"Heart on Fire"
"Heart on Fire"
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(Burning of Jaffna public library)
On the night of May 31, 1981, Father David, a former principal of St. Patrick's College in Jaffna, who lived a little outside the city, called a friend on the phone after seeing smoke rising from the city center from his window.
"What is that black smoke in the middle of the city?"
"Don't know why. They set fire to our library."
The father looked at it for a moment and became silent in an instant. He was silent forever. In other words, his heart broke and he died because he couldn't bear the grief.
Since the 1930s, he donated books to build the Jaffna library and personally intervened to nurture it. This heinous crime was reported on the internet as follows.
"In May 1981, plainclothes policemen accompanied by a riotous mob came to Jaffna in the north, home to the minority Dravidian people, and set fire to the Jaffna Public Library, the largest in South Asia, containing about 95,000 books."
This library was established in 1931 and was built in several stages. It was first started with a private collection of books. Later, with the support of the local people, it gradually improved. There were original copies of handwritten documents prepared with great dedication, many locally important documents containing socio-political information of Sri Lanka, as well as copies of newspapers published in Jaffna hundreds of years ago. Accordingly, this library was also a center symbolizing the historical importance of Sri Lanka. The first phase of construction of the library building was inaugurated in 1959 by the then Mayor of Jaffna, Mr. Alfred Doreyappa. The architect of this Indian and Mughal style building was S. Narasingham from Chennai. An eminent Indian librarian, S.R. Mr. Ranganathan was a mentor of this library and he was very dedicated to bring it up to international standard. The Jaffna Public Library was also a source of pride for the Indian people, and scholars from India and other countries used the rare books available here for research.
At a Dravida United Liberation Front (T.U.L.F.) rally on Sunday 31 May 1981, two Sinhalese police officers were killed. After that, several riotous acts took place, which may have motivated the burning and destruction of this library with hateful motives. In 1984, Nancy Murray, a journalist, had reported that two cabinet ministers of the then UNP government and senior security officers were at the Jaffna inn when this happened. Accordingly, 97000 books by the police and mobs with the knowledge of the government
The Jaffna Public Library, which was around This was also a powerful symbol of the cultural and political life of the Tamil community. Among the burnt books, many culturally and regionally important, historically important, rare books and manuscripts that will never be found again were also destroyed. Many writings of philosophers, painters, famous author Mr. Ananda Coomaraswamy and intellectual Professor Isaac Tambaiah have also been burnt here.
In addition, memoirs of famous dramatists and writers. There were the works of Wan, who contributed to the enhancement of Dravidian culture, and also the works of regional healers and politicians. As if in a frenzy, the mobs who acted like idiots, had also set fire to the statue of Buddha, which had been respectfully placed in the library.
During the time of President Chandrika Kumaratunga, this was repaired with the help of local and foreign donations of shillings. Again in 2001, the building was spectacularly restored.
When the library was set on fire, Mrs. Rudra Nadaraja, who had been its librarian since 1974, was deeply shocked and disappointed and went abroad.
She was currently residing in London.
A documentary called burning memories has been produced by Mr. 'Sri Dharan Somidaran' and a film called 'Tears of Paradise' has been produced by cinematographer Mr. Dharmasiri Bandaranaike about this criminal act.
This destruction not only touched the hearts of the Dravidian people, but also the hearts of the Sinhalese people in the south. was shocked
In 2016, Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe, who was the Prime Minister at that time (current President) has apologized in Parliament for this tragedy that happened during the United National Party regime.
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