JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — A monument honoring S.J.V. Chelvanayakam, the founder of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi and one of the most consequential figures in Sri Lankan Tamil politics, has been damaged at his family’s ancestral burial ground in Tellippalai, in what people familiar with the site said appeared to be a case of theft rather than a politically motivated attack.
The monument stands in the Church of South India cemetery along the Vallai-Araly Road, within the Tellippalai Police Division, where members of Chelvanayakam’s family are buried.
Chelvanayakam, widely known as Thanthai Chelva, or Father Chelva, is not buried at the Tellippalai cemetery. His grave is at the Thanthai Chelva memorial site in Jaffna town, facing the Jaffna Fort esplanade.
The structure in Tellippalai was erected to commemorate Chelvanayakam at his family’s ancestral burial ground and was decorated with coloured lights. The lights were removed, apparently by thieves, and the upper portion of the monument was damaged in the process.
Initial reports described the episode as the destruction of a memorial by unidentified people. But people familiar with the site said the available circumstances suggested that the perpetrators were after the decorative lighting and associated fittings, rather than seeking to desecrate a monument to the Tamil political leader.
There was no immediate evidence of a political or ethnic motive, and the identity of those responsible was not known.
Residents and neighbours have brought the damage to the attention of the Valikamam North Pradeshiya Sabha and called for those responsible to be identified and for the monument to be repaired.
Tellippalai has deep connections to Chelvanayakam and his family. Although he was born in Malaya, now Malaysia, in 1898, his mother returned to Tellippalai with her children when Chelvanayakam was young, and he was educated at Union College there before continuing his studies in Jaffna and Colombo. His ties to Tellippalai deepened through marriage: in 1927, he married Emily Grace Barr-Kumarakulasinghe, who came from a prominent Tellippalai family.
Chelvanayakam died in 1977. A lawyer and longtime parliamentarian, he founded the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi, commonly known as the Federal Party, and became the leading advocate of federalism and nonviolent political action for Tamil rights in post-independence Sri Lanka.
