sinhalas are not heirs to a leonine martial tradition. In a history marked by successive invasions, military triumphs were few. Invaders were either Tamil-speaking marauders from South India or disgruntled aspirants to Sinhala thrones backed by Tamil-speaking mercenaries (de Silva 1987: 37). Over the centuries, remnants of these groups who arrived with occupying armies settled in the north and east of the island, paying tribute mostly to South Indian rulers but sometimes to Sinhala kings in the south. Still, throughout much of documented history, caste triumphed over ethnicity. Sinhala kingdoms were mostly ruled by princes of the royal kshatriya (warrior) caste, and up to the 9th century AD, two main dynasties prevailed.9 But an indigenous kshatriya strata never really evolved. Consequently kings had to bring brides over from South India who were Tamil-speaking Hindus (Geiger 1912: 55–81). Secondary consorts, on the other hand, were often chosen from the feudal nobility (kulina/radala) who were drawn from the agrarian govigama caste, which in turn encompassed a range of social classes, from feudal chiefs to smallholders and tenant cultivators. In a rice-growing economy, the govi held numerical sway over other groups (de Silva 1987: 50).10 This created a situation in which Tamil princes and princesses and their retinue lived in close – and sometimes uneasy – proximity to the Sinhala nobility in the royal court. Many kings also retained Tamil-­speaking generals and mercenaries for security and defence.11 Sinhala courts therefore, became bi-lingual, multi-caste and cross-faith spaces, which sometimes created the conditions for court intrigues and succession struggles (ibid. 1987: 40). Upon being crowned though, Tamil princes embraced Buddhism or went out of their way to support the sangha and the sāsana (Buddhist canon).12 The shift from a warrior masculinity to the composed body was complex, effected through religion, caste and agro-economic production relations as well as the crafting of state structures.

The composed body: Buddhism and agrarian production relations The convention of the composed body was initially mediated through the unfolding of Buddhism across the island. Here the Vedic notions of ahimsa (non-violence) and karuna (compassion) received a new focus. Buddhism particularly inveighed against the slaughter of animals. The first convert to Buddhism, King Tissa (­ 250–210 BC), was in fact accosted in the act of deer-hunting. His challenger was Mahinda, son and emissary of Asoka, Emperor of India, who persuaded him to refrain from taking life (Geiger 1912: 88–96). This episode interrogated the legitimacy of hunting – a keen kshatriya pursuit – across the island. Over the centuries then, Buddhism attempted to curb traditional royal entertainments entailing blood sports and the consumption of meat and to induce a more reflective element into kingship, with varying degrees of success.

Motifs of masculinity  39

The form of Buddhism that became ascendant across the island was the Theravada school, which stressed personal salvation through striving towards nirvana (non-being). In this journey, meditation (sil) becomes a key tool. It entails focusing the mind on what is relevant by dismissing what is not. This enables the overcoming of bhaya (fear of the unknown, of dark forces, angering hegemonic groups, danger, death) that springs from ignorance, builds self-belief (āthma-visvāsa) and composes the body. This is, however, an arduous task, exempt from divine guidance as it is. As Theravadism spread, the composed body gradually imposed itself upon the symbolic landscape. This process was linked to the emergence of sacred domains with the building of immense shrines and sanctuaries for the sangha. These became sites for images of the Buddha in a range of contemplative postures, some of which rose over 50 feet in height, dwarfing the landscape for miles around. Against this, in the image-houses on the outer perimeter of shrines, the Hindu gods Vishnu and Skanda – also revered by Buddhists – assume a mounted warrior stance, and Shiva a dancing posture, all of which signify turbulence, a foil to the bodily quietude of the figure at the main altar. Here the image of the Buddha – paradoxically immense and ascetic – elevated contemplation and assigned intelligibility upon conventions of hegemonic masculinity that built on bodily composure. Metaphors of kingship – as archetypal masculinity – also conditioned hegemonic norms. In the Hindu epic Mahabharatha – which over time fostered a common kshatriya ethos across the subcontinent – kingship is defined in terms of warriorism and the pursuit of a just war. But it privileged a particular kind of warriorism. The key protagonists – the five Pandava princes – each exemplify specific aspects of warriorism, such as bodily strength, hurling the mace, archery, horsemanship and swordsmanship. But Yudhisthira, the undisputed leader, signifies composure (sthira) as against the impetuousness of his brothers. He stands for righteousness – or moral courage. Here bodily valour is seen to derive from moral courage. Consequently, unlike Christian Crusaders such as Richard the Lionhearted who represents ­kingship-as-valour, righteousness becomes the defining motif of Hindu warriorism. Unlike the Mahabharatha, the Buddhist chronicle Mahavamsa – composed as it was for ‘the serene joy of the pious’ – offers little philosophical discourse on the conduct of war. While the ruler’s legitimacy is similarly seen to derive from his righteousness, this however does not specifically stem through moral stature or mastering warriorist skills but through the possession of a sacred artefact, the Tooth Relic of the Buddha. The relic wields enormous symbolic weight. It consigns legitimacy upon the ruler. Any war conducted by the possessor of the relic becomes a just war, by inference unleashed only to defend the sāsana. Such an approach differs from the knight’s valour-based notions of imperilling himself for God. Valour in this view also signified imperilling oneself, but through the refusal to flee from death, meeting it instead with dignity and composure. This invokes a sense of ‘time’ (vѐlāva). The coming of one’s ‘time’ is a motif that stems from a Buddhist–Hindu karmic tenet and affirms that since the lifespan of every being is already written in the stars, the moment of death is preordained. It cannot be eluded. It is therefore futile to try to run from death. Such a stance then, differs

40  Motifs of masculinity

from the practice of the crusading knight who proactively engages his foe, fighting until the bitter end. Still, as revealed in archival records and stone inscriptions, the blossoming of the great rice-growing civilizations of the Anuradhapura period (377 BC–993 AD) and the briefer Polonnaruwa phase (993–1250 AD) propelled the defining metaphor of Buddhist kingship towards agrarian prosperity (sri vibhūthiya), rather than warriorism. By the 7th century AD, Sinhala kings were already investing considerable resources into foreign policy manoeuvres to keep militant South Indian states such as the Pandava, Pallava and Chola at bay by playing them against each other (de Silva 1987: 40–41). The chroniclers, on their part, glorify kings more for their success in building immense reservoirs and shrines than even defending their thrones.13 Consequently, in the Sinhala instance, a manifest absence of monuments to martial triumphs or iconic depictions of any secular royal feat transpires, unlike peoples such as the ancient Romans, who commemorated their military exploits with public memorials across civic spaces. In the medieval phase, the Spanish and French paid homage to their holy warriors and martial conquerors. In the Lankan context, though, the only comparable instance within this time frame is the figure of Parakramabahu the Great (1153–1186 AD), who was indeed the consummate warrior. His likeness is found on the banks of the reservoir cited as his most illustrious building feat, the Parakrama Samudra. It is the making of this reservoir that, ironically, becomes the act that raised his stature to greatness in the annals of Sinhala history, and he is depicted in the act of surveying its endless waters. Thus despite his extraordinary military triumphs – surpassed by few – the image of him left to posterity assumes a contemplative mien. In the end, he also exemplifies a masculinity of the composed body. Unlike the West European context then, symbols of serenity in the sacred realm were not countered by depictions of military might across secular sites. The basic issue confronting the agrarian economy was how to sustain rice production – with its high water-consumption ratio – in the arid conditions of the Dry Zone. This was the analytical challenge that consumed Sinhala kingship. It entailed an abiding preoccupation with issues of science, on mastering the hydraulic principles entailed in the building of great reservoirs and the canals required to irrigate rice in this inhospitable waste.14 By the 1st century AD, says de Silva, the technology involved in constructing dams across perennial rivers had been mastered and the building of broad-based bunds to retain water in the Dry Zone begun (de Silva 1987: 46–47). Stone inscriptions affirm that by the 3rd century AD, a critical innovation, the valve pit, had taken place (ibid.). The valve pit regulated the outflow of water, a function fulfilled by the sluicegate today. This innovation enabled the construction of the great reservoirs by Mahasena (274–301 AD), whose name is synonymous with the blossoming of the agrarian economy. The grasp of advanced hydraulic principles by ancient artisans is evinced in the layout of artificial canals such as the Jayaganga, built by Dhatusena (455–473 AD) to connect the Kala Oya to the Kala Väva, which for the first 17 miles displays a gradient of 6” to the mile (ibid.: 48).

Motifs of masculinity  41

Such public construction projects were enabled by the practice of rājakārya or compulsory services rendered by all caste groups to the king. In terms of implementing public works, rājakārya holds some parallels to corvée labour in medieval Europe. However – at another level – the rājakārya of all groups denoted their occupation, which defined them as men. Each caste’s rājakārya then, exemplified a particular practice of masculinity built on its specific competences or artisan flair. While rājakārya brought together a spectrum of skills and abilities to address any venture, the king played a critical role in bringing together the factors of production. He drew out structural engineering skills within all these groups, supplied tools and raw materials and delivered draught elephants to level surfaces and do the heavy hauling and harnessed manpower productively. The king’s role as an exemplar of masculinity, on the other hand, entailed being the recipient of the rājakārya of his subjects. Unlike the Indian context, where Brahmanism offered religious sanction to the institution of caste, the Sinhala caste system was secular in spirit and revolved around the king as Head of State. His subjects pay homage to him by prostrating themselves before him. Being the recipient of rājakārya juxtaposed the king’s bodily quietude against the feverish exertions of his subjects who laboured endlessly on his behalf, and elevated his stature. It also signified his majesty (abhimāna) and the transcending of bhaya (fear of the unknown, of danger, of angering hegemonic groups) that afflicted the ‘lesser’ castes who are his subjects. Alternately, artisans and workers remained entrenched in the role of ‘lesser’ masculinities, endlessly deferential to hegemonic groups. Such an instance of the playing-out of rājakārya in practice is depicted in the bas-relief carvings of a row of dwarfs running round the perimeter of the walls of the ancient shrines that still stand. The bowed shoulders and raised arms of these dwarfs imply that they are bearing the weight of the whole building upon their backs. The dwarfs themselves are standing above a row of the elephants, who performed the heavy hauling and lifting entailed in the building of these structures. The dwarfs then, symbolize the toiling masses, the efforts of whom in effect held up the entire edifice. The depiction of the workers as dwarfs – which creates unease in the viewer today – becomes a graphic statement of the unequal contribution to public building projects made by the most physically, economically and ritually deprived castes. This diminution of the stature of the workers also suggests that a certain kind of mindless manual toil somehow diminished masculinity. The king becomes the recipient of rājakārya since, in theory, he was the owner of all the land (bhupathi). In practice, though, he directly controlled only crown lands (gabadāgam). As king, he was entitled to a land tax of roughly one-sixth of the produce of all cultivated land (ibid.: 51). He also bestowed large tracts upon the sangha (vihāragam and devālegam). Like the Military Orders in the Reconquista, by the late-Anuradhapura period the sangha had emerged as one of the largest landholders. But in this instance their vows of penury entailed that the actual management of these properties should be conducted by lay trustees or nilamѐs, who were drawn from the radala (ibid.: 79–80). The office of nilamѐ itself was

42  Motifs of masculinity

highly prestigious and gifted by the king to the most powerful nobles. The king also bestowed land upon the radala nobility, who enjoyed the most comprehensive rights over the land, sometimes granted in perpetuity in the form of parāveni or inherited rights over lands in nindāgam, tilled by peasant cultivators under a range of tenurial obligations. Nindāgam were in turn divided into disā (provinces), kõrale (districts), pattu (sub-districts) and villages (gam) (de Silva ibid.; Houtart 1974: 145; Abeyasinghe 1966: 39–41). The granting of land by the king to the radala and the clergy – who were themselves mostly drawn from the radala – also meant that the rājakārya of the peasants who tilled them were now transferred to the new holders. Since all castes engaged in agriculture, this not only allowed large landholders access to the rājakārya of peasant cultivators but also to appropriate a substantial share of their yield as tax (Perera 1959: 66–67). Unlike corvée labour, rājakārya was not confined to public works, but rather assumed diverse forms. Since the services of each caste stemmed from its occupation and were rendered for land held, this enabled large landholders to access other skills and competences in the vast repertoire of caste functions, including domestic work, palanquin-bearing, laundry, weaving linen, furnituremaking and supplying earthenware, brassware and so on. Agrarian prosperity also financed a robust urban culture among the privileged classes, as signified by the laying out of public squares and civic amenities such as parks, summer houses, pavilions, stables, community halls and bathing pools across capital cities (de Silva 1987: 63). These were sustained by a hydraulic system in which a network of canals conveyed water from the great reservoirs to the city’s bathing pools, ponds and parks. This signifies that – at least among wealthier groups – there were zones marked out for the enjoyment of leisure and bodily pleasures. It suggests that sensuality in itself was not disparaged or even seen as illicit – rather, what was deemed problematic was the lack of awareness of the transient nature of the sensual. They are things of the moment. At the same time, carnal pleasures in themselves are not seen as inhibiting bodily composure or contemplation. But they remained the prerogative of hegemonic groups. The ability of caste-based agrarian societies to generate a wide range of goods for their own consumption inhibited the rise of an indigenous trading bourgeoisie as happened in the European context, which over the centuries financed endless denominational wars. Consequently, until the West European incursions, feudal landholders faced no serious challenge to their hegemony.

The ritual realm: The Asela perahera Perhaps the most compelling manifestation of the convention of bodily composure is found in the ritual realm, in the form of the Temple of the Tooth’s Asela perahera. The perahera is a harvest festival in which all castes publicly perform their rājakārya to the king. It remains a key event in the Buddhist calendar. The Asela perahera dates back to the 2nd century BC and records an almost unbroken tradition of annual performance down the millennia (Geiger 1912: 209–219). The Temple, presently

Motifs of masculinity  43

sited at the last pre-colonial capital of Kandy, is the repository of the Tooth Relic of the Buddha, and thus the holiest shrine in the island. As well as the blessing of the first fruits, the perahera involves a public exposition of the sacred relic, and takes the form of an extended pageant conducted each year in the month of July (Asela). The perahera – a vast extravaganza involving hundreds of elaborately draped and illumined elephants as well as performers of all kinds – emerges as a spectacle. A spectacle, says Debord, is a collection of images that are made up of the different groups who come together to act it out as event. But what the unfolding of these images in fact does is to reconcile the social relationships between the groups concerned (Debord 2002: 10). In other words, these images create a sense of entrancement that veils the power relationships at play behind the spectacle. Both performers and spectators are mesmerized by the acting out of its sequences and become oblivious to the unequal relations between different groups of performers. Similarly, the spectacular nature of the Asela perahera conceals the power relations at play within. As Seneviratne (1978) remarks in his Rituals of the Kandyan State, the sequences of the Asela perahera in fact encapsulate the ritual roles played by the whole spectrum of castes within the Kandyan kingdom. The key role was played by the king, who led the procession with stately composure (abhimāna), holding the relic in his hand (Houtart 1974: 85–86). He is followed by an entourage of nilamѐs or the radala laity, who had yards of cloth wrapped round their waists to enhance their stature, followed by elephants bearing the lesser relics in their caskets (ibid.). The imposing presence of the elephants and their majestic, measured gait reiterated the demeanour of the king and his nilamѐs. Around them conch-shell blowers, whip-crackers, flame-throwers, stilt-walkers, drummers and dancers of various kinds – drawn from a range of ‘lesser’ castes – are in constant motion, their swift, rhythmic movements serving as a foil to the composure of the king and the nilamѐs. They play the role of forerunners announcing the advent of the king and his retinue. Here the calm comportment of the king and the nilamѐs, set against the feverish activity of other groups, becomes an iconic image of Sinhala govi masculinity, in which the masculinities of other groups serve only as a backdrop. With the unfolding of each phase of the spectacle, the stature of the composed body is augmented and further consolidated. With the deposing of the king by the British, however, ‘lesser’ castes, as well as marginal groups within the govigama who were quick to advance themselves by grasping the economic openings created by the colonial state, constantly pushed at the edges of the govi elite’s hegemony. Today, the dancers and drummers are professionals contracted to perform at such events and involve female artistes as well as males. Even the post of nilamѐ is auctioned out to the wealthiest members of the laity with the appropriate political links, irrespective of social background. The perahera has evolved with the times. But its symbolic significance endures. Consequently, the practice of having troupes of conch-shell blowers, drummers, dancers and so on announce the advent of socially prominent or political personages – of whatever social background – is

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now routinely deployed at the opening ceremonies of most public functions, in order to lend them greater weight. The frenetic motions of the performers create an aura of consequence around the dignitary concerned and enhance his image. It is a practice that allows arriviste elements to effect a greater measure of social viability. It is one that is replicated – in greater or lesser degree – across much of the South Asian landscape. This signifies, perhaps, similar notions of hegemonic masculinity at play in the cultures concerned, which were once cleaved by caste. At the very least, it points to similar – unabashed – desires for social validation and analogous strategies to effect it.

Hegemonic masculinity, office-holding and status The emergence of a coherent state structure early in the history of the island further consolidated the position of the nobility through administrative office, bestowed by the king. The overall state administration was overseen by an adigar, later extended to two and even three adigars as state functions grew in complexity. At the p­ rovincial-level, the chief administrator held the post of disāvѐ, which entailed large powers ranging from tax collection, maintaining public infrastructure, exerting judicial authority and – since the Sinhalas had no standing army – leading local militias into war (de Silva 1987: 135).15 No official though, was appointed disāvѐ of his natal province in which he held parāveni land or nindāgam (ibid.: 136). At the district level, koralѐs held similar powers; muhandhirams held sway at the sub-district level and aratchis at the village level (Houtart 1974: 135). In practice however, high office often became hereditary, with families controlling an office for generations until a shift of power at the throne transformed their fortunes. What emerged therefore, was a feudalism in which the substantial authority wielded by the chiefs as large landholders in one region was reinforced through administrative office in another. The relative autonomy of feudal chiefs revolved around the combined popular support they could muster in their different spheres of influence, which in times of external war or dissent against the king could convert into local militias. The king, on his part, attempted to counter the power of the disāvѐs by building up the diyavadana nilamѐs and basnayake nilamѐs as counterweights in the province. Consequently, even more than raising agrarian productivity, the need to constantly nurture popular support created an incentive for feudal chiefs to invest in the social well-being of tenant cultivators, ensuring that all factors of production were in place. This included the provision, as needed, of seed paddy, fertilizer and draught bullocks, affording food relief in times of drought and galvanizing communal efforts to maintain irrigation infrastructure. This at the same time became a powerful means of affirming their ritual obligations to those rendering rājakārya; in an agrarian society, open-handedness becomes a signifier of status. If tenant cultivators found themselves without grain for their own consumption, this reflected shoddily on the landholder, implying a level of rapacity that diminished his reputation. But the king had the power to bestow or remove badges of office such as the

Motifs of masculinity  45

title of disāvѐ or koralѐ, which affirmed the authority of feudal chiefs and were the markers of their status. High office then, consigned much status (tätvaya) upon the office-holder and exemplified his distancing from physical toil. Against the bared, sweating torso of the peasant-cultivator (goviya), the clothed, sedentary body of the official emerged as a more prestigious practice. In a tropical climate in which most native groups went bare-bodied, the clothed body signified status (tätvaya). The nobility groomed their offspring for such positions by sending them to ­educational centres (pirivenas) in the larger temples to be taught the alphabet (akuru) by learned monks. Learning brought wisdom (gnāna), built self-belief ­(āthma-visvāsa), instilled composure and became another dimension of status. The imperatives of an irrigated rice-growing economy then, conferred much status ­(tätvaya) upon administrative office, dissociated office-holders from vigorous exertion and instilled bodily composure. Thus status becomes an important dimension of the composed body. In his monumental work on Sinhala socio-religious cults, Obeyesekere observes that unlike notions of honour and shame in the European and Mediterranean worlds, in Sinhala discourse, the notion of status replaces that of honour (Obeyesekere 1984: 504). This insight is perhaps valid for all societies once cleaved by caste. Building on this assumption I would argue that in Sinhala discourse, hegemonic masculinity is more profoundly weighted towards notions of status than it is in the European context. This is directly linked to the ritualization of status in pre-colonial society. The status (tätvaya) of hegemonic groups is signified by the deference they receive from other groups. This unfolded mainly in the ritual site, where ‘lesser’ castes prostrated themselves before them. At a wider level, it created the context for the assuming of postures of bodily deference at all times, including the social and domestic domains. Even younger persons within the radala were expected to defer to those who were older or held higher office. In particular, women were expected to defer to men and older women. While deference is to a code of seniority or social precedence, even hegemonic members of the group will defer endlessly to others defined as somehow ‘more’ senior. Status, which in pre-colonial society was mostly – but not always – enshrined in the caste system, is therefore an intrinsically hierarchical concept. Unlike the warrior’s honour, which revolves around bodily courage and can be challenged through the duel and re-affirmed, honour built on status/caste position cannot be challenged. To even contest another’s status is to impugn it. One’s status may be challenged by being subject to ridicule or public criticism. This creates a sense of läjjā or shame, which emasculates. Läjjā may also occur through a refusal of deference by those who were once submissive. This is specially so in moments of social dislocation. A withdrawal of deference therefore, creates unease, status anxieties and at times, enragement. Thus securing one’s tätvaya becomes an endless project. It involves constant efforts to insure oneself from public criticism. In the domestic domain, this entails a deferential demeanour (läjjā-bhaya or ‘fear of being publicly shamed’), which takes on the

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attributes of a politesse for younger men, women and children. Läjjā-bhaya emerges as the social manifestation of bhaya (fear), conveyed through bodily deference to hegemonic groups. But unlike bhaya, which retains negative inferences, läjjā-bhaya holds positive connotations of courteousness and congeniality. Paradoxically then, achieving greater composure entails conquering bhaya while at the same time overcoming läjjā-bhaya without seeming to do so. Against this, the practice of risking-the-body evoked much consternation in everyday life. It went against the bodily composure and dignity of mien that exemplified Sinhala hegemonic masculinity, making one less manly. The restless body was deemed unseemly. It created unease. While violence remains a constant in ­Sinhala social life, it was enacted silently, behind the scenes. Bodily violence emerges as the practice of menials, marauders and ‘lesser’ castes who bloody their hands in the service of their lords. It did not unfold as a one-to-one encounter but one of all-against-one. It does not signify the overcoming of bhaya so much as the use of overwhelming force

Shaming rituals: violence as spectacle Still, though bodily violence is mostly disparaged, there are instances in which it becomes culturally intelligible. While spectacle as acted out in public ceremonies serve to reinforce the authority of hegemonic groups, spectacular violence becomes a means of shaming the enemy and thereby emasculating him. Here again it is perhaps in the realm of ritual that practices of public shaming are most clearly played out within Sinhala society. As described in the work of Obeyesekere and Roberts, rites of ‘shaming’ such as the ankeliya and the buhukeliya emerge as an expressly masculine discourse in which male aggressions are ritually played out. Like the duel of honour, such rites appear to have played a cathartic and carnivalesque role by channelling male aggressions onto the ritual site. The ankeliya, says Obeyesekere, takes the form of a game played collectively by the village. Here the winners express their exultance in a prolonged display in which the losers are turned into spectacle (Obeyesekere 1984: 499–500). In this rite, he says, the village is divided into two teams, which are based not on caste but on lines of patrilineal descent (vāsagama). Personal animosities also seemed to play a role; brothers or kin who had fallen out would play on opposite sides. Further, team loyalty endured over the decades and did not change with each performance, unless kin fell out over a new quarrel that shattered their loyalties. The desire to humiliate the loser and inflate the winner, he says, is not merely one aspect, but a key feature of the ankeliya (ibid.: 407–410). The popularity of this rite has diminished over the second half of the 20th century. Obeyesekere ascribes this to the fact that it is part of the cult of the Goddess Pattini, who is today overshadowed by other gods such as Skanda, the Kataragama deity, seen to be more responsive in the granting of everyday boons. A similar practice of ritualized degradation is played out in the buhukeliya. The buhukeliya, says Roberts, is part of an ensemble of traditional games played during

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the festive New Year period in the month of Bak (April). It also involves two teams set against each other. The winners are allowed to jeer at the losers. The leader of the losing side had to sit on the buhu (wicket) while the winners danced around him, hit him on the head with sticks and shouted obscenities at him (Roberts 1994: 237–238). The buhukeliya seems to have suffered a similar fate to the ankeliya. Still, while the rituals themselves are almost extinct today, the ankeliya and buhukeliya remain a powerful idiom in Sinhala discourse, in which the fallen adversary is reduced to spectacle and hierarchy is re-affirmed. Such rituals emerged within a juridical context where penalties for even minor crimes were aimed at inflicting bodily humiliation rather than serious disability, though sometimes, of course, hands and feet were amputated. Citing the (undated) Pali text Lok Raj Lo Sirita, Thambiah observes that it was common for an offender to be punished for any minor offence by having his ears or nose cut off. Or he may be handed over to town officials to be decorated with hibiscus flowers (ratmal) and the bones of dead oxen, have his hands tied behind him and be flogged with a cane to the beating of drums as he is driven through the streets. He would all the while be made to proclaim his crimes aloud (Thambiah 1968: 130–131). The offender is turned into a public spectacle. This enshrines his offence in the collective imaginaire. As much as the guillotine in post-revolutionary France then, the unfolding of spectacle as a performative expression of intense emotion emerges as a key motif in Sinhala discourse. Such emotions are not confined to a desire to carry out punitive sanctions, or – in the form of pageants and processions – a need for social ­ validation. They may also emerge in response to a withdrawal of deference by those who used to defer to one before. Against this, a practice of risking-the-body in the Sinhala context may leave the actor open to the charge of making a spectacle of himself, rather than being extolled for his investment in a larger cause. Such charges may also stem from the desire to emasculate an opponent or express social rages. It is therefore seen – in some instances – as valid in the battlefield. Since the ­Sinhalas did not have a standing army, as mentioned, above local militias were led into battle by feudal chiefs or disāvѐs. Battle manoeuvres rarely involved faceto-face confrontations between infantry regiments in large field formations as engaged in by standing armies, instead tending to rely on guerrilla tactics, including ambushing and attacking weak points at the rear or flanks. In such a context, a strategy of reducing the enemy to a spectacle in order to emasculate them acquires intelligibility.

West European incursions The collapse of the Polonnaruwa kingdom saw a shift to the Wet Zone, which transformed the agrarian economy. With its high annual rainfall, the Wet Zone enabled a new terraced technique in rice cultivation in which the natural incline of the terrain was used to channel water to fields below. This removed the need for extended irrigation canals. Rice cultivation could be supplemented by clearing forestland for

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slash-and-burn agriculture (chena). This was as well, since agrarian transformation was followed by radical changes in the politico-military environment. It was Parakramabahu VI (1412–1467) who next – briefly – united the island from the Kotte kingdom on the South-Western coast. After his death though, an independent Tamil-speaking kingdom arose in the North, and the highlands of Kandѐ-uda-pas-rata or ‘Five-provinces-on-the-hill’ (Kandy) also saw the emergence of an autonomous ruler (de Silva 1977: 1). The arrival of some Portuguese ships on the shores of Kotte in 1505 initially created only niggling worries for its rulers. In 1521, Bhuvanekabahu VI succeeded to the Kotte throne, and as was the convention, his younger brothers Pararajasinha (Raigam Bandara) and Mayadunne became autonomous rulers over territories they ruled from the cities of Raigama and Sitavaka, respectively (ibid.: 2). The Portuguese, having opened up the sea route to India, aspired to secure a monopoly over the spice market in the East, including Ceylon’s cinnamon trade. The island’s cinnamon exports however, were controlled by Moors. For the Portuguese, Muslim traders everywhere acquired demonic dimensions and signified the enemy. Intent on supplanting Moorish control over Ceylon’s cinnamon, they proceeded to build a fortress in Colombo, close to Kotte city which they tricked Bhuvanekabahu into believing was merely a trading post. This enabled them to withstand Bhuvanekabahu’s subsequent efforts to dispel them, even reducing him to client status. They were now positioned to demand the expulsion of Moors from Kotte. But expelling the Moors created a serious rift with Bhuvanekabahu’s brothers, who felt that it was the Portuguese who should have been expelled rather than the Moors who had lived for generations on the island. The struggle to eject the Portuguese was taken up by Mayadunne with the support of Raigam Bandara. Consequently, he emerges as an illustrious figure in the annals of Sinhalѐ. His crusade against the Portuguese led to the emergence of a new genre of war poems (hatan kavya), eulogizing kings, between the 16th and 17th centuries.16 Upon Raigam Bandara’s death in 1538, Mayadunne – with Bhuvanekabahu’s consent – annexed his territories into the Sitavaka realm. The rest of the century was consumed by the bitter struggle between the forces of Sitavaka and the Portuguese in Kotte. Mayadunne was further enraged by the brazen efforts of the Portuguese to interfere with his right to the Kotte succession by sponsoring the claim of Bhuvanekabahu’s grandson, Dharmapala, whom they sought to install as a puppet. This created constant clashes with Mayadunne, and later his son Rajasinha I. After Mayadunne’s death, Rajasinha succeeded in conquering Kandy, briefly bringing the Sinhala-speaking regions under one umbrella. When he died, the Portuguese seized Sitavaka, but now an autonomous kingdom re-emerged in Kandy. Thus Portuguese control of the island never exceeded the coastal belt. The Portuguese episode (1505–1658) was one of constant clashes. In this phase, the depressed karāvѐ, durāvѐ and salāgama castes of the South-Western coast, brought to the island around the 12th century as mercenaries from South India, became increasingly energized. Though by the 16th century they were Sinhala-speaking,

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as recent arrivals they had not yet built feudal ties to the govi. The Portuguese focused their proselyting efforts on such marginal groups as well as other ‘low’ castes (Houtart 1974: 159). They responded willingly. Conversion became a strategy of upward mobility out of their difficult caste position, a means of remaking themselves as men. In the Sinhala-speaking territories, rājakārya, which had mostly entailed renovating irrigation canals, now came to signify military service (Houtart 1974: 147; Abeyasinghe 1966: 100–110). Disāvѐs were called upon to supply men to fight for the king. They became commanders and generals. In the Kotte kingdom, the Portuguese were also quick to grasp the strategic potential of the office of disāvѐ, relying on them to provide native troops for military ventures against the Sitavaka kings, a policy that attempted to co-opt the loyalty of natives to their disāvѐs. The Portuguese later even took to appointing their own nationals as disāvѐs (de Silva 1987: 125). By the middle decades of the 16th century then, the Portuguese were providing military training to karāvѐ converts who already had a history of fighting. For such groups, who before worshipped local deities whose remit was at best provincial, the notion of an Almighty God whose Will guaranteed Portuguese victories across the globe seemed enormously empowering. They became mercenaries (lascarin). It was possible for lascarin to climb the ladder and become mudaliyārs, or native leaders of mercenary troops drawn from ‘lesser’ castes. This phase saw the emergence of mudaliyārs as a new mid-level native elite in the coastal regions, in a context in which the traditional elite, including many disāvѐs, had either fled or acceded to the Portuguese ethos, which weakened their legitimacy in the eyes of the people (Houtart 1974: 147). Mudaliyārs received land as rewards for faithful service. This could, however, be arbitrarily withdrawn and therefore became a powerful tool to ensure loyalty (ibid.: 148). In Sitavaka, Mayadunne also distributed posts of disāvѐs to victorious generals. He further built up a strata of competent mudaliyār commanders such as Wickramasinghe mudali and Ekanayake mudali (de Silva 1977: 27). He also recruited mercenaries from the South Indian coast, who were granted holdings on outstanding battlefield performance. War liberalized the landholding system, which sometimes changed hands rapidly according to the military situation. Able military performance enabled land grants even for ‘lower’ castes (Pirani 2016: 94). In the militarized climate that ensued, the rājakārya of non-govi castes such as carpenters, ironmongers, brass-workers and silversmiths also increasingly veered towards munitions production (de Silva 1977: 30). The Portuguese suffered from perennial troop shortages. Consequently, as discussed above, when threated by overwhelming numbers, they resorted to a ‘restricted territorial model of occupation’ that entailed abandoning Kotte city and withdrawing behind the walls of the Colombo Fort until reinforcements arrived from Goa (ibid.). This manoeuvre worked well since the Sitawaka kings lacked artillery powerful enough to breach fortress walls (ibid.). The military decline of the Kotte kingdom began in 1557, with the conversion of Dharmapala to Catholicism, upon which he took the extraordinary step of

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handing over the monastic lands of the sangha to the Catholic Church. Outraged, some Buddhist monks attacked his personal guard with sticks and stones. The Portuguese retaliated by randomly arresting 30 Buddhist monks and subjecting them to public execution. This spectacle shocked the people (de Silva 1987: 111). In subsequent years, the Kotte Army declined sharply from around 8,000 in 1557 to roughly 800 in 1560 (ibid.). These events created the conditions for the decisive victory of Mayadunne’s son Rajasinha over the Portuguese at Mullariyawa in 1562. Initially, to draw the Portuguese out of their Colombo Fort, a small Sitavaka unit attacked this village on the outskirts of the fort. Incensed, the Portuguese responded with their full complement of 250 Portuguese soldiers and 800 lascarin. Once their troops were committed to the assault, Rajasinha attacked from the rear with the main Sitavaka force, cutting-off their line of retreat. In the ensuing fray, Rajasinha’s 200-strong armoured elephant corps played a significant role in holding off Portuguese musketeers. Almost all of the lascarin and half the Portuguese troops were slaughtered (de Silva 1977: 29). The Portuguese faced another serious problem. Though they assiduously trained native troops, at key moments such troops tended to cross over to the Sinhalas. In fact, most of the victories of the Sitavaka forces against the Portuguese were due to troop cross-overs rather than military tactics. Even after the fall of Sitavaka, the trend of native commanders mutinying against the Portuguese continued with uprisings staged by Akaragama Appuhamy (1594), Edirille Rala (1594–1596), Kuruwita Aratchi (1603) and Kangara Aratchi (1603) (de Silva 1987: 120). Thus while conversion and deployment as lascarin did empower lower castes, it did not buy eternal loyalty. The Portuguese were always shocked at such ‘betrayals’. Troops did not cross over from Mayadunne’s or Rajasinha’s armies in their lifetime, though after Rajasinha’s death, his South Indian commander-in-chief, facing hostility from sections of the Sitawaka nobility went over to the Portuguese, only to betray them later (ibid.). After the fall of Sitavaka, the focus shifted to Kandy. The rugged terrain of the highlands was more suitable for guerrilla warfare than field battles. This and the trend in troop cross-overs set the context for the greatest military debacles suffered by the Portuguese. In 1594, Pedro Lopes de Sousa embarked on an expedition to install a captive princess on the Kandyan throne. His lascar commander Dom Joao was a Kandyan noble hostile to the reigning king. As the Portuguese approached Kandy, he crossed over, routed de Sousa’s troops with his Sinhala mercenaries, defeated the Kandyan attack and claimed the Kandyan throne in the name of Vimaladharmasuriya I (Pirani 2016: 27). The Portuguese subsequently changed their policy of appointing karāvѐ mudaliyārs as disāvѐs. This created much resentment. In 1629, on hearing that Constatin de Sa was preparing another assault on Kandy, the king approached four such disaffected mudaliyārs on the possibilities of crossing over (Quérѐ 1995: 46). This détente between the mudaliyārs and the king led to the entrapment of the Portuguese. They were enticed deep into the Uva Province, where 400 soldiers and a

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few hundred lascarin who had not crossed over were surrounded and slaughtered (ibid.). But the greatest military debacle the Portuguese faced was of course the Battle of Gannoruwa in 1638 (de Silva 1987: 124). In this encounter, of the 700 Portuguese troops, only 33 survived, and around 40% of their native troops were also killed (ibid.). To expel the Portuguese, the Kandyan king appealed to the Dutch, an emergent power in the region. They complied. But like the Portuguese, the Dutch never honoured their agreements with native kings, and after ousting the Portuguese, continued to occupy the South-Western Provinces (ibid.: 129–131). A new phase of colonialism ensued in which the Dutch gradually seized more land under the guise of putting out ‘rebellions’ (1658–1796). By 1670, however, such ‘rebellions’ had become a reality and the high cost of containing them compelled the Dutch to change their strategy towards the king. They now sent deputations to him, pretending they were merely his ‘agents’, acting on his behalf in the lowlands. This required the Dutch emissaries to pay homage to the king by prostrating themselves before him, a humiliation they stoically endured (ibid.: 130–131). This served the King’s purpose, publicly conveying as it did Dutch ‘subservience’ to his Sinhala subjects. Consequently, no major clashes occurred for the next 100 years. Like the Portuguese, the Dutch retained much of the Sinhala administrative structure. Officials such as aratchis, kõrālѐs and mudaliyārs who were Catholic converts mostly retained their position by embracing Calvinism (ibid.: 139). Still, the Dutch focus was the cinnamon trade rather than religion. They refused to allow the Kandyans to enter the cinnamon trade, even to sell produce from their own forests. They pressurized the salāgama, the caste engaged in cinnamon peeling, to raise production to impossible levels, and banned them from clearing lowland forests for cultivation, in case this destroyed wild cinnamon trees. This led to an uprising by peelers in 1757. The Kandyan king intervened in support of the rebels, resulting in the first open clash in 1762 (ibid.: 133). This first Dutch expedition was routed by the Kandyans. Their second attack in 1764, however, achieved more gains. Unlike the Portuguese, they did not deploy Sinhala lascarin to fight against Sinhala kings. Instead, they launched a massive campaign with 15,000 European troops and 9,000 Indonesian lascarin (Perniola 1985: 228–232). They received support from the Portuguese Oratorians, who offered them the services of the Catholic community as baggage carriers, bridge-builders, road-cutters and guides over the hills and forests (ibid.: xi, 219). This time, the Dutch devastated the capital Senkadagala, forcing the king to withdraw to the Uva Province. To recover their capital, the Kandyans had to besiege it and starve the Dutch out (ibid.: 229–232). The king was forced to sue for peace (de Silva 1987: 133). The Dutch imposed harsh terms, restricting trade rights even further (ibid.). Still, the Kandyan kingdom was never subdued, and Dutch rule ended abruptly in 1796 with the British handover. Did heightened levels of warfare in the Portuguese and Dutch periods in fact transform Sinhala hegemonic masculinity? Clearly, the arrival of the Portuguese raised the level of conflict and brought new dimensions to the role of royal

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masculinity. Being perceived as an outstanding warrior enhanced the king’s role of exemplary masculinity. The military fame of Mayadunne and Rajasinha, who disdained danger and fought from the front, reached South India in their own lifetimes (Pirani 2016: 128). Vimaladharmasuriya was militarily trained by the Portuguese themselves. Still, possession of the Tooth Relic remained a key legitimating factor. And despite his military achievements, Rajasinha’s conversion to Saivism in his final years – thought to be influenced by his Hindu generals – appears to have shaken his reputation. While fighting for kings engaged in dispelling foreign powers was seen as legitimate, there is no indication that this validated bodily violence – as opposed to symbolic violence – as a practice of masculinity in everyday life. In fact, there is evidence that the wartime political economy of often violent extractions that accompanied military expeditions created resentment within the native populace (de Silva 1977: 40–43). In the Sitavaka territories, Rajasinha himself lost popularity over the exorbitant taxes needed to keep his war machine afloat (ibid.). Even the Sitavaka kings could not retain a locally raised standing army but depended mostly on South Indian mercenaries to supplement manpower deficits. Such mercenaries received generous holdings for their military performance, but this also seemed to have created hostility (Pirani 2016: 218). The role of the disāvѐ also changed in this period. Initially, in both Kotte and Sitavaka, they were required to supply men bound by personal loyalties to them for fighting. But soon the Sitavaka kings began recruiting mercenaries from South India. In Kotte, lascarin could be promoted to mudaliyār posts, and by the 17th century aspired to be elevated to disāvѐs (Quéré 1995: 46). They were subservient to the Portuguese but brutal towards natives (ibid.). In the Sitavaka kingdom, too, able mudaliyārs were promoted as disāvѐs. Thus, during this period it was possible for a karāvѐ convert or Indian mercenary to be appointed disāvѐ. Administrative office itself went into disrepute throughout the lowlands because of the conduct of office-holders ranging from disāvѐs to aratchis, seen to be constantly trying to enrich themselves (Pirani 2016: 88). Clearly, such groups did not view their battlefield performance as sufficient to enhance their status in the eyes of the people as much as acquiring land and material resources. In the Kotte kingdom, since lascarin were recruited mostly from the ranks of the karāvѐ, durāvѐ and salāgama, only a small minority of the larger Sinhala community seem to have directly participated in the Portuguese military project. Like in Sitavaka, their role was paying taxes and providing rājakārya for new elites such as the karāvѐ mudaliyārs. Being compelled to provide labour services for native troops during wartimes sometimes disrupted the agricultural cycle, resulting in food shortages (ibid.: 106). Sinhala cultivators sometimes fought alongside lascarin who outranked them in the field. Thus, despite the ability of new elites such as lascarin and mudaliyārs of depressed castes and newer Indian migrants to perform in the battlefield – which benefited those who did not take up arms – they seemed to have been much disliked. Rather than carving out a new, respected practice of masculinity, they in fact aspired only to acquire the social prerogatives of the govi.

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Crossing over to Sinhala kings signalled that in the end, their social validation turned on how the Sinhala people rather than the Portuguese viewed them. Dutch colonialism unfolded in the relatively more liberal intellectual climate of the 17th and 18th centuries. The Dutch were less obsessed with conversion, fixing their gaze firmly on the cinnamon trade. They also appointed their own nationals to the key post of disāvѐ and did not make a serious effort to induce Sinhala coverts to fight for them as lascarin, though they did avail themselves of the offer by Catholic priests to supply manpower to service their expeditions. Consequently, participating in the military projects of the Portuguese and Dutch as well as Sinhala kings in the lowlands appears to have discredited the office of disāvѐ, highly prestigious in pre-colonial times. Others such as mudaliyārs, who began as military functionaries, became preoccupied with retaining their status, easily converting from Catholicism to Calvinism, a strategy to which even the larger karāvѐ community did not resort. While the Portuguese and Dutch popularized the symbols of Western militarism, such as uniforms and muskets, and activated groups on the fringes of the Sinhala community, they cannot be said to have succeeded in transforming Sinhala hegemonic masculinity. It was the British who succeeded in subjugating the whole island. But, more significantly, British colonialism unfolded against the ascendance of biopolitics, As argued earlier, this signalled the emergence of a range of institutions such as public schools, bureaucracies, armies and so on that generate disciplinary codes subsequently internalized by those who enrol in them, who then begin to regulate themselves. This enabled the British to induce native groups to internalize the colonial ethos – including codes of manliness – through missionary education projects. All of this created critical changes within native societies, extending from the domestic to public domains, setting into place important shifts in hegemonic masculinity.

Concluding comments While West European militarisms overran many communities across South Asia, until the full unfolding of biopolitics over the 19th century – which coincided with British military ascendancy – they did not succeed in transforming hegemonic masculinities. The code of the Crusader knight that became hegemonic in early-modernity, built on the cult of honour practiced by nobilities across Western Europe, honed through endless holy wars. It exemplified valour or the notion of imperilling oneself for God. This involved the practice of risking-the-body. Initially, foot soldiers armed with pikes and halberds played an auxiliary role, setting the stage for warrior knights to perform their feats of honour. This changed with the advent of firearms, which widened the range of linear tactics available to infantry. In the process, it revealed that valour could be learnt through constant drilling and perfecting of manoeuvres and therefore was not a trait that inhered only in the nobility. Despite Foucault’s misgivings about the tractability-inducing workings of disciplinary institutions, even though infantry troops remained submissive to officers,

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it was increasingly they who engaged in risking-the-body on the battlefield. At the same time, the phasing-out of cavalry removed bodily imperilment from the repertoire of the nobility. Their role as officers in infantry regiments also distanced them from risk-taking exploits. For such officers, feats of honour on the battlefield gave way to disciplining enlisted men on the training ground. In armies such as the ­British, this signified increased levels of violence by officers against enlisted men under the guise of ‘honour’. In the colonies, ‘honour’ extended seamlessly into ‘disciplinary’ violence against natives, who in terms of embodiment seemed lacking; they were dark, slight and wanting in height. Marginal native groups were converted into Christianity, trained as mercenaries and deployed to attack other native groups. In pre-colonial Ceylon, however, the blossoming of a hydraulic agrarian civilization across millennia rendered very different codes of masculinity. Hegemonic masculinity was exemplified by bodily composure. This implied the overcoming of the fear of the unknown, of dark forces that stemmed from ignorance and fear of angering hegemonic groups, all of which afflicted ‘lesser’ masculinities. Hegemonic groups were also recipients of the services of other castes who comprised such ‘lesser’ masculinities and whose vigorous efforts enabled their bodily quietude. Such groups in turn assumed a posture of bodily deference before hegemonic groups. In an agrarian economy, bodily composure implied distancing oneself from physical toil. It inferred extensive landholdings as well as high office, all of which consigned status upon the holder. Status becomes a badge of hegemonic credentials. Since status was mostly based on factors such as caste position, unlike honour, it could not be contested through a duel and re-affirmed. In this frame, valour on the battlefield entailed the refusal to flee from danger or death, instead facing them with composure. This stems from the notion that since the lifespan of every being is already written in the stars, one cannot escape death. This however, differs from the practice of the Crusading knight who proactively engages with his foe, risking-his-body for the glory of God until the bitter end. Against this, in the Sinhala code the restless body creates unease; bodily violence is seen as the code of groups on the margins, such as marauders, mercenaries and menials, who bloody their hands in the service of their lords. The breakdown of the hydraulic economy brought instability, which was worsened by successive West European incursions. The Portuguese converted marginal castes on the South-Western coast. For such groups propitiating popular deities whose remit was mostly local, the notion of an Almighty God who guaranteed Portuguese victories across the seas was hugely empowering. They became mercenaries for the Portuguese, who trained them in European warfare. While karāvѐ mercenaries helped the Portuguese to victories on the battlefield, since their primary goal was upward mobility, they tended to cross over to Sinhala kings at key moments. The Dutch, viewing things more logically, did not attempt to deploy Sinhala mercenaries against Sinhala kings. Their main focus remained the cinnamon trade, access to which they protected fiercely. They mainly activated the salāgama caste, whom they made into cinnamon peelers.

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While this phase witnessed a high level of conflict, the groups directly engaging in violence such as the karāvѐ, durāvѐ, salāgama and other disadvantaged groups were at this point marginal to Sinhala identity. Consequently it cannot be argued that Sinhala hegemonic masculinity itself underwent transformation. To acquire hegemonic dimensions, a practice cannot be confined to a given site or specific social groups. It needs to extend from the private domain to diverse public sites. But there is no evidence that bodily violence found validation outside the battlefield or entered the domestic realm or remained anything other than the idiom of mercenaries, marauders and minions of the Portuguese. The British, unlike previous powers, succeeded in colonizing the whole island. But it was the development of biopolitics at this historic moment that enabled them to set in place the disciplinary institutions such as schools and armies and a public administration that began to inflect hegemonic conventions. Still, the transformation of the gender identities of a people is never really resolved once and for all. They remain contingent. This enables the group to confront challenges in some fields successfully, while other struggles loom ever more problematic.

Notes 1 This sometimes took a violent turn as in the ‘iconoclastic fury’ of 1566, which expressed Dutch Calvinist rages against the iconolatry of Spanish Catholicism. 2 However, Nimwegen argues that what was actually used in the field was a more simplified and practical version that he subsequently perfected called the ‘conversion’ (­Nimwegen 2010: 63). 3 The emergence of London as a mercantile hub was directly linked to the assumption of the Dutch stadholder William III to the British Crown jointly with his wife Mary, daughter of James II of England in 1688. Subsequently, Dutch mercantile capital shifted their investments from Amsterdam and Antwerp to London. 4 Luscombe, Ceylon, states that only 140 officers were peers or sons of peers in 1809 (www.britishempire.co.uk/British-Army, accessed on 9 October 2017). 5 The British Puritans were a Calvinist faction. With the breakaway of Henry VIII from the Catholic Church in 1534, Protestants dominated British politics, reducing Catholics to a minority. 6 Some NMA soldiers were in fact subsequently hanged for ‘stealing’ horses from civilians even if asked to do so by their commanding officers. 7 The Victoria Cross, however – awarded for an act of heroism under enemy fire or risk of death to any soldier regardless of rank – only came into being after the Crimean War. 8 It is thought that early references to the ‘Sinhala’ of Sri Lanka in Buddhist chronicles such as the Mahavamsa referred only to the reigning Royal House and did not encompass subject native groups. But clearly, across the centuries, the bounds of the groups involved within the category of ‘Sinhala’ appears to have widened steadily. 9 These were the Lambakannas and the Moriyas (de Silva 1987: 36). 10 This phenomenon developed in the Kandyan kingdom (1591–1815). However, by the time of the Polonnaruwa kingdom (993–1250 AD), C. R. de Silva comments that an increase in social stratification already seemed to have taken place, with the rise of a powerful goigama landholding group known as the kulina, who held many of the important positions within the state (de Silva 1987: 83). A similar development appears to have transpired across Sri Lankan Tamil society as well, with the agrarian Vellalars holding numerical dominance over other groups.

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11 The Mahavamsa mentions that King Dutta Gamini Abhaya (or Dutu Gemunu), the most warriorist of Sinhala kings, had Tamil generals in his army such as Velusumana. 12 Rigorously trained in Sinhala literary convention, many Tamil kings sponsored the arts. Some even contributed to Sinhala poetry (Dharmadasa 1997: 80). 13 The great exception is King Dutu Gemunu. For instance, Mahasena (274–301 AD) – to whom the Mahavamsa devotes the whole of its chapter 37 – is at first presented as ‘unwise’, since he listened to the words of a heretical monk who persuaded him to abandon the role of patron of the Mahavihara sect, from which the monk-chronicler is drawn. The chapter ends with the words ’thus did he gather to himself much merit and much guilt’. Thus, despite the persecution of his own sect, the chronicler acknowledges generously his contributions to agriculture. Though he went against the powerful Mahavihara sect, then, Mahasena is still lauded in the history books as ‘the greatest tank-builder of all’. 14 In successive archaeological discoveries of the Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa kingdoms, the sheer number of reservoirs and tanks and ruins of an intricate network of irrigation channels dotted across the terrain is extraordinary, and witness to the extent of cultivated land, as well as the heavy population it must have sustained. 15 In the Kandyan kingdom, the post of ratѐ-mahatmayā was a similarly prestigious post, ruling over the ratas, which were proto-municipal areas, slightly smaller than a province, into which the heartland of Kandy was divided. 16 This includes the Sitawaka Hatana, Mandarampura Puwatha and Rajasiha Hatana.

3 VICTORIAN MANLINESS AND THE COMPOSED BODY IN SINHALA DISCOURSE

Introduction British Empire in South Asia was sustained by many things. Shrewd political manoeuvring succeeded in pitting Hindu, Moghul, Sikh and Buddhist monarchies against each other at different moments. Initially, British firepower was superior, and they retained an artillery edge. But how did codes of masculinity contribute? Sinha of course, argues that in colonial India the British made a sustained effort to construct a discourse of gender in which the masculinity of the colonizer is celebrated while the Bengali upper classes were portrayed as effete and lacking in vigour. This, she feels, was done with the specific aim of lowering their collective self-worth, which became a condition for the enabling of colonial rule (Sinha 1995: 172). Here Victorian tenets of manliness held sway over local codes practiced by a range of native groups across colonial India, even though in numerical terms, the British comprised a small minority. Manliness acquired hegemonic dimensions, the watermark against which all other practices of masculinity were judged and found wanting. In this project, biopolitics played a key role. As Foucault argues, the ­emergence of a range of institutions across the West European continuum such as public schools, prisons, asylums and military corps enabled such bodies to instil specific practices of masculinity in those who enrolled. This was achieved through disciplinary codes that entailed – among other things – standing tall and straight in a mimicry of manliness, while remaining subservient to institutional authority at all times. Such codes are soon internalized by cadets who then begin to regulate themselves. In the colonies, native groups assimilated the colonizer’s ethos through missionary education projects and attempted to incorporate aspects of manliness into their cultural repertoire and live up to them on an everyday basis. DOI: 10.4324/9781003362036-3

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But the very bodies of the colonized, which failed to conform to British modes of embodiment, often compounded attempts to attain manliness. In colonial ­Ceylon, modes of embodiment did not favour the Sinhalas. As much as the h ­ apless Bengalis, they were short, slight and dark. Sinhala men were also perceived as effeminate (Sullivan 1854: 19). Even well-meaning observers were disturbed by the fact that men with their long hair were often mistaken for women and that there seemed to be little difference between the genders (Ferguson 1868: 134; Knox 1681). This ambiguity was compounded by bodily posture. Manliness was of course a masculinity of the erect body and unflinching stare. To the clinical British gaze, the Sinhala etiquette of deference before persons of authority signalled nothing so much as a lack of ‘character’ and ‘pluck’. Confronted by mild, amiable subjects, early British commentators were not impressed and complained about the ‘indolence’ and ‘apathy’ of the native condition (Harris 1994: 5). The natives seemed to lack vigour and verve. Among elite groups, the British noted the servility of the mudaliyārs with contempt, but retained ambiguities about the ‘indolence’ of the radala disāvѐs whom they virtuously asserted were a burden on the people (Houtart 1974: 182). This chapter explores British efforts to repress native dissent by deploying the full range of implements in the biopolitics toolbox. This includes the Colebrooke– Cameron Reforms, which aimed at delegitimizing the Kandyan chiefs by creating an Anglicized elite, native by birth but British by acculturation. Codes of masculinity were key to this project. Missionary education was the main strategy used to effect this goal. Still, different native groups engaged in diverse ways with various aspects of manliness. This impacted on forms of anti-colonial dissent assumed. This chapter also looks at how native codes impacted on the way the British Army, its redcoats and native recruits conducted their repressive project. Finally, it will look at how the setting up of the Ceylon Army at Independence by the British, built on tenets of manliness, shaped the way post-colonial repressive projects were conducted.

The Kandyan wars Though the British government negotiated the transfer of power from the Dutch, it was the mercenaries of the BEIC who occupied the coastal provinces of colonial Ceylon in 1796 (Perera 1959: 19). With the British takeover, the Swiss and Malay Muslim mercenaries on the VOC payroll were transferred to the BEIC.1 They became units of the British Army in Ceylon. In 1802, Malay mercenaries became the 1st Ceylon Regiment, and over the next year, a Sinhala unit was raised from the coastal provinces to form the 2nd Ceylon Regiment. Subsequently another Muslim regiment was recruited from Malaysia to comprise the 3rd Ceylon Regiment.2 All regiments were commanded by British officers (ibid.: 60–61). The British now looked to take the recalcitrant Kandyan kingdom, which was in turmoil between the years 1801 and 1803. The king, Rajadhi Rajasinha, of the

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reigning Nayakkar dynasty, died heirless, sparking a prolonged succession struggle. Finally, another Nayakkar prince, Kannasamy, ascended to the throne as Sri Wickrama Rajasinha (de Silva 1987: 147). The British seized this charged moment to invade Kandy. When British-led troops arrived at the Kandyan capital, Senkadagala, news of their advent had already reached the city and residents had fled to the countryside. The city was empty. The invaders installed Muttusamy, the king’s brother-in-law, as a British puppet and withdrew, leaving a 1,000-member guard to defend him. Of these, 700 were Malay troops and the rest Sinhala mercenaries and British redcoats.3 Sri Wickrama, however, subsequently returned with his troops, and though badly out-gunned, launched an extended guerrilla campaign. Meanwhile, the British were ravaged by disease and, as happened with the Portuguese, their Sinhala mercenaries began defecting to the king. In the end, the British troops who remained were totally routed. The mission failed. It was only in 1815, with the ending of the Revolutionary wars in Europe, that the British were again able to muster sufficient troops to ‘pacify’ Kandy. By then Sri Wickrama Rajasinha, who in 1803 had enjoyed much popular support, had managed to alienate almost the entire nobility. This was due to the perfidy of certain powerful figures in his court and his ruthless efforts to reign them in. This included a strategy of orchestrating the public humiliation of those whom he thought were conspiring against him. Discovering that his First adigar Ähälepola was intriguing against him with the British, he put the entire family to death. It was the custom, as Perera points out, that when the adigar was on circuit, his family would stay in Senkadagala, hostage to his continuing political loyalty (Perera 1959: 41). But Ähälepola, sensing the king’s misgivings, had fled to British-held territory, leaving his family exposed to the king’s wrath. As the episode unfolds, the British diarist Davy recounts how Ähälepola’s eight-year-old son tries to compose his older brother who, terrified at the sight of the executioner, runs to his mother. My brother, he tells him, be not afraid. I will show you how we should die (Davy 1969: 240). Based on this rendering of events, Ähälepola’s son emerges as a child hero in the nationalist annals. But this celebration of the child is at the same time a silent indictment of his father. Their deaths served to – symbolically – emasculate Ähälepola, because he could not save his children. They became pawns in his endless quest for self-aggrandizement. He allowed them to be reduced to a public spectacle even as they strived – with much difficulty – to retrieve the situation through a dignified death. This then, was not a random act of violence by the king so much as a pre-emptive shot across the bow to the rest of his chiefs about the sanctions they could incur if they continued to conspire against him. But 300 years after the advent of European powers, the chiefs understood how such external players could shift internal power dynamics in their favour; they began making overtures to the British. Consequently, when the second British expedition arrived, the king, now quite isolated, went into hiding. The chiefs welcomed the British. This set the stage for the Convention of 1815, which ceded the Kandyan kingdom to the British.

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The Kandyan Convention – which was to polarize Sinhala society over the next two centuries – encapsulated the obligations of the British to the Kandyan chieftains who enabled their victory over the king. Most importantly, the British government undertook to play the ritual role of the king as the Protector of Buddhism. Astonishingly, here the chiefs seemed perfectly willing to substitute the British monarch for the Sinhala king in the role of Protector of Buddhism. What they sought was simply royal patronage for Buddhism. Having served for generations under Tamil Hindu kings, they were not preoccupied with the racial, ethnic or religious complexion of the sovereign, only with his royal lineage. In a historical context where caste identity assumed priority over all else, the Kandyan chiefs understood that they themselves could not make credible claims to the throne; and in fact, all subsequent Pretenders had to claim that they were princes of the Nayakkar line.4 It should be remembered that Sinhala hegemonic masculinity revolved on status. The Kandyan chiefs were willing to betray their king – who constantly threatened to take away the high office they held and which was the badge of their status – and claim allegiance to the British monarch in order to consolidate their hegemonic position in Kandyan society. But their treachery was at the same time a desperate effort to deter the king from engaging in a process that would end in their public emasculation. They were trapped by the compulsions of a highly materialist culture. They had to choose between the king and the affirmation of their own manhood, which could only be validated through badges of status. The Convention guaranteed to uphold the status and privileges of the Kandyan chiefs. The chiefs seemed to have imagined that after it was signed, the British would return with their troops to Colombo, and life would continue as before in the Kandyan kingdom, except for the absence of the king. The Convention then, exemplified the fact that in the early euphoric days, the Kandyan chiefs considered themselves to be the equals of the British, rather than colonial subjects (de Silva 1961: 91–159). But soon, the failure of the British to appoint dignitaries to the important posts of the diyavadana and basnayaka nilamѐs of the Temple of the Tooth convinced them of the unthinkable – that the British were reneging on their responsibilities towards Buddhism (de Silva 1997: 154). It also slowly sunk in that – far from preserving their privileges – they had been inveigled into a position in the power structure that was in fact lower than that of the most minor British official (Perera 1959: 50). The presence of British officials and the symbols of a nascent colonial bureaucracy then, subtly altered the landscape of power across the island. The first ­governor, North (1798–1805), had already begun setting up an embryonic Civil Service in the occupied coastal provinces. This was the first of such efforts made by the British in the East. It included postal, survey, audit, health and education departments.5 British colonialism was now beginning to equip itself with biopower. This centralized approach was a radically different notion of the state than that which prevailed in pre-colonial Ceylon, in which feudal office-holders at different levels voluntarily undertook welfare functions in the name of the state/king.

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At the same time, at the local level, the British engaged in a form of ‘indirect rule’ that left native administrative structures intact. This was possible since in the maritime provinces, mudaliyārs were already performing ancillary functions, including acting as interpreters and clerks and recruiting labour (rājakārya) for public projects (Jayewardena 2010: 24). In times of war, of course, this positioned them to recruit local militias. Like the Portuguese and the Dutch, the British rewarded mudaliyārs with grants of land and honorary titles, which then enabled them to construct ‘feudal’ status, based on landholdings, uniforms and medals (ibid.: 24–25). In the maritime regions, mudaliyārs had already come under the authority of a British Government Agent (GA). Each GA had an administrative office (kachcheri), and in addition to the information amassed by Civil Service departments on Public Education, Community Health and Regional Geography, kachcheri officials had access to the combos or register of landownership begun by the Dutch and maintained by local schoolmasters (Perera 1959: 63). The British however, soon grew disillusioned with the bona fides of the mudaliyārs. The next governor, Maitland (1805–1811), removed the function of revenue collection from them and brought it under a Commissioner of Revenue, with Collectors who could go on circuit and check on any ‘misuse’ of power. Being particularly concerned with the ‘abuses’ in the mudaliyār system, he urged his civil servants to learn the local languages so that they could communicate directly with the people (ibid.: 63–64). The attitude of the colonial government, says Perera, was that they were protecting the people from the mudaliyārs who were exploiting them, a charge that was not without validity (ibid.: 68). In any case, removing key functions from the remit of native officials and entering this information into a centralized filing system in the kachcheri enabled civil servants to build up detailed records of the lives, tenurial relations and economic pursuits of different groups of natives at the local level. Whereas before it was only the disāvѐs and mudaliyārs who had knowledge of the minutiae of the lives and tenurial arrangements among those who lived on and tilled their lands, now the colonial administration – in a very short time – had managed to access much of this information. This enabled them to identify entrepreneurial actors among the colonized and establish links with them. The British seemed poised to extend their suspicion of the mudaliyārs to the radalas. The Kandyan provinces were at this point administrated by British Residents. They began appointing natives with whom they had commercial links to local office rather than the sons of the radala. Consequently, the Kandyan chiefs discovered that outsiders such as Moors and lower-caste tradesmen were climbing up the social ladder by forging economic ties with the British, who rewarded them with local office. Here a decision made by the British Resident of the Badulla district, Major Wilson, shocked them. He appointed a Moor trader, Mohamed Hadji, a Muslim, to the prestigious post of muhandhiram. Such posts had thus far only been held by large landholders who were, of course, Sinhalas. For the chiefs, then, losing their privileges and status to other ethnic groups and lower castes was a worse scenario than they had feared would unfold under

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the Kandyan king. It was no longer a matter of being emasculated as a member of the feudal elite; it was about being emasculated as a class. Even their grip on the economy was coming under siege. Their hegemonic status in Kandyan society was beginning to slip though their fingers. They felt that the British were reneging on key clauses of the Kandyan Convention.

The great rebellion (1817–1818) It was these anxieties about the betrayal of the Convention that created the conditions for the ‘great rebellion’ of 1817–1818. The rebellion began in the fertile Wellassa plains in the Badulla district of the Uva Province. Initially, a Pretender emerged, claiming to be Doraisamy, a prince of Nayakkar descent. On hearing this, Major Wilson sent a detachment led by Mohamed Hadji, the newly appointed muhandhiram, to investigate (Jayewardena 2010: 76). Both Wilson and Hadji seemed to have had no conception of the profound depths of anger and betrayal sparked by Hadji’s elevation to this post. For the rebels, Hadji became the embodiment of the perfidy of the British. On arriving on the scene therefore, he was swiftly seized by the rebels and slaughtered. Subsequently, Wilson himself went with another unit of 24 Malay soldiers. He also met the rebels and tried to negotiate with them. But this effort failed and he met with the same fate. It was at this point that D’Oyly, Resident of Kandy, sent Käppetipola, disāvѐ of Uva, with 500 British troops and arms to Wellassa to enquire into Wilson’s death. In Wellassa, he encountered the rebels. In the exchange which followed, the rebels made an earnest attempt to persuade him to cross over. They succeeded. But now, Kappetipola confronted the issue of what should be done with the weapons and troops in his charge. In the end, he decided to return all the troops as well as the weapons to the Resident in Kandy, stating that it would be improper in the Sinhalas to use the enemy’s own weapons against the enemy. Why did he do so? For Käppetipola, at this moment his whole reputation (tätvaya) was at stake. He was one of the chiefs who had been most exposed to retaliation by the king because his sister was Ähälepola’s wife. He had also been a signatory to the Kandyan Convention less than two years before. The rebels argued that it was his duty as the disāvѐ of the Uva Province to lead them in their struggle against the British, who had reneged on promises made in this Convention to support Buddhism. He now agreed with them. But he did not want to give the British cause to accuse him of treachery, impugn his motivation and thereby the justice of the rebel cause. Further, it was extremely unlikely that the redcoats in the British Army could have been persuaded to cross over and fight against the British government. But Sinhala mercenaries might have. The most militarily unsound aspect of his decision was perhaps to return the weapons to the British, for the rebels were poorly armed and their home-made canons, crossbows and machetes were no match for British firearms. Keeping the arms might have changed the course of the rebellion.

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The rebels also found inspiration in another key development. Some members of the sangha who identified with the rebel cause took the initiative to spirit away the Tooth Relic from the Temple and bring it to them. This was an enormous symbolic coup. The Sinhalas held a profound conviction that possession of the relic would ensure victory in battle to those who held it. They were greatly buoyed. The British, on their part, were shocked by Käppetipola’s defection. He had seemed to them to exemplify the stable core of the radala bloc. They saw him as their bridge to controlling the Kandyan Sinhalas. Governor Brownrigg responded by declaring Martial Law throughout the Kandyan provinces. This was a significant move. In Agamben’s terms, Martial Law introduced a State of Exception (2013a: 140–141). The notion of a State of Exception or état de siege initially emerged in Revolutionary France, and it allowed the sovereign power – in this case the Governor as the agent of the British sovereign – to decide if the situation in a given area is exceptional. Once this is decided, it allows him to suspend the operation of the law within this space indefinitely. Thus, even while the law is in operation elsewhere, in areas defined as ‘exceptions’ it is in abeyance. In the colony, where democratic rights had not yet coalesced, Martial Law – which turns the area concerned into a proto-military space – becomes even more devastating. Under it, the colonized do not have any rights. They may be killed at will by the agents of the sovereign and have no recourse. This had direct implications for the residents of the Kandyan highlands and the plains of Wellassa across which Martial Law was declared. Three more divisions were sent to Wellassa. When the redcoats arrived at the site where Wilson was killed, they discovered an ola message wrapped in a white cloth – in simulation of royal edicts – in which the Pretender proclaimed himself king and charged his subjects with putting to death all white men (Vimalananda 1970: 107). Enraged by this act of open defiance, the redcoats lashed out, torching entire villages across the Wellassa plains in areas belonging to rebel chiefs, destroying crops and laying bare the land. Even the cattle were not spared. Ordinary villagers were shot and killed in a frenzy of violence. In this episode, up to 10,000 people – including Kandyan nobles, small-holding peasants, tenant cultivators, men, women and children – are thought to have been slaughtered by redcoats (Davy 1969: 247; Perera 1959: 52–54; Houtart 1974: 183–184;). Reservoirs and irrigation channels across this fertile plain – named for its thousands of lakes, streams and ponds – were destroyed. This led to stagnant pools of water everywhere, which became breeding grounds for malaria and typhoid. Consequently, hundreds more died in the months that followed from starvation and disease (Houtart ibid.). But as happened in previous confrontations with the Kandyans, malaria and typhoid took its toll on the British, too. Up to 1,000 troops are believed to have died in crushing this rebellion (ibid.). Brownrigg was now forced to seek reinforcements from India. In subsequent encounters, mindful of the superiority of British firepower, the rebels refused to engage in face-to-face confrontations, confining themselves to guerrilla tactics such as ambushing British troops, improvising booby traps, setting up snares, sniping at isolated targets and attacking the enemy’s thinlymanned flanks.

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In the end, however, the British strategy of offering monetary rewards for the heads of the rebels worked. The rapid monetization of the countryside created a rapacious climate that enabled marginal strata such as marauders, rogues and brigands to come to their own. Groups of bounty-seekers – mesmerized by the image of a sack of coins that they thought would enrich them forever – were willing to betray anyone. Käppetipola was captured in October 1818. On the same day, the Tooth Relic was recaptured by the British. The rebels felt abandoned by the gods. They lost the will to fight. It was not their moment. Käppetipola was executed in November  1818. Composed to the end, he requested the executioner to behead him with one stroke, rather than two. The executioner failed to comply. But Käppetipola is today celebrated as a national hero for his iron composure at the moment of death, rather than his decision to take up arms against the British, seen as his duty as the disāvѐ of Uva. His death exemplified the valour of the composed body. Against this, his co-conspirator and disāvѐ of the Dumbara Province, Madugalle, so courageous on the battlefield, somehow lost his composure when faced by the executioner’s sword, scrambling desperately to avoid his fate. His name is mostly absent from the nationalist record. Similarly, Käppetipola’s brother-in-law Ähälepola never recovered from his public shaming by the king, which enshrined his treachery forever in the nation’s imaginaire, even though his child Madduma Bandara is still celebrated for his adult-like composure in the face of death. Though Ähälepola secretly supported the rebels, unlike most of the nobility he never summoned up the courage to openly take up arms against the British (Perera 1959: 54). The British Parliament opened a Commission of Inquiry into the crushing of the rebellion, which however, found it ‘difficult to justify’ the extent of force deployed by Brownrigg (de Silva1961). The question then, is why did the B ­ ritish redcoats respond with such disproportionate fury to the death of one British official? At issue here was the ola edict found on the site where Wilson was killed, charging the Sinhalas to destroy all white men. The Pretender and his followers, mostly armed with crossbows, were openly instigating the Kandyan peasantry to attack the musket-wielding British by any means they could. The ola edict implied a throwing down of the gauntlet, the sheer effrontery of which enraged the British. In slaughtering this British official then, the rebels made a powerful symbolic statement. The act derided British martial masculinity – risking-the-body – which led Wilson, with scant security, relying entirely on an English sense of entitlement, to confront them on their own turf. It underscored how foolhardy and fatuous such notions of valour become in rebel-held territory. This act, however, provoked a response in the same idiom. The redcoats’ scorched earth tactics emerge as a raw, performative display of power, which – as much as the guillotine did in post-Revolutionary France – was aimed at using the spectacular destruction of land and community to terrorize the natives into civic quiescence. Martial Law removed the need for any risk-taking on their part, since it allowed them to shoot unarmed natives at will. Still, it did not have the envisaged effect. It did not stop the rebellion. It was only when Käppetipola was captured that

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things began to unravel. And the redcoat’s failure to draw a line between combatants and non-combatants was not seen as heroic even by factions within the British government. But it set the stage for future offensives against the natives.

The Colebrooke–Cameron Reforms (1833) The British were convinced that the compulsions behind the Uva rebellion were not so much about anxieties regarding the plight of Buddhism but rather about a vehement ‘Kandyan’ identity. They became preoccupied with the need to weaken the Kandyan chiefs who exemplified this identity and deflect the popular support they enjoyed to the colonial state (Perera 1959: 89). Consequently, a two-­member Royal Commission was appointed to effect this goal through a review of the island’s administrative and judicial system. The Commissioners duly recommended that the administrative boundaries of the island be reframed so as to break-up the geographical contiguity of the Kandyan regions. This entailed dividing the island into five provinces, which ensured that the Kandyan areas would be split across at least four different administrative units. This ploy was successful. Over the decades, the physical dispersion of the Kandyan areas dimmed the intensity of Kandyan identity. Still, despite their zeal in engaging in such machinations, as Perera points out, the Commissioners were also influenced by the new liberal currents sweeping across the Mother Country, including Adam Smith’s free trade, Bentham’s egalitarianism and call for greater democratic rights and Wesley’s moral crusade, which led to the abolition of slavery (ibid.). They wished to animate a dormant society. Consequently, they embarked on a generalized overhaul of the existing system, aimed at creating a laissez faire environment, which they thought would dissolve the feudal binds that held the people captive and promote a more progressive and egalitarian environment. Their expectation – then shared by liberals everywhere – was that the market mechanism would prove to be the great equalizer. They went on to draw up changes in critical areas such as land policy, the administrative service, public education and the courts system that they felt would further this aim. The most significant development was perhaps to do with land policy. As occupiers, the British claimed ownership of all land belonging to the crown (gabadāgam) and had already embarked on a policy of gifting up to 4,000 acres of crown land as outright grants to European investors (de Silva 1987: 160). Still, local land tenure patterns were so complex that rights over any piece of land were often contingent, with sometimes different groups such as large land-holders, tenant cultivators and share-croppers exerting differential rights over the same tract (ibid.: 162). Crown lands were no exception. This made even outright grants problematic, since some groups refused to cede their hereditary rights to cultivate these tracts. This led to the creation of a new social category of ‘squatters’ on crown lands. The Commissioners sought to create an environment similar to that in the UK, where by the beginning of the 19th century a land market had already emerged. The radical notion of ‘inalienable rights’ with absolute title over plots of land that

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could be bought and sold with a bag of coins had steadily gained ground. They therefore advocated the parcelling out and selling off of crown land. Thus a new policy of land sales replaced the outright grants system (ibid.). The colonial government now offered crown land for sale in different units of over 50 acres or over 500 acres (Roberts 1997: 208–209). As the plantation enterprise took off, demand for land began to outrun ­supply. The colonial government subsequently enacted the controversial Crown Lands Encroachment Ordinance No. 12 of 1840, in which they claimed as crown land all land that could not be proven to have been previously granted to any designated person. This had serious implications for slash-and-burn cropping (chena), in which most peasant cultivators engaged and which was not perennial but sown on a seasonal basis. Further, the codification of tenurial rights in this Ordinance allowed native landed groups to shift from subsistence agriculture – which provided food security for those who tilled the soil – into commercial crops such as coffee and coconut, which offered landowners vastly greater profits (ibid.: 226). This enabled the development of a land market. It allowed British planters to extend their holdings of crown land with land bought from native landholders (de Silva 1987: 162). In colonial Ceylon, the British in fact succeeded in achieving in the space of a decade by legislative fiat what the Enclosure Movement in the Mother Country had to grimly extract inch by inch from the British peasantry over the course of six centuries. Further, the reforms abolished rājakārya. This did succeed in diffusing the coercive aspects of the caste system built on rājakārya. Impoverished govi cultivators and disadvantaged castes were no longer tied to the soil. But over the next few decades this created the conditions for the irretrievable fracturing of the land tenure system. In the Dry Zone, as de Silva remarks, the maintenance of irrigation networks and other public infrastructure at the local level suffered neglect since the colonial state failed to address the institutional hiatus created by the demolition of rājakārya (ibid.: 167). Further, feudal landlords often undertook to provide critical inputs such as seed paddy, fertilizer and drought bullocks to ease the economic burden on the most indigent cultivators, and the breakdown of the land tenure system jeopardized these arrangements. The rapid monetization of the sector created by the Crown Lands Encroachment Ordinance and its curbing of tenurial rights made the situation of the most vulnerable tenant cultivators and share-croppers still more insecure, driving them into indebtedness and in later decades into ‘landlessness’.6 Consequently, peasant agriculture, which had already deteriorated in the wake of the Uva rebellion, declined further. The grip of the govigama on govi-linked service castes in the interior also began to slip. But, as Roberts argues, it was initially the coastal karāvѐ, durāvѐ and salāgama – already energized under the Portuguese and Dutch – who were best positioned to grasp the economic opportunities opened up by British rule. Peripheral groups within the govi also seized the moment (Roberts 1997: 191–266). These developments enabled such emergent groups to incorporate a new practice into their repertoire; reserving their deference for those who wielded greater economic weight

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rather than the govi elite. Over time, a new stratum of native entrepreneurs evolved, who appropriated the accoutrements of a Victorian lifestyle such as jackets and shoes as symbols of status, rather than attempting to incorporate core tenets of manliness into their repertoire. The administrative service was also reformed. The Proclamation of ­November  1818 had already clipped the powers of the disāvѐs in the wake of the rebellion and transferred them to the GAs, who were of course civil servants (­ Roberts 1997: 226; de Silva 1987: 149). But now the reforms opened up the colonial Civil Service itself to native applicants. Recruitment became ­examination-based. The Civil Service code entailed serving the public impartially, without expectation of gifts or bribes (Houtart 1974: 182). The reforms also embraced the education sector. Since the Civil Service was now to be opened up to natives, it was necessary to train young Ceylonese for clerical posts (Perera 1959: 89). This was a gendered notion – young women were not considered viable applicants. Anticipating Macaulay in India, Colebrooke argued that English education should be opened-up to all sectors of society with the aim of creating a new social stratum that was native by birth but English by acculturation. They would then be able to man the lower rungs of the Civil Service and over time, counter the influence of traditional leadership (Roberts 1997: 268: Perera 1959: 89). In Foucault’s terms then, Colebrooke wished to create a public education system that would generate citizens who regulate themselves according to institutional norms. Such norms would involve imposing a specific practice of masculinity – manliness – upon native groups in order to undermine the code of the traditional Sinhala and Tamil leadership. This required that schools run by the Buddhist and Hindu temples that taught in the vernacular should be shut down, so as to discourage young Ceylonese from growing up with bonds to the traditional ethos (Perera 1959: 89). Instead, the state offered financial inducements to the missionaries or any other groups providing English education on the island. Finally, judicial reforms built on the notion that all citizens were equal under the law. This removed distinctions between low-country Sinhalas and the Kandyans and did not acknowledge the ritual privileges of the radalas in law. The reforms also removed legal distinctions between Europeans and natives, even though such differences continued to thrive in the social, political and economic realms. The reforms set in place significant shifts in local practices of masculinity. With the erosion of their badges of status, some sections of the feudal elite moved into crash cropping. Others sold surplus land to British investors, liquefying their assets and evolving new practices in which conspicuous consumption became a signifier of hegemonic masculinity. The most vulnerable cultivators, on the other hand, ended up as ‘squatters’ on what used to be crown lands. This created perceptions of them as being close to vagabondage, setting into place their social emasculation. Others became mired in indebtedness. Emergent castes who prospered with the new opportunities evolved novel practices in which the accoutrements of manliness became signifiers of their economic weight, boosting their status. Since learning

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held such positive connotations within the native cultures as a means of edification and acquiring self-belief, with the closure of temple schools, wealthier groups invested in an English education for their children. Such offspring readily adopted practices of manliness and the missionary worldview. Finally, a new stratum of British planters enriched themselves and built a lifestyle quite as elaborate and even more oppressive of those who served them as the feudal chiefs they vilified, thus incorporating badges of status and bodily composure into the Victorian repertoire.

The Matale rebellion (1848) In the wake of the Colebrooke–Cameron Reforms, successive governors attempted to open up the Kandyan highlands by constructing roads into previously inaccessible terrain. This created the conditions for the launch of the coffee industry. The levy on coffee exports even began to generate a budgetary surplus. But by the mid-1840s, the extravagances of the colonial government were moving the island towards a deficit situation (Perera 1959: 95–98). This was worsened by a depression in coffee prices. The governor chose to respond to this threat by adjusting the tax regime. This entailed a shift from indirect taxation – which mostly involved export duties on coffee – to direct taxation. The colonial government then, was turning to biopower, to administrative tools that had been fine-tuned to achieve results based on a specific liberal economic model. This, for the first time, impacted heavily on the native population. Such taxes ranged from levies on the use of guns, on bullock carts and on the dogs that abounded in every village but nobody actually owned. The British further sought to restore the practice of rājakārya – which they had abolished with much fanfare only a decade before – in order to generate unpaid labour for public construction projects such as road-building. While decrying the excesses of caste in Sinhala society then, the British were in fact happy to selectively revive caste-based obligations when it suited them. Finally, there was the Road Ordinance, which involved a poll tax on all road users. Natives who were not paid to build the roads now found themselves having to pay to use them. Contrary to the benign expectations of Foucault, in the colonies, where electoral democracy did not provide a buffer, the British used their enhanced access into the everyday lives of native peoples to bring increased economic pressure on them. It was the Road Ordinance that galvanized the Kandyan peasantry and created the conditions for the Matale rebellion in 1848 (ibid.). The viciousness with which the Uva rebellion had been quelled did in fact decimate the Kandyan nobility. The few families left were reduced to collaborating with the British. This precluded them from providing leadership in any anti-colonial protest. Thus the mantle of leadership of popular dissent now fell on emergent strata such as the coastal castes as well as non-govi Kandyan groups like the vahumpura (juggery-makers). In order to achieve credibility in the eyes of the people, however, rebel leaders had to pretend to royal ancestry.

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Once again, the disturbances began with the advent of a Pretender. He was called Gongalegoda Banda, of the vahumpura caste, and had at one time been a runner attached to the police department.7 He exemplified the energy of the emergent castes. His deputy was Puran Appu, a young karāvѐ adventurer who had succeeded in building a Robin Hood-like cult around himself (Houtart 1974: 206). On 6th July, Gongalegoda Banda led a march of several thousand people from Kandy to Dambulla – a distance of 72 kilometres – to protest the Road Ordinance (de Silva 1965; Perera 1959: 99). The march gathered momentum as it advanced, and finally, massive crowds converged at the historic Dambulla temple. The chief prelate of the temple came forward to receive Gongalegoda Banda. He then proceeded to perform a coronation (abhisheka) ceremony, which would consecrate him as king. This involved anointing him, bestowing upon him the name of Sri Wickrama Siddapi, of Nayakkar descent, and proclaiming him king. Puran Appu was anointed his sword-bearer or his prime minister (Houtart 1974: 206). Gongalegoda Banda then addressed the crowd, telling them how Buddhism had declined under the British, whom he described as a ‘low caste’ group. The effect of such a castigation should be seen in the context of consistent attempts by the British to project themselves as a kind of proto-upper caste (Roberts 1997: 273). Consequently, such a denouncement acquired therapeutic connotations for his audience. This lack, he suggests, is what prompts the British to engage in the kind of ‘improper’ conduct that led to the degeneration of Buddhism.8 This logic was received as a revelation by the listening crowds. Are you on the side of the Buddhists, he asked them, or the British?9 The people, says Houtart, were enthralled. They seemed ready to follow him blindly (Houtart 1974: 206). Here public spectacle as unfolded in the coronation ceremony became a source of political validation. The Pretender accrued political stature through the acting out of each sequence of the ceremony. At the same time, it distanced him from his – rather murky – past. The people were now gripped by his oratory and the trappings of monarchy. They did not question his skills in armed combat or his battle strategy to bring down the British. These were not very advanced. On 28th July, the rebels – mostly armed with spikes and machetes – split into two groups. The first, led by Gongalegoda Banda, went to Kurunegala and launched an attack on its kachcheri – as an overt symbol of the British occupation. The other, led by Puran Appu, mounted a similar offensive in the town of Matale. These attacks mostly involved damage to state property and much arson, including the destruction of tax records (Houtart 1974: 206; de Silva 1961). On hearing of the ‘coronation’, however, Governor Torrington panicked. He declared Martial Law in the Kandy province and offered a reward for information leading to the capture of rebel leaders (Houtart ibid.). This once again suspended the operation of the law and created a context in which any native could be shot on sight. In the days that followed, British troops were able to intercept the rebels and recapture the Matale kachcheri they had occupied. And, like previous rebels

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against the British, Puran Appu was betrayed by bounty hunters. He was arrested the next day. A week later, he was executed by a firing squad. Interestingly, the only witness we have of this event is Torrington himself. Unlike Käppetipola, Puran Appu was not born to privilege. But over the course of an adventurous life, he took up with those recalcitrant groups on the edges of society such as outlaws, rogues and toughs. In the process, he seemed to have shaken off his sense of fear (bhaya) as well as his deference to hegemonic groups (läjjā-bhaya). This freed him, at the hour of his death, to speak truth to power. He tells Torrington that if the rebels had had half a dozen leaders like himself, they would have succeeded in decimating the British (de Silva 1965: 176). His words make an impression on Torrington, who while not the most unbiased of witnesses, still comments that Puran Appu was a brave man (ibid.). This episode reveals that Puran Appu himself appeared to feel that the rebels he led did not display sufficient courage. While they had overcome their sense of social deference (läjjā-bhaya), they had not – convincingly – transcended their bhaya; they had not succeeded in incorporating the practice of risking-the-body into their repertoire. What they still sought to do was to enact a strategy of spectacular violence: destroying the symbols of British occupation by setting fire to the kachcheris and burning tax records in a glorious bonfire. But Puran Appu wished to go further; he wished to risk his body. He wanted to destroy Englishmen in the highlands one by one. The parameters of the rebellion, however, did not offer him the scope to do so. Still, though he may have been an inept rebel by any objective military criteria, when subjected to a firing squad, he confronted death with an unflinching stare. Despite his failed rebellion then, his end meets the Sinhala yardstick of a heroic death. Eight weeks later, Gongalegoda Banda was arrested. On 27th November, he was tried at a special session of the Supreme Court. He was charged with high treason for declaring himself a descendent of the Kandyan kings, claiming to be the king of Kandy and waging war against the British. He stood up in court and declared himself guilty on all charges. Subsequently however, he appealed to the Governor for clemency. His sentence was then commuted to a hundred floggings and exile. On 1st January  1849, Gongalegoda Banda was flogged in Kandy before a large crowd and sent into exile. Once again, Gongalegoda Banda is remembered not for his flogging by the British – in which he was publicly humiliated – but for his calm acceptance of guilt on the charges brought against him by a court stacked against him. In this moment, he exemplified the composed body. The British Army made extraordinary use of the powers granted to them under Martial Law and arbitrarily confiscated property, randomly shot people on the streets, Court Martialled others and had them shot by firing squads (Perera 1959: 99). In the chaos that ensued, the actual numbers killed remain in dispute. Houtart estimates rebel deaths to have been between 25 and 200 persons (Houtart 1974: 207). It should be remembered, though, that the granting of jurisdiction over

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civilians to military tribunals was only passed in the UK 50 years later.10 At this time, the Governor as commander-in-chief did not have the authority to empower Army personnel to Court Martial native subjects, let alone subject them to firing squads, even under Martial Law. The question of the basic failure of the British Army to engage in a professional assessment of threat levels emerges again. The actual performance of troops in situations of Martial Law then, was in direct contrast to notions of manliness and the discourse of fair play, equality and imperilling oneself in the cause of justice. The abiding image was not one of heroic endeavour, but rather that of handcuffed detainees being shot by firing squads. Torrington was subsequently recalled by the Colonial Office after a Select Committee investigation (de Silva 1961).

The rise of a native bourgeoisie, the Buddhist revival and the Temperance movement The Colebrooke-Cameron Reforms, says the Sri Lankan historian Roberts, created the conditions for a nascent native bourgeoisie led by the karāvѐ to consolidate themselves, with the durāvѐ and salāgama playing an ancillary role (Roberts 1982, 1997 191–266). Entrepreneurial openings extended the Victorian idiom of risktaking into the economic realm. This prompted such groups, already energized by the Portuguese and Dutch, to further refine idioms of masculinity that incorporated an element of risk-taking in order to achieve the economic success that would bring them greater status. The areas that offered native investors the best returns were initially arrack-­ renting, graphite mining, commercial crops such as cinnamon, coconut and coffee and the collection of toll-taxes. The arrack industry emerged in the coastal areas during Dutch times. But it was the desire of the British to profit from lucrative excise taxes that led to a policy of installing taverns in the Kandyan regions. Here commercial plantations consumed extensive tracts of land and impoverished plantation workers offered a captive market for cheap liquor. This was done through a system of renting, in which the rights to retail arrack in a particular region was farmed out to the highest bidder. Purchasing rents meant high profits. They became the means by which much initial capital accumulation took place among local investors. Arrack-renting practices were dominated by the karāvѐ. In the Western province alone, says Roberts, between 1858-1899 more than two-thirds of the large-scale renters were karāvѐ, most of whom were Protestant Christians from Moratuwa (Roberts 1997: 205). Interestingly, salāgama and durāvѐ traders were absent from this group. A  substantial proportion though, were govigama arrivistes. After the reforms, as more economic opportunities opened up, plantation agriculture also became an important area of native investment in crops such as coconut and cinnamon. And by the 1860s, graphite mining had emerged as another profitable area (ibid.: 200). Still, though enormously profitable, in a Buddhist culture arrack-renting was not an unproblematic area of investment for native entrepreneurs. Investors soon

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discovered that a deep-rooted stigma attached to the liquor industry. Consequently, they received less deference from the larger community than traders or graphite ­producers of comparable economic weight (ibid.: 208). By the mid-1850s, then, many Protestant Christian karāvѐs had given up renting and shifted their assets into the plantation industry (ibid.: 205–207). The plantation enterprise was of course a source of solid social distinction since landholding had such positive connotations within the culture. Local investors prospered enormously in this field. The many associations that emerged between the years 1880 and 1900 to defend the rights of local planters are an index of their success. By 1882, the wealthiest karāvѐ entrepreneur, C. H. de Soysa, had initiated the Ceylon Agricultural Association to protect the interests of local planters, which – inspired by developments in India – was later converted into the Ceylon National Association (de Silva 1997: 161). Soon after, the Chilaw Association was established to secure the interests of local coconut planters (ibid.: 162). English education became another path to advancement for emergent groups. It was initially offered by mission schools. The quality of education supplied in these schools, says Jayawardena, differed with the social background of their student base. At the premier St  Thomas’ College, Colombo, the education offered was very similar to that in public schools in the Mother Country. Boys were taught English, Latin, Greek, Christianity, mathematics, English history and world geography (Jayawardena 1972: 71). The public school also brought about critical shifts in mien and deportment, initiated through institutionalized recreation, such as drill, athletics, cricket and rugby. Such games promoted Victorian notions of ‘fair play’ in which the same rules applied to all players and the best team could win. Native boys willingly incorporated these new idioms into their repertoire. Athletics enabled a better control of their bodies and of the physical environment, instilling greater self-belief. Learning also brought greater self-assurance, teaching boys to stand tall and hold their gaze. It spawned ambiguities about the validity of social deference (läjjā-bhaya), particularly towards less-Anglicized traditional elites. By the turn of the century then, boys at St Thomas’ were regularly playing cricket and tennis and acting out the idiom of ‘fair play between equals’ on the cricket pitch and rugby field. This phenomenon became so marked that one Governor was moved to comment rather acidly upon its success.11 The unexpected triumph of their own reforms then, made some British observers uneasy. This discomfort would soon to turn into fears of ‘sedition’. Consequently, those missionary schools that veered closer to the British publicschool model appeared to have created new forms of agency for native boys. But it was a particular kind of agency. As Foucault argues in his Discipline and Punish, such schools entailed an unspoken element of acquiescence; it did not permit any questioning of pedagogic paradigms, notions of ‘truth’ or sense of fairness. In colonial Ceylon, the new agency was explicitly envisaged as being played out within the parameters of the missionary template. This demanded conceding the inefficacy of Buddhism and Hinduism, seen to be built on ‘superstitions’, the trivialization of

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native cultures and ethos and deferring to the colonizers’ viewpoint in all things as the ‘truth’. Any contesting of such ‘truths’ then, raised suspicions of ‘sedition’. Such schools were urban-based and catered to the upper classes and arriviste groups. In the rural areas however, many of the children who came under the direction of the missionaries were from the emergent castes and poorer homes. In these schools, says de Alwis, the focus was on English and the scriptures rather than science and mathematics (De Alwis 1997: 105–144). Missionaries in these schools tended to be less subtle about native faith communities and to openly deride Buddhism and Hinduism as ‘idol-worship’ (Obeyesekere 1997: 371). These aspects of missionary education seemed equally threatening to the Buddhist intelligentsia, many of whom, ironically, were themselves the products of upper-end urban schools (Obeyesekere 1997: 355–384). Further, by the late-1840s, despite all the pledges in the Kandyan Convention, the missionaries succeeded in manoeuvring the disestablishment of Buddhism. This hit Buddhists hard (de Silva 1961: 91–159). Over the next decade, a formidable Buddhist resurgence began to gather pace. It was led by new entrepreneurial groups dominated by emergent castes who, as de Silva points out, were as aggressive in their defence of Buddhism as they were in driving hard bargains in trade (de Silva 1987: 181). They were also a different generation from those who led the disastrous Matale rebellion. Having been immersed in the missionary project for a greater period, they no longer wished to simply achieve greater learning (gnāna) and develop self-belief (āthma-visvāsa). They were positioned to choose what specific competences they wished to master and incorporate into their repertoire. These ranged from biblical scholarship and science which edified, to oratorical and debating skills which brought eloquence, and sporting achievements which developed physique, transforming comportment. Knowledge of Christian tenets gave Buddhist dissidents clearer insights into its conceptual divergences with their own belief system. To illuminate these, they elected to use the occupiers’ own idiom against them. The form they chose was adversarial debate. This idiom of verbal combat, however, had never been used as a tool of collective dissent before. But it was startlingly successful. It set into motion a series of debates between Buddhist monks and Christian priests throughout the 1860s and 1870s in which each would expound on the greater validity of their own creed. News of these clashes – which often grew heated – spread far and wide. It even reached the growing Theosophist movement in the USA, inducing some of its leading figures to travel to Ceylon.12 This provided a great boost to the local Buddhist and Hindu communities (de Silva 1987: 182). The Buddhist revival – followed by a Hindu and Islamic resurgence – created the momentum for the opening up of Buddhist and later Hindu schools built on the British public-school model, teaching in English. They were funded by Buddhist and Hindu philanthropists who had made their money through the conventional routes of arrack-renting, graphite mining or commercial agriculture (Roberts 1997: 222; de Silva 1987: 180). Over the next ten years, more than 40

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Buddhist schools were founded (de Silva 1987: 182). Unlike the temple schools which the colonial government abolished, the new schools focused not only on Buddhism, Pali, Sinhala literature and history, but also on science, mathematics, geography and general knowledge. Such schools attempted to teach children to overcome bhaya, while retaining läjjā-bhaya as a mode of etiquette. The most significant outcome of the revival was of course the Temperance Movement. This was an anti-alcohol protest. It dissented against the excise policy of the British government, which involved siting taverns near villages and areas such as plantations where poor and vulnerable populations were hostage to a draught of fleeting cheer. For the British, the ability to hold one’s liquor emerged as a key tenet of manliness. This being so, the ludicrous displays of inebriation among the colonized – who were totally unaccustomed to consuming liquor – evoked much derision. It was construed as a lack of manliness. Consequently, excise policy was conceived only in terms of its potential to augment colonial reserves. For Sinhala activists, on the other hand, it was the setting-up of the taverns itself that induced high levels of drunkenness – mostly among male breadwinners of the urban and rural proletariat – in a society where inebriation and uncontrolled conduct were abhorred (de Silva 1997: 160). In this view, male drunkenness led to a rise in domestic violence, and wages frittered away on alcohol pushed families already on the verge of penury towards greater destitution. Colonial excise policy then, emerged as untenable and unconscionable. Thus the Temperance Movement became an intrinsic aspect of the Buddhist revival (de Silva: ibid.). The searing irony was of course that the distilling and distributing of arrack was controlled by Sinhala investors – mostly karāvѐ Christians as well as karāvѐ Buddhists and Buddhists of other castes – some of whom then re-channelled their wealth into Buddhist causes and Temperance protests (de Silva 1997: 160; de Silva 1987: 186). As a result, the Temperance Movement became a key area of investment for the new entrepreneurial groups. Even more critically, it mediated their transition into Buddhist philanthropists, taking up the practice of bodily composure. The anti-tavern critique reverberated deep within the Buddhist psyche. It aroused intense emotions. It began as an organic grassroots movement initiated by village-level leaders such as vernacular school teachers, ayurvedic physicians and village headman (Obeyesekere 1997: 369). These groups then approached the leaders of the Buddhist revival, asking them to take the protest to the national level. The movement enabled the emergent urban Buddhist leadership to forge links with rural activists (de Silva 1987: 186). Consequently, the mobilization efforts of the Temperance Movement met with extraordinary success (Rogers 1989: 327). Its triumphs were in fact so astonishing that it once again fuelled reservations in the British about the ‘seditious’ intentions of its leadership’s long-term goals (de Silva 1987: 186–187). Such movements signalled an emergent ‘Protestant’ Buddhism, led by lay groups. Since the Buddha cannot be supplicated for material gain, over time a pantheon

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of lesser deities – mostly of Hindu origin – evolved around him, whom ordinary adherents propitiated for everyday boons. The Reformists wished to return to the Buddhist canon, its rational core, and distance themselves from such ‘superfluities’. The traditional Buddhist leadership, such as the monks of the Siyam Nikaya and the Kandyan elite, remained quite as nonplussed by this Protestant wave as the British (ibid.: 182). In terms of practices of masculinity, the main focus of the Temperance Movement was on abstemiousness, an ascetic practice that resonated even among those who began life as arrack-renters. For whatever strategies they deployed to accumulate capital, these were mostly acted out away from the public gaze, by minions and underlings. The preferred public demeanour of the new entrepreneurial groups was bodily composure. The desire for education as a strategy of upward social mobility also echoes this desire for self-transformation through acculturation as an aspect of the composed body. At the same time, the ascetic value of abstinence was here being promoted through a new practice of masculinity based on the Victorian idiom of adversarial debate. This entailed a level of verbal aggression that while it clearly signalled the transcending of bhaya, was also outside the parameters of ­läjjā-bhaya. Still, needs must when the devil drives. Alternately, a small minority of natives did succeed in joining the ranks of the colonial Civil Service. Further, though the recruitment of natives into the British Army had been abandoned after the last rebellion, a new police department was created in 1866, whose doors were opened to native applicants.13 By 1868 though, only 12% of civil servants were native (de Silva 1987: 152). However, over the decades a climate ensued in which even the offspring of the traditional elite frequently chose to acquire an English education and apply to the Civil Service rather than wait for an appointment to a post of mudaliyār or disāvѐ, which in any case might not have transpired (Roberts 1997: 191–266). The remit of the civil servant and the police officer together encompassed much of the functions of traditional officeholders, including the public works department, which supervised the building and maintenance of public infrastructure and preservation of law and order. For native applicants, the Civil Service meant assuming the new practice of manliness outlined by Colebrooke, which was of course aimed at undermining the hegemonic sway of the traditional elite. It implied incorporating aspects of the Victorian ethos that called for bodily composure, standing tall, adopting a level gaze and a pro-British orientation. It meant emulating the sartorial code of the British: a three-piece suit that encased the body from head to toe, with minor adjustments for the tropical heat. Since in the native outlook the clothed body signified social status, British office wear became a marker of distinction. But interestingly, Colebrooke’s prophecy that English education would create a class of persons who were native by birth but English in acculturation did not really unfold. In fact, what ensued was a class of persons who were native by birth, and readily assumed the ethos and accoutrements of manliness, but still seemed to wish to be Buddhist, Hindu, or Muslim.

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The Sinhala–Moor conflict (1915) The Christians were not the only group challenging the precedence of Buddhism on the island. The commercial success of the Moors over the previous two decades lent them the confidence to challenge Buddhist traditions. They began complaining to the authorities that the raucous drumming of Buddhist processions (peraheras) passing their mosques was disturbing their prayers. Buddhists, on their part, insisted that they were simply performing centuries-old rites. But why did Buddhists persist in being so discourteous as to disturb Muslims – or anyone at all – at prayer? Here the Buddhist concept of sabda pooja (worship through sound) becomes significant. Sabda pooja, says Roberts, is a form of divine invocation routinely used in both Buddhist and Hindu worship (Roberts 1994: 149–182).14 It involves drumming in shifting rhythms and tones. It is used alongside other forms of prayer through the senses, such as aroma/scent, as signified in burning incense or offering fragrant flowers, and vision/light, as implied in the lighting of oil lamps (ibid.). The very efficacy of sabda pooja then, lay in its loudness. Against this, the dominant motif in Christian and Islamic worship is of course, silent prayer. The Christian and Saivite traditions also include hymns of praise (thèvāram), which are built on more melodious cadences, unlike the pounding beat of the drums. Islam, however – especially its more conservative strains such as Wahabism – abhors music in all its forms. Further, the key event in the calendar of Buddhist temples, its monthly peraheras, involved drumming, blowing conch-shells, cracking whips and dancing over several hours. The perahera itself, says Roberts, emerges as an exuberant, performative re-affirmation of Buddhist identity (ibid.). To silence the drums then, is to cease worship. But in response to Muslim protests, the British authorities asked the Buddhists to refrain from beating their drums within a range of a hundred yards from any mosque on their route, or if not, to re-route their processions. They were then asked to confine their processions to a specific time of day. Muslim leaders subsequently insisted that Buddhist processions should cease their drumming even if there were no prayers being conducted a mosque at the time. This was considered unreasonable by even the colonial authorities (ibid.: 183–212). However, until May 1915, such disputes remained localized events, with no national ramifications (Kearney 1970; Roberts 1994). The police and District Administration were able to negotiate between rival religious factions and soothe injured sentiments. Meanwhile, by 1910, the British Army had resumed the recruitment of native troops, abandoned after the last rebellion. It was the upper-end Colombo public schools such as St Thomas’, St Peters’ and Royal College, Trinity College, Kandy and Richmond College, Galle, which supplied recruits to the colonial Civil Service as well as the British Army. This became the Ceylon Defence Force (CDF). The CDF was under the command of the General Officer Commanding, Ceylon, of the British Army in Ceylon. Such recruits were mostly Christian converts and had already imbued new notions of bodily comportment and mien along with the spirit of fair play among equals. Most of all, they had internalized a pro-British,

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pro-establishment worldview. While most officers were British, there were some Ceylonese officers within their ranks. However, as World War I  broke out, the CDF was mobilized in October 1914 and deployed in Egypt as part of the defence of the Suez Canal. Consequently, in May 1915 when the Sinhala–Muslim clash occurred, CDF troops were serving abroad. It was the 28th Panjabis of the British Army in India who were stationed at the time in Ceylon, under the command of Brigadier-General Malcolm. The role played by this Brigadier had a critical impact on how events unfolded. The Colombo Town Guard – comprised of both European and Ceylonese – was also under his command. Subsequently, the Ceylon Volunteers – auxiliary units on the lines of the Colombo Town Guard – were also formed in regional towns. The Volunteers, though, were manned entirely by Europeans recruited from among the planters and mercantile personnel (Perera 1915). Finally, the role played by the police – both Ceylonese and British officers – was also relevant. The situation was further compounded by the outbreak of World War I and the ensuing climate of scarcity. This triggered a rise in prices. As a result, the trading community of Moors began to be seen as profiteering from shortages, which created tensions between them and other groups (Jayewardena 1970: 223–233; Perera 1915). This created the conditions for yet another Sinhala–Muslim clash. The events that sparked off the violence occurred on the night of 28th May, on Castle Street, Kandy. It was Vesak, the day on which Buddhists celebrate the birth, death and enlightenment of the Buddha. A party of Sinhalas were returning to Kandy after Vesak celebrations around midnight. As they turned down Castle Street, they found their path blocked by a group of Moors standing in front of the mosque. A brief stand-off ensued. At this point, the Sinhala police inspector on duty at Castle Street intervened to persuade the Sinhalas to turn down a side street, avoiding the mosque (Perera 1915). But when they turned to do so, the Moors began jeering at them and booing. As they stood there, wavering, they were pelted with stones and empty bottles. This unprovoked humiliation – acted out in the idiom of the ruffian and the thug – angered the Sinhalas. They left but returning later with greater numbers, attacked the mosque (ibid.). Over the next day, more attacks on Moor bazaars followed. A Moor trader subsequently shot a Sinhala lad, who died of his injuries. The failure of the police to arrest the perpetrator further enraged the Sinhalas (ibid.). As news of the unrest spread, the Governor himself went to Kandy, escorted by the Inspector General of Police (IGP), the Army Commander and troops of the 28th Panjabi Regiment. On 31st May, reports of clashes in other parts of the island came in (ibid.). Over the next few days, says Roberts, the unrest spread across most of the island, and as events escalated, it became clear that Sinhala–Moor animosities of seismic proportions were building up. By 2nd June, there were reports of clashes taking place – simultaneously – at 116 locations (Roberts 1994: 187). Large crowds of Sinhalas were involved in attacks on Moors. Mobs of over a thousand were reported in many towns in the interior and in the South-Western coastal belt (Perera ibid.; Roberts ibid.).

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On the same day, the Governor declared Martial Law in five of the nine provinces of the island. But though the rioting was under control by 6th June, he failed to revoke Martial Law until more than three months later (de Souza 1919). The climate became so toxic that in early-August, E. W. Perera, a Sinhala barrister, travelled all the way to London to hand over a memorandum to the Colonial Secretary on the impact of Martial Law on the native peoples. P. Ramanathan, the only Ceylonese member of the Legislative Council, also made several speeches in the Chambers on the impact of Martial Law on ordinary Sinhalas.15 Further, Armand de Souza, Indian émigré and editor of the Morning Leader, also published an account of the event. Such accounts provide a record of this event from the point of view of native professionals who lived through them. Brigadier-General Malcolm – in charge of implementing Martial Law – was directly instrumental in creating a climate of repression that emboldened the ­Panjabis and the European Volunteers. He instructed them to shoot anyone who was out of their homes during curfew hours. De Souza states that many were shot in cold blood and not in the act of rioting or resisting authority. In particular, he says, any deaths that occurred after 5th June suggest a misuse of authority that should be investigated (ibid.). Many more were arrested and detained; others were killed with or without a trial, often based on charges later found to be false (Perera 1915; Ramanathan 1916). As the urban areas quietened down, the action spread to the villages. Here the conduct of the Punjabis has been described as undisciplined at best and corrupt and intimidating at worst (de Souza 1919; Perera 1915). They are accused of looting villages and harassing women under the guise of searching for looted goods (Perera ibid.). Thousands were arrested, in some cases entire villages, its men, women and boys, on generic charges of looting and being in possession of stolen goods. No bail was allowed. They were then tried and in some instances flogged in public or sentenced to imprisonment (Perera ibid.). In the case of the European Volunteers, the verdict is even more critical; they are accused of committing atrocities (ibid.). Villagers were harassed and flogged without being tried, and there were many charges of executions without even the fig-leaf of a trial (Perera ibid.; Ramanathan ibid.; Fernando 1970). Perera further states that Malcolm not only ordered the police and military to shoot anyone they deemed a rioter, but also announced that he didn’t want any ammunition wasted and wished them to shoot any Sinhala still on the streets through the heart. As a result, says Perera, hundreds of villagers were mown down throughout the country. In the countryside, where men usually slept on the verandas of their huts, sleeping men were shot on the grounds that Martial Law required them to sleep indoors (Perera 1915). This chaotic situation created much anxiety among the educated classes about the ignorance of ordinary people as to what Martial Law actually entailed. They feared the people did not really understand the danger they faced from armed troops. The Ceylonese, a pro-Sinhala English-language daily, wrote an open letter to the Governor requesting that the authorities make a greater effort to inform

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the public about what Martial Law implied for them, through the distribution of handbills, public announcements, etc.16 There is no evidence that this was done. Once the rioting was brought under control, Malcolm proceeded to set up Special Commissions and Courts Martial to deal with detainees.17 It should be remembered, though, that the Defence of the Realm Act, which granted military tribunals jurisdiction over civilians, was only passed in the UK itself less than a year before. This was a very new power officially given to military courts. However, as happened in 1848, such courts arbitrarily sentenced Sinhala detainees to death, and special commissions engaged in the systematic intimidation of detainees and made – equally arbitrary – decisions on the levels of compensation to be recovered from Sinhala villagers (ibid.). The operation of the Courts Martial then, was basically lacking in due process, handing out summary judgements on arrested Sinhala civilians as well as those attached to the military and police. While no European administrator, or military or police officer was found guilty under any Court Martial, many Sinhala police officials were. Ironically, this was often for conducting themselves in much the same way as European officers had done. Several were executed swiftly, before appeals could be made. In fact, Courts Martial executed up to 34 persons, frequently on the testimony of Muslim witnesses, whose perjury was exposed subsequently in civil trials (Fernando 1970). Here the case of P. B. Herat, police magistrate for the Avissavella district mentioned, among other writings, in Ramanathan’s dispatches, is interesting (Ramanathan 1916). The charge against P. B. Herat was brought by Fraser, the GA for the Western province. He claimed that on 7th July, rioters had caused damage to property in the four towns of Puwakpitiya, Avissavella, Talduwa and Napagama in the Avissavella district. He felt, however, it was Mr. Herat who was to be blamed for the damages caused since he had failed to disperse the rioting crowds with a timely use of force by the Volunteers and police under his command. Herat, on his part, says that the rioters were in a state of great enragement against the Moors. He did his best to pacify them. He points out how impossible it was to quell a crowd of over a thousand persons with only five armed constables. If by chance, he says, he had ordered the five men to fire on the crowd, they would have been clubbed to death before they could reload their guns. He explained that to avoid pointless provocation he asked the constables to put away their guns. He also said that he also did not think it advisable to let the European planters, who had enlisted as volunteers, to use their guns on this occasion. He pointed out that in doing so, he was following the example of the police officers in Colombo. He further states that Jackson, the officer commanding the European Volunteers at Avissavella, agreed with him that since there was no disturbances at Avissavella that night, and no crowd present, it was not necessary to make a display of armed force. Finally, Herat explained that he ordered the release of certain men arrested for rioting. This was because he thought that if the police attempted to keep them in confinement, they risked the danger of being attacked and killed by the crowd, and

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of the police station itself being wrecked. In doing so, he insisted, he was following the example of the Colombo police, as reported in that very morning’s newspapers. Interestingly, Herat’s charge sheet mentions four towns. This implies at least four different episodes. The suggestion appears to be that all four events were similar and could have been averted by armed constables firing into the crowds. Herat feels the mood of the crowd had to be factored in; the crowd was in such a state of enragement they would not have acted rationally when faced with armed constables. This put the latter at a serious disadvantage. The reference to the European Volunteers suggests that by the time they arrived at the scene, the situation had quietened considerably. The officer commanding the Volunteers, Jackson, had himself agreed that the situation did not warrant a show of force. In response to Fraser’s charge, however, the colonial authorities demanded that Herat should resign from his post as police magistrate. Thus, Herat is thought to deserve forfeiting his office, on the grounds that he did not offer a timely use of force to disperse the crowds. But, as Ramanathan points out, the same charge is equally valid for Fraser and his Assistant Agents and to other police magistrates and the IGP himself for not using the methods prescribed in the 8th Chapter of the Criminal Procedure Code (Ramanathan 1916: 114). What is most interesting in this episode is not simply the double standards of the British – a pervasive feature of their rule. It was that the very act an Englishman thought would be heroic – five men shooting into a crowd of about a thousand excited but unarmed rioters – was considered foolhardy by Herat, on the grounds the men might have killed them all before they could even reload. Herat clearly wanted to perform his duty as a public official as well as possible. But there is no getting away from the fact that he did not wish to risk his life to save someone else’s property. Nor the lives of his armed constables. He did not feel that it was his duty to do so, especially since there was no guarantee that doing so would achieve the results the British required. While it is possible that a show of force might have intimidated the crowd and melted them away, it is impossible to know what might have ensued. A similar situation prevailed within the Colombo Town Guard, which was composed of both European and Ceylonese members. Here again Sinhala members faced rank injustice at the hands of the colonial authorities. The case of Captain Edward Henry Peiris, Officer in the Town Guard, is instructive. Peiris was found guilty of treason and executed by firing squad. The charges against him, however, were later found to be false (Ramanathan 1916; de Souza 1919). The Special Commissions set up to decide on levels of compensation were no more unbiased. Such Commissions, says Perera, were a one-man effort, mostly GAs or military officers who were granted extra-legal punitive powers. They could threaten witnesses with penalties in order to gain information about the riots. Their usual strategy appeared to be to summon the Moors concerned and ask them for a valuation of the damages they sustained. They would then demand compensation from the local Sinhalas, who were required to make payments into a Riot

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Fund. Those who failed to pay were arrested and subjected to a Court Martial. Those who paid were pardoned (Perera 1915). For instance, R. W. Byrde, Mayor of Colombo and a Special Commissioner, suggested a general levy on Sinhalas living in the wards of Colombo to pay compensation to Moors in proportion to their wealth (ibid.). Other Special Commissioners would visit villages and decide on the level of compensation due from a village. This was done by summoning the community to a public site such as a school. Residents were asked to hand over their title deeds to the government – often without a receipt. They were then asked to pay a sum decided by the ­Commissioner as compensation within a specified period. Perera comments that the presence of Punjabi soldiers – whose reputation had travelled far – generally ensured swift payment. Even villages in which no Moors were attacked or property damaged were still required to pay compensation (Perera ibid.; Ramanathan 1916). The focus of the Special Commissions then, seemed to be simply on the ability to pay rather than the culpability of the person charged. It appeared to be a policy of collective punishment aimed at the Sinhala community rather than a serious attempt to mete out justice. Further, the conduct of Governor Chalmers is seen as very problematic by all commentators (De Souza 1919; Ramanathan 1916; Kearney 1970; Perera 1915; Jayewardena 1970). Clearly, the fact that the clash unfolded against the background of World War I coloured his judgement. He suspected that the Sinhalas –­ particularly those active in the Temperance Movement – were somehow being instigated by the Germans (Ramanathan ibid.). He seemed to have encouraged the IGP and Army commander to take action against them. Thus, within days of the riots, the houses of many Sinhalas prominent in the Temperance Movement were searched and they were arrested on charges of sedition (Blackton 1970; Rutnam 1971; Vythilingam 1977).18 It was the Governor’s failure to revoke Martial Law even after the rioting was under control that enabled the Courts Martial of many civilians and their subsequent shooting by firing squads (Blackton ibid.; Vythilingam ibid.). Thus, more people were shot and killed by the Army and police than actually died in clashes between rival communities (Ramanathan 1916; De Souza 1919; Perera 1915). In the end, up to 110 people are thought to have died (Perera 1915). Even as the newly-Anglicized Sinhala and Tamil leaders evoked British norms of fairness, impartiality and equality under the law, the colonial authorities acted in a blatantly biased manner. Finally, a very revealing scene played out on the floor of the Legislative Council at its session subsequent to the riots, when Chalmers openly attempted to intimidate Ramanathan. Ramanathan stood and proceeded to criticize the conduct of British officials. At this point the Governor intervened, pointing out that the officials mentioned were also present in the chamber and asking Ramanathan – repeatedly – if he wished to expunge his comments. Ramanathan responded by explaining his creed, which was that private friendships should not stand in the way of civic duty, and however unpleasant it may be, as a member of the Legislative

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Council he felt it was his duty to impartially speak the truth (Ramanathan 1916: vi). The Governor clearly did not wish to hear unpleasant truths. Here Ceylonese leaders such as Ramanathan and Perera are making a more earnest effort to live up to the Victorian ethic – which demands that one finds the courage to speak truth to power and separate out the private from the public – than Englishmen such as the Governor and Brigadier-General Malcolm, who diminished themselves by their inability live up to their own code. This brought disrepute upon the colonial administration and the British Army. In response to complaints about his conduct, in December  1915 Chalmers was removed from his post. Sir John Anderson, who succeeded him as Governor, appointed a Commission on 26th October 1916, to inquire into the shooting of nine Sinhala detainees. In each case, the Commission could not justify the shooting on the grounds of the existence of Martial Law.19 In this episode, it is clear that the Sinhalas attacked Muslims because they felt that they were trying to humiliate them – as a community – by preventing them from conducting their religious processions in the form of peraheras. Muslims saw such peraheras as mere ‘noise’ that disturbed their prayer and was therefore ­disrespectful. But the British Army, under Malcolm, actually presided over a process through which many Sinhalas were defrauded of their property – and many their lives – by a few unscrupulous Muslims, under the guise of restoring law and order, because they feared the explosive potential of Buddhist dissent. They created pseudo-legal structures such as Military Courts and Special Commissions to lend a spurious legality to this process. The unleashing of Martial Law did disempower Sinhala leaders in the short term. But it in the longer term, it fuelled the rise of a nationalist movement, led by those leaders who had felt the thick edge of British brutality. They learnt that while the code of honour itself may be valid, those who ruled in its name did not always uphold its precepts. In subsequent decades, the nationalist movement was accompanied by radicalization on the trade union front. This led to a general strike in 1923 that involved up to 25,000 workers. Still, though seriously inconvenienced, the British never again resorted to declaring Martial Law or brought in the CDF to restore law and order. Public disorder was dealt with by the police.

Adult franchise, independence and the setting up of the Ceylon Army This mobilization on all fronts successfully delivered universal adult franchise in 1933, which transformed the island’s political landscape. It set the stage for the advent of political parties. The first to emerge was the Lanka Sama Samaja Pakshaya (LSSP) in 1935, which was an ad hoc group of young Marxists and intellectuals – mostly non-govigama – educated in the UK and USA (Houtart 1974: 236–237). Consequently, they were also part of the Anglicized elite, instilled with the Victorian ethos (ibid.: 37). They condemned the ascriptive outlook of the feudal elite, as Colebrooke intended they should. But their class-based analysis of

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society also entailed a stinging critique of colonialism. The conservative nationalists whose project was to present Buddhism in a rational, scientific light, cleansed of its attendant ‘excrescences’ of minor gods and demons, now found themselves outradicalized by the Marxists. This enabled them to steal their anti-colonial clothes as well as their trade unions. With the outbreak of World War II however, the Marxists were driven underground by the British. But by its end Britain herself was devastated and unable to hold onto her colonies. Decolonization was on the cards. The displacement of the Marxists enabled conservative Sinhala leaders to regroup and come together to form the United National Party (UNP). When national independence arrived in 1948, it was the UNP which assumed power. The UNP leadership was mostly drawn from the pro-establishment mudaliyār strata (Jayewardena 2010: 24–25). Unlike the Marxists, who challenged many aspects of British policy, the UNP remained unabashedly pro-British. Since national independence was not gained through political struggle, ­British military institutions also retained their legitimacy. The CDF was demobilized in 1949, and out of its ashes the Ceylon Army emerged. The position of G ­ eneral Officer Commanding, Ceylon Army, was offered to Brigadier Roderick Sinclair, Earl of Caithness. The new Ceylon Army therefore retained strong British ties and remained steeped in British military tradition. These ties were reinforced by the fact that most of the disbanded CDF personnel became v­ olunteers in the new Army. The Ceylon Army consisted of both regular and volunteer forces. Officer cadets were sent to the Royal Military Academy, S­ andhurst, to be trained. Within ­Ceylon, a British Army training team was installed at the hillside resort of ­Diyatalawa, to provide refresher training for commissioned officers (COs), non-commissioned officers (NCOs) and enlisted men in the new Regular Force. Until independence then, the role of the Army had been to restrain sections of the native populace protesting aspects of British rule. Anti-British dissent was led by the Left parties, whose power lay in their strong links to Marxist and working-class–based trade unions. This tended to reinforce a very pro-establishment and anti-Marxist worldview across all ranks (SLA 1999: 65–66). They were at ease only with those social groups who adopted an Anglicized dress code, which became a marker of middle-class status and resonated with their own mode of self-­ presentation. Those groups did not were deemed potentially subversive. Over the first decade, the basic requirement was to raise an artillery regiment, an engineer squadron, an infantry battalion, a medical unit and a service corps company (ibid.). Since the language of administration in the Army remained ­English – as was the case in the CDF – recruitment to the officer grades was still from the better-known English-language schools. Students at these establishments were ethnically mixed but tended to be from upper-middle and middle-class, Englishspeaking and Christian backgrounds. Such schools fostered the student cadet corps that were a feature of the British public-school tradition. This eased the passage to military drill for new recruits. The concept of student cadets though, was still alien

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to the Theosophist-sponsored Buddhist public schools with their pacifist ethos and focus on Sinhala nationalism. Upon enlisting, officers as well as other ranks were sent to specialist training courses in Britain, India, Pakistan and Malaysia (ibid.: 58).20 New recruits learnt to divide-up their day according to a rigorous time-table, focus on the specific task in hand, stand to attention when addressed and goose-step in ceremonial drills. Essentially, the Ceylon Army entailed the reinforcing of forms of bodily comportment young cadets acquired marching with their school cadet corps. This demanded transposing aspects of a ‘manly’ posture onto a practice of masculinity that was still firmly based on status. For officers, the Army provided a bastion of middle-class solidity, at a time when the rest of the island was undergoing the nationalist tremors of post-colonialism. For enlisted men, the Army offered a smart uniform that provided the trappings of status and a well-established route of upward social mobility.

Class struggles and inter-ethnic clashes The first test for the Ceylon Army became the hartal of 1953. The hartal – an idiom of collective protest borrowed from the Indian National Congress – was led by the LSSP and other Left parties, in response to the new UNP’s decision to raise the price of rice. The price of rice was subsidized since it was the staple food of the people. This was a trend that came into being in the mid-1930s with the entry of the LSSP into electoral politics. Keeping the price of rice low was seen as a key strategy of ensuring food security for the poor, which of course it was. In the pre-colonial economy, even tenant cultivators rarely starved because they could retain sufficient rice for their own consumption, or if crops failed, seek food relief from their overlord. But the advent of the cash crop economy took away this basic insurance from the rural poor and the urban working classes represented by the LSSP. Here the traditional role in ensuring food security played by the feudal elite – as representatives of the state/king – was now thrust upon elected governments. The UNP elite – who did not represent the feudal leadership and saw the role of the state in wholly laissez faire terms – did not seem to have quite grasped this. Thus the UNP responded to the hartal by declaring Emergency Rule. This was the first time a post-colonial regime resorted to a State of Exception. The results were quite as drastic as British recourses to Martial Law. Though it lasted only a day, the hartal was extraordinarily violent. Some sections of the strikers engaged in the spectacular destruction of state property. The police responded harshly, and in the ensuing fracas, at least ten strikers were killed. With the failure of the police to deal with the strike, the regime was forced to deploy the Army (Halliday 1971; Kearney 1971). But the strike was merely a symptom of a larger malaise. A post-colonial reckoning of seismic proportions was on the cards. Sinhala Buddhists – who comprised up to 70% of the population – were increasingly resentful at being ruled by a small, Anglicized, mostly Christian minority, as exemplified by the UNP. The runaway

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commercial success of the British plantation economy and the entrée it offered into the world of modern science and technology ensured that this Anglicized practice of manliness would retain its hegemonic appeal. It was deemed desirable by upwardly mobile social groups who mimicked any aspect of it they could. Against this, non-elite groups who could not access this practice viewed it with ambiguity. It also created antipathy among social critics who were themselves products of missionary education as well as many strands of the native intelligentsia. A  new nationalist upsurge began to manifest itself. It aimed at phasing out symptoms of this convention: the trappings of Anglicization. In terms of bodily ­practice, this involved disdaining the three-piece suit that had become the uniform of colonial officialdom for an ensemble called the ‘national’. The ‘national’ teamed the Sinhala white sarong with a loose, collarless, knee-length shirt. The ‘national’ encapsulated an emergent practice of masculinity that was unifying in that it transcended class and caste while actively contesting the hegemony of the Anglicized bureaucrat. A call was also raised to replace English – the language of the Civil Service – with Sinhala. But the prospect of the Sinhalization of the administration alarmed Tamil-speakers of all classes who spoke little Sinhala and read less. They responded by demanding 50:50, or parity for Tamil. Since Tamils comprised less than 20% of the population, this demand incensed the Sinhalas further. Such debates on language were not unlinked to issues of social class. Tamils were – at this point – over-represented in the Civil Service. This was because the Jaffna Peninsula – the nucleus of Tamil culture – had a high concentration of English-teaching schools built by American missionaries who channelled all their efforts into this particular region. As a result, Tamils were perceived to have been privileged by the colonial state in terms of education and white-collar employment, which became a popular Sinhala grievance. They refused to concede 50:50. A breakaway group of the UNP now formed the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), which linked up with the Left parties and Sinhala nationalists to campaign on the slogan ‘Sinhala only’. Their electoral victory created the conditions for the Sinhalization of the public sector. Tamil politicians responded with a satyagraha (trans. lit. word of God/truth). Satyagraha, a meditational posture – usually assumed by Hindu holy men – was co-opted by Gandhi into a political idiom of dissent against the British. It implied a collective meditation on truth, or the correct path to any political issue. In this instance, the satyagraha involved Tamil legislators sitting outside parliament in silent protest. The satyagrahis then, exemplified the composed body, eschewing the riotous disorderliness of Sinhala politics. But this evoked a harsh response from both the state and Sinhala community-at-large in the idiom of the marauder, thug and goon. Anti-Tamil attacks first began in the Gal Oya Land Resettlement Scheme in the Ampara district. Here lands had been parcelled out to Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim settlers.21 This made it an ethnic tinder-box. As the clashes began, once again Emergency Rule was declared. A State of Emergency, however, differs from a Martial Law situation. When an Emergency is declared, the regime-in-power is allowed to use increased executive

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powers in response to this perceived Emergency. But this does not entail the suspension of the law or the disenfranchisement of the population in the area ­concerned. In this instance, the Emergency in fact did not deter Sinhala rioters. In the ensuing clashes, around 150 settlers – mostly Tamils but some Sinhalas and Muslims – were killed. As happened before, the police initially failed to act and the Army was called in. They restored order (SLA 1999: 97). Ethnic animosities broke out again in many places in 1958, and for the first time a State of Emergency was declared throughout the island. Some of the worst clashes took place in another settlement in the Polonnaruwa district. Up to 70 Tamils were killed. Sinhala toughs attacked the police who were trying to protect Tamils, and some policemen died of their injuries. Subsequently, a unit of 25 soldiers were sent to the location. Confronted by a mob of more than 3,000 people, soldiers shot into the crowd and killed three, dispersing the crowd. In this instance then, unlike Herat – the police magistrate tasked with dispersing a violent mob more than 40 years earlier – soldiers of the Ceylon Army did not hesitate to shoot live ammunition to disperse an enraged crowd. By this point in time, they had internalized the British military ethic and were not embattled about what course of action to take. They were clear about what their duty as soldiers entailed. While up to 300 persons are thought to have died violently in these clashes, the Army’s decisive action may in fact have prevented more Tamil deaths. A period of civic unrest followed. In a shocking development, the leader of the SLFP, Bandaranaike, was himself was gunned down in 1959 by Sinhala extremists angered by even the partial concession offered to Tamils. Strikes and s­atyagrahas followed in quick succession. By December  1961, a strike was paralysing the Colombo Port, a key installation. It required around 14,000 workers to keep the port open and now the Army was brought in as strike-breakers (SLA 1999: 126). A month later, the Army was redeployed to deal with strikes in the transport sector (ibid.: 128). Thus in this first decade, faced with unruly rioters and strikers, the Army acted with a measure of professionalism and impartiality to disperse them. This was more so in the case of inter-ethnic clashes than trade union disputes, in which they tended to play a strike-breaking role. There was a good reason for this. A large proportion of the Ceylon Army officers and a significant proportion of enlisted men were themselves Tamils and Tamil-speaking Moors. In fact, Brigadier Muttukumaru, the first Sri Lankan Commander of the Army appointed in 1955, was himself Tamil. Thus while hostile to trade union disputes, they understood the increasingly precarious position of the Tamil minority in the island, and their responsibility to maintain law and order under such conditions. By the mid-1950s, more than half of the officers were Christians – both Catholic and Protestant – mostly drawn from the Tamil and Burgher minorities. Less than 40% of officers were Sinhala Buddhists.22 Since approximately 75% of the population was Sinhala, the minorities were clearly over-represented in the officer ranks. Many of these were British-trained CDF veterans. Among enlisted men, a larger proportion, around 55% were Sinhala Buddhists, with around 12% Tamils.23

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But changes were afoot. The legislation on ‘Sinhala only’ had direct implications for the Ceylon Army. A process was initiated to switch the language of instruction to Sinhala (SLA 1999: 97). As was to be expected, many officers were seriously disturbed by such nationalist changes taking place within the Army and in the larger society. The most startling response was of course the attempted military coup of January 1962. This was a bid by some senior members of the Volunteer Force with the support of equally senior police officers. It was stopped only hours before being launched (ibid.: 129). The 24 officers who were finally charged were all Christians from elitist ­backgrounds, of whom 12 were Sinhala, 6 Tamil and 6 Burgher.24 In its report, the Sansoni Commission, which was appointed to interrogate coup suspects, suggests that their main fears seemed to have been that the economy was being mismanaged and the island was moving towards a socialist economy.25 They wished to return power to a group of UNP politicians after removing the elected government.26 In this, they appeared to have been moved more by a profound sense of class anxiety rather than anti-state or anti-establishment sentiments. It was a response to the Sinhalization of public administration, by middle-class Sinhala officers – many of whom had become so Anglicized that they no longer spoke fluent Sinhala – as well as those from the minorities. They felt it was their duty as soldiers and policemen to halt the Sinhalization of the Army.

Concluding comments The French revolution dimmed the lustre of the nobility’s code of honour across the continent. In England however, the Victorian elite still believed earnestly in the tenets of manliness: of fairness, impartiality, adventurousness and a rational–­ scientific outlook. They took great pride in Britain’s position as the leader of the Industrial Revolution. But within the British Army, even more than other European militaries, endless religious wars had transformed notions of honour from imperilling oneself for God to carrying out brutal sanctions against enlisted men. In colonies such as Ceylon, this extended easily into violence against native groups. Consequently, what manliness signified differed according to the actors’ location. In Ceylon, the colonial government sought to undermine the authority of the feudal chiefs through the Colebrooke–Cameron Reforms, which aimed to create a new elite who would be native by birth but English by acculturation. Codes of manliness were crucial to this project. The reforms, however, did not unfold quite as the British had envisaged. Many groups took to the missionary education project with enthusiasm. But the disestablishment of Buddhism in the 1850s set into motion a Buddhist resurgence that took the colonizers entirely by surprise. It saw the emergence of dozens of Buddhist and Hindu schools modelled on British public school lines, teaching in English. Such schools reiterated their commitment to Victorian tenets. But this entailed certain kinds of Victorian values. Buddhist schools endorsed qualities such as fairness, impartiality, individualism or one-to-one encounters in the classroom and a

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broadly scientific outlook. They produced students committed to a Rule of Law and accepting of the authority of the colonial state. To this extent, they accorded with Foucault’s theory of students internalizing the norms of disciplinary institutions. Interestingly however, their notion of ‘truth’ also entailed a sharp criticism of the missionary definition of the moral life and the exploitative aspects of British colonialism. More importantly, the revival generated drives such as the Temperance Movement that critiqued British excise policy. The extraordinary success of such mobilization efforts created anxieties about ‘sedition’ within the colonial government. These fears set into place a massive repressive project. It was acted out during the Sinhala–Moor clash of 1915, which was a product of the heightened ethno-­ religious identities that transpired in the wake of the Buddhist–Hindu resurgence. The colonial government exploited the situation – with the help of some unscrupulous Moor traders – to engage in a brutal onslaught on the leaders of the Temperance Movement. The British Army became willing pawns in this project. Ironically enough, the repression worked to validate the moral authority of the Buddhist resurgence, and a nationalist movement began to coalesce, which was successful in extracting universal adult franchise in 1933. Achieving universal franchise – a first in South Asia – in fact validated the ethos of Buddhist–Hindu public schools and the version of manliness they signified. This included mass protests in response to British repression, which however, was confined to democratic arenas rather than engaging in armed rebellion. It also led to the emergence of political parties. The parties that emerged though, denoted significant divergences within Sinhala hegemonic masculinity. Though at this point all groups were united in their Anglicized comportment and embrace of Victorian values, the Marxist LSSP, for instance, constructed a stringent anti-colonial critique and were backed by worker-led trade unions, while conservative groups, even though pro-Buddhist, remained unabashedly pro-British. By 1910, the CDF had resumed native recruitment. Recruits were mostly from the upper-end public schools and tended to be Sinhala Christians with a minority of Tamils, Moors and Malays. It became the Ceylon Army in 1949 and remained steeped in British traditions. Its officer corps was middle-class and Anglicized, with a large proportion of minorities and a strong anti-Marxist, anti–working-class bias. Thus they frequently played a strike-breaking role in trade union disputes. In antiTamil ethnic clashes however, its significant Tamil base enabled it to be supportive of victims, saving hundreds of Tamil lives. All of this moreover, signified a different version of manliness that incorporated risking-the-body to a larger extent. However by the mid-1950s, language politics intervened. The attempt by some groups to shift the language of public administration from English to Sinhala energized Tamil-speaking groups who did not speak Sinhala. This was accompanied by a counter-practice of masculinity among Sinhala-speaking groups in the countryside who finally rejected the trappings of Anglicization such as the three-piece suit, taking to the ’national’ instead. This signified a partial return to the convention of the composed body. It stressed bodily composure, and alongside landholdings,

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learning as an index of status and concern for the plight of the urban poor and those dispossessed by colonial land policies. By the late-1950s, such groups had come together under the SLFP. All these processes in turn generated a fear among groups of conservative military officers and policemen – mostly Sinhala Christians and Christians in the Tamil and Burgher minorities – that the island was moving towards a socialist economy, which imperilled, among other things, their codes of masculinity. This led to an attempted coup. The Army then, was out of step with radical changes taking place in Sri Lankan society. In later decades, the composition of the Army’s officer corps began to be more aligned to that of the larger population. But its anti-Marxist bias remained. This as well as its pro-Sinhala bias was to impact on its subsequent repressive projects among left-wing guerrillas and Tamil insurgents.

Notes 1 Stephen Luscombe (1997) Ceylon. www.britishempire.co.uk, accessed on 26 September 2017. 2 Luscombe, Ceylon. 3 Ibid. 4 Ähälepola himself appeared to have had high expectations of the British crowning him, but he lacked popular support and these never materialized (de Silva 1961: 91–159). 5 Luscombe, Ceylon. 6 See Lenard Woolfe’s novel Village in the Jungle which evocatively captures conditions in colonial Ceylon during this time in Sinhala villages. 7 In 1832, the governor appointed a committee to form a police force, including 150 peons, who were recruited from native groups (www.police.lk/index.php/police-­ history, accessed on 20 October 2019). 8 Enclosure in Torrington’s confidential dispatch to Grey, 14 November  1849. C.O. 54/263. 9 Ibid. 10 Defence of the Realm Act of 4 August 1914. 11 Governor Hugh Clifford. Colonial Office series 537/692, Public Records Office, Kew, UK. 12 The Theosophists were a 19th century movement based on Buddhist and Hindu teachings that emerged in Western Europe and spread to North America, and expounded notions of universal brotherhood. 13 Lokubanda Dunuwila, Disāvѐ of Uva, appointed in 1866, was the first native Superintendent of Police for Kandy (www.police.lk/index.php/police-history, accessed on 20 October 2019). 14 Here different deities are thought to be susceptible to invocations through the different senses. 15 Ramanathan himself was a Tamil. 16 Included in E. W. Perera’s Memorandum to the Colonial Secretary, Hon. Bonar Law, 1915. 17 These differed from ordinary courts in that the level of corroborative evidence required to bring charges against a suspect was very much lower. 18 These included F. R. Senanayake, D. S. Senanayake (later the first prime minister of ­Ceylon), D. B. Jayatilaka, W. A. de Silva, F. R. Dias Bandaranaike, E. T. de Silva, Dr  Casius Ferreira, C. Batuvantudawe, D. P. A. Wijewardene, John de Silva, W. H. W. Perera, Martinus Perera, John M. Senivaratne, Arthur V. Dias, H. Amarasurya, D. E. Weerasuriya, Reverent G. D. Lanerolle, E. A. P. Wijeyeratne, Harry Mel, A. H. E.

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Molamure, A. E. Goonesinha, Battaramulla Unanse – a monk – Edmund and Dr C. A. Hewavitharatne, the brothers of Anagarika Dharmapala, who was also interned in Calcutta, where he had been during the unrest. 19 However, the actions of the colonial government were protected by the Ceylon Indemnity Order in Council 1915. 20 Between 1950 and 1968, Sandhurst trained 107 officer cadets from Ceylon (SLA 1999: 58). These were cadets who were fluent enough in English as to be able to follow the course. Thereafter, smaller numbers were trained at Sandhurst periodically. 21 Such settlement schemes involved the damming of rivers – in this instance the Mahaveli River – to create reservoirs that could irrigate new lands and bring them under cultivation. 22 Sri Lanka – country study, Ethnic composition of the armed forces (www.country-data.com, accessed on 26 September 2017). 23 Sri Lanka – country study, Ethnic composition. 24 The leader of the coup, Colonel F.C. de Saram, was a cousin of the Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s late husband and a member of one of the leading families on the island. 25 See D. B. S. Jeyaraj, Daily Mirror, accessed on 31 January 2012. 26 Ibid.

4 GROWING UP Youth uprisings, social change and ethnic conflict

Introduction At independence, the rural landscape in the Sinhala-speaking South was a kaleidoscope of fragmented holdings and high levels of peasant indebtedness. This led to the emergence of a new rural proletariat (Obeyesekere 1967). Some within this group were landless peasants driven into daily waged labour. Others retained some land but could not make ends meet by cultivation alone and routinely resorted to waged labour. Still others struggled to get by with small self-employment projects such as dairy-rearing and poultry-keeping. It was from these groups that the research participants were drawn. For such groups, perhaps the most significant development in post-colonial biopolitics was the granting of free universal education. This had a tremendous impact. It raised the possibility of gaining greater composure; of overcoming the practice of the bare, sweating body and entering into a clothed, desk-bound role such as a clerical or teaching position. The shifting of the media of education in the late-1950s from English into the local languages succeeded in mainstreaming native pedagogics. This opened up higher education. Impoverished students in the more remote native-language schools across the island could have higher aspirations. This set into motion a process where each successive generation began investing more years into education. Still, the lack of facility in English inhibited their absorption into the prestigious public sector and the lucrative mercantile sector. This compelled them, despite their education, to return to the stagnating rural economy. These were the conditions that set the stage for the radicalization of the electorate that unleashed the political upheavals of the 1970s. Developments on the international stage were also propitious for revolution. In 1967, the Sino–Soviet break erupted, shattering the seemingly indestructible

DOI: 10.4324/9781003362036-4

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Communist bloc. The subsequent breaking away of pro-Maoist groups from ­Stalinist communist parties led to the emergence of New Left factions across Asia, Africa and Latin America. In Ceylon, a pro-Maoist faction, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), broke away from the Stalinist-led Communist Party of Sri Lanka (CPSL). In 1970, in a surging tide of nationalism, the SLFP once again swept into power with the Left parties. This became the United Left Front (ULF) coalition, in which the CPSL and the Trotskyite LSSP were senior partners. But in the countryside, the despair of the educated poor – whose investments into education brought no returns in terms of social mobility – created the conditions for rural students to flock to the breakaway JVP. The JVP subsequently launched an armed uprising in April 1971. The April Uprising became the critical event that shaped the formative years of those who participated in this study, all of whom were born in the years 1970–1971. But the 1980s proved to be even more critical in terms of shifts in practices of masculinity. This chapter explores the formative years of respondents, based on the life narratives of four ex-servicemen. Through their stories, it will attempt to chart the ways in which the narrators, as young boys, attempted to assimilate, co-opt or engage with tropes of Sinhala masculinity as expressed in notions of fatherhood, fraternity, friendship and fearlessness, in an effort to build up their own repertoire of teenaged masculinities.

The narrators: Varuna, Udaya, Nirmal and Pradeep Like other participants in this study, the narrators were drawn from the ranks of the rural proletariat. This becomes significant, because no special weight was given to socio-economic background in selecting participants. In the 1990s then, the SLA seemed to offer the best prospects for young men within the rural poor. Varuna, born in 1971 in Hali-Ela in the Badulla district, was 5’11” and weighed in at 140 lbs. He joined the Gajabha Regiment (GR) in 1991 and had risen to the rank of sergeant when he completed 12 years of service. Udaya was born in 1970, in the village of Ratgama on the South-Western coast. Six feet tall and weighing 160 lbs, he joined the Sinha Regiment (SR) in 1990 and was also a sergeant when he became eligible for an honourable discharge. Nirmal, born the same year in Matale, was 5’11” and 150 lbs and joined the GR at the same time as Udaya. He too rose to the rank of sergeant. Finally, Pradeep, born in 1972, was from Matara. At 5’ 9” and 130 lbs, he was slighter than the others, but wiry. He joined the Vijayabha Regiment (VR) in 1991 and was a lance corporal when he left. Like many other participants in the study, all the men – except perhaps Pradeep – were somewhat above average height for Sri Lankan men, and athletic rather than bookish in disposition. Varuna was in the First Eleven of his school’s cricket team. Udaya successfully competed at swimming meets at the district level as a teenager. Nirmal was a track star at his school. Pradeep, despite his deceptively slight appearance, did putt and javelin in high school.

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In terms of embodiment then, these were a new generation of Sinhala men, taller, stronger and at ease with the notion of risking-the-body in competitive sports. In terms of comportment, they stood straight, in the stance of the soldier. The three sergeants certainly exuded a certain authority and confidence, readily making eye contact. Pradeep remained somewhat self-effacing. Initially all four men tended to answer all questions concisely and to the point, as did other participants. But over the months they took time to be more reflective and seemed to return to their more informal, loquacious and humorous ‘civil-life’ persona, as they described it.

Performance and cultural repertoire: Varuna Gender identity, argues Butler, is not biologically ‘fixed’. It is rather a performance, an acting out of roles chosen from one’s cultural repertoire, which may include male as well as female role-play (Butler 1990). Thus, as young children, many Sinhala boys choose to act out what might later seem to be ‘girlie stuff ’. For instance, at 11 years old, Varuna was already a resourceful lad who did not let antiquated gender distinctions stand in his way. His parents ran a cornershop in a small town in the interior, working long hours. It was his aunt who looked after him and his brothers during the day. Varuna – the eldest of four boys – adored his aunt (godak ādare), and really did not mind doing the ‘girlie stuff’ entailed in helping her to look after his brothers. This involved helping her to cook by grating coconuts for her, cleaning the onions and chopping them up fine. He would at times even wash out his little brothers’ white school shirts because he worried that she would be shocked at how grubby they were. But he also enjoyed doing ‘boy stuff ’ such as playing cricket for his school’s under-13 team. He could, at a pinch, even play adult roles such as minding his father’s store. Me, I just put my hand to everything, he says, with justifiable pride. He acts out all these different roles according to the particular situation in which he finds himself. Performing such roles, of course, does not really make him ‘less’ or ‘more’ of a boy. Rather, what they display is the range of his repertoire – which stretches all the way from cooking to cricket to minding the shop, with many interesting skills and abilities in between. Further, such role-play is culturally conditioned. Every culture of course, cooks differently. Even in impoverished rural households, Sri Lankan food preparation is relatively elaborate. Meals are typically vegetarian and involve boiled rice, two or three curries and a kind of salad made with finely sliced leaves, onions and grated coconut (mällun). Curries are comprised of any vegetable or legume cooked with browned onions, herbs and various condiments in different proportions and, finally, coconut milk. Grating coconut and chopping onions then, are the basic chores on which Sinhala cooking builds. They are rather tedious and time consuming. If one has the patience to grate coconuts and chop onions fine, however, Sinhala cuisine is not a challenge. Cooking itself therefore emerges as a culturallynuanced practice.

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Similarly, doing laundry in an impoverished rural Sri Lankan household is not a matter of tossing clothes into a washing machine. It involved going down to the well, scrubbing them thoroughly by hand, leaving them to soak awhile and rinsing them out. Further, all nations evolve their own ‘coaching culture’ on the cricket pitch at the junior high level. School coaches nurture culture-specific skills and traits such as self-composure (thänpath-kama), body control (shāririka-vinaya) and focus (avadhānaya) in promising young bowlers in order to induce them to achieve a perfect length or turn the ball on a grassy surface. Finally, minding a corner store in a small Sri Lankan town also demands specific cultural skills, especially for a pre-teen. This includes infinite patience and courtesy (läjjā-bhaya) in the face of inebriated adult customers demanding goods on credit. Varuna had to pretend – convincingly – that he did not understand how this could be negotiated and that he worried his dad would get mad at him, even though he knew he wouldn’t. Consequently, the coming together of all this acting-out of practices, idioms, guiles, conventions and norms makes up his cultural repertoire. As a young child, Varuna exemplifies the deferential body. He aspired to achieve greater composure. However, he does this not only through academic performance, but also by ­incorporating a range of competences, including risk-taking strategies, into his repertoire; he pushes his body to its limits on the cricket field and silently ­challenges gender stereotypes at home while his younger brothers look on admiringly. He succeeds because the outcome of his efforts is endorsed by his family and the community-at-large, encouraging him push ahead. If they were relentlessly critical, it might have been more problematic to keep doing this. What he cannot do, though, is to act out roles or practices that he has not encountered, experienced or experimented with. They remain outside his compass. They are not – yet – part of his repertoire. In her subsequent Bodies That Matter, Butler develops her argument further. This performativity, she says, is not a singular ‘act’ as such, but a reiteration: a reenactment of a set of cultural roles, practices, idioms or norms. But in the course of being re-enacted, the practices acted out are – to a greater or lesser extent – transformed. Each enactment then, is a new version of the original role (Butler 1993). Performance now involves endless attempts to act out cultural practices or idioms in an effort to perfect them. Or it might also involve acting out innovative versions of the original practice, by incorporating new elements. Thus each time Varuna scrapes coconut and chops onions, he gets a better result. He gets more coconut off the shell and the onions are chopped finer. In time, he could embark on his own cooking expeditions. He also gets cleaner ­laundry with each try. His ability to achieve a better length with the ball improves with every practice session, and his skills at negotiating with customers grow smoother with each effort. But at a more profound level, a range of cultural practices, conventions and idioms are acted out with subtle as well as radical differences over a lifetime. For instance, the Sinhala convention of deference to seniority (läjjā-bhaya) – as a practice of masculinity – is acted out in diverse ways at different points in life. Typically,

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Sinhala boys tend to assume postures of bodily deference before their parents or other figures of authority. They act out their desire for parental validation through the docile demeanour of their bodies. This is exemplified in the rite in which children prostrate themselves before their parents on auspicious days and at significant moments – which reiterate vassals paying homage to their lords – in order to receive their blessings. In their mid-teens, boys frequently found that they were now more educated than their parents, and this brought a certain sombreness and greater composure. At the same time, performing in the classroom, on the sports field or even just playing cricket with neighbours all worked to toughen a fragile sense of self, easily assailed by rough physical contact or public denigrations. This enabled not only more assertive ways of carrying themselves but expressing combative opinions. At the same time, boys often retain the gesture of touching their parent’s feet at key moments, such as when leaving for school each morning. Homage is also paid in the same way to other figures of authority, such as teachers. In this new version of the practice, postures of bodily deference are now replaced by a strategy of acting out gestures of filial homage at key moments. Such gestures assume the form of social etiquette rather than a display of deference per se. Thus, though the content of this relationship has shifted somewhat, the form is retained. Once in the Army, young recruits learn to stand up straight. Bodily deference is replaced by standing to attention. The practice of deference to authority now takes a different form, which involves saluting superiors while standing erect. In this new practice of conveying deference, their entire comportment undergoes a transformation. They acquire an upright bearing at all times. Still, many respondents reiterated that they would never want to hurt their mother’s or father’s feelings by any display of ‘arrogance’ (lokukama pennanna) when in their presence. This implies that – even though their bodies now stand tall – they make an effort to assume a deferential mien in the presence of their parents. And in fact, many narrators mentioned that their first act on returning from the battlefield would be to pay homage to their parents, in order to affirm their happiness to be home (vandala innakan hithata hari ne). Here, their happiness to be home is inextricably linked to the desire to receive the blessings (prārthanā) that parents bestow upon their children in response to their homage. Clearly then, narrators intuitively grasped that the kind of bodily comportment lauded in the barracks may not be applauded in the domestic realm. This is in direct contrast to the Sinhala cadets who joined the CDF in the 1880s, who strived to absorb the British manly ethos and were successful because their own families and the larger community – being colonized – aspired to mimic Victorian tropes. But, a century later, the post-colonial devaluation of Anglicization creates deep ambiguities. Recruits avoided conducting themselves in a way that might be construed as aggressive and ‘disappoint’ their parents. While parents were happy to see their sons smartly dressed in uniform therefore, aggression in the domestic sphere is seen to imply a more negative practice: that of the chandiya or tough. In the next section, the narrators speak about events that shaped their lives. It begins with the April Uprising, the repression of which threw a significant shadow

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over their formative years, since most narrators were born in 1971. These accounts take the form of a conversation with the writer.

The April Uprising and its repercussions The April Uprising was a total shock to the Sinhala establishment, since the regime-in-power was itself a Left coalition. The insurgents attacked 91 police stations, ­capturing 32.1 In the harsh repression that followed, up to 5,000 activists were killed and over 10,000 detained. Many detainees died as a result of torture.2 Fifty-three service personnel also died. In this event, the extraordinarily repressive conduct of the Ceylon Army took many observers by surprise. It wholly recapitulated the fury of the British Army when faced with Sinhala rebellions. This time, not only were suspected activists killed, their wives and girlfriends were also ­sometimes raped and killed (Alles 1990). It was the rural poor in the South-Western coastal belt, the North-Central Province and parts of the Central Province who were most seriously affected by mopping-up operations against rebels conducted by the Army. Consequently, the First Uprising had a profound impact upon the parental generation of the respondents. Udaya and Pradeep, whose families were affected, speak of the effect this event had on their parents, and the problems faced by the families of the disappeared.

Narrative 1 – The April Uprising: Udaya and Pradeep Do your parents ever speak of the April Uprising? I asked them. There was a pause. They looked at each other. They remember, said Udaya. My parents remember. The Army came in trucks, blindfolded people and took them away. My mother’s brother was taken away, said Pradeep. He was in school then. They never saw him again. Did they look for him? I asked. I don’t know, said Pradeep. They don’t talk about it much. I  think they couldn’t think of what to do. I  mean, one moment your child is in school, and the next, they’ve taken him away. I think they just waited, thinking that somehow, something would be sorted out and they would send him back. But nothing happened and he never came. What do your parents say about what happened? I asked. Did they think what the insurgents did was valid (sadhāranai)? So, I don’t know what my parents are thinking, said Pradeep. I’ve never asked as such. But the boys (insurgents), they only wanted a just (sadhārana) society. Like (the early-19th-century bandit) Saradiel. They just wanted to help the poor.

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The people who suffered, said Udaya, were those who got caught up in the middle. Like schoolboys. My father’s brother-in-law (massina) was also taken away. What did his parents do? I asked. They also didn’t really do anything, said Udaya. For a while, they just pretended it hadn’t happened. They didn’t do anything for, like, two weeks. Then they went to the Ratgama police station to look for him. He wasn’t there. They went to other places. Couldn’t find him. In the end, they found him in Boossa (prison). But that was months later. He had been beaten, there was an injury. He lost three fingers. They brought him back, but they never really got him back (ai genavata, aththatama gennana barivuna). He lost his will to focus (hitha ekthan karanna bä). He could never really put his mind to anything after that (ohè innava). Just collects wood (for firewood) and stuff like that.

Interestingly, in this brief re-telling, both narrators, though themselves soldiers, seemed to – fleetingly – suspend their affinity to the SLA, and spoke of it almost as an occupying force. The telling of the story seemed to take them back to their childhood in these communities which, already ground down by poverty, were completely disempowered by state repression bearing down upon them. State repression seemed to have turned entire villages into States of Exception, in which the operation of the law is suspended indefinitely and the community’s very right to life comes under threat. Suddenly faced with this situation, normally vigorous parents found themselves stunned into inactivity. They were consumed by an inexplicable inertia. They failed their children. The narrators – both ex-infantryman who had themselves played an occupying role in the SLA’s military ventures in the North – understood this unfathomable loss of agency that had stricken parents of a previous generation in the face of sudden and unpalatable state violence. They empathized with the unspoken torment of not being able to protect their children, some of whom never returned and others whose bodies returned alive but whose sense of selfhood was shattered forever by the pain unleashed upon their bodies. By the early-1970s then, the Maoist idiom of taking-up arms in search of social justice (sadhārana lovak) had entered into the Sinhala political lexicon. It acquired dimensions of the practice of Saradiel, the early 19th-century bandit who stole from the rich and gave to the poor.

1970s – escalating economic crisis, poverty and hunger For the rural poor, in economic terms the 1970s was perhaps one of the harshest decades in post-independence Sri Lanka. This was ironically due to the changes

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invoked by the ULF – with the noblest motives – in response to the April Uprising. Recognizing that the Anglicization of many Left leaders had alienated them from the rural proletariat for whom they thought they spoke, a serious effort was made to identify with Sinhala sensibilities. The name of the island was changed from the Dominion of Ceylon to the Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. The ULF felt that as much as a lack of employment opportunities, the uprising was an expression of the land-hunger of dispossessed groups in the countryside. Consequently, an ambitious land reform programme was unleashed. This set a ceiling on units of land owned, which radically fragmented the booming plantation sector. Excess land was reclaimed from tea-brokering conglomerates such as Lipton and Brooke Bond. This bold move of course set off a major capital flight. Over the next ten years, this annihilated the tea industry – on which the export economy revolved – until it finally restructured itself through the efforts of tea smallholders. As the fiscal crisis worsened in the wake of land reforms, the ULF faced a sharp external assets predicament, which led to the closure of the economy. This created shortages in basic necessities. Wages stagnated. These conditions set into motion the great migration of the Anglicized middle classes to greener pastures – mostly Burghers and Tamils, but also Sinhalas. Hundreds of thousands of middle-class professionals fled to the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The ULF’s Sinhalization drive had critical implications for the Army. It became the Sri Lanka Army. Ties with Britain were phased-out. The names of regiments were changed to honour Sinhala warrior kings such as Gajabahu and Vijayabahu. The Gemunu Watch, named after the warrior king Dutu Gemunu, remained unchanged. The Sinha Regiment was named for the Sinhala nation. New regimental colours were assigned and British regalia supplanted with indigenous motifs. The system of medals and decorations – based on the British ­pattern – were replaced with corresponding Sinhala titles. Essentially, the SLA began a programme of divestment of its colonial past to embrace Sinhala nationalism, which tacitly excluded Tamil involvement in this project. This affected the status of Tamil-­ speaking groups as well as the class base of its officer grades. The Army continued to be administered in English with substantial use of Sinhala. But usage of Tamil was abandoned. The emigrations to the West also greatly diminished the proportion of Tamil, Burgher and Muslim officers. This enabled a corresponding rise in the numbers of Sinhala officers, while enlisted men remained largely Sinhala. By 1979, most ­British-trained ex-CDF veterans had left.3 This shift in its ethnic composition began to seriously impact on the SLA’s perception of Tamil militancy. The rural poor – in whose name all these radical policy changes were enacted – were, in the short term, the hardest hit by the economic crisis, left to scrabble around desperately to find alternative means of income. It was particularly hard for children. In this next narrative, Udaya, Pradeep, Varuna and Nirmal speak of the constant hunger of poverty and the efforts their parents made to ensure a better future for them.

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Narrative 2 – Poverty, hunger and alcoholism: Udaya, Varuna, Nirmal and Pradeep The 1970s was the most difficult decade for Sri Lanka, I  said. Especially in the rural areas. Were there serious financial issues at home when you were younger? There were problems, said Pradeep. Poverty was the problem, of course. So everyone’s poor (api kauruth duppath), said Varuna, otherwise they wouldn’t be here (in the SLA). We’re the real Sinhalas (niyama Sinhala kollo). Everyone’s the same. So no one has to pretend to anything else. So yes, said Pradeep, even food was a problem. As teenagers you’re always hungry, aren’t you? I mean, it’s not like our parents couldn’t feed us, there was land under cultivation, wasn’t there? Even though there were constant land issues with my father’s brothers. Still, there was rice, and we cultivated manioc and vegetables. My father would go out to sea, said Udaya. When he returned, he always had money in his hand. Then of course, he would just spend. But when he couldn’t find a boat to crew with, nothing. We also had paddy fields, said Nirmal. Still, it was a big struggle to get a reasonable price for the grain. It had to last until the next (agricultural) season. Everything has to be done with what you get at the end of the maha (main) season. What did your mothers do? I asked. Everything, said Pradeep. She made a big effort. She would make indiappa (a breakfast preparation) in the mornings and take it to the bakery. At 6.00 a.m. Who would buy? I asked. There were daily paid agricultural workers, he said, they come to the bakery in the mornings to see if there was work for the day. Those who needed labour would hire. My mother also did that, said Udaya. She cooked rice packets and she would take it to the mudalāli (shop-owner) at the kadѐ (local shop). We also had a kadѐ, said Varuna. But it was very hard going. In the morning you have to arrange the vegetables and all that very nicely so that people will want to buy. It was open all hours, wasn’t it? My mother and father come home after 10.00 p.m. at night. Every night. The kadѐ is open at 6.00 a.m. To get the breakfast crowd. Profits are mostly nothing, because we were four boys – there was a friend who mostly ate at our house – so five hungry mouths to feed every day. When there’re no work people are buying on credit. You can’t ask them to starve, can you? By evening, the men are drunk. They shout and create problems. Sometimes there are fights.

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That’s the worst thing, said Udaya. Drink. Poverty is problematic. But liquor is terrible. Now I, myself, take a drink once in a couple of weeks. To relax and to be together with the boys. That’s different. Now some people, they drink every day, sometimes for weeks at a time. Just think of what that does to your body . . . So now who drinks in your family? I asked. Your brothers? Your father? My brothers – now I’m the eldest, I don’t let them drink. What I mean is, not much. I generally shout at them if they get too raucous – that does the trick. But of course, my father was a different issue . . . My father is generally very composed (thänpath), he said, except when he drinks. That’s the main issue. I wouldn’t mind if he just sings or shouts. That’s OK. I can deal with that. But it’s really hard to watch him do mindless, idiotic things. He gets into fights, falls over and crawls around making a spectacle of himself (nādagam natanavā). But, he said, my father always made a big effort to get us to study. He was in the fishing trade, so he didn’t have much time. He didn’t have much education himself. But he would put us up at 4.30 a.m. He was convinced that studying in the morning was better than studying in the evening. He would make us tea and tell us to study till 6.00 a.m. He pours tea for the four of us. His tea is, like, really good. So we would somehow get up to drink that cup of tea. There was a bakery nearby. On some days he would bring us roast bread and then tell us to sit down and study. So I think this was a habit that stood us in good stead later. But of course, my parents couldn’t really help us with our school work. Because they didn’t have much schooling, did they? Did your father buy you books to read? I asked. Maybe comics (chitrakatha)? No, said Udaya. He never did that. So no one brought him books to read when he was little, did they? So he didn’t think of doing it for us. But me, now, I buy books for my daughter. My father did, said Varuna. Because there were comics on sale in our shop. He would buy Mihira (a children’s weekly) for us. By the time the four of us had gotten through it, there was nothing left. Did your parents have time to help you with your studies? I  asked him. What with the shop and all? Not my parents, said Varuna. They were never around, were they? But my aunt looked after us. Now, I can write beautifully. It was my aunt who saw to it that we could write beautiful letters. On Saturdays, from 8.00 to 10.00 a.m., we have to learn. All four of us. We had our own desks and chairs. We would copy out things from the newspapers. The Divaina, Lankadeepa, papers like that. We look at the papers and copy it out on to our books. It was all to improve our handwriting.

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My handwriting is generally good, says Udaya. I  was the third in line in terms of good handwriting in my class. There was a girl called Damayanthi, she was the best. Ramachandran (one of two Tamil boys in his school) was next. Then me. I  can write letters decoratively (hadakarala), he said quite proudly. What was your parent’s aspirations for you? I asked. My father died when I was 18 years old, said Udaya. I had just joined the Army. After that, I became their father (mama thattha vuna). I looked after my mother. I saw that they had everything they needed. I would go through my little sisters’ school book list at the end of the year and go and get everything. My parents wanted me to take over the shop, said Varuna. I actually did do it for about a year. After my O/Ls. But I couldn’t stand it. Exactly the same thing day after day. Exactly the same routine. I couldn’t handle it. Even the same people come. So I joined the Army. My mother had a dream, said Pradeep, she dreamt that I would become a teacher. Someone who would evoke respect in the village. So in that way I  failed her. But I’ve tried to somehow make a good life for myself in order not to destroy her expectations (ammage hitha kadanne nathuva kohomahari jeevithayak hadā-gattha). When she sees me marching on ceremonial occasions (in full regalia), she is so happy. But when the newspapers mention events on the battlefield, she gets very anxious. Sometimes she cries. I never wanted to be a burden (barak) on my father, said Nirmal. As soon as I was old enough to understand, I knew this was the route I should take. I understood that this should be my path, and I began my journey. I built up my finances to an appropriate level. This is my greatest victory, and it was not achieved on the battlefield: I never burdened my father. But, he said somewhat sadly, I don’t know if I somehow failed him (thatthage hitha binduvāda danna). Maybe he wanted something more from me than a ticket to the possibility of getting killed on the battlefield. Perhaps a more stable life (thänpath jeevithayak).

The fact that all narrators were all drawn from the rural proletariat was seen as a unifying factor. But with education, the poor are more perceptive; they have a sense that their poverty is not simply the effect of cosmic forces but rather linked to strategic decisions made in rarefied political realms. Poverty itself emerges as a generalized condition that was almost a badge of Sinhala identity. At the lower reaches of a stratified and status-driven Sinhala rural landscape then, poverty creates a certain egalitarian space. Identifying oneself as ‘poor’ seemed to be a core aspect of the culture of the rural proletariat, as valid as claiming their dads were rich was for middle-class Sinhala kids.

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A key factor that separated out those who simply described themselves as poor and those who said their childhood had been an on-going struggle seemed to turn on the alcoholism of their fathers. Alcoholic fathers tended to be erratic providers. This caused serious financial strain. But what seemed to be a more profound source of consternation was the raucous, disruptive conduct of fathers when drunk, which seemed almost to echo the deep disquiet of Temperence Movement activists of a century ago. Though many respondents readily admitted that they themselves did consume alcohol, this was seen as somehow different from the unrestrained excesses of their fathers. Such excesses involved outrageous, offensive or aggressive conduct in public. It became a source of mortification for the rest of the family. It was this perceived public humiliation that was so unforgivable. Udaya describes his anguish about the alcoholism of his father. Making a spectacle of oneself then, could further imperil the already precarious status of the rural poor in the eyes of the community. His father’s alcoholism seems to have made Udaya value composure (thänpath-kama) even more. After his father died, at 18 years old, Udaya ‘became’ a father to his siblings, this time a ‘proper’ father who defended the dignity of his family as well as seeing to their bodily needs. He reclaimed the composed body that his father so lightly and so often shrugged off. But though his father’s conduct created deep ambiguities, it did not stop Udaya from expressing his love for him. Mothers, on the other hand, frequently forged agency out of almost nothing, seeking out minute niches such as food preparation for tiny markets. Parents also exerted themselves greatly to improve the performance of children in school. Udaya again speaks of the efforts his father took to make the children study. But though most rural parents were anxious that their children should study, they didn’t really know how to help them. Because of their own limited schooling, they were unable to help their children with their homework. Still, like many Sinhala parents across the island, they would insist that the children improve their handwriting (akuru). Consequently, even as grown men, many respondents remain inordinately proud of their handwriting. This seemingly trivial focus on handwriting then, signifies a profound parental desire for a white-collar lifestyle for their children, despite all odds.

Fraternal bonds and bonds of friendship While relationships with parents emerge as critical, the connection with brothers was also very strong. It has been noted that fraternal relations in Sri Lanka are perhaps not unlinked to land ownership patterns (Leach 1961; Obeyesekere 1967). The traditional unit of land held among all castes was the pangu (share). The pangu was not an empirical measure of land, but a relative one, indicating a share of the parental property. The absence of a concept of primogeniture in land inheritance patterns however, and the powerful presence of a notion of equal inheritance of pangu lead inexorably to a fragmentation of holdings (Obeyesekere 1967; de Silva 2005: 29).

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Against this egalitarianism in inheritance patterns, it has been remarked that, even compared to other South Asian societies, sibling relations within the Sinhala family are very hierarchical. This, as Leach (1961) argues, is because every member is positioned according to their level of seniority. Older brothers are addressed as ayya and younger brothers as malli. Where there is more than one elder brother, the eldest becomes loku ayya (‘big’ elder brother) and the next podi ayya or ‘small’ elder brother, the next punchi ayya or ‘little’ elder brother and so on. Similarly, older sisters become akka and little sisters nangi. This should be seen against a larger South Asian context in which most communities have a generic term for ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ irrespective of age. This situation then, tends to slot older siblings into preconceived roles, especially older brothers, who learn to assume responsibility for the conduct of younger siblings, who in turn look to elder brothers to resolve their problems for them. This entailed wielding authority – both physical and symbolic – which also impacted on identity-constructions. Conversely, it creates a situation where it is sometimes possible for Sinhala children lower down the sibling ladder to go through childhood without being addressed by their given names in the domestic sphere, only as nangi or malli. This has serious implications for the construction of self-identity, especially for younger children. Self-identity now involves constant shifts in subjectivity between the domestic realm and the external world, which has to be fused into one composite identity. But if sibling relationships are hierarchical, it is the brother-in-law (machan) relationship that is egalitarian. As Leach (1961) remarks, unlike brothers, the brotherin-law is not in competition for the ancestral property, since he is married to the sister, who in pre-colonial times did not inherit immovable assets such as land, but only movable effects such as jewellery and furniture equal in value to the pangu that her brothers will receive. Free of tensions over land then, the relationship between machan becomes a ‘joking’ one, warm and intimate. Consequently, the machan relationship today still remains synonymous with strong male-male friendships. The significance of the machan relationship in Sinhala social life cannot be overstated. Every respondent in this study – without exception – had a ‘best’ friend, whom they had known since childhood. Best friends were always boys - no one mentioned having a girl as a ‘best’ friend. And upon joining the SLA, they bonded with other ‘best mates’ in the new environment, which did not always dim their attachments to their childhood buddies when returning to the village. Consequently, in the post-colonial Sri Lankan landscape, with the levelling impact of universal education and the emergence of a multiplicity of public sites, the term machan has evolved into something that is synonymous with egalitarian male–male friendships. By the 1970s and 1980s, this profound sense of egalitarianism was beginning to pervade even the structurally hierarchical ayya–malli relationship. Sibling relations then, play a signal role in the construction of Sinhala masculinities. In the next narrative, Varuna, Nirmal and Udaya speak of their ­relationships with their brothers and with their friends.

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Narrative 3 – Fraternal bonds and friendship: Varuna, Nirmal and Udaya Since your parents were busy with the shop, I asked Varuna, who looked after you and your brothers? There are four of us, he said. I’m the eldest, my next brother is one year younger and the twins are a year younger than him. So now I’m in charge. I’m given the money for all four of us to buy something from the tuck-shop in the lunch break. In the morning, we are dropped off outside the school gates but in the afternoon, I have to get them together and get them home. There was this huge playground next to our house. Actually, it was a school playground. We didn’t go to that school. But everyone in the neighbourhood would go and play there after school. So I would take them there. From the time I was, like, 8 years old. Were you allowed to go outside and play on your own at 8  years old? I asked. But there was no one there to stop us, was there? he retorted. My parents were at the shop. My aunt was busy with the house. So we played all day. How did you manage to keep them in order? I asked, shifting tack. My second brother, said Varuna, was very naughty. He is the older twin. This was of course when he was little. Teachers would complain to me. Sometimes even other boys would complain that he hit them. So now, what could I do, it was embarrassing. So when I go home, I scold him properly, telling him not to embarrass me in public (boruwata läjjā karanna epā). Sometimes I just give him a good, hard slap across the face (kanѐ pārak). Then for months there is peace. But later, they became good athletes. Taller than me. Whenever they won a race, everyone would tease me about how I shouldn’t get a swollen head. But of course, over the years, he said, we became more like friends than brothers. Do they still listen to you? I asked. Of course, he said, with calm assurance. They love me very much (godak ādare). I am, after all, the eldest. I always resolved everything for them. How about you? I asked Nirmal. How many brothers and sisters? First my brother, he said, then me, then my two sisters. Who were you closest to? I asked. My brother, of course, he retorted. Why of course? I asked. Weren’t you fond of your sisters? They’re very good to me (godak hondai), he admitted. They cook me stuff. Make me special things to eat and everything. But my brother, why, we’re brothers, that’s all. Brothers always have a special bond, don’t they? Not like sisters. Who told you that? I retorted. Nirmal seemed taken aback that anyone should contest his thesis on fraternity.

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OK then, tell me about your brother, I said, relenting. When we were younger, we were close, he said. But he didn’t do very well in school and he dropped out in the eighth grade. After that, things didn’t really work out for him. He just hung around, helping my father in the fields a bit, that sort of thing. Doing small, small things. Later he took up carpentry. Went to work with someone in the village who had a small carpentry business. But he was never able to establish himself financially. Actually, I’m really sad about that. He is still dependent on my father in that way. It’s very hard for him. What about your sisters? I asked. They’re all married now, he said, somewhat dismissively. How about you? I asked Pradeep. How many siblings? Six of us, he said. My elder brother, myself, two sisters and two little brothers. My elder brother has had an unfortunate life. He did well in school and joined the Engineering Corps in the SLA. They’re the ones who do all the mine clearing and everything. He stepped on a live mine. Accidentally. So what happened? I asked in some trepidation. So he lost his sight, said Pradeep simply. He had to learn to do everything all over again. Who looks after him now? I asked. He’s at home, he said. What can you do, you can’t just keep him tied up in case he falls over, can you. He is actually very good now; he can manage to do a lot of things on his own. But the responsibilities of the family are now on me. We can’t depend on him anymore, can we? We have to look after him. How do your parents cope financially? I asked. They (the SLA) pay for his medication, said Pradeep. But other things we have to find somehow. Shrapnel also struck him in the stomach. They didn’t get everything out. So the expenses are high, he said, and we have one less income to do everything with. My father is always in the red at the kadѐ (local shop), he is constantly negotiating with the mudalāli (shop-owner). My father has known this mudalāli since he arrived in the village. He is actually older than the mudalāli. But when the money is running out, the ‘mudalāli’ becomes ‘ayya’ (elder brother) when he needs to get stuff on tick at the end of the month. Just to flatter him. My sisters are laughing. But what’s to be done. Does it work? asked Nirmal with interest. Yes, said Pradeep with a grin. He gets his credit, doesn’t he? How about your ayya’s friends, do they come to see him? I asked. They try, said Pradeep, but they’re also working, aren’t they? They’re also people who are trying to knot their lives together somehow, so where’s the time? That’s true, I acknowledged. If people could come, they would, but everyone has the same problem.

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Shifting tack, I moved on to friendship. How about friends, did you have a best friend in school? I asked them. Yes, of course, said Nirmal. His name was Jayantha. He also joined the SLA later. That was a source of much elation to me. The happiest day in my life was when my friend also joined the Army. Though he was not in the same regiment, he was in the same field – the military – and I was happy. It was a great source of strength to me (loku hayyak) to have someone of my own in the Army. It was like having a brother with me. What qualities did you value most in him? I asked. What I valued most about him, said Nirmal, was that he never hurt anyone (ahimsakai) and was very self-restrained (sanvara) and composed (thänpath). How about you? I asked Udaya. Did you have a best friend? Yes, said Udaya. His name was Gamunu. Gamunu lived only about 150– 200 metres from my house. We would play together in school and when we come home, in the afternoons as well. We just spent all our time together. Though I  had two younger brothers, Gamunu was exactly my age, so we were very close. What did you like most about him? I asked him. He had a lot of good qualities, he said. We mostly spoke about constructive (honda) things. What he wanted was to live without wronging anyone, any day (kisima dѐka katavath varadak novi jeevatvenne). This is how he wanted to be and that is what I wanted as well. Sometimes we argue about how we can do this; when I tell him something, he accepts what I say. Other times, we argue and say no, we should do it this way, we should do it that way. We try to arrive at the correct way to go about things. Weren’t you ever naughty in school? I asked, curiously. Didn’t you ever get into trouble? Not really, said Udaya. I wasn’t mischievous in school to that extent (ehema danga keruveth na ithin). I tried to conduct myself in a disciplined way (vinaya garuka vidhiyakata inna epai). Especially since we come from a rather rough community (­dheevara kiyanne tikak sara samajayaknѐ), I felt I should conduct myself properly and not let everyone down. I loved my teachers (godak adarѐ) and was the class monitor in many grades. I did not allow my brothers to engage in chandi-kam (acting like a chandiya).

Though in this conversation Udaya does not mention his role as the eldest son, in the previous narrative he mentions that when his father died, he voluntarily took on all parental duties. This very matter-of-fact statement captures very well his approach to the role of eldest brother. He did not seem to resent the fact that having to be financially responsible for his younger siblings weighed him down in his late-teens and throughout his twenties and essentially robbed him of a carefree

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youth. He also – very casually – mentioned the extent to which he went to control the drinking habits of his younger brothers. Udaya concludes by saying that he did not allow his brothers to act like chandiyo (toughs) at school. This implies that he was against any display of physical violence on their part, which he thought would evoke the censure of teachers. He was ready to control such conduct by using tactics of symbolic violence such as the withdrawal of affection. Such a strategy was only possible because of his very elevated position in his family and his sibling’s desire for his approbation. Playing the role of the eldest brother then, seemed to have brought him a great deal of composure. Similarly, Varuna in this narrative tended to assume responsibility for all his siblings, while clearly exerting the control of a sergeant-major over them. But interestingly, he says that over the years they became more like friends than brothers. He also understands that their love for him revolves on his taking the initiative to resolve problems for them. Like Udaya, he does not resent this at all. In fact, he revels in it. It accords him much composure. It is also revealing that his relationship with his brothers still seemed more immediate than his attachments to his own small children, of whom he did not talk much. Nirmal, on the other hand, clearly loves his elder brother and is rather dismissive of his sisters. But as an adult he is somewhat disapproving of his brother’s lifestyle. The uncritical love of his teen years seems to have become more judgemental as an adult, and this is reflected in his narrative. Simply by not becoming more financially stable than his parents, his brother – despite being very hardworking – seemed to be perceived by the whole family as having failed in some obscure way. It almost seemed as if Nirmal was the one playing the de facto role of eldest sibling much in the way Varuna did. Pradeep also describes the events that effectually caused him to take up the role of the eldest brother and take on the financial responsibility of the family, even though his father is still alive. Once again, he seems to take this in his stride, almost as a badge of honour. But what is interesting is a kind of levelling drive in sibling relations that is also evident in the narratives of other participants. Thus Varuna says that over the years, his relationship with his brothers actually became more like that between friends than brothers (i.e. non-hierarchical). This sentiment was echoed by other respondents. However, uncritical love and respect for the eldest brother – unless he is an unusually failed figure – seemed to endure. This levelling drive was accompanied in the 1980s by an innovative syndrome: the use of hierarchical sibling-honorifics such as ayya and akka in the non-domestic or public realm, to express respect when addressing strangers or outsiders. Such a label is less fraught with class connotations than the honorific mahatmayā, which conventionally referred to notables – specifically, to the ratѐ-mahatmayā or officialin-charge of a rata (municipal unit) in the Kandyan kingdom – but in the colonial decades came to signify anyone with an English education. The new preference for the use of sibling terminology such as ayya, which signals deference and respect without demeaning oneself, should be viewed against this background. Here age

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is less of a factor than conceding social precedence. Kin nomenclature becomes a strategy for negotiating social class without mortifying oneself. These subtleties are captured in Pradeep’s interesting description of the relationship between his father and the wealthiest trader in his village. But, of course, friendship or the egalitarian machan idiom was as important in defining male–male relationships in the countryside. The qualities that such friends exemplified were not leadership, as was expected of older brothers. They included self-restraint, gentleness (ahimsaka) and equanimity – in other words, aspects of the deferential body. Against this, older brothers exerted leadership through self-belief (āthma-visvāsa), which develops their problem-solving skills, all aspects of the composed body. At the same time, such an outlook did lead to pro-establishment leanings. Interestingly, like Udaya, many respondents denied that they had been mischievous (danga) in school. In fact, they almost seemed to construe such questions as implying that they were lacking in composure or discipline (vinaya) or lacking in some other way. Many stated openly that they loved their teachers; in fact, being a teacher’s pet, class monitor or prefect seemed to be a source of great pride. Conforming seemed to be the trendiest option. It was being castigated as ‘mischievous’ that appeared to be seen as somehow ‘uncool’. Udaya’s response becomes even more intriguing against the background of his role as an eldest brother. There seems to be a link between being an archetypal elder brother and having a pro-establishment view of life, or at least towards transgressive violence. This motif is echoed in Varuna’s narratives as well. Male–male relationships in the Sinhala countryside then, involved both hierarchical as well as egalitarian motifs that were equally powerful.

Sinhala movie icons, advent of the electronic media and icons of adventurous masculinity The creative literature in Sinhala that emerged as a key genre in the post-colonial decades explored such shifts and convergences in adolescent motifs of brotherhood and friendship. By the late-1960s, Sinhala cinema had begun to blossom. Initially confined to commercial films, the emergence of Lester James Pieris’ Rekawa (‘The line’) became a significant breakthrough in that it shattered idealized tropes of masculinity and fatherhood in the Sinhala village. A  subsequent trend of films based on critically acclaimed creative literature of earlier decades also began with works such as the Gamperaliya (‘The changing village’) trilogy, Golu Hadawatha (‘The silent heart’), Gehenu Lamai (‘Girls’) and Ganga Addara (‘By the river’). By the mid-1970s, realist cinema had evolved into a commercially viable genre. Initially reflecting gender relations in the larger society, exploring the plight of women and girls emerged as an enduring sub-theme as female directors entered the field. Still, the trajectory of Sinhala cinema gathered real pace only in the 1980s. The narrators though, as children of the rural poor in the midst of an economic crisis, rarely got taken to the cinema. Their memories of the large screen therefore seemed vague and patchy. Emotional investments into male

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Sinhala action heroes seemed surprisingly tepid. This changed with the arrival of the electronic media in the late-1970s. In 1977, the rural electorate revolted. Disappointed in left politics, tired of acute shortages and the lack of employment options, they voted in a right-wing UNP administration that promised to liberate the economy and create jobs. The new government went on to remove restrictions on foreign currency movements and work opportunities overseas. This opened doors for the rural proletariat. A new trend of the migration of unskilled labour to the oil-rich states of West Asia began. In return, there was an influx of a range of new consumer items into the island, including electronic goods. With the advent of colour television, the video industry began diffusing itself into the rural economy (SLA 1999: 289–290). The narrators, who in their pre-teen years would spend their afternoons helping out in cultivation work or helping to mend fishing-nets, now found a new pursuit. The electronic media had a dramatic impact in a context in which most participants had hardly been to the cinema more than a couple of times. It focused on popular fields such as sports and athletics, offering a panoramic coverage of key events. Nirmal, Pradeep and Varuna discuss Sinhala cinema, movie icons and the arrival of the electronic media in their villages.

Narrative 4 – Sinhala movie stars and electronic media icons: Nirmal, Pradeep and Varuna When you were younger, did your parents take you to see movies? I asked Pradeep. He scratched his head. Movies? he said. Once in a while. Not often. Maybe once in a couple of months. Do you remember movie stars who were popular when you were young? I asked. Malini Fonseka, he responded immediately. Geetha Kumarasinghe. I remember them. In a movie? I asked. Which one? Hmm, he said, after a brief pause. Maybe not in a movie. Maybe on a billboard? Maybe a poster? How about male actors (naluvo)? I asked. Male actors? he said somewhat dubiously, as if this was a disputed category. Then he smiled. Yes, he said. Vijaya Kumaratunga. I saw him in Hitha Honda Kolla (‘a good-hearted lad’). What was the character he played? I asked He was the good-hearted guy who saves the unfortunate and the oppressed, he said, somewhat sheepishly. But I  can’t tell you the precise movie. I only remember bits.

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What about you, I asked Nirmal. Did they take you to see any movies? Once in a while, he agreed. Very rarely. Whom do you remember? I asked. Swarna Mallawarachchi, he responded. In Dadayama (‘the Hunt’). I really liked that movie. Who played opposite her? I asked. Nirmal scratched his head. That I couldn’t say, he admitted. Do you watch old Sinhala movies now? I asked. Not really, he said. Why not? I asked. He reflected for a moment. The action is not very spot-on, is it (action eka echchara hari na neda)? he answered, somewhat hesitantly. Not so good. A bit not quite up to scratch, weren’t they (tikak madi vagei, neda)? offered Pradeep. I switched on to the electronic media. How about TV, then? So when did you first get a TV? I asked everyone. My father bought a TV in 1982, said Nirmal. I was 12. All the neighbours would come to watch in the evenings. I remember watching cricket, said Pradeep. In those days it was Aravinda (de Silva), (Sanath) Jayasuriya, and Arjuna (Ranatunge). My best friend’s father bought a TV. Because he was my best friend, I could go there any time and watch. So we just spent all our time there. I remember I watched a cricket match against some foreign country, said Nirmal. I watched Aravinda de Silva play, he was almost as young as we were. After that you couldn’t separate us from a cricket bat when we came home from school. Not even a proper bat, we played with a piece of coconut stem (polpitta). It was better than a real bat. I remember watching Nightrider, he went on. Of course, we couldn’t understand the dialogue, it was in English. We just followed the story through the actions. It wasn’t hard. You know, there’s a car that speaks; when you’re in trouble you call for it and it comes and saves you! Then there was the Incredible Hulk. He goes green when he is confronted with injustice (asādhārana). Yes, the Hulk, said Varuna, when he is angered, his body explodes and he becomes green. He becomes angered when he is cornered (kotuvenakota), or when he faces injustice. And Nightrider. Yes, we always watched that. We would go to class next day, and we’re acting out the story for the other boys. Because, out of 40 boys in our class, only about four or five had TVs, so it was great fun (vinodѐ) doing that. We also watched Tarzan. Same thing. When anyone is in trouble, he saves you. We really liked the roar he used to give, it was just like an elephant’s cry. We would catch hold of branches and so now we’re also trying to swing.

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In these narratives, the clarity with which the speakers remember the TV icons they watched as children stands in contrast to their recollections of Sinhala movie stars. Pradeep and Nirmal try to describe the movies they watched as children, fail and finally confine themselves to describing movie stars in the 1970s. Interestingly, they can still name female stars such as Malini Fonseka, Geetha Kumarasinghe and Swarna Mallawarachchi. Despite the seeming irrelevance of girls in their teens – as sisters, friends and girlfriends – like most boys they appeared to have been captivated by the photogenic faces of female stars on the screen. But most of the male movie stars did not seem to have made an impact. The only exception appears to be Vijaya Kumaratunga, who played many versions of the chandiya-cum-action-hero bringing justice to the oppressed. Here the chandiya is usually well-intentioned and the unfortunate and the oppressed are saved more through dialogue and persuading evil-doers out of their misguided ways, rather than physical action, as it were – though the action sequences of such movies were definitely a feature. But when trying to identify what was problematic with the Sinhala action genre, Nirmal can only come up with the complaint that the action was not very spot-on. Other respondents are similarly baffled by the same question. A key weakness in Sinhala cinema in the 1970s then, remained its unrealistic, shoddily-synchronized action sequences, which sometimes injected an – ­involuntarily – hilarious note into even the most tension-packed episodes. Cultural ambiguities towards bodily violence seemed to be shared by the actors themselves, which rendered them unable to convincingly showcase the idiom of risking-thebody. Thus Sinhala cinema failed to project male movie stars as powerful icons of masculinity who should be emulated. This was especially so in the light of the flood of international movies and videos that subsequently swamped the local market in the 1980s. The electronic media brought national-level cricketers into the front rooms of these teenagers, who could relate to their youth and ‘normalness’ and identify with them. It gave their sporting interests a new dimension. Whereas previously they had focused on themselves and, at best, on popular athletes at their own school, now they had access to national-level stars. The arrival of the electronic media also automatically raised the status of the families who had TVs in the village. In the early days, access to a TV was highly valued. Teenagers whose imaginations were not really riveted by popular movie heroes now found themselves preoccupied by electronic icons such as Nightrider, Tarzan and the Hulk, upon whom they all ascribed the role of ‘saviour of the oppressed’, a role they had previously attributed only – and somewhat sheepishly – to Vijaya Kumaratunga, the Sinhala movie star. Nightrider, the Incredible Hulk and Tarzan all became rebels in the Sinhala convention, built around the Robin Hood-like figure of Saradiel. Thus, this active body and its adventures – the niceties of which were not always grasped – were somehow attributed to a fight for ‘social justice’ (sadāranatvaya). The versatile, adventurous body seemed to acquire a new heroic dimension that Sinhala cinema failed to provide.

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From the classroom to the sports ground: embodiment and risking-the-body Against a social background in which poverty was the defining motif, pressure for academic success as a route of upward mobility remained high and was internalized by schoolchildren. Unlike social trends in the West, as mentioned earlier, here academic excellence was seen as the most ‘cool’ option. Consequently, the intensity of competition in the classroom sometimes became overwhelming. Most of the participants admitted quite candidly that they were not academically inclined in school. Though their parents wanted them to study, as recounted in the narratives that follow, their parents were not themselves equipped to help them in their schoolwork. As a result, they complained, they couldn’t cope. However, by the late-1970s, sports had begun to emerge as a viable option to a purely academic high school career. Even rural schools – specially the central schools in every district that had plenty of space for cricket pitches and track and field grounds – began investing in cricket, athletics and boxing. The cadet corps became popular. This trend in sports and athletics was accompanied by the emergence of privately owned ‘sports clubs’ along the South-Western coast and Central Province, which offered a space for young boys to engage in sports more ­competitively and with better professional supervision by coaches with at least some training. In the next narrative, Nirmal and Udaya speak of their academic disappointments in school and efforts to build a career in athletics instead.

Narrative 5 – From academics to sports: Nirmal and Udaya What did you focus on most in school, your studies or sports? I asked Nirmal. When I  was small, my parents wanted me to focus on my studies, he said. In the smaller classes I was good. I always came within the first four in class. But then, somehow, I sort of slipped. I fell back. Later, I got interested in sports, because in sports, everything’s up to you, isn’t it? It’s the effort you put in. I did track. And boxing. Our school had a famous boxing coach. Not many schools had boxing in those days. So I at least knew about boxing. Actually, I was very keen on boxing. I also played volleyball. But in those days, I didn’t have a physique (anga) like this. I was very thin. You wouldn’t have recognized me. So I had to work really hard to develop my fitness levels. There was a sports club in the area. It was called the Asoka Sangamaya – this guy called Asoka owned it. It was through this club that we played all these sports. We joined this club and became members.

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Towards the end, I became famous in school. Because by then I was doing so well in track. My event was 800 metres. That was actually because of the boxing. It raised my fitness levels so much. Then of course nobody (at home) was talking about my studies anymore. How about you? I asked Udaya. Did you also focus only on sports? Not in the small classes, he said, because then we wanted to do well in our studies. Like he said. But you can’t do that every day. I also began to find things a bit tough around the eighth grade. Our school was also very advanced in sports facilities, he went on. Mostly, we were good in swimming. There was the lagoon, the Ratgama lagoon. So there were facilities for learning to swim. This is why I chose to focus on swimming as a sport. Swimming and volleyball are what I did. I put a lot of effort into those things. So I have received many certificates. After school, I joined the Ambalangoda Sports Club and swam for them. I  have certificates from there, too. My parents didn’t like it very much, he said. Because it’s dangerous, isn’t it. Swimming is not like running on the road. We usually don’t do our training in a safe space like a swimming pool, we train in the river. So when we are training in the river, to get to the other end, we have to go by boat, we have to measure off exactly a mile, and start off from the boat. Sometimes, it’s deep at the point where we have to start. I mean there are places where it’s 20’–25’ deep. Your life is in danger. This is why my parents were afraid. I now feel that we devoted too much time to sports in school, he said. If we had focused more on our studies, we wouldn’t be where we are now. Anyway, if we had studied for our O/Levels the way we did for our promotion tests in the Army, no one could have stopped us before we got to campus (university)!

Both boys began by wanting to do well in in their studies, because that was the social expectation. But by their early-teens, they were starting to flag academically and began looking for other ways to shine. Nirmal’s school had a boxing coach, but he did not seem to have been able to find access to boxing in school. He had to join a sports club in the neighbourhood. However, in his mid-teens Nirmal had a growth spurt, and this had a positive impact on his boxing performance. Boxing also improved his fitness levels, which dramatically raised his track performance in school, and he became a track hero. His track achievements appeared to give him a new confidence (āthma-visvāsa), which impressed his parents, who finally became reconciled to his not focusing on his studies.

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Udaya also reached his full height of 6’ in his mid-teens, and his swimming performance improved exponentially. His parents, on the other hand, were afraid of him risking-his-body. They wanted him to seek a clerical appointment and be physically safe. They did not want him to have to take his life in his hands every day, like his fisherman father did. But Udaya himself was learning to risk-his-body and was – justly – proud of his achievements. He too became more confident, having overcome the apprehensions of swimming in deep waters and acquired a greater sense of composure.

Ethnic conflict Other developments were also unfolding on the political front. From 1977 onwards, recurrent episodes of anti-Tamil violence were playing out, culminating in the July 1983 pogrom. The origins of this critical event are traced to an episode in the Jaffna peninsula, in which 13 soldiers were killed in a landmine attack by Tamil militants. Through this event, Tamil militants clearly wanted to send a signal to the government in Colombo. They wished to convey – by the spectacular killing of the soldiers through the blasting of their vehicle into fragments – the impotence of SLA troops outside the perimeters of their camps in the Northern Province and the ability of the militants to target them at will. It was meant to humiliate the SLA. This exploit stunned the UNP-led government. More critically, it was also absorbed by a range of Sinhala groups, including those within the UNP administration. With the arrival of the bodies of the soldiers in Colombo, the situation began to unravel. Organized gangs or chandiyo belonging to the ruling UNP – in fact sponsored by leading politicians – roamed the streets attacking Tamil residents, setting fire to their homes, sometimes slaughtering them or burning them alive. Attacks were surgical strikes. Attackers had electoral lists with which they could verify the ethnic identity of residents. In many areas, once again the police remained passive. In others, they actively colluded with rioters. In some Tamilmajority areas like the East coast, the SLA did participate in anti-Tamil violence. But in Colombo – the nucleus of the action – the SLA was called in on the second day and watched, almost bemused, as events unfolded and accelerated beyond their control in paroxysms of violence acted out in their name. In many instances, they merely looked on as crazed rioters continued to raze property and destroy factories and warehouses owned by Tamils. Rioters were vastly emboldened by the insidious and unstatesmanlike speeches made by President Jayawardena, who bears a heavy responsibility for fanning the flames. Ironically, none of this violence seemed to have radically touched the lives of the participants, who were pre-teens at the time. None of them were from the larger towns such as Colombo or Kandy where much of the killings took place. In the narratives that follow, all four men try to identify where they were at the moment this key event unfolded, and not all are successful.

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Narrative 6 – Ethnic conflict: Udaya, Varuna, Pradeep and Nirmal Do you remember what happened in July 1983? I asked everyone. Not much, to be honest, said Udaya. We were so young, weren’t we? I remember there were two Tamil boys in my class at the Ratgama school. But I don’t know if anything happened to them. I remember, said Varuna. There was violence in our village, Hali-ela. Some houses were set on fire and everything. We had a family staying with us. He was a Tamil doctor. My father knew him well. They were there for about two weeks. Were you afraid your family would have got into trouble? I asked, playing devil’s advocate. No, he said calmly. How could we have got into trouble? No one knew they were there. Visitors, perhaps? I asked. They may have seen something. But they wouldn’t go inside, would they? he retorted. Anyone coming to see us, they would stay in the veranda or at most the front room. No one would come inside the house. Anyway, it was my father’s decision. Did you think it was the correct thing to do? I asked. Me? he said, quite astonished. It had nothing to do with me. It was my father who thought we should give them shelter. Because otherwise, people might have hurt them. The mood in the town was not good. We never questioned his decision. How about you? I asked Nirmal. I don’t know, he said. There were some Tamil children in our school. But I don’t know if anything happened (to them). Then Pradeep? I  asked. Were there no Tamil children in your school? Neighbours, perhaps? Pradeep frowned. I  can’t remember, he admitted. There weren’t Tamil children in my school. Really, I can’t remember.

It would seem, therefore, that many of the communities in which the respondents lived hardly registered that a serious ethnic conflict was raging elsewhere on the island. This was clearly because of the lack of any contact with Tamil-speaking persons in their immediate social environment. Further, other than professionals such as doctors, most Tamil-speaking families in the groups concerned were those who had relocated from the plantation sector and were quite as impoverished as their own families, if not more so. This revealed the extent to which ethnic

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communities were segregated from each other before the unfolding of a civil war that displaced entire populations from the Tamil-speaking regions to other parts of the island. By mid-1983, Tamils comprised only 5% of all SLA personnel.4 By now most of the larger Buddhist schools and state schools were routinely training cadet corps and attending annual camps at Diyatalawa. Enlisting became a viable option for the thousands of student cadets who could not make it into the universities. The July  1983 anti-Tamil pogrom took place against this backdrop of the increasing Sinhalization of the SLA. In this episode, a range of Sinhala groups, from UNP leaders to ordinary toughs on the street, attempted to reduce the enemy – ordinary Tamil citizens – to spectacle, on diverse sites, in order to shake-off the gnawing sense of impotence the slaughter of the soldiers created. The restoring of their manhood seemed to demand the collective humiliation of the ethnic other. After 1983, however, the SLA were no longer bemused spectators nonplussed at the antics of the police and armed Sinhala chandiyo. The theatre of battle now shifted decisively to the Northern and Eastern Provinces. And by 1985, almost the entire SLA – with the exception of a few Burgher, Muslim and Tamil officers – were Sinhalas.5 In the context of an anti-Tamil conflict, this was to compromise the professionalism of the SLA almost irretrievably. The duty of Sinhala soldiers becomes envisioned in terms of their rājakārya, which was to put down the Tamil militancy. The Tamil-speaking areas over time acquired the attributes of a State of Exception, in which the democratic rights of the people are held in perpetual abeyance.

1980s – the commercial visual media market and icons of masculine violence By the mid-1980s, Eelam War I  was already under way in the Tamil-speaking North. In the Sinhala-speaking South, the trend in unskilled labour migrations to West Asia was accelerating. Returning migrants brought back a wide array of light consumer articles. Initially confined to electrical items such as refrigerators, fans and washing machines, the flow of goods soon widened into electronic media such as video cassette players and DVDs. These flooded into the local market, magnifying the impact of the small screen in the lives of young persons. This radically changed the nature of the information technology and electronic media market. Access to the commercial electronic media, initially out of reach for the poor, became increasingly democratized. The somewhat somnolent Sinhala cinema was challenged in all directions with alien images, icons and narratives that brought new practices and ways of life to the front rooms of the rural proletariat. Varuna, Nirmal and Udaya reminisce about the arrival of the video cassette player in their village.

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Narrative 7 – Stallone and Schwarzenegger: icons of masculine violence: Varuna, Nirmal and Udaya So did you watch a lot of videos as boys? I asked them. My aunt (punchi) returned from the Middle East, said Varuna. She brought a video cassette player and videos. I saw Cobra for the first time. I never knew you could watch films at home before. I remember the first time I watched Cobra, said Nirmal. It was a Stallone movie, and we watched it on video. That was the first time I  actually saw combat gear as such. The next one I saw was called Counterattack – it was to do with the Air Force. How about you? I asked Udaya. Yes, absolutely, he said. After watching those movies, there was no going back. The programmes that we used to watch before now seemed childish (lāmika). You mean you abandoned Hulk for Stallone? I asked, laughing. Hulk disappeared like the mist into the horizon (Hulkla ebema meeduma vage athuru-dhahan), he said, also laughing. Even Tarzan seemed inept ­(Tarzanla väda-bäri Tarzan vuna)!

By their late-teens then, Nightrider, Hulk and Tarzan had merged into Stallone and Schwarzenegger. Thus the electronic media brought global icons of bodily violence such as Stallone into the living-rooms of Sinhala teenagers in the midst of an on-going civil war. At the same time, radical changes were taking place in the Sinhala-speaking countryside. Migrations to the oil-rich West Asian states was becoming a mass syndrome. The hospitality industry took-off. Newly set-up Free Trade Zones were producing trendy items for foreign markets and factory surplus entered the local market. All of this extended confined boundaries as never before. These seemed to bring a new significance to the active, vigorous body. In many ways, even before joining the SLA, these boys became a generation on the cusp of new possibilities. Suddenly, the desk-bound notion of a job in the public service or in teaching seemed rather tame against the prospect of dressing up in combat fatigues. The composed body had been – at least for the moment – superseded by the exuberant body. Such a situation created a context in which the regime-in-power was able to make decisive discursive interventions into the shaping of Sinhala masculinity. The Sri Lankan state began a powerful and unremitting onslaught across the tabloid and electronic media.6 This involved elevating soldiers as rana veera (war-heroes) and veera sebala (heroic soldiers) doing their rājakārya, which in effect justified any course of action taken by the Armed Forces as heroic, as happened in the French

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Revolution when any attack on the nobility likewise assumed heroic connotations. In effect, it attempted the process of elevating the socially marginalized role of the chandiya into a potentially hegemonic role of the veera sebala. In the final stages of Eelam War I (1983–1987), however, a series of critical events took place that upturned practices of masculinity across Sinhala society once again. The SLA finally succeeded in driving the LTTE into a corner in the Jaffna Peninsula. But escalating military activity resulted in a massive influx of refugees across the sea into Tamil Nadu, which compelled the Delhi government to intervene in the Sri Lankan conflict. This resulted in the imposition of the Indo-Lanka Peace Accord (ILPA), in which Delhi undertook to send a peace-keeping force to ‘disarm’ the LTTE. The UNP had no option but to accede. The ILPA and the presence of Indian troops on Lankan soil, however, incensed a range of Sinhala political groups both within and without the regime. Among its most vocal critics was the JVP, which now shifted its platform from a classbased revolution to an equally radical Sinhala-nationalist rebellion and launched its ­Second Uprising, demanding the de-induction of Indian forces.

The July Uprising (1987–1989) A period of extraordinary violence ensued. The JVP embarked on a programme which entailed the targeted assassination of anyone with links to the regime-inpower, in the realm of politics, media or towards the end, even academics. To terrorize the populace into acquiescence, they carried out punitive sanctions of barbaric proportions – comparable to practices evoked in the Lok Raj Lo Sirita – such as amputations and mutilations (de Silva 1998: 163–198). Urban toughs and underworld figures were successfully co-opted into this project. The UNP regime responded by forming their own underworld units, in alliance with groups of offduty serviceman calling themselves the Black Cats (de Silva 2005: 185–212). This deadly partnership created the conditions for the ‘Great Repression’ (bheeshanaya), in which tens of thousands of Sinhala men and boys suspected of being JVP activists or even potential sympathizers were mown down by armed underworld assassins and Black Cats.7 A 170 years after the crushing of the Wellassa rebellion then, Sinhala rebels, activists, women and children faced a repressive onslaught of even greater proportions. Such developments created a climate in which the trajectories of the chandiya, and the rana veeraya – in the guise of the Black Cats – converged. Spectacular violence acquired intelligibility as a strategy of repression. This was enabled by the SLA’s still un-reconstituted anti-left, anti–working-class bias, which fuelled the formation of such groups. And as its social base became disproportionately S­ inhala-speaking in the 1990s, the conditions for the pursuit of extended ­anti-Tamil wars were created. The conscientious efforts of many SLA instructors conducting c­ ombat training courses for new recruits and their attempts to instil a sense of discipline and focus in them had to be effected within this increasingly rabid discursive climate.

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But an important aspect of the July Uprising was the radicalization of students in universities and high schools. The high schools, in particular, were wracked by student protests and violent demonstrations. Study respondents who were at this point preparing for their GCE O/Levels found themselves in the midst of the action. Members of a shadowy JVP-linked underground group called the Deshapremi Janatha Vyaparaya (DJV) now began surreptitiously visiting high schools and instructing prefects and senior boys on how to organize protests and demonstrations similar to what was going on in other schools (de Silva 1998: 163–198). Senior boys, on their part, seemed to have complied without question. Nirmal and Varuna describe what happened in their schools.

Narrative 8 – JVP protests in schools: Nirmal and Varuna What happened in your school during the Great Repression (bheeshanaya)? I asked Nirmal. The climate in the schools changed suddenly, he said, during the time of the bheeshanaya. There was a kind of a wave (rällak) in the schools. Everything changed. The kids went berserk (olmādē). They set fire to their own desks and school property. They wrote graffiti on walls. There was no rationale (arthayak) to what they were doing. Some guys came to our school from another school and told us to stage a demonstration tomorrow at this particular time. They handed over a letter to our head prefect. So he had to take action. I mean, there was no way he couldn’t take action. Because all the boys were waiting for a chance to have some fun (vinodѐ). If you had asked me then, what it was about, what this ‘liberation’ ­(vimukthiya) we were talking about was, I wouldn’t have known what to say. What liberation, I couldn’t have said. But if you didn’t go along with what they did, you become ostracized (konvenavā) by the others so you don’t say anything. Was it the same in your school? I asked Varuna. Just the same, he replied. Our parents were bewildered, they were quite lost (godak asarana vuna). Because we were taken to the police station and detained. They didn’t know what to do. My father, for instance, he has never been into a police station in his life. He has never even been in a drunken brawl and hauled up. And here we were, taken in.

Interestingly, no one uses the word chandiyo to describe the behaviour of the boys during this episode. This seems to suggest that most of the boys who committed this kind of destructive violence were not those who were normally thought to have been ‘wild’ or who habitually engaged in transgressive conduct. There seems to have been something else at play here.

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In Nirmal’s school, the head prefect and other senior boys appeared to feel that they were powerless to disregard the instructions given to them by DJV activists. Some of this fear may have been due to the DJV’s barbaric actions in other realms, such as the trade union sector, in which sometimes those who baulked at its demands paid harshly (ibid.). But the culture of unquestioning compliance to authority within the high school also clearly played a role. In this instance, students displayed the same commitment to following the orders of their prefects, who were clearly being manoeuvred by a shadowy underground political group, that they did at other times when their prefects were simply conveying the directive of teachers. The DJV’s authority – the authority of the gun and knife – at this point overrode the previously unchallenged influence of the teaching staff. At the same time, this created a space for many younger boys who saw these developments as a chance to have fun (vinodѐ), to give reign to their inner teenage rebelliousness and newly-acquired love of action, always held at bay by the school management. This created the conditions for a ‘wave’ (rällak) in the schools in which normally circumspect boys engaged in a mindless destruction of school and public property. Having been given a licence to destroy, they did so with abandon. It is not clear if – at the time – Nirmal himself really disapproved of the extent of violence, or if he enjoyed the fun, too. But it is clear that he was afraid of being ostracized if he went against the tide. For many parents, this was a devastating time. Just having their children taken into a police station became a cause for shame among a certain stratum of conservative, working-class parents who had strived all their lives to distance themselves from violence and public misconduct, and who wished their sons to succeed academically.

Spectacular violence and the chandiya With the escalation in levels of violence in the 1980s, the urban tough (chandiya) came to his own. The magnitude of events throughout this decade evoked new conceptual concerns among Sri Lankan scholars and academics about practices of male violence engaged in by these figures on the margins of society. Such urban toughs perpetrated anti-Tamil violence during the pogrom of 1983 and both antistate as well as state-sponsored violence in the subsequent July Uprising. In many instances, such figures acted at the behest of powerful political figures. But the relationship between these ‘lesser’ masculinities and the leaders they serve – as much as in feudal times – are complex and never a one-way bind. Though the chandiya did not play a prominent role in colonial writings in ­Sinhala, he emerges as a motif in the increasingly vibrant post-colonial literature. Two main practices of the chandiya can be identified. The first is the image of the chandiya as the loku ayya (‘big’ elder brother), which reverberates across Sinhala theatre and cinema (de Silva 2005: 81–82).8 Here the chandiya – universally addressed by the honorific loku ayya – dominates everyday life in milieux such as urban ghettoes, tenements and run-down village communities. He resolves issues of violence

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within the community, on the one hand, while defending it from external threat, on the other. What he acts out is essentially a kind of embellished version of the role of eldest brother in the Sinhala familial milieu. The loku ayya persona is comparable to the hardmen as described by Feldman (1991) in his work on Irish militants. As much as the hardman, the violence he has survived is stamped upon the chandiya’s scarred and sometimes mutilated body. Like the hardman, in everyday transactions, this violence is potential rather than overt; it is the possibility of violence that elicits social order in communities that are frequently no-go areas for the local police. Unlike the hardman though, here any display of overt violence is mostly sub-contracted to minions and underlings who willingly bloody their hands on his behalf. And such violence, when it does unfold, assumes spectacular dimensions and, in the Sinhala convention, is aimed at emasculating the opponent by reducing him to a public spectacle. This is not to say that the loku ayya himself may not engage in illicit liquor-brewing, drug-dealing or protection rackets, but that at the very least, he regulates these pursuits and tries to prevent the community from descending into an anarchic space of spiralling violence.9 But critically, as much as the hardman – as the overt kin terminology implies – the loku ayya is not outside the community’s social order. He remains very much a part of the community, and his opinions carry moral weight. He frequently plays a unifying role within the community by arranging pilgrimages and other expeditions in which the whole group participates and rebuilds its connections. He may also engage in social service, such as helping out destitute families – mostly those of his supporters serving jail time – with school books, school uniforms and shoes, all of which serve to reinforce his authority while nullifying the anti-social aspects of his career such as drug dealing. The community now willingly turns a blind eye to such exploits. The community is in fact key to his identity; being the recipient of its collective deference validates his existence and affirms his status as an exemplar of masculinity. With the opening of the economy in the late-1970s and the acceleration of globalization, however, the urban ghetto underwent tremendous transformations. The rise in the flow of illicit drugs and narcotics into this space and the diffusion of gaming cultures saw the emergence of an underworld with links to key political figures. In this new climate, the icon of the loku ayya acquires new connotations and a vastly enhanced scope.10 A divergent practice of the chandiya is offered by Jeganathan, which he terms bhayanethi-kama or ‘fearlessness’ ( Jeganathan 2000: 37–65). In this formulation, the bhayanethi chandiya frequently embraces violence. Bhayanethi-kama is the refusal of fear (bhaya) and is explicitly posited against the concept of läjjā-bhaya or ‘the fear of being publicly shamed’. In this practice, the bhayanethi chandiya refuses to be intimidated by the prospect of being ridiculed or subjected to public mortification as the target of gossip, innuendo or social critique. His practice is an open withdrawal of deference to those to whom he deferred before. Since he does not care about the good opinion of the community, he no longer fears what they may say about

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him. This fearlessness in challenging social boundaries also extends to the desire to ­r isk-the-body, to constantly challenge physical boundaries (ibid.). Unlike the persona of the loku ayya, therefore, ‘fearlessness’ is a transgressive practice. It is outside the bounds of läjjā-bhaya (bodily deference) on which nonhegemonic Sinhala masculinities rest. In other words, while the loku ayya persona conducts himself within the parameters of Sinhala etiquette – paying lip-service to figures of authority such as Buddhist monks, school teachers, local-level officials and political dignitaries – Jeganathan’s chandiya puts himself outside this social order. This denial of the applicability of social norms to his own conduct tends to draw much public disapprobation. Unlike the loku ayya, then, Jeganathan’s chandiya is not a socially validated role. He subsists on the margins of society. He survives through allegiance to figures of social or political prominence, for whom he and his ‘boys’ can perform ‘favours’ and who in return provide a measure of political cover. But he is not a mindless underling. His ‘favours’ are aimed at realizing his own goals as well as that of his benefactor, or even using his benefactor as a cover for his own goals (Jeganathan 1998: 221–246; 2000: 37–65). The Eelam Wars (1983–2009), then, were conducted in a context in which Sinhala society was seeing radical shifts in norms of masculinity and violence.

SLA leaves their barracks The Second Uprising also brought the Army out of its barracks. For the first time in decades, the Army became a visible presence in the Sinhala countryside. Many schoolboys were fascinated. This was more so for those in the interior, particularly around Diyatalawa, where the SLA had a training school. Even lads who had cheerfully taken part in DJV-sponsored protests were taken up with the image created by the SLA marching across the countryside. Though in subsequent years, the SLA’s track record in pursuing ‘suspects’ in the rural areas was seen as problematic, at the very least, while events were unfolding this aspect of its role was still not known. At this point, it was the police who became the first line of defence against the JVP. The SLA’s reputation in the countryside seemed to have been unsullied. In this next section, Nirmal, Udaya, Varuna and Pradeep talk about what prompted them to enlist.

Narrative 9 – Enlisting: Nirmal, Udaya, Pradeep and Varuna Did you ever actually see soldiers before the July Uprising? I asked Varuna. Around 1988, said Varuna, the Army would be marching across the ­hillside. They sometimes went right through our village. I had this extraordinary desire (puduma āshāvak) to wear that uniform. It was a bit different from what ­Stallone wore in Cobra, but somehow it was what I wanted to wear.

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They were goose-stepping with such precision, he said, it was really beautiful (māra lassanai). I lost all interest in sitting for the O/Levels again. I just wanted to enlist. How about you? I asked Nirmal. Me too, he said. I first saw them in a pick-up truck. That was the first time. They were singing. They were shouting their heads off. Actually, they must have been properly drunk, but we didn’t twig that. We just thought they were really having fun. They were dressed so smartly, just like in First Blood, he said. I thought they were quite beautiful (godak lassanai). So did it inspire you to enlist in the Army? I asked him. Actually, said Nirmal, I just wanted a job. I was desperate to be doing something. This somehow seemed like something I could do. In fact, I was the first to join from my school. Subsequently many others joined. They came in the wave (rallata) I created. Not everyone could join. Some stayed on to do their A/Levels. So when they joined it was at a higher level than we did. They joined as officers. They had a more senior rank than I did, though I joined earlier. Did you also see the Army on the march and want to join? I asked Udaya. I don’t remember, said Udaya. I don’t think the Army ever marched across our areas. But I always had a great desire (loku āshāvak) to enlist. I think maybe this was because I did a lot of sports in school. I wasn’t keen on studying for exams. I think a lot of the boys who were with me in school ended up choosing this field. We had cadetting in my school, I did cadetting for about five years. We did a lot of marching and stuff, it was that kind of activity that created an interest in the Army in me. Didn’t you ever worry that joining the Army would involve danger? I asked Pradeep. No, he said, laughing. No, I just wanted to wear that uniform (anduma). To be honest, we didn’t have a real grasp of what war would entail. We were like, it wasn’t us, it would be someone else who’d be doing the actual fighting (api nevei yuddha karanne kiyala thamai api me yanne). How about you? I asked Varuna. Didn’t you worry at all? We never thought in terms of actually having to fight, said Varuna, grinning mischievously (yudda karana eva apita karanna vei kiyala api hituve na). I had only seen the troops marching in Diyatalawa. So I just thought it was about marching! Even though there was a war on, we didn’t realize that the Army would suffer heavy losses. At the time I joined, losses were not so sharp. It was the police who bore the brunt of JVP attacks. JVP activists were also killed and mutilated. But in the Army, nobody was dying. The government was looking for a way to destroy the JVP. So the government themselves assassinated the families of some members of the Army. So then those who were in the Army became enraged. So it was through strategies such as that that the JVP was suppressed.

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Thus Varuna spontaneously associated the soldiers’ uniform with the trendy combat fatigues he first saw Stallone’s Cobra sport on the screen, though in fact they were not very similar. He seemed to have been captivated by the general smartness and glamour of the uniform. Here, mediated through the image of Sinhala soldiers, the Stallone icon was incorporated into the cultural repertoire of Sinhala teenagers. Through the deep aesthetic pleasure his image evoked and the kinaesthetic desires it stirred, this ‘Cold War’ hero seemed to bring a new immediacy to the Anglo-Saxon code of manliness: it was no longer seen as the practice of toughs, goons and JVP insurgents. Thus by the late-1980s, the expanded recruiting programme of the SLA opened up an exciting space for many young men who aspired to join the public service and enjoy the accoutrements that bourgeois respectability entailed – including sartorial codes – but did not have the academic qualifications to do so. Astonishingly, only two participants seemed to have grasped that such a practice of masculinity would involve an active element of danger. The rest appeared to have readily suspended their disbelief. Many of them enlisted without telling their parents, especially their mothers, who were against them doing so. This was, for most of them, the first independent decision they had ever made. It was not always easy to sustain. Despite their desire to wear the uniform, all the men – even those who complained that their fathers drank and beat them up – displayed strong emotional links to their families, particularly their mothers. It was only after making their first break from home that many of them realized the extent of their emotional reliance on their families.

Concluding remarks The rural proletariat – from which all narrators were drawn – was a doubly disempowered space: battered by a depth of poverty that magnified the impact of economic crises and by States of Exclusion that unfolded during political crises such as uprisings. These events also augured radical change. Practices of masculinity that were hegemonic in their childhood shifted in their early-teens and again in their late-teens. During the April insurgency, parents witnessed brothers and friends being taken away, sometimes never to return. Thus the parental generation, who exemplified a masculinity of the bared, sweating body wished their children to extricate themselves from the mires of manual labour through free education, which would equip them to find clerical or teaching appointments. It would also build self-assurance so that they would not find themselves so disempowered that they could be randomly taken away, unchallenged, by the Army. These anxieties were internalized by children. As children, narrators strived hard to perform academically in order to be able to raise their family from poverty. Older children found themselves taking on heavy childcare responsibilities as parents focused on making ends meet during a major economic downturn. Such

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efforts brought them greater composure. Younger siblings, on their part, learnt to comply without complaint. The village schools they attended differed from the Buddhist schools set up by local philanthropists a hundred years earlier. They taught in Sinhala and affirmed a teacher-centred pedagogics. All narrators openly expressed their ‘love’ for their teachers and desire to be thought ‘good’ students, which implied uncritical deference to teaching staff and prefects. They did not strive to be free-thinkers. This was reinforced by the culture of familial relationships in which older boys took responsibility for younger brothers and played a parallel role to school authorities in disciplining them, which in turn validated symbolic violence by the latter. This reinforced a culture of acquiescence. But with the opening of the economy in the late-1970s, things changed. Unskilled labour migrations to West Asia began and the influx of consumer items and electronic goods into the rural sector gained pace. By this point, all narrators were beginning to flag in the classroom, unable to deal with the intense competition. The arrival of the electronic media into this quiet rural environment brought local cricketers and track stars onto the small screen. It also brought new icons acting out novel practices of adventurist masculinity to the front rooms of already restless boys. Schoolboys who had hardly seen any Sinhala movies were immediately taken-up by the Incredible Hulk and Tarzan. Acting-out the action sequences of these characters to entertain their classmates helped them to incorporate schoolboy versions of these practices into their repertoire. This added towards validating the exuberant body. The electronic media was also a great democratizing force in terms of access to information about the outside world. By their late-teens, with the advent of video cassette players and DVDs, they discover icons of violent combat such as Stallone and Schwarzenegger. At the same time, in the late-1970s, efforts to develop sports programmes throughout the island gave narrators a new option. Sports also had implications for embodiment; respondents represented a new generation of Sinhala lads who were taller and stronger than the parental generation, knew more about the outside world and were comfortable with risking-their-bodies in sports. Participating in competitive sports at the district, provincial and national levels and winning certificates gave them the confidence and composure they failed to achieve through academics. Their success, applauded by school authorities, finally convinced their parents that risking-the-body was not the equivalent of the practice of the chandiya. But overcoming bhaya in terms of the limits of the body did not imply independence – or a lack of bhaya – of the controlling power of school authorities. Despite trailing academically in school, which shattered the possibility of clerical appointments, in terms of aspirations, they were no longer ready to go back to their parents’ confined world. The July Uprising of the JVP, which disrupted their education, also pointed out a new path for them. When they saw the Army marching across the village, it evoked images of Stallone-style, action-packed adventures that in reality exemplified the acting-out of States of Exception in distant lands over

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other subjugated peoples. But for the narrators, this action-packed persona recapitulated the role of the saviour of the people. Consequently, the uniform signified a new practice of masculinity that eclipsed the desirability of a clerical position in the public sector. Enlisting then, exemplified the aspiration of those disenfranchised by poverty and powerlessness to acquire a measure of intelligibility in their identity: to wear the uniform that would give them the status that new forms of embodiment seemed to bring within their grasp.

Notes 1 JVP (1995) History 1965–1994. www.jvpsrilanka.com, accessed on 24 October 2017. 2 JVP, History. 3 The last ex-CDF veteran to leave the Army was Brigadier T. S. B. Sally of the SLA Volunteer Force, who ended his service tenure in 1979. British Army in Ceylon (www. britishempire.co.uk, accessed on 9th October 2017). 4 Sri Lanka – country study, Ethnic composition of the armed forces. www.country-data.com, accessed 26th September 2017. 5 Sri Lanka – country study, Ethnic composition. 6 See the Sinhala-language dailies Divaina and Dinamina coverage of the war between January 1985 and June 1987. 7 Ironically, the ‘Great Repression’, or bheeshanaya as it was called in Sinhala, referred to the repressive onslaught that followed the July Uprising, launched by the pro-­establishment, pro-capital UNP regime. Even those who subsequently joined the SLA and participated in the repression of the Tamil-speaking areas then, unconsciously accepted the terminology of ‘repression’ when talking about the period 1987–90. 8 See Vasantha Obeyesekere’s Kadapathaka Chaya (‘Reflections in a mirror’), which depicts the narrative of a boy who models himself on his bête noire, the loku ayya persona; Tissa Abesekere’s Kelani palama (‘the Kelani bridge’), which depicts a tenement community that lives under a bridge. This same community is also depicted in a stage drama ‘Palama yata (Under the bridge) that explores the same theme. 9 Ibid. 10 This syndrome is reflected in the writings, drama and cinema of the 1990s. While many theatrical projects focus on this motif, Vasantha Obeyesekere in his 1991 box-office hit, Maruthaya (‘the storm’), explores this theme of politician/underworld nexus.

5 COMBAT TRAINING AND THE BATTLEFIELD

Introduction Signing on was perhaps the most significant life decision study respondents had ever made for themselves. In fact, no one had made an independent decision of any weight before. Most of them could not even bring themselves to tell their parents they wanted to enlist, knowing the response would be hostility, pain or even anger. They shrank from dealing with this level of parental displeasure. They understood that the SLA exemplified a practice of masculinity about which the larger Sinhala society held deep reservations. At the same time, no one arrived for the initial interview on their own. They arrived – at least the first time – with an uncle, elder brother or friend. Many did not even know how to travel on their own to the Malay Street headquarters of the SLA in Colombo, where interviews were held. This was partly due to the fact that all respondents were from outside Colombo. But it underscored the dependent nature of the young recruits at the moment of enlisting. This sense of ­dependency – viewed in the village as connoting the kind of ingenuous ahimsaka (lit. non-aggressive) outlook that is highly valued – emerges in the outside world as diffidence, or a lack of self-belief (āthma-vsvāsa). Once they got to the Malay Street premises, though, they intuitively recognized this ahimsaka quality in the other lads there, which enabled them to bond with them, and these bonds deepened over the course of the numerous interviews. Everyone stressed the camaraderie that evolved, without which they would have felt alone and afraid (bhaya). This chapter looks at the ways in which combat training and the battlefield transformed young recruits, hardening their bodies and pushing back the threshold of pain, through the narratives of five infantrymen. It will track the trajectory of their military careers over the years, exploring their attempts to overcome some DOI: 10.4324/9781003362036-5

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aspects of bhaya – in terms of fear of death and danger on the battlefield – while retaining other aspects of it – such as fear of angering hegemonic groups, superior officers or anyone who out-ranked them. Over time, they find self-belief and grasp the practice of risking-the-body. They then become junior leaders, corporals, sergeants who are responsible for the lives of raw recruits on the battlefield who are shaken with bhaya. However, speaking truth to power remained problematic.

The narrators: Sunil, Ananda, Vasantha, Udesh and Vipula All five men rose through the ranks to become sergeants by the time of retirement. Interestingly, their growing authority within their units, traced in this journey up the ranks, in some ways paralleled their role within the family in the village. Vasantha, who fought with the 5th Gajaba Regiment (5GR), Udesh, 4th Sinha Regiment (4SR) and Vipula (4GR) happened to be the eldest sons in their families, and this familial role seemed to shape their sense of responsibility and the way they handled themselves on the battlefield. Sunil was the second son, but his older brother dropped out of school in the seventh grade. He later took-up as a delivery boy for a bakery, but, despite working long hours, his income was minimal and the burden of keeping the family afloat fell on Sunil. Ananda had an elder brother who also joined the SLA, but suffered serious injuries, losing his right arm and a foot. With his brother not able to do much more than help out in the family hoppermaking booth, Ananda had to pick up the bills and be a support to his mother, a single parent, in caring for his young sisters. Their narratives – which take the form of conversations with the writer – all reveal this sense of being responsible for those around them. The first hurdle was of course overcoming bhaya. The notion of bhaya – often glossed as ‘fear’ – as discussed earlier, holds charged connotations in the larger Sinhala ethos. Even though fear itself has negative connotations, it is closely tied to the concept of läjjā-bhaya (fear of being publicly shamed/social deference), which has positive nuances. It suggested an ahimsaka disposition. In fact, such a culture of deference to seniority thrived within the SLA barracks. While new entrants in all armies are expected to show respect to superior ­officers, the SLA demanded that recruits display abject deference to anyone who out-ranked them or even was equal in rank but enlisted before. Any minor refraction of this non-verbal code could result in harsh penalties which were physically painful or shaming punishments (läjjā) which demeaned. Acquiescence is also achieved by demanding total compliance of the minutiae of SLA rules and regulations. Thus standing at attention or at ease – which requires an upright stance implying personal autonomy – did not really mean that deference had been overcome. Though the body no longer openly expresses its bhaya, mentally and emotionally bhaya has not been conquered. Out on the battlefield, though, the SLA demanded a radically different code of conduct from its soldiers. They were required to perform as if they had indeed mastered their bhaya. In the 1990s, when linear manoeuvres of a previous century had been replaced by specialized attack and defence routines,

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SLA strategists expected a high degree of risk-taking and initiative from its soldiers (SLA 1999: 501–502). This required nothing less than a shift in subject position. This constant shift between total submission to authority in the barracks and the need to display initiative and mettle on the battlefield was to create a sense of bodily embattlement for new recruits. They struggled to shift from one mode of being to another: from passive obedience to proactively springing into action after a swift appraisal of attack and cover options. This shift was mediated through the combat training process. But even combat training, while providing strategies for agency on the battlefield, entailed harsh penalties for minor infractions off it, in order to induce total subjection to higher ranks. To overcome bhaya then, the new recruit must develop self-belief (āthma-visvāsa) and a greater measure of composure so that he can rationally assess his options in any situation and act. Still, this is hard to do within a system that is geared to keep him in a state of uncertainty and perpetual diffidence through a fractious and often irrational seniority-based leadership culture which at the same time – especially in the case of junior leaders – might display real affection for their ‘boys’.

Combat training While enlisting itself seemed fraught with adventure, it was only after the basic training was over that that many recruits began to take in the fact that they had left home and were now on their own. While they all agreed that combat training toughened up their bodies, many seemed to have remained emotionally vulnerable at the end of it. Family and friends arrived for the passing-out parade, duly admired their uniforms, extolled their exploits at the exhibition display and then went back home. This left the young men feeling somehow bereft, like small boys on their first day at boarding school. This sense of being abandoned was to return at difficult moments during the long campaigns into enemy territory and on the battlefield. Vipula, who enlisted in 1991, captures the mixed feelings of many on leaving home. Narrative 1 – Cutting links with home: Vipula I went for the first interview without telling my parents, he said. Then there was the medical check-up, that took two days. Still they didn’t know. It was only when I  got a place in the Army that I  told them. They were not keen. I didn’t take any notice of that then. But when they came for the passing-out parade, three months later, I was sad that day. They were also sad. It was then that I realized how much I’d missed them (ammalage aduva dänuna). It was a strange feeling. I suddenly felt very desolate. When they were leaving, I was shattered. I wanted to go back home with them. For about two hours, there was this very difficult kind of ache (amaru kakkumak vagē). It was the same for everyone. When you remember your village. When you remember your home. Seventeen, eighteen years old, and you’re crying. Everybody cried when their parents left.

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At the start, then, Vipula seemed to associate crying with a lack of some abstract principle of adulthood rather than manliness per se. But he pointed out that it was a collective phenomenon; it was the same for everyone, 17 or 18 years old, and when you thought of home, you were crying. Here his ‘lack’ did not isolate him, but on the contrary united him with his fellow recruits. An open expression of emotional vulnerability (ahimsakatvaya) struck a chord and became a strength. Thus while the boys themselves were keen to embrace the new code of manliness as exemplified by their uniform, they were at that point by no means stiff upper-lipped soldiers. While many of them were proud of their sports achievements and athletics prowess, they weren’t mentally prepared for the demands of combat training. It was a total shock. Sunil and Ananda were recruited together into the 4GR in October 1990. In this next narrative, they describe their initial reactions to combat training.

Narrative 2 – Combat training: Sunil and Ananda In the first few days, said Ananda, all you can think of is, oh god, when will this ever end. How will I get through this. One more day, one more day. You don’t really grasp much of what you’re taught, because you’re just preoccupied with how long you’ll survive. You’re terrified of the instructors. At the start, you’re terrified of everyone. Of course, after a bit, you come out of that. But still, boys run away. In our batch though, out of 150, only about three ran away. That was only because we were on an island, and there was nowhere to run. There were 150 in our intake, said Sunil. They first took us to the Anuradhapura camp. They told us to assemble on the grounds. Then they issued us our uniforms. Uniforms, boots, canvas, socks, everything, plates to eat from, mugs, everything was issued there. Then they gave us a pack to put the things into. The pack’s about two feet in height. Everything went into that. Then they broke us up into teams of 25. Each team had a physical training instructor (PTI). In those days we didn’t even know he was called that. He wears a white T-shirt and white trousers and takes us to PT. In fact, he said, he took us for everything. Of the 150, we were mostly between 18 and 22 years. In general, under 22 years. The PTI was a bit older than us. But we were not trained there, said Ananda. From Anuradhapura they sent us to Trinco-malee. From there we went by sea to the island of Kayts off the Jaffna peninsula. In those days, the Kayts island was controlled by the EPDP.1 There were no Tigers (LTTE activists) there. At that point, the EPDP was working with the Army. The initial training period was three months.

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By the time we arrived in Kayts, we were broken up into teams of 25. By now we had made friends among ourselves. We generally hung out together in these groups. Within these groups, we had chosen who to be with, like, this guy’s OK, that guy’s OK. The Commanding Officer (CO) of the unit called us together, said Sunil, and told us we would start training. He said, don’t think running away is an option. It’s not possible to run away. This is an island and is surrounded by the sea on all sides. Was the training programme really so tough? I asked. Three guys ran away from our group, said, Ananda. But it was no use. The EPDP caught them and brought them back. What time did you have to wake up? I asked. Definitely by 4.00 a.m. we’re up, said Sunil. We get up, wash our faces, shave, organize the tea. During training, the tea is poured at 5.00 a.m. Someone is detailed to fetch it each day. On some days, I  have to fetch it. Then I have to somehow serve it out to all 25 guys – all must have some! Or they can’t run. At 6.30 a.m. there is inspection. Then we go for PT. Forty-five minutes. How far do you actually run? I asked. In the morning, he said, not so far. Maybe 2–3 kilometres. But after that there are the exercises. From your head downwards, right up to your feet, they exercise every muscle in your body before bringing you back. After the first few weeks, it gets tougher. Sometimes you have to carry someone and run with him. That’s tough, I agreed. Then breakfast, he said. Then we have to change into uniform. The uniform has to be well pressed, boots clean and everything. However much you polish them, it’s no use, they’re never happy. At 8.30 a.m. there’s marching and parading. After that, there’s weapons training. This involves taking the weapons apart and cleaning them. Is the weapons training easy? I asked. You have to take them apart and put them together again, said Sunil. They teach you how to shoot. You mean target practice? I asked. Before you get to target practice, he said, first you have to learn how to fire the gun. First they teach you that. Then they bring a target, set it up in front of you and teach you how to aim at it. They increase the distance little by little. On the first day, they teach you how to take the weapon apart. Then you have to do that. Then you have to put it together again. When we arrive straight from a civil situation, we don’t know how to take a weapon apart. We’ve never seen a weapon. Even if you have seen one, it’s only once you’re in the Army that you know how to do the rest.

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What did you do after that? I asked. Lunch time is 12.30–1.30 p.m., one hour, said Sunil. After eating there were lectures. At 1.30 p.m. we have to be at lectures. It’s over at 4.30 p.m. You have to take down notes, quite a lot of notes. They teach you about different kinds of bombs, about ammunition. They instruct you about everything, first aid, about different drugs, the lectures were about things like that. Do you still remember the first aid? I asked. Yes, he said, I also did a Community Medicine Course (CMC) when I was in the Army. I can give saline to a patient, basic injections and things like that. They give us tea at 3.00 p.m., he continued. They give us a normal break then. About ten minutes. We drink our tea and go back to lectures. Until 4.30 p.m. In the evenings, we can play any games we like. So it’s not as tough as all that, is it? I asked. Still, said Ananda, it’s a bit tough when you have to do it day after day. The hard bits, said Sunil, are the punishments. If you mess up anything, there are the punishments. If one person fails to do it properly, the whole group is punished. What kind of punishment do they get you to do? I asked. Sit-ups, he said, like, one hundred. To clear-up the perimeter of the camp. That’s miles. Or sometimes they might take you on a cross-country run. That’s 14 miles. Anything in between. There’s something like this in the Army. If one guy does something wrong, the whole lot will be punished, that’s what they do in the Army. It’s a lot about unity (samagiya), togetherness (ekamuthubhāvaya). When I  say unity, I  mean, if this happened today because I made a mistake, the next guy may also have the same problem; on that premise, they frame a collective punishment. Though I was the one who faulted, it’s not seen as personal to me. It’s seen as something that may occur as a result of anyone’s mistake. But of course, he said, you don’t grasp these things very clearly when you’re a new recruit. At that time, all you think is, when will this end, when will we be free from all this, that’s the one thought which comes to your head. One more day, one more day. That’s all you take. Very little else goes to your mind. But someday, when we have learnt everything and we have to instruct someone else, we can understand that this was the premise behind what’s going on here. When it was all over, I said, at the end, when you completed your training, what were your feelings? I was happy, said Ananda. After it was over, we were, like, free. Our aspiration (adishtānaya) was now achieved. The goal to join the Army was now reached. To have completed the training meant we were successful. Because

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we heard that some people get badly injured during training, and that some people run away half-way through. Yes, said Sunil. Now we knew what the Army entailed. We knew all about the ranks within the Army. We knew the wages each rank were paid. We knew what duties were involved in each rank. We were not going to be in this position in the hierarchy every day. We thought we must work to get promotions. When you put on your uniform, there are badges for the course you’ve done. So we thought, right, first we’ll get the PTI course. That was our attitude.

Having been brought up to feel that questioning those in authority was somehow bad etiquette, at first Sunil and Ananda were afraid (bhaya) of everything: the camp, the routine, the PT instructor. But they instantly bonded with the other new recruits knowing – intuitively – that they were immersed in the same familial ethos upon which their childhood friendships in the village were built. The SLA demanded that they step out of this sheltered world – marked by filial and fraternal role-play – and become persons in their own right. This shift began with being issued with their own personal effects, such as plate, mug and pack, unlike in the domestic space where family members shared cutlery, crockery and other utensils. They learned to adjust to a time-table that divided up their day into rigid slots. Or, as Marx put it, adjust to bourgeois time. Even leisure was structured into the time-table. This allowed them to focus on each activity and become more decisive, since they had to fit an activity into a specific time slot and then move on to the next. They also had to ensure that the early morning tea was shared out equally among each person in the group. If not, those left out would not be able to keep up with the rest of the squad in the morning PT run. This could end in the whole unit being punished. Here, individuals cultivating qualities such as fairness and impartiality in sharing resources became a collective asset. The most decisive aspect of this shift, however, involved nothing less than a move towards a different practice of masculinity. This was effected through combat training. The training regime built up levels of physical endurance, constantly pushing back the threshold of pain. There came a point when a sequence of moves that once involved risking-the-body became routine. The body was now at such a level of fitness that the element of physical danger involved diminished steadily. This instilled a greater sense of composure. ‘Risk-taking’ lost its daunting connotations – for the present. In the training grounds, everything seemed possible: no wall too high to scale, no barrier too wide to leap. But they had not yet ventured onto the battlefield, where enemy bombardments created a new environment of risk that they could not control. At the same time, instilled notions of deference to higher ranks allowed recruits to be accommodating of the harshly hierarchical nature of Army discipline (hamuda

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vinaya). The conventional Army strategy of using physical punishments to penalize new recruits was also uncritically accepted by young soldiers, who did not question the rationale behind collective punishment. They also learned to goose-step in the ceremonial marching and drill routines that so enraptured them as teenagers. They discovered that behind the glossy images of synchronized motion, much exhausting practice had to be invested to achieve these seemingly effortless performances. When it was all over, they were left with a feeling of achievement and a greater sense of agency. They were confident they had the ability to forge their own path in life. They aspired to rise up in the ranks. While they did not question that, as the newest recruits, the discourse of military discipline obliged them to be subservient to anyone more senior, they told themselves that this would be a short-lived situation, and looked forward to being promoted to junior leadership positions such as lance corporal, corporal, sergeant.

Confronting the Stallone icon It was not in the initial combat training but in an ad hoc ‘special training course’ that they finally confronted and de-mystified the Stallone persona of their youthful fantasies. After every long operation, soldiers were sent back to training school to give them a break from the frontlines, replete their diminished ranks and allow the new recruits to mesh with older hands. Such special training courses were sometimes conducted by foreign security ‘consultants’ from the USA and Israel and other specialists in anti-terrorist operations (SLA 1999: 393). Sunil and Vasantha reminisce about their first experience of foreign instructors.

Narrative 3 – Stallone and Schwarzenegger: Sunil and Vasantha I remember we were trained by some white guys, said Sunil. From the USA. When we saw them for the first time, we thought, ayyo, these guys will chop us up, grill and eat us (kapala uyala kai). Why, they were so scary. Each one was about 6’4”. And heavy. You can’t tell the difference between the men and the women. The women also have short hair, their voices are deep (gorosu) like men, they’re tall and heavily built. We understood from the start that they had a different take on time than a Sri Lankan person. We’re supposed to start running at 7.00 a.m. If it rains at 6.59 a.m., then we don’t go on our run. Because the rain came first, the programme is shelved. If it rains at 7.01, then we go running anyway, rain, thunder or lighting, they will continue their programme. But though they’re so big, it’s actually hard for them to move those heavy bodies. When we go on a cross-country run, our boys are racing ahead like

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horses, uphill and down dale. Those guys are panting half-way up. At the ­finish, the Stallones have gone missing (Stallonelā pẽnna nä). They did a helicopter training course, on how to climb a ladder and get down while the chopper is still in the air. It was a lot of fun for us (loku vinode). Not work as such. They were surprised at how easily our boys learnt. Our boys, they’re like monkeys, aren’t they, climbing a ladder is nothing, it’s harder to climb a coconut tree. The white guys, their bodies are generally not so agile (namyathāvaya samanyen adui). At the end of the course, we did an exhibition display for them, and we did it better than they taught us. They were very impressed. Their strong suit, he said, is grasp of technology (thakshanaya paththen diyunui). They’re ahead of us on those kinds of things. Vasantha (5GR) also attended an airmobile course conducted by US trainers. Actually, it wasn’t that hard, he said. Though it was carried out by foreign trainers, by the US Army and they’re not like us. Everyone has a good physique, they’re tall, well-built (usa-mahatha) men. You have to stretch your neck (bella ussala) to see their faces. Still, they’re not as capable as we are (väda karanna bä). Their war is totally about technology (thakshanayen). What we have in Sri Lanka is a guerrilla war. They’re most comfortable with engaging in (conventional) war with helicopters, Kaffirs. They do ground wars too, but they don’t do as many frontline confrontations as we do. They have no experience (of that kind of action). They can’t run like us. In general, we run about 6 kilometres every morning. They do about 2 kilometres and that’s it. They can’t run. We couldn’t believe it. At the start, they seemed so scary. We thought, what will they do to us. When you see those bodies, they’re scary. You think they’ll kill you and throw you aside (marala visikarai) when you have to do the course with them. But they’re actually not harsh at all (poddakwath sära nä). They lecture in English, there’s a translator –maybe he puts it across more kindly for us! Were the lectures good? I asked. Good, he said. It was in 1993, but they brought multimedia and everything with them. They used all the technology for their presentations. They have absolutely everything. There’s nothing that’s not in their pack: pocket radios, special night-vision lights, everything. I’m not saying they’re physically not able (häkiyavenut narakai kiyanava nevei ithin) but . . .

Over the years, then, the young recruits confronted diverse versions of the Schwarzenegger/Stallone icons of their adolescent imagining. But they d­ iscovered – much to their amazement – that these heavy bodies were in fact unwieldy and lacked the agility projected on the screen. These ‘foreign consultants’ looked like the icon, they were definitely built like celluloid warriors, but they lacked the

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performative dimension of the image on the screen. The icon was now fractured. But the bodies of the soldiers themselves had begun to naturalize the traits that enabled them to act out the larger cultural idiom of risking-the-body. Combat training hardened their bodies and raised their threshold of pain. It quantified the uncertainties involved in risking-the-body. Over the course of the training programme, they became quite fond of these amiable giants, whose voices were so deep but who didn’t have a harsh word for anybody. In a way, they now projected a different kind of masculinity, which – because of their imposing physical presence – did not have resort to ‘harshness’ (särakama) to extract obedience, but could afford to rely on politeness and mutual respect. Finally, they also confronted a female version of the icon that was, on the face of it, much the same as the men. As much as the British colonials who were dismayed because of the difficulty of differentiating between Sinhala men and women, Sinhala troops seem to retain ambiguities about white female soldiers who looked exactly like the men. At the same time, here the female icon is not sexualized, but allowed to simply remain a prototype of the male. This is in stark contrast to the way they would view female LTTE fighters they encounter in the battlefield later in their career.

Learning valour on the battlefield Meanwhile, the LTTE’s combat capability was steadily growing. Initially, they relied heavily on landmines to disrupt SLA movements. Then they began building their own mortars and armoured vehicles and went on to ambush the SLA’s reconnaissance parties. They subsequently shifted to attacking civilian populations, driving Sinhala-speaking traders and fishing communities from the Northern and Eastern Provinces and attacking Sinhala villages on the borders of Tamil-­speaking territories. Providing protection to these border villages also became a major responsibility of the SLA. But with the outbreak of Eelam War II in 1990, the LTTE stepped-up its activities and began directly attacking well-secured SLA camps such as Mankulam and Elephant Pass. By the early-1990s, a distressing trend had emerged. Thus, in his Annual Report of 1994, Army Commander Lt. Gen. G. H. de Silva (1994–1995) complained that when caught in an ambush, troops frequently failed to use their hand grenades, which would at least have enabled them to get out of the killing field and mount a counterattack. On the contrary, he said, soldiers responded to a surprise attack by running away, leaving everything – weapons, the injured and the dead – behind. The LTTE exploited this situation to cut-down the fleeing soldiers with well-positioned cut-off groups. They then conducted well-planned drills for the collection of abandoned weapons, equipment and ammunition (SLA 1999: 501–502).

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In other words, the SLA Commander complains that combat training – which gave the narrators such a sense of achievement – did not in fact enable troops to overcome their bhaya under actual battlefield conditions. They failed to move smoothly into the defensive routines instilled in training and instead simply fled. He felt it was the LTTE that displayed a greater level of professionalism. There appears to have been a serious gap therefore, between the expectations of selfassured, Sandhurst-trained commanders of their troops and the way soldiers actually performed on the battlefield. The SLA Commander goes on to mention that at every level, it was junior leaders (NCOs) who faced the brunt of any attack (ibid.). This shines a light on a critical aspect of the SLA leadership structure; there was no institutional mechanism through which NCOs such as sergeants, corporals and lance corporals could make their way up the command ladder and become commissioned officers (COs). Consequently, throughout their careers bodily courage was rarely demanded of COs. As much as in the British Army in Ceylon then, higher ranks acquired class connotations. Criticism of a lack of courage on the part of troops frequently came from senior ranks who had never had to lead assaults under actual battle conditions and might not really grasp the difference between performing in training and performing under direct enemy fire. But clearly, this did not invalidate the Army Commander’s strictures on troop performance. The Commander himself was convinced there was a need to ‘revolutionize’ ­junior leadership training and that in a context where the LTTE had taken to jungle hideouts and become very adept at jungle warfare and guerrilla warfare, training in these kinds of warfare was being neglected by the SLA. He also felt that while much of the LTTE’s encounters and attacks and almost all their troop movements were at night, SLA troops’ ability to operate at night was seriously lacking (SLA 1999: 502). He therefore initiated a programme to re-train 7,000–10,000 platoon commanders and NCOs, including in fighting in built-up areas (FIBUA) in order to confront the LTTE in urban locations in the Jaffna Peninsula and ­Kilinochchi (ibid.). But for new recruits such as Udesh, Vasantha, Vipula, Sunil and Ananda struggling to survive on the battlefield, developing self-belief and a level of composure that would allow them to engage in risk-taking was an infinitely more complex project. They discovered that combat training was only one aspect of this effort. The real problem was of course acting-out combat routines on the battlefield. Even the most basic manoeuvres, such as conducting an assault on enemy positions, demanded a total concentration on the task in hand, irrespective of the dangers posed, and a suspension of one’s emotional ties and familial bonds at any given moment. For many new recruits, this in itself was a serious challenge. Udesh, who joined 4SR in 1990, describes how the assault is done.

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Narrative 4 – Conducting the assault: Udesh It’s like this, he said. When you’re doing an assault, you never think about the casualties, the deaths that are happening. If you start thinking about all those things, it’s hard to go on. You can’t go on. What we have to do is keep shooting and move forward. We first attack the forward bunker line. We set up our frontline. Then we keep attacking and advancing – usually we form an assault line extending about 500–600 metres before we attack. When we attack, the terra (terrorists) counterattack. Some of the guys on the front of the assault line will fall, but because we’re going forward in a great wave, if one or two guys fall, it’s not a problem. When we go on attacking and moving forward, they shoot back for a bit and then they start running. So now we’re crashing forward (kadagena enava). I mean, in an assault, we don’t go like, in single file, do we, we’re in a frontline of a hundred men. Are the LTTE fighters facing you very much less in number? I asked. Yes, he said, but if they know we’re planning to break through at a given point, they deploy their maximum manpower. Still, our task is, now, let’s say the casualty levels are too high, we pause for a bit and call for the artillery. There’s an officer to direct artillery fire. The unit commander who’s leading the assault (CU), they also make inputs into plotting positions on the grid. So now the artillery guys are hitting them from above. So, now there’s around a hundred men in the assault line, I prompted. Yes, he said, around a hundred, we’re attacking in a continuous line. But it’s not as if we’re standing next to each other – there’s about five metres between each guy. It’s not shoulder-to-shoulder. When the assault is taking place, anyhow, we (the infantry troops) are the units who lead – we’re the line that goes first and secures the terrain. The others come later. No one would like to be on the front of the line, would they? I asked. It’s like this, he said, when you’re at the top of the line, your life is unsure. When you’re out there on the front of the assault line, I asked, what are you thinking? Do you consciously think, I’m out here, I’m a sitting duck? It’s like this, he said. Till about 5–6 months after you enlist, you mostly do it because you don’t grasp the enormity of your situation (nodanumathkamata karanavā). You don’t realize what you’re doing. You have a gun. Someone shoots. You just aim in the same direction and shoot. You go on like that. You keep doing that, but then after a bit, you get your eye in (huru venavā). After that you know what you’re doing. When you get to this point, you receive some sort of official endorsement. You become a lance corporal, corporal, sergeant. You get these designations after 5–6 years. When you’re a lance corporal, you have a specific responsibility (rājakārya). You have another 3–4 guys under you. So now you’re responsible not just for your own life, but

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for these boys as well. So you can’t let them ever see at any point that you think the situation is lost. That you’ve lost morale. Because now if the corporal loses his nerve, then the boys will invariably end up lost (dead). If I retreat (pasubassoth), if I say we can’t go on, they’re hitting us too hard, if I use phrases like that, then the others will agree with me and say yes, we can’t go forward, it’s too tough. Let’s go back, let’s retreat . . . So we never use phrases like that. After you become a leader, your responsibility for keeping up the morale of the whole unit is higher. And your own morale is higher as well. You have more confidence (āthma-visvāsa) that you can get the job done. That comes through combat experience. When you move through the battlefield, you accumulate certain experiences. This infuses itself (bẽrenava) into your performance. At the very least, as a leader, even under mortar fire, you can never retreat. If I’m a leader, as a sergeant – as a matter of fact, I had greater responsibilities than the boys, I was already married then, I had responsibilities at home as well, I had kids – but I can instantly hear the noise of the pick-up of the mortar-barrel. They fire the mortar from close range, you know, the pick-up sound from the barrel is very clear. So your first instinct is to go down. But I can’t go down. Because the boys around me haven’t heard the sound. They haven’t registered what it is. I have to get them down before I  can go down myself. Or else, that’s not proper leadership. Would leadership involve somehow escaping from the mortar firing? I asked. Yes, he said. You have to escape the mortars. You have to shout at everyone, send them down, and then go down. If I go down first, sometimes the boys I  command may think I’m weak. That I’m afraid (bhayai). There’s that kind of thing as well. So you don’t just lose people in the battlefield. That’s not our job (rājakārya). We don’t allow our boys to feel even the slightest anxiety (säkayak). We won’t ever leave you here and run away. At times we do run away. But we never let them feel that we will abandon them and run away, that we will never do. We say we’ll stay with you whatever happens. The message we give is that, if we have to die, we’ll all die together.

Here Udesh traces his progress from raw recruit to battle-hardened sergeant. Unlike the Dutch soldier who, confident that God was on his side, willingly took up arms against Spain, the young Sinhala recruit had no such guarantee. His p­ roject does not evoke such divine sanction. Even though he wants to prove himself, he is diffident. As he steps onto the battlefield, he is assailed by a sense of bhaya. He cannot get his body to go ‘down’ or slide effortlessly into a roll as he was taught

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to do in training. Engulfed by the clamour, he loses track of what he is supposed to be doing and blindly follows what the next guy is does. He cannot even move into a roll without constant extortions. It takes at least six months for him to gain a measure of composure and become attuned to the cacophony of the battlefield. Now he can discern sounds that other novices might not be able to. This becomes a key life-saving skill. But it takes at least another 5–6 years before he is ready to take responsibility for the lives of the new recruits under him as a corporal and to act decisively to save them from enemy fire. Udesh wished to perform his rājakārya properly. This involved acting-out a specific practice of risking-the-body on the battlefield that SLA instructors expected of him. But it did not come easy. His performance was therefore marked by an anxiety that he might be seen to be lacking in valour; that his actions might be construed as those of a man who is afraid and the implications of this for his reputation. It was these churning anxieties that drive him to perform sometimes heroic acts of valour, including saving the lives of his ‘boys’. He knew that his actions set the tone and affected the level of courage his boys would display. At the same time, he was driven by an aspect of the code of seniority, the obligation to ensure the well-being of those in his charge. Thus he construes his rājakārya to entail seeing that the boys in his team go down in time, because he doesn’t believe they could do so on their own. He didn’t expect them to be composed enough to be able to hear a command and just fling themselves down. He takes it for granted that they cannot summon up the initiative to take charge of preserving their own lives on the battlefield. He is beset by these conflicting pressures, which in fact propel his performance onto the next level. Here bodily embattlement drives him to push himself to limits he himself could not have envisaged. It allows him to approximate to a masculinity of risk-taking and valour for extended periods. Similarly, Vipula, who fought with the 5GR, looks back at his combat experiences and tries to assess his journey through the ranks.

Narrative 5 – Learning valour (1): Vipula After our first operation, he said, it dawned on us that war is a brutal (dharunu) thing. Still, because of our desire (ashāva) to fight, we did not really feel any fear, as such. We were so young, weren’t we? After two or three years, though, you understand what war is. When you’re doing an attack, you know how you should save yourself, how you should find cover, how you should do everything. In between operations you have re-training. Over and above that, it is only on the battlefield that you find out a practice that actually works. They tell you to go down when a bomb is falling. But though we go down, we don’t know where the bomb is going to fall, do we? You can hear the sound from where it came. When the bomb gets closer to

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the ground, when it gets close to exploding, in our minds, we can expect to hear a specific sound. To work out if it’s going to fall close to us or 25 metres away, only experience in the battlefield can tell you. Training alone won’t enlighten you on that. When you fire with a T56, you fire from a distance of about a hundred metres. When you hear the sound of the shot, you can judge the distance from which they’re shooting. If they’re shooting from within a hundred metres, it’s more likely you’ll be killed. If it’s about three hundred metres, you can generally escape. So like that, that kind of thing you can only learn from experience, by doing operations. How long did it take you to get to that point? I asked. Around the second operation, he said, you find that your body gets into a certain mode (ibema ängata enava). When they’re attacking with artillery, you hear the pick-up and you go down. Your body automatically gets into this mode. It’s just a reflex (prathikriya) that takes over when you hear a certain sound. Before you know it, you’ve done it. Some guys, though, they don’t respond. When they hear the pick-up of the artillery, they imagine it’ll fall ten metres away. Until it falls beside them, they don’t know anything about it. So your experience enables you to respond to everything instantly. Those who don’t learn fast, don’t survive. I mean, if you’re lazy, whatever you have to do in life, you can’t do it properly, can you? It’s the same here. If you’re too lazy to crouch, to go down, you’re finished. When a bomb is launched, by the time you blink, the debris is already falling all over you. If you wait to get rid of your gear before you think of going down, because it’s heavy or something, then of course, it’ll be all over. Is it mostly the new recruits who tend to lose their lives on the battlefield? I asked. When you’ve been around for about seven years, he said, and the other guy’s been around only six months, sometimes it could be that he doesn’t listen to what you say. He doesn’t have the experience, does he? So there are bombs falling everywhere. The noise is terrible. Really terrible. You can’t separate out one thing from another. Though you tell him to go down, he doesn’t go down. Sometimes he himself doesn’t know if he’s going forwards or backwards. He doesn’t know where he should go. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. Anyway, that’s why a lot of the new recruits tend to die. So you have to shout at him in the rankest filth (hama kunukarapayakma dala gahanava), but sometimes even then he doesn’t register. That’s not fun as well (sellamak neve). To keep shouting at everyone. You have to build up the capacity to be (verbally) harsh (särakama) on the field; that’s not something which comes naturally, is it? It is something which has to be developed (bihikaragena) by experience, as a lance corporal, corporal . . .

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Did you feel like that on your first operation? I asked. There was a bit of that for us as well, he admitted. We also just did what someone else told us to do. Couldn’t separate out the different sounds. The sound of the bombs. The sound of the firing. You wouldn’t think someone was just shooting with a gun, the noise is so tremendous. You can’t work out which direction the shooting is coming from. When that happens, you feel you’ve been abandoned (atharaman venava). When someone tells you something, you can’t hear. You have to try to see where the person who’s in charge of you is going. I, of course, I thought about that from the start. This guy’s been around in the Army for longer than I have. I’ll do exactly what he does. If he goes down – even for no reason – I go down as well. Sometimes they tease you and make you go down for no reason (boruvata down karavanava). But anyway, that’s the reason many people die, because they don’t go down in time. No experience. Can’t grasp what’s going on. These are village boys, not very educated. So it’s hard for them to understand. It’s the same in the LTTE, they learn the hard way.

Unlike Udesh, Vipula states that even after his first operation – when he had grasped how brutal war was – he felt no fear on the battlefield because the adrenalin carried him through. But he admits it took him 2–3 years to gain a measure of composure, to move smoothly into a roll, get his weapon into position and come up shooting as he had been drilled to do, on the battlefield. And though he states that – at least initially – he felt no fear, he is very well able to evoke the first moments of sheer terror as the new recruit tried to find his way over the killing fields. The crashing thunder of the guns, the artillery, the bombs. Unlike in any other profession, on the battlefield, the young recruit was dependent on his seniors for his very life. Even if they teased him, if he wanted to survive, he was not in a position to take offence. A lack of deference could cost him his life. And even if he was anxious to follow any ad hoc directions thrown at him, the cacophony of the battlefield so assaults his tenuous sense of self that he cannot grasp what anyone was telling him to do. In Vipula’s case, his survival on the battlefield was directly related to his cultural disposition to take direction from anyone who out-ranked him, even if they were having fun at his expense. He sensed that saving his life was more important than preserving his dignity before seniors. This capriciousness on the part of senior veterans, who were – seemingly – culturally disposed to value the deference of a member of their own platoon over his life, added to an environment of irrationality and uncertainty for the new recruit. But after a few years, as he acquired greater composure, the soldier’s body goes into a reflexive mode, an automatic sequence of defensive moves in response to

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specific signals. Still, this demanded that he was alert at all times and willing to take constant, strenuous action to avoid getting hit. If he relaxed too much or was lazy, he would not last long on the battlefield. Vipula constructs a successful practice on the battlefield by fusing his readiness not to take offence and to learn from others with a willingness to instantly launch himself into the attack and defence moves drilled into him in training. This is interesting since, as the eldest of three boys and three girls, Vipula wielded what seemed to me to be absolute control over his boisterous brothers as well as his sisters with minimal effort. He was also a senior prefect in school. He was able to put all of that aside and assume the deferential posture of a raw recruit, which contributed to his success on the battlefield. At the same time, the subtle authority he projected – which seemed to derive from an inner self-belief – enabled him to rapidly climb up the ranks and become one of the youngest sergeants in his company. He seemed to be one of those who was most comfortable embracing the new masculinity of risk-taking and valour. Vasantha, who also fought with 5GR, similarly discusses conditions on the battlefield.

Narrative 6 – Learning valour (2): Vasantha In combat training, he said, one doesn’t think in terms of when I  get out of this, the next time, they’re not going to be shooting blanks. That there’s going to be someone out there actually trying to kill me. I mean, me, myself, I wasn’t that informed about things. In the Maduru Oya camp where we were trained, they did what they called a ‘live’ training. There’s a mock-up built, called ‘little Jaffna’. That was the first time we did anything like that. ‘Live’ meaning with live bullets? I asked. Yes, but they don’t shoot to hit you, he said. At the start they fire blanks. The final round is live, like when the terra (terrorists) hit us. But they don’t shoot to hit us, it’s mostly in the air. So you knew you wouldn’t really be hurt? I asked. Yes, he said. They just put you through different positions, on the grounds that you don’t know from which direction the terra will come. Then when we’re advancing they don’t say from which direction they’re going to fire. That kind of training is very useful. But it doesn’t really prepare you for the battlefield. For the noise. Sometimes they’re firing at you from different directions. At the same time. So then where are you supposed to go? You can go into a roll, but in which direction? It’s hard to work out all these things with the skies crashing down over your head (ahasa kadāgena vatenavā). When you look back at your civilian life, you automatically (ibema) find yourself changing. Step by step. You become adept at things (paripurna).

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Mostly things to do with war. Our profession is war, isn’t it? With every operation, after every operation, everyone grieves (duk venava) for a little while (poddak vela). For those who died. But when it’s over, we don’t keep going back to it in our minds (hithē thiyagena inne nä). After that there’s another training course to do. About some other aspect of combat. Our main aim (paramarthaya) is that we have to survive (bẽrenna onē). First we have to save ourselves. We can’t die. We have to survive first and then secure the territory. Then we have to save the country. That’s what’s on our minds. From the time I was a new recruit, in the first one-and-a-half years, I think it’s probably because of the extent to which I  adhered to everything they taught in training (anugamanaya kalā) that I  survived. I  lost many friends. You can’t avoid things like that happening. In general, if a mortar falls in front of you, we say it has your name carved on it (nama gahala enava). If your name is carved on it, there’s nothing to be done. No earthly being can evade a mortar. But you can escape being shot. I  mean, with a knowledge of combat techniques and experience in the battlefield. Now, you’ve already done two or three operations. By this time, you know from your own experience, we should do this and this and not that. This comes to you automatically. By this time, our bodies are no longer geared for civil life. Our bodies are conditioned for war (yudhamaya thatvayak ange thiyenne). Now, when you hear a sudden noise, you learn to go down cleanly, roll over, take cover, take up your weapon and shoot. That’s what’s uppermost in your mind at a time like that. So you are not even interested in taking your vacation leave. Because when you do go home, it takes so long to unwind. So there are specific situations in the battlefield from which you can retrieve yourself and others where you can’t? I asked. You learn to differentiate between different kinds of sounds, he said. There’s a clear difference. This is the kind of noise a mortar makes. This is what your ear is attuned to hear. When you’re at home, what you hear is the sound of the TV, you’re watching cricket matches, movies. But on the battlefield, you’re sensitive to a whole different range of sounds. If you let go, if you stop being alert, if you stop listening, if you lose your focus, then you’re not going to be around for long. When you’re waiting for the assault to begin, I asked, do you feel fear? He reflected for a few minutes. Truly, he said, you don’t feel anything called fear. You don’t think about your home and things like that (gedera deval). It doesn’t come to your mind. You don’t think about your mum and dad. Because here we’re all in it together. There are all these veteran campaigners (jèshtayō) with us. At the time I  started, there were some really good guys

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around. I’m not saying they aren’t so today, I’m not, but at that time, you had guys with superb physiques – they were totally fearless (bhayama nä). They shape the morale of the new recruits. They tell you, we can do this, we need to do this for our motherland, they give you a big pep-talk, so after that, it was nothing for us. We only had to keep shooting and shooting.

Vasantha describes how over the first 18 months, baffled by the chaos of the battlefield, he tried to focus by somehow doggedly adhering to everything he was taught. This did succeed in developing his focus. In fact, after achieving this level of focus with such difficulty, he became reluctant to go on home leave, because he found it so hard to let go and relax. Consequently, he feels the task of the soldier is to develop self-belief, achieve a measure of composure and try to discern a pattern within this chaos, even though it may feel as if the sky is crashing down over your head. Valour involves composing oneself and rationally working out what’s going on beneath the chaos and destruction. What aspect of the attack is aerial, mortar or artillery and in which direction is each coming? You have to identify the situations in which you can save yourself and the situations in which you can’t. To do this, he feels the soldier has to function at a different level of intensity than civilians do. After a point, he says, your body automatically begins to go into a mode of action in response to certain sounds. But at this point, you have to use your initiative. You can go into a roll, but in which direction should you roll? A bomb is coming down, but will it fall next to you, or 30 metres away? You have to compose yourself, separate out all the different sounds and their implications for you and make an instant decision. You also have to adhere to the defensive moves you were taught and not take short-cuts. Vasantha suggests that valour involves the ability to focus on what you have to do in a given situation rather than panic and worry about what will happen if you don’t. With every encounter survived, your ability to risk yourself on the battlefield grows. When your mind is focused to this extent, you are finally free of fear. Because your sergeant and comrades are with you and their morale is high and they make going into battle seem exhilarating. Even if you have to die, you will die together. But you do not have time to worry about dying because you are constantly strategizing about your next move. For Vasantha then, the good soldier has to embrace what amounts to a new practice of masculinity that can shrug aside irrelevancies such as criticism from detractors and focus on one’s goal. This new practice involves the demystification of the battlefield, breaking down each sound to its cause and addressing it. This greatly reduces the unknown factor in the situation. Like learning to control his body in training then, quantifying elements of danger on the battlefield in turn diminishes the element of risk and brings it within the threshold of the possible.

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Discipline and Punish Such focus requires discipline (vinaya). The term vinaya in fact refers to self-­ discipline, the ability to regulate oneself. It is the term used to refer to the canon of the sangha and therefore, unlike in Foucault’ usage, has very positive connotations in Sinhala. But when applied to military discipline (hamuda vinaya), it undergoes a subtle shift, incorporating the notion of deference to authority. Consequently military discipline – already a hierarchical concept – in the Sri Lankan instance builds on the solid foundation of the Sinhala etiquette of deference and the self-regulatory canon of the sangha. The larger cultural discourse of deference normalizes the presence of hierarchies in almost every sphere. None of those who participated in this study ever questioned that they should silently defer to anyone who out-ranked them. Hamuda vinaya emerges as the right of senior officers to discipline the rank-and-file as they see fit. Vasantha speaks about thrashing as a disciplinary measure.

Narrative 7 – Meting out discipline: Vasantha In the Army, he said, you don’t actually have to do something wrong to get thrashed. And that’s correct. I won’t say that that’s wrong. I’ve been thrashed properly myself. I’ve thrashed others. I’ve been thrashed mostly for things that weren’t my fault. But the Army doesn’t pick and choose – everyone’s punished for one person’s mistake. They just thrash everyone at once? I  asked. I  mean, it can’t be easy to thrash six, seven grown men at a time – pretty exhausting, I should think. He laughed. It’s not like they thrash you by hand. Most of the time they give you punishments. But sometimes when you get really mad you might thrash someone with your own hands. But you can’t really assault more than one guy at a time, I objected. No, he said, but if you get hold of a belt, you can do 25, 30 guys at a time, he said, waving his hand nonchalantly. And they sit around waiting for you to thrash them? I asked, fascinated. That, he said calmly, is what you call discipline (vinaya). So aren’t you embarrassed to be seen thrashing people like that, I  said curiously. That’s what you call responsibility (vagakeema) he said, somewhat loftily. But who are you responsible to? I asked. When something happens, you’re responsible to the officer above you, he replied. He’ll say you haven’t ‘shaped’ the guys properly (hadala nä). So you have to control the guys. I mean we don’t need chocolate soldiers in this Army. A good soldier is not someone who gets shot the first time he steps on

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to the battlefield. It’s the guy who survives, destroys the enemy and respects his leaders. Now, let’s say I’m in the field and there’s an attack going on, and I’ve not had water to drink for five days. There’s no food. Now a senior officer tells me to transfer all these bottles of water into that truck. So I’ve got to do that. So now he’s drinking water, I said, and telling you to not drink but just to transfer them into his truck? No, no, he says, that kind of situation will never arise. One shares whatever resources one has. But that’s what discipline (vinaya) is. You don’t question a senior officer. But anyway, no one bears a grudge against someone who has punished them, he asserted. Because once you’ve had to do, say 150 dips as a punishment for doing something you know you shouldn’t have done anyway, you’re not likely to forget that. And the next time you think of doing something like that, you just think of the dips and shudder instead. You don’t really bear a grudge. Because that guy’s the guy who made you. He’s your mentor (guru). You don’t bear any grudge against anyone for unfairly punishing you? I asked. No, he said. Even today, I bear no grudge towards no one, not in my civil life, my professional life in the security firm I work in, my domestic life with my family. I have no enemies. After what we’re seen on the battlefield, after what we’ve lived through, it seems pointless to get enraged over immaterial things.

Here Vasantha appears to view punishment as a practice that was totally aimed at the betterment of the punished, even though other narrators itemized numerous instances of being punished for conduct that was not particularly heinous, such as not comporting oneself in a sufficiently deferential manner. This very pro-­ establishment viewpoint becomes rather problematic in a context in which an enduring sense of entitlement among senior and junior leaders might lead them to mete out punishments that are not related to the alleged offence. It also assumes that there is a basic concurrence between soldiers and officers on what constitutes an offence. This might include perceptions of attitude, demeanour and other subjective pointers of wrongdoing. Further, such a view of punishment does not address situations in which there is a genuine confusion on the part of the accused soldier about what aspect of military discipline he has contravened. It simply assumes that the soldier is aware that he has crossed a line and only needs a painful punishment to remind him not to do it again. This takes away agency from the soldier and places it squarely on the hand of his superior officers, who can make an idiosyncratic decision on where the line is. Ananda identifies another key aspect of disciplining and punishment.

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Narrative 8 – The platoon as family: Ananda If the platoon is a family, said Ananda, the sergeant is like the mother. You have to check on the well-being and problems of the boys. The platoon commander is like the father. So what’s the difference between the father and mother in this context? I asked. The platoon commander is an officer, he said. He is generally of a higher status. He has knowledge but his experience of our everyday problems is not very deep (athdäkim valin adui). Like a father in everyday life? I asked. Actually, he said, in my platoon the officer was about five years younger than me. But what I mean is, he listens to what I say. In a household, the father listens to what the mother says. He does? I asked, a bit sceptically. Yes, he said, earnestly. The kids tell all their problems to their mum. Not their dad. So therefore I have to be very composed (thänpath). I can’t allow myself the harshness (särakama) of a corporal. Though when you’re a corporal, you have to be stern, or you can’t get things done in the Army. Because most of the lads who join are just out of school. They’re teenagers. They won’t pick up after themselves, because at home their mum did all that. So they’ve got to be licked into shape (hadanna onѐ). It’s the same on the battlefield.

Ananda argues that within the disciplining process, leaders at different points in the SLA hierarchy play different roles. A corporal, for instance, has to be very vocal and stern (sarai), since he bears the brunt of the everyday disciplining process. He has to ensure that the recruits conduct themselves appropriately. He has to manage a range of minor infractions so that they don’t get blown up into crisis proportions. The sergeant, on the other hand, can afford to be more composed (thänpath) in the way he deals with the men, since his role is to understand their personal problems so that he is aware of the specific tensions and stresses they are under that may impact on their performance on the battlefield. Since composure, or thänpath-kama, is a highly valued posture in Sinhala society, it adds to the sergeants’ status within the platoon. The platoon leader himself, it would seem, doesn’t really need to know the everyday problems of enlisted men. As one moves higher in the SLA hierarchy, then, disciplining becomes less stressful and burdensome in terms of Sinhala values and more in keeping with the norms of the composed body. Sunil also reflects on how in the SLA the cultural code of deference to authority is subtly woven into the notion of military discipline (hamuda vinaya).

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Narrative 9 – Vinaya, deferring to seniority and bodily deference: Sunil In the Army, said Sunil, one is supposed to defer not only to those who have been recruited before you but to anyone who had been posted to any camp even a month before your own regiment. One has to defer (yatath venna) to all those people. This is what is called military discipline (hamuda vinaya). There is actually a very good reason to show respect whenever possible, he went on. When you arrive at a new camp, what information will be given to you by the ‘seniors’ depends on how you conduct yourself. If you’re sufficiently deferential, you will receive more information about the camp and security context, what kinds of attacks and ambushes are likely, and so on. Initially one is interrogated about one’s village and social background. You have to reply politely. In return, seniors offer you information about the security context. When you’re in an out-and-out battle situation, anyone who gives you relevant information may actually save your life. When officers and seniors give you key information about the enemy, enemy positions, arms and so on, they’re actually helping save your life. You have to be really grateful to them. When a new batch arrives, he went on, the last newcomers go up a notch in the camp hierarchy. So they get you to do the menial things, small things like fetch a bucket of water, move that table over there. If they don’t like you, it’s something worse. I  was actually quite keen to learn from my ‘seniors’. I didn’t see it as a ‘rag’. Still, he said, at the start it is difficult to even grasp if you’re being ragged or not. You can’t even assess what is a valid request and what is not. Later, you realize, that guy was ragging me. So does vinaya imply the ability to defer to minute (podi-podi) hierarchies within the Army then, I asked, rather than, for instance, self-monitoring? He reflected awhile, somewhat uncomfortable with the implications of this question. Not really, he said, at last. Vinaya – in the larger societal context – could refer to how you conduct yourself in civilian life, how you interact with ­people (katha baha karana hati). It was this kind of thing that sets you apart as a soldier (kapi penena pudgalayek), after you’ve completed all your course units and you’re living as a civilian. I can look at someone and say at once if he’s been in the Army. His vinaya is in his body, in the way he stands.

Sunil begins by suggesting that military discipline is a tool used by older hands to build themselves up at the expense of the newer recruit. In other words, it is used to validate a demand for deference from enlisted men over and above the respect owed to a given military rank. However, when asked if this is what military discipline amounted to, Sunil became uncomfortable and returned to a more idealistic

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notion of vinaya as having to do with how you comport yourself and conduct yourself in public. This implies that he does have a sense that ideally vinaya should refer to self-regulation, but in the Army is deployed by senior officers to extract deference from lower ranks on trivialities. Responding to the question of what military discipline entailed, he returns to bodily demeanour. He appears to interpret vinaya in the civilian context as exuding a certain authority exemplified through bodily posture, i.e. the upright stance of the ex-soldier, which differentiates him from the men around him. He associates the term vinaya with an erect bodily posture, the product of years of disciplining. The – apparent – confidence of his bearing, then, lends the soldier great stature when dealing with civilians, since it resonates with the concept of the composed body, which confers much status and authority upon him. Still, as mentioned earlier, standing at attention and saluting superior officers is actually an acknowledgement of their precedence and, as Foucault points out, masks a readiness to defer to authority at all times. The body at attention is a caricature of independence. It is this ‘excess’ that makes a travesty of the notion of independence and signifies deference. It suggests deference expressed through a culturally different set of bodily practices such as the stiff, upright body as opposed to the more visibly submissive practices of the deferential body that is played out across Sinhala society – including prostrating oneself before parents and figures of authority at key moments. At the same time, this posture of bodily independence is not accompanied by the sense of agency that Clausewitz argued inhered in ordinary soldiers. The Sinhala soldier is not allowed to give reign to his initiative. If he fails to show abject deference to senior officers, he may even be refused access to information of lifesaving significance. Information about security conditions is privatized and offered only to those who toe the line. This creates a deep desire to conciliate those who are more ‘senior’ and not risk antagonizing them. In the SLA, then, vinaya becomes a tool to enshrine deference to entitled senior officers rather than a method of building up one’s ability to focus one’s mind through self-regulation.

Concluding comments On enlisting, then, narrators envisaged themselves as acting-out a new code of masculinity. This entailed risking-the-body, as displayed in the gravity-defying feats of the celluloid heroes who enraptured them as boys. Still, their bodies suggested a very different kind of masculinity. Even embodiment was not unproblematic. While the average recruit was now between 5’8” and 6’0” in height and many men had good sports and athletic credentials, they were still slight of stature and wiry rather than broad-chested and powerfully built. They were also diffident and displayed a willingness to defer to any form of seniority and rank. They had a capacity for friendship, an ability to form deep bonds with their peers in a short space of time that – if converted into esprit de corps – could be a powerful resource in enemy

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terrain. Out of this raw material, the SLA had to produce soldiers who performed effectively on the battlefield. Unlike other armies, however, at this point the SLA’s hierarchy was not built on ability, merit and initiative forged through experience in the field, in which seniority emerges as almost synonymous with leadership skills. Rather, as in other public institutions across the island, it was based on a culture of deference that stressed seniority and rank irrespective of ability. It was junior leaders who faced the main thrust of enemy assaults. Consequently, bodily courage was rarely demanded of commissioned officers. This created a cultural distance between officers and men which made it very difficult for lower ranks to even formulate – let alone express – a critique of any institutional practice they might deem unfair. Combat training transformed the new recruit’s deferential body into one that stood tall, in a posture that suggested confidence and independence. But this of course, was only a mask that hid his readiness to defer to authority at all times. In the Sinhala instance, this becomes a particularly hollow pretence. In a South Asian civilian context, the upright stance of the soldier differentiates him from other men. It consigns upon him an authority that is, paradoxically, derived from his deference to authority. The soldier himself construes all these stances as key aspects of military discipline. He feels entitled to the deference he evokes from society. At the same time, the upright stance of the soldier also veils from society the other side of the coin, his ambiguities about the practice of risking-the-body, which demand real self-belief. Consequently, the SLA also required resourceful soldiers on the battlefield who could display initiative. Combat training began this process by transforming their bodies. The recruit learns time management and to organize his day in the most productive way. He also acquires qualities such as fairness and impartiality, as the best strategy of getting the most of out of others in his platoon and the unit. Training in combat skills introduces the basics of a new masculinity of risk-taking. The training regime builds up the soldier’s level of physical endurance, constantly pushing back the threshold of pain, until what seemed full of risk before begins to seem normal. But though the Sinhala soldier is physically agile, athletic and his body is now so much tougher than before, he is still diffident. This makes it hard for him to summon up a sense of agency on the battlefield, to act out of intrinsic motivation and commitment to the war cause. It is only on the frontlines that he learns valour. At first, the battlefield seems chaotic, cacophonic and full of terror. He is so bemused by the noise that he can’t hear the instructions thrown at him, doesn’t know what he’s doing and is transfixed by fear. Under actual enemy fire, he is unable to act out the drill instilled so painstakingly in training. But over time, he acquires a greater measure of composure, which enables him to discern patterns beneath this souldestroying clamour. He can now hear sounds that signal the advent of artillery, mortar and bomb attacks seconds before explosions occurs, which allows him to take defensive action. After a point, he becomes so adept at this that he is even able

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to ensure that the new recruits under him have gone down before the explosion. He is now in a junior leadership position. At the same time, in the Sinhala instance, the junior leader is plagued by doubts about his own abilities, about the way his boys may view him. Even on the battlefield, he is more afraid of negative social perceptions about his conduct than he is of being shot. He worries that if he goes down too soon, he may be viewed as a coward who is not concerned about seeing that his boys have gone down before he takes cover. But these anxieties and conflict may spur a new intensity of performance that drives him to greater heights of heroism. It could compel him to actively imperil himself in the cause of somehow keeping his boys alive for prolonged periods. This obligation to ‘save’ his boys is also driven by his sense of duty (rājakārya) to make them believe that – despite his ability to save himself since he was quicker than they were – he would never abandon them in a crisis, and if there is absolutely no alternative, they would die together. Other soldiers construct equally successful survival practices by fusing a readiness to be deferential and learn from others in the battlefield with a willingness to instantly launch oneself into the vigorous defensive sequences drilled in training. Once one is at ease on the battlefield, risk-taking loses its terror and risks becomes quantifiable. But the soldier must retain his composure. He cannot be ‘lazy’ and let go, even for a moment. Courage, then, is not some inherent quality but must be forged inch by inch and constantly nurtured. Deference is further enforced through punishment. All five junior leaders seemed to view punishment as essentially benign, something that is aimed totally at the betterment of the punished. This very pro-establishment viewpoint becomes problematic in a context in which the sense of entitlement of junior and senior officers may lead them to engage in capricious behaviour. Such officers are not above withholding critical, sometimes life-threatening information from raw recruits in order to punish them for a perceived lack of deference. This attitude is normalized because of the cultural motif of deference. Troops live in constant fear of displeasing superior officers, constantly second-guessing everything, which makes it hard for them to build up self-belief. Junior officers treat them as if they have no values of their own, but simply mirror the establishment ethos. Consequently, the soldier on the battlefield is battling many things. The enemy is only one of them. He is also battling his body, which seems to be on the verge of acting out a different trajectory to what he intended; he worries that his troops may think he took cover too soon and is anxious not to antagonize his seniors on the battlefield. All of this demands a constant shift in subject position from postures of deference to displaying initiative and agency. Such a shift involves a different kind of pain from the agony in his body, limbs and extremities that he endured during combat training. The pain now stems from the heavy, unbearable pounding of his heart and the excruciating, knife-like stab of adrenalin that propel him to perform at a higher level.

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Paradoxically, then, it is all these racking tensions coming together that emerge as his valour. His valour is the product of his social anxieties and the desire to protect those for whom he feels responsible (rājakārya) as well as the ability to keep his focus and risk-his-body without wavering. His spurts of valour – while they last – are a state of harsh, relentless bodily pain. It is a profoundly difficult rājakārya.

Note 1 The Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) is an ex-Tamil militant faction that was at that point collaborating with the SLA.

MAP 6.1 

Operation Sathjaya: Elephant Pass to Kilinochchi

6 OPERATION SATHJAYA Confronting child soldiers

Introduction In late-1994, the People’s Alliance (PA) – a new coalition of left-leaning groups led by the SLFP – assumed power in Colombo. They offered the Tigers an olive branch, which however, fell to the ground under the weight of concessions demanded. But the rebels were buoyant. At that point, they were in almost complete control of the Jaffna Peninsula – the nucleus of Sri Lankan Tamil nationalism – running what amounted to a parallel state, with its own judicial system and traffic police. This achievement brought them tremendous prestige as the defender of Tamil rights among diaspora groups in the West. It was these conditions that spurred the SLA to launch their ambitious Operation Riviresa (‘Rays of the sun’) in April 1995, aimed at nothing less than wresting back control of the Jaffna Peninsula from the LTTE. Amazingly, it was successful. As Gunaratne – then a junior officer – points out, this feat was in no mean measure due to the SLA’s purchase of 24 brand-new 122 mm howitzers from China (Gunaratne 2016: 376). In subsequent battles, the Tigers’ success in capturing these guns and using them against the SLA created endless headaches for them. On this occasion, though, the Tigers found themselves pushed back relentlessly into the jungles of the neighbouring Kilinochchi district. Unable to defy the howitzers, they turned their wrath upon the civilian population. As the Jaffna-based University Teachers for Human Rights (UTHR-J) observe, LTTE fighters retreating before the SLA’s advance in Jaffna forced Tamil civilians to evacuate en bloc to Kilinochchi with them, so that when the SLA finally arrived, they would find an abandoned city (UTHR-J 1996: 1–13). The loss of Jaffna was clearly a serious blow. The LTTE’s image of being unassailable was shattered. The loss served to emasculate them in the eyes of groups within the Tamil diaspora who financed their military adventures.1

DOI: 10.4324/9781003362036-6

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With the retreat of the LTTE to Kilinochchi, the main theatre of battle shifted to the Vanni. The Vanni is a vast expanse of arid land interspersed with scrub jungle, which includes the Tamil-speaking districts of Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu, Mannar and Vavuniya in the Northern Province. In order to retrieve their shaken prestige then, on 18th July 1996, the LTTE launched a massive attack on the SLA’s 25th Brigade Complex at Mullaitivu and succeeded in overrunning it. While both sides suffered heavy losses, the LTTE had a decisive edge in terms of deaths and injuries inflicted. They also managed to capture the two 122 mm howitzers positioned at this camp.2 For SLA strategists, the overrunning of one of their most highly-secured installations was a devastating blow. It made a quick military response imperative if they were to retain the initiative in the war. Consequently, eight days later, the SLA launched Operation Sathjaya (‘Seventh Victory’). Operation Sathjaya involved breaking out from the SLA’s Elephant Pass camp and retaking Kilinochchi town, near which the LTTE had a highly-secured base (see Map no. 6.1). This became a decisive moment in the battle that swung the momentum in the SLA’s favour. This chapter begins with the LTTE’s attack on the SLA’s Mullaitivu camp and goes on to discuss the SLA’s Operation Sathjaya through Namal’s narrative. Namal who fought with the 4th Gajaba Regiment (4GR), is from the village of Ukuwela in the Matale district. At 6’1” and weighing in at around 180 lbs, he was lanky but strongly built. A track star at St Sylvester’s College, a reputed school in the Kandy district, he had the easy, confident persona of a successful athlete. His older brother was also in the Army, though in a different regiment. He lost his younger brother in a traffic accident, and this seems to have affected him even more than the friends and comrades he lost in the battlefield over the years, because of the meaningless way his brother died (thѐrumak nethi siddhiyak). After this incident, he says, his approach to risk-taking (avadhānam-kāra kriyā) changed. If his brother was killed in a vehicle he wasn’t even driving, it seemed strange to Namal that he should still be alive when he was required to risk his life in every campaign. This convinced him, he says, that your ‘time’ (velāva) was already written in the stars and you should probably do the best you could in the interlude assigned to you. Despite these words, in practice, his approach to risk-taking remained ambiguous.

Attack on the Mullaitivu camp Mullaitivu was one of the SLA’s most secured camps. So how did the LTTE, seemingly on the back foot, suddenly manage to pull off this coup? By upping the ante. They set up two new units: firstly, an elite suicide squad called the Black Tigers; and secondly, as prohibitive death rates caused a sharp decline in the proportion of adult male fighters, they set up the Young Leopards – a combat unit of child fighters – to make up their numbers.3 For displaced civilians then, conditions in the Kilinochchi district became even more catastrophic than the situation from which they were – supposedly – escaping

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in the Jaffna Peninsula. As the UTHR-J points out, recruitment to these two Tiger units was enabled by the fact that the influx of refugees into Kilinochchi increased its population by more than 40%. This included a large number of teenagers for whom the local school system could not find sufficient placements and were at home all day, rebelling against their situation. Many refugees had also arrived with only what they could carry, which left them impoverished and susceptible to the LTTE’s blandishments and rebukes (UTHR-J 1996: 1–13). This created ideal conditions for the LTTE to recruit cadres for their Black Tiger Unit. Even worse, their Young Leopards Unit recruited among a range of vulnerable groups, including war orphans, children from disadvantaged strata in the Eastern Province and defiant pre-teens and teens from schools across the Vanni. According to the UTHR-J – who at this point emerge as the most reliable witnesses of events – their sources on the ground report that the LTTE set-up recruitment centres in villages across the Vanni, usually next to refugee camps, in order to keep this unit supplied with children. Raising these new units then, allowed the LTTE to envisage the possibility of attacking the Mullaitivu Complex by launching an ‘Unceasing Waves’ offensive. Such offensives were based on the approach evolved by Iran in the 1980s in their war against Saddam Hussain’s hugely better-equipped Iraqi forces. It involved wave upon wave of suicide fighters throwing themselves onto the enemy’s forward defences, many of whom were mowed down but, due to their heavy numbers, enough survived to breach their barricade. Consequently, around 60 Black Tigers with explosives strapped to their bodies blew themselves up upon reaching the Mullaitivu camp’s forward defences (FDL) (UTHR-J 1996: 3–4). This successfully breached them. The shocked troops had no time even to get their 122 mm howitzers into position (Gunaratne 2016: 373–388). Though the SLA High Command attempted a series of airborne reinforcements, these failed in the difficult c­ onditions – an isolated outpost in hostile terrain attacked by overwhelming ­numbers – and the camp was overrun within two days (SLA 1999: 540–541). The loss of lives that ensued was high: the SLA states that it lost 1,344 men and the LTTE 315 (ibid.). This 4:1 ratio of losses is confirmed by the UTHR-J (1996: 3–4). As a suicide corps, the loss of Black Tiger cadres was already factored in, and they were not expected to pay any further role in subsequent events. It was the Leopards who took over from this point. The training of Young Leopards focused on the use of scythes and knives rather than firearms (UTHR-J 1996: 21). They were taught to ‘clean up’ after an exchange of gunfire by slaughtering the dying and gravely injured. In this instance, they seemed to have been charged with the rather grisly task of slitting the throats of sleeping soldiers at the Mullaitivu camp.4 In attacking the SLA’s Mullaitivu camp, therefore, the LTTE clearly had more than one goal in mind. Over and above the military aim of destroying an SLA installation at this key location, they wished to score a major psychological victory. They found an extraordinary way of going about this. They videoed their own cadres not simply shooting but in the act of slitting the throats of sleeping officers in the most gruesome way. Consequently, videos of the attacks – a first of its kind

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used in this war – while angering the SLA High Command, also served to seriously unnerve ordinary soldiers. Thus when asked about his experiences in Operation Sathjaya, Namal immediately begins to talk about how the LTTE went about its attack on the Mullaitivu base. The two events seem indelibly linked in his mind. His account takes the form of a series of conversations between him, the narrator, and myself, the listener.

Narrative 1 – the LTTE attack on SLA’s Mullaitivu base camp In July  1996, said Namal, the LTTE attacked our Mullaitivu camp. This was a big base camp for us. They videoed the whole carnage. They videoed the way they slit the throats of our guys, in the most obscene way (anthima jära vidiyata). The guys were asleep. They slaughtered them in the filthiest way (käthama kätha vidiyata). The LTTE sent a copy of this video to our Madam (President Chandrika Bandaranaike-Kumaratunga). Did no one escape? I asked. No, he said, I think some boys did manage to run away and save themselves. But I think the LTTE ambushed them later in the jungles and finally, many were killed. About 20–30 escaped. It was after that that we had to do Operation Sathjaya. Did you know about the video and the way the camp had been overrun? I asked. Yes, we knew, he said. How did you feel about that? I asked. When they captured Mullaitivu, he replied, they got hold of a lot of arms and weaponry. We lost a lot of big, big weapons. That’s why they (the SLA High Command) decided to hit the LTTE’s Kilinochchi camp. Because they knew they (the LTTE) had a high base camp there. That’s where they would have stored our weapons. So we did Operation Sathjaya. We captured Kilinochchi. To recover the weapons and the initiative in the war.

In this instance, the officers – routinely projected in the Sinhala media as heroic soldiers (vira sebalu), the epitome of Sinhala manhood – were reduced to a public spectacle. Such a depiction of their ineffectuality in the face of an LTTE strike was aimed at emasculating them in the eyes of the community. Sending this video to the Sri Lankan president was meant perhaps not so much to embarrass her – a woman – as it was an overt attempt to challenge and humiliate the SLA hierarchy, who were unable to prevent this debacle unfolding in one of their most highlysecured camps. The PA however, did succeed in concealing the existence of this

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video from the Sinhala-speaking public. This was a strategic victory in itself. It thwarted the LTTE’s main aim of sowing panic in within the larger Sinhala community, which could well have led to the collapse of the PA government. Even though Namal strived valiantly to be matter-of-fact about this episode, his use of the words ‘most obscene’ and ‘filthiest’ in successive sentences implies an almost superstitious disquiet. The gratuitous and spectacular effects of this act of performative violence created a kind of inarticulate dread, which the death of the officers concerned simply by shooting would not perhaps have achieved. It fed into the deep Sinhala cultural sense of paralysis in the face of spectacular violence. It diminished agency. As his narrative will show, this image of soldiers with their throats slit made a strong impression on Namal and conditioned his subsequent responses on the battlefield. It was to cause a paralysing loss of agency at critical moments. The loss of the howitzers was also a serious blow. All these events created a situation where the SLA felt almost compelled to attack the LTTE’s Kilinochchi camp.

Operation Sathjaya Namal goes on to describe the march to Kilinochchi, which began with 4GR breaking-out from the SLA’s Elephant Pass Camp.

Narrative 2 – The march to Kilinochchi: Phase I We found an auspicious moment (honda kala horavak) to set out, he said. That’s how we usually begin. So then we marched around 3 kilometres along the Jaffna–Colombo rail track. The LTTE had a high base alongside the rail track. There were bulldozers at work in the space in front. This definitely meant they were erecting fortifications with bunds of earth. Anyway, whatever it was that they were doing, it was all camouflaged with branches of coconut leaf. We stopped there. We started the operation at this point. We moved into attack. In the end, we were fighting face-to-face. From morning till night. At this point, we were finding it difficult to go on. It was the first time I was involved in an all-day attack. In the blazing sun. Stuck on top of a railway sleeper. I couldn’t jump to one side or the other. Once I flung myself down, I couldn’t even raise my head. From morning till night. They didn’t let me shift my position, even to raise my head, until it was too dark for anyone to see us. They (his sergeant and corporal) were doing what they thought they should be doing (rājakārya), I think. I was on the very edge of the rail track. So everyone had to stay down that way? I asked.

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Yes, he said. Everyone just lay where they landed when they flung themselves down. This was the result of all those weapons they (the LTTE) captured at our Kilinochchi – I mean Mullaitivu – camp. You mean now the LTTE had a vastly increased range of fire? I asked. Yes, he said bitterly. Of course they had. Our own weapons. We couldn’t raise our heads. Nothing to eat. No water. We were just there in the blazing sun. What about the LTTE, weren’t they in the same situation? I asked. But they were in their own camp, he pointed out, they had cover. So now there was no point in persisting with this attack, he went on, it was not effective. We withdrew. It was a very large base. We had to find some other way of taking it. That was a valid decision, wasn’t it? I said. Yes, he said, if your strategy doesn’t produce results, there’s no point in sitting there and losing more men. In any case, we didn’t know then that they were going to deploy all those weapons. So we needed to work out an alternative plan.

The operation began – as usual – at an astrologically ordained ‘auspicious’ moment. This was a concession by the SLA to the notion of ‘time’ (velāva) among troops, who believed that the campaign would only succeed if begun at such a propitious moment. The LITTE’s first high base camp was about 3 kilometres from Elephant Pass alongside the Colombo–Jaffna railway track just inside the Kilinochchi district boundary. In the narrative of the attack on this base, the rebels emerged as professional, well-equipped and seemingly invincible. They turned the SLA’s most advanced and destructive weapons – seized from their Mullaitivu camp – against the soldiers themselves. Positioned inside their own camp, they had sufficient cover and were able to impose themselves militarily on the SLA. SLA troops, for the first time, discover what it feels like to be at the receiving end of such powerful weapons. They are shocked and intimidated by the force of their own fire, now in the hands of the enemy. Despite his five years in the Army, Namal still finds the campaign hard going. Unlike the LTTE fighters, the arid landscape – interspersed with thorny scrub jungle – is not his native terrain. It is a hostile space. Diving for cover, he fails to gauge where he would land and ends up on a railway sleeper.5 His sergeant would not let him move until dusk, when visibility ebbed. As he recollects the acute misery of not being able to move all day, the heat of the sun, the tormenting thirst, the intensity of the firing and the tension of waiting for the LTTE fire to thin out, his account is marked by much repetition. At the same time, the absences in his account are equally telling. At moments, his hostility seems aimed at the sergeant who made him lie still, rather than the LTTE who

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is shooting at him. But the highly hierarchical SLA culture enables a sergeant to exert such a level of control that men in the most uncomfortable positions would lie stock-still all day. Namal does not explore options for retrieving himself from this unpropitious situation into a more conducive one, which might have entailed risking minor shifts, but preserved his energies for the campaign ahead. He is in denial about the onus on him to ensure his own self-preservation. He lacks sufficient self-motivation. He goes on to describe Phase II of the campaign, which took place after a break of two weeks.

Narrative 3 – March to Kilinochchi: Phase II After that we retreated and went back into training for about 14 days. We had to work out what strategy we should deploy, how should we build our defence, how shall we face their – actually our – firepower (captured during the siege of the Mullaitivu camp), should we send in the artillery first, or air power, we had to work all that out. So then, we found a new weapon. You mean multi-barrelled rocket launchers? I asked. No said with a grin. A  shovel (udällak)! This was to be our saviour (galavumkāraya). That was it. Because, wherever we go, in any operation, if we have to take up position for a while, then definitely we have to dig ourselves a waist-deep hole, to save ourselves. In the early years, in Kankasanthurai, when the LTTE was shooting us with their own-built ‘baba’ mortars, whenever we were in an operation, each person had a shovel – a small one – to dig ourselves in.6 It’s not so hard, the soil is very sandy. On this occasion, we didn’t do that the first time, and we got into trouble. Also, we needed to wear a bit of body armour. A helmet. Things like that. We didn’t have those in the initial years, but now, this time, they issued us with these. After the LTTE overran our Mullaitivu Base, captured all our heavy weapons and they began using them on us, the Army issued us with body armour. Does it restrict your movements? I asked. It’s a bit difficult, he said, because it affects your flexibility (namyathāvaya). What kind of helmet, is it like the ones cricketers wear? I asked. No, no, he said, not like those. These are made out of fibreglass. When a bullet strikes it, it doesn’t gain any traction so it slides away (lissala yanavā). So it’s bullet-proof. It weighs a bit, though, around 4 kg. The body armour itself is iron-plated on both sides. Heavy. In any case, the original ones were about 18 kg in weight. But that’s like having to carry a small child along with your pack, I said. Yes, he said, it’s a terrible weight we have to carry. While we’re doing an operation, I’m carrying a weight equal to my bodyweight.

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Namal now briefly recapitulated his story. So then we began our operation, we tried to see if we could breach their defences. The situation was too tough. We withdrew. We tried a new approach. With a shovel. Wouldn’t they see you digging? I asked. No, he said, we generally dig only at night when it’s dark. We don’t dig holes while we’re involved in an assault. Only when we are resting after the assault. We discovered we couldn’t launch an assault the way we planned, we were too exposed. So we retreated. That’s when we worked out another approach; to dig ourselves in. We also brought in armoured tanks into the attack and now somehow we built a defence line. We called for air support as well – they sent MI 24s and Kaffirs. These also entered the attack. A Kaffir can carry, I think around a thousand kilograms – that’s two bombs. That means the whole area is destroyed, I said. Destroyed, he agreed. I  think the Kaffir flies at 247  km per second. Not seconds, sorry, I think minutes. When there are two or three brought in, that’s a lot of air support for us. First they did preliminary attacks with the kaffirs bombing the camp. After that they (the Tigers) were greatly weakened and demoralized (hondatama adapanavela). The guys from the infantry regiment (SLLI) went in first. Still, it wasn’t so easy. They attacked again and again. . . . The LTTE never displays any weakness, any disarray on their part. We’ve hardly seen that happen. They don’t display their weaknesses. They somehow try to show that they’re retaining their positions. Even if they suffer many deaths, the intensity of their firepower is somehow kept up, in order to make us think their numbers haven’t been affected. It’s only when their firepower becomes thinner, like a shot now and then, it’s only then that we realize that they’re on the point of retreat. By that point of course, the mass of their cadres have already managed to withdraw. So you broke through their frontline defences then? I prompted. Yes, he said, we broke through and went forward. In the first phase, we broke through and captured their line. Then the second phase began, I think we started around end of August 1996. The second phase also became very tough. The aim was to go forward to Kilinochchi (town). We attacked again and again and began the second phase and came close to Kilinochchi. There was this big clock tower. In Kilinochchi town itself? I asked. Yes, he said. We paused about 3 kilometres before the clock tower. In the second phase we stopped at that point. We attacked. Not a major attack, just a normal-intensity attack. There wasn’t a big bunker line or anything. Just an ordinary line of bunkers. We broke through that and then we stopped.

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The intensity of the LTTE’s new-found fire caused the troops to withdraw for up to two weeks. SLA strategists had to go back to the drawing board and struggle to work out new tactics. They finally decided to combine a low-tech option with intensified aerial and artillery support. This involved issuing troops with a shovel so that they could dig themselves in and body armour so that they would be less exposed to the LTTE’s howitzers. The original body armour ordered by the SLA was too heavy for the slighter Sinhala soldiers, and a lighter version had to be re-issued. To counter the howitzers, the SLA had the Air Force (SLAF) send in Kaffir helicopters to drop their 500 kg bombs onto this LTTE Base Camp. This required that the SLAF pilots should be very accurate if they were not to overreach their target, since with the influx of refugees from the Jaffna Peninsula, the population density of the Kilinochchi district had already swelled to around 400,000, creating an on-going humanitarian crisis (UTHR-J 1996: 2–4). At the same time, the SLA refused to allow civilians to leave LTTE-controlled territory during the Kilinochchi offensive, effectively trapping them within. In the subsequent shelling, despite the declaration of a curfew, civilian spaces – such as the Kilinochchi hospital – were extensively damaged (ibid.: 2–3). Displaced families already living in temporary cadjan-roofed shelters were forced to pack their belongings once more and flee the shelling any way they could (ibid.: 5). Namal does not wish to address the effects of 500 kg bombs on civilians and children. Or cattle, wildlife or the environment. At this moment, he does not have the emotional resources to do so. His preoccupation is with his aching body and the need to keep moving forward. His focus is only on whether the LTTE line could be breached. The LTTE was no longer able to target the troops so easily since they were now firmly dug in and under cover. And such was the intensity of the SLAF bombing that the Tigers finally abandoned their base camp, clearing the way for the SLA to move in. This ended the second phase of the operation. Namal continues his narrative of Phase III of Operation Sathjaya. For him, this was the most critical part of the operation.

Narrative 4 – The capture of Kilinochchi: Phase III It was in late-August 1996 that we started the third phase of Sathjaya. In the third phase we somehow captured one side of Kilinochchi town. After that we came close to the tower and made a defence line. That time there was no problem. We started the operation in the afternoon, we broke through, made our line, I mean we had broken through by dawn the next day. The assault lasted about a day and night. Anyway, we captured Kilinochchi and built a defence line. So you engaged in the assault the whole day? I asked. About 24 hours straight we were carrying out the assault, he said. I mean, it’s not that we were continuously shooting our way through, we go, we attack, we retreat, it’s like that.

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Yes, but the tension is continuous? I asked. That’s the thing, he said. We had to put up our line at night. By that time, we were very tired. We set a sentry in place and started putting-up our defences. That night, it was very hard. We were very tired. We had a sentry in place and we were behind our line. In the morning, they launched a big attack. The moon set at about 4.00 a.m. that night. When the moon disappears, at the moment its light is fading, a great darkness suddenly descends. It’s pitch black. Visibility is zero. We had laid out two claymore lines in front of our bunker line and we were waiting. We had extra ammo, we had our hand grenades ready, we had everything. We were waiting. We could hear some movements taking place in front. In the far distance. Vehicles arrived, troops got down, there were voices. They were quite far away, but the night was very still, and we could just sort of faintly hear. Then suddenly they struck. We were by now alert. But they attacked in an unexpected way. In a kind of moving wave. About four bunkers away from me, that’s where they broke through. Everyone inside that bunker was hit. They went crashing down. I was in the trench we had dug. I was sitting down. We couldn’t see outside. I told the others, there’s a lot of noise out there, we have to be vigilant. Then a message came down the line. A  radio message. It was one of the Commando Regiments’ forward search parties doing reconnaissance. They said the LTTE was already inside their section of the line. We got the message. But by this time, the LTTE was already close. They may have even been listening to the radio message. The sentry foreman on duty, next to me, saw someone coming. He asked who it was, and the guy said, ‘commando, commando’ twice. Then he (the LTTE fighter posing as a commando) shot him. Then he was shooting right down the line. I  stayed where I  was. He went on shooting. The sentry fell crashing down (kadagena vatuna), he was already dead. There were two guys on the other side. One was hit on the stomach. I don’t know what happened to the other guy. Then there was only me. Only I was left. I stood up. I pressed the pin of the claymore. I pressed it while I was still below ground level. I was still in the trench. Somehow, I wasn’t sure if it would explode. By that time, the LTTE was passing the point where the claymore should have exploded and then they came on to my side. That was the worst moment in my life. I still don’t know how I survived. Only one man was there, it was all just one man doing all the shooting, the other guys were still waiting under cover.

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The LTTE guy did something idiotic. The claymore was turned towards us. He turned it around. At the moment when I was pressing the pin, it was turned in our direction. It didn’t explode, anyway. It was defused or something. He was now quite close. I didn’t realize that my right side was completely covered in blood, because that guy had fallen on top of me, bleeding. Then I  heard something. I  heard a slight, odd sort of sound. I  turned – I just – I just – these people are vicious murderers. A dying man is a dying man. There is no point in decapitating a dying man. But he had slit his throat. I was looking in the other direction. But while his throat was being slit, the guy tried to scream – and – a sort of rasping gurgle came out. I heard him and I turned. When I turned round, I saw that that was what was happening. I got my gun up and shot wildly. By that time, the attack was in full swing. Now there was no one left to shoot. We were totally lost. There was nothing I could do. I was just shooting, I didn’t know what was happing around me. The LTTE was now cleaning everyone out (suddha karagena enava). I realized I had run out of ammo. There was no time to reload. I had only 14 bullets left. I took the gun, I switched the magazine to ‘single burst’. In front of me, there was a cleared, sandy space. This area was all jungle, there was nowhere I could run to. There was nothing I could do. I crept out of the trench and crawled under a bush. There was quite a lot of room under this bush. My decision was, I’m not going to be killed by the LTTE. If they get me, I’m going to kill myself. I’m going to fire all 14 bullets into my head. I interrupted at this point. You mean you were going to kill yourself, I asked. Yes, he said, that was my decision. I didn’t want to die by a terrorist’s hand. But you could shoot those 14 bullets at the terrorists, I said, before I could check myself. I couldn’t shoot the terrorists, he said. If there was just one of them, I could. At that point, there were a lot of dead bodies lying around. I had fought for a while now. I didn’t let them capture my bunker. But when I saw that man cutting the throat of that guy, something terrible happened to me. After that, I decided, I’m not going to die like that. Absolutely (anivaryayen), there’s no point in dying like that. It’s not about dying. I thought I would die that day anyway. There were at least four men dead in front of my bunker. They died by my hand. So I thought, better than having my throat cut, I’d rather die at once from a bullet. While I was hiding under the bush, he went on, the LTTE guys had reached the bunker I had just crawled out of. They looked around, then they decapitated the heads of the two guys in the bunker. What, I exclaimed, with a knife?

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They always carry a scythe (manna), he said, a kind of long knife with a curved end. You curve it around anything and pull, and it comes off. These guys had no guns. They only had these scythes. They salvaged what they could from our bunker and then headed towards their line. But suddenly, they turned round and came back the same way, I mean the decapitating unit (beli kapana kandāyama). I never thought they’d come back this way like that. I ran. It’s not something I did consciously, but I started running forward with my gun. I don’t know why I did that. Because then they saw me.

In Phase III, they managed to capture one side of Kilinochchi town, successfully breaking through the LTTE’s defences. They put together a defence line. After capturing the LTTE’s High Base, taking on the next one seemed almost easy. But they realize they had to be ready for a night attack by the LTTE. By this point, 4GR was beyond exhausted, but unable to sleep since the likelihood of a LTTE night attack was almost certain. They had to stay alert. This tension was compounded by the habitual Sinhala fear of the dark. The LTTE, on their part, had – after years of taking to the jungles – succeeded in coming to terms with the darkness. The night and shadows had become their allies. They also understood the SLA’s weakness. Therefore, night attacks had become one of their signature manoeuvres. Consequently, the 4GR troops knew instinctively that the attack was likely to come at the moment of greatest darkness. They were still afraid (bhayai). Their fears are justified. Despite all their preparations, once again the LTTE sent in explosives-strapped Black Tigers who breached SLA defences by launching themselves at these ‘in a moving wave’ (UTHR-J 1996: 3–4). They were followed by dozens of fighters. A Commando reconnaissance party tries to send out a radio alert, but even this is too late. The very suddenness of the LTTE presence – breaching several defence lines as if they did not exist – is paralysing. Though he hears the LTTE fighters shooting their way down the line, for the first few minutes, Namal freezes. He cannot act. He does not use his grenade or activate the claymore mines outside his bunker. He soon recovers however, and begins thinking rationally and weighing his options. But – as often happens in a crisis – when the moment for action actually arrives, everything seems to go wrong. The mines don’t go off. His grenade also doesn’t work. Though he was not injured, he was covered in blood because a mortally injured comrade had fallen over him. This though, probably worked in his favour by making the gunman think he was dead as well. In any case, the gunman does not shoot him. When the gunman finally reaches him however, though he recollects feeling it was the ‘worst moment’ of his life, he is in such a state of besiegement that he can’t actually remember what he did. But he registers, much to his chagrin, that there is only one gunmen. He is shocked because he imagines from the deafening

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explosions accompanying the breaching of the FDL that it was a major attack. But in fact, only one gunman was targeting this particular line of bunkers. When he realizes that a LTTE boy with a scythe is slitting the throat of his comrade in the next bunker, he is shocked out of his momentary paralysis. But even as he tries to move cleanly into the attack modes learnt in training, he finds himself shooting so wildly that he fails to even hit the boy. He accidently kills four other LTTE fighters in his frenzy, but not the source of his terror. The image of soldiers being decapitated in this way, as depicted in the LTTE’s Mullaitivu videos, may have flashed through his mind. In any case, that was an image that preoccupied him in his own telling. An inexplicable sense of dread seemed to grip him: irrational in that the boy did not have a gun and Namal did. In any case, he was no match for Namal, who had an 80 lb advantage over him. Still, Namal’s terror was such that he switched his gun to ‘single burst’ and vowed to kill himself rather than allow himself to be beheaded, even though this ‘executioner’ was visibly frailer than himself. Here the ‘excess’ of the boy’s act, the gratuitousness of this performative violence – the bloody decapitation of an already dying man – created a sense of revulsion and dread. This deprived him of the ability to rationally perceive that he was more lethally-armed than the scythe-wielding boy. After he calms down, he crawls out of his bunker and takes cover under a bush. The scythe-wielding boy and a comrade, who seemed to have taken cover during the shooting, now calmly return to work, beheading the two dead men in the bunker he just abandoned. They then start towards the LTTE line. But they suddenly change course, doing a U-turn. When Namal sees them though, he is again stricken by his old sense of terror, even though they still didn’t have guns and he did. In this final narrative, Namal suddenly realizes that the LTTE activists he is dealing with are actually only young boys. Though this eases his anxiety and terror, it does not lessen his animosity.

Narrative 5 – Confronting child soldiers This decapitating team, the guys who pinched my things from the bunker, they were only boys, maybe 14, 15  years. They shouted ‘Army, get him’ in their language. As I was running, the boy in front put out his hand and tried to grab me. He was only a young boy (podi kollek). I caught hold of his hand and twisted it. He caught hold of my gun on the other side. I grabbed his other arm and twisted again. He was only a young boy, wasn’t he? Not very powerful. He fell. I didn’t shoot, I didn’t want to waste bullets at that point. I hit him with the gun. He screamed and sat on the ground again. I ran in the opposite direction. They came chasing behind. I’m a lot bigger, so I gained a bit of a

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lead, but they were still chasing behind. By now, I was sort of recognizing the landscape and I was running in the direction of our lines. Then suddenly I fell. There was a trench cut alongside our line, quite deep, about six feet. It was full of dead bodies. They were beginning to stink. I had fallen into that. I  fell so heavily, I  went right through those bodies. When I  opened my eyes, I  could hardly see the sky, it was obscured by bodies. I  think  they went running past. They didn’t see the trench, or they didn’t realize I fell in. After some hours I crawled out. I couldn’t see anyone around. I made my way towards our lines. I wasn’t even injured. I was covered in blood, but I wasn’t even injured. In the end, out of 67 guys in our company, only 14 were alive. But that didn’t matter because we finally managed to trap a whole lot of them on our side of the line. How many were there? I asked. Fifty-seven, he said, with much satisfaction. They were mostly 14, 15 years old. Very few adults. We lined them up, and then put a line of our snipers and said, one, two, three, go. They, took them all out nicely (ѐ okkoma lassanata aragaththa). Like a pile of firewood. After that we didn’t mind that we lost so many of ours. We also landed our number (avashya tharamak apith bāgena thiyenava).

When he actually grabs the first teenager by the arm, Namal realizes that he was only a young boy, and this knowledge steadies him somewhat. The boy – fleetingly – became human. He almost feels sorry for him. At this point, he begins acting ­rationally again and starts running towards the SLA’s forward defence line. Namal is left with a burning sense of indignation that he had been made to fight – not adult men – but young boys, who are not his equal.7 At the same time, due to the LTTE’s brutalizing strategy – through which children emerged as not quite children – they evoked a greater measure of horror and revulsion than adults did. Once trained to perform a specific routine of brutalization, they unquestioningly carried it out, whereas an adult might baulk at the ethical implications of what it entailed. Escaping from the LTTE fighters chasing him, Namal falls headlong into a ditch of rotting corpses. But such is his heightened state of anxiety that he does not even feel disgust, or anything at all, except sheer relief at magically escaping his pursuers. The ditch of rotting corpses became a place of refuge. In the end, his unit suffered heavy losses. They lost 53 soldiers. They responded by rounding up 57 rebels – most of whom were child soldiers – lining them up and executing them. The executions in fact provided target practice for their snipers. The execution itself became a performance – all the boys lined up – which was presented to invisible eyes watching from behind walls and curtains in the occupied town as a public spectacle. At the same time, Namal seemed to find some comfort

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in the successive sequences of the execution itself, as if it could in some obscure way nullify the comrades he lost on that day. The actual numbers of those shot seemed to have held significance for him – the fact that they managed to ‘take out’ more rebels than the number of soldiers lost.

Concluding comments The tenets upon which the SLA’s combat training regime are premised remained very detached from the new recruit’s everyday practice. Consequently, it took years on the battlefield to acquire the level of concentration required to move into such routines with ease. He is constantly struggling to retain his focus. But now the culture of the battlefield itself, its very boundaries and notions of what kinds of violence are permissible, changed decisively with the LTTE’s move to set-up the Black Tigers Suicide Corps and the Young Leopards Unit of child soldiers. This move marked the formal induction of suicide bombers – who had merely been an ad hoc presence before – as well as child soldiers. It enabled attacks on seemingly impenetrable targets such as the SLA’s 25th Brigade Complex. This attack – which involved both suicide cadres and Leopards – set the stage for the SLA’s attack on the LTTE base in Kilinochchi. It also displayed the LTTE’s acuity in the field of propaganda, audaciously attempting to redefine Sinhala masculinity as ineffectual and emasculated. Here the dishonour implied in the LTTE’s act of slaughtering sleeping soldiers is outweighed by the greater dishonour of SLA soldiers being made into exhibits. Both the spectacular breaching of the defences of the Mullaitivu Brigade Complex and the throat-slitting sequences inspire a kind of superstitious dread among even the more rational of SLA soldiers. Namal, who came across as a pragmatic, competent soldier in the accounts of other operations he fought in, was in this instance from the start preoccupied by the dreadful unfolding of this episode. Three kilometres into the operation, they come across an LTTE High Base and moved into attack mode. Unlike the LTTE, the SLA did not at this point engage in extensive reconnaissance activity; they did not try to find out what weapons the LTTE had on site. The LTTE responded with their seized heavy cannon, which the SLA found they were not equipped to face. All they could do is take cover. Namal flings himself down so hastily that he ends up in an impossible position. His sergeant keeps him there all day. He passively accedes. He desires not to offend against the culture of seniority – the same culture that failed to factor-in that the LTTE now had their heavy canon or provide them with adequate body armour. He makes no attempt to explore his options, to edge himself into a more advantageous position. The SLA’s subsequent shock-and-awe tactics finally succeeded in opening-up the LTTE’s High Base. The LTTE slip away, but they are still able to undermine the SLA with their devastating night attacks, which invariably caught them on the back foot. These night attacks, then, emerged as the LTTE’s trump card whenever they found themselves in a difficult situation.

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Such night attacks seemed to create a shroud of uncertainty that constrained the SLA’s capacity to engage in the practice of risking-their-bodies. Namal expended a great deal of physical and emotional energy in this campaign. He was in either a state of anxiety or acute terror much of the time. At many moments, he thought this would be his last operation. But he did not in fact remember any sequence of action during which he imperilled himself on his own initiative. While the march to Kilinochchi may have involved occasions when he did so, he did not mention any, and so probably did not feel he had. Rather, he seemed preoccupied throughout with what the enemy wanted to do to his body, i.e. slit his throat. In the account of this night attack in Kilinochchi, the image of the LTTE as a disciplined, professional organization of mature, ideologically committed fighters suddenly fractures. The night attack on Namal’s section of the line involved a small LTTE group led by an adult fighter and several boys in their mid-teens – probably Young Leopards. The boys initially watched from under cover while their leader began shooting down the line of bunkers. The adult activist had a gun, but the young boys were armed only with scythes. As part of the LTTE’s on-going practice of brutalizing young recruits, groups of teenaged boys were sent on missions alongside adults to behead soldiers who had already been killed or so badly wounded they posed no threat. But at least until the point at which the 4GR were expecting the night attack, the image of LTTE fighters slitting throats seemed to have been pushed to the back of their minds. It is not clear if their high level of anxiety affected the 4GR’s ability to prepare for an LTTE attack. Why did the mines not go off? Were the soldiers too stressed and nervous to lay them out correctly? Why did the grenades fail? Further, Namal’s high level of exhaustion and anxiety in the context of a night attack had an almost paralysing effect. Until the LTTE gunman actually reached his bunker, he was frozen, unable to act. It was the actual unfolding of the throatslitting sequence before his eyes that propelled him into action. But he then lost his ability to act rationally. He was reduced to shooting blindly. His combat training did not come to his aid at this difficult moment. What he engaged in was not a purposeful attack on an identified target, but a wild shooting spree, so wild that he had no recollection of what he was doing. He was quite surprised to see at least four dead bodies in front of his bunker and to realize he had killed them – there was no one else around. They were probably that of Leopards, but he cannot take time even to verify this. He was shooting so wildly that he almost finished his ammunition on just four men, but – even though the Leopards were not equipped with guns – he dared not reload. The LTTE’s child brutalization strategy was able to erase the effects of five years’ experience in the Army in an instant. At that moment, Namal was as vulnerable as a raw recruit on his first operation. The LTTE’s brutalizing tactics also dehumanized their own child soldiers and pushed SLA soldiers towards greater brutality. They lined up these young teenagers and executed them. At the end of a difficult operation, the emotional intensity of the moment was such that no senior officer on the ground was able to bring themselves to

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articulate that these were children. That they should – as children – be rehabilitated rather than shot. Their critical faculties were dimmed by the terrible weight of the moment. The loss of comrades. For one thing, these brutalized, un-childlike children were not physical equals or even adults against whom they could pit themselves with honour. It would be embarrassing to admit to the Sinhala media that they had been fighting with children. But at a deeper level, they were repelled by these (non)-children and their potential ability to slit their throats as they lay wounded on the battlefield, reducing them to spectacle and thus emasculating them as they lay dying. This would rob them of even dying as heroic soldiers. Similarly, the formal entry of suicide cadres into the battlefield also posed a serious problem in terms of military masculinity. It challenged the whole concept of risking-the-body, since it was based on the more extreme practice of sacrificingthe-body. It raised the bar in terms of bodily courage to impossible heights. At the same time, neither practice – suicide or decapitation – approximated to the norms of Sinhala hegemonic masculinity as exemplified in the SLA code. In terms of embodiment, Tamil fighters – including suicide cadres – were not as big and powerfully built as the Sinhala soldiers and were mostly foul-smelling since they lived in the jungles. This allowed the Sinhalas to be very condescending (unta adugāne ängavath nä, anthima gandai). Tamil fighters were seen to succeed only by using illicit tactics – such as turning their bodies into weapons and bloodying their hands with scythes. They were not perceived to fight ‘fair’ but to resort to the most underhand tactics, those of mercenaries, marauders and minions. Here, wielding a gun emerges as somehow more ‘honourable’ than killing with knives and scythes. Consequently, many soldiers found that when confronted with suicide cadres or brutalized child soldiers, they were unable to remain within the boundaries of their own – putative – code of risking-the-body. They found themselves reduced to the state of raw recruits shooting wildly and aimlessly or remained frozen, unable to act. Their bodies refused to perform the combat sequences they trained so long to master and instead embarked on a different trajectory. The soldier now finds himself inhabiting an embattled body.

Notes 1 Countries with large Tamil diasporic populations such as Canada and Switzerland were already taking strong action against LTTE (Taraki, Sunday Times, 28 July 1996). 2 The LTTE captured not only two 122  mm howitzers and 903 shells, but also mortar rounds and mortar tubes and over 800 RPGs (SLA 1999: 540–541). 3 Taraki, 28 July 1996; UTHR-J Bulletin No. 12, October 1996). 4 See also Gunaratne (2016: 376–387) for a description of the attack on the Mullaitivu camp. 5 The Colombo–Jaffna railway runs parallel to the A9 highway at this point. 6 These were mortars manufactured by the LTTE themselves in the early years, with each mortar being roughly the size of a small child (baba = child). 7 The UTHR-J confirms that most of the dead cadre in this Kilinochchi offensive were children between the ages of 13 and 16 (Bulletin No. 12, 1996).

MAP 7.1 

Operation Jayasikurui

7 OPERATION JAYASIKURUI Female fighters on the battlefield

Introduction With the capture of the Kilinochchi camp, the SLA’s reach extended beyond the Jaffna Peninsula into the Northern parts of the Vanni, reversing the trend of critical losses in Eelam War II (see Map no. 7.1).1 Still, the area between Kilinochchi and Vavuniya remained in LTTE hands. This was problematic. The SLA now had to find a land-based route through this terrain to supply the 40,000 troops on the Peninsula. Further, nearly 500,000 of the Jaffna residents who fled the Peninsula in the October 1995 exodus had returned, and they had to be supplied with food and other basics (SLA 1999: 540; Subramaniam 2005: 58). This became increasingly hard. But a failure to do so would become tantamount to a failure of governance. It would be an admission that Colombo lacked basic state capacity. It would validate the view that the Peninsula had not been ‘liberated’ at all but converted into a State of Exception. Keeping Jaffna supplied required control of the A9 highway, which linked the key Tamil-speaking districts of Jaffna, Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu and Vavuniya to the Sinhala-speaking South. This rendered it much strategic significance. About 75 kilometres of its length passed through Tiger-held territory, especially the ­jungle-infested Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu districts and the equally dense northern part of Vavuniya. Provisions could not be delivered by land without access to the whole of the A9. The alternative of keeping Jaffna supplied by air and sea was very expensive, and even this option was becoming increasingly fraught as the Tigers acquired anti-aircraft capabilities and the Sea Tigers began intercepting Navy supply vessels more aggressively (Subramanian ibid.). The A9 had to be reclaimed. The goal of Operation Jayasikurui (‘Victory is assured’) then, was to secure the section of the A9 highway that traversed LTTE territory in the Northern Province. DOI: 10.4324/9781003362036-7

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This chapter explores the unfurling of Jayasikurui – conducted by Divisions 53, 55 and 56 – through the narratives of Nihal and Vinodh, who fought with Division 55’s 4GR. It traces their attempts to retain their focus on the operation’s projected goals amid devastating night attacks, demoralizing death rates and the LTTE’s induction of female fighters onto the battlefield.

Operation Jayasikurui Operation Jayasikurui then, simply aimed at recovering the capacity of the state to feed its own troops and Tamil civilians. But it became the most extended ­operation of Eelam War III, unfolding as it did between May  1997 and December  1998. Deaths and casualties on both sides were excessive. The SLA’s website claims that intercepted LTTE transmissions affirmed 3,614 LTTE fighters were killed in action and 1,899 wounded.2 Other sources assert that 3,500 SLA soldiers also died and 9,700 were wounded (Blodgett 2004: 112).3 All in all, more than 7,114 lives were consumed. The SLA’s strategy in this operation involved opening-up two fronts against LTTE-held territory in order to diffuse the LTTE’s big weapons and manpower. When there are two fronts, says Gunaratne, the onus is on the enemy to identify which is the main effort and which the secondary one. The latter, he says, is actually a diversionary front, but should the main effort fail, it is also possible to convert the diversionary front into the main effort (Gunaratne 2016: 396). In Jayasikurui, the advance by Division 53 – which included the Independent ­Brigade, Air Mobile Brigade, Armoured Brigade and Infantry Brigade – was the main effort. The plan was to march from Welioya in the Polonnaruwa district to Nedunkerny in Vavuniya, and then link-up with Division 55 – the secondary front – at the LTTE’s most strongly entrenched position of ­Puliyankulam. Both divisions would then march up the A9 to Kilinochchi together, taking the LTTE camps at Kanakarayankulam, Mankulam and Iranamadu en route to Kilinochchi (SLA 1999: 543). And in fact it was Division 53 that bore the brunt of LTTE attacks. Division 55 – comprised of light infantry and armoured brigades – commenced from the village of Thandikulam in the Vavuniya district, the SLA’s last key outpost in the Tamil-speaking regions of the Vanni. Thandikulam was 5 kilometres up the A9 from Vavuniya town. The plan was for Division 55 to march up the A9 from Thandikulam to Puliyankulam. This required, firstly, seizing the village of Omanthai, the first checkpoint on the A9 manned by the LTTE. Omanthai had over the years acquired an aura of enigmatic ominousness as the gateway to rebel territory. They aimed to link-up with Division 53 at Puliyankulam. Still in practice, this focus on acquiring LTTE-held terrain resulted in a very extended defence line stretching from Thandikulam all the way to Mankulam and from Welioya to Nedunkerny. Due to the extent of territory secured, SLA personnel could not be spared to man checkpoints in newly occupied terrain, and the

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Navy, Air Force and Police were co-opted to hold this ground while the Army fought on the frontlines. This land-annexing strategy, which implied that the SLA’s flanks and rear would be perilously thinned-out, triggered much debate among the Sinhala and Englishreading public. Though the state-owned tabloid and electronic media were mostly supportive of the operation’s goals, the independent media openly argued that this strategy played into the LTTE’s hands. Many observers felt that the LTTE’s plan would be to allow the SLA to over-extend itself and then make swift, surgical strikes. Speculation was rife on the probability of LTTE counterattacks on the SLA’s vulnerable flanks or rear. Thus, as early as June 1997, defence analyst Iqbal Atthas pointed out that anyone with the most basic knowledge of irregular warfare should have expected the LTTE to counterattack on the SLA’s rear flank or logistics convoy.4 Another special correspondent, Taraki, went further, observing that the rear flank of Jayasikurui – the Puliyankulam–Nedunkerny axis – had become so porous that displaced civilians were now able to cycle to their villages near Nedunkerny. The areas southwest and south of Oddusuddan, he remarked, were now increasingly thinned-out since the Army was amassing its forces in the forward areas of Operation Jayasikurui.5 SLA strategists though, seemed impervious to these freely offered insights. Further, SLA strategists once again did not seem to have factored into their analysis an even more critical issue: the fact that the LTTE was now equipped with the arms they had seized – worth $25 million, according to one defence analyst – from the SLA’s Mullaitivu camp.6 The recapture of Kilinochchi failed to retrieve them. The existence of this vast arsenal somehow continued to be a persistent blind spot in the calculations of SLA strategists. The LTTE’s tactical deployment of these weapons impacted heavily on the SLA’s death toll. Operation Jayasikurui was led on the ground by some of the SLA’s more gifted commanders, with Colonel Jayavi Fernando commanding the Special Forces Brigade, Colonel Chandrawansa commanding the Commando Brigade and Colonel Ananda Chandrasiri commanding the Armoured Brigade. As events display however, leadership was found wanting at higher levels. Further, progress was slow. By mid-1998, Jayasikurui had only reached Mankulam. Kilinochchi was 26 kilometres away. At this point, troops broke out from the SLA’s Elephant Pass Camp and marched down the A9 to Kilinochchi to link-up with the battalions from Mankulam (Gunaratne 2016: 423). But the LTTE, desperate to thwart the linking-up of these two fronts, launched a deadly attack on the Kilinochchi forward defences (Gunaratne 2016: 424–434). Subsequently, on 26th September  1998, the LTTE launched their Unceasing Waves II onslaught. This took the form of another devastating attack on the ­Kilinochchi camp, including precision strikes on gun positions and other key installations. The camp was overrun within two days. Casualty levels were high; up to 975 SLA troops and 717 LTTE cadres are thought to have died, and hundreds were injured on both sides (Blodgett 2004: 113).7 Troops who survived the attack retreated to the Paranthan Junction.

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For the second time in two years, Kilinochchi fell. With its fall, the gap between the two frontlines had now widened to 50 k­ ilometres. This final debacle seriously undermined the credibility of Jayasikurui, and by late-November 1998, it had ground to a halt. It never realized its goal. After 18 months on the march, only 44 kilometres of the A9 had been gained. Operation Jayasikurui became one of the most ironically named campaigns of Eelam War III. But significantly, in many of the counterattacks against the SLA, Operation Jayasikurui increasingly witnessed the involvement of the LTTE’s female fighters.8 In a parallel trend, at least six women were raped in the period March–­ September  1996, in incidents in which SLA soldiers, Navy or police personnel were clearly implicated (UTHR-J 1998a: 2–3, 24–26). The increased visibility of female fighters on the on the battlefield then, was accompanied by a trend of growing sexual violence against Tamil women civilians by security personnel.

The narrators: Nihal and Vinodh Nihal and Vinodh were part of 4GR troops in Division 55, which was raised to conduct Operation Jayasikurui. They joined the regiment in early-1990. Interestingly, though they served in the same campaign more than once, and were acquainted with each other, they did not seem particularly close. Their stories do not mention the presence of each other on the battlefield. This perhaps reflects the very swift turnover of soldiers in the infantry regiments due to high death and casualty rates. Nihal rose through the ranks and was a sergeant when he left the SLA in 2002. At the time of this campaign, he was a lance corporal. He was from the village of Aluvihare in the Matale district and had a round, cheerful face, topped by a crew cut that made him seem even more youthful. But this was a little at odds with his burly, somewhat barrel-chested frame, and at around 5’11”, he was quite tall for a Sri Lankan. When he spoke, though, the impression of youthfulness faded and he came across as authoritative and decisive. Vinodh, on the other hand, was slighter, around 5’10”, and of a softer disposition. He was from Badulla in the Uva province. At the time of this operation, he was also a lance corporal. His smiling mien belied what were clearly considerable mental resources. Their grasp of the actual dates of Jayasikurui are somewhat problematic. At first Nihal said a bit vaguely that it took place sometime between the years 1995 and 1997, while Vinodh, who was more specific, thought it began on 26th August 1997. Official records agree that the operation commenced on 11th May 1997. Still, there were others who said they had participated in this operation, and whose battalions according to SLA records clearly took part in it, who also – after endless months on the march – had problems with the actual dates if not the duration of engagement. On the other hand, their memories of the operation itself seem very vivid. This was because, as they both pointed out, it was their last operation, after

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which peace negotiations began and – at different times – they left the Army. At one level, the rhythm of these narratives captures the exhausting, endless pace of this doomed operation, which entailed more than 18 months in harsh jungleridden conditions for those who fought in it. They do not always flow smoothly, in a linear fashion, describing events chronologically. They often pause and backtrack, sometimes repeating themselves in slightly different versions. Most of all, these narratives chart the relentless loss of lives at each succeeding stage of the operation. Nihal recounts the way Operation Jayasikurui began with the newly raised Division 55 marching up the A9 from Thandikulam. They immediately faced a totally unexpected artillery and mortar attack by the LTTE. SLA strategists responded by unleashing a major aerial onslaught on the LTTE’s Omanthai Base. In the wake of this strike, troops remained at Thandikulam for 20–25 days, ending Phase 1 of the operation. But much of Nihal’s narrative is about Phase 2, which involved Division 55’s efforts to capture Puliyankulam – which in the end they failed to do – and the LTTE’s counterattack. Puliyankulam was 7 kilometres further up the A9 and the LTTE’s strongest base in the Vanni, and therefore quite impregnable. Though they attempted to capture this base for two months, they could not. In the end, they detoured around Puliyankulam town.9 The logistics convoy was also brought up, and they stayed there for 15–20 days. It was at this point that the LTTE launched a counterattack at night, infiltrating the SLA’s logistics convoy at the rear. This was one of the deadliest strikes. As a result, Nihal’s battalion of approximately 750 troops was now – unbelievably – reduced to 20. They somehow put together a defence line and set up camp for another 20–25 days. The SLA line now stretched all the way from Vavuniya town to Puliyankulam and was very extended and thin on the ground. Having bypassed Puliyankulam by detouring through the jungle, they came out at Kanagarayankulam, 9 kilometres further up the A9 from Puliyankulam. Vinodh takes up the narrative from this point. They stayed in the Kanagarayankulam jungles for a few months. Here they had a series of encounters with the LTTE, who tried to persuade the war-weary troops to surrender, promising to send them home through the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Unlike the LTTE, being ‘trapped’ in the jungle for extended periods of time created much anxiety among the SLA troops. Division 55 then went on to Mankulam. At this point, Operation Jayasikurui was officially terminated. Vinodh and his unit were subsequently stationed on the bank of the Iranamadu reservoir, which bordered the Kilinochchi district. They stayed there for 8–9 months. Nihal once again picks up the narrative, describing the effort to get to the new line in Kilinochchi. Vinodh concludes with some comments on the LTTE’s female fighters.

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Narrative 1 – Marching up the A9: Thandikulam, Omanthai, detouring Puliyankulam and on to Kanakarayankulam: Nihal Soon after we began advancing, said Nihal, the LTTE attacked – those guys knew more about our troop movements than we did. They must have intercepted our radio signals or something – anyway, there was this big attack. What, right at the start? I asked. Were you intimidated? It was meant to, he said, smiling, it was meant to make it hard for us to prepare ourselves mentally. If things go well the first day, it’s a great moralebooster for the boys. They try to break us. That’s what war is, we try to break out, they try to stop us breaking out. So things were a bit rough on the first day. Anyway, we got to Omanthai. When did you get to Omanthai? I asked. On the first day itself, he said. We started early morning from Thandikulam. We began advancing. We walked for about 1 kilometre. We went in two columns, on both sides of the A9. The attack took place before we completed the second kilometre. We were stuck there for quite a while. He paused. What kind of weapons were they using? I prompted him. There was artillery, he said, there were mortars and I  even saw one armoured car.10 It was a setback for us. Lot of injuries. Injuries and deaths. Because at that point – right at the start – we were in a solid formation and our ranks were full. So every artillery and mortar shot fired found a target. So we withdrew for a bit, for about two days. But didn’t your own artillery respond to their fire? I asked. No, no, he said, they did respond. But the thing is, however much you fire, they’re in secured positions and we’re exposed. It’s possible our fire may have fallen on the right targets. Who knows. Anyway, we increased our fire. After a while, their fire lessened. After about two days, we began advancing again. We now widened our assault line further. We went on for about another 2 kilometres. Then we came to an open stretch. Mostly paddy fields. It was a bit problematic to cross this terrain. We were at such a disadvantage. They were still under cover and we were even more exposed. So here again our casualty rates went up. Also deaths. But you somehow went on? I asked. Yes, he said, we didn’t let it go (ath äriyé nä). We didn’t retreat this time. They were using mortars and artillery again. Did you feel the decision to advance was correct? I asked.

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Absolutely, he said, we couldn’t possibly retreat a second time. Once, twice. If it happened a third time, we would’ve been lost for sure. So we didn’t let it go. We somehow moved forward. The LTTE had a big camp adjoining the A9 at Omanthai, where they used to have their main check point. They abandoned this camp and withdrew further in. You mean they simply abandoned the Omanthai Camp? I asked, amazed, since I had heard a lot about this infamous LTTE checkpoint. Yes, he said, but not just like that. We attacked hard. Really hard. The Special Forces and the Commandos led that attack. So you cleared the camp? I asked. We cleared the camp, he said. Then we set up a defence line inside the camp. After that we stopped there for about 20–25 days. The first phase of this operation ended here. Why did you stay there so long? I asked. That’s the way they do these things, he said, in between the different phases of an operation, we set up camp and we rest and recuperate for a bit. Our supplies convoy, with the admin staff, food rations, weapons, ammunition and everything, was located about 10–25 kilometres behind the frontline. So we brought them up closer. We rested. We ate well, because during an operation you don’t get to eat on time. At that time, we were given the same kind of rations that US soldiers were eating. Were they OK? I  asked, interested, since other troops interviewed had complained about these food rations. They were OK, he said, no problem. The quantity is not much, only 200 grams in a packet, but it was high in fibre (ghanai). You can last the whole day when you eat that. Then in the second phase we went to Mankulam, no, I mean, Puliyankulam. How much further was that? I asked. It was around 7 kilometres from there, he said. It was difficult to get to Puliyankulam. That was one of the hardest LTTE bases to take. We tried for about two months. But why was this one so difficult? I asked, a bit unthinkingly. Why, he said, because they had a big base there, that’s why. A big base. It was completely hidden from the A9 highway. They had covered it in jute sacking. The road was closed off. You couldn’t even see the structures properly. There was a row of bunkers alongside the A9. We could see all that. We tried very hard to break through this line. In the end, we couldn’t . . . I mean we used artillery, mortars and everything. That time, there were a lot of casualties. And bodies . . .

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So now we couldn’t capture Puliyankulam by going up the A9. We tried doing a detour from the left. But there was a big counterattack from that side as well. We went to the right. We met with a fierce response from the right. Our efforts were not productive. So we stopped there for a while. By this point about how many men had you lost already? I  asked, with some trepidation. Around 100, he said. How many men were there in your battalion? I asked. About 700–800 men, he said. We lost two armoured tanks. What happened to the men inside? I asked. Finished, he said. The guy inside was burnt to death. How many men were there inside? I asked. It’s generally five men and three men, like that, he said. One guy couldn’t get out and he was burnt inside. The gun operator in the other tank was also hit and he fell, but we somehow got him out. The whole attack was a bit of a disaster. So we stopped for a while. We set out a defence line and stayed there for a bit. Then something happened. In fact, a terrible thing happened. Nihal paused and then briefly recapitulated his narrative. By this time, our provisions convoy had arrived, with the (civilian) admin staff. It was brought from Vavuniya (town) to Omanthai. So then we started out again after around 15–20 days. Like I  said, we by-passed Puliyankulam town. We did a detour around the town by cutting across the jungle. We attacked it from the side. But we met with heavy resistance. We then tightened up our ranks a bit. The LTTE realized you would attack from that direction? I asked. Yes, he said. They tried to break through our line. You mean they knew about your movements? I asked. Not like that, he said, but they must have deduced something. We came across some of them on the way. LTTE guys. They saw us. From that point, we could have either gone on to the left or to the right. We chose to attack from the right. We thinned our ranks on our left flank to strengthen our right flank further. That’s a tactic. We left like, one guy per bunker on the left flank and shifted the rest on to the other flank. Then we put the Special Forces Commandos and began the attack from that direction. Then we realized something else was happening behind us. When we looked back to see what was going on, we realized that what I just mentioned was happening. While we were engaged in this frontal assault, they (the LTTE) had done a big, big circle and cut through our ranks from the rear. Right near to where the supplies and admin people were.

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At the time, this section of our flank was actually manned by the Police, not the Army. Because some battalions were being rested, the rear section of the line was being manned by Police officers and the Army was on the frontlines. The LTTE attacked here. A lot of their women cadres participated in this attack. I mean, they come at you screaming filth (kunu-harapa kägagahā). You just can’t imagine (hithāganna bä). This guy Karuna, at that time he was a senior leader in the LTTE.11 He brought them from the East. They’re the ones who broke through? I said. Yes, he said. It was mostly women cadres. About 300 took part in this attack. We suffered a lot of losses at this point. Around 50–60 deaths and the same number of casualties. But the Police, the guys who were supposed to be manning these posts, you know what they did? They just ran away! They abandoned their posts. They also had bad casualties. About 25% deaths and the same number wounded. The rest simply ran away. In fact, they’re still absconding today. Those of us who were still there, we somehow put together the line again. This time, even the guy in the kitchen who cooked for the camp – he was a civilian – he also had to take a gun and go to the line and shoot, because they broke through near the kitchen section, and then we somehow did something. In the end, there were only 20 left in our battalion. Including our CO, there were only 20 guys left [out of 700–800]. Did you realize they were attacking from the rear? I asked. Yes, he said. Even while we were moving forward, we could hear sounds from the rear. But by the time we turned, they were already inside. Still, by daybreak – it was a night attack – by dawn we had somehow linked-up our line again. There was a small unit stationed there. There were problems – in the dark, the men couldn’t identify each other – He paused. It was so dark, he said, we couldn’t see anything. Some guys died under our own fire. Because – how could you see – the darkness was so dense, you couldn’t see where our line ended and where theirs began. There were some guys inside a bunker. One of our boys threw a grenade. Later, it turned out they were our guys. So what’s to be done. It wasn’t something anyone did on purpose. Once the line had been broken, they couldn’t locate where our own guys were. So we linked the line again and retreated. It was a setback. We withdrew, regrouped and set up our line again, about 1 kilometre from Omanthai – I mean from Puliyankulam. Like them (the LTTE), we also concealed ourselves from the (A9) road with jute sacking and set-up camp for a while. About 20–25 days. By this point, our numbers had gone down a lot.

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After the failure of the Police to hold down that part of our flank, we had to increase manpower on that section as well. In general, we widened all flanks and increased the terrain we were holding. This time the Navy and the Air Force were securing the flanks. The rest our battalions took over – the Sinha and Gajaba regiments. So now our line is stretching all the way back to Vavuniya. The Air Force, Navy and police manned some sections, but we didn’t put them alongside the highway at any point. After that we stayed there for a while. We worked out our strategy. Like we did before, we went in one direction; we gave the impression we were attacking from this side and came from the other side. But the LTTE also made a big, surprise movement of cadres. They met our thrust. So then we couldn’t break through for the second time. We had to use artillery or air power. In the end, we engaged in massive artillery fire – massive fire. I  mean, soon, there was no spot in Puliyankulam town that was not hit by artillery fire. Trees were stricken down, houses were destroyed and charred throughout this area (gas kadila, geval bindila pichchila giyapu pradeshayak). Targets were shelled again and again. Though we couldn’t take Puliyankulam from that side, we ended up much further forward than we were before. Though the LTTE was still holding Puliyankulam town, we had advanced beyond the town through the jungle. But how did you do that? I asked. It was like this, he said. The LTTE had captured the highway. They wouldn’t let us advance up the highway. So we went from this side, we went about 8 kilometres into the interior and came out close to Puliyankulam, up to Kanagarayankulam. They (the LTTE) realized that if they let us get ahead, they can cut us through in the middle and we would be trapped. They silently went round the back. Then we also realized that if we used this strategy (of avoiding the A9 and cutting across the jungle), our manpower losses would be less. We wouldn’t take any losses. But we realized that much later. We retreated a little and stopped a little before Kanagarayankulam. We did an assault. It was very quick, it only took around 10–15 minutes. Then we arrived at Kanagarayankulam. There’s a road that links-up Puliyankulam to Welioya that reaches all the way to Kilinochchi. There was another unit coming up from the Welioya direction and we sent them to link-up with the line at Vavuniya. So now the line is stretching all the way from Welioya to Vavuniya (town). We stayed a while at Kanagarayankulam.

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Divergent masculinities: SLA vis-à-vis LTTE (1) While at this point in the history of hostilities the LTTE were not launching frontal attacks on the SLA, they waged a series of up to six counterattacks on Divisions 55 and 53 – mostly on their flanks and rear – in a riposte termed ‘do or die II’.12 The slogan ‘do or die’ is perhaps indicative of the efforts expended in these strikes. The LTTE’s first counterattack took place on 11th June, on Division 55’s Thandikulam defences.13 The second counterattack took place at Periyamadu on 24th June and targeted Division 53, but was effectively countered (Gunaratne 2016: 400). The next was a few days later, on the eastern defences of Division 55, in the village of Pannikanravi, north of Omanthai.14 The fourth, on 1st August, was again at Omanthai and directed at the Division 55 headquarters, but did not succeed in overrunning it (Gunaratne ibid.). The fifth occurred on 5th December and involved Division 53, whose 2CR Commando Battalion was lured into a bogus camp set up just outside the village of Mannakulam and decimated by the Leopards. This was by far the most tragic event for the SLA. In this episode, 150 Commandos were killed (ibid.: 409). The sixth occurred at the village of Karappukutti and involved Division 55 (ibid.: 422–423). Consequently, Nihal’s first narrative reveals different styles of combat and attack strategies used by the LTTE and SLA that amount to divergences in codes of masculinity. Despite all efforts to divest themselves of the perception of Anglicization, the SLA remained steeped in British ideas in terms of what constituted valour and in drawing-up strategies built on the specific comportment troops should retain under fire, which became evident as the operation unfolded. In terms of the SLA’s overall strategy, here Division 55 was of course playing the role of a diversionary push to draw the LTTE’s attention away from the main effort by Division 53. SLA strategists then, seemed to want to create the impression of a massive build-up of manpower and firepower against the LTTE in Thandikulam. Division 55 marched openly on both sides of the A9, making no effort to conceal their presence. It is not clear if troops on the ground really grasped their role in the larger scheme of things. But they seemed to quite willing to take on the mantle of this assertive martial manliness, of uniformed and booted bodies tramping past in well-formed columns against the LTTE’s ragtag fighters slipping silently through the jungles. Still, this column configuration made them sitting ducks. They subsequently had to cross open terrain with little or no cover. They remained very vulnerable and exposed to the fire of the LTTE, who were in entrenched positions. This demanded a particular kind of valour, in which soldiers kept stoically marching into the line of fire of an unseen enemy. It was only possible because the LTTE’s artillery and mortar capability at this point was relatively undeveloped. Nihal himself assesses the valour and fighting spirit of the SLA troops in terms of not flinching in the face of LTTE fire.

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The LTTE, on the other hand, blended tactical withdrawal all the time with swift, surgical strikes on exposed areas. Thus a clear divergence emerges in notions of what constitutes valour in combat. This in turn, shapes practices of masculinity. For the troops, this code of masculinity was disrupted by the presence of female LTTE fighters in the battlefield. The first such confrontation occurs in the counterattack off Puliyankulam, which involved up to 300 women. At the start, it was not 4GR and 4SR who faced the attack by female fighters but the Police who happened to be manning the line at the rear. Faced with the spectacle of female fighters with wild, unkempt hair screaming obscenities at them, policemen abandoned their posts en masse. The infantry troops were critical of the Police, whom they saw as lacking in manly courage, the kind of courage they had themselves cultivated with so much effort. But they themselves were equally shocked at this onslaught by female fighters and initially did not do much better. The effects of this attack were exacerbated by the fact that it was a night strike. As revealed in previous chapters, the Sinhala cultural dread of the dark remained the SLA’s weakest point, in a context when even the female LTTE cadres seemed to find safety in the cover the darkness afforded. This led to incidents of friendly fire. The LTTE’s treatment of its female cadres remained highly cavalier – the slogan ‘do or die’ in itself signifies that they were mostly consigned to be cannon fodder. On being conscripted, girls have their hair cropped short. This was in order to identify runaways who escaped from the LTTE and went into hiding in a social context in which Tamil women tended to wear their hair long and braided. For the troops, cropped hair that is growing out and dishevelled, together with their unkempt appearance – the result of roughing it out in the jungles – amounted to a refusal of their sexuality. This perception was acerbated by their ‘screaming obscenities’ or unwomanly conduct, which works to dehumanize them. At the same time, such women and girls fight fanatically on the battlefield since they are taught that if captured by troops, they would be raped. This fanaticism of female fighters – who in the end reduce their ranks to 20 – unnerve the troops. Troops become embattled. They are unable to launch theselves into the defensive drills instilled in training; they fail to move cleanly into a roll, pick up their weapons and shoot. They remain transfixed, fail to take cover and are decimated. Puliyankulam was located at a key junction. Unlike in previous villages where the LTTE’s battlements were sited alongside the A9 or a short distance from it, in Puliyankulam their defences encompassed this junction itself, with strong fortifications covering the open areas around it (Gunaratne 2016: 413). This made it impossible for both Division 53 as well as Division 55 – who were supposed to link up at this point – to even approach it. As the LTTE’s relentless artillery and mortar fire continued and the threat level escalated, Nihal begins to perceive the entire village of Puliyankulam as an extension of the LTTE’s camp. The LTTE’s strategy of mounting their offensives from civilian spaces – in this case the main junction itself – also added to the blurring of the line between them and ordinary villagers. Nihal is aware that the SLA’s artillery and air power had turned this site into a place of charred trees and burnt-out houses. It had become a barren State of Exception

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in which the Law did not hold sway. He never speculates about who must have lived in these houses or where the civilians caught in this ghastly vice went. In his imagination, it turns into an uninhabited landscape that the LTTE had taken over. Despite all this, the SLA’s efforts could not dislodge the LTTE. The linked-up SLA forces now attempted a detour through the jungle. And as the operation proceeded, SLA troops became more attuned to the jungle terrain. As their faces grew unshaven and grimy and their uniforms dirty and dishevelled, they more closely approximated the more earthy and devious forms of masculinity practiced by the LTTE’s ragtag fighters. After seven years on the battlefield, Nihal was able to move automatically into the mode of risking-the-body for long periods. Such moments happened when the division was attacked by artillery and mortar bombardments on the march. But they were interspersed with other moments when he becomes embattled and unable to act, as in the Puliyankulam counterattack. At such moments, his rationality and ability to correctly assess threat levels breaks down. Dangers became amplified and loom large. Problems seem insurmountable. The next section of the narrative is taken up by Vinodh.

Narrative 2 – In the Kanakarayankulam jungles: Vinodh We were now still in Kanagarayankulam, said Vinodh. By this point, we had spent about two years on this operation. In December 1997, when the New Year dawned, we hadn’t captured Puliyankulam. By March 1998 we had gone on to Kanagarayankulam. At this point, the LTTE was in retreat. Jayasikurui was ahead. So now our defence line stretched through the jungle. You can’t see very far in any direction. Especially at night, you can’t see friend or foe for miles around. There was about 50 metres between our frontline and theirs (LTTE’S). But because you’re in the jungle you can’t see anything. Then these guys, LTTE guys, they come in a tractor fitted with a loudspeaker and sound system. They make announcements. In Sinhala. At this time, many of our senior officers had been killed in action. They knew all these details about all of them. They were like, see, all your senior leaders have been slaughtered . . . They’re telling you that they know you’re in a weak position? I  asked, rather perplexed. Yes, he said. Totally. They made it sound like we’re in a completely catastrophic situation. It was a good tactic to undermine us. So we’re out there, shocked. Were they asking you to abandon your posts or what? I asked.

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Yes, he said. They were like, you guys have lost so many lives. During this phase, the CO of the Commandos was killed. Now our (SLA) Commando Regiment was the best in Asia . . . Is that really true? I asked, impressed. Yes, he said, everyone accepts that. So they’re telling us, why d’you want to waste the springtime of your youth trapped in the jungles (yauvanaye vasanthaya vanayéma paravi yanava), you’ve spent so much time marching but you’ve not achieved anything, that kind of thing . . .15 So how did you feel when you heard this? I asked. Actually, he said, at that moment, we felt really bad (godak amārui). We  felt terrible. Even though it was the LTTE saying it, what they said was  completely true. We were squandering our youth trapped in the jungles. But so were the LTTE guys squandering their youth away in the jungles, I pointed out. Yes, he said, this was just a tactic they were using. But what they said was true. Though of course we shouldn’t let it upset us because they’re just trying to undermine us. If you’re married, they said, think of your wife and kids, this is a totally misconceived venture. You will never achieve a victory. We in the LTTE are renowned (shreshta) fighters, they said. Now they’re telling you that they’re renowned fighters? I asked, interestedly. Yes, he said. They were using elevated (Sinhala) terms like that? I asked. Yes, he said, there’s nothing wrong with their Sinhala vocabulary. We’re renowned fighters. We never retreat. Your leaders treat you like cannon fodder, while they get themselves hung with medals. RSP, GSP, Veera Vibushana. You will never receive any of these things. You have been tricked into this situation. So please start thinking even at this late moment and give yourselves up to us. We will send you home through the Red Cross. That’s what they gave us. I remember perfectly, word for word (hondata kata padam), this was their message. So after that we hooted at them (hoo kivva). We else could we do? Then we sang Jothipala’s songs. So did you realize this was a propaganda tactic at that moment or are you saying that in retrospect? I asked. Actually, he said, I understood. We all talked it over. It wasn’t as if I was on my own. There were my officers who were more educated (buddhimath) than me . . . Were they also amused? I asked. Yes, he said, they’re laughing, what else could we do. There was a measure of truth in what they (the LTTE) said. I mean, not about senior officers pinning medals on themselves. Only to the extent that we were frittering away our

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youth in the jungles. Also that our wives, kids and younger brothers would be left defenceless when we’re gone. So during the daytime they’re going around making announcements, and at night they do a musical show – they sing (bajauvak dānava) – they bang on tins and make a big noise. They sing Sinhala songs. How do they know to sing popular Sinhala songs? I asked. That’s the other thing, he said. There seemed to be a lot of guys who could speak Sinhala. In any case, all those suicide bombers who come to Colombo, they have to have some grasp of Sinhala or they can’t operate. So they also sing Jothipala’s songs. Then they talk with us. Our guys come out with all the obscenities they can think of. They also respond with the same thing – in Sinhala, mind you. When you say they talk to you, you mean, like, a conversation? I asked. Their girls talk to us, he said. There are girls. There are guys as well. The girls actually talked to you in Sinhala? I asked. Yes, he said grinning mischievously. There are girls. There was a bunker in front of mine, not exactly opposite, we couldn’t see into it. But we could hear them. She would talk to me. She did? I asked, much impressed by his sangfroid. Yes, he said. Rani, she was. There were some initials before it, I  can’t remember now.16 When I  call out Rani, she says, yes, why? I  ask, have you eaten? She says we’ve eaten. I ask her what did you eat. We’ve only got bread, she says. So now while we’re talking, our friends are coming out of their bunkers and creeping under the trees to hear what’s being said. I told them don’t stay out there, find some proper cover before you start talking. Anyway, like I said they would, as soon it began to get dark, they hit us. All those guys were hit. You think it was a set up to get them to expose themselves? I asked. Now, our guys, he said, they’re in the dark, there’s only the sound of her voice. So while we were talking like this, they silently threw a grenade at us. Those two guys got hit. Like I told them they would. Didn’t listen, did they? Now at this point, we hadn’t captured Oddusuddan and Mankulam. That’s why they were saying we never would. So after that we started the next phase of the operation. To Mankulam. We advanced and somehow we got Mankulam. Remember how they said in this very grand way, if you think you’ll get Mankulam you’re chasing a pipedream. To get Mankulam, they said, you’ll need the whole Army and then you’ll return with corpses. But those LTTE fighters who spoke in those big terms, they couldn’t prevail. Were you as confident at the time, I  asked, or are you saying that in retrospect?

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No, really, he said, we knew. We knew 100%. Because by that point we knew what their real combat strength was. Truly? I asked. Yes, he said. I mean, they were only small kids. We saw a few of them when we were patrolling our line during the day. Chocolate soldiers. Boy soldiers. But they had guns, I pointed out. Yes, he said, that’s what the SLA media spokesman says, child soldiers, maybe, but they have guns and they engage in assassinations. You can’t shrug them off as kids. When they’re aiming guns at you, you can’t just call them over, pat them on the head (nalavalā) and offer them some milk to drink. When you hold a gun, I mean when you have a deadly weapon in your hands, it’s to kill someone. So it doesn’t make a difference if the person pushing the trigger is a child or an adult, the result is the same. But when you actually saw that they were kids you thought they would be easier to overwhelm, I pointed out. Yes, he said, we actually got to see them very much towards the end. There was a mix, adults, boys, girls. We mounted a surprise attack. I mean, we launched an exceptionally powerful attack. Armoured tanks and everything. It wasn’t a very big town. Mankulam. Just the town itself. Surrounded by jungle, extensive jungle. Not really dense jungle, it was terrain in which tracked vehicles like armoured tanks could go. Everything took only about 20 minutes. By the time we stopped we had passed the town itself and the jungle on the other side. We set-up our line again. While we were going through the jungle on this side there were some young (lapati) LTTE cadres. Those who couldn’t get away. They were trapped by our surprise attack. The adult fighters (in charge of them) had ditched them and escaped. The young kids didn’t know how to get out of there. They were too afraid to crawl into the jungles. So there they were, screaming their heads off. About how many of them were there? I asked. Around seven. With about four guns between them. The guns were thrown everywhere. They didn’t even know how to get out of there. You mean they were so young? I asked. Yes, he said, 14, 15 years maybe. So now, they didn’t know what they were doing there. The smarter ones realized that this little expedition won’t work and they ran away. They didn’t think about these kids. So we told them to put down their guns. They put them down and came over. They’re trembling. They were struck dumb, they literally couldn’t talk (anda manda vela). We took them to the town, sat them down and questioned

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them. The big guys escaped, they said, but we didn’t know which direction to go. We asked them if they knew where they were now. They didn’t know. They had been brought over from Batticaloa – four of them – and Trincomalee – three boys. We questioned them. They didn’t know anything. They told us their villages. Though they had guns, they didn’t know what was going on here. We sent them down to the admin people to process. You didn’t think you had anything more to fear from them? I  asked, surprised. No, he said, as a matter of fact, you didn’t need a T56 to deal with them; if you just whacked them hard with a stick, they’d probably fall over and die. They were so weak and puny. So we set up our line and consolidated our positions. In one direction, up to the boundary of the Mannar district, on the other, up to Welioya, there was a large land area under our control. We had secured a large extent of land in this operation. We stayed here for quite a while. This phase of the operation was completed with our arrival at Mankulam. After that, we had to go across the bank of the Iranamadu reservoir to Kilinochchi. To one side of Mankulam, there was the road to Mullaitivu town. So now we couldn’t go up the A9. It was difficult. In front of us there was the reservoir. We needed to find an alternative route. There were now very few of the original troops left. As far as I remember, by this point – at the very least – we had lost about 500 in this operation. Also similar numbers wounded. Every 2–3 months, we get a new batch of soldiers passing out from the training school joining us. We were now near the Iranamadu reservoir. We stayed here securing our defences for a long time, maybe 8–9 months.

Divergent masculinities: SLA vis-à-vis LTTE (2) As Vinodh’s narrative reveals, in this phase of the operation the troops faced another kind of test of valour. This involved their ability to sustain morale in harsh, souldestroying jungle conditions. The LTTE improvised a novel propaganda tactic to undermine them. They came in a tractor – the only kind of vehicle that could traverse the rough scrub jungle terrain – with loudspeakers fixed on and harangued the troops across the thin strip of No Man’s Land. They announced that the LTTE were renowned fighters who would never be defeated. They pointed out that many of the SLA’s COs had already been killed in action. They insinuated that those officers who survived would get themselves hung with medals while enlisted men suffered in such harsh conditions, squandering away the springtime of their youth in the jungle.

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Still, at this point the troops were convinced that they had the LTTE on the back foot. So why did these observations hit them so hard? Because at least one aspect of this message definitely hit home – they really were stuck in the jungle, frittering away their youth. Though as young persons they would rarely have questioned the way they were spending their ‘youth’, the LTTE’s taunt suddenly made them realize that one’s youth didn’t last forever. Further, deep down, they suspected that the SLA’s High Command were of a different social class and did not really see ordinary soldiers as real people. Though Vinodh valiantly maintains that this was not so, and that senior officers were not preoccupied with receiving military honours, perhaps he protests too much; given the way the operation was being run and the high mortality rates, he must have wondered at many points whether this was so. The troops responded in classical macho style – with rank obscenities. Rather surprisingly however, the Tamil-speaking LTTE fighters were able to return the gesture with interest and in the process, display a masterly grasp of Sinhala invective. Despite themselves, the soldiers were impressed. In this display of machismo, LTTE fighters did not give ground. The Sinhala soldiers then resorted to singing the songs of Jothipala – a songwriter whose lyrics were suffused with nationalist sentiment – as a statement of defiance and assertion of Sinhala national pride. But LTTE did the same – which became tantamount to appropriating Sinhala masculinity on Tamil-speaking battlegrounds. In this ideological battle, the troops would appear to have been out-played. These events then, set the stage for Vinodh’s encounter with Rani. She was a female fighter in the LTTE bunker across the strip of No Man’s Land from his. Seriously unsettled by the LTTE’s charge of frittering away his youth in the jungles, he just wanted to talk to a girl, any girl. He wanted a social encounter that was different from that which he had every day with his mates in his unit. At the same time, at some level, he had more in common with a female LTTE activist in the bunker across the line – they had both come to the end of their rations and were eating stale bread in the same harsh and inhospitable jungle conditions – than he would have with any girl outside the battle zone. At another level, after months on the march, and the constant tension, he found it relaxing to talk to a girl, and he seemed almost to suspend his disbelief that she was an enemy fighter. Not all the other soldiers had the courage to initiate a conversation – Vinodh was a bit of a character. But things didn’t actually work out. He warned his comrades that Rani might be part of a trap, but his warning was somehow half-hearted. Even as he spoke, male LTTE activists had already thrown a grenade at them. Interestingly, in this very brief encounter Vinodh overcame the dehumanizing SLA image of LTTE women fighters with dishevelled hair ‘shouting filth’, perhaps because of his own loneliness and desperate desire for companionship. Finally, unlike Namal in the previous chapter, the child soldiers whom Vinodh encountered were so young and inexperienced that he felt compassionate towards them, but this, critically, was because they didn’t pose a threat. They were so newly recruited that they had not yet even been brutalized. They were in fact, children acting like children, screaming their heads off. He could respond to them as such. In this final narrative, Nihal offers a somewhat different view of female fighters.

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Narrative 3 – Female fighters: Nihal In the LTTE, said Nihal, there are married women. But they all live a strange life. It’s different to what it’s like in a village. Their bunkers have all the facilities. There are men and women together in a bunker, say three men and two women. All the necessary medication is provided. Contraceptives for the women. You mean they’re all living together? I asked. Yes, he said, they live as if they’re married. In the bunkers? I asked. They’re provided with contraceptives, he said. Medication for serious infectious diseases (loku, loku leda roga hadei kiyala evata beheth).17 They’re mostly not with the LTTE out of their own free will, though, I said. Sometimes not, he agreed. Because if they say they want leave, they may be killed. There’s no point in leaving, either. They can’t just go home to the village and live a normal life. In that case, they’ll have to live alone, because they can’t return and get married to someone else. There isn’t a situation like that for them. They’re given (contraceptive) injections so that they won’t have kids. That’s the situation most of the time. We find all these medication and stuff in the bunkers when we capture them, we take them to our doctors and check out what they are, and that’s what they’ve told us. These foils are this medication, those are for that. So that’s how we know.

In this brief narrative, Nihal appears to be subtly sexualizing the LTTE’s female fighters. He seems to be using the term ‘married’ (bändala) to suggest being sexually active. This is because the Sinhala term bändala is rather more elastic in terms of the kinds of bonds implied than the English ‘married’. Based on the discovery of used foils of contraceptives found in abandoned bunkers, he infers that the women who lived in them were sexually active, since they had to spend extended periods in these bunkers with male cadres. At the same time, he displays an awareness and even some level of compassion for their precarious plight: unable to return home since they would be rejected by conservative Tamil communities who wished them to fight on their behalf but were not willing to accept them back into the community after doing so. The community at one and the same time demanded that these women should fight alongside male fighters and impugned the virtue of women and girls who lived and fought side-by-side with male fighters. In a similar situation, the French revolutionaries also wished to be in denial about the role played by female fighters. Would the Sinhala community have responded differently to woman JVP activists if they wished to return home after years in the jungle? In such a situation, what role would other ‘progressive’ left groups within the community have played? It is not clear. But it is clear is that they would be – to a greater or lesser degree – deeply conflicted.

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Concluding comments If Operation Sathjaya changed the culture of the battlefield by setting up the Black Tigers and Leopards child soldier units, Operation Jayasikurui expanded it in crucial ways. Firstly, it expanded the actual terrain under SLA control greatly. But, more importantly, it widened the notion of who constituted an enemy combatant in terms of not just age but also gender. This critical redrawing of gender, cultural and combat boundaries had a huge strategic impact on the SLA. But what female fighters exemplified shifted with almost kaleidoscopic frequency. Initially, confronted by female fighters screaming obscenities, soldiers were shocked. This refusal by the women of their own sexuality – signalled by their rough, repellent appearance and their screaming filth – created a profound sense of embattlement. Such female fighters seemed to be engaging in the practice of marauders and mercenaries who bloodied their hands on behalf of their betters – in other words, a disparaged male practice. This disrupted the ability of soldiers to weigh their options rationally and move into action. They were unable to separate out actual threat levels from the spectacle of female combatants who were physically frailer but fought fanatically, screaming obscenities. In fact, the very spectacular nature of the event seemed to greatly magnify the real danger posed by female cadres as fighters. Troops became embattled. Agency slips away and they are consumed by inertia. This leads to their annihilation. On another occasion, undermined by the LTTE’s taunt that they were wasting the springtime of their youth in the jungles, Nihal tries to talk to a female fighter, because he desperately wanted to talk to a girl, to have some kind of social encounter. He could not actually see her, since her bunker was across No Man’s Land, but he could hear her voice. He projects onto her the persona of a ‘girl’ but was rudely awakened by a grenade thrown by male fighters. It dawned on him that this was not a social encounter. It continued to be an aspect of the battlefield. He was still frittering away his youth in the jungles, becoming even more embattled. Still later, the discovery of contraceptive foils in a bunker enabled soldiers to sexualize female fighters in a way that had not been possible when confronted by them physically in the battlefield. They now became objects of vicarious desire. So, what was a female fighter? Was she a sexualized being? A  non-sensual, demonic tigress? An ordinary girl whom the LTTE had exploited and made vulnerable?? These ambiguities about what exactly a female fighter was, then, are not unlinked to violence against Tamil women civilians, particularly those who were economically disadvantaged, who were not armed and therefore became very vulnerable to violence by male soldiers, sailors and policeman, who felt threatened and emasculated by their armed sisters. The presence of female fighters on the battlefield created feelings of profound embattlement in the Sinhala troops, disrupting their ability to rationally separate out the militancy of women fighters, their sexuality and the non-culpability of civilian Tamil women. Civilian Tamil women came to be seen as LTTE fighters

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in disguise, a perception strengthened by the high visibility of some female suicide bombers who assumed civilian personae for their assignments.18 All Tamil women became subtly stigmatized. In Tamil civilian spaces – which are in effect States of Exception – as proto-combatants, women became sexualized and being disempowered, sexually available.

Notes 1 These included the loss of camps at Kokavil (1990), Mankulam (1990) and Pooneryn (1993), among others. 2 Dhanushi Yatawara, Sunday Observer, 3 February 2008, 8–9, 12. 3 Official SLA publications and its website do not venture figures for those KIA in this operation. 4 Iqbal Atthas, Sunday Times, 29 June 1997. 5 Iqbal Atthas, Sunday Times, 11 January 1998. 6 See Atthas, Sunday Times, 29 June 1997. On 18 July 1996, the LTTE attacked the SLA’s base at Mullaitivu and overran it. They captured two 122 mm howitzers and 903 shells as well as mortar rounds and mortar tubes and over 800 RPGs. SLA lost 1,344 men; LTTE lost 315 cadres (SLA 1999: 540–541). 7 Gunaratne contests these figures and states that in the Kilinochchi attack, 253 soldiers were KIA, further mentioning that Karuna, the LTTE leader who led the attack, had later revealed that 420 fighters had been KIA (Gunaratne 2016: 426). 8 For instance, a defence correspondent in an independent tabloid quotes an SLA press communication and complains that it gives undue status to LTTE leaders by acknowledging their military designations. The LTTE officers mentioned are all female fighters and are described by their noms de guerre as Lt Col. Radha, district leader for women in the Vanni, Captain Dayalini and Captain Umanidhi. See ‘Situation Report’, Iqbal Athas, Sunday Times, 26 May 1997. 9 Puliyankulam was finally captured by Maj. Chagie Gallage, CO of 6GR (Division 53), who succeeded in this effort by sending in his reconnaissance team to get intelligence on the exact location of the LTTE’s defence fortifications and targeting them (Gunaratne 2016: 413). 10 This was probably an SLA vehicle that had been captured by the Tigers, repaired and returned to the battlefield. 11 Vinayamoorthy Muralidaran (Karuna) – later became a senior figure in the 2004–2010 PA government. 12 ‘Do or die I’ referred to the LTTE’s attack on the SLA’s Mullaitivu camp earlier that year. 13 See ‘Situation Report’, Iqbal Athas, Sunday Times, 11 June 1997. 14 See ‘Situation Report’, Athas, Sunday Times, 29 June 1997. 15 ‘Yauvanaye vasanthaya vanayéma paravi yai’ lit. ‘the springtime of your youth fades away in the wilderness’. This is a recapitulation of a famous quote by Sri Lanka’s first Minister of Education, Dr C. W. W. Kannangara, who argued for free universal education by saying that ‘the flower which blooms in the wilderness fades away unseen’ (vanaye pipuna mal vanayema paravi yai). 16 Since Tamil culture traditionally followed the convention of using a patronymic rather than a surname as was the Anglo-Saxon custom, unmarried girls tended to take their father’s initials in front of their personal name. Once married, they added their husband’s personal name on to their own. 17 Euphemism for sexually transmitted diseases. 18 In 1991, Indian prime ministerial candidate Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a female suicide cadre, and in December 2000, another female suicide activist attempted to assassinate the Sri Lankan President, Ms Kumaratunga. She lost an eye in this attack.

MAP 8.1 

Retreat from Oddusuddan

8 UNCEASING WAVES III Confronting spectacular violence

Introduction After Kilinochchi fell for the second time, the Oddusuddan Camp – briefly – became the epicentre of events. Located on the A34 highway which bisects the A9 at almost 90° at Mankulam (see Map no. 8.1), the Oddusuddan Camp lies directly east of Mankulam and was seen as the gateway to the Mullaitivu district, the last LTTE stronghold. On 12th December 1998, the SLA launched a new operation, Rivibala (‘Rays of the sun’), to capture Oddusuddan (Gunaratne 2016: 433–434). The LTTE, still recovering from their huge manpower losses in the Kilinochchi attack, were not poised to respond decisively. This became a signal victory for the SLA. In early1999, they went on to conduct a series of limited attacks, regaining around 1,000 square kilometres on either side of the A9 (SLA 1999: 543). These SLA gains set the stage for the LTTE’s next Unceasing Waves offensive. They were already planning an Unceasing Waves III strike for their Mahaveerar Thinam (Great Heroes Day) on 26th November 1999, which aimed to push back these SLA gains.1 But in October, the SLA embarked on two more key offensives – Watershed I  and II – from the Oddusuddan camp. These two forays into their terrain were sharp enough to compel the LTTE to bring forward their Unceasing Waves III onslaught. This third Unceasing Waves blitz, however, succeeded in rolling back much of the extensive territory won in Jayasikurui.2 The SLA suffered a total rout. This chapter discusses these critical events, which changed the course of Eelam War III, through the narratives of three soldiers who fought with 4GR, Arjuna, Chaminda and Kshyamal. It traces the extent to which codes of masculinity shaped their response to events. It begins with Arjuna’s narrative of Watershed II, which prompted the LTTE to unleash their Unceasing Waves III assault. It will go on DOI: 10.4324/9781003362036-8

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to explore Chaminda’s and Kshyamal’s accounts of Unceasing Waves III, which ­capture the desperate efforts – and failures – of narrators to hold themselves together and retain their composure as the LTTE introduced multi-barrel rocket launchers (MBRLs) into the battlefield.

Background to events The SLA’s Watershed initiatives played a significant role in the way subsequent assaults unfurled. On 14th October 1999, the SLA launched Watershed I, the first of these planned offensives, bringing in Divisions 55 and 56. This involved extending the Oddusuddan camp defences in a lozenge-shaped formation, to encompass the villages of Olumadu, Ambakamam and the Muthuaiyankaddu reservoir (see Map no. 8.1).3 This was a significant effort. The Air Force brought in Mi-24 ground attack helicopter gunships to support ground troops.4 The LTTE, deploying their new arsenal of weapons seized from the SLA – including 122 mm artillery and 60 mm, 81 mm and 120 mm mortars – were able to score crippling strikes, causing high casualty levels and deaths.5 But the SLA held on to its gains. The extended defences of this camp were then divided up into different sectors and handed over to three battalions: the 2nd Gajaba Regiment (2[V] GR), the 8th Vijayaba Infantry Regiment (8VIR) and the Navy’s Walagamba Division.6 Two weeks later, Division 55 troops launched the next phase – Watershed II – in which they advanced northwards from Mankulam, attempting to clear the passage to Kilinochchi by consolidating their grip on LTTE positions cleared in Watershed I.7 This would finally secure the A9. The LTTE could not let this happen, especially before their Mahaveerar Thinam celebrations. Consequently, they unleashed Unceasing Waves III. This offensive then, was not an ad hoc response to a sudden provocation. It had been months in the making. It involved a series of sharp strikes in swift succession on the SLA’s Oddusuddan, Nedunkerny and Mankulam Camps. The attack on the Oddusuddan Camp took place on Monday, 1st November 1999. After nine hours of intense fighting, as the LTTE started to overrun the camp, the 2[V]GR troops – a volunteer battalion – began falling back, abandoning their weapons, the injured and the dead. Subsequently, LTTE fighters started advancing towards Nedunkerny. By Tuesday night, Nedunkerny had fallen. On Wednesday morning, the LTTE renewed their pounding of Mankulam, which fell on the same afternoon. On Friday night, Kanagarayankulam fell, and by early next morning, so did Puliyankulam. The loss of large camps such as Oddusuddan, Nedunkerny and Mankulam seemed to create a chain reaction, with troops in other areas of Jayasikurui hurriedly retreating, likewise abandoning weapons, equipment and even the gravely injured and dying. As troops from the Navy, Air Force and police saw the Army in retreat, they simply followed suit, making no effort to ask why they were leaving (Gunaratne 2016: 430).

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It was at Omanthai that the troops finally rallied, regrouped and consolidated their positions. This was through the resolute efforts of Colonel Roshan Silva of the Gajaba Regiment and his Air Mobile Brigade, who somehow put together a forward defence line and tenaciously defended it (ibid.: 438–439). He was perhaps one of the very few officers to respond in a professional way to an imminent threat, though – ironically, as Gunaratne observes – he never received the recognition this feat deserved in the context of a mass retreat (ibid.: 439). After desperately holding on to this hard-won territory for 18 months, suddenly, incredibly, Operation Jayasikurui collapsed. In the debacle that unfolded, the SLA lost territory from Pallai in the Kilinochchi district, to Omanthai in the Vavuniya district and Welioya in the Polonnaruwa district, and ten major bases in the space of one week. In short, almost all the terrain regained in Jayasikurui.8 The SLA alone lost 2,180 soldiers.9 The Police, Navy and Air Force who were also deployed on ground duties, lost countless numbers and those missing in action still remain unaccounted for. In a rare interview with the BBC’s Tamil Service in 2005, the LTTE leader Prabhaharan stated that his greatest military triumphs were the recapturing Kilinochchi in 1998 (Unceasing Waves II) and driving back Jayasikurui forces from northern Vavuniya (Unceasing Waves III). But how did this happen? Once the forward defences had been breached and troops fell back, why did they not at some point regroup and link-up again? Critics cite several reasons. Gunaratne – then a junior officer – points out that one key reason was that troops were ill-equipped with protective gear such as body armour and helmets. Army strategists had not envisaged such a vehement LTTE response and did not have adequate stocks of these basic items in place (Gunaratne 2016: 437). Troops were therefore not able to withstand the ferocity of the LTTE’s artillery and mortar barrages, including high-tech guns seized from the SLA’s K ­ ilinochchi arsenal, rendered even deadlier with the induction, for the first time, of multi-barrelled rocket launchers (MBRLs) into the attack. These strikes caused appalling casualties. This demoralized soldiers, who began abandoning their posts. Secondly, the growing unease among the troops was worsened by the inexplicable radio silence maintained by SLA headquarters during the first few days. This had to do with the unforeseen fall of the Oddusuddan camp, which enabled the LTTE to capture key SLA radio communication equipment located at this site, with transmission codes and signal crypts intact. Discovering that the LTTE was trying to access the radio communication system they had seized, SLA strategists stopped all internal communications.10 Lack of instructions from SLA headquarters, even as the air waves were flooded by – false – rumours of reputed officers being killed in action and – fabricated – claims of the fall of camps still locked in battle further panicked troops. There were also credible charges that some senior officers with links to the UNP – now in opposition – used this situation to actively undermine the war effort. Unceasing Waves III was played out against the background of an impending

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Presidential election, and party rivalries were running high. In this charged climate, allegations that pro-UNP generals and officers in fact urged troops to abandon their posts proliferated in the tabloid and electronic media and are reiterated in the narratives of the soldiers presented.11 Thirdly, the breaking down of morale among soldiers also had to do with the dubious recruitment policies followed by the SLA in the 1990s. High death rates tended to dissuade young persons from enlisting in infantry regiments. But the SLA had to replace their losses. They now turned their attention to deserters, whose numbers had by this point soared to an astounding 40,000. A general amnesty was issued in 1997. Those who responded were re-recruited and sent back to operational areas (Gunaratne 2016: 403–404). As Gunaratne points out, while this may have solved the head-count problem, it did not address issues of flagging morale that led these soldiers to desert in the first place. This influx of embittered and entrapped recruits – some of whom had been absconding for 7–8 years – contributed towards breaking down the morale and team spirit of the rest of the troops (ibid.). Another serious gaffe was the re-recruitment of retired soldiers to man a new battalion under the 20th National Guard (20SLNG). This battalion was to be dedicated to providing security to the 2,500-year-old sacred Bo tree in the neighbouring Anuradhapura district, seen to be imperilled by the surge in military activity in the region.12 They were hired on the proviso that they would not be sent to operational areas.13 But, at the height of hostilities, they were sent straight to Mankulam. Mentally and physically unprepared for the intensity of the LTTE’s fire, they ran away (ibid.). Finally, the failure of the Air Force to provide adequate air cover to ground troops was also a factor. This had to do with the LTTE’s recent acquisition of antiaircraft missiles. While it was not clear what kind of missiles they were or even how many there were, they did succeed in shooting down and damaging two Mi-24 helicopter gunships.14 The Air Force seemed to have construed this to imply that the LTTE had suddenly acquired a comprehensive anti-aircraft capability, and suspended air support to troops.15 This also deprived the troops of critical air cover at a crucial moment and contributed to the mass retreat. This chapter, however, explores the extent to which practices of masculinity contributed to this mass retreat.

The narrators: Arjuna, Chaminda and Kshyamal Arjuna, Chaminda and Kshyamal fought with Division 55’s 4GR. Arjuna, 5’10”, slightly built but wiry, was from the village of Polgolla in the Kandy district. At the beginning of the Watershed strikes, he had just been made a corporal. He was well read and well informed about current affairs. His account of Watershed II – which took place just days before Unceasing Waves III – is important because in this operation, in which the LTTE deployed MBRLs for the first time, 4GR troops displayed an insouciance that seemed to somehow – inexplicably – desert

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them in the days which followed. Thus in his account of Watershed II, Arjuna calmly explains why LTTE fighters were able to survive the SLA’s firepower while the SLA couldn’t face theirs. In the subsequent Unceasing Waves III onslaught, SLA troops mostly did not fight and instead retreated ignominiously in the face of superior LTTE firepower. Chaminda, 5’11”, weighing in at around 210 lbs, came from the village of Gampola in the Kandy district and, like Arjuna, joined the SLA in the early-1990s. He attended the prestigious Dharmaraja Vidyalaya, where he admits he focused on athletics rather than his studies. He left soon after his O/Ls. He regretted this later when he discovered that classmates who had stayed on to complete their A/Ls were recruited to the SLA as officer cadets and out-ranked him though junior in terms of service. But perhaps this spurred him to higher levels of performance; he rose up in the ranks fast and was already a sergeant by this point. Jayasikurui was his last operation. Much the same age as Arjuna, he emerged as a very much tougher, more authoritative personality. Kshyamal, 5’9” and weighing in at 145 lbs, was from the village of Hali-Eliya in the Badulla district; though much the same age as the other two, at this point he was still a lance corporal. Of a gentler disposition, he had the typical Sinhala selfdeprecating sense of humour and was constantly joking. The eldest of five siblings, he had a nurturing personality and exuded a kind of calm authority. But somehow, on the battlefield, he couldn’t seem bring these positive traits to signify. Chaminda and Kshyamal offer two different accounts of the same event. The contrast in tone between these narratives and that of Arjuna is striking. Chaminda’s account of Unceasing Waves III and his desperate efforts to stay on track amid the stampeding rush of humanity engaged in a headlong flight is a much grimmer tale, and more devastating to listen to. Kshyamal simply seems stunned by the events that unfolded before his eyes, which he narrates almost as a spectator rather than a participant. These three accounts describe events that took place only days apart. How, then, could the morale of an entire army have been shattered in this very brief space of time?

Watershed II Watershed II, launched on 28th October 1999 by Division 55, found Arjuna positioned near the southern bank of the Iranamadu reservoir, about 17 kilometres from the SLA’s new line at Kilinochchi (see Map no. 8.1). In Arjuna’s version of events, his battalion, 4GR, was tasked with clearing LTTE positions in between this point and the SLA’s new Kilinochchi line.16 They did so, but only very briefly, before the LTTE launched their Unceasing Waves III onslaught and they were again pushed back. In the following narrative, Arjuna begins by describing an injury received in Watershed II and goes on to discuss subsequent events.

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Narrative 1 – Watershed II: Arjuna In 1998, I was injured in the windpipe (galanalaya). I was struck by shrapnel and there was a hole there. Bled a lot. They cut away the flesh and put in a bit of plastic. In those days, when they were doing the surgery, they removed a bit from here (gestures) and I  would breathe from here. There was a strange noise when I breathed. It’s OK now. That was in 1998. That was Watershed II in Vavuniya (sic).17 We lost a whole lot of guys in that one. Two officers also died. What did you have to do? I asked. We were supposed to capture the area between Mankulam and Kilinochchi, he said. If we could take those 17 kilometres (sic), we have the entire territory controlled by the LTTE. We started off at 5.20 a.m. We somehow assaulted the LTTE line and held it. At that time I was a corporal. I had an eight-man team. That is, there were another seven men with me. What I had to do was to shout and scream at them and take them forward with me. That’s what I  had to do (rājakārya). That’s where I got wounded. Why, because you have to keep a check on everything at the same time. You have to see if the guys to the left and to the right of you are going forward. If you go forward on your own, you just get yourself exposed (kotuvenava). The guy leading the other team also has to think of all these things. You have to also think about the fire coming at you from the front. How many days did the operation take? I asked. We couldn’t take the whole 17 kilometres that day, he said. What we had to do on that day was only to break the LTTE line. We fired into their bunkers and chased them away. They had mined the approach to their bunkers, johnny mines. Many of our guys got injured by mines. Even if you know the area is mined – at that moment – you don’t think about it much. So it depends on whether it’s your time (velāva thamai ithin).18 In any operation, if you can survive until the assault is completed, your luck (vāsanāva) is good. It’s nothing else but luck. You don’t need to join the Army to die. Some people die just sitting in their chairs, not doing anything. If you’re going to die, wherever you are, you’ll die. Joining the Army, now, on the one hand, it’s a profession, on the other, you have to protect the country. We have to think of both these things. At the same time, we’ve got to save ourselves. When we go on an operation, we have to mentally prepare ourselves for the fact that we may not come back. From the point where we were, there were 17 kilometres to the new SLA line in Kilinochchi. The LTTE line was in-between us and this line. We planned to go very near their line on one side.

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All the action is divided up into phases. Because you can’t go 8.5 kilometres in one day. It would get dark, you will be exhausted, you need to eat. We prepare everything we need for the operation on the previous day. We take a water-can that can hold up to about three bottles of water. We use water very, very carefully. They give you a food parcel with provisions for 24 hours or 48 hours. So we pack everything into our bags and start on our journey early in the morning. On that day, we only had to capture the LTTE line, that’s all. Now the problem with this was that in some places, there were bunkers made just totally of bags of cement. These were a lot harder than our ones. It’s impossible to destroy them. Even the artillery can’t shatter them. There’s about five or six bags of cement stacked one on top of another. After a bit of rainfall, they’re harder than iron. We don’t have the funds to make bunkers with pure cement. The government doesn’t have funds. But the LTTE have no financial costs as such (salli viyadamak kiyala nä). They don’t buy bags of cement for cash. If someone’s taking 100 bags of cement to a store in Jaffna, the LTTE will confiscate 25 bags. There’s no problem. No one complains. From the day they opened the A9, they take money from everyone, even those who are just on a trip to see the north. They taxed even those who travelled from the south. No one likes to talk about that aspect when they come back to the south. In those days, our people (i.e. Sinhala people) were really keen to see Jaffna. They wanted to worship at the Nagadeepa Temple. So they are also contributing (to the LTTE’s war effort). Then what happened after that? I prompted him. We were supposed to attack at 5.20 a.m. in the morning, he said. We attacked and captured the line. They didn’t expect us. So there was no problem. But we had a lot of casualties. Because at that time, the LTTE had just started using multi-barrelled guns. Actually, the LTTE began using those before the Army did. They had a set of six. Our multi-barrelled guns can fire 30 bombs at one time. They can do 40 as well. They have a range of 22 kilometres. Those 40 bombs generally fall within 1 kilometre. So at one time, 40 bombs are falling within the space of a kilometre. Everything within that kilometre is destroyed. Did you know about this before you went on the operation? I asked. We had no idea, he said. All of a sudden, six bombs are falling in six different places. We thought they had new artillery, around six guns and they were firing with those. The difference is, one artillery gun can only fire one bomb at a time. This can fire 40. You can load 40 bombs on at once. It’s fixed onto a vehicle. They have them on display at exhibitions on TV. We discovered that they were multi-barrelled guns long after the operation was done. Each bomb is around ten feet long. There was one unexploded

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bomb, and they took it to the Army headquarters and that was when they told us that it belonged to a multi-barrelled gun. We didn’t suffer to that extent though. There were a lot of casualties, and three people died. One signal operator had a bomb fall on his body. He was pounded to bits. There was nothing to be found of him. That was it on that day. What did you think was happening? I asked. We thought they had suddenly got hold of a lot of artillery. So our artillery was firing on their positions the whole night. So how did you capture their line? I asked. First the ground troops assaulted the LTTE bunker line, he said, and the artillery guys were bombing from above. The Air Force was bombing from the air as well. So they couldn’t endure it. They ran away. When they retreat, we capture their ground. After that we advanced about a hundred metres from their bunker line and stopped there. Then we quickly made ourselves a new bunker line. We always bring with us small bags to fill up with sand. The Army issues green bags for this. Each guy has ten bags. These bags are specifically for this purpose. So if there’s eight men in our platoon, that’s 80 sandbags. We can set-up a bunker to cover our heads with about 25 sandbags. We dig the ground for sand right there. When we go on operations, we have to take certain tools with us – they’re called emergency tools. It’s fixed on to the back of our packs. It’s something like a shovel, but smaller. You can collapse it and carry it. Everyone has one. An eight-man team has two proper shovels as well. We always carry an axe. We remove the handle. Normally, the handle of an axe is about five feet long. We use a handle of about two feet. We have to carry everything in our packs. There’s also a mammoty (udälla) and again we separate the head from the handle. Then we dig a trench of about 6 × 1½ × 5 feet. After that we stack the sandbags round this trench. About two men watch the front, to see if the LTTE is coming. Everyone else is dig-ging. Sometimes the LTTE abandon their bunkers altogether. Sometimes they do what we do. Advance about 200–300 metres. Did you check out their bunkers? I asked. Yes, he said. There were female LTTE cadres in four bunkers, they were dead. There were three in one. Altogether, there were 11 bodies. Do the LTTE’s female cadres do everything the men do? I inquired. Yes, he said. They do more than our (SLA) women do. There’s not a lot of difference between male and female cadres in the LTTE. Even if you escape the LTTE men, it’s hard to escape from the women. They come at you screaming. Have you ever been confronted by a female cadre? I asked. Yes, he said. In Jaffna, in Ariyale, they came at me. They come at you screaming. At that time, we had just captured Ariyale. It’s mostly women

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cadres who are in the bunkers. Some of them are well educated. There were many students who had studied at the Batticaloa campus. They took part in Watershed II. We have even talked with those girls at the Batticaloa campus when we were stationed there. Two years later, we found them dead in Watershed II. One of them had left an autograph book. We identified her from that. It was in the bunker. Her name was on it. There were verses written by other students in her campus. That’s the Batticaloa campus. In this campus, lots of students work for the LTTE. Because though it’s in a cleared area, it’s a civil space.19 People can move around wherever they want. The bunkers used in Watershed II were fairly old ones. They had everything they need. They had arranged it nicely with sarees against the walls. To stop the sand falling in. There were photos of Prabhaharan. We also do up our bunkers nicely. What happened after that? I asked. We only held those bunkers for two days, he said.

In Arjuna’s mind, Watershed II is linked to a severe shrapnel injury he sustained to his windpipe (trachea). Though he somewhat underplayed this injury, his throat was still marked by some very unpleasant scarring. His narrative captures his anxiety to perform well on the battlefield. His appointment to the post of corporal was clearly a matter of great pride to him. It was for him a testament to his mastering his rājakārya, which involved keeping his ‘boys’ moving in combat routines perfected on the training ground while under active enemy fire. This involved shouting and screaming at them, to get them to launch themselves into the choreographed sequences of the assault, so that they wouldn’t be left behind and maybe killed. At the same time, the tone of his narrative conveys just how hard it was for him to act out this role of risking-the-body on the battlefield. He had to ensure that the men on his right and left were in fact synchronizing their movements, keeping pace with him, or he would find himself exposed, a potential target for the enemy’s snipers. This suggests that the first instinct of the men he was leading was to hold back rather than readily launch themselves into the advance. This left him constantly assailed by the possibility of finding himself isolated on the battlefield. Just keeping everything moving consumed all his energy. Though his performance in leading the advance might seem easy and creditable to the casual observer, it was clearly held together with an immense mental effort. Performing his rājakārya in this instance took every bit of strength he could summon up. At the same time, another side of him believed that luck, or pure chance – rather than courage or effort – played a big role in whether you survived. He was not totally convinced that courage, on its own, would save him. Risking himself alone would not bring him success on the battlefield; he needed to have the luck not to – accidentally – step on johnny mines even as he was risking-his-body.

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This resonates with traditional notions of the composed body, in which courage is ­signified not by action – depicted as scrambling around trying to escape death – but by the mental composure that entails readiness to accept death, which will arrive at a predestined moment. Thus, he mentions that before every big operation, he prepared himself mentally for the fact that he might not return. He was then, conflicted about the extent to which he could cheat death on the battlefield. In this narrative, the LTTE’s superior weapons technology emerges. The LTTE began using MBRLs that could fire up to 40 bombs simultaneously, and for the first time, SLA troops experienced what it was like to be attacked by such weapons. Though miraculously, fatalities were minimal, one signal operator had a bomb fall on him, and there was nothing to be found of him. The SLA had to change their tactics and focus more on securing the troops from enemy fire. This involved allotting shovels to dig bunkers before every confrontation. Arjuna spends much time describing how each SLA platoon could instantly make up their own bunkers with 80 sandbags – he is clearly proud of this feat. But he readily agrees that at no point were the SLA’s bunkers a match for the LTTE’s, which were made out of pure cement appropriated from Tamil businessmen. They were virtually indestructible. The SLA bunkers, on the other hand, could not withstand the LTTEs artillery and mortar fire.20 Arjuna also displays compassion for female LTTE fighters. He remembers talking to them at the Batticaloe campus, which appears to have left an impression in his mind. He seems almost saddened that these girls who were so educated should end up dead in a bunker. At the same time, his compassion is perhaps not unlinked to the fact that they were dead and no longer a threat. He does remember that he had previously encountered female fighters at Ariyale, where they came at him screaming. He also seems to differentiate between female LTTE cadres whom he had talked to at the campus, and those whose who came at him screaming profanities. But this was actually the difference between cadres who were alive and dead cadres. Though the presence of LTTE activists in civil spaces such as the Batticaloa campus might have been expected to prove that they were everywhere, breaking down the line between combatants and non-combatants, in this instance the female fighters’ identity as university students seemed to somehow outweigh their role as LTTE fighters. On this occasion, Arjuna is able to refrain from sexualizing the LTTE women. This is perhaps once again because they were dead.

Unceasing Waves III The LTTE, as we know, responded to Operation Watershed II with Unceasing Waves III. As events began unfolding, Kshyamal and Chaminda’s regiment (4GR) was positioned on the banks of the Iranamadu reservoir, close to Mankulam. Though the LTTE’s Unceasing Waves III operation was launched in November 1999, neither Kshyamal nor Chaminda is very clear about the exact date. After

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months in the jungles, the days blur into one another. But their recollection of the specific events concerned are very vivid. Chaminda is angry, and in much of this narrative, his anger is palpable. Kshyamal, however, seems rather lost due to the intensity of the violence. Faced with a mass withdrawal by troops, at several points Chaminda tried to stay his ground but was unable to prevail against the tide. Like many soldiers who participated in this operation, for Chaminda, its collapse was totally inexplicable. He was left with feelings of bafflement, betrayal and bitterness. In the following narrative, Chaminda describes what happened to him and his platoon.

Narrative 2 – Unceasing Waves III: Chaminda We captured Mankulam in 1998. We set up a defence line from the banks of the Iranamadu reservoir. Then, at this point, an extraordinary thing happened. Something happened that was the ultimate catastrophe; that I can find no words to describe. What happened? I  don’t know how it happened, or even where it actually happened. I don’t know who was responsible, really, only our political leaders know. Me, I feel all of this was politically motivated, orchestrated by politicians for their own purposes, because for me there is no other explanation. I’ve got nothing else to say about this event, except that this was the main reason why I resigned from the SLA. Where were you positioned at the time? I asked, trying to draw him out. Just past Mankulam, he said, near the bank of the Iranamadu reservoir. So, tell me what happened, I entreated. He took a deep breath and began again. It was sometime in late-1999, he said. I can’t remember the date exactly, but there was an election going on at the time; there was an impending general election.21 Anyway, this operation (Jayasikurui), which was sustained for over two-and-a-half years (sic) and consumed more than 2,000–3,000 lives, with a similar number wounded, maimed or disabled, collapsed – in the space of about one hour (sic).22 Totally unravelled. All the way to Omanthai. So how did this happen, I asked again. Though I was rather intimidated by his anger – he seemed too enraged to even speak about this event – I was anxious to hear his version of events. Tell me how it happened, I demanded again. That, he said, grimly, is something we would all like to know. But what happened, I persisted. The LTTE broke our line at this point, he said, locating a position on the wall map. A number of cadres attacked the line and broke through.

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But who was manning that section of the line? I asked. The unit which was supposed to be manning it, he said. It was an infantry unit. Weren’t they on alert? I asked, tentatively. Actually, he said, they were. Anyway, at the time, it was a relatively minor attack. Maybe about 20 guys attacked one bunker. So our guys abandoned that bunker. It was a night-time attack. So the LTTE captured that bunker. Then they attacked the next one. They got that as well. So little by little – I don’t know how – they seized several bunkers. So why did the soldiers manning those bunkers allow them to get into the LTTE’s hands so easily? I asked. He shook his head in frustration. That is why I think it was a political decision, he said. But what d’you mean, a political decision? I asked, perplexed. D’you mean that the guys in that particular bunker allowed the LTTE to overrun it because of political reasons? Yes, he said, somewhat defiantly. That’s it. That’s what I think. Because we really only do what the big people (loku aya) tell us to do. If they say ‘attack’, we attack. If they say ‘withdraw’, we just withdraw. It’s as simple as that. So that was what we saw happening that time. Where were you positioned? I asked, trying another tack. We were further down, he said, but when the line is collapsing like that, we’re also falling. We’re flooded with radio messages saying they’re foldingup the line at this point, the line is collapsing at that point. Tigers. Tigers. Tigers. Take the line down. So we also folded-up the line. In this direction. They unravelled the line in the Welioya direction. Did you stop and think whether what you were doing was the right thing? I asked. Or was there no time to be thinking about it? When you say stop and think, he said, we thought, of course we thought, what’s going on, where did the Tigers actually strike, why’re we doing this . . . Here Chaminda stopped, collected himself and took time to gather up the thread of his narrative again. He returned to the point where the initial breakthrough by the LTTE occurred. Then, when the LTTE captured those two bunkers, he said, on the other side some LTTE fighters attacked more bunkers. Then the rumours began to fly. False rumours. That the Tigers had already captured Mankulam. The guys with us immediately dropped their positions and withdrew further down the line. Anyhow, we positioned ourselves at the Mankulam junction for a while. By evening, though, they had abandoned all the vehicles, weapons and equipment in their charge and run away. The Navy was supposed to be manning this part of the line. They had abandoned their positions. The section of the line immediately in front of

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us was being manned by a unit of the Voluntary Forces – they usually do defence, they don’t do (offensive) operations. They’re the ones who were stationed there at that moment. The 2nd Gajaba Regiment (2[V]GR). It was their bunker that was attacked. There was an artillery attack. That’s what happened right at the start. The defence line (of 2[V]GR) was bombed, and it fell on the bunker where their radio equipment and communications set-up was. They lost all their radar and communications equipment (sic).23 But the main thing was, the three main officers – the CO, his 2IC, a major and a captain – were all killed as well. All three of them died when their bunker was bombed. This was a big piece of luck for the LTTE. At that time, those officers were in the process of calling for reinforcements, for the stand-by unit to come to their aid. They were instructing them on the position where the defence line had been broken, when the bunker was hit. After that, the morale of the whole regiment was totally shattered. It was, like, when the mother and father are killed, the children are totally lost (atharaman wela). After that, the LTTE gradually captured more bunkers. By this time, the LTTE also realized that we (the SLA) were not there anymore. We had abandoned our positions. We were retreating. We stopped near Mankulam. By this point, the whole road was strewn with abandoned equipment, vehicles and weapons. Many important (military) resources had been abandoned by soldiers fleeing. Our admin section with its provisions and logistics equipment had been stationed along this road. Though we were positioned much further up (on the banks of the Iranamadu reservoir), all our equipment was down here (near Mankulam). All our stuff. The Navy had a brand-new bus. It was abandoned. I remember it was a big Ashok Leyland bus. There was a water bowser, a tractor for taking food to troops on the frontline. I have driven that tractor over myself, once in a while. I  was allowed to drive it and I really liked driving it.24 So then we packed everything we could onto the tractor. Extra ammunition, everything, we didn’t leave much behind. We brought them from the frontline down to this point. By the time we arrived in Mankulam, everyone else had already left. We were the only ones still around. There was no time for us to load up more stuff. There was a lot of stuff in Mankulam. There were food rations – rice, sugar, tea and other food stuffs. We couldn’t carry them, so what did our guys do, they set fire to everything, so that it wouldn’t fall into the hands of the LTTE. We withdrew as fast as we could. There were a lot of our vehicles abandoned there. Some were slightly damaged. There’s a brand of truck called

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Cargo, then there were Defenders, Marutis, all these had been left behind and the drivers had fled. We stopped for a bit. But the LTTE was attacking from behind. So we started again. If we stopped too long, we came within range of their fire again. So we came all the way to Omanthai. What, all the way back to Omanthai? I asked. Yes, he said. We advanced for two-and-a-half years in this operation. I still can’t understand it. If we were going to end up here, why did we have to advance at all? There is no one I can pose my question to. If Omanthai was our goal, why did we have to sacrifice all those innocent lives, destroy the lives of all those innocent parents, children and wives who now have no sons, fathers or husbands, it doesn’t make any sense to me. Perhaps, I suggested, tentatively, perhaps the LTTE struck at a weak spot in your defence line and broke through? Yes, he said. But actually, there’s no such thing as a weak spot. Everyone’s the same in the Army. There isn’t one section of the Army that is designated ‘weak’. All soldiers are the same. Everyone has the same abilities. Why should one regiment, one platoon, be weaker than another? If the line is broken at any point, we’re trained to fix it, immediately. That’s what we’re supposed to do. That’s our rājakārya. That’s what the defence line is about. The enemy tries to break it. We link up again. That didn’t happen here. I can’t understand why. Everyone retreated, didn’t they, I said. Exactly, he said. Everyone ran back screaming. Now when they got that bunker with the radio equipment, I said, trying yet another tack. The 2[V]GR bunker. They lost their CO, deputy CO and sergeant in one go. That was a critical point, wasn’t it? Yes, he agreed. So what could they have done that they failed to do? I asked. He shook his head again. There were things they could do, he said firmly. There were lots of things they could do. I mean, you can’t just sit around crying your eyes out because your officers have been killed. These are supposed to be professional soldiers. I mean when the enemy is coming you can’t sit around saying oh please, our CO’s been killed, we don’t have anyone, please don’t attack (aiyo, gahanna epa). That’s not going to happen. We should know how to find a way to deal with the situation. Little by little. That’s what we have to do. There are stand-by units you can call on for assistance. There are one or two such units. You could get them down and plug your defence line. Why didn’t anyone do that? I asked him. It was night, he said, and when the stand-by unit gets a lot of calls during the night, it’s difficult; it’s hard to decide which one gets priority. Sometimes they can’t find the place where they’re wanted. So they didn’t really attempt

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to get there. In any case, they lost all radio contact with that unit when they got bombed. By the time those guys came, it was dark and they couldn’t locate their position. They couldn’t locate where the LTTE was in relation to the SLA defence line. The LTTE also focused their attack on this point. The gap (in the defence line) got bigger and bigger. There was a big wave of men in retreat . . . In the end, I  think two generals – one was General Gunasekera, can’t remember who the other one was – and one brigadier – Brigadier Bohran – were relieved of their posts. That’s what happened. They had to leave the next day, wearing civilian clothes. No vehicle, and no armed escort. No nothing. They were told to remove their uniforms and go home. They were relieved of their posts? I asked. Yes, he said. That’s what the President did. Don’t even give them a T56, she said, just send them home. But why? I asked. I mean what did they fail to do that contributed directly to this collective troop collapse? I think, he said, and a lot of people think, the main reason was that there wasn’t enough commitment to the plight of other units (sambandatha echchara ne), and to the goals of the operation by those in the Army hierarchy (bandeemak ne).25 He paused. Perhaps, he continued, the President was angered to this extent because – actually, at the time, everyone in the Army knew which senior commanding officers were close to the UNP and who was for the PA/SLFP – everyone knew.26 So these people (the senior officers dismissed) were those who had strong connections to the Opposition (the UNP). That’s true, I agreed. Everyone has their political preferences. But did you really think that in a situation like this they would put their politics before the lives of so many men? I don’t know, he answered. There was a General Election coming up. So, maybe they thought that after the UNP came into power, they (pro-UNP senior commanding officers) could point out that during Madam Chandrika’s time, the Army suffered loss after loss. The Opposition wanted to use the war to come into power, by totally demoralizing the people (pahalatama dālā). To say that the Chandrika government even messed up our Jayasikurui Operation, to say that the operation wasn’t executed properly. To break the people’s emotional bond with the government (samīpa mānasikatvaya kadala) and to argue that an alternate government should be built around themselves. But these generals, I  objected, they also had their own reputations to consider. He shook his head. What reputation? he muttered. They retreated, just like everyone else. The only difference was that the generals retreated sitting in their vehicles, and the men retreated on foot!

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So OK, I said, trying yet another tack. Politicians try to bring governments down all the time. That’s what they do. But do you really think any (Sinhala) political party would throw away the lives of thousands of men just to do that? I don’t know if it happened 100% like that, he admitted. Still, there was definite political interference in this issue. But there was also this rising wave of hysteria that fuelled the whole retreat (rällata pasubäsmakuth thibuna). There were all sorts of rumours from all kinds of sources about how this officer is dead, isn’t he, that person is dead. In fact, none of these people were killed at all, these were just wild rumours. About 25% of the rumours that abounded were politically motivated. You mean there were people within the Army who actually wanted this operation to fail? I asked. It’s hard to say that quite like that, he said. There were false rumours, and about 25% of the talk was to do with the immediate action taken by the President (to sack the generals). Perhaps it wasn’t political. Maybe the President thought that if these people brought to such a dismal end an operation that was sustained for two-and-a-half years, what is the point of retaining them as generals, they should be sent home, she may have been thinking from that perspective. But because of all the talk of political alignments between various blocs, this is what we thought. Anyway, that’s what we thought. Because there was an election pending and all sorts of complex political manoeuvring going on. Against that background, he said, smiling somewhat ruefully, all these things seemed possible. I personally feel we had a chance because there had been a stand-by unit available on that occasion. They were actually quite close to where the LTTE broke through our bunker line. We don’t know if they ignored the request for assistance on purpose, or whether they failed to receive a message at all. But we had a very good chance to do something because Brigadier Bohran’s battalion had been right there. That brigade definitely would have had an IS team. That is, when anyone calls in an emergency, they can send these guys. They’re supposed to go and help out when the situation is bad. Bohran was the person in charge of this unit, he had to take responsibility. So you think there was some justification behind Chandrika’s decision to fire him? I asked. Yes, he said firmly, as a senior officer, on that occasion this man should have taken some action to deal with the situation. He was in charge, wasn’t he? Subsequently, when they were all running back, this officer also immediately joined the rush backwards! It was the same with the other two officers. They got into their vehicles and retreated before anyone else.

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What they should have done was to take steps to stem the tide. Have you spoken to anyone who fought with those two battalions? I asked. Yes, he said. What did they have to say? I asked. What they said, he said, what they said was, right at the start, the CO was hit. They were totally lost, they were like fatherless kids (piyek nathi pavulak vage). No other officer came forward to tell them what to do. What should they do next or even how they should retreat in an orderly way (pilivelakata). The 2IC (second-in-command) said nothing. . . . he was silent. He paused. I feel so bad because of the way the whole retreat was played out, he said. Everyone does. Because we left everything behind. We left the dead behind. Every battalion must have had about a hundred dead. We left the wounded behind. It’s very sad. Have you ever experienced anything like this before? I asked. He shook his head. Never, he said. I’ve never seen anything like this before. Just because the line was broken at one point, this kind of chaotic retreat, fed by wild rumours, leaving the wounded and the dead behind, I’ve never seen anything like it. When a man who can’t walk is beseeching, please don’t leave me behind, no one looks at him. All those corpses, their skeletons still remain. If we pass by them now they will surely curse us for our terrible transgressions (anantha pāpa) on that day. In our battalion, we brought the wounded of other battalions down quite a long way. Around 40 kilometres, to Omanthai. It’s really hard to carry a boy in a makeshift stretcher for 30 kilometres and 40 kilometres. The dead they left behind because they were dead. But what about those who are critically injured? How can you decide if they’ll live or die? Only a doctor can decide that. To do that (get them to the doctor) is what we’re supposed to do (rājakārye kotasak). In the Jayasikurui retreat, if you were wounded, the mood was like, if you can walk, walk, if you can’t, lie down and die. That was the climate that prevailed. It was shattering. What little morale we had left completely disappeared when we saw this. One lost one’s ability to think for oneself (ananyathāvya). The bond between one man and the next was broken, broken irretrievably. If you can make it, come, but I’m going on, anyway. So, survival of the fittest. No one left to worry about the sick and disabled. Did you ever witness this kind of hysteria before? I asked. No, he said. Truly. I never did. This kind of thing never happened to me before. Even in the village, if there are too many of them (to fight), at least you throw a stone before running way. In the same way, there was a sharp attack, we retreated, and then we’re supposed to regroup and start the next assault. That’s what we’re supposed to do, that’s our rājakārya, isn’t it? We’re

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not supposed to retreat all the way without a plan. . . . So this was a great victory for the LTTE. He paused. The mistake we made, he said, was after capturing a large extent of land, we had to break the established system (with regular check points) and insert check points very far apart. There was no contact between these posts. The LTTE could easily break through in between. It didn’t happen like this at the start. But as deaths and casualties mounted up it got harder, and in some places we were really stretched. Still, in this instance, we can’t say that was what happened on this part of the defence line, because we had been patrolling this spot for a while. We had new recruits joining us to make up our numbers. There were enough soldiers. There was even a stand-by unit close by. So what happened? The Gajaba Regiment collapsed almost all the way to Welioya. What was the mood within the 4GR? I asked. We were not afraid, he said. I mean, we discussed it among ourselves. We decided we wouldn’t move from here. We drew a circle around ourselves and we stood inside. It was getting dark. We drew a circle and stood within it. Stood there all night. But by dawn we realized we were the only ones there. Everyone else had gone. So now in an operation in which nine, ten battalions took part, involving 500–600 men, how could we confront 200–300 LTTE fighters by ourselves? In the end, we just fell in with the general wave and retreated. At some points, there wasn’t a single gunshot fired. When we arrived at Mankulam, we saw some LTTE guys on bicycles – about three or four guys come and fire. But we had packed all our ammunition into the tractor. On the way, I  saw this brand-new bus that had been abandoned by the Navy. By the roadside. I was more taken up with the bus than with the tractor. I  parked the tractor in front of the bus, climbed in. The ignition key was inside. I started up the bus. It was fine, just a bit bogged down in the drain. I couldn’t make up my mind to leave it behind. I took it out onto the road. Our CO shouted, what the hell are you doing? That doesn’t belong to you, does it? You just drive what you were told to drive. So I just left it there. Later, someone told me the LTTE took it and exhibited it as part of the equipment they seized. There were vehicles, weapons, medical supplies, even a blood bank and ambulance for emergency treatment of the wounded on the field. Good Sinhala blood? I said, smiling. Yes, he said with a grin, actually we should now all come together, because why, they’re attacking us, boosted by our own blood. They’re eating our food

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and hitting us. They’re shooting at us with our own guns. It’s tragic. The final retreat of Jayasikurui. Today they’re in Omanthai and they’re signing peace treaties. You mean the cease-fire accord? I said. Yes, he said, the one that the UNP signed. What did you think about that? I asked. At the time, he said, what I thought was, it would be better to shoot myself and die than to stay in the Army. You felt the 2002 peace accord was not well thought out? I asked. Yes, he said. It was heavily weighted towards them (the LTTE). Anyway, nothing came out of it, did it? Day by day they were bringing in weapons, they were increasing recruitment. It was a good commercial opportunity for them. They received aid from various countries. They take all that and do something else (than what the donors intended) with the money. It looks as if war is necessary for Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka needs her war. It’s a big moneymaking enterprise. Was that the reason why you left the Army? I asked. Yes, he said, all of this became a cause of great sorrow to me. When you think about it, in the jungle, we’re in the jungle and the LTTE is attacking at night like they always do. At the beginning (of Operation Jayasikurui) when we were advancing on Omanthai, the LTTE was attacking us again and again, and we couldn’t move forward. In the jungle we had to arrange our defences so that they (the LTTE) couldn’t approach us in a hurry. It was very hard. We had to set out a line of mines in front and over that, a line of barbed wire fences as a barrier as against enemy attack. So they can’t approach us. Also, it’s hard to locate where we are in the dark. But this (i.e. the collapse of Jayasikurui) happened in broad daylight, when visibility was good. By dawn next morning, the Commandos had arrived and stopped at that point. It was an unexpected (vishmitha) collapse. Where they struck and why we had to retreat in this way we still don’t know. Like I said, the boys in our platoon, we talked about this. We decided we would not move from this point and we drew a circle around ourselves and we all stood inside. Then we realized we were the only ones still standing there. Everyone else had gone. We had Colonel Roshan Silva, he just resigned from the SLA the other day – these are good men.27 You could call them heroes (veerayo). When you say heroes, there are many requirements to be a hero in the Army. You have to have everything. So he in fact, had everything, Colonel Roshan Silva, Colonel Jayavi Fernando. There were people with a serious commitment. Our brigade commander, he went off to the USA soon after he resigned from the Army. They were all totally frustrated (kalakireemak)

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with the Army. They would have served for longer. But they probably thought there was no point in persisting with this project. That it was all a great hoax (boruwak). So then, a lot of people left the SLA. In the same way, we also understood how the land lay. If we die, all that would happen is that our parents, brothers, children will be bereaved only. The war was going to be fruitless. If the government could resolve all this through peace talks, now there is no point talking about peace. If the Army could have somehow resolved this, why didn’t they actually do so at that point? Let’s go back to the point when the LTTE broke through the defence line, I said. So around 100 cadres attacked unexpectedly. So now what were your options in that situation? Now, if the guys couldn’t link up the defence line at that time, he said, in general, there were things we could have done. There were tactics that could be deployed in such situations. So now we lost those few bunkers and the defence line was unravelling downwards; something had to be done to address the situation. Some officer or other should have worked out how to handle this situation. If we can’t hold the line, there is no point in allowing more lives to be lost. We could have retreated a bit and then regrouped at some point. So that the line doesn’t unravel any further. That is what we should have done. But only an officer can make that kind of a decision, isn’t it? I asked. Or can a corporal or a sergeant do it? Actually, he said, they can’t. Still, they also have a duty and a responsibility. So at that point, if the CO is not there anymore – let’s say the brigadier, the brigade commander is on leave. The 2IC (second-in-command) should take the initiative. He should try to bring some order into retreat. I mean, to retreat doesn’t mean just crashing back. You retreat little by little, firing back all the way. Here they were just running headlong on both sides of the A9 highway. Secondly, I would have at least, at the very minimum tried to save Mankulam. To give some meaning to the lives lost in taking Mankulam. To save the equipment and resources we had. Or at least to convey them to Vavuniya – no one even thought of doing that at the time. So everyone just fled backwards in a wave of hysteria. The police were manning sentry points in some areas. They were saying, don’t retreat beyond this point, don’t abandon this post. There were two or three women officers in uniform carrying guns – I don’t know whose brilliant idea it was to have them positioned there. They were, like, please don’t retreat any further. We’re also soldiers (sebaliyo), we’re women and we’re still at our posts. We’re staying. What are you doing, running away? What are you running away for? What did the men have to say to that? I asked, fascinated.

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No one even looked in their direction, he said. I was silent. Before this collapse took place, I said, what was the general mood like in your platoon, what was the morale like? Actually, he said, no one had any intension of leaving their post. So what changed? I asked. That’s exactly what I  can’t understand, he said. Suddenly, everything changed. This guy’s going, that guy’s going, everyone’s going. Now everyone’s retreating further and further back. No one person is attempting to stem the tide. We decided to stand our ground. But by dark, the LTTE had reached within 100 metres of where we were, they were hitting us with artillery. We were totally isolated. So now we’re not robots, we’re not armoured cars, we’re human beings. We couldn’t stay there under fire. By morning we started moving as well. We were the last to arrive at Omanthai. Someone must have stopped them retreating from there, or they would probably have gone all the way to Vavuniya. You mean they were so terrified of the Tigers? I asked. Actually, he said, it’s hard to think that. Because when we captured Mankulam, we could gauge the LTTE’s fighting capacity – they didn’t seem such an effective force then. Their combat ability was, like, zero at that point. They were really weakened. That’s why I still maintain that our actions at that point was 100% unsatisfactory (asarthakai). Why did everyone retreat so far so fast? What triggered this headlong flight? Why didn’t even one person question the rationality of this flight? So they broke through our defence line. But someone should have taken some decisive action. There are strategies for dealing with this sort of thing. A professional way (yam kisi nila pilivalak) of responding to such a situation. We need to regroup and work towards consolidating our line. Why didn’t they comply with this basic rule at this critical moment? If we stopped the unravelling of our line and stood firm, the LTTE couldn’t have penetrated any further. If we had retreated just a little, the next day when the sun comes up, we could have regrouped – that’s what we always did before. I mean, remember we had to take Omanthai at the start of this operation? We had to retreat. Because they were hammering at us all day. We just waited for a bit. Then we regrouped. Similarly, if they were attacking our bunker line at that time, we retreat for a bit, organize ourselves, then try to get back a bunker or two at a time. Little by little. That’s the strategy. They teach you these exercises in training. There is an exercise you do during battle when you’re faced with having to retreat. I mean, you don’t just retreat in

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a headlong rush. You retreat in phases, bit by bit, so that the enemy doesn’t know you’re removing your troops from the theatre of battle. No one followed that procedure . . . If there is a break in the line at that point, and we can’t defend our position from there, then we go back a bit and then see if we can defend from that point. If we can’t do that, then we move to another point. It’s like that. What actually happened was, as soon as there was a break in the line, everyone just rushed all the way back to Omanthai. Actually, the President should have sent every officer home. It’s not that I’m putting down any individual officer as such. But how is it that an intelligent (buddhimat) person like an officer could not stop and make a rational decision? Because if an officer had done so, then definitely the men would have to stay. When the father in a family lays out the law and says this is what we must do, the mother will never (sic) go against his word. So this applies to the Army. But it didn’t happen like that.

Fall of Oddusuddan, Nedunkerny and Mankulam When the initial strike on the Oddusuddan camp took place then, 4GR, ­Chaminda’s battalion was around 10–12 kilometres away, on the banks of the Iranamadu reservoir (see Map no. 8.1). It was the troops of 2[V]GR who were manning the flank of the defences – along the A34 – that came under attack. 2[V]GR was a volunteer battalion. As Chaminda says, volunteer battalions usually engaged in defence and not offensive missions. But in this instance, they found themselves manning ­forward defences in what was effectively deep enemy terrain. Further, in this attack, the Tigers displayed highly sophisticated planning.28 As Gunaratne points out, the strike on Oddusuddan was launched after extensive reconnaissance of the position of its main guns and defence fortifications, including the 2[V]GR headquarters complex (Gunaratne 2016: 429–430). The attack began at 11.30 p.m. on Monday night. About 150 LTTE Commandos armed with light anti-tank weapons (LAWs) and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) infiltrated 2[V]GR bunkers on the forward defences.29 Making directly for 2[V]GR headquarters, they fired tracer bullets to signal its location to gunners outside. Another group of about 200 fighters now began firing at the 2[V]GR defences from just outside the perimeter.30 The LTTE then launched a synchronized artillery, mortar and RPG attack on both the headquarters and forward defences. Thus the initial strike on 2[V]GR bunkers was not, as Chaminda thought, a simple sortie by 20 fighters, but a precision-targeted and piercing attack into which the LTTE had invested up to 350 adult male fighters. At this point, the majority of adult males in the LTTE were in fact suicide cadres.31 In the telling and re-telling

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of this attack, its original intensity and power appeared to have dimmed, possibly because few of those who came under its direct fire survived. 2[V]GR was badly hit. Their CO, 2IC and a captain were all mown down (Gunaratne ibid.). As Chaminda says, this loss of their entire top leadership tier profoundly demoralized the 2[V]GR troops. They now found themselves under heavy mortar and RPG fire from both the front and the rear.32 This meant simultaneous machine gun and RPG attacks by LTTE fighters inside the camp and artillery and mortar attacks by units outside.33 Stunned, they started falling back. Not having been issued with adequate body armour, they found themselves unable to stand the ferocity of the LTTE’s attack and began to flee, abandoning their weapons, the injured and the dead. The next section of the Oddusuddan defences was manned again not by an infantry fighting unit, but by the Navy’s Walagamba Division. The attack now extended to Navy-held bunkers. Unnerved by the fierce firing and the exodus of 2[V]GR, sailors likewise began abandoning their positions and fleeing. It was at this point that Chaminda and 4GR were sent in to support the Navy.34 By the time they arrived, the firing was already so fierce that 4GR, without body armour, couldn’t even get to their positions.35 Meanwhile, after two abortive efforts to send in infantry reinforcements to the Oddusuddan camp, the Wanni Security Forces Commander decided to bring in the Commando Regiment.36 Two Special Forces squadrons moved out from the SLA’s Puliyankulam camp and began advancing through the jungles towards the 2[V]GR headquarters. But they were unable to fight their way through in the monsoon rains.37 Two other squadrons trekked their way to the 563 Brigade on the camp’s western flank. They arrived around noon. By this time, orders had already been sent for the 563 Brigade to withdraw to Welioya.38 Chaminda is clearly not aware of the Wanni Commander’s efforts to send in reinforcements from other camps. But, like many infantrymen involved in this study, he is very critical of the failure of Brigadier Bohran, who was in fact the (acting) Commander of Division 55, to bring in his reserve unit – which was on the spot – to plug the gap in the 2[V]GR defences. His anger is palpable. It is not clear whether, as Chaminda suggests, in the darkness Bohran’s unit was unable to locate where they should go, or if they vacillated because they couldn’t prioritize among the many calls for help. But he feels that either way, their failure to act was indefensible. After receiving orders to withdraw, Division 56 troops began demolishing their weapons and radio equipment. The Special Forces personnel helped them to dismantle artillery sections and move them out. They also tried to save the best and most high-tech radio equipment and their communications codes and signal crypts. They loaded all these on to a South African Buffel tank to send over to the Kanakarayankulam camp.39 But their efforts were dogged by bad luck. The monsoon being in full swing, the tank got bogged down in the mud and became immovable and was of course in the end seized by the Tigers. This was a shattering blow. The Tigers now attempted to use the codes to access the SLA radio communication system. Realizing this, the SLA decided to stop all

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internal communications. The subsequent absence of clear instructions from SLA headquarters to the troops about what they should do happened at a moment when the air waves were being flooded with false reports of the death of reputed field commanders and fictitious claims that camps still locked in battle had already fallen. As Chaminda points out, these unconfirmed claims unnerved soldiers even more. At the same time, the insidious way in which these rumours were spread convinced more astute minds like Chaminda that there was a subtle political dimension to what was going on. Officers with links to the UNP-led Opposition seemed to be trying to create the impression that the situation was much more critical than it was. This was clearly aimed at destroying morale. The failure of Army headquarters to firmly refute the rumours contributed much to the growing panic among the troops.40 After nine hours of intense fighting – and more than 2,000 troops dead – by mid-morning next day the Oddusuddan camp was overrun.41 The Commander of the 563 Brigade of Division 56, Colonel Manoj Peiris, ordered to withdraw, was trying to effect an orderly retreat. Withdrawing, as Gunaratne points out, is an easy order to give and the most difficult one to carry out (ibid.: 421–446). But as a result of the SLA headquarters’ radio silence, Division 55 – to which 4GR belonged – had not received specific instructions to withdraw. They found themselves in something of a limbo. Chaminda, like other rank-and-file soldiers, is unaware of what exactly happened to the tank with the all the communications gear and the reasons behind the SLA headquarters’ radio silence. Still, he was aware that a wave of hysteria was building up – with cries of the Tigers, Tigers, Tigers echoing down the line – and he is critical of the failure of the SLA High Command to take action to stop this. But this is in retrospect. In this emerging climate of panic, he and 4GR also lost their nerve and began falling back, joining the rush down the A34 towards the A9 highway. This first headlong rush finally ended a few kilometres before Mankulam on the A9. It was at this point, 8–10 kilometres away from the frontlines, that the logistics convoy of Division 55 had been stationed. By this time, as Chaminda says, the Mankulam junction and parts of the highway were strewn with weapons, ammunition, vehicles and equipment. High-tech and costly logistics equipment lay abandoned on the road. He remembers that there was a water bowser and a tractor for taking food to troops on the frontlines. Chaminda’s 4GR unit packed everything they could onto the tractor and began moving towards Mankulam. Luckily for 4GR, after the fall of Oddusuddan, LTTE fighters did not move west towards Mankulam and the A9 – down which 4GR was heading – but went south towards the SLA’s Nedunkerny camp. Nedunkerny, also a large camp, was defended by troops of the 8th Vijayaba Infantry Regiment (8VIR). After hours of desperate fighting, 8VIR withdrew. LTTE hoisted their flag in Nedunkerny town and continued downwards towards Welioya. Meanwhile, by Wednesday afternoon Colonel Manoj Peiris had reached the 56 Division headquarters at Kanakarayankulam, 7 kilometres south of Mankulam, with about 100 troops of the 563 Brigade.42 But by this time, other LTTE divisions

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had already started pounding Mankulam. In desperation, the Vanni Commander diverted troops of 20SLNG – who had initially been recruited to guard the holy Bo tree in Anuradhapura – to Mankulam.43 Unable to withstand the LTTE’s ferocious shelling, they began falling back. On Friday afternoon, Mankulam fell.44 When Chaminda and his group reached Mankulam however, the town was still deserted. He says that there were no signs of the Tigers at this point. This is a clear indication that hysteria seemed to have played as great a role in the mass exodus as the LTTE’s firepower. It was here that Chaminda and his unit decided to take a stand. They drew a circle in the sand and stood inside it. They resolved not to retreat from this spot. At this point, it seemed to them that it was their rājakārya to take a stand against the general hysteria. But the next morning, they found that everyone else has moved on and they were the only ones left. This shook morale. They now felt that they did not have the numbers to defend the territory they were trying to hold. They did not wish to make a last suicidal stand here. The urgency of the evening before, when it seemed important to stand their ground and not be swept along with the tide, began to ebb in the cold light of day. They began setting fire to the SLA’s food stocks – rice, sugar, tea and other dry rations had been left behind – to avoid them finding their way into enemy hands. As the LTTE’s artillery began to reach the point they were standing, they started retreating as well. The withdrawal from Mankulam, begun the day before, was not an orderly, well-planned retreat. It was a chaotic scene. The road was littered with stateof-the-art military hardware and expensive vehicles, including Cargo trucks and Defenders, whose drivers had abandoned them to flee faster on foot down the traffic-clogged highway. Even medical supplies had been dumped on the highway, including a blood bank and ambulance, all of which were triumphantly seized by the Tigers in pursuit. What distresses Chaminda even more than the equipment and vehicles abandoned was the refusal of fleeing soldiers to take the wounded and dying with them. This, for him, contravened a basic aspect of their military code (rājakāryѐ arthayak). Fit and able-bodied men ignored the beseeching eyes and pleas of the critically injured, on the grounds that they might delay them. Chaminda feels that this is tantamount to a collective loss of identity. The bond between a man and his mates – a key tenet of Sinhala identity – was irretrievably broken. Overnight, a new identity – survival of the fittest – had emerged. This amounted to the emergence of a new, diminished practice of masculinity that focused only on personal survival and refused to imperil oneself in any cause or defend the weak. The tractor that Chaminda was driving was heavily loaded with all the equipment they could possibly pack on to it, and the going was therefore very slow. They were also keeping pace with those able-bodied men in his unit who were carrying the injured and dying of other battalions on makeshift stretchers for 30–40 ­kilometres, which, as he says, was really hard going. But he is left with a profound sense of a larger, transgressive failure to respond to those others who were in such grave need that day. A practicing Buddhist, he feels that the trapped souls of the

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dead and dying – who cannot transcend this world until justice is meted out to those who wronged them – still hover in a tormented limbo on both sides of the A9; and that they would curse him and his comrades if they were to pass by even today.45 Such a comment, then, signifies the extent to which this event undermined his usually pragmatic worldview. Subsequent to the fall of Mankulam, the other two large camps – Kanakarayankulam and Puliyankulam – fell in quick succession.46 When they reached Kanakarayankulam, just before its fall, Chaminda and his group were shocked to see three women police officers still on duty at their security points. They were armed. They seemed unafraid, perhaps because they did not fully grasp the precariousness of their position. They attempted to stop the mad onrush of fleeing soldiers, saying, why’re you doing this, look at us, we’re women and we’re still at our posts. What are you doing, running away? The fleeing soldiers would not even look at them. They refused to be shamed into sanity. They averted their eyes and continued in their desperate flight. Chaminda – now part of this rush – fleetingly feared for their safety even as he moved on. He could not stop of his own volition. It was only at Omanthai, nearly 70 kilometres down, that another officer of the Gajaba Regiment – Colonel Roshan Silva – succeeded in somehow setting-up a defence line and defending it.

The LTTE’s firepower as spectacle Kshyamal’s unit was subjected to sustained shelling by the LTTE, and his – brief – narrative captures his stunned reaction to the horrendous ferocity of its firepower. Unlike Chaminda, he does not question why Jayasikurui unfolded, but seems to accept that it was solely due to the intensity of the LTTE’s firepower.

Narrative 3 – Unceasing Waves III: Kshyamal We only held the LTTE bunkers for two days, he said. On the third day, they attacked the Navy at Oddusuddan and broke through our line. The Navy retreated all the way to Omanthai. During 1998 and 1999, the LTTE attacked the Army repeatedly and pushed us back. So they took us off and put another unit there. We were sent to Vavuniya. To the points where the Navy was being attacked. But we couldn’t even get near the sites. They were firing at us with our own guns. The guns that the Navy abandoned when they retreated. But they were also using multi-barrelled guns. We didn’t know how they had got hold of these. These guns have a range of 20–25 kilometres. They can fire 30–35 bombs at a time. They all fall, like, within 1 kilometre. So then, everything within that space is flattened.

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Every unit that went returned with many casualties. Our unit had 800 men. We just went into the attack line once. Once. At the end of that, only 400 were left. Some died, others were injured and removed from the field. At that point, they had captured that whole side. However much we fired, there was no effect. We retreated day by day until we came to Omanthai. In Jayasikurui, we just abandoned the area we captured by sacrificing thousands of troops. The brigades and yes, all the units were removed. Everything we had fought for and held from 1995 to 1998, the LTTE got back in three days. There was no one left to even give you some ammunition. The brigadiers, the generals, they were all retreating. They were sitting in their vehicles, retreating. But what happened? I asked In those days, there was a story that the UNP government had given arms to the LTTE. In the end, all the officers were replaced. Even Ratwatte resigned.47 When you come from a civil context, you have no experience of the Army, do you? In those days, we just couldn’t understand what was happening. Was there nothing the Navy could do when they were attacked except retreat? I asked. It was a totally unexpected attack, he said. The Navy is not like the Army, is it? They don’t have the combat experience. So they abandoned everything and left. They only tried to save themselves. In the end, the LTTE captured all the Navy bunkers. In one day, they captured a number of kilometres. And of course, thousands died in Jayasikurui.

Compared to Chaminda’s extended narrative, when asked about his experiences in Unceasing Waves III, Kshyamal gives a very terse account. He mentions that his unit was repeatedly shelled by the LTTE on the Kilinochchi frontlines and were seen by the SLA High Command to have lost morale. They were removed from the frontline. But in a quirk of fate, they were then sent to Oddusuddan to support the Navy, which was being attacked, a task that turned out to be an even more dangerous posting. They now came directly under fire by the LTTE’s ­multi-barrelled guns. Kshyamal’s unit had a shocking experience right from the initial stages of Unceasing Waves onslaught, which Chaminda somehow does not even mention. After the very first strike, they lost a staggering 400 men to the LTTE’s multibarrelled guns. This clearly had a devastating impact on Kshyamal; he was seriously unnerved. The almost apocalyptic fury of the fire was terrifying. He observes that it was so intense that they couldn’t get even close to where they were supposed to be. At the same time, SLA guns could make no impact on the LTTE’s bunkers. As

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Arjuna points out, these were made by stacking 5–6 sacks of cement one on top the other and were therefore comprised of pure cement, and after a shower of rain, they became harder than concrete. As against Chaminda’s efforts to go against the tide, Kshyamal appeared to be stunned almost into a torpor by the turn of events. Deep despair seeps in. Again, unlike Chaminda, he does not reflect too much on the cause of the SLA’s rout, but puts it all down to the LTTE’s ferocious firepower. He cannot get his head around the lethal spectacle of this firepower. He doesn’t seem to think that there was anything his unit could have done to avert the situation. He mentions that the brigadiers and generals were retreating in their vehicles, but does not seem to particularly hold it against them. In fact, he appears to lay more blame at the feet of the Navy for their inability to hold the forward defences, even though his own unit did no better. He also points his finger at other random figures, such as the opposition UNP party, whom it was rumoured provided arms to the rebels.48 The absences in Kshyamal’s narrative are more revealing than what he actually says. He is almost silenced by the spectacular ferocity of the violence he witnesses. He does not seem to have even registered the chaos Chaminda describes in the withdrawal to Omanthai. He seems to lose his voice and finds it hard to put into words what happened before his eyes; his narrative is brief, truncated. He does not grow in stature, but is diminished by the enormity of what he sees. It emasculates him. As events unfold, we witness his hard-won sense of agency slipping through his fingers. He appears to be sliding into inertia.

Concluding comments This episode then, revealed the tenuousness and fraught nature of the grip of at least two of the SLA’s frontline divisions – 55 and 56 – on the practice of riskingthe-body, which remains key to the success of ground troops today. A  question that emerges is why troops who responded with relative calm to LTTE assaults in Watershed II – in which the LTTE also deployed MBRLs – should have responded with quite this level of panic in the Unceasing Waves III attacks. This was perhaps due to the fact that, as Arjuna comments, they did not realize they were being attacked by MBRLs; they simply thought the LTTE had acquired a number of new artillery guns. But in the mass retreat, soldiers did not realize this, either. The LTTE’s Unceasing Waves III initiative was undoubtedly a ferocious assault. The breaching of the Oddusuddan defences was key to the way in which events unfolded. But once the line was broken-up and troops retreated, why didn’t they subsequently attempt to recoup, reorganize and retake the line? As Chaminda points out, what they were trained to do – or their rājakārya – was precisely to keep the line going, and if it was broken, to plug it, immediately. In fact, the whole concept of a defence line implies a human barrier that the enemy would constantly attempt to break through, and that those holding it are trained to link up again. Further, he insists that there’s no such thing as a ‘weak spot’. Everyone’s the same in the Army, he says. There isn’t one section of the Army that is designated ‘weak’.

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Everyone has the same abilities, he says. Why should one regiment, one platoon, be weaker than another? But of course, the ground reality was different. The LTTE deliberately targeted the portion of the defences manned by non-fighting units – 2[V]GR and the Navy. These battalions had not been consistently on the frontlines and had not acquired the fighting spirit, resilience and mental fortitude with which to withstand heavy fire that 4GR and other fighting units had grimly achieved inch by inch. In this extended retreat, soldiers located at different points in the SLA hierarchy revealed that their commitment to imperilling themselves to defend territorial gains in the battlefield was not the same. Clearly, in this instance issues of leadership failure emerge at the highest levels. This is explicitly linked to the social distance between officers and the rank-and-file (bhaya) that – as much the rest of Sinhala society – marks the SLA, and that seriously affects the ability of troops to act decisively in a crisis when there are no officers around to steer them towards a course of action. But the SLA High Command itself seemed comprised of very senior officers who had no grasp of basic battlefield realities. Consequently, by stationing these non-fighting battalions at the Oddusuddan defences, the SLA High Command displayed an astonishing lack of concern about the possibility of an LTTE attack. This may have stemmed from the fact that the LTTE had been unexpectedly quiet for more than 12 months. Still, that did not justify this level of complacency.49 They were aware that the Tigers had acquired the high-tech and high-impact weapons stored at large SLA camps that had recently fallen, such as Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi. But strategists seemed to have never closely examined the effect the weapons that they themselves purchased would have on the human body. They appeared to have envisaged only the impact such weapons would have on the ‘enemy’ and never conceived what it would be like to be at the wrong end of the muzzle. Consequently, they failed to get the Ministry of Defence to provide soldiers with basic body armour, thereby displaying an extraordinary lack of professionalism.50 Moreover, senior officers such as Brigadier Bohran and Major-General Gunasekera – men of a different era, perhaps, to whom the battlefield was rather an unfamiliar place – failed to provide leadership on the ground. They refused to take the onus to restore troop morale, to exhort troops to stand firm, and seemed to have stood on the side-lines, leaving it to junior officers to do so. This lack of commitment exemplifies a particular notion of hegemonic masculinity as pure entitlement that builds on social class and seniority. Even up to the late-1970s, recruitment criteria for officer cadets tacitly assumed English-speaking skills, which confined officer recruitment to the middle classes. Promotions in peace time were conferred on the basis of seniority in service and, frequently ‘connections’. They were not meted out for qualities of leadership forged on the battlefield. Such a focus on seniority and class resonated with received Sinhala notions of social status as a core aspect of masculinity. It implied a return to a masculinity of the composed body. But it was not an edified composure. It was a hollow practice, devoid of any sense of accountability.

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It was not a warriorist code. Faced by the spectacular belligerence of the LTTE’s firepower, such leaders were seriously daunted. The notion of endangering their lives to stay and defend the SLA line emerges as absurd foolhardiness. Becoming mired in this level of aggression seemed almost unseemly. This created a sense of embattlement. Consequently, they found themselves getting into their vehicles and fleeing even as the men fled on foot.51 In the process, they violated their own – putative – code of accepting death composedly and not scuttling around trying to escape the inevitable. But such was the level of public fury over this episode that even the defence authorities couldn’t suspend their disbelief about this kind of conduct. Consequently, a three-member Court Martial recommended that seven senior officers should be sent on compulsory leave.52 It was only the intervention of the new Army Commander, Lieutenant-General Srilal Weerasooriya that prevented them from having their commissions withdrawn.53 This interesting intervention in itself affirms the extent to which such conduct was seen as ‘normal’ by those who comprised the SLA High Command. Another group of less senior officers appeared to have been motivated by political biases. This group seems in many ways to have reflected the besieged, pro-­establishment sentiments of those who participated in the coup d’état of 1962. Chaminda feels that they actively wanted the gains on the Wanni front to be reversed. While there is no evidence for such a conclusion, at the same time, some people really were sending false rumours through the radio, trying to create the impression that all the large camps had fallen even before they did. It is not clear if anyone other than senior officers would even have had access to the security codes for designated SLA air waves. If this was being done at the senior officer level, was it an orchestrated campaign or was it spontaneous? It is not clear. In the context of an on-going war, the conduct of those who either promoted false claims or were demoralized by false claims made by others – or both – constitutes a code of masculinity. This is similarly a masculinity that refused the notion of risking-the-body as foolhardy – even in the context of war. At that moment, even withdrawing in an organized, professional manner seemed have been seen as too dangerous. Such officers also refused to assume responsibility for the weapons, ammunition and valuable equipment in their charge. It could have been that seniority of rank shielded them from being on the frontlines for extended periods, and they had not yet succeeded in grasping the nettle of the code of risking-the-body. Faced with the spectacular violence of the LTTE’s firepower, they found themselves unable to summon up a sense of agency. Any thought of imperilling themselves in the line of duty emerged as fatuous. This created a sense of embattlement. They also found themselves fleeing, abandoning weapons, equipment and vehicles. In this instance, the hardening of the body did for a while push back the threshold of pain. It may have also – at other times – allowed the officers concerned to act out assault drills to defend their line that entailed imperilling themselves. But it did not enable them to go against the tide in a crisis. It did not equip them to fight the unquantifiable element of dread that such a spectacle evokes.

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Similarly, troops of 2[V]GR, on their part, never seemed to recover from the loss of their top tier of leadership. The 2IC still in place is said to have been silent, unsure what to do next. In the absence or failure of officers to provide leadership either through death or inaction, rank-and-file troops seemed to find themselves bereft of agency. They did not seem able to muster the mental resources to devise a strategy to address the situation. There is no evidence to suggest that they did not want to fight, or that they did not think it was their duty to fight. But they were not equipped with body armour, and faced by what seemed to be the all-consuming intensity of the LTTE attack, they were left in a stunned state, close to total inertia. They were unable to formulate a response which would require them to act. This created a profound sense of embattlement. As a result, they found themselves running away, abandoning even the injured and dying. Sailors of the Navy’s Walagamba Division and troops of 20 SLNG also abandoned their posts because they were not equipped to endure the spectacular violence of the LTTE’s firepower. They were equally overawed and demoralized. Others troops panicked on hearing rumours on the radio that battle-tested senior officers had been killed and large camps had fallen. But why was it that the morale of Sri Lankan troops was so easily destroyed by unverifiable phenomena such as rumours? Here the Sinhala deference to seniority (bhaya) becomes a serious constraint on the battlefield. Troops were not equipped to interrogate information on an evidential basis and weigh their options rationally. They were easily misled. The removal of their commanding officers shocked them into passivity. Every option to defend the line seemed dangerous and foolhardy and not to be contemplated. Chaminda at one point observes with some percipience that, with the death of their officers, the men lost their identity as soldiers. They become something less than soldiers. Interestingly, the Special Forces and Commandos emerge as one group of soldiers who did attempt to support troops under strain and did not waver under pressure. They traversed through difficult jungle terrain and made creditable efforts to come to the aid of the beleaguered troops, rescued sensitive military equipment and packed them into an armoured vehicle. They were defeated not by the Tigers but by the monsoon weather. This again was a factor that the SLA High Command should have taken into consideration when planning the Watershed operations. The only other group of soldiers that took a difficult decision to imperil themselves were of course those who finally stopped the LTTE advance in Omanthai and Welioya, as well as the ‘heroic’ officers whom rumour on the air waves were trying to kill off. Finally, among battle-tested infantry battalions such as the 4GR, a somewhat different climate seemed to have prevailed. Chaminda and his unit wanted to stay their ground and fight. They did see this as their rājakārya. They did make a desperate stand to stay and fight at Mankulam. But as the LTTE’s rocket-propelled grenades came closer, they found their resolve to imperil themselves and keep their positions dissolving. The sight of this moving mass of fleeing humanity was a spectacle in itself. It consumed agency, or the will to go against the tide. Their

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decision to stay now began to seem foolhardy. They also became embattled. They kept trying to regroup and stay their ground, but were not successful. At one level, they were no longer prepared to wait for their ‘time’ – the moment that is written in the stars – but were convinced they must fight to the bitter end. Still, against a background when everyone else was fleeing, they were unable to act out this conviction. In the end, 2,180 soldiers lost their lives in the course of the Jayasikurui campaign and its collapse.54 This does not include those missing in action. It does not even account for those in the Navy, Air Force and police who lost their lives in this operation. Nor does it include the thousands who were left with serious, life-long disabilities.

Notes 1 This was the day after Prabhaharan, the LTTE’s leader’s birthday, and was always celebrated with a military effort by the LTTE. See D. B. S. Jeyaraj, Cover story, Frontline, Volume 16, No 25, 27 November–10 December 1999). 2 According a reputed defence analyst, the LTTE leader Prabhaharan’s aim in launching his Unceasing Waves III initiative was ultimately to recapture the Jaffna peninsula (see Situation Report, Sunday Times, 2 January 2000). If this was the case, then of course Unceasing Waves failed in its objectives. 3 See Jeyaraj, Frontline, Volume 16 – No 25, 27 November–10 December 1999. 4 See Ramani Kanagaarachchi, Lead story, Observer, 15 October 1999. 5 See Wije Dias, Lead story, Sunday Leader, 9 November  1999 and Situation Report, Sunday Times, 30 October 1999. 6 Ibid. 7 See Situation Report, Sunday Times, 31 October 1999. 8 See Jeyaraj, Frontline, Volume 16, No. 25, 27 November–10 December 1999. 9 See Situation Report, Sunday Times, 2 January 2000. This defence analyst also mentions that this number, put out by the SLA, excludes those killed in the Navy, police and Air Force and does not even take into account those MIA. 10 See Sunday Times, 31 October 1999, and also Cover story, Jeyaraj, Volume 16, No 25, 27 November–10 December 1999. 11 See Dias, 9 November  1999, World Socialist Website (www.wsws.org, accessed on 26 October 2017); ‘Gross negligence of Vanni top brass led to swift collapse of frontlines’ in The Island November 7, 1999; ‘CID to question Maj. Gen. Algama today’ in The Island 23 November 1999. 12 The arrival of the sacred Bo tree from India is documented in chapter xviii of the Mahavamsa (Geiger 1912: 122–127). 13 Protecting the sacred tree from harm is considered a meritorious act by Buddhists. 14 See Sunday Times, 31 October 1999. 15 Wije Dias, 9 November 1999, World Socialist Website (www.wsws.org, accessed on 26 October 2017). 16 The SLA does not admit that they ever aimed at recapturing the area up to Kilinochchi, but states that they were simply ‘clearing’ suspected LTTE positions in the area around the Oddusuddan defence perimeter. This may have been because any failure to achieve this would reflect very dismally in the Sinhala tabloid and electronic media. See Sunday Times, 31 October 1999 and Sunday Times, Situation Report, 7 October 1999. 17 Watershed II was actually conducted in the Mullaitivu district, a little bit beyond the northern part of Vavuniya district.

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18 This refers to the astrological belief many Buddhists hold, that each person’s lifespan is written in the stars, and if it’s your destiny to die at a given moment, nothing can preclude that. The moment when death will arrive is your ‘time’. Sometimes this notion of one’s ‘time’ is extended to cover all misfortune as being etched in the stars and therefore out of your control. 19 ‘Cleared’ areas referred to areas controlled by the SLA and ‘un-cleared’ areas to those controlled by the LTTE. 20 Wije Dias, 9 November 1999, World Socialist Website (www.wsws.org, accessed on 29 Octobe 2017); also Kanagaarachchi, 15 October 1999, and Wije Dias, Sunday Leader, 17 October 1999. 21 The LTTE’s Unceasing Waves onslaught to which he refers began on 1 November 1999. 22 The reference here is to Operation Jayasikurui (May 1997–November 1998). 23 This is not exactly what happened, in that the communications equipment was not destroyed in the initial strikes. See Jeyaraj, Frontline, Volume 16, No 25, 27 November–10 December  1999. But this may have been a simplified version of events that rumour conveyed to troops on the ground such as Chaminda. 24 This was when he just received his heavy vehicle license in the Army and was allowed to drive some of the heavier vehicles. 25 Chaminda is here clearly implying that the generals in question had strong links to the opposition UNP and therefore their primary loyalty was not to the SLA and the president of the nation. In other words, that in this instance, they played the role of traitors. This is a strong claim, and at other points in his account, he backs down somewhat on this. 26 The United National Party (UNP), thought to be pro-capital and pro-Western, was at the time in opposition. The People’s Alliance (PA), which was popularly seen as left of centre, was in power, and the president was the leader of the PA. Since there was an impending general election, party loyalties appear to have been particularly resurgent. 27 It was Colonel Roshan Silva who finally succeeded in stemming the retreat and setting up a forward defence line at Omanthai. 28 See Sunday Times, 31 October 1999 for details. 29 Ibid. 30 Sunday Times, 7 November 1999. 31 The phrase ‘Unceasing Waves’ in itself implies the participation of suicide cadres. Unceasing Waves is a strategy originated in Iran in the late 1970s in their war with Iraq. It was built on suicide fighters forming human waves in an attempt to breach highly secured enemy fortifications that are cutting them down with superior weapons. In this strategy, while large numbers of fighters are mowed down, enough survive in order to be able to reach enemy defences and breach them by exploding themselves. See also Chapter 5. 32 Sunday Times, 7 November 1999. 33 Recounted by a 2GR soldier who survived this attack. 34 Mentioned in Kshyamal’s account of events (see below). 35 Ibid. 36 Sunday Times, 7 November 1999. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid. 39 See Sunday Times, 31 October 1999, and also Jeyaraj, Frontline, Volume 16, No 25, 27 November–10 December 1999 (cover story). 40 See Jeyaraj, Frontline, Volume 16, No 25, 27 November–10 December  1999 (cover story). 41 See Sunday Times, 2 January 2000. 42 Ibid. 43 See Jeyaraj, Frontline, Volume 16, No 25, 27 November–10 December  1999 (cover story). 44 Ibid.

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45 This notion is linked to the Buddhist belief in the notion of samsara or cycles of existence, in which one lives and dies and is continuously reborn as another being, until one ultimately arrives at a state of nirvana or nothingness. One’s next samsara depends on how one has lived one’s previous life. 46 Sunday Times, 7 November 1999. 47 This was the Defence Secretary, a powerful figure in the cabinet and the uncle of the president. 48 This rumour probably emerged because on one previous occasion, in 1990, the then UNP president Premadasa did become involved in providing arms to the LTTE. 49 The Directorate of Military Intelligence had in fact warned that an attack on the eastern defences was imminent, but the Wanni Security commander chose to ignore this warning. See Sunday Times, 7 November 1999. 50 There have been several media exposés of corruption in the placing of military tenders by Ministry of Defence officials and senior SLA officers. See Jeyaraj, Volume 16, No 25, 27 November–10 December 1999 (cover story) and Sunday Times, 2 January 2000. 51 Sunday Times, 31 October 1999. 52 Situation Report, Sunday Times, 26 March 2000. 53 Ibid. 54 SLA 1999. Names of those who died in this operation are itemized in a 213-page Roll of Honour in this official publication titled Sri Lanka Army – 50 Years.

MAP 9.1 

Operation Agnikheela

9 OPERATION AGNIKHEELA Aerial bombardment as spectacle

Introduction Unceasing Waves III concluded on 11th December 1999 with an attack on the SLA’s most highly secured facility, the Elephant Pass Base Camp. A  drawn-out battle ensued, towards the end of which the LTTE captured the freshwater wells at Iyyakachchi that supplied the camp. Without drinking water in the sweltering tropical conditions, hundreds of troops died a harrowing death from dehydration. The camp finally fell on 22nd April 2000 (Gunaratne 2016: 444–445). The Elephant Pass Complex straddled the causeway that linked the Peninsula to the rest of the island. Over the decades, this strategic location made it an iconic military installation of much symbolic weight. Consequently, for the SLA this was the lowest point in a 17-year-old war. In this episode, 758 soldiers lost their lives, 2,368 were wounded, 349 remain missing and over 10,000 had to be air-lifted from the camp (ibid.). With its fall, the collapse of the entire Peninsula loomed large. The Sri Lankan President intervened at this point with two key appointments on the security front. These were Major-General Janaka Perera as Northern Commander and Major-General Sarath Fonseka as Security Forces Commander of Jaffna. This move did seem to infuse new life into the SLA’s tired defences and slowly, troops began fighting back. The LTTE’s advance on Jaffna city was sharply checked at Kilaly. They then marched eastwards towards Chavakachcheri – the second largest city in the Peninsula – but were again blocked at Sarasalai (UTHRJ 2000a: 1). Chavakachcheri was subsequently subjected to saturation shelling by both the SLA and the LTTE and looted successively by each. But the military ­balance held.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003362036-9

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The SLA’s FDL across the Peninsula had now been pushed back about 30 ­kilometres, from Kilaly on the west coast to Nagarkovil on the east, bisected by Eluthumadduval, alongside the A9 (see Map no. 9.1). The LTTE’s new defence line followed a parallel trajectory from Allippalai on the west coast to Kudarappu in the east coast, with Muhamalai on the A9.1 The new leadership reassessed the SLA’s defences and decided to upgrade and reinforce its firepower. Thus in October 2000, when the LTTE unleashed its next onslaught – Unceasing Waves IV – the SLA was, for once, poised to respond in kind. Unceasing Waves IV involved a series of penetrating attacks on SLA defences at Nagarkovil, Eluthumadduval and Kilaly, which some commentators felt were comparable in intensity to its Unceasing Waves III strikes.2 But the SLA retaliated with a ferocity that the LTTE itself could not endure. This victory cleared the way for the SLA’s next offensive, Kinihira, conducted in several phases, which succeeded in regaining territory seized by the LTTE. Already, between December 1999-April 2000, the LTTE had lost more than 1,500 fighters (UTHR-J 2000a: 11). They were now reduced to declaring a unilateral cease-fire beginning on 24th December 2000, scheduled to last four months. With the expiring of this supposed cease-fire on 25th April 2001, the SLA launched its Operation Agnikheela (‘Rod of fire’), aimed at retaking Elephant Pass. This chapter explores Kshyamal’s narrative of the first phase of Agnikheela, which involved taking the Pallai Junction, 14 kilometres north of Elephant Pass on the A9 (see Map no. 9.1). It goes on to discuss the effects of the State of Exception on the LTTE combatants who entrapped the troops in Agnikheela and on noncombatants in the Peninsula and Vanni. Kshyamal fought with 4GR, which was a component of Division 55 and, together with Division 53, spearheaded the operation. Kshyamal, who narrated his experiences as a lance corporal during the LTTE’s Unceasing Waves III onslaught in the previous chapter, was a sergeant at this time. Interestingly, his narrative of the first phase of Agnikheela reflects a new composure and confidence that is absent in his earlier narrative, which happened 18 months earlier. He was from the village of Hali-Eliya in the Badulla district. Kshyamal stood at 5’9” and weighed in at 145 lbs; he had three younger brothers with whom he was very close and had spent much of his high school career with them on the track team. He was also a good marathon runner, which was a bonus when dealing with long tramps in the jungle terrain.

Background to the operation Agnikheela did not achieve its stated goal. With the signing of the CFA in ­February 2002, its second and third phases were shelved. The first phase of Operation Agnikheela involved up to 16,000 troops, of whom 529 died and 59 went missing. More critically, the LTTE itself experienced high death rates, mostly due

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to aerial bombardments and artillery and mortar fire (SLA 2003: 10). This became a signature motif of this ‘Rod of fire’ operation and began a significant trend that continued in Eelam War IV. The LTTE had been preparing for many months for a SLA breakout (SLA 2003: 9). They had built a strong defence line in Muhamalai about 500 metres from the SLA’s Eluthumadduval FDL. A  second line was constructed about 600–1,000 metres behind it. The LTTE had built another heavily fortified bunker line roughly 500 metres in front of the FDL of the SLA’s Nagarkovil base (ibid.). The SLA was effectively hemmed-in. To breakout therefore, these LTTE positions were targeted in a preliminary phase of intense artillery and aerial bombardments that began on 24th April at around 4 p.m. The Air Force’s Kaffirs, MiG 27s and Flogger jets were brought into the attack, supported by artillery and mortar fire from SLA bases. Naval gunboats and fast attack craft also assailed LTTE troop movements along the Nagarkovil coastline.3 Operation Agnikheela commenced on 25th April 2001, with Division 55 on the north of the A9 and Division 53 on the south (ibid.). Despite this softening-up of LTTE positions though, troops breaking out of the Nagarkovil base encountered a ferocious response from LTTE artillery. Having not made much headway after more than 18 hours, they returned to their base. Meanwhile, Division 53, breaking-out from the Kilaly Camp, similarly faced strong resistance, was unable to advance and had returned to camp by dawn the next day.4 Division 55 – including 4GR – began advancing from Eluthumadduval at 4.00 a.m. on 25th April. They came in two columns on either side of the A9 towards Pallai and reached the LTTE’s first FDL at Muhamalai. Soon after they crossed it, however, misfortune struck. The armoured tank at the head of the column on the right was hit by RPG-7 fire and disabled. This stopped their advance. They had just reached the LTTE’s second line. A group of LTTE fighters now cut them off from the front while another group moved simultaneously to retake the original LTTE defence line. Consequently, troops on the right column found themselves trapped in a small area between the two LTTE lines. The LTTE then began shelling from all directions. For the next three days, around 500 troops remained wedged into this pocket of around 500 square metres.

Operation Agnikheela In the following narrative, Kshyamal describes the three-day struggle of the units concerned to extricate themselves after becoming trapped between the LTTE’s two lines. His narrative does not assume a chronological form. Rather, he describes the event briefly, then returns to expand his first description, returning later to expand aspects of it further.

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Operation Agnikheela: Kshyamal In Operation Agnikheela, the goal was to retake Pallai. This was around 2001. We only had to take back the 2 kilometres we had just retreated from. The LTTE was attacking our positions with artillery. At times they would fire mortar rounds. There was the possibility that they could attack the Palaly Airport. So how did you go about getting back those 2 kilometres? I asked him. We’re instructed the day before, he said. They tell you what to do. Everything’s explained in detail. They build a sand model. They take a map of the area and make it on the ground with sand. It’s not hard. It takes about an hour. They dye coconut refuse (polkudu) in different colours and make it.5 Because everyone has to know what we’re going to be doing. A few guys knowing what’s going on it is not good enough. The LTTE does the same thing. Sometimes in an operation you have 3,000–4,000 troops on the move. Five or six units. So everyone has to know what we’re doing today. They have to know what should be done on the first day, what should be done on the second day. We make the model on the ground the way it is on the map. We do the LTTE line, our line, we mark our gun positions. After I did course in signalling, I began to understand about maps better. Otherwise it’s hard. Because if you want artillery support, you have to give the correct coordinates. But how do you do that? I asked. From the map, he replied. Everyone should have a map. It’s hard, though. Actually, doing an operation is very tough. Don’t you need some background in math? I asked. The map is in 1-kilometre squares, he said. Each square is then divided into ten smaller squares. There are numerals (elakkan) for each of those called grid numbers (anka). When I  give my grid number, the other guy knows where I am. So does everyone know how to find their grid numbers properly? I asked. There are some guys who don’t, he admitted. We explain to them every day. When we have a moment, we’re constantly telling those who don’t know something how it’s done. On some days even the Army Commander comes to see the sand model. One of our officers does the briefing. Even the Commander listens to what he’s saying. After that, the model is destroyed. This particular operation was soon after we took Ariyalai. After we started out, we advanced for about three days. Anyway, because we were attacking the LTTE at successive points, they began expecting our attacks. We don’t know if someone had informed them, though. There were some bunkers we couldn’t even approach (gannama ba). There were two bunkers which even the artillery couldn’t penetrate. Nothing could shatter them. Even if the

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artillery hit them directly from above, nothing happened. Made with bags of cement stacked against each other. They were firing from inside these bunkers and wouldn’t let us advance. So how did you capture them in the end? I asked. We did, somehow. They teach you various strategies. We crawled along their own trenches. These trenches were about 25 metres away from the bunkers. We had already done a night reconnaissance and checked out how many bunkers there were and how many troops were in them. In this operation, we had to creep through their bunkers. There are mines everywhere. Sometimes you step on them. Your leg goes. A lot of people lost their legs. You have a few seconds to fire and capture the enemy. Sometimes you can see the mines. It takes days on end to remove all the mines. You can’t even find out how many were injured. Some guys died from the mines. It just depends on your time (velāva) doesn’t it? Several guys got the ‘heat.’ That means they start frothing at the mouth and they can’t speak. You have to give them saline. Not dextrose, only the saltflavoured one. You have to inject it into the body. Your whole body dries up. We attacked three days in a row. How many cadres did the LTTE lose? I asked. That I can’t say, he said. We went past the LTTE line. We went on the right and the left of the A9 highway. Those on the left captured the LTTE line and advanced forward. We were on the right column. We were unable to advance. We couldn’t go. The LTTE wouldn’t let us move forward. They fired at our armoured tanks, they attacked with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher (RPG-7) and one was hit and partly destroyed. So those of us coming on the right side of the A9, we just stopped there. Only those who were on the left went forward. Then suddenly, the LTTE had gone back to their old line, cutting us off. Now we were in front of them. They were in the middle (madi wela). The LTTE was back in their old line. So now when they attacked us, we couldn’t retreat. We stayed there for a while. Trapped. Then in the night, we sneaked back (horen panna). But how did you manage to do that? I asked. What we actually did, he said, was that we crawled up close to the LTTE bunker line in the night. We hid and watched for a chance. We had to wait one whole day and night. That day, there was absolutely no chance to jump, they were firing all the time. We had food. But we had absolutely no water. Only on the first day, we had water. On the second and third day, no water. There were small puddles of water everywhere. There were all sorts of organisms in it. You couldn’t drink it. Our whole unit was stuck there in the middle, about 500 guys. There was a commander and a NCO. In fact there

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were three units. The LTTE also had an equal number of cadres. About the same. That’s why we couldn’t do anything. There was no way we could fire our way out. We couldn’t act on our own (thani thirnayak bä). We had to do what they said. We could have offered suggestions though . . . . . . On that first day, though, we really thought we won’t be able to save ourselves. But I told the others, I’m not going to be caught by the LTTE. I’ll somehow escape and go home, I’ll not let them capture me. I won’t get caught. Even if it takes me ten years, I’ll find my way back home. Because you can come through Vavuniya, can’t you. Did you have a rough idea about the physical geography of the area? I asked, impressed. Oh yes, he said, confidently. I checked the map before we came. I’d been in these parts for around ten years now, hadn’t I? So I  knew the area well (hondata hurui). So on the first day we sneaked up to see if we could jump the bunker line. Because there was no point in one or two people jumping across, when there were 400–500 guys to go. On the first day, they were firing with artillery. At that point, they hadn’t stopped, they were firing continuously. Our chaps were also firing (from artillery and mortar positions in the SLA camps) and some of that fell very near us. Some of us who weren’t injured already, were wounded by our own artillery rounds. We did nothing. Because if we fired, they would locate our positions. We were all hiding. They knew we were inside this area. But they didn’t know exactly where we were. Was it a large area? I asked. There was about 500 metres from the LTTE’s first line to their second line. We were in this space. Half a kilometre of palmyrah palms. There were houses. They were destroyed by our artillery fire. Some houses had walls still standing, they were also coming apart. There were no roofs. Some of the buildings did provide some cover. Did the LTTE not come looking for you? I asked. No, he said. They were firing. Our guys were also firing. So no one was moving around because of the intensity of the firepower. Our guys were firing from behind the LTTE. They were aiming at LTTE positions between us and them. So sometimes it falls on us as well. So we have to contact them by radio and tell them not to fire there. So then they change their target again. They were consistently firing at the LTTE line, to distract them, and give us a chance to jump the line. But there was no way we could jump the LTTE line at that point. Because we don’t know where the artillery fire will fall, anyway. It’s the same noise all the time. On the third day, till around 3.30 am in the morning they fired constantly. Then they stopped for a while. That’s the moment we jumped.

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Why did they stop firing? I asked. Don’t know, he said. At the start, they were firing 100, 200 at a time. Later it was ten shots at a time. Every 15 minutes, they fire around ten shots. Then they stopped. We thought they had some problem, low ammunition or something. We had already crept up to their bunker line. No one had any water. If at least one person had any, we could share it out with the bottle-cap. But at times like that, you don’t even feel thirsty. In the nights it’s not hot. During the day, you’re too terrified to feel thirsty. Anyway, on the third day, after 12.00 p.m. in the night, even our artillery was less frequent. Then suddenly, there was a burst of multi-barrel fire. The LTTE abandoned their bunkers again. There were about two bunkers. You can’t see them in the night. But we heard the sound of them running. We had come very close to their bunkers. We jumped out. We were ready to fire if they returned suddenly. Everyone escaped. But four guys were injured by our own artillery. But Agnikheela didn’t work out, he said. Because we couldn’t even get to Pallai. We couldn’t hold on to their bunkers (at Muhamalai). They recovered their bunker line. Our guys were afraid, afraid that we wouldn’t be able to save ourselves. About two armoured tanks were destroyed. There was a lot of damage. There was nothing to be salvaged. A lot of guys died. That was the last operation done by the Army before the cease-fire. The LTTE also must have suffered losses – but we don’t know to what extent. In other operations, after the action is over, we clear how many bodies the LTTE has left. This time, there wasn’t time to do that.

In this account, Kshyamal describes how Division 55 reached the LTTE’s first defence line at Muhamalai – which was heavily secured – and the immense effort they made to work their way past it. There were two particular bunkers, he says, which were so formidable – because they were made of pure cement – that even SLA mortars couldn’t pierce them. In the end they had to by-pass these by crawling through trenches parallel to these bunkers dug by the LTTE themselves. The whole area was so heavily mined that they had already lost at least 250 men through death and injuries.6 Kshyamal implies that this seeming insouciance on the part of the troops had to do with the concept of velāva – or the notion that the time of one’s death is written in the stars and couldn’t be eluded. It was almost as if, when the danger was not visible – the mines could not be seen – one could suspend one’s disbelief that death lurked just beneath the sand. It was at this point that they were ambushed by the LTTE and their armoured tank disabled by RPG-7 fire. This shocks the troops and they become embattled. They cannot – on the spur of the moment – make the huge decision of whether or

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not to abandon such an expensive and potentially battle-changing vehicle. If they abandon it and it is seized by the LTTE, it could be repaired and deployed against them in future encounters. The LTTE makes use of this moment of vacillation. They return to their old line, effectively cutting-off the troops of 4GR and two other units from the rest of the division. They are now trapped in a palmyrah grove between the LTTE’s first and second lines. Then the shelling began. Kshyamal recalls his terror on that first day, at the crashing barrage of missiles coming at him from all directions. He really thought that this time, he would die. They had no water after the first day. The conditions were clearly hot. It should be remembered that it was exactly a year before – in the sweltering April conditions – that the Elephant Pass Camp finally fell. After the drinking water wells were siphoned off, hundreds of soldiers died of dehydration. In the first few hours of the Agnikheela advance, several soldiers had already begun to feel the effects of dehydration; their throats constricted, they couldn’t speak and they began to fall, frothing at the mouth. But as Kshyamal observes, once trapped in the palmyrah grove, they were simply too terrified to feel thirsty during the day. The adrenalin levels were such that they did not even register thirst. The nights – when the firing dies down in intensity – are cooler, so thirst was not such a problem. Unlike on previous occasions in which troops found themselves the target of spectacular artillery and mortar fire, this time three important factors were in place which held panic at bay. Firstly, they were still in radio contact with the SLA and remained so throughout the next three days. Secondly, one of the three trapped units included its commander as well as a NCO, and they seemed to have succeeded in keeping up troop morale.7 Kshyamal himself was a sergeant, and there is a suggestion that he felt somewhat marginalized since the CO concerned – in accordance with SLA leadership culture – worked mainly with his own NCO, but in the end he too seemed relieved that there was someone in charge. Thirdly, till the very end, SLA gunners refrained from using MBRLs because of the risk to their own troops in such close proximity to the LTTE, and the LTTE did not deploy them in this engagement at all. It was this CO then, who were directing SLA gunners – located at the Base Camp at Eluthumadduval – to shoot at this row of bunkers on the LTTE’s first defence line. They hoped to unnerve the LTTE fighters securing them, so that they would evacuate, enabling the troops to crawl through the LTTE line. He was providing what seems to have been accurate coordinates for LTTE targets. The LTTE was meanwhile firing into the palmyrah grove. The pounding and crashing of mortar and artillery at such close quarters remained deafening. In such a confined space, the CO’s precision in identifying grid coordinates to SLA gunners becomes very important. If inaccurate, their own men could be hit, which of course did happen more than once. Still, the fact that their own artillery was so often on target gave the trapped troops a feeling of hope, and a sense that a plan was in place. Troop morale was high because they could see that SLA artillery and mortar were still active on their behalf. This helped to push back bhaya – the debilitating sense of being engulfed

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by forces beyond ones’ control. Kshyamal himself concedes that they had to act collectively as a group because of the presence of this CO. They had to do as they were told, he says. The only spot from which the trapped troops could escape was the LTTE bunkers at the very edge of the pocket of land, away from the A9, described by Kshyamal as being made with pure cement and therefore very hard for artillery or mortar to penetrate. These were the two bunkers which they couldn’t access and had to by-pass by crawling through trenches. The LTTE were now keeping a close guard on the trapped troops from these two bunkers, since the rest of their defence line facing towards SLA camps was being constantly hit by SLA artillery and mortar. For the trapped troops, the long wait is wearying. The ferocity of firepower from all four sides of this palmyrah tract remained nerve-racking. Still, as Kshyamal’s narrative resumes, they seemed to have adopted a more can-do attitude day by day. Though as he implies this was done by the CO exerting tight control over troops, Kshyamal does not really seem to have resented it. It was probably this kind of control which created a context in which the troops, who had no water after the first day, did not attempt to drink the dirty and unhygienic water which stagnated in pools everywhere. Initially, Kshyamal is somewhat alienated by the leadership strategy and tells his comrades that if things don’t go according to plan, and they are not able to escape as a group, he would not allow himself to be captured by the LTTE. He would somehow attempt to find his way home through the Vanni jungles – even if it took him ten years. This comment then, was not pure bravado; he had taken the step of studying a map of the region and identifying possible routes through the jungles before the operation began. He was ready to take his life in his own hands, if need be. The prospect of being taken prisoner by the LTTE and being tortured was more terrifying than finding his way through 40 kilometres of snake-infested jungle. His intention was to escape by jumping across the bunkers at the end of the LTTE’s first line. The CO however, made it clear he was not interested in anyone making it out on their own, but was working on a plan to save everyone together. This was important because – as Kshyamal himself observes at the start – soldiers had different levels of ability and those who had had more schooling were more able to read maps and use their compasses to find their way through the jungle, or make inputs into identifying coordinates for artillery attacks. The CO wanted everyone to pull together. The CO contrived a strategy, in which at night, when visibility was low, the trapped troops would all crawl up to the LTTE’s bunker line, in the event of an opportunity arising to jump over, dispersing at dawn when visibility improved. This meant waiting it out night by night until the LTTE ran out of ammunition. It was a strategy which required much patience. But unlike the conduct of senior officers in previous campaigns, he is able to back up this strategy with a high degree of professionalism. He also conveys moral authority, by persuading the men of the importance of being disciplined in crisis conditions and looking out for each other.

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As each day passes, a stronger conviction emerges that if they are to overcome this situation, one or two soldiers escaping was of no use, all 500 men had to be saved. Kshyamal, who was so stunned by LTTE firepower in Unceasing Waves III, does not respond in the same way in this episode. The LTTE, of course, does not deploy MBRLs on this occasion. But though Kshyamal is still so stressed by the pounding, deafening sound of the gunfire that he does not even feel thirst, he no longer wishes to flee mindlessly. Instead, he works out a plan to find his way through the jungles. The troops on their part, have now incorporated certain night-time combat skills into their repertoire. They are less afraid of the dark. They are able to wait out the LTTE, the night fighters par excellence. Over the days, the intensity of the LTTE’s gunfire lessens. By the third day, the trapped troops themselves sense that the LTTE seems to be running out of ammunition. At this point the CO appears to have called for a round of MBRL fire targeting the key LTTE bunkers which the troops had to jump in order to escape. The SLA artillery initially decreases, keeping pace with the LTTE. Then suddenly a burst of MBRL fire hits the bunkers. Though it is so dark that they cannot see, they hear a flurry of activity as the LTTE fighters flee to escape SLA rockets. The SLA troops now had to synchronize their escape for this moment to get all 500 men out, and back through no man’s land to SLA-held terrain. They succeed. This phase of Agnikheela was not a military success. They could not take Pallai Junction and as Kshyamal points out, SLA troops failed to hold on to even the LTTE bunkers at Muhamalai; and two expensive armoured tanks were destroyed. But one year after hundreds of SLA soldiers died from dehydration when the LTTE siphoned off drinking-water wells, roughly 500 soldiers survived three days trapped without water in identical conditions, by focusing their minds on what was relevant – waiting for SLA gunners to take out the two key LTTE bunkers so that they could crawl through – and dismissing what was not – their terror and thirst. Still, this episode reveals the extent to which troops were reliant on forceful leadership. Their capacity to stay calm stemmed from the ability of the CO concerned to exert his will on the troops to push back bhaya. He never loses his professionalism or composure and gets the job done. But his was not a leadership of performative risk-taking.

Women combatants and non-combatants The LTTE did not escape lightly in this encounter; 1,466 fighters died, mostly from aerial bombardments and artillery fire (SLA 2003: 10). Of the gravely injured, female fighters surpassed casualty figures on a 3:2 ratio (UTHR-J 2001a: 14). The LTTE’s first defence line in Muhamalai was manned by around 250 ­cadres from their elite Charles Anthony and Sothiya Brigades (SLA 2003: 9). Their second line however, was held by both male and female fighters. Thus it would seem that troops were ambushed and subjected to sustained artillery fire for three days mostly by female cadres on the second line. This was part of a larger trend. The Elephant

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Pass battle also involved a significant female contingent (ibid. 2000a: 3). Similarly, the subsequent Ariyalai engagement had a substantial female presence. With prohibitive death rates among male cadres brought about by its all-consuming military strategies, it had become necessary to mainstream female participation into the LTTE’s fighting units. This heightened female involvement was not unlinked to the State of Exception that unrolled across the Tamil-speaking regions and its consequences for women and girls, combatants and non-combatants alike. This State of Exception itself unfolded with significant variations between SLA-occupied parts of the Peninsula and Vanni such as Vavuniya and LTTE-occupied Vanni areas of Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu. The situation in the LTTE-occupied Vanni remained stark. From the late-1990s onwards, the LTTE actively fostered the blurring of the line between combatants and non-combatants or civilians in order to force the latter to share the military consequences faced by the former (ibid. 1999 11). Civilians in the Vanni were largely those displaced from Jaffna in 1995 and subsequent military engagements, most of whom arrived with only what they could carry. Many of them drew from the agrarian proletariat in the Peninsula or had engaged in fishing and were now unemployed (ibid.: 9). This made them totally dependent on dry rations from the government distributed through the local branches of the island-wide Co-operative Wholesale Establishment (CWE) (ibid.: 3). The LTTE now informed CWE outlets in the Vanni that they should function solely under its direction (ibid.). Civilians would be entitled to receive dry rations only if they attended compulsory ‘self-defence’ training courses conducted by the LTTE. They would be issued with their rations only if the grama sevaka (local-level administrative official) certified that they had participated in such training courses. Civilians were divided into age groups and given training. Schools were likewise required to subject children over 13 years – irrespective of gender – to training, with armed LTTE recruiters threatening staff who refused to comply. Such schemes were expected to create a climate in which children could be induced to volunteer to join the LTTE, or at least acquiesce to being conscripted. However, a trend soon emerged where even impoverished parents began to hide their children from the LTTE’s armed recruiters. The LTTE responded by taking the parents concerned into custody, until their children ‘returned’ (ibid. 2001c: 2). But in the new millennium, even this trend seemed to be changing. For the first time, the middle-classes found themselves under pressure. Many had sent their children to safety in government-controlled areas or into hiding. They now faced the bitter resentment of neighbours who had had to give up their own children (ibid.: 6–7). Community connections began to fracture in the nihilistic climate fostered by the Tigers which castigated and even demonized any parent who tried to protect their children from having to die a horrendous death in the trenches. Those who refused to hand over teenage or pre-teen children had their property and assets in LTTE-held areas confiscated, effectively reducing them to the level of squatters on their own lands or vagabondage (ibid.: 2–5).

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Those who finally acquiesced to handing over their children were subjected to the further indignity of having to claim on video that they were giving up their daughters ‘wholeheartedly’ to the LTTE. These videos became a part of the LTTE’s propaganda portfolio for diaspora groups (2001c: 2–3). Such developments also created a tragic trend of parents whose children were forcefully taken attempting suicide (ibid.: 6). Parents such as these became devastated by suggestions – flung by anyone at all – that they had sacrificed their children to retain their properties. The easy availability of agrarian pesticides in most rural households makes suicide a viable option for those crushed by circumstances. Frequently the children concerned, unable to bear their parents being humiliated or taken into custody by the LTTE, returned from hiding and acquiesced to joining the LTTE. Most of the children still in school in their mid-teens were girls. The LTTE, as it was wont to, instilled into them the fear that if captured alive, they would be raped by troops (ibid. 2000: 13, 20; 2001a: 14). This dread was reinforced by the SLA’s own record of sexual violence against vulnerable women.8 It drove female combatants to fight with frenzied fury, trapped as they were into a situation in which there seemed no way out but death in the trenches. The LTTE’s violence however, was not sexualized. Against this, internally displaced persons (IDPs) from the SLA-occupied Peninsula and Vanni found Vavuniya to be a site of great insecurity and even greater disempowerment. While young men and boys were subject to physical assault, women and girls faced sexual violence, not only on the streets but even within the camp premises, and more than the Armed Forces, from Tamil ex-militant factions linked to them who roared down the roads on motorbikes looking for girls to pick up (ibid. 2009a: 28–31). This sense of pervasive insecurity did not prevail across the Peninsula. But, as argued above, a trend of rape – particularly against marginalized women – by members of the SLA and Navy who were rarely held to account did manifest itself. Muhamalai, 20 kilometres from Chavakachcheri, was also located in the highly urbanized Thenmaratchi Division. Though after the fall of Elephant Pass, the LTTE advance on Chavakachcheri was stopped at Sarasalai by the SLA, pushing them back involved the intensive shelling of the city from Palali, triggering the Thenmaratchi exodus of May 2000. Still, by this point, troops seemed to have built a certain rapport with the residents of Jaffna and Thenmaratchi. Civilians returning to pick up valuables left behind in the initial chaos of fleeing found the SLA generally helpful. A resident who buried some of his valuables in someone else’s garden on the spur of the moment before fleeing returned to collect them, and though the area had subsequently been booby-trapped and mined, the officer on site obligingly helped him to recover his jewellery and items such as his child’s clothes and infant food (ibid. 2000b: 14–15). In Chundikuli, soldiers stopping at a house to ask for water told the residents that they did not want to fight anymore and just wanted to go home. Similarly, soldiers went to every house on Stanley Road telling ­residents they were tired of fighting and were going back home (ibid.).

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All of this suggests that despite the SLA’s role as occupiers, at some point, in some neighbourhoods, relations between residents and troops were convivial enough to move soldiers to formally take their leave of them. This becomes a gesture of courtesy and an acknowledgement of having received some measure of hospitality that resonates across Sinhala and Tamil cultures. In other instances however, sections of the SLA are accused of conniving in the looting of commercial establishments (ibid. 2000b: 11). But it was looting by the LTTE, who loaded movables and livestock from houses in Thenmaratchi into tractors to sell in the Vanni, that embittered residents most (ibid.: 17). Thus the SLA’s indiscriminate shelling of Chavakachcheri did not in fact stem from their hostility to the city’s civilian residents. It signified rather, their greater sense of revulsion and terror (bhaya) at the prospect of a LTTE ground advance deploying mostly female combatants whose own dread of capture drove them to fight with manic fury. Consequently, any larger commitment troops may have had to Chavakachcheri residents was eclipsed by this deeper sense of trepidation. It pushed soldiers to suspend their disbelief that residents were LTTE activists, or even sympathizers, as they had themselves previously deduced from their dealings with them. When under direct fire then, the SLA sometimes responded less than professionally. Attacked by LTTE fighters from temples and other places of worship where civilians had been specifically asked to go to for safety, the SLA shelled such locations to eliminate LTTE gunmen they were convinced were positioned there (ibid. 2000b: 3). Even when they had just retreated from positions that were then taken over by the LTTE who began shelling from there, troops responded as if the civilians they knew were present at these locations had all suddenly and mysteriously been transformed into LTTE fighters. But, in an extraordinary development, despite the SLA’s horrendous shelling of such ‘safe spaces’, an overwhelming majority of civilians struggled desperately to reach SLA lines, rather than allow the LTTE to herd them into the Vanni, as happened in 1995 (ibid. 2000b: 3–11). Of the more than 100,000 persons who fled Thenmaratchi, tens of thousands left after the LTTE took control of their neighbourhoods (ibid.: 12). Many actively resisted the LTTE’s attempts to send them to the Vanni and crossed the No Man’s Land into SLA-held territory. This demanded an enormous effort, effectively walking into the line of fire, with many finding out later that neighbours and friends who began the journey with them had been cut down en route (ibid.). In this instance, Tamil civilians braved heavy shelling by the SLA, of a level of intensity that troops themselves found so hard to face from the LTTE in the Agnikheela encounter. The LTTE, on their part, had no desire to spare civilians. What they wanted was to move civilians to the Vanni, where they would be in a highly impoverished, disempowered state without their immovable assets and much of their movable effects either; unable to prevent their children from being conscripted and made to fight (ibid.). They persisted in shelling the SLA from positions close to civilian concentrations, knowing the SLA would retaliate.

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Concluding comments Though Agnikheela was aimed at recovering Elephant Pass, the SLA failed to even regain Pallai, which was the first phase in this effort. This was because the LTTE was very invested in not letting the SLA breakout of their barracks, virtually hemming in the main camps with defence lines in close succession. The Muhamalai FDL had become the most heavily mined tract of land in the island. In this SLA breakout, however, the LTTE lost more than 1,400 fighters, which attests to the accuracy of coordinates provided by trapped troops to gunners at SLA bases. Towards the end of Eelam War III, the SLA’s predicament became how to face the high-powered heavy weapons the LTTE had seized from their own camps. LTTE’s introduction of MBRLs into the conflict already raised the stakes. By the new millennium however, Division 55 had come a long way. Body armour helped to deal with the exponential intensity in firepower. The battle against bhaya – in terms of uncertainty, terror of the dark, fear of bodily pain and paralysis in the face of the crashing thunder and annihilating effects of MBRL fire – while still an ongoing one, had been pushed back for long periods. Other aspects of bhaya – such as the dread of angering superior officers – remained constant. But pushing back bhaya on the battlefield did not always demand performative risk-taking. Mental composure or the ability to disaggregate threat levels and deal with them successively also brought results. In the meantime, the LTTE had mainstreamed female participation into their fighting units. Many of those who fought in this operation were girls and women forcibly conscripted from the most impoverished families in the Vanni. Instilled with a fear of being raped if captured alive, they fought with manic fury. This in turn caused troops to dread having to confront this intense ferocity, even though in terms of embodiment, they were clearly bigger, stronger and frequently better armed. It was a different kind of bhaya; fear of disorder, hysteria and incipient madness. At the same time, the SLA also sensed that many sections of Jaffna society, used to a certain level of stability, retained ambiguities about the LTTE’s project. In the Vanni, high death rates and their voracious recruiting practices led to the buildingup of an enduring anti-LTTE sentiment. Tamil civilians across the board were equally antagonized by the conduct of anti-LTTE armed groups working with the SLA. Against this, the conduct of the SLA in the Peninsula sometimes seemed relatively restrained. Thus whenever the security situation began to deteriorate, Tamil civilians frequently chose to run towards SLA lines rather than allow the LTTE to herd them into the Vanni. The SLA realized this. Consequently, the SLA’s approach to Tamil civilians – who frequently had to face the same intensity of firepower that the LTTE and SLA confronted – took an almost schizophrenic aspect.

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Notes 1 Jeyaraj, Frontline, Volume 18, No 11, 26 May–8 June 2001. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 5 Dyed coconut refuse is widely used across South Asia to make decorative patterns on the floor on auspicious and festive occasions. Here this idiom is extended to sand-modelling for a very different purpose. But the use if such a cultural motif on occasions such as this would probably be received as auspicious by the troops about to go on difficult operations. 6 See Hindu, 9 September 2001: ‘Norwegian Peace Initiative’; Hindu, 24 April 2001. 7 Kshyamal does not name this commander, even though he clearly played a significant role in keeping troop morale high. 8 See UTHR-J 2001a: 3–5, 12–13; UTHR-J 2008: 2 and UTHR-J 2009b: 23.

10 THE FINAL VICTORY

Introduction The collapse of the abortive cease-fire agreement (2002–2006) subsequently led to Eelam War IV. Less than three years later, amazingly, the SLA won a resounding victory and the LTTE leader Prabhaharan and his entire top-level leadership were decimated. Sinhala-speaking groups celebrated. But like all outright victories, it was bought at a tremendous human cost, this time to Tamil-speaking civilians in the battleground Vanni districts, and many burning political, ethical and existential issues concerning civic freedoms remain unresolved. Many commentators see the key enabling factor in this final victory as the breakaway in 2004 of the LTTE’s Vinayamoorthy Muralidaran who fought under the nom de guerre Karuna. This was the first serious split of its kind in the LTTE. At the very least, the SLA no longer had to contend with his inimitable presence in the battlefield or that of his 6,000 fighters. The LTTE consequently confronted a critical manpower crisis throughout Eelam IV; its unity was shattered, and with it, the morale of ordinary cadres. But the SLA also made several strategic realignments during the CFA, which were key to its military success. This chapter will begin with the SLA’s strategic realignments and go on to describe the unleashing of Eelam War IV. Informed by the accounts of two soldiers who survived these events and the experiences of many civilians, it will describe the fall of Puthukuduirippu, the LTTE’s last bastion in the Mullaitivu district and the Puthumattalan Safe Zone, the LTTE’s last stand; and discuss the impact of these events on Vanni civilians.

The SLA’s strategic realignments The Ceasefire of 2002–2006, widely criticized for creating a window for the LTTE to smuggle in arms, in fact also allowed the SLA to make key strategic shifts that DOI: 10.4324/9781003362036-10

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enabled troops to incorporate a greater degree of risk-taking into their repertoire. It allowed the SLA to make a concerted effort to maximize all their staff, technical and technological resources in an all-round re-training programme (Gunaratne 2016: 510–515). This particularly benefitted Divisions 55 and 53. Firstly, a focused effort was made to enhance the capability of individual infantrymen by setting up a Special Infantry Operatives (SIOs) Course, which, among other things, identified and targeted the perennial weaknesses of SLA infantry: fear of the dark and anxieties about night-time combat (ibid.). The Commandos and Special Forces (SF) were co-opted as instructors for infantry troops (ibid.: 512–513). The Commando Brigade and the 53 Division’s Air Mobile Brigade, which were dedicated reserve units to support troops under heavy fire, were also given enhanced training at the Air Mobile Training Enclave in Eluthumattuval so that they could be effectively deployed on any location (ibid.: 500–513). Secondly, the painstaking efforts over the previous decade to build-up longrange reconnaissance patrols (LRRPs) that could penetrate up to 20 kilometres behind enemy FDLs had finally gained fruition by the new millennium (ibid.: 452). The SF operatives who comprised the LRRPs required up to 18 months of training, and the SLA continued to invest heavily in their re-training and performance enhancement programmes between 2002–2004 since it reaped such tremendous results (ibid.: 600). More importantly, it enabled the kind of reconnaissance activity required for the SLA to shift its strategy from capturing territory to targeting the LTTE leadership (ibid.: 602). Thirdly, the new SLA commander, Major-General Fonseka, devised a different procedure for the selection of Divisional and Brigade Commanders, which – finally – prioritized experience and ability over seniority (ibid.: 560–586). Though institutional cultures do not change overnight, this was an important shift. As Gunaratne – who at successive points commanded the Air Mobile Brigade and Divisions 55, 53 and 59 – observes, with the unleashing of the Eelam Wars, a new generation of infantry officers emerged who were ready to fight alongside their troops from the front rather than observing events from the sidelines, and for the first time their commitment was recognized (ibid.). This vindicated valour on the battlefield, instead of it being incidental to going up the SLA ladder. It enabled younger officers to model themselves on such officers rather than pursuing political connections for promotion. Lastly, and most significantly, under Major-General Fonseka, the SLA shifted from a largely attrition-based approach involving one or at most two fronts fought by entire brigades or divisions to one that incorporated manoeuvre warfare techniques (ibid.). Here the theatre of operation is divided into close, deep and rear operations. Close operations, as inferred, involve fighting at close range by infantry regiments and include sniper hits, artillery and mortar attacks and so on. Deep operations were of course carried out by penetrating deeper inside enemy territory and include LRRPs and small team operations, air strikes targeting enemy logistics facilities, munitions stores, training enclaves and so on, and are mostly carried out to support close operations. Here the enemy is attacked from the rear, undermined and sapped to the point that they are no longer able to sustain their frontline

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(ibid.: 603). Rear operations were mostly to secure one’s own rear from enemy strikes. Unlike in previous wars, the SLA also opened-up multiple fronts, responding to which created enormous manpower crises for the LTTE. By mid-2007, the new strategic shifts were already paying dividends. The East was once again under SLA control, and the LTTE’s territory was confined to the Vanni districts of Mannar, Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi, up to Elephant Pass. Consequently, the Muhamalai FDL once again acquired a renewed focus. Secured by Divisions 53 and 55, the Muhamalai FDL was used by the SLA to ‘fix’ the enemy, or rivet the enemy’s attention, draw their fire and absorb manpower, freeing the army to open-up other fronts across the Vanni (Gunaratne 2016: 595). Divisions 53 and 55, says Gunaratne, played their part with enthusiasm. Small teams of SIOs crawled through mine-infested terrain, defusing mines and inching forward to creep through the enemy FDL and attack them in the rear. They would frequently sneak inside LTTE bunkers, kill occupants and – despite the danger – drag the corpses back to their own line (ibid.: 630–631). When they learnt a corpse had been brought in, other soldiers would line up to see it (ibid.). Here again such operatives were able to add to their repertoire an ability to conduct covert strikes under the constant risk of death and discovery, which was in turn validated by the SLA community. But this validation also incorporated a specific practice of Sinhala masculinity; it entailed turning the enemy into a spectacle.

Unleashing Eelam IV Unleashed by the LTTE, Eelam War IV soon evolved into an offensive by the SLA to drive them out of the Eastern Province. This time, the SLA succeeded in raising its reconnaissance levels closer to that of the LTTE, with small groups of Commandos and SF operatives constantly infiltrating up to 20–30 kilometres into enemy terrain to collect intelligence, unleash surprise attacks and destabilize the LTTE even before actually engaging in battle (Gunaratne 2016: 611). SIOs were also deployed in small groups about 5–10 kilometres ahead of their battalions, playing a similar role (ibid.). Here groups within the SLA – Commandos, SF and SIOs – became adept at covert strikes, conducted under constant risk of discovery. This increased confidence and instilled a greater measure of composure, which, unlike in previous wars, enabled them to make the jungle their own habitat. The LTTE was reduced to clearing tree-cover around jungle roads to avoid being ambushed while travelling through. Intelligence provided by these groups enabled the Air Force and SLA artillery to accurately target LTTE camps and training enclaves. Such strikes, though, were not uncontroversial. This was not because of their inaccuracy. Thus in August  2006, the Senchcholai Girl’s Orphanage was hit in an airstrike conducted in the Mullaitivu jungles. Three LTTE instructors and up to 60 girls between 16-19  years were killed and a similar number injured. The SLA claimed that this ‘orphanage’ was an LTTE military training camp, which of course the LTTE denied. This episode was examined by the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). The Report of the OHCHR

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Investigation on Sri Lanka finally concluded that the LTTE had endangered these girls by forcing them to attend a weapons-training programme in a remote location next to military facilities (OHCHR 2015). Were those killed innocent teenagers or trainee combatants? Tragically, they were both. By this time, the LTTE’s conscription of women and children as fighters rendered the ‘innocence’ of Tamil civilians a very fraught issue. At this point in the war, while the SLA freely admitted that there was indeed an abstract category of persons who came within the definition of ‘innocent civilians’, in reality, they found it difficult to assign any but the very old, the infirm and the very young to this group. Further, the LTTE was now openly demanding that every family in the Vanni contribute a child for the ‘final battle’. This created a situation in which poorer families had at least one member in the LTTE. There is evidence that this made women and girls in such families vulnerable to sexual violence by soldiers (OHCHR 2015: 116–118). It would seem then, that soldiers – who did not really grasp the involuntary nature of conscription – became suspicious of women with any kind of link to the LTTE, and increasingly acted out their angers through sexual violence. Senior SLA officers, however, remained in denial about troops engaging in sexual harassment (ibid.: 118–119). Meanwhile, the LTTE was facing an internal crisis of seismic proportions. Subsequent to the breakaway of the Karuna faction, in 2006, more than 5,000 exfighters in the Vanni had – despite all threats and imprecations – refused to return to fight in the final war (UTHR-J 2008: 14). Consequently, the on-going manpower crisis remained unresolved, and by the end of 2007, the LTTE had been driven out of the East. The Vanni now became the main theatre of battle. By September 2008, the LTTE found itself – simultaneously – battling no fewer than five SLA fronts across the Vanni (Gunaratne 2016: 648). This created tremendous pressure. To consolidate their positions in Mullaitivu, over the next month they began vacating Kilinochchi (UTHR-J 2008: 13). But even as this was unfolding, the Sri Lankan government demanded that all international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) working in the Vanni withdraw their operations, on the grounds their security could not be guaranteed (Gunaratne 2016: 647–648). This left only the International Red Cross (ICRC) to deal with medical emergencies. The evacuation of INGOs weakened the position of internally displaced civilians desperate to prevent the LTTE from conscripting their children, by removing all potential sources of institutional support vis-à-vis the rebel’s ultimatums. Over the next month the LTTE, equipped with lists from the Grama Sevaka, was able to conscript up to 9,000 recruits (UTHR-J 2008: 7–15). Conscripts were initially given a week’s training, later three days, and towards the end simply shown how to shoot (ibid. 2009b: 3). The withdrawal of INGOs also pre-empted any possibility of the government creating credible safe zones for civilians in the larger villages, with INGOs serving as third party monitors. As the SLA edged closer to Kilinochchi, advancing along the western half of the Vanni, around 200,000 displaced civilians trying to escape the shelling found themselves herded into the north-eastern part of the Vanni (ibid. 2008: 2). In

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October 2008, the SLA, apparently oblivious of the LTTE’s evacuation, intensified their shelling. By this time, families constantly on the move to escape the shelling had stopped even putting-up tents and temporary shelters (ibid.: 6). On 2nd January 2009, the SLA’s Division 57 marched into Kilinochchi town, and days later Division 58 seized Paranthan (Gunaratne 2016: 652–661). Divisions 53 and 55 were finally given the green light to restart their attempt to take Elephant Pass, thwarted in Agnikheela. They once more battled their way through treacherous mine-infested terrain and succeeded in capturing Pallai on 8th January. On reaching Elephant Pass though, they found it evacuated (ibid.). The LTTE had now fallen back to Puthukuduirippu, their last bastion in the Mullaitivu district. By this time their elite units, such as the Charles Anthony Brigade, the Black Tigers and the Malathi Women’s Brigade, had been decimated and they were facing a serious shortage of artillery and mortar shells and even landmines (UTHR-J 2009c: 8). Their fighting units were increasingly comprised of new conscripts who were mostly waiting for a chance to run away (ibid.). The LTTE seemed in shambles.

Fall of Puthukuduirippu Then suddenly, on 1st February  2009, Division 59’s FDL south of Puthukuduirippu was subject to a shattering attack. Within hours, the SLA death toll was over 200 and rising. The LTTE had deployed one of their favourite tactics, letting the SLA advance for long stretches, exhausting themselves and then launching a sharp, debilitating attack (Gunaratne 2016: 660–661). SLA strategists were once again gripped by the fear that another uncontrolled collapse as in Jayasikurui could ensue (ibid.: 661–664). As events proved, such fears were not invalid. Unaware of the extent of the LTTE’s internal crisis, troop morale on the frontlines was at their lowest ebb (ibid.: 666). Major-General Gunaratne, then Commander of the elite Division 53, whose troops was already positioned in the adjoining jungles, was tasked with somehow bringing things under control (ibid.). The next day, a second attack followed on all four battalions on the SLA frontline, which resulted in the SLA losing around four square kilometres of territory. Still, despite the intensity of the firepower, troops stayed on course and did not flee, which was, for Gunaratne, an immense relief (ibid.). However, the following day being the eve of national independence – 4th February – he sensed an impending catastrophe. The LTTE obliged with an explosives-laden double-cab that hurtled at a tremendous speed towards the SLA’s eastern FDL in a suicide attack. It was brought down at the last minute by RPG-7 fire, but hundreds of LTTE fighters taking cover behind it hurled themselves at the FDL. The LTTE’s frontline suicide strikes – launched by Black Tigers before – now increasingly involved female fighters (UTHR-J 2009b: 3). A  simultaneous attack led by a main battle tank (MBT) seized from the SLA’s Pooneryn Base was unleashed on the northern FDL (Gunaratne 2016: 670). The intensity of this two-pronged attack shocked soldiers on the first FDL into once again abandoning their positions and fleeing (ibid.: 671).

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At the second FDL, however, SF and Commandos – fortuitously positioned behind a sandbank – somehow managed to execute the Division Commander’s order to corral the fleeing soldiers behind it, regroup and begin to fight back. This was a big moment. Though they faced several attacks over the rest of the night, says Gunaratne, and the death toll rose exponentially, they succeeded in fighting back each time (ibid.). At one point, Commandos manning the intersection between the northern and eastern FDLs were so desperate that they requested a round of MBRL fire 200 metres ahead of their own position (ibid.: 674). Since MBRL shells fall within a radius of 800 metres, this meant that their own troops could be hit, and they were. But the strike decimated the LTTE attack and the FDL held. The trend of troops fleeing in the face of suicide attacks, observes Gunaratne, came to an end after 4th February (ibid.). Finally, on 7th February, the LTTE made a last-ditch effort: they deployed a monster truck armoured with a 5-inch casing, carrying 18 suicide fighters. But this was also brought down by a providentially-positioned MBT (ibid.). As escalating civilian casualties created sharp international pressure, on 21st January 2009 the Sri Lankan government had declared a Safe Zone at Thevipuram, two miles north of Puthukuduirippu (UTHR-J 2009b: 7). The setting-up of safe zones became a hugely controversial issue, since the regime never sought the compliance of the LTTE before declaring them, even though they were always located in LTTE-held terrain (OHCHR 2015: 149). Thus, the LTTE felt no obligation to reciprocate by treating such spaces as safe zones. The SLA headquarters had equipped Gunaratne’s field operations room in Mullaitivu with a monitoring system that could capture real-time images of the battlefield and areas of civilian concentration through unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) (Gunaratne 2016: 681). This however, failed to avert the shelling of civilian spaces. The SLA advance into Puthukuduirippu received aerial support from the Air Force (SLAF), which shelled targets based on coordinates supplied by the SLA of what they said were LTTE installations and troop movements (ibid.: 683). This claim is challenged by at least three credible sources – the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights’ (ECCHR) Study on Criminal Accountability in Sri Lanka (2010), Amnesty International’s March 2009 Report and the OHCHR’s 2015 Report. These reports state that non-military targets such as Puthukuduirippu Hospital were repeatedly shelled; 21 people died on 28th January 2009 and nine people were killed in February (ECCHR 2010: 41; AI Index: ASA 37/004/2009: 4). Civilians further claimed that between 7th-10th February, MBRL shells fired by the SLA struck this hospital and a church, even though LTTE artillery positions were at least a mile away in the jungles, as verifiable by SLA UAVs (UTHR-J 2009b: 10). While, as mentioned earlier, MBRL shells do fall across an 800-metre radius, the onus was on the SLA – especially since they had the technology to do so – to check if civilian spaces could be hit. The SLA clearly suspected that LTTE fighters were among the gravely hurt casualties brought into the hospital. Still, injured and incapacitated fighters were not a valid military target. In fact, aerial bombing became such a pervasive feature that people learnt to ­discern the effects of different types of bombs, even coining terms for them

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(UTHR-J 2009c: 4). A Kaffir bomber tended to have six bombs. In its first run it dropped two 1000 kilogram bombs, known as ‘air shots’, which exploded in the air itself, killing those within a wide range. In the second run, two more bombs were dropped, which were called ‘delay shots’ and created craters 10–15 feet deep upon hitting the ground. On its final run, the last two bombs, known as ‘solid bombs’, were dropped, which exploded on contact with any being or object (ibid.). From 21st January onwards, the SLA also deployed cluster bombs, known as koththu kundu in the vernacular, which again signifies the extent to which locals were conversant with this phenomenon (ibid.: 2–3). Discharged high above ground level, shells released a cluster of about 80 little bell-shaped bombs which exploded on contact with the ground, spraying shards powerful enough to kill anyone within range. These shards were so combustible that, if embedded in the leg of a victim, the limb was amputated rather than risk the shard exploding during extraction (ibid.). Like the young SLA recruit learning to decipher different sounds on the battlefield then, civilians in the Vanni – with no corporal to get them down – also had to try to discern the minutiae of battlefield acoustics to survive. Even as the SLA’s advance caused a massive civilian exodus along the A35, its artillery continued to shell this highway. This compelled refugees with small children to avoid the A35 and walk through the jungles, carrying all their belongings in the midst of a monsoon, to evade MBRL fire intense enough to send the SLA’s own battalions fleeing (ibid. 2009b: 11). Ironically, even as thousands of civilians died by SLA shelling, the LTTE’s arsenal remained almost unscathed; in the end, only about four of the LTTE’s 25–30 long range and 25 medium range artillery pieces were damaged by SLA fire (ibid. 2009a: 13). SLA gunners, then, seemed to be losing control, firing in anger at ad hoc targets rather than following a planned scheme. As the UTHR-J observes, for civilians caught in the crossfire, it almost seemed as if shelling was the SLA’s way of telling them to move (ibid.: 16). Sometimes the LTTE also fired into civilian locations, to make people ‘suffer’ so that they would remain hostile to the SLA (ibid. 2009b: 6–7). The situation was deteriorating so fast that it was no longer possible to keep track of the dead (ibid.). From mid-January, as aerial bombing became a daily phenomenon, hospitals were not notified of the dead, who were buried as soon as possible, with minimal formalities (ibid.). Families, constantly on the run or in bunkers, sometimes had no time to cook, or found themselves shot at when they ventured outside their bunkers to try to put together a meal (ibid.). On 8th February, as the 58th Division advanced through the jungles towards Puthukuduirippu, the Safe Zone came under sustained shelling, causing enormous casualties (UTHR-J 2009b: 14). Subsequently, however, the SLA made announcements through loudspeakers asking people to come over to their lines. Around 20,000 people in areas from which the LTTE had evacuated did so. The SLA’s conduct on this occasion was lauded by civilians (ibid.). Soon afterwards, however, the Ministry of Health instructed all doctors and health personnel to leave LTTE-controlled territory (AI Index: ASA

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37/004/2009: 4–5). This seemed to signal plans by the SLA to intensify their shelling. Civilians consequently found themselves caught between warring factions. Finally, on 17th April, Division 58 linked up with Division 53 in a pincerlike move that trapped the remaining LTTE fighters in a coconut grove in the centre of Puthukuduirippu (Gunaratne 2016: 689–690). The next two days saw intense fighting. On 19th April, Puthukuduirippu fell. While SLA casualties were high, the LTTE suffered even more critical losses, with over 600 deaths, including that of senior leaders (ibid.).

Puthumattalan NFZ By 12th February, as the fighting in Puthukuduirippu escalated, the government had declared a new Safe Zone at Puthumattalan, which was then under LTTE control (ibid. 2009b: 15). This Safe Zone, ironically, became the site of the LTTE’s final stand. Puthumattalan is a narrow 8-mile strip, running parallel to the Vanni mainland, separated from it by the long Nandikadal lagoon. Its eastern shore faced the ocean. The LTTE had by now herded the entire civilian population of the Vanni, amounting to around 300,000, onto this tiny piece of land (Gunaratne 2016: 694). Three roadways – controlled by the LTTE – linked it to the mainland. A high sand barrier had been erected along the length of its western bank, with bunkers facing the mainland every 80 metres. This made it impossible for civilians, once inside, to escape the LTTE’s area of control. The SLA’s decision to invade Puthumattalan, then, revealed the degree to which the government had become alienated from its Tamil-speaking electorate and hence lacked real intelligence on the extent of the LTTE’s military debility. At this point, the LTTE was forcibly seizing girls 13–14 years old to make up their numbers (ECCHR 2010: 50). Untrained and untried, they died by the hundreds on the frontlines (UTHR-J 2009c: 7). Many military wing cadres who had themselves joined the LTTE to save their younger siblings from being forced to fight now found that even their families were not exempt from conscription. Such children, like other raw recruits, sometimes died within days of enlisting. Senior cadres fighting on the frontlines informed of the death of younger brothers and sisters became very distressed and demoralized (ibid.). The SLA, on its part, did realize that much of the LTTE’s territorial capability had been shattered, but they were unsure about the residual strength of the Black Tigers and feared the still unbroken capability of the Sea Tigers. Consequently, civilians became increasingly vulnerable. The government at this time did not allow sufficient stocks of food and medicine into the Safe Zone, citing the propensity of the LTTE to assume control of stores (ibid.: 3–6). The SLA openly distrusted the ICRC – the only INGO bringing in food and medicine – as being pro-LTTE (Gunaratne 2016: 694). The quantity of medicines reaching the Puttumattalan Hospital was totally inadequate to treat civilians injured by the SLA’s own missiles (UTHR-J 2009c: 4). Food was in such short supply that civilians faced the real prospect of starvation. Since the shelling was almost continuous,

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people sometimes found themselves spending two or three days inside their bunkers, with drinking water stores running out and despite desperate hunger, unable to come out to eat even if they still had dry rations (ibid.: 12). Further, the vexed issue of civilians constantly being caught in the crossfire between the SLA and LTTE remained unresolved. Gunaratne complains that the LTTE had positioned its entire arsenal, including artillery, mortars and machine guns, among the civilians, while the SLA could not deploy its air power because of the presence of ‘innocent civilians’ (Gunaratne 2016: 694–695). The LTTE did have trucks with mounted guns that fired at SLA positions and immediately reversed near civilian shelters. But they also had stationary mortar positions within the Zone, which civilians avoided (UTHR-J 2009c: 11). Despite its much-vaunted UAV-based surveillance capability, the SLA’s artillery never seemed to have succeeded in taking out either. Instead, shells invariably fell on heavily populated locations (ibid.: 11). Even more inexplicable was the constant small arms fire by troops on civilians, including small children (ibid.). Sometimes it seemed as if the SLA deliberately fired at civilian targets. On 8th April, mothers with very young children were asked – through loudspeaker announcements audible to surrounding SLA positions – to assemble at the primary care centre of the Puthumattalan Hospital with their children to receive packets of powdered milk. Subsequently three shells struck those in the queue, killing several persons, including small children. Witnesses to this incident also saw a surveillance UAV flying overhead (ibid.: 13). This suggests that with or without the concurrence of commanding officers, some SLA gunners were intentionally targeting civilians. Alternately, some SLA commanders appeared to share the inability of troops to distinguish between civilians and rebel fighters in uniform or were willing to turn a blind eye to the shelling of civilian spaces simply to assuage troop anxieties and build-up their confidence. On 18th April, initially the SF, Commandos and Division 58 waded across the lagoon and entered Puthumattalan. The LTTE targeted them from bunkers on the sandbank, and troops sustained a high death toll (Gunaratne 2016: 696). Finally, they captured a few sections of the sandbank and broke them down, enabling civilians – desperately struggling to reach SLA lines – to escape through the gaps. Division 55 advanced from the north across Chalai, opening-up another exit for civilians. On 9th May, Division 53 entered through marshland about two kilometres south of Division 58 and captured another section of the sandbank. This surge of civilians trying to cross over to SLA lines, as expected, enraged the LTTE. The SLA states that civilians running towards their positions were brutally gunned down by the LTTE (ibid.). This is in fact corroborated by sources within the Safe Zone, who affirm that the LTTE shot at civilians who were trying to escape (ECCHR 2010: 45). A school principal is quoted as saying that he estimated that up to 25% of the civilian casualties in the Safe Zone were caused by the LTTE actively shooting at people fleeing (ibid.: 47). At the same time, some Commandos risked their lives wading into the lagoon to help injured civilians fleeing LTTE fire (UTHR-J 2009a: 14).

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But despite the bravery of such soldiers, the SLA’s advance into the Zone and the subsequent heavy shelling of the north-eastern shore facing the ocean caused many civilian deaths and compelled refugees to crowd themselves into a two-mile strip of land in the southern half (ECCHR 2010: 37). The school principal also mentioned that a doctor at the Puthumattalan hospital always pronounced all deaths as due to shelling even if they were caused by bullets. This is significant because shelling implicated the SLA, whereas bullets meant victims were shot by the LTTE; by this point in the war, the distinction between wounds from shelling and from bullets was clear even to civilians (ibid.: 48). Over the next weeks, up to 200,000 civilians began to arrive at entry points manned by Divisions 53, 55, 58 and 59. The SLA made no attempt to move further into the Zone or confront the Black Tigers. The Black Tigers themselves were at this time deployed to provide security for senior LTTE leaders, desperately blowing themselves up when troops came too near (UTHR-J 2009d: 8–9). Troops responded to such explosions by shelling civilian spaces, causing enormous casualties. Between 9th-10th May, the Zone’s Mullivakkal Hospital was shelled; 430 died within its premises, and together with more than 500 bodies in the surrounding area, the total death toll comprised of around 1,000 (ibid.: 7–8). It was during this time that the LTTE also began gunning down escapees (ibid.). The LTTE themselves endured prohibitive levels of injuries and deaths. Early on the morning of 16th May, they brought out hundreds of blinded and critically hurt conscripts, many of them very young girls, and left them on the sides of the road near the southern end of the Zone. They hoped the government would finally give the ICRC clearance to pick up the gravely injured (ibid.: 15). This did not happen. By evening they were still there, unable to move, sobbing in pain and hopelessness. In the early hours of 17th May, the Sea Tigers – tightly hemmed in by the Navy patrolling the eastern coast – made a final break for the Vanni jungles. About 30–40 boats hurtled at very high speeds towards the west bank of the Nandikadal lagoon, shooting at positions held by Division 53. Troops counterattacked. But they could not target the boats with any precision due to their speed. As soon as the boats reached the bank, fighters leaped out and waded towards the shore. Subsequently six speeding suicide crafts came towards the bank, passed the returning attack-boats and crashed into the bunkers along the bank, blowing them up. Several soldiers died, but reserve troops stepped in to cover the gaps in the FDL (Gunaratne 2016: 714). A second wave of fighters in attack boats followed soon after. In the furious and bloody melee that ensued, the SLA finally prevailed. Vastly outnumbered, Probhaharan, his senior leaders and their Black Tiger security cadres were all in the end slaughtered (UTHR-J 2009d: 18). Around 600 bodies were subsequently recovered (Gunaratne 2016: 715). Gunaratne states that after 15th May, the continuous flow of civilians within the Zone to SLA positions ceased (ibid.: 711). Witnesses from the Zone, however, report that by the evening of the 17th, up to 35,000 civilians still remained inside (UTHR-J 2009d: 16). They were mostly those with small children or with crippled or critically injured dependents with mobility issues who couldn’t make it

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outside. They huddled in bunkers amid the continuous shelling until 19th May (ibid.: 21). Over the next two days, 1,400 injured persons were transported to the Padaviya Hospital and 29,000 civilians to Chettikulam Zone 4 (UTHR-J 2009e: 2). Therefore, when the Sri Lanka government stated on the 17th afternoon that there were no more civilians in the Zone, at least 31,400 civilian - not accounting for those killed in the shelling - remained within (ibid.). More troubling by far, however, are accusations in the OHCHR report – supported by video and photographic evidence – of sexual violence and the desecration of the dead bodies of female fighters in LTTE uniform, during the final days (OHCHR 2015: 70). Videos – seemingly taken by soldiers themselves on their cell phones – show them leering over the dead bodies of women, all of whom had their clothes torn off, exposing their genitals and breasts (ibid.). Some were still handcuffed. They were turned into a spectacle. Male combatants did not fare very much better, but their bodies were not subjected to the same degree of sexual degradation. In the end, the fears of young female fighters were realized.

Concluding remarks Clearly, the SLA’s strategic realignment did enhance infantry troops’ risk-taking skills in Divisions 55 and 53. Mentoring by the Commandos and SFs also seemed to have enabled them to heighten performance levels. And although troops had anxieties about dealing with female fighters on the battlefield, they were learning to manage their disquiet. The manic frenzy with which such female cadres fought seemed to out-perform even the most risk-taking measures adopted by troops. But they discover that if gunners kept their composure, pick-ups loaded with explosives could be brought down by RPG-7 fire and monster suicide trucks could be brought down by MBTs. However, by the Puthukuduirippu confrontations, the Black Tigers were largely decimated and the LTTE had to substitute female fighters for their suicide operations. This created a sense of embattlement in SLA troops, who turned back and fled. They had to be corralled in by Commandos and compelled to regroup and fight back. But they somehow did so. By late-April, the LTTE adopted an even more extreme policy of inducting young and sometimes pre-pubescent girls onto the battlefield, which created an explosive situation for SLA troops as well as the girls themselves. For troops, the presence of such young girls on the battlefield blurred the already unclear line between Tamil civilians and LTTE fighters that they had come across in previous encounters. It created the impression that everyone, even young children, were already or potentially armed fighters and should be shot at and destroyed. Consequently, the aerial bombardments of sites such as hospitals were seen as valid on the grounds that the LTTE brought in injured fighters, many of whom were conscripted children. As with previous female fighters, the LTTE made them believe that if captured they were likely to be raped by SLA soldiers, creating a

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kind of hysterical fanaticism that in turn generated deep animosity among the SLA. Thus, in death, troops turned them into exhibits, acting out the time-honoured practice of lesser masculinities. Tamil civilians, on their part, made endless efforts to protect their children from the LTTE by trying to hide them, frequently without success. The incessant aerial bombardments and shelling created a pervasive environment of terror that made the experiences civilians had to undergo comparable to what the new recruits to the SLA did on the battlefield. They still struggled desperately to reach SLA lines. But in the end, they were betrayed by the SLA’s fear of the Black Tigers they didn’t know were long gone and the suicidal capability of the Sea Tigers, which created such a sense of embattlement in the troops that they could no longer differentiate between combatants and non-combatants. Learning to risk-the-body, then, did not in itself eliminate bhaya, but merely pushed it back for long moments.

11 CONCLUSION

Clearly, notions of hegemonic masculinity – whatever their origins – do not always remain a strategy for subduing women. They often become powerful tools through which adversaries – defined by class, creed, race or ethnicity – may be undermined through their discursive emasculation. Consequently, West European occupations in Asia, Africa and Latin America frequently deployed European notions of martial masculinity to impugn the manhood of native groups, castigating them as either languorous, effeminate or hyper-virile and thus lacking. The colonized, on their part, constantly struggled to incorporate aspects of the colonizers’ repertoire into their own. While this was achieved with relative ease in the social, economic and political realms, on the battlefield it became an increasingly fraught project. This of course, has to do with codes of valour, a key aspect of hegemonic masculinities everywhere. But valour unfolds in more ways than one. The code of valour that defined West European hegemonic masculinity then, entailed imperilling oneself for God. In late-medieval Europe, codes of honour honed through endless holy wars built on a specific notion of valour that involved risking-the-body in one-to-one armed combat. Its resilience lay in that the ideal of fair play which underwrote this code – even if not always upheld in practice – was acknowledged by warring nobilities across Europe, extending even to Saracens and Moors. Victory in combat revolved on the extent of skill, perfected through constant practice. As the level of skill improves, the ability to gauge where each blow will land grows. This creates confidence in the possibility of victory, which in turn develops valour. Further, since he is imperilling himself for God, the knight did not fear the unknown, crossing unchartered seas and unmapped lands. He believed unflinchingly that God was on his side against all adversaries, who by definition, become opponents of God. Codes of honour, of course, did not apply to foot soldiers or non-hegemonic masculinities who, armed with halberds and pikes, played a defensive role. This DOI: 10.4324/9781003362036-11

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changed with the advent of firearms, which shifted the focus from cavalry to linear formations in infantry. It was now possible for infantry to engage in complex tactical manoeuvres. But this demanded constant drilling and repetitive practice, which called for a harsh disciplinary ethic. In a parallel development, the advent of biopolitics in the late-17th century witnessed the emergence of establishments such as public schools, industrial workshops and military corps, which generated disciplinary codes that were internalized by cadets, who then began to regulate themselves. Products of such institutions tended to acquiesce to all forms of official authority. But this phenomenon was also accompanied by developments such as adult literacy and mass education which, paradoxically, instilled citizens – including foot soldiers – with a sense of their civic rights. At the same time, advances in artillery and mortar technology rendered cavalry increasingly irrelevant. Openings for the nobility became confined to officer corps in infantry regiments. This removed risking-the-body from their repertoire and confined their role to disciplining enlisted men. Such disciplining became a means of venting officers’ energies under the guise of ‘honour’. It increasingly entailed violence. The task of risking-the-body now fell to enlisted men. But imperilling-the-body unfolds in more ways than one. In the pre-colonial Sinhala hegemonic convention of the composed body, valour implied a refusal to flee in the face of danger or death, meeting it instead with composure. This posture stemmed from the belief that the moment of death is preordained and cannot be averted. Still, acting-out this convention on the battlefield becomes enormously problematic, particularly for lesser masculinities who have to overcome their fear of hegemonic groups as well as fear of danger (bhaya) and build composure. What mostly unfolded in the battlefield therefore, was the practice of marginal groups such as mercenaries, marauders and rogues who bloodied their hands on behalf of their betters. This took the form of all-against-one assaults that fell upon the foe with overwhelming numbers, reducing him to a public spectacle. Valour did not signify. In colonial Ceylon, the British likewise practiced terror-as-spectacle. In 1817, redcoats pursuing rebels find an edict by a Pretender commanding his followers to kill all white men. They are enraged by this challenge to their military hegemony by crossbow-wielding rebels and lash out, slaughtering thousands of ordinary peasants and ravaging the land in an attempt to terrorize the natives into acquiescence. This trend continued to be acted-out in the next rebellion and the Sinhala–Moor conflict; in other words, at moments when the colonizers felt that their code of manliness – exemplified by the British Army – was being challenged by native groups who – in terms of attributes such as embodiment – were short, slight and non-white, all of which seemed to somehow render them less manly. Consequently, their response was wildly ­incommensurate to the levels of threat posed. British colonialism brought with it a missionary-based public education system, which exemplified the unfolding of biopolitics in the colonies. The disciplinary code of this system demanded loyalty to the missionary enterprise and its notions of truth as well as to codes of manliness embodied by the missionaries. To those who

260 Conclusion

enlisted, this code appeared to capture elements of the convention of composure. It delineated a clear path of upward mobility through attaining greater composure. However, the missionaries’ subsequent manoeuvring of the disestablishment of Buddhism sparked a great Buddhist resurgence, followed by other faith groups. This saw the setting-up of Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim schools on the British public-school model, teaching in English. The products of such schools remained loyal to the colonial government, but retained their own religio-cultural ethos, including hegemonic conventions. In British times, they looked askance at those natives who joined the CDF, which repressed them and seemed to them to signify the mindless aggression of marauding strata. But in the post-colonial phase, it was cadets from these schools who fought with the SLA in the Eelam Wars. At independence, the CDF became the Ceylon Army, whose institutional code still turned on Victorian tenets of manliness. But in subsequent decades, a surge of nationalism saw it transformed into the Sri Lanka Army. The process of Sinhalization which ensued began to inflect its institutional culture. While the virtues of manliness were still valued in terms of embodiment, Sinhala hegemonic conventions began to overlay institutional norms. Leadership criteria favoured seniority over merit. Deference to superior officers was elevated to cult levels. This trend was further consolidated by the new influx of cadets from Buddhist-founded schools who were already instilled with values of deference to authority (bhaya). The Eelam Wars brought about a crisis in this internal culture. Despite attempts to shrug off Anglicization in the motifs and language of medals, awards of honour still demanded high standards of valour in combat. Military strategy was framed on notions of enlisted men risking-their-bodies on frontal assaults while superior officers confined themselves to ordering assaults. For enlisted men, this required ­overcoming bhaya in the battlefield, while retaining it in terms of the fear of ­angering superior officers. Consequently, strategists in the High Command, who sometimes had themselves never been tested on the frontlines, devised plans that troops struggled to act-out. This placed a great burden upon junior leaders, who strived to instil confidence into troops in an institutional setting which constantly sapped the recruit’s sense of self-worth. This entailed strenuous training regimes that attempted to build-up the recruit’s ability to push back the threshold of pain, until a feat that before seemed full of risk now became ‘normal’. But it was only under enemy fire that the soldier learns what aspects of what he was taught works on the battlefield and sketches out his own survival strategies. In the mid-1990s, however, the battlefield itself began to change, as the LTTE started introducing new kinds of combat and combatants. Consequently, soldiers already struggling to act-out the code of risking-the-body discover that the LTTE’s new strategy made even this seem ineffectual. They become embattled and like the British before them, find themselves acting out trajectories that were wildly incommensurate to the levels of threat posed. This process initially began with the LTTE inducting suicide corps into the battlefield. Consequently, the SLA’s most impregnable defences suddenly became

Conclusion  261

vulnerable. Waves of Black Tigers with explosives strapped on to their bodies were able to break through defences by crawling up to them and blowing themselves up. The shocked troops have only minutes to get their heavy weapons into position and cannot do so. They become embattled and begin to flee, abandoning their posts. Here the code of risking-the-body is totally undermined by the Black Tigers’ more extreme practice of sacrificing-the-body, the spectacular violence of which snatches away agency from the troops. The LTTE also set-up their Leopards Unit to induct child soldiers onto the battlefield. Such children were brutalized. They were trained to decapitate gravelyinjured and dying soldiers with scythes, acting-out the practice of emasculating the adversary by turning him into a spectacle. Witnessing Leopards slit the throats of their comrades, soldiers are consumed with dread and become embattled. They find themselves shooting wildly, blindly, engaging in orgies of violence, and cannot later recollect what they actually did. With prohibitive death rates diminishing the number of male recruits, the LTTE began inducting women combatants onto the battlefield. For such women, taking up arms entailed being dirty and dishevelled through living rough. For the troops this becomes tantamount to a refusal of their sexuality; a statement that they did not see the soldiers as men – whose validation they needed – but only as faceless, hateful enemies. Further, even as SLA soldiers struggle to incorporate risking-thebody into their repertoire, female fighters appear to have done so anyway. Living in the jungles and fending for themselves in difficult conditions, they seem to have overcome their bhaya. On the one hand, the very presence of female combatants on the battlefield blurs the line between combatants and civilian Tamil women. On the other, the refusal of sexuality that taking-up arms signified in fact made Tamil women who were not armed seem sexually accessible. In the final war, facing a critical manpower shortage, the LTTE took two more desperate steps. Firstly, they introduced female fighters to fill vacancies in the Black Tigers. Consequently, the ambiguities troops retained towards female fighters intensified, and the dread and anger they felt at suicide assaults now began to be generalized against women fighters and Tamil women at large. In the last months of the final war, the conscription of very young girls ensued, who - like older girls before them - were instilled with the fear that they would be raped if captured alive. They therefore fought frenziedly. The image of very young girls and boys with guns created the impression among some sections of the troops that Tamil civilians as a group, including young children, were likely at any moment to take up arms against them and should be eliminated. The SLA’s long occupation of the Jaffna peninsula enabled them to develop a certain rapport with Tamil civilians. Set against the starkness of conditions in LTTE-occupied Vanni, this created an extraordinary phenomenon in which Tamil civilians struggled desperately to reach SLA lines rather than allowing themselves to be herded into LTTE terrain. Thus the SLA’s relentless shelling of such civilian targets, including small children, becomes inexplicable except as an instance of embattled SLA gunners acting-out their rages against young girls and boys seen

262 Conclusion

as potential LTTE recruits. It also becomes a means of sustaining troop morale after military set-backs and assuaging their anxieties about future encounters. Thus, whenever subjected to devastating suicide attacks by the LTTE, SLA troops became embattled and engaged in the mass shelling of civilians. Learning to risk-the-body, then, is not in itself sufficient to retrieve one’s honour. As the West European colonial projects revealed, it never precluded dishonourable conduct. If leadership is not sufficiently professional, takes petty revenge on subordinates, does not value risk-taking in enlisted men but takes it for granted, only abusing them when they fail, the corresponding sense of embattlement among subordinate ranks is not simply a Sinhala predicament. In an age of globalization, the battlefield juxtaposes warring factions with divergent practices of masculinity against each other. Consequently, the soldier frequently finds himself in distant battlefields confronting local practices of masculinity that are outside his cultural repertoire. They are beyond his ken. They exemplify notions of valour that are at odds with his own practice and seem to diminish or deride it. This challenges his manhood and creates a sense of bodily embattlement. Attempting to retrieve his honour, he finds himself – sometimes involuntarily – acting out his rages in a series of moves that emerge as a kind of hyperbolic version of what the trajectory of his valour should have been. Thus the ISIS fighter launches suicide attacks on American soldiers because their very secularity is outside his compass. They are not men of God. This persuades him that – despite their huge, heavy bodies – they are lacking in manhood. A  critical aspect of his code entails a misogynistic view of the role of women, which for him is ordained by God and which the permissive West does not uphold, rendering them amoral in his eyes. He attempts to prove his Godliness and valour by killing infidels in spectacular suicide assaults and dying for God. Similarly, in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US soldier engaged in the mass shooting of civilians in the wake of suicide attacks because his manhood/honour is challenged by the bomber’s practice of sacrificing-the-body, which trivializes his own code of risking-the-body. The bomber is dead and beyond the wrath of the soldier who imagines that the watching civilians – who are small, dark, non–Anglo-Saxon non-persons while he is 6’4” – are silently deriding his valour/manhood and the ineptitude of his huge, unwieldy/unmanly body in the face of suicide assaults. Finally, the Israeli soldier shoots stone-throwing Palestinian children because the adult-like depths of their civic rage unnerve him. As children, they do not have an adult understanding of death and its finality. They are accusing adults in children’s bodies, and their bodily courage in the face of his superior weapons challenges his own manhood. He is equally embattled.

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INDEX

Note: Page numbers in italic indicate a map on the corresponding page. Abeyasinghe, Tikiri 42, 49 adult franchise 82 – 84, 88 adventurous masculinity 171, 224, 258 – 262; and combat training 136, 150 – 151; and motifs of masculinity 20 – 22, 28, 46 – 47, 53 – 54; and Victorian manliness 70, 87; and youth uprisings 108 – 114; see also masculinity; practices of masculinity aerial bombardment 231 – 232, 244; background 232 – 233; Operation Agnikheela 233 – 240; women combatants and non-combatants 240 – 243 Agamben, Giorgio 3, 8 – 12, 18, 27, 63 agrarian production relations 38 – 42 alcoholism 99 – 101, also see Temperance Movement Ananda (narrator) 128 – 129; combat training 130 – 133; platoon as family 148 A9 highway, battles over 173 – 177, 192 – 193, 195 – 196, 218 – 220, 232 – 235; and divergent masculinities 183 – 184, 189; marching up the A9 178 – 182 anti-Tamil violence (1956, 1958, 1977, 1983) 85 – 86, 88, 109, 114 – 120 April Uprising 92, 95 – 98

Arjuna (narrator) 198 – 199; Watershed II 200 – 203 Asela perahera 42 – 44 āthma-visvāsa 39, 45, 73, 108, 113, 129, 139 bhaya 257, 259 – 261; and combat training 127 – 129, 133, 137, 139 – 140; and motifs of masculinity 39, 41, 45 – 46; and Victorian manliness 70, 72, 74 – 75; and youth uprisings 94, 121 – 122, 125; and Unceasing Waves III 223, 225; and Operation Agnikheela 238 – 240, 243 – 244 biopolitics/biopower 8 – 12, 18, 19n7 – 8, 26 – 27, 53 – 55, 57 – 58, 68 bodily deference 17, 45 – 46, 54, 95, 122, 149; see also läjjā-bhaya bodily quietude 20, 39 – 41, 54 body, the see bodily deference; composed body; embodiment; imperilled body; risking-the-body bourgeoisie see native bourgeoisie Buddhism 60 – 62, 65 – 70, 76 – 77, 82 – 88; and agrarian production 38 – 42; Buddhist revival 71 – 75 Butler, Judith 3, 6 – 7, 18, 22, 25 – 26, 93 – 94

Index  271

CDF (Ceylon Defence Force) 76 – 77, 82 – 83, 88, 95, 98, 260 Ceasefire of 2002 – 2006 246 – 247 Ceylon Army 58, 82 – 84, 86 – 88, 96, 260 Chaminda (narrator) 198 – 199; Unceasing Waves III 204 – 216 chandiya 95, 106, 111, 118, 120 – 122, 125 child soldiers 155 – 156, 169 – 171; attack on the Mullaitivu camp 156 – 159; Operation Sathjaya 159 – 169 cinema 108 – 111 class struggles 84 – 87 Colebrooke-Cameron Reforms (1833) 65 – 68 combatants see child soldiers; female fighters combat training 127 – 128, 129 – 134, 150 – 153; confronting the Stallone icon 134 – 136; discipline and punish 146 – 150; learning valour on the battlefield 136 – 145; narrators 128 – 129 commercial visual media market 116 – 118 composed body 53 – 58, 87 – 89, 259; and adult franchise 82 – 84; and the Asela perahera 42 – 44; Buddhism and agrarian production relations 38 – 42; and class struggles 84 – 87; and the Colebrooke–Cameron Reforms (1833) 65 – 68; and combat training 148 – 150; and Dutch Republic 29 – 31; and England 33 – 37; and France 31 – 32; and the great rebellion (1817–1818) 62 – 65; and hegemonic masculinity 44 – 46; and the Kandyan wars 58 – 62; and the Matale rebellion 68 – 71; and the native bourgeoisie 71 – 75; and Portugal 28 – 29; and shaming rituals 46 – 47; and Sinhala conventions of masculinity 37 – 53; and the Sinhala–Moor conflict (1915) 76 – 82; and Unceasing Waves III 204, 223; and West European incursions 47 – 53; and West European militarism and masculinity 20 – 37; and youth uprisings 102, 108, 117 Connell, Raewyn 3 – 12, 20 COs (commissioned officers) 33, 35, 83, 137, 151, 189 CPSL (Communist Party of Sri Lanka) 92

cultural repertoire 6 – 7, 18, 22 – 23, 57, 93 – 96, 124, 262 CVF (Ceylon Volunteer Force) 83, 86 Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen 10, 31 deference: bodily 17, 45 – 46, 54, 95, 122, 149; to seniority 149; see also läjjā-bhaya De Silva, C.R. 38 – 44, 48 – 52, 59, 65 – 68, 73 – 75, 110 discipline 146 – 150 divergent masculinities 183 – 191 DJV (Deshapremi Janatha Vyaparaya) 119 – 120, 122 Dudink, Stefan 24, 27, 30 – 32 duel of honour/point de honneur 22 – 23, 46 Dutch Republic 29 – 31 Dutu Gemunu 1 – 3, 19n4, 56n13, 98 economic crisis 97 – 102 electronic media 108 – 111 Elephant Pass, battles over 154, 156, 159 – 160, 175, 231 – 232, 238 – 244, 248 – 250 embattlement 2, 184 – 185, 192, 224 – 226, 256 – 257, 260 – 262 embodiment 4, 6 – 7, 36 – 37, 58, 112 – 114, 125 – 126, 259 – 260 England 31, 33 – 37, 87 ethnic conflict 84 – 87, 91 – 92, 114 – 116, 122 – 126; and academics and sports 112 – 114; the April uprising and its repercussions 96 – 97; economic crisis, poverty and hunger 97 – 102; fraternal bonds and bonds of friendship 102 – 108; and the July Uprising 118 – 120; and media 108 – 111, 116 – 118; and narrators 92 – 93; performance and cultural repertoire 93 – 96; and spectacular violence 120 – 122 FDL (forward defence line) 157, 167, 232 – 233, 244, 248, 250 – 251 female fighters 173 – 176, 192 – 193; and divergent masculinities 183 – 191; and narrators 176 – 182 firepower as spectacle 220 – 222 Foucault, Michel 8 – 12, 18, 19n7 – 8, 150; and motifs of masculinity 26 – 27, 35; and

272 Index

Victorian manliness 57, 67, 72, 88; see also biopolitics France 27 – 33, 47, 63 – 64 fraternal bonds 102 – 108 French Revolution 4, 10, 27, 32, 37, 87 friendship, bonds of 102 – 108 GR (Gajaba Regiment) 92, 196, 207 – 208, 217, 223, 225 great rebellion (1817–1818) 62 – 65 hegemonic masculinity 20, 29, 36 – 39, 44 – 46, 51 – 55, 171, 223, 258; and militarism 3 – 12, 17 – 18; and Victorian manliness 60, 67, 88; see also masculinity high school education 112 – 114 honour 21 – 28; see also duel of honour/point de honneur 22 – 23, 46 hunger 97 – 102 icons: of adventurous masculinity 108 – 111; of masculine violence 116 – 118; movie 108 – 111; see also Schwarzenegger; Stallone ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) 177, 249, 253, 255 imperilled body 53 – 55; and the Asela perahera 42 – 44; Buddhism and agrarian production relations 38 – 42; and Dutch Republic 29 – 31; and England 33 – 37; and France 31 – 32; and hegemonic masculinity 44 – 46; and Portugal 28 – 29; and shaming rituals 46 – 47; and Sinhala conventions of masculinity 37 – 53; and West European incursions 47 – 53; and West European militarism and masculinity 20 – 37 incursions, West European 47 – 53 Independence, Sri Lanka 82 – 84 Indian Mutiny (1857) 36 – 37 inter-ethnic clashes 84 – 87; see also ethnic conflict Jacobinism 31 – 32 July Uprising (1987–1989) 118 – 120, 122, 125 JVP (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna) 92, 118 – 119, 122 – 125, 191; April Uprising 92, 95 – 98; July Uprising (1987–1989) 118 – 120, 122, 125

Kanakarayankulam, battles over 174, 178 – 182, 185 – 189, 217 – 220 Kandyan Convention (1815) 60 – 62, 73 Kandyan wars 58 – 62 Kilinochchi, battles over 154, 155 – 159, 169 – 170, 173 – 177, 195 – 200, 248 – 250; capture of 163 – 166; march to 159 – 160, 161 – 162 Kshyamal (narrator) 198 – 199; Operation Agnikheela 234 – 237; Unceasing Waves III 220 – 221 läjjā-bhaya 45 – 46, 70, 72, 74 – 75, 94 – 95, 121 – 122, 128 LSSP (Lanka Sama Samaja Pakshaya) 82, 84, 88, 92 LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) 118, 260 – 262; attack on SLA’s Mullaitivu base camp 158; and combat training 130, 136 – 138, 142; and divergent masculinities 183 – 191; and firepower as spectacle 220 – 222; masculinity and militarism 2, 12 – 13, 18 – 19; and Operation Agnikheela 231 – 244; and Operation Jayasikurui 173 – 182, 192; and Operation Sathjaya 155 – 170; and Unceasing Waves III 195 – 210, 212 – 219, 222 – 225; and victory 246 – 257 machan idiom 103, 108; see also fraternal bonds; friendship, bonds of Mahabharatha 39 Mahavamsa 1 – 2, 19n1, 39, 55n8, 56n11, 56n13, 226n12 Mankulam, fall of 216 – 220 manliness see Victorian manliness masculinity 1 – 3, 17 – 19, 53 – 55; adventurous 108 – 111; and the Asela perahera 42 – 44; Buddhism and agrarian production relations 38 – 42; divergent 183 – 191; and Dutch Republic 29 – 31; and England 33 – 37; and France 31 – 32; hegemonic 3 – 12, 17 – 18, 20, 29, 36 – 39, 44 – 46, 51 – 55, 60, 67, 88, 171, 223, 258; icons of masculine violence 116 – 118; and methodology 12 – 17; and Portugal 28 – 29; and shaming rituals 46 – 47; and Sinhala conventions of masculinity 37 – 53; and West European incursions 47 – 53; and West European

Index  273

militarism and masculinity 20 – 37; see also practices of masculinity Matale rebellion (1848) 68 – 71 MBRL (multi-barrel rocket launcher) 196 – 198, 204, 222, 238, 240, 244, 251 – 252 media 108 – 111, 116 – 118 memory 12 – 17 methodology 12 – 17 militarism 1 – 3, 17 – 19; see also West European militarism modernity, early 20 – 28; Dutch Republic 29 – 31; England 33 – 37; France 31 – 32; Portugal 28 – 29 motifs 53 – 55; and the Asela perahera 42 – 44; Buddhism and agrarian production relations 38 – 42; and Dutch Republic 29 – 31; and England 33 – 37; and France 31 – 32; and hegemonic masculinity 44 – 46; and Portugal 28 – 29; and shaming rituals 46 – 47; and Sinhala conventions of masculinity 37 – 53; and West European incursions 47 – 53; and West European militarism and masculinity 20 – 37 movie icons 108 – 111 Mullaitivu, battles over 156 – 161, 167 – 169, 173 – 175, 246 – 251 narrative 12 – 17; from academics to sports 112 – 113; April Uprising 96 – 97; capture of Kilinochchi 163 – 166; combat training 130 – 133; conducting the assault 138 – 139; confronting child soldiers 167 – 168; cutting links with home 129; deferring to seniority and bodily deference 149; ethnic conflict 115; female fighters 191; fraternal bonds and friendship 104 – 106; icons of masculine violence 117; JVP protests in school 119; in the Kanakarayankulam jungles 185 – 189; learning valour 140 – 142, 143 – 145; LTTE attack on SLA’s Mullaitivu base camp 158; march to Kilinochchi 159 – 160, 161 – 162; marching up the A9 178 – 182; meting out discipline 146 – 147; Operation Agnikheela 234 – 237; platoon as family 148; poverty, hunger and alcoholism 99 – 101; Sinhala movie stars and electronic media icons 109 – 110; SLA 122 – 123; Stallone and Schwarzenegger

134 – 135; Unceasing Waves III 204 – 216, 220 – 221; Watershed II 200 – 203 narrators 92 – 93, 128 – 129, 176 – 177, 198 – 199; see also narrative native bourgeoisie 71 – 75 NCOs (non-commissioned officers) 83, 137, 235, 238 Nedunkerny, fall of 216 – 220 New Model Army (NMA) 33, 55n6 Nihal (narrator) 176 – 177; female fighters 191; marching up the A9 178 – 182 Nimwegen, Olaf van 26, 30, 55n2 Nirmal (narrator) 92 – 93; from academics to sports 112 – 113; ethnic conflict 115; fraternal bonds and friendship 104 – 106; icons of masculine violence 117; JVP protests in school 119; poverty, hunger and alcoholism 99 – 101; Sinhala movie stars and electronic media icons 109 – 110; SLA 122 – 123 non-combatants 22, 240 – 243, civilians living in Zones of Exception 10 – 11; citizenship 11; Tamil civilians 155, 156 – 157, 163, 192 – 193, 240 – 243, 249, 249 – 250 – 256, Tamil civilian/Army relations 150, 242 – 243 Obeyesekere, Gananath 45 – 46, 73 – 74, 91, 102 Oddusuddan, battles over 194, 195 – 197; fall of 216 – 222 office-holding 44 – 46 Omanthai, battles over 177 – 183, 197, 211 – 216, 220 – 222 Operation Agnikheela 230, 231 – 232, 233 – 240, 244; background 232 – 233; women combatants and non-combatants 240 – 243 Operation Jayasikurui 172, 173 – 176, 192 – 193; and divergent masculinities 183 – 191; and narrators 176 – 182 Operation Sathjaya 154, 155 – 156, 159 – 161, 163, 166 – 171; capture of Kilinochchi 163 – 166; confronting child soldiers 167 – 168; march to Kilinochchi 159 – 160, 161 – 162 PA (People’s Alliance) 155, 158 – 159, 193, 209, 227 performance 6 – 7; Varuna 93 – 96 Portugal 28 – 29

274 Index

poverty 97 – 102 practices of masculinity: adventurousness (risking-the-body) 20 – 22, 28, 46 – 47, 53 – 54, 70, 87, 108 – 114, 136, 150 – 151, 171, 224, 258 – 262; composure (bodily quietude/composed body/āthma-visvāsa) 20, 37 – 46, 54, 59, 64, 68 – 70, 73 – 75, 85, 88 – 91, 94 – 95, 98 – 103, 106 – 108, 113 – 114, 117, 125, 129, 133, 139 – 142, 145, 148 – 152, 196, 204, 223 – 224, 232, 240, 244, 248, 256, 259 – 260; deference (läjjā-bhaya) 9, 16 – 17, 45 – 47, 54, 58, 66 – 67, 70 – 75, 94 – 95, 107, 121 – 122, 128, 133, 142, 146 – 152, 225, 260 Pradeep (narrator) 92 – 93; April Uprising 96 – 97; ethnic conflict 115; poverty, hunger and alcoholism 99 – 101; Sinhala movie stars and electronic media icons 109 – 110; SLA 122 – 123 Protestant ideologies: Calvinism 25, 29 – 31, 51 – 53, 55n1, 55n5; Presbyterianism 33; Lutheranism 25; Puritanism 33, 55n5 protests see youth uprisings Puliyankulam, battles over, 174 – 182, 184 – 185, 193n9, 196, 217, 220 punishment 146 – 150 Puthukuduirippu, fall of 250 – 253 Puthumattalan NFZ 253 – 256 rājakārya: and combat training 138 – 140, 152 – 153; and motifs of masculinity 41 – 44, 49, 52; and Operation Sathjaya 159; and Unceasing Waves III 200, 203, 208, 211 – 212, 219, 222, 225; and Victorian manliness 61, 66 – 68; and youth uprisings 116 – 117 risking-the-body 171, 224, 258 – 262; and combat training 136, 150 – 151; and motifs of masculinity 20 – 22, 28, 46 – 47, 53 – 54; and Victorian manliness 70, 87; and youth uprisings 108 – 114; see also masculinity; practices of masculinity ritual 42 – 44; shaming rituals 46 – 47 Roberts, Michael (military historian) 25 – 26, 204 Roberts, Michael (Sri Lankan historian) 46 – 47, 66 – 67, 69 – 77 Schwarzenegger 117, 134 – 135 Second Uprising 118, 122

seniority, deferring to 149 SF (Special Forces) 247 – 248, 251, 254 shaming rituals 46 – 47; see also spectacular violence Sinha, Mrinalini 5, 36 – 37, 57 Sinhala 57 – 58, 87 – 89; and adult franchise 82 – 84; cinema and electronic media 108 – 111; and class struggles 84 – 87; and the Colebrooke–Cameron Reforms (1833) 65 – 68; and the composed body 38 – 42; conventions of masculinity 37 – 53; and the great rebellion (1817–1818) 62 – 65; and hegemonic masculinity 44 – 46; and the Kandyan wars 58 – 62; and the Matale rebellion 68 – 71; and the native bourgeoisie 71 – 75; and the ritual realm 42 – 44; and shaming rituals 46 – 53; and the Sinhala–Moor conflict (1915) 76 – 82, 88, 259 Sinhala–Moor conflict (1915) 76 – 82, 88, 259 Sitawaka Kingdom 49 – 50; Mayadunne 48 – 50, 52; Rajasinha I 48, 50, 52 SLA see Sri Lanka Army (SLA) SLAF (Sri Lankan Air Force) 163, 251 SLFP (Sri Lanka Freedom Party) 85 – 86, 89, 92, 155, 209 SLNG (Sri Lanka National Guard) 198, 219, 225 social change 91 – 92, 114 – 116, 122 – 126; and academics and sports 112 – 114; the April uprising and its repercussions 96 – 97; economic crisis, poverty and hunger 97 – 102; fraternal bonds and bonds of friendship 102 – 108; and the July Uprising 118 – 120; and media 108 – 111, 116 – 118; and narrators 92 – 93; performance and cultural repertoire 93 – 96; and spectacular violence 120 – 122 sovereignty (Foucault/Agamben) 8 – 11, 63 spectacular violence 46 – 47, 120 – 122, 195 – 196, 216 – 220, 222 – 226, 231 – 232, 244; background 196 – 198; firepower as spectacle 220 – 222; and narrators 198 – 199; Operation Agnikheela 232 – 240; and Unceasing Waves III 204 – 216; and Watershed II 199 – 204;

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women combatants and non-combatants 240 – 243 sports 112 – 114 Sri Lanka Army (SLA) 12 – 14, 260 – 262; and combat training 127 – 129, 133 – 137, 148 – 151; divergent masculinities 183 – 192; LTTE attack on SLA’s Mullaitivu base camp 158; and Operation Agnikheela 231 – 233, 236 – 244; and Operation Jayasikurui 173 – 177; and Operation Sathjaya 155 – 163, 166 – 171; strategic realignments 246 – 248; and Unceasing Waves III 195 – 200, 204 – 209, 213 – 214, 217 – 219, 221 – 225; and victory 246 – 257; and youth uprisings 97 – 99, 103 – 106, 114 – 118, 122 – 124 Stallone 117, 134 – 136 States of Exception/Zones of Exclusion 3, 10 – 12, 18; and Operation Agnikheela 232, 241; and Operation Jayasikurui 173, 184 – 185, 193; and Victorian manliness 63, 84; and youth uprisings 97, 116, 125 – 126 status 44 – 46 Sunil (narrator) 128 – 129; combat training 130 – 133; deferring to seniority and bodily deference 149; Stallone and Schwarzenegger 134 – 135 Temperance Movement 71 – 75, 81 Thandikulam, battles over 174, 177 – 182 Tigers see LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) Tosh, John 5, 17 – 18, 25 TV 2, 110 – 111, 144, 201 Udaya (narrator) 92 – 93; from academics to sports 112 – 113; April Uprising 96 – 97; ethnic conflict 115; fraternal bonds and friendship 104 – 106; icons of masculine violence 117; poverty, hunger and alcoholism 99 – 101; SLA 122 – 123 Udesh (narrator) 128 – 129; conducting the assault 138 – 139 ULF (United Left Front) 92, 98 Unceasing Waves III 195 – 196, 204 – 216, 222 – 226; background 196 – 198; and the fall of Oddusuddan, Nedunkerny and Mankulam 216 – 220; and firepower

as spectacle 220 – 222; and narrators 198 – 199; and Watershed II 199 – 204 University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) 155 – 157 UNP (United National Party) 83 – 87, 109, 114 – 118, 197 – 198, 209, 221, 222 valour 136 – 145 Varuna (narrator) 92 – 93; ethnic conflict 115; fraternal bonds and friendship 104 – 106; icons of masculine violence 117; JVP protests in school 119; performance and cultural repertoire 93 – 96; poverty, hunger and alcoholism 99 – 101; Sinhala movie stars and electronic media icons 109 – 110 Vasantha (narrator) 128 – 129; learning valour 143 – 145; meting out discipline 146 – 147; Stallone and Schwarzenegger 134 – 135 Victorian manliness 57 – 58, 87 – 89; and adult franchise 82 – 84; and class struggles 84 – 87; and the Colebrooke–Cameron Reforms (1833) 65 – 68; and the great rebellion (1817–1818) 62 – 65; and the Kandyan wars 58 – 62; and the Matale rebellion 68 – 71; and the native bourgeoisie 71 – 75; and the Sinhala–Moor conflict (1915) 76 – 82 vinaya 146 – 150 Vinodh (narrator) 176 – 177; in the Kanakarayankulam jungles 185 – 189 violence: icons of masculine violence 116 – 118; see also spectacular violence Vipula (narrator) 128 – 129; cutting links with home 129; learning valour 140 – 142 visual media 116 – 118 Waterloo, Battle of 35 Watershed I 195 – 196 Watershed II 195 – 196, 198 – 204, 222, 226n17 West European incursions 47 – 53 West European militarism 20 – 28; British Imperialism/British East India Company 29 – 37, 51 – 55, 57 – 77, 80 – 88, 95 – 98, 136 – 137, 259 – 260; Dutch imperialism/ Dutch East India Company (VOC) 24 – 26, 29 – 36, 51 – 54, 61, 71; France 31 – 32; Portuguese imperialism 28 – 29,

276 Index

48 – 55; Spanish imperialism 23 – 30, 40, 139 women 240 – 243; see also female fighters youth uprisings 91 – 92, 114 – 116, 122 – 126; and academics and sports 112 – 114; the April uprising and its repercussions 96 – 97; economic crisis, poverty and hunger 97 – 102; fraternal bonds and

bonds of friendship 102 – 108; and the July Uprising 118 – 120; and media 108 – 111, 116 – 118; and narrators 92 – 93; performance and cultural repertoire 93 – 96; and spectacular violence 120 – 122 Zones of Exclusion see States of Exception/ Zones of Exclusion