Features

Seeing It from the Outside:GALLE DISTRICT (1974 -1976)

Published

11 months ago

2025/04/6

Exile III

Around the middle of 1974, while enjoying the serenity of Batticaloa and its distance from Colombo, which kept official visitations at bay, I was asked one day by Neale de Alwis, the deputy minister of home affairs, whether I would like to come to Galle to succeed Victor Unantenne. This was the second time I was going to succeed Victor who was a very firm administrator and who held strong views which in turn caused a fair amount of turbulence within the institutions he controlled.

My immediate response was to say ‘yes’ because although Batticaloa was extremely pleasant with its collection of highly-civilized people to deal with at a social and political level, the fact that my son had two years of his education in the Sinhala stream at St Michael’s College was causing a concern. I knew that Galle was going to be difficult because it has a very vibrant political life with many highly skilled and demanding people.

The political scene was studded with such stars as Neale de Alwis himself from the LSSP; L C de Silva of the LSSP from Ambalangoda; M G Mendis of the CP from Ratgama; Prins Gunasekera, Independent Left from Hambaraduwa; Dahanayake from Galle and two other members from the governing party of the SLFP.

Neale was the deputy minister home affairs and also district political authority (DPA) for Galle district and it was an absolute pleasure to work with this perfect gentleman. Although a Marxist by persuasion, he displayed a most elite quality which bespoke his long and respected lineage. He never made improper requests during my two years in Galle and every proposal I made to him was instantaneously approved.

Understanding Galle through its history

My first impression of the town of Galle in 1974 was that, once upon a time, it must have been a place buzzing with activity. Now, as I took over as its new government agent, it seemed to have lost its dynamism and looked like a medieval town caught in a time warp. The large Dutch Fort, perched on the promontory overlooking the harbour with its forbidding grey ramparts and half filled-up moat symbolized the illusion of unreality. Inside the fort, the narrow houses with their deep rooms and high ceilings, their inner courtyards opening to the sky, the old church and the underground prison cells all added to the sense of one being in another place and age.

The decadence around the fort was matched by the sprawling and unkempt esplanade which at one time, must have been, like the Galle Face green in Colombo, the fashionable walk-about where the elite of the city took the air each evening. The business quarter, with the bus-stand and tea boutiques, bright lights at night time and the uninterrupted, loud radio music presented a distracting contrast to the sombreness of the fort and the images it conjured of the past.

Until 1867 when the Port of Colombo was opened for shipping with the construction of the breakwaters, the wide bay of Galle was the premier harbour of the island. First, with sailing ships and then with the steamships, Galle had flourished as the only safe anchorage in the country. The few mercantile houses which remained bore testimony to the importance of the sea and Galle’s position on the main East-West sea route. It had always had an immense strategic value to the Portuguese, Dutch and British in turn, as the fort and its regular exchange from one conqueror to another testified.

When the steamship replaced sail, Galle continued to be important until the steamers got so large that they encountered difficulties in entering the harbour guarded at its entrance by a reef of low concealed rocks. With the rapid increase of shipping which called at Galle, this became a major problem with several steamers, notably the ‘Malabar’ which carried the mail and passengers, being wrecked on the reef in the 1860s.

However the use of the Port continued well into present times and after an inner harbour was constructed in the 1950s to make berthside docking possible for small vessels carrying bulk food cargoes and clinker for the cement plant, it began to fill a niche as one of the smaller ports of the country appropriate for coastal shipping.

In my time, along with grand plans for expansion into a major port which was the politician’s dream for the renaissance of Galle, we worked on a much less ambitious project of making Galle a regular port of call for the exclusive sailing yachts which the global rich were increasingly using for their round-the-world voyages of high adventure and recreation.

One of the financial attractions of an appointment in Galle for a GA was that there was a wholly undeserved allowance attached for being a deputy collector of customs. In addition, if so inclined, there was always the opportunity of a free dinner with the captain of the ship that had called in that day and any amount of free booze.

The P&O Lines were the main ships that called at Galle in earlier times and the company was responsible, along with the government, for many of the improvements made at the time. They were mainly cargo steamers carrying mail and goods from Europe to the Far East and using Galle as a re-fuelling point. The earlier steamers needed great quantities of coal for a voyage from Aden to Galle and then onwards to Singapore and Hong Kong.

Galle served as a very convenient midway storage point with thousands of tons of coal being made available for the many steamers that called. I read that at one time opium, which was a favoured article of trade, was being carried from Bombay to Hong Kong and that some of the opium was being re-packed for onward shipment from Galle. This gave me the clue to the conundrum as to how and why there had been a `Cheena Kotuwa’ or China Town in a part of the city.

A large group of Chinese labourers had been brought in from mainland China and they had helped in the handling and loading of the bags of opium which had arrived from Bombay on to the steamers which carried them on to China. So, perhaps Galle too had some old and indirect association with the opium wars in China.

Search among the tombstones for a Vice-Consul

My journey back in time, while I was in Galle, received an impetus in a curious way. In 1976, the American ambassador in Colombo, Christopher Van Hollen, was searching for the origins of the American connection with the Island to include in the piece he was writing to honour the bi-centenary of American independence which had taken place in 1778.

I had met Chris on my now more frequent visits to Colombo and he put me the question one day as to whether I could trace the story of a certain John Black who was said to be the first Vice-Consul of the United States on the island. Black had apparently been posted as Vice-Consul to Galle because that was the main port and customs station at the time.

John Black, I found, was not an American but of Scottish ancestry. However, the US government had chosen him as their man for the Vice-Consulship since he had been obviously well known in the area and had held a high position in the commercial field. The search for John Black led me on a fascinating journey. I first checked the Births and Deaths Registry in the Galle Kachcheri. I found that there indeed was a reference to one John Black who had died at the age of 44 in 1845.

The entry as to the cause of death was cryptic. It said very shortly that John Black `died of a liver complaint’. I had the feeling that Black, bored until the arrival of the next vessel, was not averse to ‘hitting the bottle’! The death register gave no clue as to the life he had led and his family and for this I turned to Nora Roberts, the famed librarian of the Galle Public Library.

Nora was the unmarried daughter of the Roberts family her father was a distinguished Civil Servant of West Indian origin and her mother was a Dutch Burgher from Galle. The family was well-known and well-loved in Galle. Nora was also hard of hearing and this made her job as librarian somewhat problematic. One often had to raise one’s voice quite a lot for Nora to hear and her reply too would be quite loud. All of this loud conversation would take place under a large sign which said `silence .please’.

Finally, Nora put me on to a wonderful book Inscriptions on Tombstones in the Graveyards of Ceylon by J P Lewis. I checked the index of Tombstones which has the names of virtually every person of the Christian faith who had died and been buried on the island. I was elated when I quite easily found the reference to John Black. He was buried, the book said, in 1845 in the graveyard of St Peter’s Church in the Fort of Galle. I was now hot on the trail of John Black.

In the church, yet very visible in 1975, was a large stained glass window which had been gifted to the church by the Black family. The inscription on the stained glass window bore references not only to John but to the extended Black family as well. My search for John Black’s tombstone in the premises of St Peter’s however proved futile.

I continued in my questioning of the older townsfolk until I was told that sometime during the second world war, in about the 1940s, all the graves and tombstone’s inside the Fort had been taken up and put down somewhere else in the town. It did not take me long to find out where. My long search ended one Saturday afternoon when I climbed over a locked, old and shaky gate and actually stood by the very tombstone under which the remains ofJohn Black lay.

I quickly telephoned Chris Van Hollen and he and his wife Elisa, also a career diplomat on her own, came down to Galle in a day or two to have a look and end the search. Soon we had the treasured photograph of John Black’s deeply engraved tombstone in hand with Chris and myself standing proudly on both sides. It made for a story good enough to make an article by Chris in the next Foreign Officer’s Journal and earned a small part in the history of the bi-centenary report. For this effort, which Chris called ‘far beyond the call of duty’, I was duly conferred the title of Honorary Founder Member of the John Black Society. To this day Chris and I remain the only two members of this very exclusive society!

The District Political Authority politicization of the bureaucracy becomes legal

There were some innovations in the provincial administration which were introduced at the time I was in Galle. The process began with the institution of the ‘District Political Authority’ which legitimized the influence exerted by the political authority over the executive arm of the administration. This had been coming for some time but its institution made political control open, accountable and valid.

Tied to this, and in fact supplementing the authority of the District Political Authority was the concept of the ‘decentralized budget’ which was meant to cater to the needs of members of parliament who liked to have under their control a block of funds which could be used by them at their discretion. It was my good fortune to be caught up in the evolution of procedures and rules which would ensure fairness and equity in the way the new institutions and the new system of resource allocation would take root. Neale de Alwis was exceptional in adhering to the spirit of the law as well as in dealing with its form.

1974 land reform

The second wave of land reforms took place in 1974. The first was in 1972 in which large, private land holdings were affected. The maximum extent of land which could be owned by an individual was set at 50 acres. The second dealt with the Company Estates and took place soon after my arrival in Galle. The government agent had a key role to play in the process. My job was to moderate, as far as humanely possible, the exuberance of the supporters of the mainly left members of parliament who wanted to take over everything possible from the plantation owners.

In the Galle district there were a few foreign companies operating and most of the large tea and rubber estates were owned by the locals. Many long-standing families like the Amarasuriyas famous for their wealth, their benevolence and their right-wing politics were seriously affected. It was sad to have some of the older and more feeble members of these elite clans climb slowly up to my office on the second floor of the kachcheri to plead their case for protection of an old home or estate bungalow.

The case of the George Winter’ family from England, who had settled in Baddegama a 100 years earlier, and the efforts of the younger generation to keep the ownership of their beautiful Pilagoda Valley home was particularly poignant.

The government’s land reform programme really broke the power structure of the southern proprietor planters, politically, economically, and socially. No family who could be termed rich, owned land and were influential remained unaffected. They were mostly supporters of the UNP and this party’s base was virtually cut away through land reform.

I too felt the euphoria which was sweeping over the country at the time. On several weekends, accompanying the members of parliament and their supporters as they marched in procession into the exclusive estates which had earlier been strictly private property, to the accompaniment of drums and song, one could not but be taken up by the exhilaration sensed by the workers and villagers who were overnight suddenly made to feel themselves owners of the lands and buildings they had been looking at for generations from outside.

There was an unmistakable sense of victory for the `have-nots’ in the air, which lasted for some months. Sadly, this enthusiasm evaporated when the villagers soon realized that their particular need for land and employment and the substantial change in their lifestyles, was not going to be met in the way they had expected. Some crumbs dropped from the new tables of the public corporations with political appointees and boards who began to take the place of the earlier plantation owners; but actual repossession of land by the poor was tardy and infrequent.

The young Chandrika Bandaranaike, daughter of the prime minister, freshly returned from the Sorbonne where she had spent some years doing post-graduate research and then worked at the Land Reform Commission, was a welcome change to the usual crop of official visitors. My residence was the last on the hill, high on Dickson Road with a majestic view over the fort and the harbour in the distance.

Chandrika symbolized the spirit of the age as she rode into my home one morning, sharing the front seat with the driver and cleaner in an ancient lorry transporting some needed equipment for the cooperatives, from Colombo. She was totally involved in the on-going transformation of the old social order.

Annual flooding of the Gin Ganga and the Chinese bund

The flooding of the Gin ganga which runs through Galle from the Sinharaja mountains in the north to Gintota in the south, gravely affected the lives of the thousands of people living on its banks. Each year around August, the floods would occur and requests for assistance from persons marooned by the rising flood waters and by farmers whose fields were inundated for weeks would pour into the kachcheri.

During my first year at Galle, work on the construction of flood bunds on both sides of the Gin ganga river was being started with assistance from the People’s Republic of China. Dealing with the ambassador, his staff and the many technical officers who came in from China, was an interesting and pleasant experience.

The philosophy behind the project which all affected welcomed, was part of the Chinese history of flood protection which China was very familiar with in its work on the Hwang-ho and Yang-si-kiang rivers in the middle of China which periodically burst their banks and caused great damage. I was reminded of the interesting sayings of the Chinese philosophers who had said, as retold by our Geography teacher at St Thomas’,

“Dig deep the bars

keep low the bunds.”

The work we were doing on the Gin ganga was very reminiscent of what the ancient Chinese had been telling their peasants. The Gin ganga had been the lifeline of the Galle district before the road system was laid. Towns such as Nagoda, Baddegama and Hiniduma up in the hills, had become important settlements as a result of the commerce and transport up and down the Gin ganga.

The older families, whom I met on circuit in the countryside would talk about the days of the padda boats which were towed up the river along the tow paths on its western bank. I was surprised to find the old established Christian Churches at Baddegama and Hiniduma where there was even a replica of the Stations of the Cross, the religious markers of the Christian faith, in an essentially Buddhist district.

The temples too were as old if not older, and the resident monks Ganegama Sarankara Thero of Baddegama, Neluwe Gunananda Thero of Hiniduma and Akuratiya Amarawansa of Nagoda, erudite and scholarly. Although a district where Buddhists were greatly the majority, the followers of the two religions had over time made a remarkable accommodation to each others needs and religious harmony generally prevailed.

Further up from Hiniduma was Nelluwa and Lankagama which were virtually part of the Sinharaja reserve. On a visit there, the home of the finest kitul-treacle and jaggery in the country, some difficult terrain had to be negotiated. There were at least nine rather long edandas to cross. It was nerve wracking attempting to walk across this in single file with only a shaky railing to hold on to and keep you from falling, perhaps 25 feet down, into the little streams which gurgled merrily below.

In Lankagama I was confronted by the need for an access road at least if only to bring down the sick and the injured. Accidents were frequent with the fall of the kitul tappers and one young man I met had been rendered immobile for months having fallen from a tree while tapping trees in the jungle. The kitul trees were collectively owned by an elaborate system of usage which had been developed by the villagers themselves over time.

Sirimavo came for the opening of the Chinese Gin ganga project on completion in July 1974. I had given notice of my final retirement at that time and one of the reasons had been ostensibly my inability to work in the Sinhala language. I had, however, to give the vote of thanks in Sinhala at the celebrity opening. I made reference to a folk song current in the area which spoke of the havoc that had been caused to the people of Gangodapattu by the wilful antics of the Gin ganga in spate. The Sinhala verse went as follows:-

Gintota nandage duwaru hinda

Gangodapattuwa wana sen ne

(The entirety of Gangodapattuwe is being destroyed

By the wilful antics of the daughters of the aunt of Gintota)

Sirimavo was impressed enough by my vote of thanks to say to some of her members of parliament present at the opening that she couldn’t understand why my appeal to retire, on grounds of my inability to work in the official language, had been approved by the authorities.

All News Advertisement

Features

The State of the Union and the Spectacle of Trump

Published

9 hours ago

2026/03/1

Thilina Walpola

A Grim Handshake: The President and the Chief Justice at the State of the Union

President Donald J. Trump, as the American President often calls himself, is a global spectacle. And so are his tariffs. On Friday, February 20, the US Supreme Court led by Chief Justice John Roberts and a 6-3 majority, struck down the most ballyhooed tariff scheme of all times. Upholding the earlier decisions of the lower federal courts, the Supreme Court held that Trump’s use of ‘emergency powers’ to impose the so called Liberation Day tariffs on 2 April 2025, is not legal. The Liberation Day tariffs, which were comically announced on a poster board at the White House Rose Garden, is a system of reciprocal tariffs applied to every country that exported goods and services to America. The court ruling has pulled off the legal fig leaf with which Trump had justified his universal tariff scheme.

Trump was livid after the ruling on Friday and invectively insulted the six judges who ruled against Trump’s tariffs. There was nothing personal about it, but for Trump, the ever petulant man-boy, there isn’t anything that is not personal. On Tuesday night in Washington, Trump delivered his first State of the Union address of his second presidency. The Chief Justice, who once called the State of the Union, “a political pep rally,” attended the pomp and exchanged a grim handshake with the President.

Tuesday’s State of the Union was the longest speech ever in what is a long standing American tradition that is also a constitutional requirement. The Trump showmanship was in full display for the millions of Americans who watched him and millions of others in the rest of world, especially mandarins of foreign governments, who were waiting to parse his words to detect any sign for his next move on tariffs or his next move in Iran. There was nothing much to parse, however, only theatre for Trump’s Republican followers and taunts for opposing Democrats. He was in his usual elements as the Divider in Chief. There was truly little on offer for overseas viewers.

On tariffs, he is bulldozing ahead, he boasted, notwithstanding the Supreme Court ruling last Friday. But the short lived days of unchecked executive tariff powers are over even though Trump wouldn’t let go of his obsessive illusions. On the Middle East, Trump praised himself for getting the release of Israeli hostages, dead or alive, out of Gaza, but had no word for the Palestinians who are still being battered on that wretched strip of land. On Ukraine, he bemoaned the continuing killings in their thousands every month but had no concept or plan for ending the war while insisting that it would not have started if he were president four years ago.

He gave no indication of what he might do in Iran. He prefers diplomacy, he said, but it would be the most costly diplomatic solution given the scale of deployment of America’s fighting assets in the region under his orders. In Trump’s mind, this could be one way of paying for a Nobel Prize for peace. More seriously, Trump is also caught in the horns of a dilemma of his own making. He wanted an external diversion from his growing domestic distractions. If he were thinking using Iran as a diversion, he also cannot not ignore the warnings from his own military professionals that going into Iran would not be a walk in the park like taking over Venezuela. His state of mind may explain his reticence on Iran in the State of the Union speech.

Even on the domestic front, there was hardly anything of substance or any new idea. One lone new idea Trump touted is about asking AI businesses to develop their own energy sources for their data centres without tapping into existing grids, raising demand and causing high prices and supply shortages. That was a political announcement to quell the rising consumer alarms, especially in states such as Michigan where energy guzzling data centres are becoming hot button issue for the midterm Congress and Senate elections in November. Trump can see the writing on the wall and used much of his speech to enthuse his base and use patriotism to persuade the others.

Political Pep Rally: Chief Justice John G. Roberts sits stoically with Justices Elena Kagan, Bret Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, as Republicans are on their feet applauding.

Although a new idea, asking AI forces to produce their own energy comes against a background of a year-long assault on established programs for expanding renewable energy sources. Fortunately, the courts have nullified Trump’s executive orders stopping renewable energy programs. But there is no indication if the AI sector will be asked to use renewable energy sources or revert to the polluting sources of coal or oil. Nor is it clear if AI will be asked to generate surplus energy to add to the community supply or limit itself to feeding its own needs. As with all of Trump’s initiatives the devil is in the details and is left to be figured out later.

The Supreme Court Ruling

The backdrop to Tuesday’s State of the Union had been rendered by Friday’s Supreme Court ruling. Chief Justice Roberts who wrote the majority ruling was both unassuming and assertive in his conclusion: “We claim no special competence in matters of economics or foreign affairs. We claim only, as we must, the limited role assigned to us by Article III of the Constitution. Fulfilling that role, we hold that IEEPA (International Emergency Economic Powers Act) does not authorize the President to impose tariffs.”

IEEPA is a 1977 federal legislation that was enacted during the Carter presidency, to both clarify and restrict presidential powers to act during national emergency situations. The immediate context for the restrictive element was the experience of the Nixon presidency. One of the implied restrictions in IEEPA is in regard to tariffs which are not specifically mentioned in the legislation. On the other hand, Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution establishes taxes and tariffs as an exclusively legislative function whether they are imposed within the country or implemented to regulate trade and commerce with other countries. In his first term, Trump tried to impose tariffs on imports through the Congress but was rebuffed even by Republicans. In the second term, he took the IEEA route, bypassing Congress and expecting the conservative majority in the Supreme Court to bail him out of legal challenges. The Court said, No. Thus far, but no farther.

The main thrust of the ruling is that it marks a victory for the separation of powers against a president’s executive overreach. Three of the Court’s conservative judges (CJ Roberts, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett) joined the three liberal judges (all women – Sonia Sotomayor, Elana Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson) to chart a majority ruling against the president’s tariffs. The three dissenters were Brett Kavanugh, who wrote the dissenting opinion, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett were appointed by Trump. Trump took out Gorsuch and Barrett for special treatment after their majority ruling, while heaping praise on Kavanaugh who ruled in favour of the tariffs. Barrett and Kavanaugh attended the State of the Union along with Roberts and Kagan, while the other five stayed away from the pep rally (see picture).

The Economics of the Ruling

In what was a splintered ruling, different judges split legal hairs between themselves while claiming no special competence in economics and ruling on a matter that was all about trade and economics. Yale university’s Stephen Roach has provided an insightful commentary on the economics of the court ruling, while “claiming no special competence in legal matters.” Roach takes out every one of Trump’s pseudo-arguments supporting tariffs and provides an economist’s take on the matter.

First, he debunks Trump’s claim that trade deficits are an American emergency. The real emergency, Roach notes, is the low level of American savings, falling to 0.2% of the national income in 2025, even as trade deficit in goods reached a new record $1.2 trillion. America’s need for foreign capital to compensate for its low savings, and its thirst for cheap imported goods keep the balance of payments and trade deficits at high levels.

Second, by imposing tariffs Trump is not helping but burdening US consumers. The Americans are the ones who are paying tariffs contrary to Trump’s own false beliefs and claims that foreign countries are paying them. 90% of the tariffs have been paid by American consumers, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Small businesses have paid the rest. Foreign countries pay nothing but they have been making deals with Trump to keep their exports flowing.

According to published statistics, the average U.S. applied tariff rate increased from 1.6% before Trump’s tariff’s to 17%, the highest level since World War II. The removal of reciprocal tariffs after the ruling would have lowered it to 9.1%, but it will rise to 13% after Trump’s 15% tariffs. The registered tariff revenue is about $175 billion, 0.6% of U.S. gross domestic product. The tariff monies collected are legally refundable. The Supreme Court did not get into the modalities for repayment and there would be multiple lawsuits before the lower courts if the Administration does not set up a refunding mechanism.

Lastly, in railing against globalization and the loss of American industries, Trump is cutting off America’s traditional allies and trading partners in Europe, Canada and Mexico who account for 54% of all US trade flows in manufactured goods. Cutting them off has only led these countries to look for other alternatives, especially China and India. All of this is not helping the US or its trade deficit. The American manufacturers (except for sectoral beneficiaries in steel, aluminum and auto industries), workers and consumers are paying the price for Trump’s economic idiosyncrasies. As Roach notes, the Court stayed away from the economic considerations, but by declaring Trump’s IEEPA tariffs unconstitutional, the Court has sent an important message to the American people and the rest of the world that “US policies may not be personalized by the whims of a vindictive and uninformed wannabe autocrat.”

by Rajan Philips

Features

The Victor Melder odyssey: from engine driver CGR to Melbourne library founder

Published

9 hours ago

2026/03/1

Thilina Walpola

Victor Melder in Library

He celebrated his 90th birthday recently, never returned to his homeland because he’s a bad traveler

(Continued from last week)

THE GARRAT LOCOS, were monstrous machines that were able to haul trains on the incline, that normally two locos did. Whilst a normal loco hauled five carriages on its own, a Garrat loco could haul nine. When passenger traffic warranted it and trains had over nine carriages or had a large number of freight wagons, then a Garret loco hauled the train assisted by a loco from behind.

When a train was worked by two normal locos (one pulling, the other pushing) and they reached the summit level at Pattipola (in either direction), the loco pushing (piloting) would travel around to the front the train and be coupled in front of the loco already in front and the two locos took the train down the incline. With a Garraat loco this could not be done as the bridges could not take the combined weight. The pilot loco therefore ran down single, following THE TRAIN.

My father was stationed at Nawalapitiya as a senior driver at the time, and it wasn’t a picnic working with him. He believed in the practical side of things and always had the apprentices carrying out some extra duties or the other to acquaint themselves with the loco. I had more than my fair share.

After the four months upcountry, we were back at Dematagoda on the K. V. steam locos. From the sublime to the ridiculous, I would say after the Garret locos upcountry. Here the work was much easier and at a slower pace, as the trains did not run at speed like their mainline counterparts. The last two months of the third year saw us on the two types of diesel locos on the K.V. line, the Hunslett and Krupp diesels, which worked the passenger trains. For once this was a ‘cushy, sit-down’ job, doing nothing exciting, but keeping a sharp lookout and exchanging tablets on the run. The third year had come to an end and ‘the light at the end of tunnel was getting closer’.

Victor M’s Sri Lanka Ranjana medal

The fourth year saw us all at the Diesel loco shed at Maradana, which was cheek by jowl with the Maradana railway station. The first three months we worked with the diesel mechanical fitters and the following three months with the electrical fitters. Heavy emphasis was placed on a working knowledge of the electrical circuits of the different diesel locos in service, to ensure the drivers were able to attend to electrical faults en-route and bring the train home. This was again a period of lectures and demonstrations

We also spent three months at the Ratmalana workshops, where the diesels were stripped down to the core and refitted after major repairs, to ensure we had a look at what went on inside the many closed and sealed working parts. This was again a 7.00am to 4.00pm day job. Back again at the Diesel shed, Maradana, saw us riding as assistants for the next three months on all the diesel locos in service – The Brush Bragnal (M1), General Electrical (M2), Hunslett locos (G2) and Diesel Rail Cars.

After the final written test on Diesel locos, we began our fifth and final year, which was that of shunting engine driver. The first six months were spent at Maligawatte Yard on steam shunting locos and the next three months shunting drivers on the diesel shunting locos at Colombo goods yard. The final three months were spent as assistants on the M1 and M2 locos working all the fast passenger and mail trains.

Cartoon to celebrate Victor’s 60th wedding anniversary

I was finally appointed Engine Driver Class III on July 6, 1962, as mentioned earlier I lost eight months of my apprenticeship due to being ill and had to make up the time. This appointment was on three years’ probation, on the initial salary of the scale Rs 1,680 – 72 – Rs 2,184, per annum.

Little did the general traveling public realize that they had well trained and qualified engine drivers working their trains to time Victor was stationed in Galle until December 1967, when he resigned from the railway to migrate to Melbourne, Australia to join the rest of his family. He was the last of 11 siblings to leave Ceylon. Their two elder children were born in Galle. Victor and Esther had three more children in Australia. The children, three boys and two girls) were brought up with love and devotion. They have seven grandchildren and two great grandchildren. They meet often as a family.

He worked for the Victorian State Public Service and retired in 1993 after 25 years’ service. At the time of retirement, he worked for the Ministry for Conservation & Environment. He held the position of Project Officer in charge of the Ministry’s Procedural Documents.

He worked part-time for the Victorian Electoral Office and the Australian Electoral Office, covering State and Federal Elections, from 1972 to 2010. From 1972 to 1982 and was a Clerical Officer and then in 1983 was appointed Officer-in-Charge, Lychfield Avenue Polling Booth, Jacana which is my (the writer’s) electorate.

As part of serving the community Victor participated in a number of ways, quite often unremunerated. He worked part-time for the Department of Census & Statistics, and worked as a Census Collector for the Census of 1972, 1976, 1980 and then Group Leader of 16 Collectors in his area for the 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012.

In 1970, Victor began this library, now known as the ‘Victor Melder Sri Lanka Library’, for the purpose of making Sri Lanka better known in Australia. On looking back he has this to say: “Forty-five years later, I can say that it is serving its purpose. In 1993 President Ranasinghe Premadasa of Sri Lanka bestowed on me a national honor – ‘Sri Lanka Ranjana’ for my then 25 years’ service to Sri Lanka in Australia. I feel very privileged to be honored by my motherland, which I feel is the highest accolade one can ever get.”

There were many more accolades over the years:

15.10. 2004, Serendib News, 2004 Business and Community Award.

4.2.2008, Award for Services to the SL Community by The Consulate of Sri Lanka in Victoria (by R. Arambewela)

2024 – SL Consul General’s Award

In 2025 , Victor was one of the ten outstanding Sri Lankans in Australia at the Lankan Fest.

An annual Victor Melder Appreciation award was established to honour an outstanding member by the SriLankan Consulate.

The following appreciation by the late Gamini Dissanayake is very appropriate.

Comment by the late Minister Gamini Dissanayake, in the comment book of the VMSL library.

A man is attached to many things. Attachments though leading to sorrow in the end

are the living reality of life. Amongst these many attachments, the most noble are the attachments to one’s family and to one’s country. You have left Sri Lanka long ago but “she” is within you yet and every nerve and sinew of your body, mind and soul seem to belong there. In your love for the country of your birth you seem to have no racial or religious connotations – you simply love “HER” – the pure, clear, simple, abstract and glowing Sri Lanka of our imagination and vision. You are an example of what all Sri Lankan’s should be. May you live long with your vision and may Sri Lanka evolve to deserve sons like you.

With my best Wishes.

Gamini Dissanayake, Minister from Sri Lanka.

15 February 1987.

The Victor Melder Lecture

The Monash council established the Victor Melder Lecture which is presented every February. It is now an annual event looked forward to by Melbournians. A guest lecturer is carefully chosen each year for this special event.

Victor and his library has featured on many publications such as the Sunday Times in 2008 and LMD International in 2026.

“Although having been a railway man, I am a poor traveler and get travel sickness, hence I have not travelled much. I have never been back to Sri Lanka, never travelled in Australia, not even to Geelong. I am happiest doing what I like best, either at Church or in this library. My younger daughter has finally given up after months of trying to coax, cajole and coerce me into a trip to Sri Lanka to celebrate this (90^th) birthday.

I am most fortunate that over the years I have made good friends, some from my school days. It is also a great privilege to grow old in the company of friends — like-minded individuals who have spent their childhood and youth in the same environment as oneself and shared similar life experiences.”

Victor’s love of books started from childhood. Since his young years he has been interested in reading. At St Mary’s College, Nawalapitiya, the library had over 300 books on Greek and Roman history and mythology and he read every one of them.

He read the newspapers daily, which his parents subscribed to, including the ‘Readers Digest’.His mother was an avid fan of Crossword Puzzles and encouraged all the children to follow her, a trait which he continues to this day.

At his workplace in Melbourne, Victor encountered many who asked questions about Ceylon. Often, he could not find an answer to these queries. This was long before the internet existed. He then started getting books on Ceylon/SriLanka and reading them. Very soon his collection expanded and he thought of the Vicor Melder SriLanka Library as source of reference. It is now a vast collection of over 7,000 books, magazines and periodicals.

Another driver of his service to fellow men is his deep Catholic faith in which he follows the footsteps of the Master.

Victor was baptized at St Anthony’s Cathedral, Kandy by Fr Galassi, OSB. Since the age of 10 he have been involved with Church activities both in Sri Lanka and Australia. He remains a devout Catholic and this underlies his spirit of service to fellowmen.

He began as an Altar Server at St Mary’s Church, Nawalapitiya, and continued even in his adult life. In Australia, Esther and Victor have been Parishioners at St Dominic’s Church, Broadmeadows, since 1970.He started as an Adult Server and have been an Altar Server Trainer, Reader and Special Minister He was a member of the ‘Counting Team’ for monies collected at Sunday Masses, for 35 years.

He has actively retired from this work since 2010, but is still ‘on call’, to help when required. To add in his own words

“My Catholic faith has always been important to me, and I can never imagine my having spent a day away from God. Faith is all that matters to Esther too. We attend daily Mass and busy ourselves with many activities in our Parish Church.

For nearly 25 years, we have also been members of a religious order ‘The Community of the Sons & Daughters of God’, it is contemplative and monastic in nature, we are veritable monks in the world. We do no good works, other than show Christ to the world, by our actions. Both Esther and I, after much prayer and discernment have become more deeply involved, taking vows of poverty, obedience and chastity, within the Community. Our spirituality gives us much peace, solace and comfort.”

“This is not my CV for beatification and canonization. My faith is in fact an antidote for overcoming evil, I too struggle like everyone else. I have to exorcise the demons within me by myself. I am a perfect candidate for “being a street angel and home devil” by my constant impatience, lack of tolerance and wanting instant perfection from everyone. “

The above exemplifies the humility of the man who admits to his foibles.

More than 25 years ago The Ceylon Society of Australia was formed in Sydney by a group of Ceylon lovers led by Hugh Karunanayake. Very soon the Melbourne chapter of the organization was formed, and Victor was a crucial part of this. At every Talk, Victor displayed books relevant to the topic. For many years he continued to do so carrying a big box of books and driving a fair distance to the meeting place. Eventually when he could no longer drive his car, he made certain that the books reached the venue through his close friend, Hemal Gurusinghe.

He also was the guest speaker at one of the meetings and he regaled the audience with railway stories.

Victor has dedicated his life on this mission, and we can be proud of his achievements. His vision is to find a permanent home for his library where future generations can use it and continue the service that he commenced. The plea is to get like-minded individuals in the quest to find a suitable and permanent home for the Victor Melder Srilankan Library.

by Dr. Srilal Fernando

Features

Sri Lanka to Host First-Ever World Congress on Snakes in Landmark Scientific Milestone

Published

9 hours ago

2026/03/1

Thilina Walpola

Dr. Anslem de Silva

Sri Lanka is set to make scientific history by hosting the world’s first global conference dedicated entirely to snake research, conservation and public health, with the World Congress on Snakes (WCS) 2026 scheduled to take place from October 1–4 at The Grand Kandyan Hotel in Kandy World Congress on Snakes.

The congress marks a major milestone not only for Sri Lanka’s biodiversity research community but also for global collaboration in herpetology, conservation science and snakebite management.

Congress Chairperson Dr. Anslem de Silva described the event as “a long-overdue global scientific platform that recognises the ecological, medical and cultural importance of snakes.”

“This will be the first international congress fully devoted to snakes — from their evolution and taxonomy to venom research and snakebite epidemiology,” Dr. de Silva said. “Sri Lanka, with its exceptional biodiversity and deep ecological relationship with snakes, is a fitting host for such a historic gathering.”

Global Scientific Collaboration

The congress has been established through an international scientific partnership, bringing together leading experts from Sri Lanka, India and Australia. It is expected to attract herpetologists, wildlife conservationists, toxinologists, veterinarians, genomic researchers, policymakers and environmental organisations from around the world.

The International Scientific Committee includes globally respected experts such as Prof. Aaron Bauer, Prof. Rick Shine, Prof. Indraneil Das and several other authorities in reptile research and conservation biology.

Dr. de Silva emphasised that the congress is designed to bridge biodiversity science, medicine and society.

“Our aim is not merely to present academic findings. We want to translate science into practical conservation action, improved public health strategies and informed policy decisions,” he explained.

Addressing a Neglected Public Health Crisis

A key pillar of the congress will be snakebite envenoming — widely recognised as a neglected tropical health problem affecting rural communities across Asia, Africa and Latin America.

“Snakebite is not just a medical issue; it is a socio-economic issue that disproportionately impacts farming communities,” Dr. de Silva noted. “By bringing clinicians, toxinologists and conservation scientists together, we can strengthen prevention strategies, improve treatment protocols and promote community education.”

Scientific sessions will explore venom biochemistry, clinical toxinology, antivenom sustainability and advances in genomic research, alongside broader themes such as ecological behaviour, species classification, conservation biology and environmental governance.

Dr. de Silva stressed that fear-driven persecution of snakes, habitat destruction and illegal wildlife trade continue to threaten snake populations globally.

“Snakes play an essential ecological role, particularly in controlling rodent populations and maintaining agricultural balance,” he said. “Conservation and public safety are not opposing goals — they are interconnected. Scientific understanding is the foundation for coexistence.”

The congress will also examine cultural perceptions of snakes, veterinary care, captive management, digital monitoring technologies and integrated conservation approaches linking biodiversity protection with human wellbeing.

Strategic Importance for Sri Lanka

Hosting the global event in the historic city of Kandy — a UNESCO World Heritage site — is expected to significantly enhance Sri Lanka’s standing as a hub for scientific and environmental collaboration.

Dr. de Silva pointed out that the benefits extend beyond the four-day meeting.

“This congress will open doors for Sri Lankan researchers and students to access world-class expertise, training and international partnerships,” he said. “It will strengthen our national research capacity in biodiversity and environmental health.”

He added that the event would also generate economic activity and position Sri Lanka as a destination for high-level scientific conferences, expanding the country’s international image beyond traditional tourism promotion.

The congress has received support from major international conservation bodies including the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Save the Snakes, Cleveland Metroparks Zoo and the Amphibian and Reptile Research Organization of Sri Lanka (ARROS).

As preparations gather momentum, Dr. de Silva expressed optimism that the World Congress on Snakes 2026 would leave a lasting legacy.

“This is more than a conference,” he said. “It is the beginning of a global movement to promote science-based conservation, improve snakebite management and inspire the next generation of researchers. Sri Lanka is proud to lead that conversation.”

By Ifham Nizam