The day after I assumed duties in my new post (as Chairman of the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation and Director General of Broadcasting), I had two unexpected visitors. The first was Mr. Festus Perera, who was now a Deputy Minister. I have already recounted my encounter with him during a flour shortage which occurred when I was Deputy Food Commissioner. He remembered this, and the object of his visit was to wish me well.

I was surprised that he had remembered this for nearly nine years. For a moment, I thought to myself that the same sound memory may have worked to my detriment if I had displeased him during that period. In fact, during a long career, I had worked with or dealt with hundreds of politicians, and I can assure any new entrant to the public service that all of them have long memories. This should not prevent them from doing what is right, which certainly includes refusing some of their requests. What is required is credibility and consistency in whatever you do.

The next visitor was even more unexpected. It was Mr. Gamini Dissanayake the new Minister of Lands and Irrigation and although youthful, a senior member of the UNP and a senior Minister. I really did not know him personally. There were just a few occasions, when I was Secretary to the Prime Minister when he had telephoned me on some matter or other and I had, as with anyone else, diligently done what I could.

Most people thought that Mr. Dissanayake had come to record a programme. This was not so. I was later to learn that he had come completely unannounced, catching everbody by surprise. He walked straight into my room. I was very touched by what he said. He stated that he had just taken oaths and was on his way to his Ministry. when he thought that first he should pay me a visit and see whether I had any problems. He did not even sit, and left reassured that I did not have any problems. To this day, I do not know what made him do this. But this proved to be the beginning of a developing relationship with him in the future.

By common consensus, the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation and the Associated Newspapers of Ceylon or Lake House were expected to be the two most difficult places to control after a change of government. A breakdown of law, order and discipline was expected in both places, and in fact, both places began to live up to these expectations. Within the SLBC I was successful in controlling the situation and restoring peace and order within a few hours of my getting there. The fact that the Commander of the Navy thought it fit to provide me with a machine gun escort was proof enough of the general assessment of the turmoil there.

Unhappily at Lake House, the breakdown of order and the violence were not brought under control for a number of days. Many people were assaulted, some of them women, including the senior and respected journalist Mrs. Roshan Peiris, who had to be warded at Central Hospital, where I went to see her. It was she who had played the important role in trying to bring about a dialogue between the Federal Party and the Government. Paint was thrown at some employees of Lake House, whilst a few were tarred and feathered.

Trouble Shooting

At SLBC peace prevailed until the third day after I assumed duties. On the morning of that day members of the UNP Union, the JSS, came hurrying into my room. They stated that, so far, in accordance with my wishes and instructions they had refrained from doing anything untoward to any political opponent, although, according to them some of them had participated in harassing their members during the time their government was in power. But now, they complained of a serious act of provocation, where an officer of the Corporation, Raja Dharmapala, by name who had stood as an SLFP candidate at the elections and lost, had come in wearing a blue shirt, the party colours of the SLFP.

The JSS members informed me that the whole place was seething with anger and resentment and that any moment violence could break out, beginning with an assault on Dharmapala. This was indeed crass stupidity on the part of Dharmapala. He, more than any should have known the environment and the tense political relations within the SLBC. In the context of events, where he, a defeated candidate, had chosen to come in his party colours, when the Government had changed, not simply, but by obtaining over a five sixth majority in Parliament, was indeed a serious act of provocation.

This was not the time to dwell on the democratic rights of dress and concepts of individual freedoms. The whole place would have blown up, and hospitals, if not the morgue would have found more work. I had to act quickly. I told the JSS to somehow or other help to maintain the peace for half an hour. They left to try, still in anger. I immediately sent for Dharmapala, got him down to my room, and pitched into him.

I told him with what effort and with what difficulty, I had maintained the peace at SLBC, and how his stupidity was threatening to unravel everything. I ordered him to get out of the premises forthwith, and not to come back for a week. He apologized for causing me problems. I told him that my problems were nothing compared to his problems which were now imminent. He said he would leave at once. I told him that it was not that simple, and I had, in my view to first negotiate a safe passage for him. I kept him in my room, until I got the necessary assurances from the JSS. This was not simple, because at one stage promises were given, that he would not be assaulted physically, but some of them said that they could not guarantee that his shirt would not be torn. I had to patiently go on talking until ultimately I obtained a safe conduct for both the person and his shirt.

Discomfort

In those early days of a politically charged atmosphere, there were some issues that came up which caused me considerable discomfort. One such was the decision taken by the Ministry to interdict certain staff on grounds of engaging in political activity, when they were debarred from so doing, according to the rules. Some of the persons to be affected were well known, like the vocalist G.S.B. Ranee Perera, and Newton Gunaratne.

When I heard of this situation, I met the Minister and the Secretary, with the intention of exploring other avenues, and avoiding such a drastic measure. The SLBC was working normally and I did not think that wasting precious time on what may have happened in the past, when there was so much to be done in the future was a wise move. I could see that to an extent the Minister and the Secretary were also caught up in the general climate, and that this was not a measure that they had initiated entirely on their own.

Under the circumstances, after much discussion, the best that could be done was to convert the interdiction into compulsory leave, so that pending a final resolution, they at least got their salary. There was another thing I did. I did not want the letters of compulsory leave served on them as a routine matter by the Administration division. After all, they were our employees, and I felt that it was necessary for me to face them and talk to them personally, and do whatever I could to soften the blow. I spoke to them, advised them, hoped that matters could be sorted out soon, and assured them that I would do whatever was possible to close this chapter early. They thanked me. Some of them told me that they appreciated the fact that I had personally taken the trouble to speak to them which made them feel much better.

Meeting other trade unions

I met all the other trade unions one by one very early. One of the most professional was the Ceylon Mercantile Union (CMU). They were well prepared, spoke to the point and was ever alert to drive a hard bargain. At the same time, they did not quibble. For instance, they protested vehemently at what they referred to as a political transfer, where one of their members had been transferred from one division of the Corporation to another. They talked about injustice and political victimization.

I replied that it was indeed a politically directed transfer; but it entailed no demotion or hardship; and that such transfers had been kept down to a minimum. I then said “You and I have been born and bred in this country, we know the conditions here, and we are practical persons. Are you seriously telling me that in our context, that a government which had swept into power with over a five-sixths majority cannot order the transfer of an officer from one division to another in a public institution?”

They dropped the matter immediately. If an argument had force, they acknowledged it. The same could not be said of any other union. Others were efficient and effective in patches. With them, in many instances an effective argument evoked an emotional response. When they failed to maintain their line during rigorous examination of the merits, they changed track and resorted to emotional appeals and extraneous matters. But all in all most of them were good and well meaning people and I had no major problems with them.

The Board of Directors

The Board of Directors of the Corporation consisted of some interesting people such as Professor Tilak Ratnakara of the Economics Department of the University of Kelaniya and the Ven. Hettimulle Vajirabuddhi. Professor Ratnakara was regarded as an economic pundit of the UNP. He was a decent man but with a strain of idiosyncrasy. There were times he engaged in very fertile flights of fancy and one had to wait until they were exhausted. An interruption during this period led to ill temper. So one switched off and waited until the fuel was burned out.

At other moments, he could be very rational and constructive. Ven. Vajirabuddhi was dark, stocky and powerfully built. I had met him earlier and I have referred to this in an earlier chapter. He was also somewhat mercurial in temperament. He could be quite soft spoken one moment and explosive at another. The other members of the Board had legal and public service backgrounds and were steadier in temperament. One required considerable tact to steer the discussion and arrive at implementable decisions.

A visit to Mrs. Bandaranaike

Just as with the change of government in 1970, I could not take proper leave of my then Minister Mr. M.D. Banda, until much later, I was in the same predicament in relation to Mrs. Bandaranaike. Except for the hurried visit to Horagolla, which I have already referred to, I could not really talk to her. Therefore, one day, after I had settled down in Broadcasting, I told my Minister Mr. D.B. Wijetunge that I needed to go and see Mrs. Bandaranaike, since I had not been able to suitably bid farewell to her. Mr. Wijetunge, willingly gave me permission. Thereafter, I made an appointment and went with my wife to meet her at her residence in Rosmead Place. We were happy to see each other, after all the changes that had occurred. Mrs. Bandaranaike was relaxed and not pressed for time, and we talked for almost two hours. During the course of this conversation, she said that she had received a long personal letter from Mrs. Gandhi which she found greatly encouraging as well as consoling. She wanted me to see it and she went upstairs and fetched it.

The letter clearly showed how close, personal and mutually respectful the relationship between them was. The central portion of this long letter was Mrs. Gandhi’s prediction of the political harassment that Mrs. Bandaranaike would be subjected to and it was based very much on her own experience in India. The letter went beyond generalized prediction into specifics and described in some detail, the manner and mode of probable denigration and political attack.

At the same time, she counseled Mrs. Bandaranaike to remain unshaken, to ride the storm and to fight back. Apart from the intense personal concern displayed, the letter was a telling narration of the uglier side of South Asian politics, where to this day, one sees politics as a source of boosting personal egos and achieving personal and party advantages, rather than true disinterested national service. The fact that much happened, in exactly the way predicted by Mrs. Gandhi was an indication of the rooted deficiencies of our political society.

Attending to issues at the SLBC

I was Chairman and Director-General of Broadcasting only for a period of a little over four months, before I was reassigned. Therefore, a lengthy account of my stewardship in this post would not be necessary. I would however, like to briefly touch upon some salient issues. Firstly, on the management side, I found the organization to lack sufficient vigour. There had developed a looseness dangerously bordering on the careless.

For instance, a Sinhala news reader, who had to do the 6.30 a.m. news bulletin came late by about ten minutes, delaying the station opening, in spite of the fact that a car was sent to her residence to pick her up. She had to be sent on compulsory leave pending an inquiry. A large number of employees had got into the habit of aimlessly walking the corridors. That had to be stopped. There were employees playing carom in the canteen, during office hours. The carom boards had to be taken into custody and released only during the lunch hour and after 5 p.m.

Stern action was promised against anyone smelling of liquor. ‘The Directors of the divisions were enjoined to have a regular monthly meeting with their staff and the minutes of the meetings sent up to me. I met the Directors once a fortnight. I met the Trade Unions representing all parties and groups regularly. Through these meetings we were able to identify a long checklist of items that needed to be worked on and followed up. The list was then prioritized and specific time periods set for completion of action.

In some instances we later found, that implementation was on schedule, but the quality of the implementation poor. Quality checks were then installed. For some reason, the annual administration report of the Corporation had not been written for a number of years. Therefore, the reports and accounts had not been laid before Parliament. The rectification of this situation was begun. All in all, the entire administration and management of the institution had to be toned up and a degree of rigour injected into the system. This process was set in motion.

On the program and quality side too, a great deal of collaborative effort had to be put in. Here, unfortunately, we did not have a free hand. Politics came into contention. During the period of the previous government some radio artistes, especially singers had been sidelined allegedly on political grounds, Now with a five-sixths majority in Parliament they wanted to make up for lost time, and virtually demanded five-sixths of programs. The genre of many of them was Sinhala pop, and although I resisted consistently and continuously creating a serious imbalance in the Sinhala music programs, this happened. This initial surge could not be stopped, although towards my last month in office things were coming more into balance.

Among the varied programme activities, I was particularly interested in a program initiated by Mr. C. de S. Kulatillake on regional customs, dialects, and language peculiarities, including the Veddah language. We did not have television at this time and there was the danger, that with increased urbanization and migration, some of these linguistic and cultural aspects would be lost forever. I therefore, heavily backed Mr. Kulatilleke’s research and recordings and found ways and means of finding extra funds to sustain his program.

(Excerpted from In Pursuit of Governance, autobiography of MDD Pieris)