The Journey of Sri Lankan Malay: A glimpse in to the facinating history!

Today (02nd March 2024), I attended the book launching ceremony of Tony Saldin’s newest publication; ‘Indonesian roots, Sri Lankan soil’. I was delighted to attend and also hugely surprised on what I learnt on the Sri Lankan Malay community during the proceedings. My analysis earlier on why Indonesia is important to us in our foreign relations was further augmented by the happening in the history which emphasised that the historical relations still a major power-play in geo-politics today!

Tony Saldin in his book as an autobiography has taken the historical developments of his ancestors and the two keynote speakers garnished the writing by their narrations into history, and I consider these are very noteworthy! One of the keynote speakers pointed out that to understand a community one need to look at children of that community, to see how this young generation look up to their history! That history they learnt may have been transmitted through folklore, through their grand-parents, parents, and biographies! This highlighted the value of biographies that contains volumes of real-life experiences.

The Malays of Sri Lanka today are of 6th or 7th generation that originated from the Indonesia’s Batavia (present day Jakarta) and the island of Madura and many other places in the archipelago. And Dutch used them because of their utmost loyalty to the superiors, and the keynote speaker been an authority of historical developments of Malay’s in Sri Lanka vividly pointed out with facts and figures on how even Kandyan Kings used Malay’s as their trusted soldiers. Listening to these made me wonder whether we really know our roots and how our culture has been enriched by lesser communities like Malays and Burgers. The cohesion of our Sri Lankan identity and strength lay on understanding values and ethos of these communities and it reminds me whether our present-day teachers and educational administrators really understand these developments!

The Malaysian High Commissioner, being the Guest of Honour spoke on Malay to the audience and it reminded me of my reading about the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie address at the League of Nation on 12th May 1936 in Swahili (whilst ignoring the working language of French, despite being fluent in that language, to make his point for the Ethiopia and Africa) which is recorded in Wikipedia. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haile_Selassie ). In these deliberations I came to know many names; personal and streets etc that was added to our vocabulary because of the Malay connection. This is the first time I came to know that Rajaguru is a name derived from the Malayan ancestors! How many other I wonder are there, yet we may not know in these fascinating historical episodes!

Tony’s book has a separate section for the origination of names in Wattala area from the streets to localities. The ‘Dutch canal’ and the Hamilton Canal are two different entities and the crossing point of the Kelani Ganga (river) before the bridges were built, was not the place where we popularly believe so at ‘Thotalaga’ are just a two that I would like to point out for the readers curiosity! All in all, I believe that Indonesia is much closer to Sri Lanka from historical engagements and is an aspect we must be exploiting to the hilt. From the Sri Vijayan to present day, our roots will enhance our regional cooperation and collaboration, and our young generations must know the history! Tony’s book has done just that, and I hope readers will take note of the book for Military Academies, Universities and Households!

Thank you Tony for the Book and the Event!