July – Many Reasons To Keep Calling It “Bloody & Black”
Kusal Perara
Black July 83 - A Tamil boy stripped naked and later beaten to death by Sinhala youth in Boralla bustation | Photo - Chandraguptha Amarasingha
Waking up to a misty, cold morning on Monday 25th July, I listened to the day’s first “Thevava” (තේවාව) of Dalada Maligawa, the pinnacle of Buddhism in this “Land of Gauthama Buddha”.
Looking down at the Kandy town from the front garden space of “Satyodaya” on Pushpadana hillock, the town was seen just breaking out of its long night slumber. The morning breeze carried the drum beats of the Thevava across the silent town waking up men, women and children into this new day, that was to be etched in the “bloodiest black” possible, in post independent history of Ceylon and Sri Lanka thereafter.
The previous day, Sunday 24 July, I was attending a meeting of workers in Kandy, mostly State sector, who had struck work 03 years ago, between 17 and 22 July 1980. The Jayewardene government crushed the ’80 July strike with no mercy. Over 47,000 workers were thrown out of their jobs. July was turning black year after year since the workers’ strike, with reports of a striker or two committing suicide, while others were desperately trying to crawl back to life.
The word “Thevava” did not mean much to me then. But lately I found it is originally a Tamil word and the whole ritual had been borrowed by Hinduism, as practised in the Hindu kovils. Adopted in a Buddhist holy palace, there obviously had been a few changes to this ritual inside Dalada Maligawa, perhaps over the past few centuries. “Panikkiyas” (guess this is also a Tamil word) who perform at the Thevava with drums and flutes, are also of South Indian descent, now wholly “Sinhalised”. Read More
