Returning to the broken palmyrah

In September, many will remember Rajani Thiranagama, the feminist, activist, Marxist, scholar, doctor and teacher who was assassinated 20 years ago, on 21 September 1989. Among the reasons for her assassination was the publication of The Broken Palmyrah, which she had co-authored with three other academics from Jaffna University. While Southasians commemorate the life and work of Rajani at a time when the war in Sri Lanka has come to an end, in many ways the metaphorical palmyrah is still broken. It is in this context that we can return to that inspiring work, carrying as it does a message of hope, an analysis of possible ways forward, and faith in the resilience of ordinary people in the face of the cruelties of war.

Co-authored with Rajan Hoole, K Sritharan and Daya Somasundaram (two mathematicians and a psychiatrist, respectively), The Broken Palmyrah was written during and following the months of the Indian Peace-Keeping Force's (IPKF) offensive against the LTTE beginning in October 1987. It is a work that brought out the horrors of war through the voices of ordinary people, rich in analysis and, even two decades after it was published, prophetic on the issues facing the Tamil community and Sri Lanka at large. It is the kind of work that can only come out of an uncompromising commitment to one's people. This commitment has, over the last two decades, also been exemplified by the three co-authors – two of Rajani's colleagues in the University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) who continued the work underground, and the third who chose to remain in Jaffna for most of the wartime period, providing invaluable trauma counselling and psycho-social care to the victims of violence.