The Whirlwind by Santhan

     All events are seen through the eyes of Tamil characters such as Sivan and Thevar. On the one hand, Kanagar, one of the refugees sees the time of the British rule as “the best of the whole of” their history, for there were no “wars, no fights. They made roads, rail roads and established estates. There was justice and fair play and religious freedom and all the people lived amicably, like one family”, and in addition “Jaffna people secured high ranking jobs here and went to Malaya and Sinapore and earned their fortunes”(26-27).

     Sivan and Essem, on the other hand, mourns the death Indira Gandhi; “if not, things would’ve been definitely different” (31). However, Ganeshan, a character Santhan seems to approve of, asks Sivan whether he could “deny that it was they who had fanned the unfortunate embers of displeasure among us and managed to build out of it a flame of enmity in which the whole island is burning now” (90). Interestingly, Captain Vanpar looking for LTTE informants and activists identifies the Tamil refugees as “You … Sri Lankans!” and Sivan echoes the label in his mind.

     According to Vihanga Perera in his web article “‘The Whirlwind’ taken after ‘Elephant Pass’: of putting Santhan and Nihal in the ring”:

From a purely political perspective, the novel stands out as an account of the interruption of civil life in a Northern Lankan Tamil village upon IPKF entry. This interruption and the dilemmas that follow of having an “alien” on your “home soil” … is graphically captured by Santhan ...The novel begins abruptly and ends without resolution. It is almost a reflection of the very displacement that is dealt with in the work.