Nimalarajan and the BBC – A Postscript

Oct 21, 2016

The name, Mylwaganam Nimalarajan is uttered every single day at the BBC headquarters in central London by BBC staff of different status and calibre. It is the legacy of dedication, professionalism and bravery. His story with the BBC began nearly two decades ago.

It was the morning after, sixteen years ago.  I can’t remember how I got to the office from home that day. But I still remember walking in to my regional editor’s office on the seventh floor in Bush House. I could only say “Sam, it was my responsibility, I failed!” Then I burst out crying. I cried like a child. 

My friend and colleague, Mylwaganam Nimalarajan was killed. Sixteen years had passed, I still feel responsible for his death and what happened afterwards. 

Nimalarajan started his reporting for the BBC Sinhala Service around early nineties. Soon he became a regular contributor in Sandeshaya programme. At the time, he was also writing for other Sinhala and Tamil publications. However his contribution to the Sinhala Service was significant. Many of his reports were translated and fed through to global news of the World Service. I felt that his safety and security was my responsibility. I failed him. I could not save his life or secure the safety of his kinfolk.

Once I flew in to Jaffna for a reporting assignment. I booked in to one of the few hotels operating in Jaffna at the time. I went out for a few minutes leaving my bags with the hotel reception. I came back to find Nimalarajan sitting in the lobby with my baggage in hand. He had the usual grin in his face. I was already checked out. “Comrade!” he said, “When you come to Jaffna, you don’t stay in hotels. You are coming home with me.” Soon after, I was sitting on the crossbar of his bicycle, going home with him. 

Nimalarajan, Saminathan Wimal and I rode around Jaffna that afternoon until seven in the evening when the curfew came in to force. 

His house in Kolombuthurayi Road in Jaffna was near a military checkpoint. It was in such close proximity, one could hear the sound of dogs barking in the house from the position where the sentries were. Many of the soldiers knew Nimalarajan. 

That night, I had a delicious meal cooked by his mother and wife. I bathed from their well and spent the night with his family. I was treated as a part of their family. To this day I call his parents, ‘amma’and ‘thaaththa’. It was the last time I saw Nimalarajan.

I am convinced that the assassins came through the check point as they were riding bicycles. They carried guns, knives and grenades more than two hours in to the curfew. That explains why the soldiers never reacted when they heard gun shots and explosion. They never shot at the terrorists getting away on bicycles.

While killing Nimal with three gun shots to his head and a grenade, the assassins asked the family members to kneel down looking at the floor to avoid any attempts of identifying the brutes. Nimal’s young nephew and the mother were bleeding with shrapnel wounds. To warn against any identification, one of the assassins slit Nimal’s father’s neck with a razor.

Few weeks before the incident, Nimalarajan told me that he was receiving death threats from Douglas Devananda. At the time, apart from his journalism, Nimal was also providing information about election campaign rules violations in Jaffna and the adjacent islands to election monitoring groups. 

I told him to leave Jaffna. His reply was, “Sahodaraya! If I leave, who is going to tell the story of my people to the world?” I respected his wish. Yet, thinking back now I wonder if I was driven by my selfish need to continue nonstop stream of exclusive news from Jaffna clouded my judgement. I am guilty of not persuading him to leave.

I could have saved his life.

Months before that, as a measure of safety and easy access through barriers, Nimalarajan asked me to issue him a BBC identity card. When I tried, I was told by management, that the BBC would not issue identity cards to freelancers without a contract. The senior producer of the Sinhala Service Chandana Keerthi Bandara managed to get a press card from ‘Haraya’ newspaper to facilitate Nimalarajan’s work for the BBC. That was the card he carried to the end. I failed again by giving in to BBC regulations without a fight.

BBC Tamil Service only used Nimalarajan occasionally. Their Senior Producer Anandhi Suriyapragasam was adamant that his Tamil language skills were not up to standard. For me, the contents of his reports were more important than his ‘imperfect’ Sinhala.

There are institutionalised discrepancies within the BBC between media workers who broadcast in English and other languages. The resources, wages, programme budgets and facilities remain to be different. In the case of smaller services the differences are wider. For a voice report from the field in Sinhala or Tamil, a reporter is paid around fifteen pounds. A journalist standing next to the language reporter, giving the same report (often based on information obtained from vernacular reporter) in English is paid three to four times more. Trade unions are often reluctant to fight on behalf of overseas media workers, as poorly paid reporters could not afford to pay membership fees. 

BBC middle east correspondent’s driver was killed by an Israeli rocket attack a few weeks before Nimalarajan. BBC paid substantial amount of compensation to the bereaved family. I was told that it was not possible to issue any compensation for Nimarajan as he did not have a contract with the BBC. I was overwhelmed with disappointment and guilt. After days of tearful confrontations, and angry confrontations, with the aid of helpful individuals who went out of their way to help, I managed to find a fund held in an office 200 miles away in Bristol. We managed to persuade the fund holders to issue a substantial amount.

Immediately after the killing, rest of Nimalarajn’s family had to go into hiding for their own safety. Severely wounded father, mother, nephew along with severely traumatised wife and three small children under five, had to be taken to a safe location until arrangements were made to send them out of Sri Lanka. 

BBC correspondent in Colombo, Frances Harrison and Elmo Fernando voluntarily took the responsibility of looking after eleven members of the family. The family preferred to join their relatives in Canada. Frances worked hard to secure the necessary documents and visas for the family. Meanwhile, Chandana Bandara managed to persuade the Amnesty International to pay for the flights of eleven family members to reach Canada from Colombo. 

Later Nimal’s father told me that they had managed to buy a house in Canada with the money from the BBC. 

Confronting the management asking for equality in a large and complicated organisation can be the path to carrier suicide. I learnt it much later. Regardless of impending pitfalls, Nimalarajan had few more battles to fight. 

The first victory was getting the BBC to issue contracts for all regular contributors around the globe. With the contracts, all of them were issued with BBC identity cards. 

All journalists attached to the BBC in Sri Lanka were visited at home by a security expert from the UK. The BBC paid for any construction work needed to secure the homes of the journalists, according to the recommendations of the expert. 

Nimalarajan’s demise may have influenced many reforms within the BBC.

Nimalarajan’s name is written in a ten meter tall sculpture on the roof of the new BBC headquarters in Central London. A strong beacon of light is switched on every night through the cylindrical sculpture illuminating the night sky around the building. 

Every working day, BBC workers of different levels and status are twisting their tongues struggling to pronounce this incredibly long Tamil name, trying to book or attending a meeting in Mylavaaganam Nimalarajan meeting room situated on the 5th floor of the new building.

More recently, I was talking to Lillian Landor, the Controller of BBC Languages at the time. When I mentioned about death threats, she was dismissive, she shrugged and said, “Happens all the time. It is a part of the job!”

Sometimes the threats are not merely a part of the job of a journalist or even an assassin. 

Sixteen years ago, hiding under the darkness of that night, a group of cowards came with guns and grenades. They came to kill Nimalarajan. They failed.

Mylavaaganam Nimalarajan lives on! 

by - Priyath Liyanage - former editor BBC Sinhala Service