It’s 34 years after the Encyclopedia of Tamils was destroyed

Nearly 34 years ago many homes of Tamils were under a shock like at present. The Sri Lankan educational community cried and wept. The news spread worldwide that a group of barbarians were burning and destroying the historical Jaffna Library, which has been an Encyclopedia for Tamil people. This incident took place on 1982 May 31st midnight and it came to an end around June 1st morning.

Nearly 1 lakhs rare books were destroyed in this incident. The incident of the 20th century's historical building became an unforgettable incident in all our hearts. Due to the racism, many publishers had to face threat. Even though, publishers published newspapers during the period of racism. Due to this, many workers and publishers were burnt.

The library incident seemed as an effort to suppress the Tamil's activities in the North. Jaffna library was established in 1933 and earlier it had a very small amount of books. But then, it became a big library with a huge number of books. There were many old manuscripts from Jaffna in 1800 were there. And the original copies of many newspapers which were published in Jaffna also kept in this Library. The first building of the library was opened in 1959.

Again in 2005, an internet library was established in order to prevent such an incident happened to Jaffna library. In this newly established one, the old manuscripts and many books were uploaded and this library is presently being as an archive.