Irreplaceable loss

Demise of Susil Sirivardana

The demise of Susil Sirivardana caused corrugated foreheads with instantly raised eyebrows and half asunder lips in all his friends and associates. No doubt that a chill of despair soon began to invade all their hearts. The country has lost an intellectually pregnant outstanding administrator who always wanted to feel the pulse of the people at large. This, he has demonstrated throughout his career.

After his Oxford education, Susil had all the opportunities laid before him to secure a comfortable and elitist occupation with a munificent wage either abroad or in Sri Lanka, but on his return to Sri Lanka, unlike any other educated elitist youth of the day, he asked for a teaching position, to start his career, not in a reputed private or public school in Colombo, but in any school in a backward district. As a sequel to his request, he was appointed as a teacher at Anuradhapura Central College where he demonstrated an appreciable mode of ‘plain living’ and ‘high thinking,’ winning the admiration of both students and teachers not only of the Anuradhapura Central, but of those in neighbouring schools, as well as in many others of different walks of life in the district who gradually came to be associated with him, over a period of four years.

In 1965, Susil sat for the highly competitive and much-coveted Sri Lanka Administrative Service Examination, topped the batch, and was subsequently appointed DLO of the Youth Settlement Scheme. It is in this position that he travelled far and wide in the country making a genuine effort to understand the many fold burning economic and social problems of the country’s youth during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The youth rallied around him with a high sense of appreciation for his services.

It is no secret that his popularity among youths irked some of those in power at the time. Though troubled, Susil had the courage, like that of phoenix, the mythical bird, to rise once again to contribute more than his share to national development. President Ranasinghe Premadasa, in recognition of Susil Sirivardana’s past administrative capabilities and managerial skills, appointed him as Director, Janasaviya Programme. Even though the beneficiaries of the Janasaviya Programme shall not and perhaps will not forget his yeoman services rendered towards youth’s uplift and poverty alleviation in Sri Lanka, it is a tragedy that those who came to power since 1994, failed to allow Susil to continue his dedicated engagement in rural development.

Susil was a man who went to the people, spent long hours with the people, learnt firsthand what the people knew, started to work with people with what they knew, but with good community leaders old and young, and when the work was accomplished he rejoiced with the people saying, “we have done it ourselves”. Where community leadership was lacking he selected promising youths to train and moulded them to become future community leaders.

His down-to-earth field-based development experiences that he eloquently, logically and amicably expressed at seminars, conferences, general and one-on-one meetings, for many more years following his demise, would continue to ring in the ears of the genuine Research and Development (R&D) professionals, who associated Susil, from which they undeniably learnt much. Susil’s professional and other associates, sharing his family’s grief over his demise, pray that he attain the Supreme Bliss of Nibbana.

M.U.A. Tennakoon, PhD, DSc

muatennakoon@gmail.com