The Eastern Province, Tamil Claims and "Colonisation"

Gamini Iriyagolle

In 1658, the year in which Portuguese were completely expelled from the Island, the Kandyan Kingdom still had as its major ports Kalpitiya and Puttalama on the western coast and Trincomalee, Kodiyarama and Batticaloa¹   on the eastern² . Each port served a designated territory of the kingdom ³.

Tampalakamam was the port for the Disavani (Province) of Tamankaduwa and was known as Tamanatota ⁴ and Panama on the south eastern coast was the port for Uva ⁵ .

In 1766 the Sinhalese lost their littoral in the north west as well as in the north east, east and south to the Dutch and with it all their ports; their kingdom became landlocked. Previously they held only the south western seaboard, the northern Wanni and the peninsula of Jaffnapatnam (now Jaffna). The Third Article of the Sinhala - Dutch Treaty entered into on 14^th February 1766 consequent to the Dutch War provided as follows :

" Moreover, all the sea board round the island not held by the (Dutch East India) Company before the war, ……is to be given over to the abovenamed …….. Company ⁶ to wit, on the West from Kammala ⁷ to (the limits of ) the administration of Yapa Pattanama, on the east from the limits of the administration of Yapa Pattanama to the Walagiyaganga ¹⁴; this coast line (italics mine) is given up in manner -- a distance inland of one Sinhalese gawwa, more or less, in such wise as to admit of (the fixing of) a better line of demarcation with respect to rivers and hill ranges"¹⁵

One Sinhala gawwa is about 4 English miles. The Dutch however, confident in the knowledge that the Sinhalese could not fight another war so soon encroached on entire Sinhala districts beyond one gawwa from the coast, especially in the east. They occupied the whole of Wewgam Pattuwa (later Tamilised as Kaddukulam Pattu) of the Nuwarakalaviya Disavani (Province), the sulu disavanis (lesser provinces) of Tambalagama (now Tampalakamam), Kodiyarama , Madakalapuwa (Batticaloa) and and Panama (see the Ehelepola Sannasa of 1745 translated and published by Sir Archibald Lawrie in the Gazetteer of the Central Province, pp.200-201 ), the Korala Pattuwa of Tamankaduwa Disavani, the eastern pattuwas of Bintenna and Wellassa Disavanis, and Magam Pattuwa (now part of Hambantota District). They created two new Dutch districts : Trincomalee comprising Kaddukulam Pattuwa, Tambalagama and Kodiyarama and Batticaloa District comprising Korala Pattuwa,the eastern pattuwas of Bintenna and Wellassa and Panama Pattuwa. The land between the Kumbukkan Oya and the Walaweganga was included in their Matara Disavani and is now part of Hambantota District..

The Dutch possessions, which were all on the coast, capitulated to the British in 1796 and were formally ceded to Britain in 1801 under the Treaty of Amiens. In that year these maritime districts were declared a Crown Colony.

The kingdom of the Sinhalese was now landlocked. It was was ceded in its entirety by the Sinhalese to the British on 2^nd March 1815 under the Treaty of conditional cession known as the Kandyan Convention.

Before the "cession" of 1766 the Dutch had only a fort in Trincomalee and a fort on Puliyanduwa islet in the Batticaloa lagoon in the east of the island and therefore no territory to constitute any administrative unit ¹⁶ in that part of the country. The Eastern Province we know today was created in 1873 by the British. It is constituted by Sinhala coastal territories ceded in 1766 to the Dutch and by territory adjacent thereto on the west ceded by the Sinhalese to the British in 1815 under the Kandyan Convention. There never was any Tamil political right or interest - this is all post independence fiction. The British of all people now urge "devolution" of political power in the Province to the island’s Tamil minority!

It will be thus seen that the entirety of what has been known as the Eastern Province since 1873 was for centuries an integral part of Kandyan Sinhalese territory and passed by cession from the Sinhalese to the imperialist powers.

A report of Hugh Cleghorn the first British Colonial Secretary of the Maritime Provinces submitted in 1799 describes the Dutch administrative and judicial divisions of the littoral after 1766. This report is known as the Cleghorn Minute. This was, however, audaciously cited in 1977 by the Tamil United Liberation Front as describing the territory of an exclusively Tamil state called "Tamil Eelam" which they alleged came into being at the beginning of the 13^th century, and the boundaries of which they further alleged were intact till the British disturbed them in 1833.

Cleghorn was ordered to furnish a report on the "Administration of Justice and Revenue in the Dutch Settlements" as at 1796 when they were surrendered by the Dutch to the British. The result was the celebrated Minute.

It is claimed since 1976 by the Tamil political interests that what we know today as the Northern and Eastern Provinces as well as lands further to south of Mannar District as far as, and including Puttalama and Chilaw are the territory of an exclusively Tamil state (some international non governmental organisations such as the Minority Rights Group and the notorious International Alert put within this the lands up to and including Hambantota Town in the Southern Province).

The Cleghorn Minute, an accurate account of Dutch administration after 1766, has been misrepresented with incredible boldness by all the Tamil political groups including the warring LTTE and has been put forward as the basis of Tamil claims to land and of Tamil terrorism of the past two decades. It has been made out by Tamil politicians that Cleghorn described the territory of a 13^th century Tamil kingdom.

The corollary to the claim is that settlement of landless Sinhala farmers on state land in the claimed territory (i.e. Northern and Eastern Provinces) in state funded irrigation projects has been an invasion of Tamil lands; the term "colonisation" applied in Sri Lanka by the British to land settlement projects on land gone to forest after decline of the Sinhala hydraulic civilisation (such as those lands described by Governor Ward) has been cynically exploited by the Tamils in its totally different imperialist sense of acquisition and occupation of the lands of a colonial people by the nationals of an imperialist power. This is dealt with in more detail later.

What Cleghorn actually describes are the administrative divisions of the Dutch territory as at 1796 and not a Tamil state.

The adminisration of territory in the east and how the Dutch acquired that territory from the Sinhalese consequent to the Treaty of 1766 is described by Cleghorn as follows:

" Trincomale was under a military commandeur, and till the year 1766 had but a very small territory annexed to its government. At that period the Candians ceded to the (Dutch East India ) Company the countries (i.e. districts) of Coetiar, Tamblegamme, and Koutamcolonpattoe (Kaddukulampattu) These three countries were fertile in grain, and moderately populous, but of late years their agriculture has been mostly ruined, partly from the conduct of the chiefs, and partly from the various changes of government which Trincomale has experienced. A Land Raad has also been established at Trincomale……..

" Batticaloa, the first possession of the Dutch on the island of Ceylon. was formerly under a military chief, until the peace with Candia in the year 1766 and had no other territory but the small Island of Poeliantivve at the mouth of the river. But at the peace in 1766 the Company obtained in sovereignty from the Candians, the eight provinces of Batticaloa. These countries are now governed by civil servant and a Land Raad."

The acquisition of the western half of the Sinhala Disavani of Puttalama is also described:

"Calpetty (Kalpitiya) and Putalam were under a civil chief. The island of Calpetty was an ancient possession of the (Dutch East India) Company. The very narrow district of Putalam was ceded to it by the King of Candia (Kandy) at the peace of 1766, together with the territory of Chilow which (now) forms a part of the Dessavene of Colombo…….. "

Where did the Tamils discover in this description and in that of a post 1766 Dutch judicial division (see below) the boundaries of a Tamil state Cleghorn had never heard of?

The Dutch thereafter created the two new administrative districts, viz Trincomalee and Batticaloa., referred to by Cleghorn (supra).

Cleghorn thus makes it clear that the entirety of the east and south east was Sinhala territory till 1766. The Minute actually destroys the claim to a Tamil state formulated by the Malayan born SJV Chelvanayagam after the British left in 1948.

It will also be seen that the Cleghorn Minute states the opposite of what Chelvanayakam and his various followers have represented it as saying and proves that the former was a crude and dangerous liar:

Firstly, the Minute has no reference at all to a Tamil state.

Secondly, far from making such a reference, it establishes that Trincomalee and Batticaloa Districts were a Sinhala territory till 1766; this is commonplace Sri Lanka history. The Dutch governor Ryckloff van Goens ( Snr ) states in his Memoir dated 26^th December 1663 that " The country between the river Waluwe and Trinquenemale ….. is entirely inhabited by the King's (i.e. Rajasinghe's ) people" and therefore " I have never been able to visit this district…"

Thirdly, the Dutch judicial division of Jaffnapatnam, was, from 1766 to 1796, according to the Minute, constituted by parts of the pre-1766 Dutch and Sinhala possessions.

Fourthly, the Portuguese did not, at any time in the period of their presence in the Island, acquire or in any way possess any territory in the east of the Island other than a small fort on the hill at Trincomalee built in 1628 by Constantine de Sa de Noronha "to close that harbour to the Chingala" and the tiny islet of Puliyanduwa in Batticaloa lagoon. These were captured in 1639-40 by the combined forces of the Sinhalese and the Dutch, taken possession of by the Sinhalese and demolished by Rajasinghe II. Subsequently, when Sinhala-Dutch friendship turned to enmity on account of Dutch perfidy, the latter built two forts on the same sites by force.

While ignorant Tamil voters would not know the Cleghorn Minute or any other book or document, the entire well-documented political history of the island is available to educated Tamils and to all foreign commentators such as the International Commission of Jurists. The acceptance by the ICJ of false claims and their legal effect is therefore manifestly dishonest. All those who read the Tamil claim for statehood would also observe that the territory which is supposed to have been firmly established as a state has no boundaries and the description consists of mention of a number of places on the coast of Sri-Lanka.

After the Dutch took over lands in the east in 1766 they restored and constructed irrigation works close to the coast except in the exclusively Sinhala division of Panama Pattuwa which was under a Kandyan Sinhala Rate Mahatmaya as late as 1875. Lands benefiting by such works belonged to the government and was made available to the Tamil and Muslim inhabitants of the coastal areas. The people who benefited from irrigation development by the Dutch and their alienation of land were not only Tamils and Muslims living close to the coast but also immigrants from south India.

They also developed Trincomalee town for the benefit of their naval establishment and brought in Tamil settlers from Jaffna to populate settlement. More than half the population of a sparsely populated district was soon made up by such settlers .

Most of the Muslims in these coastal areas in the east were (and still are ) descendants of refugees who had been settled there in 1626 by the Sinhalese King Senerat of Kandy, when they were expelled by the Portuguese from the south west littoral. " The Candiot …… received many of them into his ports….. and in Batecalou alone the Idolatrous King placed a garrison of 4000 of them…." ( de Queroz, Vol II, p.745 ).

In the eastern dry zone the Sinhalese of the districts of Trincomalee and Batticaloa were not only neglected by the new masters but immigration there to and colonisation thereof by Tamils and Muslims encouraged..

The British substantially retained the Dutch district of Trincomalee but added a large area of the Wellassa and Bintenna of the Kandyan Kingdom to the Batticaloa district which they demarcated as part of the Eastern Province which they constituted in 1833 and reconstituted in 1873. Extensive areas claimed since 1949 as exclusively Tamil lands are actually exclusively Sinhala areas taken over by the Dutch in 1766 and by the British under the Kandyan Convention of 1815.

In the 19^th century the British themselves restored or constructed irrigation works in the eastern littoral for the benefit of the coastal population of Muslims and Tamils, of immigrants from Jaffna and south India, and allowed the Sinhala areas of the interior to go to ruin in terms of policies adopted to suppress the Sinhalese after the Great Rebellion of 1817-18. After the construction of these irrigation works the British allocated government land benefited by those works to Muslim and Tamil colonists.

In 1814 the entire Batticaloa District (as then constituted ) had only a little over 23,000 Tamil speaking persons, a number which included 3775 Mukkuwas and 3641 Muslims of whom all but 3 were traders. All were concentrated within a few miles of the coast in and north of Pottuvil, More than half this population were concentrated in just 12 coastal settlements including Puliyanduwa Island (now Batticaloa Town) and Kattankudy.

According to Casiechetty's The Ceylon Gazetteer (published in 1834 but compiled before the amalgamation of theKandyan Sinhalese Provinces with the Maritime Districts in 1833 ) the District extended " from Kumukan aar to Vergal ganga, a distance of nearly 150 miles from south to north. It is better known to the natives by the name of Mattakalappoo, from the Sinhalese words mada muddy, and kalappoo a lake, probably from the large lake which runs through it…..( The District) comprises a surface of 1360 square miles with a population of 27,574, of whom 8833 are employed in agriculture, 351 in manufactures, and 4927 in commerce." The exclusively Sinhala Panama Pattuwa of Batticaloa District had an area of 486 square miles. Thus the demographically Tamil and Muslim Pattuwas ( they never had a political claim to these) were just 874 square miles in extent in 1814. As observed above, half of the Tamils and Muslims lived in 12 out of their 139 villages.

Had the Dutch not encroached in breach of the Sinhala - Dutch Treaty the extent of the District would have been approximately 600 square miles only ( 150 x 4 i.e. one gawwa ).

Panama Pattuwa, which in the days of Sinhala prosperity had on its coast the port of the Prince of Uva, had been reduced to 10 or 12 villages with a total population of about 400 souls though it had a territory of over 400 square miles. Palugama (Tamilised into Palukamam in transliteration) had been the eastern residence of the Kandyan kings. It had become a Tamil settlement between 1766 and 1814. Galoya, at the mouth of the river of the same name, was from where the Sinhala king Rajasinghe II directed the assaults by land on the Portuguese forts on Puliyanduwa Island and on Trincomalee hill in 1639 while the Dutch bombarded them from the sea. It is now a Tamil village with the name directly translated as " Kallar".

The Trincomalee District of the British was approximately 1000 square miles in 1814. A Wanny Pattu added to it shortly thereafter was soon detached so that even at the turn of the century the District was 1165 square miles in extent. What the Dutch had before 1766 could not have been more than some square yards in and around their fort. In 1814 the entire District had a population of only 9171 in four divisions. 5364 lived in the town (1 square mile in extent) attracted over the years by the naval establishment. The density of population outside the Trincomalee town was approximately 5 persons per square mile. Tampalakamam Pattuwa (Tambalagamuwa Tamilised) had density of slightly less than 2 persons per square mile in its 450 square miles. Gantale (incorrectly called Kantalay) Tank was in this division but the village of that name had only 20 persons, all presumably Sinhalese according to Captain Aitcheson's report of 1833.

British policy as well as administrative action throughout the nineteenth century was to colonise Trincomalee and Batticaloa Districts with immigrants from Jaffnapatnam and south India. The administration Report for 1867 of the AGA Trincomalee District states that " I should like to form a large Jaffna colony and if liberal terms are offered, might succeed." In the report for 1868 he confessed that '' The Government Agent Jaffna was not successful in his attempt to send people to Gantalawa tank to colonize it ….I have every reason to believe that we may set up a coast settlement there, and I shall have hopes of seeing the cultivation extend under this splendid tank." In the parlance of the time "coast" meant the Coromandel Coast of South India, the origin, in colonial times, of thousands of alleged Tamil traditional homelanders of Sinhaladipa !

" …the actual date of construction ( of Gantale Tank ) had better be again put on record. It was made by Sulu Akbo ( i.e. Agbo the Younger) or Agrabodhi II (a Sinhala king) in the first part of the 7^th century AD and was called Gantale wewa , Kanthalai being a modern Tamil corruption of that name." ( Hugh Nevill, AGA Trincomalee and famos antiquarian).

The colonial British government spent 76,000 pounds on repairs to the ancient work and rendered 23,000 acres of forest land irrigable for rice cultivation. 500 acres were leased to a newly formed Tamil enterprise called the Jaffna - Batticaloa Agricultural Company.The plan to lease the entire 23,000 acres to is enterprise was frustrated when the company failed.

In 1833 the population under Gantale Tank had been Sinhala but this had disappeared by 1855. They had been replaced in the intervening period by some "Malabars". A report by three British engineers submitted in 1855 states that a Malabar population had superseded the Sinhalese under Gantale and the tradition relating to the Yoda Ela from Minneriya which was known to the Sinhalese, who were there in 1833 was totally unknown to the Malabars in 1855.

After Independence a settlement project was established under the tank and land given to Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims. Thus traditional Kandyan Sinhala lands in the Eastern Province were colonised by Tamils and Muslims under state patronage.

What happened generally in the east has been recorded in the famous report on Forest Administration of Ceylon by F.D'A Vincent which is published as Sessional paper XL11 of 1882:

"the gradual spread of the Tamils down the coasts, especially the eastern, and the fact that no where except in the northern province and Tamankaduwa, do they form more that coast settlements, are both striking. Where ever the Tamil or the Mahommedan comes to settle, the Sinhalese is driven back to the forest, where he earns a precarious existence by chena cultivation and by hunting."

As we have seen already seen, Kaddukalum Pattu of Trincomalee District was a Sinhala territory ceded to the Dutch in 1766. In the early years of this century this was divided into two divisions called Kaddukalum West and Kaddukalum East in order to save the Sinhalese who by then were confined to the western part of the Pattuwa.

"This part of the district is inhabited by Sinhalese villagers of Kandyan descent forming an outlying community which is, I fear, rapidly dying out or becoming effaced. The district is most interesting , being dotted over by numerous village tanks, some of which are restored and others abandoned. The villagers retain many of the primitive customs of the Kandyans , but they are rapidly becoming Tamilized, which is a great pity. They intermarry with Tamils, and many of them speak Tamil as well as they speak Sinhalese. Even the Government schoolmaster is Tamil, and only that language is taught in the only school, and unfortunately in some cases the Sinhalese villagers have been bought out by Tamils, who now own all the paddy lands of some villages. The Sinhalese have even given up their patronymics and have adopted the Tamil custom of prefixing the father's name instead of the usual patronymic, and even the names of the villagers are assuming a Tamil dress. This is perhaps not to be wondered at when the interpreters of the court and the Kachcheri, the petition-drawers, and all through whom the villagers have access to government officials can speak nothing but Tamil. I must say I regard this as a great misfortune. I should like to see a strong Sinhalese headman acquainted with English appointed as Chief Headman of the district, and I should like to see the Tamil school abolished. However, the most important assistance which can, and ought to, be rendered to these villagers would be the restoration of their village tanks. This would render them independent of the Tamils, and make them less likely to abandon their villages or to sell their lands to Tamils (Administration Report on Trincomalee District for 1898 p. F18).

The Sinhala Administrative Division of Kaddakulum Pattu West of Trincomalee District appears to have been carved out after this report. This is now subdivided into Morawewa, Gomarankadawala and Padaviya Sripura . The Sinhalese are 55.8%, 98.9% and 99.7% respectively in these three divisions which are together 824 sq. kilometres in extent. The proportion of Sinhalese is as low as 55.8% in Morawewa due to such Tamil incursions as have been reported by the AGA Trincomalee in 1898 and due to settlement of Tamil colonists under Morawewa and Mahadiulwewa Tanks by post independence governments of Sri-Lanka. If Tamil political concepts are applied to these areas they have to be regarded as traditional Sinhala lands and the settlement of Tamils has to be regarded as government sponsored invasions of lands of the Sinhalese. Tamil propaganda is the other way about.

Of the ten administrative divisions of Trincomalee district, five have a Sinhala majority. These five are Gomarankadawala, Kantalay, Morawewa, Seruwila and Padavisiripura. In the Thampalakamam division the Sinhalese are 31.7%. Kinniya is 92% Muslim. Tamils are in a majority (54.7%) only in the Trincomalee Town and Gravets division. Over sixty percent of the area of Trincomalee district is populated by Sinhalese who are the largest single ethnic group in the district. Tamil claims to political domination or to rights to land to the exclusion of Sinhalese is totally unacceptable.

In the break-up of the territory of the Kandyan Sinhalese Kingdom the British included approximately 1,380 square km. of the Sinhalese Province of Bintenna in the new reconstituted Batticaloa District of the Eastern Province and they also included approximately 1,050 square km. of the Sinhalese Province of Wellassa in the district. Each of the Sinhalese Provinces was partitioned for these purposes - part being included in Province of Uva. That part of Bintenna included in the Batticaloa district was separately administered as a Sinhala administrative division but the villages of Wellassa were included in several Tamil and Muslim divisions on the coast. It was found that while the Tamil and Muslim populations were thriving, Sinhala villages were dying out (S. O Kanajaratam, Monograph on the Batticaloa District, 1921). In 1922 therefore the British created the Wewgampattu Sinhala division taking away the Sinhala villages from Tamil and Muslim domination and placed this new Sinhala division under a Kandyan Sinhalese divisional administrator. The Sinhala farmers settled in the Gal Oya project in 1950's were given land in Wewgampattu the territory of which had been politically and demographically Sinhalese for centuries. The Tamil claims that this is Tamil land in which Sinhalese have been planted is reprehensible.

Panama Pattu is another ancient Sinhala division (Ceylon Manual 1911). This division is 89% Sinhala. Its area in 1981 was 952 Square km. As with other Sinhala areas in the Eastern Province, Panama Pattu saw little or no development under colonial rule. The Sinhala divisions are over 78% of the area of Ampara District which is 4318 sq km. in extent. The Gal Oya Reservoir (Senanayake Samudra), the waters of which should not have benefited Sinhalese according to post independence Tamil claims to land, is entirely in the Uva Province.

Until independence the position in the Eastern Province was neglect and decay of the extensive Sinhala but sparsely populated Sinhala areas and development of the coastal areas (other than the Sinhala Panama Pattu) populated by Tamils and Muslims resulting in movement of ethnic groups in large numbers to the coastal areas.

The major colonisation projects in the Eastern Province(e.g. Gal Oya, Kantalay Allai, Morawewa, Mahadiulwewa ) are all in traditional Sinhala territory.

52% of the entire territory of the Eastern Province is in predominantly Sinhala administrative divisions. The government constitutional proposals intend to put this area and its Sinhala population under Tamil rule and also vest all state land in the contemplated Tamil government. In the USA, a classic federal union, all public (i.e. state) land is vested in the Federal Government at Washington; any state government requiring any public land must apply to Washington for its purchase. Vesting state land in regional governments is what the Tamil parties want and is as bad as creating a separate Tamil state. The issue should not be even open to discussion.

(ENDS)

Foot Notes :

• (1) A corruption of the Sinh. Madakalapuwa meaning "muddy lagoon". Sammanturai (Sinh. Hambantota , "sampan harbour") was the original Batticaloa . Later the seaport was Kallar (Sinh. Gal Oya, where the river of that name empties into the sea ) about 6 miles north of Kalmunai (Ceylon Manual,1911 p. 316)..
• (2) Sinnappah Arasaratnam,
• (3) Ibid.
• (4) Ponnambalam Arunachalam, "Sketches of Ceylon History"…
• (5) Ceylon Manual, 1911, p.316
• (6) The Dutch East India Company…..
• (14) the Walaweganga on the southern coast.
• (15) Original Sinhala text and English translation by HCP Bell, Commissioner of Archaeology is published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Vol XVI(1899) p,62 et. seq. It is also cited by Arunachalam as describing the limits of the territory retained by the Kandyan Sinhalese which was eventually ceded to the British in 1815.
• (16) See The Cleghorn Minute.

14 June 2000

A Note from SPUR :

Gamini Iriyagolle is a law graduate of the Universities of Ceylon and Cambridge and is also an Attorney-at- law. He was in the elite Ceylon Civil Service till its abolition and was absorbed into the Ceylon Administrative Service thereafter. He has held several public appointments including those of Deputy Land Commissioner, Deputy Director of Agricultural Development, Director Agrarian Research and Training, Director Industrial Policy and Chairman Industrial Development Board of Ceylon, all before he was 40. As a very young public servant he was briefly in Jaffna in 1961 in charge of civil adminstration. After he reverted to legal practice, he was for some time a visiting lecturer at the Sri Lanka Law College and a Vice President of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka. At the height of the anti-Tamil riots of 1983 he, like many other Sinhalese, he risked himself and his family to rescue and gave shelter to Tamil victims. He has made an intensive study ot the Sri Lanka Tamil issue and its background, written extensively on the subject for the past sixteen years and addressed many audiences in Sri Lanka and abroad. When requested by President J.R. Jayewardene in 1984 to agree to political compromises with Tamil extremism, he refused, and instead offered to live in Jaffna and to eliminate terrorism while dealing fairly with ordinary Tamil citizens if he were given the necessary civil and military authority. President Jayewardene was not interested