“Hello, Revolutionary!” It was not without reason that Hardeep Singh Puri, then a first secretary in Colombo, greeted Sri Lankan journalist D.B.S. Jeyaraj thus during a media briefing at the Indian High Commission.The year was 1988, when the Indian military had deployed in the island nation’s north and east and was getting bogged down in what would turn out to be a costly war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).Jeyaraj was one of the journalists who frequented the Indian mission to get updates on the fighting during the “5 pm follies”.The inadvertent tribute by Puri, now a member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Cabinet, was one of the earliest recognitions that David Buell Sabapathy Jeyaraj would go very far in journalism – and he did.Starting from the late 1970s, Jeyaraj chronicled with passion and honesty the Tamil nationalist struggle as it slowly embraced violence before becoming one of the world’s most powerful insurgencies that brought Sri Lanka almost to its knees.His career began with the Virakesari Tamil daily before he switched to English journalism four years later. It was his command over both languages and his ability to raise and nurture umpteen sources that earned him a place no other journalist covering Sri Lanka could match.Jeyaraj’s family was among the thousands of Tamils hit hard by the horrific anti-Tamil violence that enveloped Colombo after the Tamil Tigers killed 13 soldiers in Jaffna in 1983. Remarkably, he never let this frenzy by Sinhalese thugs to cloud his judgement of Sri Lanka’s painful ethnic divide.DBS, as he was widely known, at different times fell into the bad books of the Sri Lankan state, the LTTE and Indian diplomats. But he remained steadfast to his one commitment: fearless and honest journalism.After a stint with Saturday Review, an outspoken Jaffna-based English weekly, DBS became the Colombo correspondent of the Hindu. As the Indian-LTTE war raged, he interviewed Tiger leader Gopalasamy Mahendraraja alias Mahattaya, who vowed to put the Indian army in its place. That interview earned him the wrath of J.N. Dixit, India’s High Commissioner to Colombo, and cost him the Hindu job.Sadly, when Mahattaya was later executed by the LTTE as an alleged Indian spy, sections of the Tigers began to view DBS with suspicion.Realising the growing dangers in Sri Lanka, Jeyaraj did not return from the United States where he had gone on a fellowship. He shifted to Canada in 1989. He gave up Sri Lankan citizenship but he never let dire warnings and death threats kill his love for journalism.DBS knew almost all the actors in Sri Lanka’s northeast, the war theatre, and beyond. In an era when communication was not easy, he still documented the goings on in the war without fear, warning both in his writings and to friends that the murderous politics of the LTTE would lead the Tamils to a terrible doom.Also read: Seventy-Eight Years at Sea: Sri Lanka and the Costs of Unfinished FreedomJeyaraj – born in May 1954 and six months older to Velupillai Prabhakaran – was brutally attacked at a Toronto car park by LTTE thugs armed with baseball bats in the presence of his wife. The injuries were painful but DBS refused to stop speaking the truth. The LTTE tried to kill any Tamil journal in Canada to which he contributed. But DBS’ spirit could not be vanquished.If anything, the attack gave him a new halo. As his writings continued amid the escalating war, he came to be seen as the most authentic chronicler of the Tamil separatist war. He spoke regularly to the BBC Tamil service, providing priceless information gleaned from his sources in the Tamil region. His voice and writings commanded wide credibility.A close friend in Toronto recalled that Jeyaraj was heartbroken when the Sri Lankan state, desperate to crush the LTTE, carried out a terrible massacre of thousands of Tamil civilians in 2009. But DBS knew that the Tigers had contributed to the mess.DBS remained in pursuit of the truth even after the war ended. He was the first to expose LTTE hirelings when they began minting money from an unsuspecting Tamil diaspora by audaciously claiming that Prabhakaran had escaped death and was living in Europe with his wife and daughter.Although he lived thousands of miles away from a country where he was born, his heart always beat for Sri Lanka, the Tamil community in particular.A friend who met him a fortnight before Jeyaraj breathed his last on May 17, 2026 (he had been keeping unwell) said there was sadness in his eyes as he spoke about Sri Lanka and the continued suffering of the Tamil people. Truth did triumph when even LTTE supporters developed a grudging respect for him. One person in this category was Anton Balasingham, for long a Prabhakaran confidant who at one time boycotted DBS.It was because of Jeyaraj’s unending output – his website is probably the richest repository of the Sri Lankan conflict – that the world at large, the English-knowing Sinhalese included, came to learn about not only the Tamil struggle but also the terrible fallout of the decades of war.Jeyaraj remained a Tamil nationalist but with no hatred for anyone. He never celebrated the killings of innocents, be they Sinhalese, Tamils or Muslims. Sri Lanka has lost a gem in Jeyaraj’s passing away. Farewell, brother!M.R. Narayan Swamy is a veteran journalist.