Here's the answer to how Sri Lanka's dangerous historicism took shape. As I said current construct of the racial identity of Sinhalese and Tamils started in the late 19th century. If you look at history, Sri Lanka has always accepted multiculturalism with open arms. Kings and people of Sri Lanka never discriminated against race or religion. For example, a palm-leaf manuscript "Mukkara Hatana" written in Sinhalese mentions Parakramabahu VI adopting Sapumal Kumaraya (Tamil: Cepaka Perumāḷ ) as his son after the death of Sapumal's father a Tamil Karaiyar chief "Manikka Thalaivan" who was killed in a battle. Sapumal conquered the Jaffna Kingdom for his adopted father and ruled the Kotte kingdom as Bhuvanaikabahu VI after his death despite being a Tamil himself.
Once the British took over they employed their divide-and-conquer strategy to rule Sri Lanka. There were no racial or religious riots in the country until the British came in. The first recorded such riots in Sri Lanka were the 1883 Kotahena riots, between Buddhist and Roman Catholics. Then the 1915 riots between Sinhalese and Sri Lankan Moors. In order to create a further divide between communities, they disproportionately employed Sri Lankan Tamils for government positions. In addition, Sinhalese lands in the central highlands were ceased and Tamils from India were colonised for plantation. So the majority of Sinhalese felt their survival had been threatened and banded together to ensure their rights. At that time Tamil leaders made a big historical blunder.
Sinhalese leaders like Bandaranayake spoke with Tamil leaders to have a federal constitution so that Sinhalese would have a fair share according to the population. But Tamil leaders who enjoyed disproportionate power in the British government didn't want to give up their power. So they said no to federalism and asked for unfair 50-50 representation in the government. All this led to the anti-Tamil sentiment among Sinhalese immediately before independence. This is where the problem of interpreting Sri Lankan history started.
Historicism means explaining the current situation by studying the past. I'm sure many of you would think about what's wrong with this approach since it sounds logical. No, there is an inherent flaw in this approach. Researchers call this confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favour, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values. So what happened in Sri Lanka was they put the anti-Tamil sentiment of that time in the past and interpreted it. As a result of cherry-picking and choosing events from history, they established a narrative. Tamils have always wanted to rule this country, and they always threaten Sinhalese's existence.
Historicism is like when you wear green sunglasses everything will start to appear green to you. It is for this reason that researchers nowadays prefer historicity. Historicism studies the past from the present. Historicity is a study of "past to present". It makes a big difference when you do this. You will find there is no pattern or narrative in history. There is no direct cause-and-effect relationship. Every event is the result of multiple socio-economic-political factors.
Through my readings, I can say with absolute confidence that there is no balanced and well-researched history of Sri Lanka even to this day. We still talk about historicism, not historicity. Only today's problems and prejudices have been inserted into history. Our historians only look at Sri Lanka's history in isolation from other parts of the region. Ancient South Indian sources have not been correlated and integrated. Foreign records provide a valuable source to reconstruct a balanced view of the history of the country. It is very critical to study the history and developments in the region, the geographical location of the country, its position on trade routes, etc.
Archaeological explorations and epigraphy are much more important than past records referring to events many centuries earlier. But in Sri Lanka, archaeology and epigraphy have not been given primacy as sources but interpreted in the light of the Mahavamsa, a chronicle written with a very narrow vision many centuries later.
There has never been a writer more influential in Sri Lankan history than Professor Paranavitana. In his capacity as Archaeological Commissioner and Professor of Archaeology at the University of Ceylon, he had been writing and publishing for more than 50 years. He considered the Mahavamsa to be almost like a bible for Christians, a book containing irrefutable truth. Instead of giving primacy to archaeology and epigraphy and supplementing his findings with material from the Mahavamsa, he attempted to interpret archaeology and epigraphy through the lens of the Mahavamsa.
Archaeology and old Brahmi inscriptions presented him with many problems that he could not explain from what he read in the Mahavamsa. Explorations in different parts of the country have revealed a number of megalithic cultures associated with Dravidian South India. In the absence of any clue in the Mahavamsa, he refused to give those findings their due value, since he had to accept that ancient South India and Lanka shared the same cultural complex.
Even though some Sinhala language and archaeology scholars like Prof Fernando have pointed out the closeness between south Indian Brahmi and early Lankan Brahmi, Paranavitana refused to accept the obvious to the end of his life. He himself admitted that he had rejected some portions of a Tamil contributor to the volume on the ancient period of Lankan history. This is because those portions didn’t fit into what he considered Lankan history.
So I am amused when some Sinhala chauvinists say that liberals and progressive voices advocating for a multiethnic and multicultural Sri Lanka are wrong because they don’t know Sri Lanka's history. It is Sinhala chauvinists who have been misled by a biased and distorted account of this island's history. Unless we come out of our past delusions, Sri Lanka cannot and will not move forward.
After 30 years of war and now being a bankrupt country, we normally think our citizens and government have learned something. Nope!! We learned nothing. It was just a week ago that yet another monk accompanied by the ministerial security division attempted to encroach on land in the eastern province to construct a Buddhist temple. Local people who tried to intervene were threatened with pistols. Tamil and Muslim MPs raised this issue in the parliament too. Due to persistent Buddhist clergy interference in political affairs, Sri Lanka's ethnic question continues to remain unresolved.
As long as Sinhalese nationalist groups perceive this militarization and Buddhistization of the North and East as a "reclamation and recreation of the glorious Sinhalese Buddhist past", Sri Lanka has no hope for the future. Prabhakaran liked the dominance of Sinhala-Buddhist nationalists in the Sri Lankan government for two reasons. First, it will allow him to tell the world that the Sri Lankan state will never allow Tamils to live peacefully. Secondly, he could unite Tamils despite their caste and religious differences by demonstrating that their existence is threatened. This will prevent Tamils from embracing the Sri Lankan identity. To achieve a Tamil state in Sri Lanka, he believes these two are essential. Today there is no Prabhakaran, but we still have these Sinhala-Buddhist nationalists who would never allow a united Sri Lanka.
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