Archives par mot-clé : Tamil
“Plucking the Stars (நட்சத்திரங்களைப் பறித்தல்). Arulraj Ulaganathan” by B. Skanthakumar (Polity)
Plucking the Stars (நட்சத்திரங்களைப் பறித்தல்) conjures memory from Arulraj Ulaganathan’s childhood on a tea plantation in Haputale, where he was born in 1992 and raised in a line room; as well as those of generations before him on a cruel incomplete 200-year passage from coolies to citizens. He wants, he says, to give “voice through my art to the silenced histories of the Malaiyaham [Hill Country]”. And so he does, in ways that stir and stay with us.
The artist’s second solo exhibition ran between 14 and 31 January 2026 at the Curado Art Space on Park Road in Colombo, spread across its second and third floors, which are accessible by stairs only. It was staged in collaboration with the ninth edition of Colomboscope; whose artistic director Natasha Ginwala crafted with the artist the useful notes for the catalogue from which I take my cues below.
The artiste’s exhibition full review by B. Skanthakumar is available on Polity Website
“Remembering the Shared Histories of the Northern Muslim and Tamil Communities” by Jithmi Athukorale (Groundviews)
In her article’s “Remembering the Shared Histories of the Northern Muslim and Tamil Communities”, written for Groundviews, Jithmi Athukorale shares how the mobile exhibition Memories of the North helps to recall how Tamils and Muslims used to live in harmony and coexistence before the expultion of the later bt the LTTE in 1990.
This article is available on Groundview’s website.
“Dynamics of Tamil Urban Ethnoterritories in Diaspora” Video Podcast of Delon Madavan’s presentation during Cornell University’s South Asian Program Seminar (2020)
We would like to share the online video presentation on “Dynamics of Tamil Urban Ethnoterritories in Diaspora (Kuala Lumpur, Paris, Singapore)” given by Delon Madavan on Monday October 5th at 11.15AM (New York time)/ 5.15 PM (Paris time).
Sharika Thiranagama was the respondent for this presentation.
This online event was hosted by the South Asia Program of Cornell University
About the Seminar:
Studying the ties and practices that bind Tamils to the districts they inhabit or visit is essential to understand the ways Tamils use and transform space in diaspora. The territorialization of Tamil identity, that is, their spatial extension and the continuation of their socio-cultural practices, is not always immediately visible in multi-ethnic cities in which Tamils are a minority. Tamils transform those spaces where they are dominant according to their own cultural and social practices and establish venues conducive to social interactions. Furthermore, the polarization of space and the dynamics of identity networks explains the various attitudes of Tamils towards the social frequentation of certain areas. Finally, the presence and role of places of sociability, such as religious, cultural or commercial establishments, are essential to understand Tamils’ relationship with locality and thus the reasons for which these districts are recognized or not as “Tamil” by Tamils themselves. With specific examples drawn from fieldwork in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Paris, this paper shows that the affirmation of Tamil identity and the constitution of Tamil ‘ethnoterritories’ in certain areas is not only the outcome of Tamil action but also the consequence of state-sponsored urban planning policies, such as eradication of slums, gentrification and heritagization of specific zones, and the frequentation of these zones by non-Tamil migrants.
About the Speaker:
Delon Madavan was the Tamil Studies Visiting Scholar at Cornell’s South Asia Program in Spring 2020. He completed his PhD in Geography at Paris-Sorbonne University (France) in 2013. He has taught at the Department of Geography at Sorbonne University and also gave lectures at the National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations (INALCO) in Paris. Madavan is Researcher Fellow at the Centre of Studies and Researches on India, South Asia and its Diaspora (University of Québec à Montréal, Canada) and Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the Centre of Studies and Researches on India and South Asia (CNRS-EHESS, France). In his research, he examines the articulation between migration, identity and space to analyze forms of integration of the Tamil populations in several cities (Jaffna, Colombo, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Paris & Montréal). Madavan is the author and co-author of several articles and books on Tamils in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore and France.
About the Respondent:
Sharika Thiranagama, is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Stanford University. Her research explores the intersection of political mobilization and domestic life, focusing on highly fraught contexts of violence, inequality, and intense political mobilization. Her major work has been on the Sri Lankan civil war and research with two different minority ethnic groups, Sri Lankan Tamils and Sri Lankan Muslims, exploring the ways in which militancy, political violence and large-scale displacement became folded into intergenerational transmissions of memory and ethnic identification. Most recently, in new fieldwork on Dalit communities in Kerala, South India, she examines how communist led political mobilization reconfigured older caste identities, re-entrenching caste inequities into new kinds of private neighborhood life. She focuses on the household as the prime site of the inheritance of work, stigma and servitude as well as the possibility of reproduction, dignity and social mobility. She is the author of “In My Mother’s House: Civil War in Sri Lanka” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011).
“Sri Lanka’s Presidential Election: Healing the Wounds is the New Task” by Pr Jayadeva Uyangoda
Meanwhile, the pressures of big electoral victories are such that the new president and his family members, who will constitute the core of the new regime, might find it difficult to resist the temptation of giving into the wishes of their Sinhalese nationalist constituency. This is particularly so in view of the ethnic polarisation of the electoral verdict.
via: Groundviews
“Sri Lankan refugees seek Indian citizenship” The Hindu
Scores of Sri Lankan refugees living in various camps in Virudhunagar district on Monday submitted separate petitions seeking Indian citizenship to Collector A. Sivagnanam.
Stating that they had lived most pat of their life in India, the refugees said they did not have the economic wherewithal to set up their life and livelihood on returning to the island nation.
Over 3,200 refugees, who fled their war-torn nation in 1990s, live in seven refugee camps in the district.
On Monday, they came en masse to the Collectorate with a petition containing the single demand after Friday’s Madras High Court order permitting 65 Tamils from Sri Lanka to submit fresh application for citizenship to the the Collector concerned.
“Why South Asia’s majorities act like persecuted minorities” by The Economist
When it is pointed out that Sri Lanka has, in fact, never experienced an act of violence attributable to Islamists, and that at this rate of conversion it will take the island’s Muslims about 10,000 years to convert the rest of its 21m inhabitants, Mr Gnanasara simply shrugs. His hoard of evidence does not really need to add up. In Sri Lanka, as across most of South Asia, surprisingly large numbers of people among groups that enjoy overwhelming numerical superiority seem eager to convince themselves that their identity is somehow in mortal danger.
“Friday et Friday” de Antonythasan Jesuthasan alias Shobasakthi, en librairie à partir du 5 avril 2018
“Friday et Friday” de Antonythasan Jesuthasan alias Shobasakthi.
Nouvelles traduites du tamoul (Sri Lanka) par Faustine Imbert-Vier,
Élisabeth Sethupathy, et Farhaan Wahab
Une enfance à Allaipiddy, au nord de Sri Lanka, la guérilla tamoule, l’errance, l’exil en France… Autant de motifs et de personnages qui habitent l’œuvre d’Antonythasan Jesuthasan : Diana la Ronde, pétrifiée par le bruit des bombes, qui remue ciel et terre pour obtenir son abri ; Pratheeban, le demandeur d’asile, floué pour une poignée de kilomètres ; les 37 Mouvements de rébellion, bien décidés à se tailler la part du lion ; Layla, la petite dame du numéro 7, que son nom de code – Oiseau jaune – finit par trahir, ou encore le chevalier de Kandi, condamné à devenir un coq en pâte aux frais du Comité central.
À travers tous ces portraits, c’est aussi celui du narrateur qui se dessine, tout en humour et en finesse – le roman d’une vie, le miroir d’une âme et d’un peuple qui sait que c’est parfois en perdant de vue le rivage que le cœur se remet à flot.
A propos de l’auteur
Si l’on connaît son visage grâce au superbe Dheepan de Jacques Audiard (Palme d’or à Cannes en 2015) dont il est l’acteur principal, Antonythasan Jesuthasan est surtout écrivain reconnu – auteur de quatre romans, plusieurs recueils de nouvelles et de nombreux essais, pièces de théâtre et scénarios.
Antonythasan Jesuthasan – alias Shobasakthi – est né en 1967 à Allaipiddy, un village à l’extrême nord de Sri Lanka. Ancien enfant soldat du Mouvement de libération des Tigres tamouls, il arrive en France en 1993 où il obtient l’asile politique. Il vit désormais à Paris.
Son œuvre est traduite pour la première fois en français. L’adaptation cinématographique de la magnifique nouvelle Friday, qui se déroule dans la communauté tamoule du quartier de la Chapelle, à Paris, est en cours de réalisation.
Le dossier de presse du livre est accessible à travers ce lien : dossier_presse-572162dp-mars-18pdf
Une première revue du livre a été rédigé par Véronique-Atasi et peut-être lu sur son blog atasi.over-blog.com
Pour plus d’information, vous pouvez consulter le site de la maison d’édition Zulma qui a publié Friday and Friday.
“Sri Lanka to host conference on Tamil culture” The Hindu
The International Movement of Tamil Culture (Sri Lanka chapter) in association with the University of Jaffna will be holding a two-day special conference on ‘Challenges and Initiatives of Tamil Language and Culture’ at the University premises on August 5 and 6.
to read more : http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/puducherry/sri-lanka-to-host-conference-on-tamil-culture/article19392300.ece
“Caste in a Tamil Family On Purity and Pollution in Post-war Jaffna” by Zehra Hashmi and Prashanth Kuganathan
Written using the voice of Zehra Hashmi, an ethnographic narrative examines caste in transition in Jaffna, centred around a Vel.l.āl.ar family that lived in the peninsula throughout the duration of the Sri Lankan Civil War, which came to an end in May 2009. Based on field research and interviews conducted between 2011 and 2013, the authors find that interlocutors struggle to make meaning of post-war changes.
to read more : http://www.epw.in/journal/2017/21/commentary/caste-tamil-family.html
“Vanishing Hope in Sri Lanka: Amrita Chandradas on Remembering”
Editor’s Note: Amrita Chandradas is a documentary photographer currently based in Singapore and working across Southeast Asia. In 2014 she won the prestigious “Top 30 Under 30” award by Magnum Photographs. In this exclusive article for Fox & Hedgehog she recounts the story of a trip to Sri Lanka to document the aftereffects of the civil war. You can view more of Amrita’s work on her website.
Sri Lanka—known for her pristine beaches, lush wild jungles, and exotic food—has successfully concealed a dark past of civil unrest and political instability for the last three decades. She is an island divided by twenty-six years of civil war between the Sri Lankan Military and the Tamil Tigers, one of the largest rebel guerrilla forces in the world. The Tigers, otherwise known as LTTE, are infamous for inventing suicide belts; they used women in suicide attacks and successfully assassinated two international political leaders. Sri Lankan society plunged into segregation during the year 1948 when she achieved her independence from the British.
to read more: http://foxhedgehog.com/2015/10/vanishing-hope-in-sri-lanka-amrita-chandradas-on-remembering/
“Tigers as Spiders! Ex – LTTE Cadres Contesting as Independent Group in Jaffna” by D.B.S.Jeyaraj
6,151 Candidates from 21 registered political parties and 201 independent groups are contesting the Sri Lankan Parliamentary elections scheduled for August 17th 2015. Of these 3, 653 are from the 21 parties and 2,498 from independent groups. Predictably the spotlight in general has been on the major political parties both nationally and regionally in g. However a particular group of independents contesting in the north has also attracted much attention. This is because the group comprises former members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
“Re-imagining the State in Sri Lanka” by Mahendran Thiruvarangan
“The election campaign of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF: Gajen Ponnambalam’s new outfit) in the North-East has re-animated the discussions on the political solution to the national question. While the major political parties in the South have rejected federalism, the federal solutions presented by these two fronts include the recognition of the Tamils as a nation or a nationality, their right to self-determination and the merged north-east of Sri Lanka as their homelands.”
“Dark clouds over the Sunshine Paradise: Tourism and Human Rights in Sri Lanka” by Society for Threatened Peoples by
‘During the war, many Tamils fled the north and settled abroad or in other regions of the island. Since the end of the war, many of them have wanted to return and reclaim their land. However, the army has other plans: the appropriated estates have become
Military Camps, High Security Zones (HSZ) or Special Economic Zones (SEZ).’
http://assets.gfbv.ch/downloads/report_sri_lanka_english.pdf
CPA’s extensive work on land issues that has been referenced in this report can be accessed here http://bit.ly/1EgJoEp
“Sri Lankan Tamils push for autonomy and justice” by Amal Jayasinghe
“The road blocks and military checkpoints are gone, and the restrictions on foreign tourists and journalists visiting the area have been lifted.
But the mostly Tamil residents of Sri Lanka’s northern Jaffna peninsula say much more still needs to be done to heal the wounds of a long civil war — and they are pinning their hopes on an upcoming general election.
Jaffna voted overwhelmingly in January’s presidential election to oust the strongman incumbent Mahinda Rajapakse, who maintained de facto martial law in the region.”
see: http://news.yahoo.com/sri-lankan-tamils-push-autonomy-justice-110918536.html



