Jaffna varsity students for Tamil culture

The Jaffna University Students’ Union is to launch a campaign to prevent the erosion of Tamil culture due to outside influences appearing in the wake of the end of the 30-year war, and the opening up road links between the hitherto isolated northern peninsula and the rest of Sri Lanka.

Details of the campaign were announced at a seminar on emerging trends in Jaffna’s culture held at the Kailasapathy Hall in Jaffna on Thursday.

VULGAR TAMIL FILMS: Briefing Express on the move, Union secretary Rangan said the baneful influence of the indecent and vulgar dialogues in films imported from Tamil Nadu was a matter of grave concern.

“The Tamil spoken in Jaffna is known for politeness and decency, but there is a danger of this changing with increasing exposure to Tamil films of the wrong kind,” he said.

According to the union, couples are misusing cinema halls and hotel rooms, and has called upon owners of these establishments to curb such tendencies.

Rangan said the relationship between the sexes, which was traditionally marked by segregation and mutual reserve in Jaffna, was changing for the worse. He attributed this to the influx and influence of the less conservative people from South Sri Lanka who had been pouring into the peninsula in large numbers after the end of the war in May 2009.

The union has said that it frowns on Hindu temples holding entertainment shows. Henceforth, temple authorities must organise only plays and lectures portraying the glories of Tamil culture and the achievements of the Tamil people.

Sherine Xavier of the Home for Human Rights said the fears of the Jaffna Tamils stemmed from the sudden influx of merchants and tourists from the Sinhalese community, who were culturally different.

Xavier pointed out that earlier, the LTTE had enforced, albeit unofficially and illegally, some kind of social order, and what it considered to be Tamil culture, but after the decimation of this group, no satisfactory substitute had been put in place. “The Lankan military is now charged with this responsibility, but the maintenance of law and order and culture are not the military’s job, but those of the police and the civil administration.” “Recently, some militarymen were themselves involved in the murder of a temple priest,” she pointed out.