Features

Advice my mother gave me, founding Sujatha Vidyalaya and a national honour

Published

3 years ago

2023/07/23

Thilina Walpola

Mother receiving the Deshabandu Award from His Excellency, J. R. Jayewardene, President of Sri Lanka

(Excerpted from Chosen Ground: the saga of Clara Motwani by Goolbai Gunasekera)

Mother had frequent staff meetings so that she could guide us in teaching methods to her liking. I give below some of her rules, which I now pass on to my own younger teachers at Asian International. What she taught then, holds good even now. And what did she teach me?

1. Begin all your classes standing. Never sit as you enter a class. You must dominate and show you mean business.

2. Do not talk too loudly. A teacher with too strong a voice will irritate pupils and they will begin tuning out.

3. “Always be perfectly turned out. (By this mother meant all-round neatness, not high fashion. One morning Mother was electrified to find Indrani Mendis, a former Games Captain just recently turned teacher, wearing a hipster sari. Indrani had a lovely figure and the hipster looked stunning. Nonetheless, Indrani will never forget what followed. Mother made her drape the sari all over again in her office with the minimum of bare skin showing. Nowadays I should think that would be considered an infringement of one’s personal rights! No one thought such traitorous thoughts then. Indrani now teaches at Asian International, and still has her good figure.)

4. Give your class one written assignment a week under test conditions. They must do the work in front of you, otherwise much of the work done at home will be actually their parents’ doing.

5. Corrections must be done within two days, or else a child will lose interest in the result of the assignment.

6. If a child is doing really badly all the time, try giving her a slightly better grade than she deserves. She will then make that better grade on her own the following time.

7. A child’s energy curve soars when praised. Try to do this more often than giving her a scolding which will probably have no effect.

8. If a class is noisy never say, “Don’t talk, class.” Pick out one of the children and say, “Don’t talk, Nimi.” The whole class will stop talking just to hear what you are going to say to that one child. It is a ploy I have often used.

9. If you do not know the answer to a question, never bluff. Tell the child you do not know, but you will look it up at home and tell her the following day.

10. Never try to fool a child. It cannot be done.

11. Be perfectly prepared before you attempt to take a class.

12. Never read from the textbook. You should know what is in it.

13. Give unexpected one-word answer tests. Children will never know when one is coming and will therefore listen all the time.

And so on. The list was even longer, but these are some that I remember. Certainly the teachers at BLC (Buddhis Ladies College) and I were highly successful, as our excellent results proved. My English Literature results at the O-Level were only rated ‘Most commendable’ in Mother’s parlance, while the word ‘Superb’ sprang to my own mind.

Teachers under Mother practically memorized their textbooks, as she had a disconcerting habit of turning up in classrooms with a deceptively kind smile saying:

“Now you just continue with your lesson, while I sit here quietly at the back and learn something new.”

None of us was fooled. It was a tactful way of checking whether we knew our texts or not.

‘One morning I was teaching Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel The White Company to the O-Level Literature class. It was the Government text for that year, and its plot is set in Europe, in the Middle Ages. Medieval History had been my forte at University, so while Mother sat calmly at the back of the room I wickedly switched the subject-matter of my lesson, and gave the students a little background history of the Middle Ages.

Most fascinating to girls of that age is the Droit de Seigneur, which literally meant that the nobility of Europe had the right to sleep with the wife of a tenant farmer on his wedding night. The all-girl class was somewhat shocked, very thrilled and full of questions.

Mother sat through it all and then left, saying, “An interesting lesson!” to me. A few minutes later her peon handed me a note which read: “See me when free.” I assumed I’d gone too far and resigned myself to a lecture. Obediently, I trotted off to her office to face the music. Mother was all smiles and for once, full of praise.

“That is one lesson the girls will never forget,” she told me. “Frankly, neither will I, but that is hardly relevant. What pleases me is that such a lesson may get them reading History on their own in search of equally strange facts. That was good teaching , darling.”

I walked on air the rest of the day.

My old schoolmate, Smith College-returned Susheela Paul, also a teacher with me at BLC, had her entire class gaining Distinctions and Credits at the O-Level in Botany one year. Mother’s paean of praise had Susheela quite overcome. Susheela married Chari de Silva (who eventually became Chairman of Aitken Spence) and stopped teaching to bring up her family. Strangely, Mother did not protest at losing her fine teacher. Mother always felt family life should come first. One morning Susheela came to school but asked for leave midway through the morning.

“Is it urgent?” Mother asked.

“Fairly,” Susheela had replied and went on to explain why she wanted the rest of the day off. Apparently Ladies’ College follows the custom of not releasing prize lists until the very morning of the prize giving itself. Susheela had just been informed that her little daughter, Sharmini (aged six or seven) had won the Form Prize. She therefore had just a few hours to rush home to get Sharmini into a starched uniform, white shoes and a red ribbon to match.

“Run along then, my dear,” Mother is supposed to have said, and congratulated Susheela on a clever daughter. I snorted angrily when Susheela gleefully reported all this to me. I was recalling Mother’s refusal to grant me similar privileges for any reason at all.

“No one must think I favour you, darling,” Mother said soothingly to me, as if any one would be that demented, seeing that I was the hardest worked teacher on her staff.

Although Mother’s contracts with the schools she headed always had a furlough clause written into them, she rarely took advantage of it, preferring instead to have my grandmother come to Sri Lanka. The result was that both my grandmother and my aunt Arline visited the island several times and made many friends here. They needed to do so if they wanted to see my busy Mother.

But now Mother needed a holiday. After ten years or so, BLC was doing very well indeed. Leaving me in charge of the school for six months, she departed for the US, not without much misgiving. Right up to the time she went through the Customs gates she continued to hand out advice to me on just about everything.

“I’ll manage, Mother,” I eventually told her in exasperation.

“Oh, I have no doubt at all that you will,” said Mother, proceeding nonetheless to prove that she didn’t believe it for a minute.

Disastrously for me, my more lenient approach to the length of school uniforms and generally relaxed administrative manner (I preferred to use the phrase ‘modern manner’) resulted in one of the senior students eloping with the Geography master. I did not have any desire to read Mother’s outraged letter to me more than once, and so I tore it up instantly. It was quite some time before Mother gave me so much responsibility again in subsequent schools, as her days at BLC were at an end – though at the time she did not know it.

Mother was expected to return to Colombo after about six months, but before she could do so a blaze of adverse publicity left Mother initially more puzzled than hurt. Religion was at the bottom of it all.

As a Theosophist, Mother had no difficulty in running Buddhist schools in the manner Buddhists wanted. She followed the philosophy, and was good friends with the Bhikkus of Vajiraramaya – notably Bhikku Narada and Bhikku Piyadassi.

She did not go to Church and make a display of her Christian beliefs. Neither was she a temple-goer. The only places of worship we visited as a family were the religious sites to which Father took us in India. In Sri Lanka we visited and worshipped at the Dalada Maligawa, the Madhu Church, the Nallur Temple (when we were in Jaffna), and at Kataragama when Father decided our souls needed a little burnishing.

The fact that Mother rarely went to Church was just that she had very little time for it when she first came to the island. Hers had not been a very church-going family back home in the States, in any case. Now, as she entered her fifties, Mother decided to take up the study of her own religion again. She was studying Islam at the same time, but no one talked about that.

In one of her regular letters to the Chairman of BLC, Mr. de Mel, she mentioned the fact that she was enjoying the Church services in her mother’s parish. Reacting as if he had been stung, Mr. de Mel told Mother that on no account would he tolerate a practising Christian at the head of a Buddhist school.

Mother might have mentioned that at that very moment Visakha Vidyalaya, a premier Buddhist school, was getting along very nicely with a Christian Principal at its helm, and no one seemed to mind. She was more puzzled than hurt by her Chairman’s dictum, especially because Buddhism was not a subject that was ever discussed between them. But her bewilderment soon turned to anger when she was told of the manner in which the news that she would not be returning was broken to students and staff of BLC.

Mr de Mel summoned the entire school to an assembly in the Hall. He then had a priest from the Vajiraramaya speak to the captive audience who sat silently aghast, while Mother was literally vilified in front of her pupils and her teachers for no reason other than that of going to Church.

Unfortunately, Bhikku Narada was not in the island at the time, and the priest who came to deliver this bombshell was not someone who should have been entrusted with this delicate and tricky situation. Quite unsuspecting of what was going to be said, I was in the Hall myself and heard, to my complete fury, this Bhikku speak against my Mother in the most unacceptable language possible. He spoke in Sinhala and a literal translation would make his words border on vulgarity.

I got up, and walked out of the Hall. The priest was by now in full spate and did not connect my exit with my Mother. He carried on. That evening my husband accompanied me when I visited the Vajiraramaya to personally tell the Bhikku what I thought of him.

To this day my respect for many priests remains low. The Bhikku concerned denied saying anything.

“I heard you myself,” I told him angrily.

“You must have misunderstood,” he replied blandly, not accepting any blame. “In any case, I was told to make sure nobody got upset that your mother was not returning.”

With the benefit of hindsight, I realized that Mr. de Mel had been trying to forestall a repetition of the Musaeus College walk-out. He need not have worried. Many years had passed since that time, and the situation was not the same. Mother was not in the island, and did not return until after my daughter Khulsum was born.

But what really made Mother wonder sometimes if her life’s work for the Buddhist girls of Sri Lanka had been worth the effort she put into it, was the behaviour of certain chauvinistic Buddhists who not only refused to speak to her, but also saw to it that the newspapers played up the story.

“Principal Sails Away,” ran one headline, while Letters to the Editor debated the issue endlessly. Close friends rallied to Mother’s defence. It deeply concerned Mother that I was left to face all this criticism alone. My sister would have done a far better job than I did of confronting those who chose to be judgemental. I was quite unable to think of suitable retorts to questions such as “Isn’t Buddhism good enough?” and other nasty little innuendos.

“Tell everyone Mother has returned to the religion of the Ancient Greeks,” Su said dismissively on the phone.

“The Olympian gods? That was hardly a religion.” “Exactly.”

“I can’t say that sort of thing,” I quavered.

“Try the Druids then,” she said unsympathetically, and rang off.

In the end, Mother herself took it all philosophically, in spite of pinpricks which were often more like stabs. It was a bad time for me in many ways. No one enjoys hearing things said about one’s parents, even when the matter was so trivial. My husband’s family rose nobly to Mother’s defence. They made the next few months bearable, for it was not pleasant to have one’s mother’s religious preferences debated by those who knew very little of the matter. The Gunasekara family are strong Buddhists. My sister-in-law, Lakshmini is a devout adherent, yet her sensivity in the handling of this entire episode, particularly of my wounded feelings, is something the Motwanis will never forget.

It was a matter of bad timing. Buddhists were becoming very protective of their faith, and Mother’s actions were taken as a kind of slur that they found hard to forgive. Yet there were those like Lakshmini who remained totally non-judgemental and accepted that religion is, after all, a private matter. Is it any wonder that she remains from then to now, my closest friend and confidant.

One hurtful incident involved a lady who had been one of Mother’s favourite pupils at Visakha. Lillian was a girl with no mother. Her father would, more often than not, delay to pay her hostel fees. Mother was very fond of Lillian and would often tell me what beautiful long hair she had. On Mother’s first furlough back to America (I was four years old at the time), Lillian was sitting for her Matriculation examination in Colombo.

Running true to form, Lillian’s father had not paid the fees and she was withdrawn from the exam. Hearing of this, Mother indignantly cabled the office and insisted that Lillian’s name be entered on the list of those being sent up. Lillian always remained a favourite with her, probably because she had no mother. When the Bandarawela evacuation began, Lillian was taken along in a student/teacher capacity, and Mother even arranged for her to be paid a small salary.

Yet Lillian did not repay Mother with loyalty … or even with sympathy. She was the first to be openly critical of her in public — and, of course, Mother was told of this, for there are always ‘friends’ who enjoy passing on hurtful gossip. That was one of the few times I have seen Mother weep. She smiled when she heard that well-known civil servants or other VIPs had not been at all kind, but Lillian (who was by worldly standards not a person of importance) … Lillian hurt her most of all. When Lillian died shortly afterwards of cancer, Mother wept again at her funeral. Less forgiving, I refused to accompany her to it.

When Mother’s old friend, Bhikku Narada of the Vajiraramaya, heard of the whole matter, he sent for me. I told him that I had vowed never to enter any temple again after my brush-up with the representative of his order, who had been so hurtfully libelous of my mother. But Mother visited him, and he was saddened that it could not have been he who had given that talk to the students of BLC.

Still, memories are very short. Within a year of returning to Sri Lanka, Mother was being asked to write a series of articles on education for the local papers. Everyone forgot about Mother’s religious preferences and she decided to return ‘home’ permanently and enjoy retirement with her newly born granddaughter, Khulsum, and us. She ignored my husband Bunchy’s sardonic smile at the word ‘retirement’. Surrounding herself with books, Scrabble boards and bridge-playing friends, she managed to get along nicely for two months.

She enjoyed all this, but it was not in Mother’s nature to ‘retire’ and not be actively engaged in more strenuous educational work. When she was approached by Mr. Linton Kuruppu, the owner of a small school in the suburbs, who asked,her to transform it into a bigger and better Colombo school, she accepted the challenge. Thus, Sujatha Vidyalaya opened its doors in the fashionable Queen’s Road area in Colombo 3, and has been very successful.

Becoming wealthy through education was something that never entered Mother’s head. If she had been business-minded, she might have had a clause written into her contracts which gave her a percentage of the profits of the new schools she started, because there were profits. Mother never knew what they were, because she left finances to the Board.

I always told her that she had no head for business at all, for the owners of the Buddhist Ladies College and Sujatha Vidyalaya certainly did not make any losses while she headed them. Mother’s reputation, her genuine love for her students, her care and concern for all aspects of education, made her a legend in her time. Her name was a magnet that drew pupils to any school she headed, and the many thousands of children who passed through her hands were proud to say: “Mrs. Motwani was our Principal.”

While she was at Sujatha, the President of Sri Lanka at the time was J.R. Jayewardene. He instituted a system of National Honours which gave national recognition to citizens who had ‘done the state some service’. Mother was on that first list of recipients, and was the first person to be honoured in the field of Education. I was standing by her when the call came from President’s House, asking if she would be willing to accept the Deshabandu Award for her services in the education of Buddhist girls in the island.

It took some time for the President’s secretary to make Mother understand she was the chosen one. Mother was essentially a very humble person. It never occurred to her that she was considered important enough for a National Honour. I was always so proud to be known as her daughter and often told her so.

“It’s nice you feel that way, darling,” she would say, not really understanding that she had an awesome reputation. My husband and I were invited to watch her receive her award from the President’s hands. It was the first and last time I had a meal at the President’s House and it was a memorable occasion. Making the day all that much nicer for Mother, was the fact that Dr. P.R. Anthonis was also a recipient of a national honour in the field of Medicine.

Just before I married, Mother had needed to have very serious stomach surgery due to strangulated intestines. Before she went into surgery, she made my father-in-law-to-be promise that if she died he

would ensure my marriage went ahead (if not the reception). He promised, and it was perhaps a premonition of a mishap that made Mother extract that promise, for in the course of surgery, Dr. Anthonis told me later, he almost lost her.

Dr Anthonis was the foremost surgeon of the time in Sri Lanka. He still is! His gentle manner and almost aesthetically sensitive looks had endeared him to Mother at once. They became good friends. When the time came for Mother to settle her hospital bill she noticed there was no surgery charge. She queried it, and was told by the office that Dr. Anthonis had said he could never charge someone who had been nothing but a boon to his country.

It was a tribute he would pay her on two more occasions when she needed his services again. And so it was with much pleasure that these two people who had done so much in their respective careers for the people of Sri Lanka sat down to lunch together at the President’s House at the Inauguration of the National Honours List. Mother’s Deshabandu Medal and the Certificate of Honour she received at the hands of the President of her adopted country, are now treasured family heirlooms.

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Features

Export diversification: Missing the wood for the trees – Part I

Published

9 hours ago

2026/08/26

Sahan Weerasooriya

Export of Jackfruit

by Gomi Senadhira

A few recent news items prompted me to write this article. The first was in the Sinhala newspaper Divaina on jackfruits, which said that out of the 280 million jackfruits produced in Sri Lanka, only 80 million were consumed. Does this mean the rest, 200 million fruits, are just wasted every year? However, other available reports estimate that about 70% of the production is consumed and only 30 percent is wasted. Whatever the exact number, we know a substantially large number of jackfruits go to waste. The second was a more recent article in an English paper on cinnamon exports: it states that Sri Lanka is targeting US$ 300 million in cinnamon export earnings this year and aiming for annual export earnings of US$ 500 million by 2030!

Good sense

These news items reminded me of another article I read in The Island a few years ago. It was by Dr. Upatissa Pethiyagoda, a well-known Sri Lankan scientist, diplomat, and writer, about a chance encounter he had with former Prime Minister Wijayananda Dahanayake (WD) in the early 1970s at a Perera & Sons outlet in Kollupitiya, where both had stopped for iced coffee, In those days, politicians, even former prime ministers, walked around without bodyguards and could be spotted at coffee shops, like P&S, in CTB buses or on trains. After learning that Dr. Pethiyagoda was a senior researcher at the Tea Research Institute, Dahanayake quipped that Sri Lanka should focus on five key crops: paddy, sugarcane, pasture grass, coconut, and jack (kos). Dr Pethiyagoda further adds “The unsophisticated wisdom of WD still haunts. Being self-reliant in basic foodstuffs is very respectable and a base for true national pride. A Canadian slogan in support of their (salmon) fishery was “We eat what we can and can what we can’t” or the Thai advertisement line, accompanying a tantalising picture of a fruit basket was “We have got it, come and get it”. Capturing tourism and horticulture simultaneously!”

I do not know why WD advocated promoting jack instead of tea. Yet, 50 years later, while we are trying to expand cinnamon exports into an already saturated market, the global market for jackfruit has become larger than the market for Ceylon cinnamon. Hence, the slogans quoted by Dr Pethiyagada are more than appropriate to promote jackfruit exports.

“We eat what we can and can what we can’t”

Globally, the demand for jackfruit has rapidly increased in recent years due to its appeal to vegan, vegetarian, and health-conscious consumers. However, it is difficult to grasp the size of the global market for jackfruit through import/export statistics, as jackfruit doesn’t have a specific standalone customs code. Customs data, even at the HS eight-digit level, groups jackfruit along with several other tropical fruits. Hence, the numbers given in this article are from various reports available on the Internet. Although the numbers presented in those reports vary, trade dynamics point to a multi-billion-dollar global market for jackfruit which has already reached USD 2.8 billion in 2025 and is likely to reach USD 5.2 billion by 2034. This market is largely dominated by jackfruit processed products (including canned, frozen, and dried items). The market for fresh jackfruit hovers around USD 500 million a year.

“We have got it, come and get it”

With around 300,000 tons of exports annually, Thailand is the leading exporter of jackfruits, closely followed by Vietnam. Interestingly, the value of jackfruit exports from Vietnam has increased remarkably from “… just $3 million in 2015 to an impressive $236.8 million in 2023. ” The South Asian countries are also emerging as leading jackfruit exporters. India exported over 26 million kg (26,000 tons) of jackfruit valued at approximately US$40 million during the 2023-2024 fiscal year. The annual exports from Bangladesh fluctuated between 1000 to 2000 metric tons during the recent years. In contrast, jackfruit exports from Sri Lanka are estimated to be around 20 to 30 metric tons per month, which are mainly in processed form.

Main markets for jackfruits are in North America, Europe, Gulf countries, China, and Australia. Key markets for fresh jackfruits are Gulf countries and China. The governments of the main exporting countries intervene proactively to develop these markets for their exporters. For example, during the visit of the Bangladesh Prime Minister Tarique Rehaman to China in June 2026, one of the MoUs signed was on jackfruit. Based on this MoU, Bangladesh is targeting 500 to 1,000 tons of exports to China during the next year.

Gulf market for fresh jackfruits

As the global demand for jackfruit increases, the demand for fresh jackfruit has also risen in the Gulf countries. The Indian and Bangladeshi exporters have already successfully exploited this market. However, due to perishability and the limited shelf life of fresh jackfruits, exporters from India and Bangladesh rely on air shipments for quicker delivery. Yet, as whole jackfruits are heavy with a high waste-to-edible ratio (thick rind and core), air freighting whole fruit is economically inefficient. Hence, exports are mainly in semi-processed form.

A game changer – export of fresh jackfruits by sea

This brings me to another article published early this month in Bangladesh; it says a Dhaka-based export company shipped 3.5 tons of fresh jackfruits to Dubai by sea in May this year. Though the shipment took over 26 days to reach its destination, the quality of the jackfruit remained intact. If that is so, then it is a game changer. Sea freight from Colombo to Dubai, I believe, takes only 4 to 8 days for a direct port-to-port journey, compared to 26 days from Bangladesh. Hence, exporting jackfruits and other fruits and vegetables by sea to GCC markets from Sri Lanka would be much more efficient and cost-effective.

With its plentiful supply and a lucrative market in close proximity in the Gulf countries, it is difficult to understand how Sri Lanka has not managed to capture a significant share of the market in the GCC, given that Sri Lanka began to export fruits and vegetables into that market long before Bangladesh, Thailand, or Vietnam.

(The writer can be reached at senadhiragomi@gmail.com)

Features

Insights from Chieftains of Uva: Genealogy of two Kandyan Families – Part II

Published

9 hours ago

2026/08/26

Sahan Weerasooriya

Reflections on Kandyan Genealogical Studies:

by Sena Thoradeniya

(Part I of this article appeared in The Island of 19 August 2026)

In the Kandyan territories, genealogical studies have been largely caste based on only those who belong to the so-called upper stratum – the highest echelon of the Govigama caste. Even within this group, attention is reserved for ancient office holders, illustrious figures, and socially prominent members, while non-office holders, side branches, and ordinary kin are omitted. Sub divisions of the Govigama caste, as well as families belonging to the so-called depressed castes, are almost entirely omitted. One reason for this stigmatisation lies in the absence of competition for caste supremacy within the Kandyan regions, unlike in the “low country” areas. This silences the presence of non-elite Kandyans. However, oral genealogies, folk traditions, palm-leaf manuscripts, and colonial records preserve the names of less prominent members.

On the other hand, the descendants of clan leaders, such as the Vidana Maha Durayas, Maha Balitiyannas, Maha Hulawaliyas, Mulacharis, and chiefs of Halu Apullana Henayas, do not seek to record their genealogies as all their ancestral roots have been uprooted and obliterated. In such a context, they have acquired new names, new identities, and fashion a new genealogy as their point of departure. The erasure of older identities forces these families to reconstruct a new lineage.

The only exception within my private collection is “Great Royal Artificer of the Kandyan Kingdom: Devendra Mulachari” by D. D. M. Waidyasekera (2017), which records the architectural works of the master craftsman, chiefly responsible for the design of the Paththirippuwa, Walakulu Bemma, and Mangul Maduwa.

The names of hundreds of master craftsmen and other artificers have been carefully recorded, yet their works remain largely obscure, without their corresponding works save the creations of a few celebrated Sittaras. This creates an inconsistency in cultural memory as in pre-Kandyan days.

In theory, elders are often the custodians of memory, transmitting genealogies across generations, providing names, relationships, anecdotes, and related details that written records are not available, although the memory may be selective and biased influenced by various factors. Today such elders are rare, even within our traditional villages. With the passing of elders, the cultural and historical memory tied to ancient villages was obliterated. I can illustrate this with numerous examples taken from my village.

More often genealogical records, especially those produced by descendants of noble families, are not impartial records. They conceal historical truths such as collaboration with colonial expeditions, capture of the last King, betrayal during 1818 and 1848 uprisings as some Kandyan chiefs sided with the British during the 1818 and 1848 uprisings, and their servility to British colonial rulers as junior partners in the administration. Their descendants too later held high office under colonial rule, but genealogical records often present only illustrious service. But modern historians, colonial records, and oral traditions unravel these tainted facts. Some descendants of freedom fighters who were executed or transported to the Isle of France, sometimes rose to prominence under the British.

Although genealogical writers are not historians, they can and do omit vital information if they tarnish family prestige. They can consult archival records, oral traditions, and colonial documents to augment their studies. This writer suggests a combination of all sources as explained at the beginning of this essay.

It is true that the line between genealogical study and historical research is less rigid or open. Both genealogists and researchers may use the same sources, but the distinction lies in the purpose and the method. The primary aim of genealogy is to trace lineage, kinship ties and family continuity. It is basically descriptive and compilatory, but it needs critical assessments. Genealogy becomes research when the genealogist moves beyond compiling sources, and analyzing and interpreting them, situating family history in a wider historical process.

In Kandyan genealogical studies, clashes and serious discrepancies between family records, oral traditions, colonial writings, and modern historical scholarship are common. The problem is how to weigh them against one another looking for convergences. Discrepancies arise when genealogical writers adhere to their own records for family pride or myth making, without consulting other sources, without following a more balanced approach, and allowing the reader to formulate independent perspectives. Failure to engage multiple sources perpetuates partial inquiry rather than historical inquiry.

Wanniachy faithfully traces the ancestry of the Taldena family from the era of King Devanam Piyatissa, drawing upon family history, oral tradition, and two folk poems. Yet his account remains narrowly confined, for he pays little attention to other archival sources, colonial writings, and modern historical scholarship. Works such as Paul E. Pieris’s “Sinhale and the Patriots, 1815–1818” (1950/1995), Tennakone Wimalananda’s “The Great Rebellion of 1818” (1963), are conspicuously absent from his study. Although colonial records remain largely inaccessible to the general public, the writings of modern historians reach a wider audience.

Wimalananda records that Taldena Mohottala, a chieftain of Viyaluwa, saw his house ransacked and destroyed by the British troops during the uprising of 1818. In ancient times, a Mohottala, was a scribe, a secretary, whose main function was collecting and sending the King’s and Dissave’s revenue. Mohottalas of Uva also assumed far greater powers by reason of the distance from the capital, Kandy.

The English dismembered the ancient Uva Maha Disawa, under the almost independent authority of a Maha Disava and created six Disavas, of which one was Oya Palatha.

Paul E. Pieris says that Taldena in recognition of his good work for the British, demanded the post of Disava of Oya Palatha. Owing to his collaboration with the colonial administration, he was appointed Acting Dissava of Oya Palatha. Taldena however, again fell under suspicion, was kept under detention at the Barrier Guard and the British administration thought advisable to remove him from Badulla. As he was ill under detention he could not be removed to Colombo as ordered. He was removed from his position of Oya Palata Disava and was called upon to deposit his valuables at the Badulla Kachcheri, as security for his good behaviuor. On depositing his valuables with the Agent, he was released from detention.

Wimalananda further notes that the Taldena family established marital ties with families in the Batticaloa District. A native of Pottuvil, Mutu Banda’s relative, Sama Kumarihamy alias Ramath, married G. B. Taldena; her second husband was Mutukumaru Murugesu Pillai, and their daughter was Madduma Kumarihamy.

The ancient Maha Disava of Uva was further divided. In my series of articles on the Kandyan chieftains under British rule, I have noted that in 1908 Charles Taldena was appointed Gravets Muhandiram of Kandy by J. P. Lewis, Government Agent of the Central Province. In his report, Lewis observed that this office, as had always been the case, was once again entrusted to a Kandyan, whereas previously it had been conferred upon a “lowcountry” official.

In Chapter Four of his booklet, Wanniachy turns to the history and genealogy of the Mullegama family. Though Mullegama does not belong to Uva, the family is linked to the Taldenas through intermarriage, as he explains. Mullegama itself is a village in Harispattuwa, situated about two kilometers off from the Ambatenna junction along the Kandy–Matale road. In tracing the lineage of the Mullegamas, Wanniachy relies closely on A. C. Lawrie’s Gazetteer of the Central Province of Ceylon (1898).

Mullegama, once Dissava of Wellassa and Dissava of Navayodun Korale supported the British expedition. Yet in 1818, British troops plundered his residence at Wellassa, seizing his most treasured possessions, among them gifts from Sri Vickrema, an elephant, and two horses, which were later sold in Badulla, says Paul E. Peiris. During the Uva uprising, he provided the British with valuable intelligence, and in recognition of his services he was subsequently appointed as Siyapattuwe Adhikaram, a post created by Sri Vickrema, an ironic reward for loyalty despite the plundering.

Lawrie records that the estate of the Mullegama Maha Nilame was divided, and that one grandson sold his share to Moormen of Akurana. He further notes that all the walawwa lands were eventually sold, with a Moorman of Akurana purchasing part of the walawwa, repairing it, and residing there. The pathetic decline of the Mullegama estates is poignantly reflected in Asoka M. Herath’s Sinhala novel Nindagama (2002), a symbolic resonance of the literary echo of dispossession.

I am acutely aware that independent researchers and genealogists of Kandyan families often incur the displeasure of presentday descendants, for the facts they uncover are seldom palatable. Their inquiries reveal that certain ancestors occupied the lower rungs of the royal administration yet later attained high office under the British through collaboration with the colonial regime. Such revelations, though historically significant, provoke resentment among descendants who prefer to sustain more exalted narratives of lineage. This genealogical selectivity perpetuates sanitised family histories and conceals the complexities of colonial collaboration.

In Kandyan genealogical studies compiled by kinsmen, attention is almost exclusively bestowed upon the illustrious figures who once served the king. Their descendants, even those living today, are relegated to mere entries in family trees, noted with their matrimonial alliances. Wanniachy’s book is no exception.

Why does this occur? By highlighting only those ancestors who held office or enjoyed distinction, families reinforced their claims to nobility and social standing. Descendants, unless they themselves attained prominence, were recorded routinely since their presence served only continuity but not prestige.

I thought it necessary to highlight certain technical shortcomings of the book. In the present publishing climate, design has become a matter of considerable importance. Proper book design requires attention to margins, chapter titles, and other elements of presentation. Moreover, the volume carries no ISBN, indicating that it has not been registered with the National Library. This omission prevents the work from being catalogued in the Sri Lanka National Archives, the Museum Library, the National Library, and the University of Peradeniya Library and diminishes its archival value. Another notable deficiency is the absence of the author’s address and contact information. (Concluded)

Features

22nd Amendment: Proof of the pudding will be in the eating

Published

1 day ago

2026/08/25

Sahan Weerasooriya

Superior Courts Complex

by Jehan Perera

It appears that the die has been cast on the 22nd Amendment. The government appears unshaken in its determination to ensure its passage into law. From the government’s perspective, the 22nd Amendment and associated legislation, by increasing the tenure of all judges by two years, will give them the extra time to complete their existing cases. This will do away with the need to change judges midstream and have complex legal cases go back to the beginning, which has too often been the case. The completion of these cases will be to the benefit of the victims who have waited for decades for justice in some cases. It will also be to the government’s benefit as many of the wrongdoers are those in the political opposition. In the past, human rights and democracy activists, not to mention lawyers in the field, have bemoaned the manner in which court cases have got delayed for a variety of reasons, including judges being promoted or transferred midstream or reaching the age of retirement.

Principled opposition to 22nd Amendment is articulated in terms of the ad hoc and sudden emergence of the amendment. Those who advance this argument have expressed concern that extending judges’ tenure could create a sense of indebtedness to the government and weaken judicial independence. They would prefer the extension of judges’ tenure to be part of a comprehensive package of constitutional reforms that would apply across the board to other sectors of the public service and, ideally, find its place in the new constitution that the NPP promised in its election manifesto. The question is one of timing. Public opinion surveys carried out regularly have shown that the vast majority of people consider that corruption and criminality at high levels need to be brought to an end as soon as possible. They want accountability to become real rather than remain an unfulfilled promise. The public mood today is that the era of impunity must finally end.

Investigations by law enforcement agencies into the misdeeds of politicians in the past have too often come to naught due to the lack of political will on the part of successive governments. But on this occasion there is a manifest expression of such political will, as witnessed in the seemingly endless series of corruption and criminality cases being uncovered and exposed week by week and month by month. It is equally predictable that those under investigation will seek to challenge the legitimacy of this process. Some will perceive the prosecutions as essentially being in the nature of political revenge rather than lawful accountability and argue along those lines. Others will seek to rally public opinion by questioning the independence of the institutions involved. These reactions should surprise no one. But they make it all the more important that the credibility of the institutions through which accountability is pursued be safeguarded.

Safeguard Change

There is an old saying that society is a mule, not a horse. A horse may respond to repeated use of the spurs, but a mule, if driven too hard, may throw its rider off altogether. The proverb captures an important truth about governing societies. History offers many examples of societies that succeeded in exposing wrongdoing but failed to build reconciliation afterwards. The greatest danger is not merely that the guilty will protest their innocence. That is to be expected. The greater danger is that punishment itself becomes the principal language of politics. When that happens, each change of government carries with it the expectation that today’s judgments will tomorrow be revisited, reversed or avenged.

The electoral verdicts of 2024 that swept the NPP into power brought an entirely new group of political leaders to the fore. This transition needs to take place with care to ensure that polarisation and civil conflict are contained rather than intensified. The post-22nd Amendment period will therefore require something more than legal correctness. It will require political sagacity. Accountability needs to be seen in the light of strengthening the legitimacy of institutions rather than becoming sidetracked into another arena of political contestation. If justice comes to be seen as merely the continuation of politics by legal means, even deserving convictions of wrongdoers may lose public confidence on which long lasting justice depends.

Troubling in this context has been the conduct of some opponents of the amendment. They have not only attacked the government leadership for taking forward the 22nd Amendment. They have also launched personal attacks on judges and cast sweeping aspersions on the judiciary itself. Ironically, in seeking to discredit the courts before they deliver their judgments, they risk undermining the very institution they claim to defend. The lawyers who have united against the 22nd Amendment have every right and duty to raise constitutional concerns. Opposition politicians have every right to criticise legislation. But both also carry a responsibility not to erode public confidence in the judiciary through speculative accusations that prejudge the integrity of judges before they have acted. Such argumentation weakens an institution that belongs to the entire country, not to any government or opposition.

Real Test

Sri Lanka is emerging from decades of violent conflict and deep political polarization. Too often in our history, one government’s triumph has become the next government’s point of demonization as in the once widely used phrase of the “17 year curse” by the successor government. Institutions rebuilt today must therefore survive tomorrow’s transfer of power. They must earn the confidence not only of those who celebrate today’s victories, but also of those who will one day sit in opposition. Institutions that command confidence across political divides need to become stronger and not weaker than the governments that created them.

The national challenge is no longer simply whether accountability will be pursued. It is whether accountability will restore faith in the law by ending a culture of impunity that for too long protected the powerful while denying justice to victims. The country has waited too long for that moment. It must not now be compromised by unnecessary political confrontation or irresponsible attacks on the courts. Ultimately, the strongest answer to the critics of the 22nd Amendment will not come from government ministers or parliamentary speeches. It will need to come from the judges themselves.

The extension of the tenure of members of the judiciary will place an even greater obligation upon them to demonstrate, through every judgment they deliver, that they are truly independent, impartial and beholden to no political authority. If they uphold the law without fear or favour, they will expose the predictions of the doomsayers as unfounded. Those in the legal profession, media, civil society and politics should likewise recognise that criticism of judicial decisions must not become an assault on the institution of the judiciary itself. The greatest service that all sides can render Sri Lanka at this moment is to strengthen the people’s faith that justice belongs equally to every citizen and that no one, however powerful, stands above the law.