Connect with us

Features

SLPP sweeps the board How will it sweep Sri Lanka?

Published

on

by Rajan Philips

There is no other way to describe it. The SLPP has won a stunning victory. It won 128 out of 196 elected seats and added 17 more from the National List for a total of 145. The shortfall of five seats for the coveted two-thirds majority is now laughably insignificant. What is significant is the district level sweep in seven of the nine provinces, barring of course the north and east outliers. The SLPP led in every district in the seven provinces, polling more than 70% of the vote in five districts, between 60% and 70% in eight districts, and between 50% and 60% in further five districts. Only in Digamadulla, the lone district the SLPP won outside the seven provinces, it polled 33%.

No party polled more than 50% of the vote in any of the seven districts in the northern and eastern provinces. The TNA alliance led in five of them, all four in the north and only Batticaloa in the east, but polling under 35% in all of them. The SJB led in only one district in the whole island, in Trincomalee in the Eastern Province, registering 40% of the vote. Its progenitor, the UNP, the oldest party in the fray, was totally shut out. It won zero out of the 196 elected seats, polling a pathetic 2.15% of the national vote. Ranil Wickremesinghe and Ravi Karunanayake were both eliminated right in their Royal College backyards in Colombo. Unheard of in a proportional representation election.

Adding more insult than healing to the injury, the UNP has been given a solitary spot on the National List. The spot should go to neither RW nor RK, who are now defeated candidates. Whoever gets it will have a matching companion in parliament in the lone elected SLFP MP from Jaffna! The final tinkling of Chandrika bangles!! For the record, Maithripala Sirisena topped the list in Polonnaruwa, but under the auspices of the SLPP. Now in their death throes, the two progenitors, the UNP and the SLFP, do send warnings to their new avatars, the SLPP and SJB. Winners beware of the impermanence of political power!

UNP implosion

In contrast to its district level sweep, at the aggregate level the SLPP has only maintained the total vote it won at the presidential election in November. In fact, it polled slightly lower: from 6,924,255 to 6,853,698. The huge margin of its current victory, from 52.25% in 2019 to 59.89% now, seems entirely due to the implosion of the UNP vote. The UNP won five million votes in the 2015 parliamentary election and 5.5 million in the 2019 presidential election. On Wednesday, the SJB polled 2,771,980, and the UNP a paltry 249,435, for a combined total of just over three million votes. A drop of over two million votes from the last parliamentary and presidential elections. These votes did not go anywhere, but may have stayed at home, given the drop in voter participation last Wednesday. The official voter turnout is not known, but has been reported to be around 70%. Although this is a reasonably high rate in the COVID-19 situation, it is significantly lower than what were registered earlier – nearly 84% in the November presidential election, 81% in the 2015 presidential election, and 78% in the 2015 parliamentary election.

As for the seat count in parliament, the UNP/SJB’s seat count dropped from 105 seats in 2015 to 55 seats last week, while the UPFA/SLPP seat count increased by the same margin, from 95 seats in 2015 to 145 seats. Politically, the UNP drag has had a downward effect on both the JVP and the TNA, although both have been spared of the ignominy of Ranil Wickremesinghe. He kept them waiting for five years on the long leash of his promises. Now they return to parliament rather depleted, and hopefully not too dispirited. And to a parliament minus Ranil Wickremesinghe.

The JVP/NPP will have only three MPs in the new parliament, down from six earlier. Verité Research has ranked four of the six JVP MPs in the last parliament among the top five MPs for their work ethic. But that was not duly noted by the supposedly politically savvy Sri Lankan voter. The JVP polled over half a million votes in the 2015 parliamentary election and close to three quarters of a million in the 2018 LG election. It has since fallen down, to 418,553 in the November presidential election, and a slightly higher 445,958 on Wednesday. It has nominally overtaken the old UNP, but a handful of more JVP MPs would have made a difference to the JVP and to the functioning of parliament.

The TNA has a shown similarly declining trajectory in the north and east. From nearly 570,000 votes and 16 seats in the 2015 parliamentary election the TNA (ITAK) alliance has gone down to under 350,000 votes and nine seats. It won three seats in the Jaffna District, three in the Vanni including Mannar and Mullaitivu, and three more in all of the Eastern Province – two in Batticaloa, one in Trincomalee (the Trinco City represented by the TNA leader R. Sampanthan) and none in Ampara or Digamadulla. The TNA’s shrinking vote base and the now established plurality of representation in the Eastern Province hardly augurs well for the mantra of remerging the Northern and Eastern provinces.

The TNA now has other Tamil rivals to contend with in the new parliament, besides the EPDP with whom it has established a good working relationship. It may even get along well with (Colonel) Karuna’s Party (TMVP) from the East, but it will have to watch its back for sniping from behind from Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam who returns to parliament for the first time after leaving the TNA in 2010, and CV Wigneswaran the former Chief Minister of the Northern Province. Mr. Wigneswaran might be the oldest new Member of Parliament in history, and it may not be too interesting to see what he might accomplish as a backbencher in parliament after being an irresponsible underachiever as Provincial Chief Minister.

The message from the Jaffna District is unsurprisingly mixed. Although the TNA won only three of the allotted seats in the district, it won eight of the ten electoral districts within the Peninsula, along with Kilinochchi outside it. Of the two electoral districts the TNA lost, one went to the pro-Rajapaksa EPDP (in Kayts, the seat formerly held by pioneer separatist V. Navaratnam) and the other was won by the SLFP (in Udupiddy, formerly held by the TULF leader M. Sivasithamparam). Neither Ponnambalam’s Tamil Congress nor Wigneswaran’s new Tamil front won any of the ten electoral districts in Jaffna, nor did they win anything outside the Peninsula. The voter turnout in Jaffna was relatively low (under 65%) and the people would seem to have voted more out of their familiarity with the leading candidates than for any specific platform. Ponnambalam and Wigneswaran won their seats thanks to proportional representation. It is unlikely, however, that they would be proportionately restrained in their parliamentary rhetoric.

Gota’s Victory

Looking outside the Peninsula, Wednesday’s election victory can be seen as Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s political coming of age. The victory at the November presidential election was generally attributed to Mahinda Rajapaksa’s political stock among the Sinhalese and his campaign charms. Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa was seen as the younger apprentice brought along by his older brother for the country’s highest job. Not anymore. Gotabaya Rajapaksa owns the new victory and there is no IOU from him to the Prime Minister, or to the SLPP. The reverse was the case in November. This election was the people’s verdict on the first six months of his presidency, and a reflection of their assessment of his handling of the COVID-19 crisis.

The victory has enhanced the power of the President, and has invested in him an enormous amount of political capital. The question is what additional powers and political capital are there to be harnessed through never ending constitutional changes? Even if constitutional changes are deemed urgent and necessary, the President will add to his prestige and political capital if he could facilitate a set of changes that are also acceptable to a majority of the opposition MPs, and enable their passage with broad support from both sides of the parliamentary divide. On the other hand, if constitutional changes that are designed to be acceptable only to government MPs are forced through by a narrow two-thirds government majority, such passage will invariably create bitterness and bickering not only in parliament but also among the broader communities. It will also diminish presidential prestige and run down his political capital.

More importantly, is the current and unprecedented situation of continuing COVID-19 uncertainty and economic hardships the appropriate time for embarking on a fundamental constitutional overhaul? It would only distract the government from the more urgent priorities and disenchant the people who have given the President a massive victory. Regardless of political preferences, the people are hoping to see COVID-19 under control, their jobs protected as far as possible, and at least minimum redress to those who cannot keep their jobs. In these circumstances, people are not excited about the separation of powers between the President and Parliament and abstract assertions on behalf of their sovereignty. The newly elected parliament and the new cabinet must reflect the people’s current priorities. The President can facilitate both. He has all the powers he needs to do that.

 



Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Features

America stands by its Man!

Published

on

Male Liberty

by Rajan Philips

Donald Trump did not simply win a second presidential election. He crushed Kamala Harris and the top-down electoral coalition that she was hurriedly assembling to overcome what Democrats rhetorically kept defining as an existential threat to American democracy. The American voters have resoundingly sided with the perpetrator of the threat not only in the contested seven swing states, but also in the popular vote across the country. And they ignored all the warnings dramatized by celebrities, meticulously explained by President Clinton in small voter gatherings in swing states, and soaringly articulated across the land by the Obamas – Michelle and Barak, the country’s most eloquent political couple.

Apart from recapturing the presidency, Trump’s Republicans have retaken control of the Senate and seem set to retain their slender majority in the House. In his second coming, Trump could be the Unitarian president that Republicans savour and the petty monarch of all he surveys. That leaves Democrats with plenty of postmortems and soul searching before the midterm elections in two years and the next presidential election in four years. To their relief, Trump will not be on the ballot in 2028.

In fairness, Kamala Harris ran a disciplined and flawless campaign without a single gaffe or scandal allegation. That is quite extraordinary in American political campaigns. That was the verdict of pundits before the vote, but postmortem verdicts will now provide alternative narratives. Her refusal to expediently dissociate herself from President Biden was seen by some as strength of character, but as a fatal error by others.

Incumbency is usually the bane of electoral prospects. This year it has been a particularly unshakable albatross to governments seeking re-election. A somewhat poetic solace, according to comparative election observers, is that of all the losing incumbents in elections this year Kamala Harris has performed best.

As Vice President running to succeed her President, Harris bore the incumbent cross with great forbearance. But the cross proved too heavy a burden as she tried to present herself as the change candidate who would turn the page on ten years of Trump and his politics of chaos and calumny. Instead, the voters settled for Trump as the change candidate and were sold on Trump’s sweeping promises to make life affordable, secure the borders and get rid off immigrants, and magically end the wars in Russia-Ukraine and the Middle East. All of which were attributed to President Biden, and by association to Vice President Harris.

In stark contrast to Harris, Trump’s campaign was characteristically incoherent, undisciplined, vulgar and insulting. Yet his core message on the economy, nativism immigration, and transgender rights struck a chord with American voters regardless of their socioeconomic locations and across racial divides. With his genius for branding and marketing, not to mention electronic communication, Trump kept himself personally engaged with the electorate, ever since he began his political campaign in the 2015 primaries. Beginning with a core group of white voters, Trump has gradually expanded it to include African Americans and immigrants of all hues, especially Latinos. Not to mention South Asians.

It is not a coincidence that his two victories have been against women and his only defeat in between was against a man. In his third and ultimately successful attempt, Trump targeted male voters as men, especially young male voters and across racial divides. He used another divider to slice the electorate. Education. He attracted non-college educated voters more than college-educated voters.

The national average for college education is 40%. The percentage is generally lower in the solid Republican (Red) states which are mostly white, rural and interior; higher in the solid Democrat (Blue) states that are more urban, diverse and coastal; and is around the 40% national average in the seven states that swing between the two parties.

Three of the seven swing states, Michigan, Philadelphia and Wisconsin, are mid-western states that are predominantly white and working class. They are the rust belt repositories of old industries and have historically voted Democrat until Trump came along. The remaining four, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada, are more southern and sunbelt, and include significant proportions of Black and Latino voters. Carter, Clinton and Obama have won all four of them, as well as Florida and Ohio which are now solid Republican states.

The spatial expansion of the Republican electoral base began under Bush (Jr) and his political “Architect” Karl Rove who excelled in micro-targeting voter groups based on their cultural grievances associated with pro-life (anti-abortion) evangelical Christianity, gun rights and gender rights. But the Bushes were never anti-immigrant. The Democrats ceded ground in local politics in Republican states, retreated to protecting the swing states, and turned political questions into judicial battles. Barak Obama bucked this trend in 2008 by bending the arc of history, only for Trump to come along and break it eight years later.

Trump swept all seven of the swing states in 2024 just as he did against Hillary Clinton in 2016. Biden won five of them in 2020. After 2016, Trump packed the Supreme Court with three conservative judges and made similar appointments to other federal courts. Now he has the opportunity to replace two aging Supreme Court judges, the conservative and Catholic Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, with two younger clones. Biden’s proposals to reform the Supreme Court are now a dead part of his battered legacy.

In the aftermath of their electoral shellacking the great soul searching for Democrats will be about their voting coalitions in the swing states. Hillary Clinton tried to extend Obama’s arc and expanded her support among African Americans and Latinos, but she paid the price for it when the white working class abandoned her in the three midwestern swing states. Four years later, Biden won back sufficiently among white workers in the Midwest to end Trump’s presidency after one term and made new forays in Georgia and Arizona. But he polled proportionately less among Blacks and Latinos.

By the time Kamala Harris came, handicapped to start with after Biden’s tortuously delayed exit, Trump had expanded his support among Blacks and Latinos. He had already energized the white rural voters to vote in much larger numbers than by any Republican candidate before him. Harris’s coalition strategy was to break into traditional white suburban voters who were disaffected by Trump, to compensate for her sliding support among voters of colour and the white working class. In the end, Vice President Harris’s coalition could not hold up against the tide of Trump.

In his election night victory speech, he exulted over the coalition he had cobbled, which now includes, never mind nominally or substantively, “Black voters, women, Hispanics, and Arab and Muslim Americans.” Jews were not mentioned. The media in Israel picked up on the slight, while the country itself was jubilant over Trump’s return. He had warned during the campaign that Jews would “have a lot to do with it” if he were to lose. As much as 67% to 77% percent of the Jewish vote went to Harris, according to exit polls.

“Jewish voters are the only segment of the electorate where Trump did not make meaningful inroads,” claimed Halie Soifer, the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America in a tweet. “Despite unprecedented @GOP efforts to divide us, we voted our values,” he went on. But Harris lost on values and Trump won. Harris lost the crucial Arab American vote in the battleground state of Michigan, and may have lost substantial votes among pro-Palestinian students on university campuses.

Ukraine and Gaza were not top of mind issues for the voters in general. But they were clearly annoyed with the Biden Administration’s insistent bankrolling of the wars in Ukraine and in the Middle East while middle class Americans were struggling with their cost of living. Trump was always boastful that there were no wars anywhere during his four years in office. He is not at all perceptive to realize that his cozying with Netanyahu and the push for Abraham Accords while isolating the Palestinians ultimately led to the October 7 attacks by Hamas. Now he is back in office and has to deal with the aftermaths of his own mistakes and Biden’s failure in the Middle East.

Trump will also have to deal with his personal situation arising from his criminal conviction and pending indictments, while starting his second term after a campaign that was full of outlandish threats and promises. Getting himself out of legal troubles has been the main purpose of his second run and that seems to be getting done quite easily. For all the powers that he is now getting invested with, Trump is very much a lame duck president and the oldest American to become president. What is there to seriously preoccupy him now that he is legally free is the question for the next four years.

Continue Reading

Features

The Assassination of Mr Bandaranaike

Published

on

Buddharakkita being led out of court

(Excerpted from Rendering Unto Caesar by Bradman Weerakoon, Secretary to the Prime Minister)

Mr Bandaranaike was to address the UN General Assembly sessions in the first week of October and was to leave for New York on the September 28, the Monday after the weekend. As usual it was necessary to advice the governor-general as to who would act for the prime minister while he was away from the country. On Wednesday, the afternoon of September 24, I met Mr Bandaranaike with the customary pile of papers for signature and orders at his office on the second floor of Parliament.

I inquired of him as to who would act as prime minister during his absence abroad. Without a moment’s hesitation, since he had obviously given it some thought, he said, “Mr Dahanayake, the Minister of Education.” I remember being a little surprised at this as Mr Dahanayake had not acted as prime minister on earlier occasions. The usual practice and tradition was for the Leader of the House to be so appointed. However C P de Silva was ill and out of the country, being treated in London for acute nephritis and, as rumoured by some, for having drunk by mistake at a Cabinet meeting a poisoned chalice of milk. Moreover, Dahanayake was not one of the ministers of the SLFP, having come into the MEP as an MP of the Bhasha Peramuna, a party that had won only a single seat at the elections.

The next afternoon, Thursday, with the letter to the governor general duly prepared in terms of Article 46 (iv) of the Constitution, I saw the prime minister again in his Parliament office. It was the last time I was to see him alive. It seems prophetic now and I recall the incident vividly. As he looked over the letter before putting his long and spidery signature to it, he glanced at the wording of Article 46. It was couched in the usual legal jargon “to act for the prime minister during his absence from the country or temporary incapacitation.” Always quick to seize on the nuances of phraseology his eyes caught the rhythm of “temporary incapacitation” and with a half-smile on his lean face rolled the words around his tongue. It is a memory, which has lived with me since.

As soon as I had his signature on the letter I went to Queen’s House, on the way back to office, and handed the letter over to N W Atukorale who was Sir Oliver Goonetilleke’s official secretary. The next morning as Mr Bandaranaike lay mortally `incapacitated’ at Rosmead Place his home with four revolver bullets in his body, the governor-general had before him in writing, a nominated successor.

That morning, September 25, 1959, had certainly been a black Friday. I was with the trusted Linus Jayewardene, the doyen of confidential stenographers dictating the programme of activities for the prime minister in New York to be printed in the customary Visit booklet. The prime minister’s personal aide at the Rosmead Place residence, D P Amerasinghe telephoned to say that someone had shot “Lokka”.” I still recall Jayewardene’s immediate quite inappropriate reaction, “My Gosh, what now happens to my leave,” as I pushed aside my papers and ran for the car.

Mrs. Bandaranaike and Anura by the bier

There was no time to get an official car or driver (there were only two assigned cars at the time – one for the prime minister and one for the secretary) and so I drove my Fiat 1100 straight to No 65 Rosmead Place. The severely wounded Mr Bandaranaike, with Mrs Bandaranaike who had seen it all happen, had been taken to the General Hospital close by. The three children had gone to school and were being informed.

The front verandah was in a total shambles. What I saw was overturned tables and chairs, scattered papers, blood on the floor, broken glass, a crazy looking monk in dishevelled robes holding his abdomen and moaning on the floor of the hall inside, with a lone constable, a rifle at the ready over him and lots of sobbing people.

There was work to be done so I left, first to the ‘Merchants Ward at the General Hospital where Bandaranaike had been taken. Sir Oliver was already there, and in charge, making sure that the next procedural steps would be initiated. The usual first step of a declaration of emergency was not necessary since the emergency regulations were already in force since the race riots of mid-1958 and the subsequent industrial strife of the first half of the year. Mr Bandaranaike had insisted on a message to the Nation and this was being readied as I arrived at the hospital. The last words Bandaranaike spoke, as he was being prepared for surgery will stand as an immortal testament to the life of a man of extraordinary compassion and nobility:
“A foolish man dressed in the robe of a bhIkku fired some shots at me in my bungalow this morning. I appeal to all concerned to show compassion to this man and not to try to wreak vengeance on him.
I appeal to the people of my country to be restrained and patient at this time. With the assistance of my doctors I shall make every endeavour to be able to continue such services, as I am able to render to my people.
“I appeal to all to be calm, patient and to do nothing that might cause trouble to the people.
To those closely connected to me, to Mrs Bandaranaike and my children, to the members of the government and all my friends and well-wishers, I make a particular appeal to be calm and to face the present situation with courage and fortitude.”

I drove back to the office to prepare for the swearing in of the acting prime minister. Shortly before noon, as Mr Bandaranaike lay at deaths door, having undergone complicated abdominal surgery — a team of five doctors under the expert eye of the eminent surgeon P R Anthonis spent five hours in the operating theatre, the business of government went on. Mr Dahanayake was duly and constitutionally appointed acting prime minister before Sir Oliver Goonetilleke and in the presence of Atukorale, M P Perera, Dahanayake’s private secretary and myself.

Continue Reading

Features

GLIMPSES OF COLONIAL CEYLON (1935 – 1947)

Published

on

(Excerpted from Falling Leaves, an anthology of autobiographical anecdotes by LC Arulpragasam)

This is not meant to be a history of the colonial years, but rather a cherry-picking of childhood memories for their quaintness rather than for their historical truth, for socio-cultural insights rather than for historical facts. I can only touch on some cultural oddities of the English-speaking middleclass of those times, since I knew no other. Likewise, I can write only of the last years of colonial rule, since I lived through no others. I write as ‘an old man in a hurry’, because at the age of 88 years, I doubt that there will be others left to recount these tales.

Imperial Blessings

I remember as a small boy at Royal Prep, how excited we were about the visit of the Duke of Gloucester! It must have been around 1935, and I must have been around 6-7 years old. The brother of the King of England (George V) was actually going to visit us in Ceylon! We were all dressed up in our school uniforms and armed with little British flags. We had to stand, kneel or sit, according to our height, on benches lined along decorated Thurstan Road, along which the Duke’s motorcade was to pass. How thrilled we were when the Duke graciously acknowledged our cheers! Although this now seems absurd, it remains etched in the memory of a six-year old, even at the age of 88!

The War Years (World War II: 1939-45)

The war years weighed heavily on the whole country. Except for the LSSP and Communist Party, most Ceylonese political parties, the State Council and the people supported the British war effort, agonizing over our colonizer’s losses in Europe, as well as the repeated bombing of Britain. We seemed unaware or unafraid of the Japanese entry into the war, based on the claims of the British and re-echoed more arrogantly by General Mc Arthur (who was in charge of the American Command in the Pacific) that they would make short shrift of the Japanese, whom they caricatured as inept, short-sighted, with protruding teeth and short legs! The eastern defence for the British was concentrated in Singapore, which they considered impregnable. Their house of cards collapsed when the Japanese marched through Indo-China and knifed through the Malay Peninsula to take Singapore from the north by land, while the British guns were pointed out to sea! This caused the British to fall back on Ceylon as their main defence against the Japanese, with the HQ of Admiral Lord Mountbatten, the Supreme Allied Commander being based in Ceylon, in the Peradeniya Botanical Gardens, no less!

Buildings were taken over by the British Army, including Royal College. The whole Race Course as well as the Royal and University grounds was taken over for an airbase for the British fighter planes. Since Royal College had to share classrooms with the University, some classes were actually held on the University grounds under the shade of the wings of the Hurricane fighters and their camouflage nets, with me among them!

The price of all commodities rose, while the shelves of most shops were bare. Food was scarce: so a ‘Grow More Food Campaign’ was started. Since rice imports were not possible from war-torn Asia, there was an increased dependence on wheat flour from Canada and the U.S. This brought about a change in dietary habits, incorporating wheat flour in the form of bread and string-hoppers made of American piti into our dietwhich persists even to this day.

There were some socio-cultural changes too. These were caused mainly by the large influx of British and allied troops, whose massive numbers and different socio-cultural habits induced subtle changes in the middle-class culture of that time. Of these, I shall describe only one, because it is the most amusing. Accompanying the many British soldiers and sailors came the British ‘Wrens’ (part of the Royal Navy), which soon resulted in British couples cuddling and fondling each other in public on our beaches. Although this was shocking to the Ceylonese society of those days, it was greatly appreciated by the adolescent schoolboys of that time. ‘Kapping’, a euphemism for voyeurism, became a popular past-time for schoolboys from Colpetty to Mt. Lavinia, who enjoyed seeing such overt sexual activity. I recently read a book by a former school boy (who later became a Professor of English Literature in a leading British University), whose greatest exploit was to make off with the knickers (as they were called in those days) of a Wren, when she was too busy to notice!

Christmas Cheer!

As a Christian living in a mainly Buddhist country, I am now amazed at the fuss that was made over Xmas in those days. It was a fuss in which all middle-class communities, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim participated, evincing a heart-warming give-and-take between the different communities and cultures. Even in Malaysia today, the Muslims have an ‘open house’ for all their neighbours and friends on Hari-Raya, while the Hindus reciprocate on Deepavali, and the Chinese on their New Year.

The determining factor in Ceylon in those days was obviously the privileged position of Christianity under the British; but it was the cultural override that was most visible. In fact, I even remember singing Christmas Carols in Royal Prep, along with Buddhist and Hindu boys, which should never have been allowed in a government-run secular school. I remember even more culturally determined events. We sang songs during World War II, such as ‘I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas’, ending with the wish that ‘All Your Christmases be White!’ And just to make sure, our middle-class families would put white cotton wool on their Christmas Trees to simulate snow! As seen before, this represented more a cultural domination rather than mere colonial rule.

Sometimes these cultural norms rode on the back of religion, going back even to Portuguese times. Living in Rome for 30 years, I discovered that Catholics in the countries of Southern Europe had a tendency to bury their dead into the side of a hill, as if in shelves going into the hillside. I was surprised to find recently that a bereaved Catholic family in Sri Lanka, in the absence of a hill in the flat sandy soil of Wennappuwa, had built a big underground vault in order to construct a vertical wall into which they could slide (laterally) their dead. They had in effect created a mountain out of a mole hill, just in order to follow the cultural (not religious) customs of the Portuguese of 500 years ago! Thus, we all carry some cultural baggage from our colonial past.

Colonial Cultural Legacies in Other Countries

In my later travels abroad, I had the chance to see the same thing on a wider scale. When visiting Japan in 1963, I was greeted with giant-sized posters at every street corner of Marlon Brando with his prominent nose and of Rita Hayworth with her lovely long legs. This was in effect a ‘beauty’ cultural message to the conquered Japanese people. Consequently, Japanese who could afford were running to get nose jobs and breast implants done in order to proximate the American standards of beauty.

A silly story from South-East Asia illustrates this even better. In the early 1960s during my travels in Asia, I could always make out the difference between a Malaysian, a Filipino and an Indonesian, despite the fact that they all shared the same physiognomic characteristics of the Malay race. Amazed at my own unerring, know-all accuracy, I began to wonder from where I had acquired this wonderful gift. It was only later that I realized that I was telling them apart only by the externalities of their colonially derived cultures. I recognized the Filipino from his American crew-cut, the Malaysian from his clipped mustache (a tribute both to Islam and to the stiff British upper lip), and the Indonesian by his batik shirt, all of which were colonially determined!

Trousers Make a ‘Mahattaya’

I always wore trousers and was always addressed as ‘Mahattaya’ or ‘Sir’ in Ceylon in the 1940s-60s, especially by anyone clad in a sarong. I took this title for granted – and even wanted my money back if I was not so addressed! But it was not long before I realized that it was NOT the wearing of trousers that had made me a ‘Mahattaya’. The trousers only marked me as belonging to the English-speaking ‘elite’, which is what entitled me to wear trousers in the first place! On the contrary, if one could not speak English, one would never presume to wear trousers! The equation went something like this: wearing trousers = English-speaking = higher class or Mahattaya. The trousers were a badge of honour, defining you as belonging to the English-speaking elite, which gave you the ‘right’ to wear trousers and to be addressed as ‘Mahattaya’!

I was to see the absurdity of this equation, applied in the same way but in a different country. When attending an international conference in Delhi in 1959, the Second Secretary at the Ceylon Embassy in Delhi, kindly offered to give me a ride to the meeting. But having lost our way, my friend drew up to a cyclist, a simple man wearing the long trousers/pantaloons worn by north Indians, with the intention of asking him the way. My friend spoke in English, but the man replied in Hindi, saying (probably) that he could not understand English, and went on repeating the same. Exasperated and annoyed, my Embassy friend turned to me and said: ‘This b……r is pretending to know English when he clearly doesn’t!’ The poor man had been going about his business, in no way PRETENDING THAT HE KNEW ENGLISH, but was falsely accused of doing so! The problem was obviously in the mind of the Ceylonese beholder, who had assumed that the man knew English only because he had ‘dared’ to wear trousers!

Continue Reading

Trending