Features
Experiences in France as SL Ambassador
Excerpted from the memoirs of Chandra Wickramasinghe, Retd. Addl. Secy. to the President
I was a member of the Public Service Commission when President Chandirka Kumaratunga appointed me as Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to France in 2001. I was fortunate to have had as my predecessor Danesan Casie Chetty, a very senior career diplomat, who had organized the work in the Embassy meticulously, making things so much easier for me to step in and take over. He and his wife Shanti had refurbished and decorated the fine apartment which was in a prime residential area in Paris (which had been purchased by the Govt. of SL), most tastefully and elegantly.
Within months of my appointment, the Govt. entered into a Ceasefire Agreement with the LTTE, brokered by the Norwegians. My major concern while serving as Ambassador was to work towards increasing the volume of our exports which were primarily tea, spices and garments; to promote tourism to SL and to do my utmost to counter the sustained propaganda blitz directed against us by the Tamil Diaspora in France. When I met President Chirac for the presentation of my credentials, I expressly told him of my plans to try and increase the volume of our major export items to France adding I would also endeavor to popularize Sri Lanka as a prime destination for French tourists.
He interjected to say that Sri Lanka being a beautiful country, it should not be difficult to make it an attractive destination for French tourists. Referring to the terrorist problem that was plaguing SL, I told him that the LTTE was actively supported by the Tamil Diaspora in Paris who collected and remitted substantial funding to the terrorists in SL to pursue their destructive activities and that if the French Intelligence Services could curb these illegal activities of LTTE sympathizers in Paris, it would help SL to combat the terrorist scourge .(President Chirac gave some instructions to one of his aides on this issue). He graciously agreed to do whatever possible to assist SL in the matters raised by me.
Arrangements were made thereafter by Nimal Karunatilleke, the Trade Attache of the Embassy, to liaise with the exporters of the major SL export products to France and facilitate their participation in a number of International Exhibitions and Trade Fairs that were held in Paris. On my visits to these Exhibitions and Trade Fairs subsequently, I found a good many SL exporters busily contracting trade deals with the French importers of our export items.
I also attended an International Tea Exhibition in Bordeaux called ‘The Road to Tea’, where I was able to interact closely with French tea importers. I was invited to tea by the Mayor of Bordeaux at his residence where to my surprise, I was served ‘Dimbula’ tea and was pleasantly surprised to learn that the Mayor was himself a lover of ‘Dimbula’ tea. I must record here, the unstinted support I received from Nimal Karunatilleke of our Embassy in all matters pertaining to Trade between France and Sri Lanka and make mention the enthusiastic support I received from Manisha Gunasekera and Saroja Sirisena who were two senior career diplomats at the Embassy during my entire period there. Saroja Sirisena in particular, with her charm and winning ways, proved a veritable asset to me during election time to various international bodies. Come election time, she used to give Ambassadors a dainty peck on their cheek and they would come in droves and vote for SL! When the former Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar asked me how SL managed to win certain crucial elections, I related Saroja’s technique (he knew Saroja well) and he laughed loud and long!
Soon after I assumed office, I discovered that the French Tea importers had formed themselves into a cartel comprising four major tea importers, of whom I was able to cultivate two of the more influential to help me to promote SL tea. This I did by inviting them for meetings and by hosting them to dinner at my residence etc. One of them, a lady told me that although Ceylon tea was by far the best in the world, our marketing was poor. She said we should promote our tea the way the French promoted their vintage wines with attractive labels giving information of the origins on the tea, its vintage, subtleties of it’s bouquet et al. She further said that Ceylon tea deserves to be similarly advertised in attractively designed packs stating that it is grown in the central highlands at an elevation of over 4,000 feet, with plucking done with the onset of the first flush of leaf. Having taken the cue from her, I emailed the Chairman/Tea Board at the time, Ronnie Weerakoon, conveying the information I had gathered from the French lady on how Ceylon tea could be attractively packaged and marketed.
Within days, Ronnie who had latched onto the concept, sent out circular instructions to all the tea exporters advising them on the above lines. I have no doubt that the tea producers who followed his instructions would have received a substantial boost to their tea exports in good time.
I also found that although the French are inveterate coffee drinkers, the upper classes were, strangely enough, aficionados of high grown good Ceylon tea. I used to occasionally entertain Members of the French Parliament to high tea in a room in the Parliament premises with the permission of the Speaker who I knew. The French MPs, curiously enough, had a partiality for our mutton cutlets , rolls and fish patties and in between sessions used to come in large numbers to partake of these snacks with the high point being fine Ceylon tea – Dimbula tea to be specific, served at the end.
Once I decided to have a little Kandyan dancing session performed by a Sinhalese boy and a girl living in Paris with drum accompaniment thrown in. The little drummer boy got a bit carried away and with the din reaching the Parliament Chamber where there was I think, a debate in progress on Corsica, the Sergeant at Arms sent a message to keep the noise levels low. I remember at one of these informal gatherings I addressed the French Members of Parliament who were present saying that although the French were traditionally coffee drinkers, it should not be forgotten that pristine Ceylon tea is like their wine, red in colour and that they were both healthy drinks. They had a good laugh while sipping our good high grown tea!
The French Perfumery Association
Our spices are much valued in France, with cinnamon occupying pride of place. SL cinnamon and lemon grass oil are in high demand by the French perfumery industry for their unique and distinctive quality and aroma. The French Perfumery Association is a powerful guild in France that is extremely quality conscious laying down and rigidly enforcing the highest quality standards in the manufacture of their world famous brands like Chanel etc. With their long and distinguished tradition of manufacturing quality perfumes, they were wont to pick the best spices, flowers and oils used in the perfume industry from across the globe with scrupulous care.
My relationship with the French Perfumery Association became so close that they made me a Life Member of the Association. I was able to open lines of communication with the Association and some of the leading cinnamon and lemon grass exporters of SL, some of whom even visited Paris and had fruitful discussions. In fact, my association with the FPA became so close, that they even created a special perfume called the ‘Spirit of Lanka’ and presented it to my wife at a formal ceremony arranged by them. This newly created perfume made of spices, oils and the essence of flowers exclusively from SL was a special, limited issue of 100 bottles which were distributed among the Ambassadors and other VIPs present at the ceremony. They even let me into what they said was a closely guarded secret – one of the perfume extracts that went into the manufacture of their world famous ‘Chanel’ brand came from the ‘Araliya’ flower which grew in SL. This SL Araliya flower they said, had a distinct and unique scent , not found in this genre of flower, anywhere else in the world.
I must record here, my appreciation of a friendly couple who were resident in France –Pierre and Ionie Silliere for making arrangements for me to visit cities and townships in Normandy to deliver talks on Sri Lanka with video presentations showing the scenic beauty and historical sights of Sri Lanka. Many people who attended these talks had only heard of Ceylon and it’s tea and were astounded by the breathtaking beauty of the island and the many places of historical and archaeological interest visitors could see. They just could not believe that we had enormous monuments (dagobas), the tallest being just five feet shorter than the tallest Egyptian Pyramid- Cheops. The Silliers told me later that many who had been present at the lecture /slide presentations were planning to visit Sri Lanka with their friends.
Despite the Ceasefire, the LTTE were still active in Paris
Despite the Ceasefire between the SL Govt. and the LTTE bringing about an uneasy calm and a tenuous cessation of hostilities, as the terms and conditions were heavily weighted in favour of the LTTE and decidedly unfavourable to the Govt. of SL , the LTTE in Paris had not let up on their propaganda activities. There was a particular area in Paris called Le Chappel which had virtually been commandeered by the Tamil Diaspora. Once I visited the area incognito on the pretext of purchasing Sri Lanka curry stuffs etc., which were available in the shops there with my driver shadowing me at a discreet distance. But despite all these precautions, one or two of the hard core LTTE sympathizers got suspicious, which I could see from their reactions in reaching for their cell phones and talking animatedly to whoever at the other end. This was enough of a warning for me to beat a hasty retreat.
Interacting with Ambassadors and important personages
It was also my view that an Ambassador representing a country should interact not only with other Ambassadors, but should also make the acquaintance of prominent personages in the host country while also mixing with the ordinary people to the extent possible. The French, with their long and illustrious tradition of suave and elegant diplomacy, are a people who treat Ambassadors with a lot of deference and respect. This is made abundantly clear when you are introduced to them as an Ambassador. Following tradition, French Ambassadors have remained a cultured and elegant lot. They are knowledgeable and conduct themselves with appropriate diplomatic finesse wherever they go. They would naturally expect the same standards of decorum and conduct from their foreign counterparts.
This does not mean that one should assume an unprepossessing hauteur, which would immediately be taken note of and often find reflection in certain cynical reactions. Being knowledgeable and convivial, at receptions and social gatherings is crucially important and would unfailingly elicit the correct responses from them. These were my perceptions which I am sure will be shared by many senior diplomats who have served particularly in Missions in the West.
I must say that I successfully made the acquaintance of academics, prominent public figures, former Ambassadors, leading businessmen dealing with our principal export products etc. by entertaining them at my residence at the many receptions my wife and I hosted. In my discussions with them, I was able to disabuse them of the misconceptions they may have had about SL, exposed as they were, to the relentless barrage of LTTE propaganda. Of course the former Foreign Minister par excellence, Mr. Lakshman Kadirgamar had already done a lot of damage control by the brilliant speeches made by him at numerous international fora by convincingly assuaging the fears and suspicions of many countries in the West to the point of veering them round and making them go to the extent of banning the LTTE in those countries. He was ably assisted in this stupendous task by Rohan Perera who was the Legal Advisor in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the time.
Among the people with whom I struck up firm friendships, I can name Prof. Meyer of Sorbonne University and Bernard de Gaulle, nephew of the late President and President of the de Gaulle Foundation. They were particularly sympathetic towards SL and the unfortunate predicament the country was in. I was quite touched when Bernard de Gaulle presented me with the ‘de Gaulle Medal’, when I was about to relinquish duties as Ambassador. He said it was in appreciation of my efforts to strengthen Sri Lanka –France cordiality and friendship.
I feel I must further state here, that I was able to interact in this amicable and informal manner with French academics and other Frenchmen of stature, due to the broad education I had received in Sri Lanka in the English medium. English was indeed a pass word to knowledge to all those who were fortunate enough to study in that medium. It opened up to us the best in English literature as well as access to the better known books in Russian, French, Italian, German literature et al, in translation. In fact, other Ambassadors used to often express their surprise when I quoted extensively from
Shakespeare, Satre, Balzac, Goethe, Plato, Aristotle, Omar Kayyaam and the lot. This certainly was not an advantage that was peculiar to me, but was a distinct advantage enjoyed by the great many who had studied in the English medium and who thereby acquired the knowledge and the breadth of vision that came with wide reading.
These are by no means self-congratulatory statements by me, but are hard facts which powers that be, should take cognizance of in making appointments at the level of Heads of Missions to important countries in the larger interests of our country. I must re-iterate that these candid observations are being made having the best interests of Sri Lanka at heart. One cannot, of course, blame the younger generations who followed in our wake, for their lack of proficiency in the English language. They were the unfortunate victims of the woeful chicanery of self-serving politicians who deluded the masses with their hugely populist measures, sacrificing long term national interests for short term political expediency.
I daresay there are still certain areas where persons proficient only in Sinhala and Tamil languages in Sri Lanka, could work admirably in discharging the duties expected of them. But with the rapid advances made in Information and Communication Technology, people are increasingly realizing the value of English as a necessary tool for knowledge enhancement and for gaining access to certain fields of study which would be denied to those possessing proficiency exclusively in Sinhala and Tamil languages.
The four Presidents whom I served, I must say, tried their best to take certain remedial measures in this regard, but the magnitude of the problem was much too overwhelming for such corrective measures attempted by them to register any lasting impact. The present Govt. too is acutely aware of the enervating effects of the problem, reflected in the lowering of knowledge and competence levels across the board, and is doing its utmost to remedy the situation by having a Special English Unit under a competent Advisor in the Presidential Secretariat dedicated to the training of English teachers. But it is proving to be an uphill task even for this Special Unit, due to the paucity of competent teachers of English.
It is therefore necessary that the problem be addressed frontally with due resolve if the situation is to be prevented from deteriorating further. It is suggested that the authorities try selecting newly passed out graduates and putting them through a six months ‘total immersion’ course in the English language. These young graduates are intelligent and already equipped with learning skills which should enable them to acquire the required proficiency in the English language with ease within the stipulated six month intensive training period. This should, whilst providing gainful employment to the increasing numbers of graduates passing out annually from Universities, also enable the authorities to tackle the problem of improving English proficiency island wide in a pragmatic manner.
Accreditation to UNESCO as Ambassador
In addition to my duties as Ambassador to France, I also represented SL at UNESCO in Paris. I had to devote considerable time to UNESCO discussions where I was elected to Chair certain Committees. UNESCO has always been at the forefront of the UN Agencies in SL assisting the country substantially in the areas of Education development and in the cultural field. UNESCO is currently primarily concerned with encouraging developing countries who are its members, in the rather daunting task of meeting the Millennium Development Goals that have been laid down by the United Nations. During this time, Dr. Sarath Amunugama and Prof. Carlo Fonseka visited Paris in a delegation to attend a UNESCO conference on the theme -‘Towards achieving the Millennium Development targets’. I remember Dr. Amunugama, (who was a familiar figure in UNESCO circles) making a stirring speech on the subject which was rapturously received by the representative audience.
On the 50th Anniversary of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth the Second, my wife and I received an invitation from Sir John Holmes, the British Ambassador, to attend the Commemoration Ceremony which was to be held at Notre Dame Cathedral. We were conducted to the seats reserved for Commonwealth Ambassadors in the front row, from where we were able to get an unobstructed view of the entire ceremony. The event was indeed a memorable one as the wondrous ‘ambience’ of Notre Dame Cathedral, lent a special grandeur and solemnity to the occasion.
Addressing the UN General Assembly on the subject of Ageing
I consider it a singular privilege and honour to have addressed the United Nations Second World Assembly on Ageing, held in Madrid Spain in April 2011. My address was on “Perspectives of the Ageing population in Sri Lanka”.
On my return to the island I was appointed Senior Advisor to the President. It was during this period that I worked in collaboration with my colleague SMSB Niyangoda, on nine Presidential Committees to study and make recommendations on numerous problems relating primarily to land matters. These recommendations made by the two of us received the approval of the President as well as the Cabinet of Ministers. I was also a member of the Presidential Commission on ‘Law and Order’,with Nihal Wadugodapitya former Justice of the Supreme Court who was Chairman and Frank de Silva former IGP. The Commission submitted a comprehensive report to the then President recommending sweeping changes to the entire Criminal Justice system which unfortunately did not find favour with the gentlemen occupying the highest echelons of the Judiciary at the time for reasons best known to them.
(Concluded)
Features
Waiting for a Democratic Opposition
by Tisaranee Gunasekara
“The future is cloth waiting to be cut.”
Seamus Heaney (The Burial at Thebes)
The point had been made often enough. Without a Gotabaya Rajapaksa presidency, there wouldn’t have been an Anura Kumara Dissanayake presidency. For the NPP/JVP to go from three percent to 42 percent in four plus years, the system had to be broken from within by the very leaders entrusted with its care by a majority of voters. Gotabaya Rajapaksa achieved that feat in ways inconceivable even by his most stringent critics (who in their sane minds could have imagined the fertilizer fiasco?).
But President Dissanayake’s victory has two other fathers: Ranil Wickremesinghe and Sajith Premadasa. President Dissanayake won because the competition was so uninspiring. It was more a case of Sajith Premadasa and Ranil Wickremesinghe losing rather than President Dissanayake winning. While the NPP’s rise was meteoric, President Dissanayake failed to gain 50 percent mark of the vote. He is Sri Lanka’s first minority president.
As the IHP polling revealed continuously, all major presidential candidates had negative net favourability ratings; they were more unpopular than popular. The election was a contest to pick the least unpopular leader. Thus the winner’s inability to clear the 50 percent line.
This situation hasn’t changed qualitatively in the run up to parliamentary election. According to the latest IHP poll, President Dissanayake’s net favourability rating is still negative, which means more people regard him unfavourably than favourably. He and Harini Amarasuriya are at minus 10, the least unpopular of leaders. Sajith Premadasa at minus 31, Ranil Wickremesinghe even lower, lag behind not just President Dissanayake and Ms. Amarasuriya, but also the now retired Ali Sabry.
The NPP/JVP is likely to clock a bigger win at the parliamentary election even so, because the oppositional space is clogged by Mr. Wickremesinghe and Mr. Premadasa, with the Rajapaksas hanging on to the seams. The same actors representing the same unattractive futures. Compared to these prospects, a Harini Amarasuriya premiership would seem alluring to most Sri Lankans (she is an excellent choice, in any case, for the job).
President Dissanayake has avoided any obvious missteps in his first month. He is treading cautiously, especially in the economic arena, opting not even to tweak Ranil Wickremesinghe’s deal with a group of ISB holders, despite some unfavourable – and precedent-making – clauses such as giving bondholders the option of changing the law underpinning them from New York to England or Delaware; New York is about to pass a bill giving debtor nations greater bargaining power. He is no Gotabaya, at least economics.
In Sri Lanka, it is normal for the party that wins the presidency to win the parliament as well. In 2010, after Mahinda Rajapaksa won the presidential election, the opposition unity fractured. The UNP contested on its own and the JVP contested in an alliance with the defeated presidential candidate, Sarath Fonseka. In the presidential election, Mr. Fonseka had polled 4.2 million. At the parliamentary election, the main oppositional party, the UNP, polled only 2.4 million. Even after the votes for the Tamil and Muslim parties and the JVP/Fonseka headed DNA were factored in, this amounted to an erosion on a massive scale – 1.2 million votes.
In 2019, Sajith Premadasa polled 5.6 million votes. Yet his newly formed SJB polled a mere 2.8 million at the 2020 parliamentary election. Once the votes given to Tamil and Muslim parties and the UNP were factored in, this amounted to a bigger erosion, over 2 million votes.
Even the Rajapaksas could not buck this general trend in 2015. The UNP won the general election despite the much vaunted Mahinda Sulanga.
So the NPP/JVP winning on November 14 would be the norm. The only question is about the extent of that victory: would it be limited to a simple majority or something bigger, close to a two thirds?
A simple majority would be necessary to run an effective government. But a near two thirds victory would be a tragedy. Every time a Sri Lankan party won so big, disaster ensued in 1956, 1970, 1977, 2010 and 2020. Too much power not just corrupts but also stupefies. A future NPP/JVP government might be able to avoid the (financial) corruption trap. But if burdened with a huge majority the government will not be able to evade a blunting of senses, of growing blindness and deafness to public distress, of an addling of wits. Already, future ministers are shrugging off price hikes in such staples as rice, calling them normal. They might be but the dismissive attitude hints that the rot of indifference to public pain might have begun to set in already. In the absence of a strong, principled, and effective opposition, the rot will grow faster, to the detriment of all Sri Lankans, including compass enthusiasts.
Feudal ethos and tyrannical practice
To be fully functional, a bourgeois democratic system needs bourgeois democratic parties. Unfortunately, most Sri Lankan parties are feudalist in ethos and tyrannical in practice. We have a history of leaders treating their parties as private or familial property. The Rajapaksas are the most egregious example but they didn’t start the habit, merely took it to a new low. Senanayakes and Bandaranaikes preceded the Rajapaksas, both families treating dynastic succession as the norm.
When he became the leader of the UNP, J.R. Jayewardene made a clean break with that feudalist ethos. He delinked the UNP from familial politics and opened it to new blood, providing the space for the creation of a line of brilliant second level leaders. In 1977, he allowed the candidates for the upcoming parliamentary election to choose a steering committee to manage the campaign (in a secret vote). The man who topped that internal poll was made the deputy leader, Ranasinghe Premadasa.
Had Mr. Jayewardene won a simple majority in 1977, history might have turned out differently and better. But he won a five sixth majority. It didn’t take long for hubris to set in, making a man of undeniable intellect commit a bunch of avoidable mistakes and unnecessary crimes. And having obtained undated letters of resignation from all parliamentarians, Mr. Jayewardene ran the party like a dictator. Unlike the Bandaranaikes and Senanayakes, he didn’t crown his offspring. Instead, he turned himself into an uncrowned king.
Ranil Wickremesinghe opted for a dictatorial leadership style from day one. He gave himself the title The Leader, changed the party constitution to make it literally impossible to effect leadership changes, marginalised potential challengers and promoted untalented loyalists. He slowly abandoned the J.R./Premadasa UNP’s anti-feudal ethos, turning the UNP into a party where preferment was given to spouses, siblings and offspring of politicians.
As president, Mr. Wickremesinghe prevented the economy’s freefall and achieved a turn around. The NPP government’s decision to go the same route, at least for now, is a tacit admission of the success President Wickremesinghe achieved under extremely difficult circumstances. Yet, his me-or-deluge attitude to the UNP continued and continues. As president, instead of allowing a new young leadership to rebuild the party, he kept control of the UNP via discredited and deeply unpopular yes men. After his humiliating defeat, he clings to the party leadership.
Sajith Premadasa in this department is a veritable Wickremesinghe clone. He has suffered three national defeats, losing the presidency twice and the parliament once. Yet, like Mr. Wickremesinghe, he seems determined to cling to the SJB leadership even at the cost of running the party to the ground. He is also allowing his family into politics. Consequently, the SJB too has become a party unsuited to a bourgeois democratic system, feudal in ethos, dictatorial in style.
Anura Kumara Dissanayake won the presidency because the JVP understood its own un-electability and created a more electable cocoon as cover, the NPP. Sajith Premadasa and Ranil Wickremesinghe are incapable of even such minimal evolution. Like the woolly mammoths who couldn’t adapt to climate changes and were hunted extensively, their inability to adapt to the new political climate created by the NPP/JVP victory would drive their own parties to extinction. With no opposition to keep it on its toes, the government would succumb to hubris sooner rather than later.
The rest would be history. All too familiar history.
Somethings new, one thing old
What if J.R. Jayewardene did not commit the deadly mistake of banning the JVP on totally fabricated charges?
The JVP entered the democratic mainstream in 1977. From then till about 1983, the JVP was non-racist, trying to reach out to Tamils along the lines of class solidarity. It also treated the SLFP as its main enemy, and dreamted of becoming the main opposition (thus the famous lecture series: The Journey’s end for the SLFP). The JVP leadership maintained contact with some government leaders (especially Prime Minister Premadasa). When the opposition launched the general strike of July 1980, the JVP criticised the move and stayed out of it (the strike failed and the government sacked 60,000 striking workers). At a personal level, Mr. Wijeweera got married and started raising a family. These were hardly the actions of a party or a leader harbouring insurgent intentions.
Mr. Wijeweera’s abysmal performance in the 1982 election created a crisis in the JVP. The party’s reversion to a more Sinhala-oriented line was arguably a reaction to the shock of defeat. Yet going the armed revolution path was never on the JVP’s agenda even then. Had President Jayewardene not extended the life of the existing parliament (in which his UNP had a five sixth majority), the JVP would have contested the next general election (scheduled for 1983), won a few seats and settled down into standard parliamentary existence of reform and compromise.
Not only did President Jayewardene postpone parliamentary polls. He also banned the JVP. It was that criminal error which led to the second JVP insurgency (the insurgency’s racist, brutally intolerant nature was the JVP’s choice alone).
Perhaps President Dissanayake is where Mr. Wijeweera would have been had parliamentary election not been postponed and the JVP not been banned. Unfortunately, the JVP’s commendable evolution on matters economic has not been paralleled in the ethnic problem arena. The NPP was remarkably reticent on the subject in its tome-like presidential manifesto. Listening to the JVP general secretary Tilvin Silva indicates the reason. Behind a non-racist façade, the JVP is as regressive about the Tamil question today, as it was in the past.
“After 1970, our major political parties became provincialized gradually,” Mr. Silva said in a recent TV interview when asked about the NPP’s unimpressive electoral performance in the North and the East. “This allowed new forces to come into being in the North, the East, and the plantations… Tamil parties in the North, Muslim parties in the East, plantation parties in the plantations… So these parties decided on how to vote. For example, the people of the North did not vote freely. They voted according to what the TNA decided.”
Not a word about how the supposedly national parties alienated Tamils via discriminatory policies and violence actions, nothing about the disenfranchisement of Upcountry Tamils, Sinhala Only, the race riot of 1958, the standardization of university admissions in 1971 or the brutal attack on the Tamil Language Conference in Jaffna in 1974. Nothing of that history exists in the JVP’s universe, according to Mr. Silva. He admits to the existence of a language problem. The rest is reduced to water, markets, schools and education.
Perhaps the most telling is how he explains the land issue. “During the war some left their lands. Then they couldn’t return. Those who stayed back grabbed the land. Now when the owner goes back someone else is in occupation. So there’s a fight. So the government must intervene, set up land kachcheris and solve the problem.” Not a word about the continued military occupation 15 years after the war ended, the military’s ongoing attempts to grab more land or the road closures which hamper ordinary life. So like the Rajapaksas.
Mr. Silva accuses the Tamil leaders of talking about the 13th Amendment and devolution to protect their own interests. “But people on the ground don’t want 13; they don’t want devolution of power…” Even if that argument is granted, what about the thousands of acres occupied by the military? According to the JVP’s reading, do the Tamil people want their land back from the military, or not? Do they want their roads opened or not? Do they want justice for their dead or not? If the JVP cannot understand those basic demands and yearnings, if the best solution it can offer is administrative decentralisation (under a de facto military occupation), the NPP won’t make much headway in creating a Sri Lankan nation. If Sri Lanka’s road ahead lies between a Sinhala government and a feudalist autocratic (and ineffective opposition), the next five years are unlikely to be all that different from the last 76.
(First published in Groundviews)
Features
School bags
(Excerpted from Life is a Frolic by Goolbai Gunasekara)
The lives of school going children these days is so far removed from mine that kids of today may almost be living on another planet. Customs and attitudes today are weird. I watched with open mouthed amazement as granddaughter KitKat got ready for school.
First, she put her swimsuit into her school bag. This was followed by a slightly damp towel plus an extra shirt. A board game and a cassette were flung in after all this.
“Haven’t you forgotten something?” I ask somewhat bewildered by the contents.
“Oh yes,” she added her Tuck Shop pocket money. “Nothing else?” I inquired silkily.
KitKat distrusts politeness from me. She is more comfortable with a yell.
“Er… like what?”
“A school text perhaps? An exercise book or two. You DO intend to do some writing in school don’t you?”
She looks affronted but repacks her bag.
Now let’s take my day at Bishop’s far removed from the present. One never forgets the routine and discipline of parents half a century ago as opposed to the apparent laxity of today.
We were woken at 5 a.m. Bags were packed the previous night with parents reminding us of the necessary chore every five minutes.
“Have you packed your school bag?”
The answer was always yes. We dared give no other. And what went into this school bag? Only school related stuff of course. Parents checked. The parental grapevine was abuzz with the latest news that Lady ChatterIay’s Lover had been found in a grade 11 school bag. It was rumoured that Sister Gabrielle, our tall and gracious Principal, had looked at the novel and had to be revived with smelling salts. Bishop’s was an Anglican school but a few Anglican nuns were always around to be shocked by modernity.
On the dot of 6.30 a.m. if Father was in Sri Lanka in between lecture tours, he personally saw me off on my bike, from the back verandah. Su, my younger sister, was perched atop our own rickshaw parked alongside the car in the garage. Between puller Murthy and Su, was a running battle. Father knew this.
“Now, not a WORD to Murthy except a polite one,” he would caution sternly. Su tossed her pretty head. She enjoyed the rickshaw ride with two or three boys cycling alongside making appreciative comments. Murthy did not approve of silly romance. He raced from Rosmead Place to St Bridget’s at a speed Roger Bannister might have envied. Su fumed. It was just up one road and down the other after all.
Parents did not have cars on the ready to drop us. Many of us cycled – especially those who lived within a hoo gana distance from the school.
“It’s raining mother. Can Weerasuriya drop me?”
My Father did not like the thought of the car getting wet and remaining wet the whole day. He had no problem with me getting wet so the answer was predictable.
” Wait till the rain ceases and make a dash for it.”
Traffic was at a minimum. ‘Making a dash’ for anything was extremely easy. Besides which, one could always make use of a slightly damp look.
“Miss I got wet coming to school,” we would tell our Form teachers. A realistic little cough further enforced the idea that we were sickening for colds.
“Run to the sick room right now dear,” said a concerned mistress. She didn’t want us breathing germs all over the class for the next few days. Properly executed that visit to the sickroom could be dragged out to cover two periods.
Then there was the ‘bag search’. Unless they were School Prefects, girls were not considered particularly trustworthy. What am I saying. They were considered totally untrustworthy by every member of the school staff. Ergo, bags were searched once a week for ‘undesirable fiction.’
Of course, we read undesirable fiction but we had the sense not to leave these exciting tomes lying round in our school bags. There were other things – too sacred to even mention, which we tucked into our bras and discussed with bated breath. These were romantic missives which class beauties like Chereen received regularly and were delivered by help karayas like myself with no boyfriend of my own.
Granddaughter KitKat views my school days with disbelief.
“How did you stand it Achchi? Nothing happened in your time.” Ah but that’s what she thinks. We certainly had our moments.
(Life is a Frolic is available at leading booksellers)
Features
The NPP: A Month in Power
By Uditha Devapriya
It has been a month since Anura Kumara Dissanayake assumed the presidency, a month since the NPP claimed its place in history as the first party from outside of the political establishment to win a presidential election in Sri Lanka. Two weeks from now, the NPP will face another election, this time parliamentary. Depending on the results it gets, we will know whether the people approve of the NPP’s actions over the last four weeks and if they want it to continue. The NPP’s call for a powerful government is, in itself, not alarming: no government can survive without a majority in parliament. Yet it will need to convince Sri Lankans that it is the party they need – the party not of power, but of change.
Paradoxically, that it hails from a non-elite background may prove to be more a challenge than a strength – and I am not talking about the parliamentary election only. In 2022, the NPP sealed its reputation as a credible voice of the aragalaya. It received the backing of sections of civil society, the youth, and other electorates, including the Sinhala peasantry and middle-class, which had voted for the SLFP or, more specifically, the Rajapaksas. It was no easy feat weaning them away from their traditional strongholds – the JVP receiving less than 50 percent of the vote shows that they did not totally succeed at this.
Yet now that it has absorbed these electorates, it must speak to them and act in line with their aspirations. In itself, this should not be too difficult a task. The NPP’s mandate, in its simplest formulation, is to relieve the suffering of the many. How it does this is left to be seen, but over the coming months, it will have to signal to people that it is capable of seeing that task through. However, it must contend with the fact that these electorates, so to speak, do not exactly align with each other. What NGOs demands, for instance, is not what farmers in Anuradhapura or Hambantota have in mind, or prioritise.
This partly explains the government’s confused response to the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). In the run up to the election, the NPP clearly stated that the PTA had to go. It did not explain how it would do this when in power, but it indicated that it would abolish the Act. Civil society favours abolition; nationalists, including those who prioritise security, from the military, probably do not. While promises and pledges need to be kept, regardless of the consequences of certain decisions, the NPP now has several groups to satisfy. Obviously, it feels it needs to make concessions, or adjustments, to some of its policies.
The NPP’s, and the JVP’s, shift to the centre was evident even before the election. Going by some of its recent appointments, including of corporate bigwigs, it is targeting the middle ground in almost everything it does. As Ramindu Perera points out in a recent analysis, the JVP shifted course after two attempts (2010 and 2015) of supporting common opposition candidates. In 2019, it framed itself as the alternative party – to the UNP and the SLFP-SLPP. However, without the Sinhalese middle-class vote, it could not win the race. It thus had to shift course somewhat in the next few years.
It is significant that Dilith Jayaweera’s comments on the suitability of certain candidates in the NPP and his questioning of their national(ist) credentials has led, not to a blowback from the NPP, but rather a shift within the NPP over the issues he addresses. The pro-Rajapaksa nationalist crowd were fond of demeaning the JVP as unpatriotic, of depicting them a group of radicals hell-bent on erasing Sri Lanka’s Buddhist heritage. Nothing that JVP MPs have said or done over the last three, four years warranted such criticisms – and to its credit, the JVP itself struck back at them. However, upon coming to power, the NPP has disappointed those who thought it would undermine Sri Lanka’s culture and way of life.
On closer inspection, of course, none of this should come as a surprise. In 2005, the JVP backed Mahinda Rajapaksa’s candidacy based on their position on the war: like Rajapaksa, they supported a military solution. When Rajapaksa, being the shrewd politician that he is, weaned away the JVP’s electorate from the JVP, the latter positioned itself in opposition to him and his family. Towards 2010, they began rebranding themselves as the party of anti-corruption, even while fundamentally supporting the government’s campaign against the LTTE. By 2015, with an upsurge in anti-Rajapaksa sentiment among even SLFP supporters and the youth, they squared the circle by both campaigning against the Rajapaksas and not explicitly endorsing the common candidate, Maithripala Sirisena.
The latter decision benefited the NPP immensely when Sirisena, with the UNP under Ranil Wickremesinghe, undermined the yahapalana government’s mandate. However, given the upsurge in security concerns after the 2019 Easter attacks, and the Joint Opposition’s deft mobilisation of nationalist sentiment against the yahapalana regime’s supine liberalism – represented not by Ranil Wickremesinghe, but rather Mangala Samaraweera – it could not seize the moment. A few NPP supporters at the time told me that they decided to support Gotabaya Rajapaksa instead of Anura Kumara Dissanayake, for tactical reasons – not because they did not trust Dissanayake, but because they felt he could not win.
This brings up another point. Liberal civil society always had an uneasy relationship with the JVP. They had an uneasy relationship with Ranil Wickremesinghe as well, but although Wickremesinghe’s liberal credentials were suspect even during the ceasefire, they preferred to overlook his limitations and promote his peacemaker image. They were much less lenient with the JVP. English newspapers from that period, especially those aligned with the UNP, are chock-a-block with editorials and columns censuring the JVP’s stance on the war and its militant past. Indeed, the JVP was blackguarded every week, almost every day, particularly after it received ministries from Chandrika Kumaratunga.
The situation has clearly changed today. Civil society, even if one includes only NGOs and the development sector in Colombo, is not what it was back then. The older, genteel liberal intelligentsia has given way to a more vocal, articulate, bilingual activist class. They may be funded – as much of civil society is, and as the aragalaya itself was – but they are more attuned to the NPP’s radical-centrist vision than the fossils of the UNP. Yet on certain issues, they remain as steadfast as their predecessors were. And one of those issues, which the NPP has effectively blotted its copybook with, is the PTA – which young and old activists, from Colombo and elsewhere, continue to deride. For the youngest generation out there on the streets, the PTA brings back memories of arrests during the aragalaya. For older generations, including my parents’, it brings back memories of the war.
The Prevention of Terrorism Act, thus, is not something that can be magically swept aside or forgotten. One can argue that it is unfair to expect the NPP to do overnight what successive regimes have failed to achieve for the last 76 years. Yet promises on issues that unify several electorates, and several generations, cannot be backtracked – and if they are, the NPP runs the risk of losing face, as it somewhat has. Social media is of course by no means an accurate gauge of public opinion, but judging from NPP supporters who have taken to Twitter to berate the party over its communique on the PTA, it is clear that the government needs to clarify its stance immediately – or else.
The NPP, like other parties, is evolving. It has never been the governing party, but that does not mean it has no experience in governing. Anura Kumara Dissanayake and Vijitha Herath were both Cabinet Ministers under Chandrika Kumaratunga. In choosing Harini Amarasuriya as Prime Minister, they have broken several glass ceilings. I believe that if the government is to keep up this momentum, it needs to stick to its manifesto. Of course, on certain issues – notably the IMF agreement – it has room to moderate itself, as it already has. Yet on more crucial topics, such as the PTA, which after all has been used against the JVP, it will have to stick to what it said and what it pledged.
For more than 30 years, Ranil Wickremesinghe played the part of the ultimate provocateur in national politics. Today, the NPP is in power. The NPP does not have the cynicism that Wickremesinghe and the Royalist Regency do. Yet that cynicism is not the preserve of that Regency. It can be appropriated by any group, and it can be misused – as Wickremesinghe did in 2024, and John Kotelawala did in 1956. The Royalist Regency is part of the “Deep State” in Sri Lanka. If the NPP is serious about breaking it, it needs to reread its manifesto and take stock of the people who supported it – and brought it to power.
Uditha Devapriya is a regular commentator on history, art and culture, politics, and foreign policy who can be reached at .
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