In memory of Rajani: the mother, the wife and the revolutionary Keeping memories alive
Dr. Rajani Rajasingham Thiranagama, a symbol of Tamil human rights activism was shot dead by the LTTE in 1989. At the time of her murder, Rajani was the head of the Department of Anatomy at the University of Jaffna. She was also one of the founding members of the Jaffna branch of University Teachers for Human Rights. Breaking ethnic and religious barriers Rajani married Dayapala Thiranagama a student leader from Kelaniya University who went onto become an academic in his own right. The following article written by Dayapala Thiranagama first appeared in September 2009, to commemorate Rajini’s 20th death anniversary. It is reproduced to remember her 64th birth anniversary which fell on February 23, 2018.
Our ethnic differences would have appeared unbridgeable at the very beginning, as I was a product of the 1956 Sinhalese Buddhist social mobility that had been created by my parents’ generation of people who were part of the Panchamaha Balavegaya. (Sanga, weda, guru govi, and kamkaru) and in turn the 1956 and its perpetuation
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One night in 1983, soon after midnight Rajani woke me up and whispered to me that she had been asked to treat an injured boy from the Iyakkam (movement). For her, this was an act of compassion by a doctor towards her patient. For me it was a political act. I was frozen. I turned back and slept. I was caught up in the agony of belonging to the oppressor and the woman I dearly and unconditionally loved trying to ‘liberate’ her own community by undertaking her bit in the struggle. This whisper and the brief political argument that followed opened cracks in our relationship which grew wider and wider.
