Selected Writings by Sachi Sri Kantha

5 July 2004

‘Quarter’ used as a verb in English, and its action of the verb ‘quartering’ have a fascinating history in the criminal codes of medieval Europe and early American history. Simply put, it means ‘division into four equal parts’, and the authoritative Oxford English Dictionary [vol.II, 1989, 28th printing, p.2386] provides a citation from Chambers Cyclopedia (1727-41), of an act referring to ‘part of the punishment of a traitor, by dividing his body into four quarters.’ One may wonder how the body is divided into four quarters.

Mary Roach, in her entertaining and informative history on human cadavers, records as follows: "…a murderer might be hanged and then drawn and quartered, wherein horses were tied to his limbs and spurred off in four directions, the resultant ‘quarters’ being impaled on spikes and publicly displayed, as a colorful reminder to the citizenry of the ill-advisedness of crime." [vide, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, 2003, p.41]

In the past few days, what I gather from the news, leaking out from the blessed island of Ceylon, made me thinking that Karuna’s brain has been quartered. Once an Eelam Tamil hero, Karuna performed an astounding somersault on March 3 of this year. It was a somersault unseen in the island for almost four decades, since C.P.de Silva’s shocker on December 3, 1964. Karuna’s somersault act flopped abysmally, despite denials and self-serving bloats issued via news and electronic media hacks [especially D.B.S.Jeyaraj, K.T.Rajasingham, Bandula Jayasekara and Tisaranee Gunasekara] as well as Sinhala chauvinist press; and Karuna turned into a political cadaver on April 11th. His political cadaver was then quartered hastily and appropriated by four demons, into equal portions. These demons were, (1) SLFP demon, (2) UNP demon, (3) Indian stinking skunk demon – via Douglas Devananda hook, and (4) selfish demon.

Now, we are told of a balloon circling the Colombo air about Karuna forming a political party. What? – a political party? In the South Asian politics, a new political party has become the loin cloth of any man (or woman, considering that the current President Chandrika Kumaratunga also floated a new party named Sri Lanka Mahajana Pakshaya in the 1980s) whose naked selfishness came into open. Among the Tamil-speaking population in the island, only [yes, I repeat, only] S.J.V.Chelvanayakam succeeded in forming a new political party – the Thamil Arasu Katchi - on September 18, 1949, and gained the trust of people. Even the venerated Chelva, was subjected to severe trials, from 1949 to 1956, on his mission to gain such trust. Chelva succeeded because he was a visionary, and thus an exception. All who had dreamt of doing a repeat Chelva act, had crashed - without any exception - ignominiously. After dancing politically and precariously with Chandrika Kumaratunga for six years, from the air, M.H.M.Ashraff crashed literally in the ground in 2000 and as a consequence, his party has disintegrated. Here is a list of the crash record.

1.Batticaloa Tamil Speaking Front (BTSF) of U.S.Ethirmanasingham and R.B.Kadramer (1956)

2. Tamil Resistance Front (TRF) of V.Nalliah and C.Sittampalam (1956)

3. Eela Thamil Ottumai Munnani (ETOM) of C.Suntheralingam (1960)

4. All Ceylon Islamic United Front (ACIUF) of M.S.Kariapper (1960)

5. Democratic Socialist Party of Ceylon (DSPC) of R.Wijaya Indra (1960)

6. Communist Party-China (CPC) of N.Sanmugathasan (1963)

7. Thamil Suyaatchi Kazhagam (TSK) of V.Navaratnam (1969)

8. Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) of M.H.M.Ashraff (1988)

9. Eelam People Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) of Varadaraja Perumal (1989)

10. People Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) of Sidharthan (1989)

11. Eelam People Democratic Party (EPDP) of Devananda (1994)

Of the above-listed eleven parties, the founders of three parties [namely C.Suntheralingam, V.Navaratnam and N.Sanmugathasan] fit the bill as gullible eccentrics who were respected for their intellect but found it impossible to get followers. The rest of the party founders were nothing but self-serving scoundrels. Indications are that two quarters of Karuna’s brain [manned by the stinking skunk and selfish demons] have been scripted to form a new political party. If it happens, there is no doubt that Karuna will become the latest addition to the scoundrel list.