Interview | In Ceylon, there was no tryst with democracy: Rajan Hoole

In an email interview with The Hindu, he speaks about his latest book ‘Democracy Stillborn’, co-authored with Kirupaimalar Hoole, a retired librarian from the University of Jaffna

Sri Lanka’s crisis last year was unprecedented on many accounts. But, it was not entirely unrelated to the country’s tumultuous past, marked by discriminatory laws and policy targeting the island nation’s minorities, especially the Malaiyaha Tamils, according to Rajan Hoole, Jaffna-based mathematician, best known for his human rights activism during the civil war years.

In an email interview with The Hindu, he speaks about his latest book ‘Democracy Stillborn’, co-authored with Kirupaimalar Hoole, a retired librarian from the University of Jaffna. Published by the Colombo-based Sailfish, it focuses on Sri Lanka’s treatment of the Malaiyaha Tamil community, brought down from India by the British to work in the plantations in the island’s central and southern regions, and links the persisting exploitation and discrimination of the community’s labouring classes to the country’s larger pursuit of democracy.