C. A. Yothilingam (C A Yogalingam)

Yothilingam was admitted to Jaffna Teaching Hospital for surgery to remove a tumour in his abdomen. The operation, on Thursday 8 October 2026, lasted more than eight hours, after which he was moved to intensive care. He died at the age of 70. The first reports, published overnight, said he had died on the night of 8 October; Tamil Guardian and Tamilwin later reported that he died on Friday 9 October.

Politicians, social activists and members of the public paid their respects over the weekend. On Monday 12 October his body was taken in procession from his sister's home at Veeramanai in Kuppilan South and cremated at the Kaadaakadambai Hindu cemetery in Kuppilan.

C. A. Yothilingam was born at Kuppilan, in the Jaffna peninsula of northern Sri Lanka. He became politically active at 16 and was an early member of the Tamil Students' League, founded in 1970 to oppose the standardisation of university admissions brought in under the government of Sirimavo Bandaranaike, which required higher marks from Tamil-medium candidates than from Sinhala-medium candidates.

He went on to the University of Jaffna, where he took a special degree in political science and was active in student and Eelam politics under the name Ramani, by which many in Tamil political circles continued to know him.

Yothilingam worked as a teacher until his retirement, and he was also a lawyer. He lived for many years in Colombo for work before settling at Urumpirai in Jaffna.

He was best known as a political analyst and writer. Over more than four decades he published hundreds of research articles and several books on Eelam politics, Tamil nationalism and the structure of Sri Lankan political history, and he chaired the Social Science Research Centre in Jaffna. He wrote and spoke on Tamil sovereignty and self-determination, geopolitics and the question of genocide, and was praised for making complex issues understandable to ordinary readers. He also took part in policy debates on the Malaiyaha Tamils of the hill country and argued consistently for their rights.

Tamil media described Yothilingam as a thinker who could foresee political dangers facing the Tamil people and warn of them in advance, and as one of the steadiest voices in Tamil nationalist analysis, holding the same political position from his schooldays to the end of his life. His large body of articles and books on Eelam politics remains a resource for readers and researchers of Tamil political history.