What is this Jaffna College anniversary dinner in Colombo?
"On behalf of the Sri Lanka Guardian, a team headed by Renuka Sharma has probed into the plans by the organizers of a Jaffna College Colombo alumni anniversary dinner and the recent events linked to Father Sellathurai Jeyanesan’s attempt to disrupt the Jaffna Diocese of the Church of South India (JDCSI)which has the primary responsibility to run this school as a Christian institution at Vaddukoddai in the Jaffna District. When the Batticotta Seminary founded by the American missionaries in 1823 was closed in 1855, some members of this church, the lawful predecessor of the JDCSI, took great efforts and pains against several odds and launched Jaffna College in 1872 without any assistance or support from the American Mission Board in the States. This is actually the founding date of this school and not 1823 which is a myth foisted by the missionaries and their local sycophants to discredit the magnificent efforts of the real founding fathers more to obliterate from memory and records the outrageous decision made by the American Mission Board to close the Batticotta Seminary which was developing well and was on the way to becoming a university.
The Sri Lanka Guardian team found that other than the conspiracy behind the dinner to achieve an evil intention, the dinner is far from being an event, as the college song says in the first stanza where”Our filial love renew” for there is nothing about brothers and sisters getting together but an intention to snub and insult the Jaffna College Board of Directors, destroy the school’s relationship with the JDCSI and create a situation to sabotage the institution. This is also what Father Jeyanesan and his supporters attempted to do with the JDCSI school, the Uduvil Girls College and towards this even Jeyanesan’s cassocked clergy demonstrated openly and behaved like hoodlums and hooligans.
The Sri Lanka Guardian team found that other than the conspiracy behind the dinner to achieve an evil intention, the dinner is far from being an event, as the college song says in the first stanza where”Our filial love renew” for there is nothing about brothers and sisters getting together but an intention to snub and insult the Jaffna College Board of Directors, destroy the school’s relationship with the JDCSI and create a situation to sabotage the institution. This is also what Father Jeyanesan and his supporters attempted to do with the JDCSI school, the Uduvil Girls College and towards this even Jeyanesan’s cassocked clergy demonstrated openly and behaved like hoodlums and hooligans.
(August 15, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian)Under pretense of support, is this attempt aimed at sabotage of a great school in the north?
How can William Shakespeare’s Hamlet be staged without the Prince of Denmark; worse even without Claudius and Gertrude the King and Queen of Denmark and their daughter, Ophelia as well? But this is exactly what will happen on the evening of Sunday August 14, 2008 at the Galle Face Hotel when a dissident group of pro-Father Jeyanesan Jaffna College alumni conveniently arrayed under the leadership of the Jaffna College Colombo Alumni committee headed by S Kandasamy will do in the name of marking, as they claim the 185th anniversary of the founding of Jaffna College. This is even stranger because public functions of Jaffna College are never held on a Sunday, a Sabbath tradition this school has always held firm. The school’s vesper services are held in the JDCSI Cathedral Church.
Hardly anyone makes much about such an odd year for pomp and pageantry that goes with anniversary celebrations and Kandasamy and his supporters seem unable to wait for another fifteen years for the 200th anniversary. They could have, instead, celebrated the 125th year of the founding of Jaffna College last year and that would have been proper. Mr Kandasamy, the chairman of the UPS in Sri Lanka, owner of estates and exporter of tea has the means and clout to gather around him those who sell their souls for a mess of potage. Furthermore, Father Sellathurai Jeyanesan is running out of funds he has illegally amassed or rather has not accounted for funds collected in the US, Europe and Israel in the name of the JDCSI for a decade before he split from this church when he could not become the bishop of it.
He is under obligation, legally, morally and ethically to submit his accounts and all related instruments to the JDCSI. But instead, it appears he seems to solicit a route to destroy the JDCSI and even take control of Jaffna College with the help of people like Kandasamy who evidently has his own ambitions about Jaffna College to whet his appetite for a position of consequence related to this school. Not so long ago, Kandasamy capitalized on an idea mooted by a group of concerned alumni to create a Jaffna College Global Alumni Association to support Jaffna College in various ways to ensure that its educational objectives are development oriented to meet the current circumstances prevailing in Sri Lanka with ideals and goals focused on the future of the community it serves.
Jaffna College was established to serve the educational needs of the people of the Jaffna District and to make this possible, the school founded a fiduciary trust, The Trustees of Jaffna College Funds in the US. The initial investment to this trust came from the people of the Jaffna District.
Instead of developing this idea, Kandasamy aided by some pro-Father Jeyanesan supporters appear to have appropriated the ideal of Global Alumni to destruct the work of the Jaffna College Board of Directors and its relationship to the JDCSI and sabotage Jaffna College. It will be seen those active in this conspiracy headed by Kandasamy are Newton Gnanachandran, Chandran Ariaratnam, Father Jeyanesan’s cousin Shantakumar and his brother-in-law Selvarajah all of whom except Kandasamy have a court appointment over an attempt to violently disrupt the Sunday morning worship of the JDCSI Colombo Church. Along with them is their counsel, Mano Devasahayam as the chairman of the Steering Committee for the anniversary celebrations.
Kandasamy along with Chandran Ariaratnam has plans to set up a trust fund. In the meantime he wants some of his friends to be inducted into the Board of The Trustees of Jaffna College Funds so that, we have to presume under the circumstances and by his behavior, he could call the tune in respect of funds needed to manage Jaffna College.
The Trustees of Jaffna College Funds have in recent times been overlooking their fiduciary obligations, showing a tendency to render this trust as a mission support agency. Furthermore the successors to the American Mission Board, the Wider Churches Ministries of the United Church of Christ has shown their interests in bringing back under their control the properties of the American Ceylon Mission vested in the JDCSI.
One such friend Kandasamy is quite keen to get on the Board of The Trustees of Jaffna College Funds is Professor Valentine Daniel, an anthropologist from the University of Columbia, a volatile personality and who is known to have strong anthropological views on the Sri Lankan ethnic issues but more to serve the popular fad that is current among certain groups rather than those closer to reality. Professor Daniel (or is he Professor Valentine?) certainly takes a convenient cover under the more than often diverse views in anthropology because in this world, many observations have their limits and there is the tendency to stress on assumptions to suit whatever that may be considered convenient at a particular time or in a particular situation.
We understand Professor Valentine Daniel (or Daniel Valentine) has been invited as the chief guest of the anniversary celebrations but it has not been announced whether as a singer or a speaker but he is also known to combine both at most such functions. But what does it matter whether he speaks, sings or dances, all that the dinner is aimed at is to undermine the authority of the Jaffna College Board of Directors in which the Bishop of the JDCSI, the Rt Rev Dr Daniel Thiagarajah serves as the General Secretary. He has not been invited to this function and that much for where we renew our filial love towards each other.
And Professor Valentine Daniel has been regularly making contributions to a scurrilous campaign that is being spearheaded by a friend of his from his Singapore base against the JDCSI and the Board of Directors of Jaffna College, an activity that exposed him as unworthy of good standing and reputation.
This alone should have disqualified him from being the chief guest at such a function. Even otherwise, he should have, as a don of one of the finest universities in the States, had the grace and good sense to decline the invitation extended to him by Kandasamy and his fellows. He cannot abuse the seat of a position that sanctifies learning. It is good for Professor Valentine Daniel to be informed that the Jaffna College Board of Directors functions within the framework of the rules governing the school and not as he from time to time tried to cheer with his mail to those who were giving a false and twisted version.
As an anthropologist he should have checked the relevant data and even probed deep into what was being touted around by some of his friends, Kandasamy included. It is said anthropologists tend to reach conclusions from assumptions and in the case of Professor Daniel this seems the case which if so, is utterly irresponsible and reflects with shocking shame on the office he holds in his university.
May be Professor Daniel gathered his information from the wrong people. One of the accused in the pro-Father Jeyanesan Colombo Church invasion case, Newton Gnanachandran said they do not respect the Jaffna College Board of Directors because it is full of JDCSI nominees forgetting the fact that it was the members of this church who struggled hard during the years between 1855 and 1872 to launch Jaffna College and some of them are quite likely to have been his ancestors.
He seems also ignorant of the stunning fact that but for the JDCSI under the leadership of the late revered Bishop Sabapathy Kulandran, we would have totally lost Jaffna College in 1974. How many of these people including Kandasamy and Valentine David are aware of the struggle the Jaffna College Board of Directors had during this particular period to save Jaffna College for posterity?
Some grown up delinquents like Newton Gnanachandran cannot hold Jaffna College to ransom just because Father Jeyanesan failed in his bid to become the bishop of the JDCSI. People like him should check whose help he has sought to manage a website for his church and the connection one particular person in Sydney, Australia has with terrorist elements. Even worse, twisting verses from the Holy Bible and making fun of them in this CACM website is no joke. It is sacrilegious.
After all Newton Gnanachandran was one of the people who marched into a church while worship was on and created a great deal of disturbance. If this is not delinquency what else is? May be one could call it mental aberration. On that morning there were quite a few with such mental conditions who marched into the church with disgraceful intentions. And now they want to celebrate an anniversary of a school that owes its birth and existence to the very church towards which they have expressed so much hatred.
History is a mighty voice of reality and reason and it appears Father Jeyanesan and his disruptive dissidents aided by people like Kandasamy who should confine his ambitions to sending parcels and selling tea leafs and not attempt to disrupt cherished educational traditions, seem quite oblivious of how Jaffna College came to be, its developing years and the potential it holds for the future wellbeing of our community. Father Jeyanesan was found to be unsuitable to be elected as the head of the JDCSI by the Synod of the Church of South India. It certainly had good reasons for such a decision. Furthermore, his record as a handler of public funds belies everything that is honest and of good report. In fact, a man who has not accounted for funds collected in the name of the JDCSI over a few years must be a fraud.
Father Jeyanesan’s political links have come under intense focus and he seems aligned towards terrorism with the kind of views he has expressed and also some communications supports with which he has aided some terror factions in Wanni. He has also used his ministers to participate in violent demonstrations against the JDCSI. Just the other day speaking at a meeting in Paandirippu in the Batticaloa District he accused the government of conducting a maniacal war against the Tamils which he described in Tamil as “Arrakkathanamana Yuththam” (monstrous war). He also said the government has only day dreams about winning the war. Evidently, he chose the opportunity of speaking to an audience that loved such an oratory and that which warmed his heart too.
Father Jeyanesan resorts to violence easily and will not hesitate to cause harm to the well established institutions to have his way. His record is well proven in this respect. At this Paandirippu meeting he would have warmed the hearts of his terrorist friends when he said that the armed forces including the Air Force and the Navy are “raining shells and bombs on the civilians killing, maiming and displacing thousands and thousands who are left without food, water, medication, sanitation etc.”
Even a known friend of the LTTE, Bishop Rayappu Joseph of Mannar has expressed a great deal of reservations almost amounting to saying that the campaign of the Tigers has lost its credibility to a great extent. Evidently Father Jeyanesan has other views and also seems to have the confidence that Kandasamy, his relatives and friends in the Alumni Committee planning the anniversary dinner will help him with the damage or sabotage that he intends against Jaffna College.
The Jaffna College hymn is replete with such ideals as “We love her name, we’ll guard her fame, while life and memory last, Our loyalty shall be the same, wherever our lot be cast, The light of life is on her seal, and may this college be, A place where all her sons shall feel, that they the true light see.” These will be empty and extremely hypocritical because this dinner will not serve the interests of Jaffna College but an attempt to sabotage it to serve the devious machinations of Father Jeyanesan and his supporters. And Kandasamy too will have his own agenda.
It must be noted that this dinner is being held in the High Security Zone in the centre of the country’s capital and such a venue in the current circumstances is not the right place. This poses possibilities of some ugly or even tragic incidents and one should wonder why the organizers have chosen such a risky place for the occasion. Or was this a choice of Father Jeyanesan and his friends such as Newton Gnanachandran, Chandran Ariaratnam, Shanthakumar, Selvarajah and others?
END
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How can William Shakespeare’s Hamlet be staged without the Prince of Denmark; worse even without Claudius and Gertrude the King and Queen of Denmark and their daughter, Ophelia as well? But this is exactly what will happen on the evening of Sunday August 14, 2008 at the Galle Face Hotel when a dissident group of pro-Father Jeyanesan Jaffna College alumni conveniently arrayed under the leadership of the Jaffna College Colombo Alumni committee headed by S Kandasamy will do in the name of marking, as they claim the 185th anniversary of the founding of Jaffna College. This is even stranger because public functions of Jaffna College are never held on a Sunday, a Sabbath tradition this school has always held firm. The school’s vesper services are held in the JDCSI Cathedral Church.
Hardly anyone makes much about such an odd year for pomp and pageantry that goes with anniversary celebrations and Kandasamy and his supporters seem unable to wait for another fifteen years for the 200th anniversary. They could have, instead, celebrated the 125th year of the founding of Jaffna College last year and that would have been proper. Mr Kandasamy, the chairman of the UPS in Sri Lanka, owner of estates and exporter of tea has the means and clout to gather around him those who sell their souls for a mess of potage. Furthermore, Father Sellathurai Jeyanesan is running out of funds he has illegally amassed or rather has not accounted for funds collected in the US, Europe and Israel in the name of the JDCSI for a decade before he split from this church when he could not become the bishop of it.
He is under obligation, legally, morally and ethically to submit his accounts and all related instruments to the JDCSI. But instead, it appears he seems to solicit a route to destroy the JDCSI and even take control of Jaffna College with the help of people like Kandasamy who evidently has his own ambitions about Jaffna College to whet his appetite for a position of consequence related to this school. Not so long ago, Kandasamy capitalized on an idea mooted by a group of concerned alumni to create a Jaffna College Global Alumni Association to support Jaffna College in various ways to ensure that its educational objectives are development oriented to meet the current circumstances prevailing in Sri Lanka with ideals and goals focused on the future of the community it serves.
Jaffna College was established to serve the educational needs of the people of the Jaffna District and to make this possible, the school founded a fiduciary trust, The Trustees of Jaffna College Funds in the US. The initial investment to this trust came from the people of the Jaffna District.
Instead of developing this idea, Kandasamy aided by some pro-Father Jeyanesan supporters appear to have appropriated the ideal of Global Alumni to destruct the work of the Jaffna College Board of Directors and its relationship to the JDCSI and sabotage Jaffna College. It will be seen those active in this conspiracy headed by Kandasamy are Newton Gnanachandran, Chandran Ariaratnam, Father Jeyanesan’s cousin Shantakumar and his brother-in-law Selvarajah all of whom except Kandasamy have a court appointment over an attempt to violently disrupt the Sunday morning worship of the JDCSI Colombo Church. Along with them is their counsel, Mano Devasahayam as the chairman of the Steering Committee for the anniversary celebrations.
Kandasamy along with Chandran Ariaratnam has plans to set up a trust fund. In the meantime he wants some of his friends to be inducted into the Board of The Trustees of Jaffna College Funds so that, we have to presume under the circumstances and by his behavior, he could call the tune in respect of funds needed to manage Jaffna College.
The Trustees of Jaffna College Funds have in recent times been overlooking their fiduciary obligations, showing a tendency to render this trust as a mission support agency. Furthermore the successors to the American Mission Board, the Wider Churches Ministries of the United Church of Christ has shown their interests in bringing back under their control the properties of the American Ceylon Mission vested in the JDCSI.
One such friend Kandasamy is quite keen to get on the Board of The Trustees of Jaffna College Funds is Professor Valentine Daniel, an anthropologist from the University of Columbia, a volatile personality and who is known to have strong anthropological views on the Sri Lankan ethnic issues but more to serve the popular fad that is current among certain groups rather than those closer to reality. Professor Daniel (or is he Professor Valentine?) certainly takes a convenient cover under the more than often diverse views in anthropology because in this world, many observations have their limits and there is the tendency to stress on assumptions to suit whatever that may be considered convenient at a particular time or in a particular situation.We understand Professor Valentine Daniel (or Daniel Valentine) has been invited as the chief guest of the anniversary celebrations but it has not been announced whether as a singer or a speaker but he is also known to combine both at most such functions. But what does it matter whether he speaks, sings or dances, all that the dinner is aimed at is to undermine the authority of the Jaffna College Board of Directors in which the Bishop of the JDCSI, the Rt Rev Dr Daniel Thiagarajah serves as the General Secretary. He has not been invited to this function and that much for where we renew our filial love towards each other.
And Professor Valentine Daniel has been regularly making contributions to a scurrilous campaign that is being spearheaded by a friend of his from his Singapore base against the JDCSI and the Board of Directors of Jaffna College, an activity that exposed him as unworthy of good standing and reputation.
This alone should have disqualified him from being the chief guest at such a function. Even otherwise, he should have, as a don of one of the finest universities in the States, had the grace and good sense to decline the invitation extended to him by Kandasamy and his fellows. He cannot abuse the seat of a position that sanctifies learning. It is good for Professor Valentine Daniel to be informed that the Jaffna College Board of Directors functions within the framework of the rules governing the school and not as he from time to time tried to cheer with his mail to those who were giving a false and twisted version.
As an anthropologist he should have checked the relevant data and even probed deep into what was being touted around by some of his friends, Kandasamy included. It is said anthropologists tend to reach conclusions from assumptions and in the case of Professor Daniel this seems the case which if so, is utterly irresponsible and reflects with shocking shame on the office he holds in his university.
May be Professor Daniel gathered his information from the wrong people. One of the accused in the pro-Father Jeyanesan Colombo Church invasion case, Newton Gnanachandran said they do not respect the Jaffna College Board of Directors because it is full of JDCSI nominees forgetting the fact that it was the members of this church who struggled hard during the years between 1855 and 1872 to launch Jaffna College and some of them are quite likely to have been his ancestors.
He seems also ignorant of the stunning fact that but for the JDCSI under the leadership of the late revered Bishop Sabapathy Kulandran, we would have totally lost Jaffna College in 1974. How many of these people including Kandasamy and Valentine David are aware of the struggle the Jaffna College Board of Directors had during this particular period to save Jaffna College for posterity?Some grown up delinquents like Newton Gnanachandran cannot hold Jaffna College to ransom just because Father Jeyanesan failed in his bid to become the bishop of the JDCSI. People like him should check whose help he has sought to manage a website for his church and the connection one particular person in Sydney, Australia has with terrorist elements. Even worse, twisting verses from the Holy Bible and making fun of them in this CACM website is no joke. It is sacrilegious.
After all Newton Gnanachandran was one of the people who marched into a church while worship was on and created a great deal of disturbance. If this is not delinquency what else is? May be one could call it mental aberration. On that morning there were quite a few with such mental conditions who marched into the church with disgraceful intentions. And now they want to celebrate an anniversary of a school that owes its birth and existence to the very church towards which they have expressed so much hatred.
History is a mighty voice of reality and reason and it appears Father Jeyanesan and his disruptive dissidents aided by people like Kandasamy who should confine his ambitions to sending parcels and selling tea leafs and not attempt to disrupt cherished educational traditions, seem quite oblivious of how Jaffna College came to be, its developing years and the potential it holds for the future wellbeing of our community. Father Jeyanesan was found to be unsuitable to be elected as the head of the JDCSI by the Synod of the Church of South India. It certainly had good reasons for such a decision. Furthermore, his record as a handler of public funds belies everything that is honest and of good report. In fact, a man who has not accounted for funds collected in the name of the JDCSI over a few years must be a fraud.
Father Jeyanesan’s political links have come under intense focus and he seems aligned towards terrorism with the kind of views he has expressed and also some communications supports with which he has aided some terror factions in Wanni. He has also used his ministers to participate in violent demonstrations against the JDCSI. Just the other day speaking at a meeting in Paandirippu in the Batticaloa District he accused the government of conducting a maniacal war against the Tamils which he described in Tamil as “Arrakkathanamana Yuththam” (monstrous war). He also said the government has only day dreams about winning the war. Evidently, he chose the opportunity of speaking to an audience that loved such an oratory and that which warmed his heart too.
Father Jeyanesan resorts to violence easily and will not hesitate to cause harm to the well established institutions to have his way. His record is well proven in this respect. At this Paandirippu meeting he would have warmed the hearts of his terrorist friends when he said that the armed forces including the Air Force and the Navy are “raining shells and bombs on the civilians killing, maiming and displacing thousands and thousands who are left without food, water, medication, sanitation etc.”
Even a known friend of the LTTE, Bishop Rayappu Joseph of Mannar has expressed a great deal of reservations almost amounting to saying that the campaign of the Tigers has lost its credibility to a great extent. Evidently Father Jeyanesan has other views and also seems to have the confidence that Kandasamy, his relatives and friends in the Alumni Committee planning the anniversary dinner will help him with the damage or sabotage that he intends against Jaffna College.
The Jaffna College hymn is replete with such ideals as “We love her name, we’ll guard her fame, while life and memory last, Our loyalty shall be the same, wherever our lot be cast, The light of life is on her seal, and may this college be, A place where all her sons shall feel, that they the true light see.” These will be empty and extremely hypocritical because this dinner will not serve the interests of Jaffna College but an attempt to sabotage it to serve the devious machinations of Father Jeyanesan and his supporters. And Kandasamy too will have his own agenda.
It must be noted that this dinner is being held in the High Security Zone in the centre of the country’s capital and such a venue in the current circumstances is not the right place. This poses possibilities of some ugly or even tragic incidents and one should wonder why the organizers have chosen such a risky place for the occasion. Or was this a choice of Father Jeyanesan and his friends such as Newton Gnanachandran, Chandran Ariaratnam, Shanthakumar, Selvarajah and others?
END
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Peace and Harmony
“Although I am the bishop of the JDCSI and primarily responsible to help with the spiritual life of the people, I also have a key role as a citizen of the community. In this, I have to be an example in the community not just for the Christians alone. Our needs are varied; social, educational, economical and many others.”-
JDCSI: Those exemplary men of preachers
- In the context of the conflict that has beset the Jaffna Diocese of the Church of South India (JDCSI), Victor Karunairajan pays his personal testimony to the deacons and preachers who served at the grass roots of the community in total dedication to their calling. He knew them well. Their wisdom and moral and ethical precepts were rooted in the Cradle of Tamil Culture which is Hindu and their faith in the Redeemer Christ was their calling and the rock on which they stood. Theirs was the universality of faith in One Eternal Creator with which the Tamil community was quite comfortable. Many of them were scholars in Tamil literature and the arts; some have composed Christian lyrics too – www.independentsl.com
by Victor Karunairajan
(August 09, Toronto, Sri Lanka Guardian) The pen-portrait on Sinnathamby Upethesiar published in a church document has been warmly welcomed by folks who had known him during their youthful years when this humble priest was quite elderly. A typical reaction came from the Rev Manopavan in Melbourne who grew up in Jaffna in a very much church-oriented family and served the Jaffna Diocese of the Church of South India (JDCSI) for some years. He observed:
“People like Sinnathamby Upethesiar touched the hearts of many. There were many 'Upethesiars' like him who, I will remember for their honesty, openness and above all for their humility. Some of the names would be Kanagaratnam, William Thevathason, and J Vinayagam. I must say that I was quite touched by them even though I was quite young to get to know them well. They led exemplary lives which seems somewhat a rare commodity these days.”
What I wrote about Sinnathamby Upethesiar was entirely from the memory bank within me and my own concept of this elder during the time of our childhood, youthful and adult years. The impact such people made on us can never be gauged with sufficient justice except to acknowledge with gratitude they were healthy, wholesome and human. Sinnathamby Upethesiar simply walked miles to visit folks on his mission trails and won their hearts.
We need to remember the total dedication of these second line of preachers to remind ourselves that the church and its mission are not for people who seek personal glories and material gains and also covet sources, both local and international, that make available vast sums of funds for the common good to be diverted by devious methods towards gratifying their own greed and their personal enrichment.
What mattered entirely to the catechists were the best interests of the community they served with the largeness of their hearts and utmost faith. Their very much challenged economic circumstances did not in anyway affect their call to service. They survived with great grace and utter humility which itself was a good example to the community.
They were committed men, called in faith and became learned and enriched in wisdom, and that was good Christian wisdom, through the many campuses of Hardknocks, their learning background. They were good examples of people who were tended from the Cradle of our Culture learning the ethics and morals that are rooted in the Hindu faith and Tamil culture and to which the Christian faith was a richly enhancing superstructure; indeed a redeeming superstructure.
The Rev Manopavan has referred to some of them whom I knew very well. There was also Kathiravelu Pirasangiar who later became a deacon. He was a kind of one-man elder, preacher, friend and even more, a Panchayat. Many individuals and families with problems sought his help to bring about peace especially couples with marital problems. These workers served the community bonding families, meeting their spiritual and social needs and in the process, developing the sense of a family under the JDCSI. Morally, ethically and spiritually, he was a man of great character. He stood tall in the community and his loyalty to the bishop was unquestionable.
This was also the hallmark of the leadership of the Rev R C P Welch who presided over the South India United Church (SIUC), and even more, the humility, scholarship, dynamism and the sound spiritual sense Bishop Sabapathy Kulandran brought to the SIUC and later the JDCSI when it was launched in 1947.
The mark of Bishop Kulandran’s leadership could be symbolized to Jesus washing the feet of his disciples and it was in that spirit he led his pastors and pirasangiars (preachers). They were all very comfortable with him. I know this because I have seen it myself and this is what endeared Bishop Kulandran in my heart. His scholarship was an inspiration to me and his spirituality, the driving force of faith that impacted me considerably.
The catechists whom we affectionately called Upethesiars and Pirasangiars, often served in areas from which it was difficult to send their children to good schools and in some areas like Pungudutivu, good water was scarce and many other facilities too; imagine serving such outposts like Kudathanai-Varany and even to some extent Delft which involves a long journey by frail craft and crossing the waters of the seven currents divide.
Today’s jet-set priests would hardly know, or even want to know the work of the humble catechists like Sinnathamby, J C Kanagaratnam, William Thevathasan, J Vinayagam, the Rev Kathiravelu, G Y Navaratnam, Subramaniam, the two Canagasingams and several others who were much loved by their parishioners and even the non-Christians of the neighbourhood of their stations like Changanai, Sandilipay, Moolai, the two Earlalais, Kudathanai-Varany, Pungudutivu, Anaicottai, Nunavil, Alaveddy, Kankesanturai and Usan. Their loyalty to the church was immaculate and impeccable.
I am very much tempted to recognize the commitment of these people in the context of the current conflict in our community. When I read through the list of names on the forefront of Rev Jeyanesan’s disruptive campaign, I gathered the impression they may not have come from the roots that nourished the SIUC and later the JDCSI, and the avenues they have sought for themselves in our community may be for sheer opportunistic purposes and not as an act of commitment to serve.
This so-called Church of the American Ceylon Mission has no creed or doctrine whatsoever not even an acknowledgement of the Kingship of Redeemer Christ. There is no denying the fact it was formed because the Rev Jeyanesan did not become the bishop and now wants to set up his own church coveting the material assets of the American Ceylon Mission. This is unacceptable and if he has some followers, then he must have become the hero of a kind of dissidents who are not concerned of any creed or doctrine of faith but must have other interests that negate the Christian faith.
Violence seems very much part of their scheme of things. Even in their presentations they tend to focus on actions that are violent in character and physical force as a means to appropriate that which does not belong to them. How long will all those unaccounted funds the Rev Jeyanesan amassed in the US, Europe and Israel in the name of the JDCSI last if all that he wants to express is a show of strength at great cost? This is all because here is a man who could not accept the reality that not anybody or everybody can become a captain of a team. His actions have now proved beyond any doubt that he certainly is not deserving of being appointed as the shepherd of a flock.
The lifestyle of the Rev Jeyanesan group is in stark contrast to those led by the priests and catechists of the JDCSI. Furthermore, in his group are people who have proven records of deceit and fraud and yet they parade as holier than thou ministers and workers of the faith. Using their Diaspora relatives and friends to some extent fed with false information, the Church of the American Ceylon Mission has become a cancerous scourge on the spiritual life of our folks in Jaffna.
Even more, what is remarkable is that the second rung of preachers like Sinnathamby Upethesiar understood the doctrines, creeds and faith of the church and served the community most honourably. Have we lost the likes of these pirasangiars and deacons such as Kathiravelu, Navaratnam, Kanagaratnam, Thevathasan, Subramaniam, Vinayagam, the two Canagasingams and several others from our community? These are the people who tended the grass roots with caring affection and we have been blessed because of them to a considerable extent from our childhood years.
Fortunately, the JDCSI which has been purged of the elements led by the Rev Jeyanesan and his supporters has addressed itself to what the role of the church should be to enhance the spiritual life of the people both as members of a church and as citizens of a country. Our role as a citizen should bear the mark of our commitment in faith.
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