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вЂњBeyondВ ChelvanayakamВ himself, the multitude and diversity of ordinary voices in the archive offer an opportunity for a wide range of people today to enter into a conversation with it,вЂќ says Raman. She hopes that these records will fill in the blanks in collective memory, with the letters of ordinary Tamils who corresponded with Chelvanayakam, reflecting their experiences, struggles, and hopes of those times. People of a certain generation have personal memories of him, or a remembered connection to him, says Raman. 'That's largely because materials like this have not been available in the public domain.'

'This earlier period is not something that people know of in much detail,' she says.

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'Father Chelva, as he was called,' says Raman, 'belonged to everyone.'Д¬helvanayakam belonged to a generation of intellectuals and leaders of the Global South who were thinking about how to build democracy and how to build a future after the wreckage of colonialism, the withdrawal of empire, and the second world war, explains Raman. The records even include letters written to the parliamentarian from concerned citizens collected from 1943 until his death in 1977. The Chelvanayakam records, made up of documents, pamphlets and correspondence, offer insight into South Asian history and the life and times of the lawyer, 'a towering parliamentarian and Sri Lankan Tamil leader,вЂќ says U of T historical and cultural studies professor, Bhavani Raman. The second reason is geography.В Toronto is home to the largest Tamil-speaking Sri Lankan diaspora outside of South India, many seeking refuge in Canada as they fled ethnic tensions in Sri Lanka during the war. 'One is, of course, you know, U of T is a fantastic university.' Gukathasan's gift - I thought a safe and good place for this collection to reside would be in Toronto for many reasons,' says Wilson. Ravi Gukathasan $2 million donation to U of T Scarborough Tamil StudiesВ through Scarborough-Rouge Park MP Gary Anandasangaree and former U of T Scarborough director of alumni relations Georgette Zinaty, that Wilson thought of the collection of her grandfather's papers sitting in her basement. 'She salvaged the filing cabinets, had them kept safely somewhere and then transported them to where she was living in Fredericton, New Brunswick,' says Wilson.

'I think she's the true hero in this story,' says her daughter, Malliha Wilson. In the early years of the conflict, Chelvanayakam's daughter Susili, a librarian in Sri Lanka and later in Canada, preserved his records. A major historical loss was the Jaffna Library, which, at the time of its burning, was one of the largest libraries in Asia housing over 97,000 books and manuscripts. Many Sri Lankan Tamil books and collections were lost during the 26-year civil war that lasted from 1983 until 2009. Chelvanayakam вЂ“ often referred to as the Gandhi of Sri Lankan Tamils вЂ“ are now accessible for the first time in the digitalВ collectionsВ of the U of T Scarborough Library.

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