History On And Off Track: The Return Of Yal Devi And The Executive Presidency
Rajan Philips
More than a century after Jaffna was first connected by rail to the south it was reconnected again last week. For twenty five years Jaffna did not have a rail connection. It was first disconnected by service stoppage, and then totally severed by the wanton removal of nearly 100 miles of railway – iron, timber and footing. The planned connection by the British, its removal at the start of the war by juvenile delinquents, and the postwar reconnection by India – are indicative of Sri Lanka’s history of nation making and unmaking over hundred years, as well as the present government’s pathetic efforts at nation-remaking after 2009. The railroad from Colombo to Jaffna, or more longitudinally from Matara to Kankesanthurai, was the physical spine of the unified political and administrative template that the British invested and imposed on the island. The British started the railroad system in 1867 as the mainstay of the plantation economy, but in less than fifty years it became the mainstay of a fleeting island nation. Alas, what the railway provided physically for nation making could not be supplemented politically. The reasons for the failure are too many and too well known.
The story of the Sri Lankan railway is a part-narrative, albeit an important part, of how Lanka’s modern history went off track in mid journey, not only on the national question but also in the economic domain. Last week, a beaming PresidentRajapaksatook his train-long entourage on a mid-day train ride from Pallai to Jaffna, to mark the return of Yal (Yazh, phonetically) Devi after twenty five years. Mr. Rajapaksa, who is a good raconteur of historical anecdotes of the ancient type, came up wanting in giving the historical context to Yal Devi’s return. Of course, he took his political mileage, all 250 of them, by reminding everyone that he had brought back the train of peace to the peninsula, but forgetting that the peninsula is still recovering from the war that he won. He also seemed to have been unaware of the country’s political circumstances when Yal Devi first journeyed into Jaffna. He is not the only one. Until now, I took it for granted that the Yal Devi train service began sometime in the 1960s. Apparently, it was inaugurated on April 23, 1956 – 13 days after the watershed elections of that year, and 43 days ahead of the passage of Sinhala Only, on June 5. Historical coincidences could not be more embarrassingly enlightening.
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