How about celebrating the ’78 Revolution?

Ask those interested in Sri Lankan history what the year 1978 signifies and 9 out of 10 will say something about the 2^nd Republican Constitution, that pernicious document authored by JRJ that is largely to blame for most of our governance problems over the past three deacdes.  This constitution came around the time that J.R. Jayewardene famously said ‘let the robber barons come’.  In other words he was telling the rich, powerful and unscrupulous of the world that the resources of this country was theirs to plunder and the labour theirs to exploit.  The year 1978 marked the streamlining of laws, regulations and the processes of making and breaking laws to facilitate the furthering of capital interests. 

The visionary as a young man

While all this took place with pomp, pageantry and salutation, something else was happening in a small village called Walgama, close to Rambukkana.  A thrift and credit cooperative society was undergoing change.  There were changes made in the by-laws, in the orientation and thinking of this unknown and in every sense of the word marginal village-level organization.   Most importantly, a young man, then just 36, decided that the ‘revitalized’ model was replicable through the length and breadth of the country. 

Those who were busy making constitutions and making things easy for robber barons would not have known about these thrift and credit cooperative societies or about their potentials.  They had been around since the year 1906. Isolated bodies, used by the British to dish out rations during times of war, these societies went from year to year, decade to decade, changing leaders now and then but never really doing anything extraordinary apart from existing of course.  

You will find this logo in all parts of the island

The young man, Podi Appuhamy Kiriwandeniya, was earlier an enthusiastic campaigner of the Sarvodaya Movement and then a ‘tank-builder’ of sorts along with Upali Senanayake working for an organization called ‘Jathika Urumaya’.  His experience in the Walgama sanasa samithiya had taught him that it is possible and necessary for communities to recognize their resource endowment, learn thrift, adhere to cooperative principles and find ways of keeping community-wealth within the community itself.  He realized that this was one way in which capital could be accumulated and bargaining power enhanced even in a political and economic climate that was terribly skewed against the lower classes, the farmers, and those in rural areas.

At that time there had been some 800 Sanasa societies in Sri Lanka.  He went around the country, speaking to the leaders of such societies, discussing options for improvement.  In August that year, there was a landmark event that the media missed (in retrospect, fortuitously, one can say).  A convention.  A coming together of leaders, most over 60 or 70 years old to discuss the model, learn from one another and blaze a path that could lead to a different kind of future.  Kiriwandeniya had a simple message: ‘We modernized the Walgama Sanasa Samithiya. Take a look and tell us what you think.’

Kiriwandeniya with his family and 5 daughters

There was nothing magical about it.  This was microfinance long before that term entered the development dictionary.  It was a model waiting for its cobwebs to be cleared.  It was a model that was home-grown and based on ancient principles of thrift.  These were microfinance institutions that already had a 60 year old history.  Informally, for centuries before that, our people had developed various methodologies pertaining to thrift and credit.  There was ‘seettu’ long before we heard of ‘revolving funds’.  There was ‘miti-haal’, a system of putting aside one fistful of rice each time a meal was cooked; it was collected separately and after some time you would have a bagful of ‘extra’ rice.  Most importantly, SANASA, the pioneering microfinance outfit in Sri Lanka had its roots in and was inspired by cooperatives.  Equally important, this meant that it neither objected to nor was overawed by either the open economy or the ‘socialist’ and more ‘closed’ model it had replaced in 1977-78. 

After a little over a decade Bank has now over 75 branches

SANASA was like the soot-laden golden urn of the Serivanija Jathaka. It was waiting to be discovered.  That’s what Kiriwandeniya did.  He found a society in Walgama, explored it, discovered potential and went all over the country either revitalizing existing SANASA societies or setting up new ones.   It was not about money alone.  These societies, courtesy the cooperative principles they were founded on, the ethics associated with thrift and the motivation to keep wealth within the community, served to protect things material and cultural that the robber barons would have otherwise destroyed as a natural consequent of plundering.

Today there are some 8000 plus SANASA Primary Societies, over 1000 of which are financially stronger than most branches of established commercial banks.  There are several hundred thousand members linked to the SANASA Movement. The Movement itself has spawned a bank, an insurance company and is currently pioneering the development of ‘micro justice’.

Today there are many NGOs and CBOs ‘doing microfinance’ are actually doing SANASA-like things.  That’s model-replication.  That is what revolutions do. 

In 1978 there was a ‘revolution’. That’s JRJ’s ‘revolution’, some would say.  There was a lot of noise.  The country was turned around, some said.  Turned upside down, others counter.  Through it all, there grew from strength to strength a movement that defied tendencies to extract from our villages and villagers assets, money and labour, a social force that resisted processes that sought to turn people into consumers, an organization that protected assets and made it possible for the most humble people to become owners of their destiny. 

And it all began in 1978.  There was a young man, P.A. Kiriwandeniya.  He had vision.  He had an idea.  He shared it.  There was a coming together of disparate entities.  They made a revolution.  Not one drop of blood was shed.  

Today, the SANASA Movement celebrates the 32^nd anniversary of the Walgama Convention. I doubt many will make a song and dance about it.  Maybe this is a good thing.  Real revolutions are not made with slogan and banner.  They are alive.  On the ground. In people’s lives. Their work. Their communities. 

Postscript: The modest training center set up in a 50 acre plot of land off Kegalle has now developed into a fully fledged degree awarding institution recognized by the University Grants Commission. Under Kiriwandeniya's direction a clapped out rubber estate has been transformed into one of the most beautiful campuses in the island.

[Originally published in the Daily News in July 2010]

msenevira@gmail.com

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Re-visit and re-learn are as important as reduce, re-use and recycle

One of the most interesting things about staying with my grandparents in Kurunegala during school holidays was the opportunity to read back issues of the Reader’s Digest.  The late nineteen seventies was still too early for me to see ‘propaganda’.  I was more interested in the ‘light’ pages of the Reader’s Digest: ‘Laughter is the Best Medicine,’ ‘All in a Day’s Work,’ ‘Life in these United States’ and ‘Word Power’ anyway.  I did enjoy ‘Drama in Real Life’ and also the human interest stories. 

I still recall titles of articles I particularly liked, memory being jolted by something related, a thought, word, act or incident.  I remembered one called ‘Have you ever seen a worn-out paper clip?’  This was in a 1978 or 1979 issue, if I remember right.  It was, as the title indicates, about wasting things. 

This was long before ‘re-use, re-cycle, reduce’ became topics for poster competitions and international conferences.  I think few in the USA would have seen a worn out paperclip even today, more than thirty years later and not just because staplers have become more common during this time.  

I was reminded of that article about a week ago.  This was at an unpretentious and charming ceremony to induct the new Chairperson of the SANASA Development Bank.  There was pirith before the official induction took place at a time considered to be auspicious.  Pirith was followed by a pithy, appropriate and even profound anusasana by the Most Venerable Nikahetiye Sandado Thero, a long time associate of the outgoing Chairperson, P.A. Kiriwandeniya, i.e. from the time they were students at Vidyodaya in the early sixties.

Ven. Sandado Thero related an anecdote from pre-Independence times.   A petition demanding independence was to be hand-delivered to the British.  E.W. Perera had been tasked to do this.  Money was required for the journey.  Perera and an associate had been going from door to door, asking for donations.  It had been late evening when they got to F.R. Senanayake’s house.  Before they could knock they had heard Senanayake berating a domestic aid for having used two matchsticks instead of one when lighting the oil lamp.  They had entered and stated their request but not with any great expectations for they thought he was stingy.  How could a man whose sense of thrift persuades him to quarrel over a single wasted matchstick be expected to donate anything, they must have thought.  As it happened, Senanayake immediately agreed to fund the entire trip. 

The Hamuduruwo observed, ‘this is our way’. 

‘We don’t waste, we don’t spend on that which is unnecessary; we do, however, give without restraint for that which is important’. 

The learned Bikkhu then gently observed that many matchsticks had been used to light the oil lamp used for the occasion. 

Thinking about Sri Lanka and Sri Lankans, I believe the Venerable Sandaso had touched an important element of our cultural and civilizational ethos.  We are a generous people.  I can’t think of any other nation that turns into a dansala twice every year, i.e during Vesak and Poson.  Funerals are not private affairs, for example.

I remember attending the funeral of one of the first Gal Oya settlers.  He was a good farmer.  So were his sons.  They had enough rice to feed the entire village for months.  The villagers, as is customary, approached the older of the sons and said they would provide meals for all those who came to pay their last respects.  The sons had thanked them for their kindness and added that they (the sons) could manage themselves.   The neighbours had politely but firmly responded ‘api genava, umbala kemathi nama visikarapalla’ (we will nevertheless bring the food; you are free to throw it all away).  The younger son, my friend Premasiri, had smiled, realized how much in error they were and agreed to the villagers’ proposal. 

There is a time for thrift and a time to give.  For years, for example, it was extremely difficult to recruit people to the Army.  That was not the time to give, perhaps.  However, when it became evident that the threat was enormous and those responsible for meeting the threat were serious, there was no lack of people ready to give their lives. 

We don’t lack in the stingy of course.  On the other hand, ‘conservation’ and ‘thrift’ are very much a part of who we are.  This is true of all communities living in this island.  Even the most humble household will have a few flower pots. The smallest plot of land will have some trees.  When the Hantane Housing Scheme was built, the entire mountainside seemed to have been raped.  My mother said it reminded her about a poem called ‘Little Boxes’.  Today, it’s all green. Those who came to occupy those houses on a few perches of land didn’t just plant grass and a few flowers.  They planted things which grew into trees. 

And yet, we too haven’t seen many worn-out paper clips.  We are still careless enough to use two matchsticks where one would suffice.  We forget that there are big lessons to be learnt from small things, and that attention to the small things enhances our capacities to give big when ‘big-giving’ is required. 

Some small lessons are good to revisit and relearn, Ven.  Nikahetiye Sandado Thero taught me a few days ago. 

[First published in July 2011 in the 'Daily News']

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer who can be reached at msenevira@gmail.com

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The UNHRC Resolution and the question of the Social Contract

Leader of the Opposition Ranil Wickremesinghe came up with a strange, important and revealing statement in the run up to the Southern and Western Provincial Council Elections.  He said that if he is elected to power (in a presidential election, obviously, and complemented by a victory in a general election), there will be no threat to Sri Lanka from the international community.  He was referring to the machinations in Geneva at the UN Human Rights Commission which had the government in what could be called its Annual March Dither.  The statement raises some interesting questions

What is it that Ranil can do that Mahinda cannot?  What is it about Ranil that would make the international community, so-called, get off Sri Lanka’s back?  If the UNHRC Resolution refers to things that may have happened more than five years ago, how can a Wickremesinghe Regime sometime in the future get it all off the agenda? After all, just because someone else is in power, it doesn’t change what is said to have happened, does it?  In this context what are we to make of Ranil’s assertion, his confidence and his confidences? 

What Ranil is basically saying is that the movers and shakers of the UNHRC Resolution, namely the USA and UK backed by Canada, France and other member states of the European Union, is not really interested in truth, justice, accountability, resolution of grievances via preferred arrangements (such as power-devolution) or buttressing democratic institutions.  Instead, all that is desired is regime-change.  All the rhetoric and talking-points in Geneva, then, amounts to just foil for the real objective. 

Now this should not surprise anyone. The USA, after all, has backed and defended with military might if necessary all kinds of tyrants, including monarchs, military juntas, dictators and even totalitarian regimes.  It does business with the rogues and rogue-states even as it decries autocrats and autocracies. It’s all about which dictator and dictatorship are whose friends.  The current initiative against Sri Lanka has nothing to do with truth, justice, reconciliation and such and not only because these things never mattered to Washington outside of rhetoric-need. 

While Ranil’s statement betrays what can only be called an unholy friendship with Sri Lanka’s enemies, it points to a more serious issue pertaining to what political scientists call ‘the social contract’.  The Minister of External Affairs, G.L. Peiris has argued on several occasions that the pressure exerted unfairly and selectively on Sri Lanka by Washington through Geneva can easily be dealt with by the simple matter of agreeing to the terms of surrender.  Those terms, as currently articulated, are squarely against the general sentiments of the population save the Tamil National Alliance, which is a communalist party representing only a fraction of the Tamil community and beholden to the best friends of terrorists. 

Regime change would not amount to a radical departure from these sentiments.  No one in the UNP, for example, would say that the Government was wrong in crushing the LTTE or that there was anything in method warranting investigation of any kind.  Objection to the regime there is and might even be growing but none of that has anything to do with operations against the LTTE or the current position of the regime vis-à-vis the issue of devolution.  A referendum on whether the 13^th Amendment should be enhanced with greater degree of devolution or another on the relevancy of the 13^th Amendment and Provincial Councils after more than a quarter of a century worth experience is likely to result in rejection on both counts.  No enhancement and indeed a call for abrogation, in other words. 

The social contract among other things is about sovereignty, territorial integrity, and not giving on a platter the land-theft sought by terrorists through 30 years of terrorism.  It is also about good governance, the primacy of the law, independence of the judiciary, and a need to depoliticize institutions.  The latter set, although stressed in the Resolution, have to be treated as means to the end called ‘regime change’ for if these were troublesome there should have been similar resolutions on each and every member state of the United Nations.  There weren’t and there will not be either. 

What Ranil Wickremesinghe is not elaborating in his casual ‘put me in charge and I will get you and all of us out of jail’ statement is the relevance of the Resolution to the vexed issue of the larger social contract.  Ranil is no fool.  He is probably the best read Member of Parliament.  His understanding of political philosophy and even the politics of the possible is probably second to none among his contemporaries. 

He, more than anyone else, would be able to explain why this Government or any government for that matter has to reject the Resolution and refuse to submit to arbitration by what is essentially a Kangaroo Court.  He would understand that submission amounts to buttressing a bad precedent and more than that subverts the very foundations of a political society that values democracy based on true representation.  This government has not lost the legitimacy of authority vested in it by the people and whatever erosion there is has nothing to do with the articles scripted into Washington machinations in Geneva and elsewhere.  This Government was not mandated to concede ground to Eelamists.  The people did not confer on this government the authority to open the door to intervention by outsider forces clearly operating against their overall interests.   

For all this, it must be acknowledged that mandates are twisted and re-interpreted by politicians all the time.  For example, President A may be ousted by Presidential Candidate B because President A was seen to be corrupt, tyrannical and incompetent, but President B, after assuming office, can say that he/she was mandated to ‘resolve minority grievances through excessive devolution of power to the provinces’.  We have to live with that reality.  The reverse can also be true. President A can brush aside corruption, tyranny and incompetence, and claim that his one and only task is to ensure that not one inch is conceded when it comes to sovereignty, territorial integrity etc. 

Ranil Wickremesinghe knows all this; all the more reason why he ought to elaborate on what would otherwise be a careless statement that amounts to confessing that he is in cahoots with the USA and UK for purely personal/party political reasons. 

The key question that is relevant to the people of this country at this point is whether or not they are willing to have the larger social contract be re-written by those who cannot in any way claim to be representing them, namely the USA and UK.  It is a question that all political entities, parties included, need to ponder over, regardless of love or hatred for the regime. 

A clear and comprehensive response from Ranil Wickremesinghe at this point would not hamper his electoral fortunes.  Indeed, the UNP as a whole could only benefit from stating its position in this regard.  Failure to do so would force conclusions of the following kind: the UNP does not care about the social contract and would gladly support its subversion and consequent submission to Washington in return for securing power.  It holds for the Democratic Party as well as the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna too. 

To recap, in Ranil’s case, he needs to answer some other relevant questions.  If he can, as he claims, get the USA off Sri Lanka’s back if he were in power, does it amount to an acknowledgment that the current debate on Sri Lanka has nothing to do with truth, justice, accountability and reconciliation?  Secondly, is he saying that the USA is only talking about war-related issues because it believes that these issues can help affect regime-change?  Also, is he saying that vexed issues such as what really happened during the last stages of the war (and of course before that, including the period when the IPKF was ‘handling’ terrorism and terrorists) can just disappear into a column called ‘Non-Issues’ if this regime is overthrown?  He is not a simpleton and therefore it is incumbent on him to response. 

We await. 

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‘Abstain Now’ speaks out

[In a parallel universe of course...]

We’ve had enough of people claiming to speak on our behalf.  We’ve been named and in that naming we’ve been shamed.  Words never uttered have been attributed to us.  Preferences have been discussed and determined where none have been made.  It’s largely our fault.  Those who abstain tend to stay home, tend to keep their mouths shut. 

Now don’t get us wrong. We do not make a monolithic entity.  We come from all walks of life, all ages, ethnicities, religious faiths, colors and sizes.  And we don’t give Life Membership.  People can be with us one day and cross-over, so to say, the next.  We don’t mind.  We are liberal in that way.  Take the UNHRC, for example.  India didn’t have membership last year, but was one of us this time around.  We didn’t complain.

Now, some of us feel it’s necessary to explain, some do not. Some have reasons they don’t want to reveal. Of these, some will hold their tongues while others will conjure up elaborate explanation, sometimes falling flat on their faces.  Like India, for example.  Articulating observations on the US-led Resolution on Sri Lanka, India made some valid points.  Having thus objected, when it came to the vote, India chose not to show objection. India took our membership.  ‘Whatever works for whoever’ is our watchword; we didn’t and do not complain. 

We came into the scene the very next day, right here in Sri Lanka.  Election time is our time.  It’s when we get counted.  Guess what, we came second in both the Western and Southern Provinces, ‘polling’ 1,355,308 and 621, 508 respectively!  And this without a single poster, without even a media conference.   We didn’t hold meetings, we didn’t distribute leaflets, we didn’t conduct house-to-house campaigns, and the entire media, state and private, ‘blanked’ us out! 

The problem is that various parties are engaged in a pernicious campaign to make mean use of the silence that marks our tribe.  They are all trying to speak on our behalf. Without our permission. 

Some are saying ‘They didn’t vote for the ruling party and therefore they are against the ruling party!’  How on earth can they come to that conclusion, though?  We didn’t vote, true. We didn’t vote for the UPFA, that’s also true.  But we didn’t vote for the UNP, DF, JVP, SLMC or any of the parties whose party symbols (we are told) were printed on the ballot paper.  So if someone says, for example, that 1,174,396 voters in the Southern Province rejected and therefore are against the UPFA, it would have to be concluded likewise that 1,563,373 and 1,764,742 rejected and therefore are against the UNP and JVP respectively.  The JVP has only a modest 5.8% approval rate according to this logic, while the UNP has just 16.5%. 

Now we are not in the business of reading people’s minds, especially not those of our members.  For some of us this was not an election important enough to take the trouble to go to a polling booth and mark an ‘X’ in front of one joker or another.  Others probably had other and more important things to do on a Saturday.  Like staying at home, watching television, pottering around in the garden or just being, breathing, relaxing.  Some may have been put off by the absence of a party or indeed a candidate to endorse with vote.  Some might have asked themselves, ‘what do provincial councils do anyway?’ We don’t know for sure. 

We are not in the business of peddling illusions either. We won’t interpret results in ways that make us look better.  We know that if there’s a general or presidential election, we would probably lose a lot of our members.   Our members are fickle and the only difference between them and those who swear by party and ideology is that we freely admit the fact.  We spare ourselves the pains of justifying the shifting of political allegiance.  In that respect we can claim superiority over all parties that contest and all candidates seeking election.  We don’t crow about this either. We come and go. We rise, we fall. 

But we who never ask any explanation from anyone and we who never assume we can speak for others should not be taken for granted. We should not be insulted by having every other political lunatic masquerading as party leader, party spokesperson or political analyst claiming the right to speak on our behalf. 

This is it.  We’ve said our piece.  We will hold our peace hereafter.  May the pundits also shut up. 

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The Army teaches a lesson

As is now par for the course come Season Geneva the usual suspects in the Hang-Sri-Lanka bandwagon came up with self-labeled ‘damning’ evidence of atrocities committed by Sri Lankan security forces.  Let’s not go there, for the lie is known to liar, lied to and lied about.  Geneva is not about truth-falsehood, good-evil, justice-injustice or moral-immoral.  It’s about power.

But during that circus and among the footage duly framed as per political objectives there was one about troop training in Sri Lanka.  The footage leaked to Youtube showed a group of trainee women soldiers being harassed at an Army camp.   

The Army immediately launched an investigation into the authenticity of the footage and confirmed that it was so.  This was followed by a full scale inquiry resulting in the identification of all individuals in the video and the arrest of suspects by the Military Police. 

This is as it should be.

A country which affirmed to the last letter a globally accepted notion of zero-tolerance of terrorism cannot at any point condone any kind of terrorism, least of all by state actors.  What was depicted is not exactly terrorism, but in general a zero-tolerance of indiscipline should be a non-negotiable for all armed entities of the state.  It is to the credit of the Army top brass that no leniency whatsoever has been shown to the suspects. 

Interestingly, this very move has silenced the malicious and politically motivated forces that aired the video in the first place and marketed it thereafter.  Therein lies a lesson.  It is simple.  While it is impossible to convince the powerful in Geneva of the errors of their ways, swift action such as this does steal their thunder somewhat. 

To be fair, this is not the first time that the Army has taken action against errant soldiers.  The Army for obvious reasons does not make a song and dance about it; the USA doesn’t either, when it comes to light that deranged soldiers have opened fire on civilians.  To be further fair, this particular intervention does not indicate that the Army has been remiss in other instances where these types of violations or even worse atrocities were committed.  Simply, it does not necessarily follow and will not convince any court.

On the other hand, there are many instances where foot-dragging by relevant authorities, a scandalous preference for sweeping-under-the-carpet tactics and knee-jerk rejection of allegation in a shoot-the-messenger operative logic, severally and together severely dented integrity. 

One can learn from the USA, which quickly shoots down adverse publicity by launching an investigation. One can do better than the USA too, which draws from a cleansing lexicon that focuses on offender (typically labeled ‘mentally unstable’) and not policy and therefore marking such incidents as aberrations and not the norm (which of course is a blatant lie). 

The Sri Lankan armed forces don’t have the kind of baggage that the US forces have. This is why even the latest UNHRC Resolution has only cursory references to what happened during the war, focusing more on the post May 2009 period.  This is why the allegations are padded with many layers of conjecture, unreliability of source and Goebbelsian reiteration, one can surmise.  This however is not reason for complacency.  Indiscipline is indiscipline and should not be treated in a compare-contrast frame vis-à-vis known offenders.    

Finally, what the Army has done in this instance offers a good lesson in the treatment of all cases where authority has been abused.  We live in a country whose constitution and political culture impoverish the citizen.  The politicization of all state institutions has rendered the citizen vulnerable to the machinations of the powerful and the wealthy. 

This is why it might be too much to expect other institutions to take a leaf off the Army book when it comes to acknowledging wrong and taking immediate and remedial action.  This is why a stronger and more insistent discourse on the issue of law and order is needed.  What the Army has shown is that humility is an integral part of maintaining legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry.  It is a hard lesson for the political leadership to learn but it is a must-learn if regime-legitimacy is to be preserved and more seriously if the country is to be insulated from the threats within and without by those who are out to subvert the national interest.

msenevira@gmail.com

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Bandula Nanayakkarawasam’s ‘Sekera Moment’

Perhaps it is because of a discernible suppression of Mahagama Sekera in the larger discourse of 20^th Century Sinhala literature that people sometimes express the wish that the great man be elevated to his rightful place among literary greats.  It might be for this very reason that some who attended an event at the Light House Galley on April 7, 2014 curiously titled ‘Rae Ira Pana’ with a ‘Sekera Mahima’ tag may have left believing that justice was done.  Sober reflection might yield the following fact: Good literature does not need media boost and a giant doesn’t need a leg-up. 

‘Rae Ira Pana – Sekera Mahima’ is not strange to those who are interested in the Sinhala lyric.  The mahima or wonderment of Mahagama Sekera does not require elaboration but the idea, let’s say, of ‘Sekera’ had a lot to do with ‘Rae Ira Pana’ the radio program and ‘Rae Ira Pana’ the event.  Let’s begin with the program. 

‘Rae Ira Pana’ was a unique radio show.  It ran continuously for 115 weeks.  Bandula Nanayakkarawasam, eminent lyricist and presenter, hosted the show.  He wrote the script, presented the show and had a hand in all creative efforts associated with the program.  He drew extensively from the archive that is his memory, coloring song with anecdote and flavoring it with history.  He re-drew well-known figures of the Sinhala music scene, accentuating already known facets and detailing the lesser known to give depth to face and word. 

Bandula knows that for all the fixations with things commercial, there exists a sizable population that seek a superior creative, a song where there is complementarity between words, composition, music and voice.  It was thus an exercise that instilled in listener the feeling that he/she is not alone.  What began as a peripheral program a fair distance from ‘prime time’ gained so much popularity that it affected a veritable shift in ‘prime time’.  The 7 pm to 9 pm Sunday program was repeated from 8 am to 10 am the following Saturday.  Sri Lankan expatriates made a weekly date with the program via the internet.  ‘Rae Ira Pana’ was adjudged the best music program at the State Music Awards 2013.  

Bandula dabbed his narrative often with literary and musical fact and anecdote outside the island, drawing from other cultures, other literatures and other genres.  It had, therefore, an educational element to it.

The response, he says, was phenomenal.  Appreciation flowed in from all parts of the country and from people belonging to different generations.  And that’s how we got ‘Sekera Mahima’ this evening. 

Among the listeners was Ananda Wickramarachchi, a 64 year old ‘fan’ who was a retired Chemistry teacher at St Joseph’s College.  He had seen an ad about the program and had listened to it.  This was in late September 2011 (‘Rae Ira Pana’ was launched earlier that month).  Since then he hadn’t missed even one ‘show’.  The reason was ‘Sekera’.  Bandula devoted several episodes to the work of Mahagama Sekera.  Wickramarachchi, who had made it his lifework to collect everything written by Sekera and everything written about Sekera, had found a kindred spirit.  Bandula sought him out to obtain hitherto unknown or lesser known knowledge of Sekera’s life and work.  Wickramarachchi, as a mark of appreciation for Bandula’s work, decided to gift the collection to the man behind ‘Rae Ira Pana’.  Bandula had suggested that an event which celebrates the great literary personality would be the appropriate ‘stage’ for such a gift-giving.  That’s how ‘Sekera Mahima’ got tagged to ‘Rae Ira Pana’. 

‘Rae Ira Pana’ was struck down in December 2013 much to the dismay of the considerable fan base it had engendered.  This, then, was a moment to reflect, step back and reassess, and what better way than to do all this in a context where the man who inspired so many, including Bandula, is remembered and celebrated? 

‘Rae Ira Pana’ had already ‘gathered’ a disparate and eclectic crowd.  They gathered around their radios and listened to Bandula. There was togetherness, a community, a solidarity that got built over weeks that stretched into months and more than two years.  They were left hanging by the particular station.  And so Bandula devised a way to bring them together.  That’s the genesis of the show, with the unintended but fortuitous outcome of ‘scrapping’: the launch of a website that gives us all the episodes whenever we want to listen to them, www.rairapaana.com.

And they came.  First and foremost, there was Sekera’s family, his son and daughter and the grandchildren he never saw. There was W.D. Amaradeva whose songs are remembered as much for his incomparable voice as for the lyrics into which that voice was mixed to give the world countless memorable songs. Bandula’s friends and teachers, formal and otherwise, were all there.  There were young people, artists of one kind or another, known to Bandula.  There was Bandula’s family too. There were fellow lyricists, many whom he had revered in his formative years and who consider him not student or ‘junior’ but equal.  There were ‘Rae Ira Pana’ fans.  There were people who loved and revered Mahagama Sekera. 

They came from all parts of the country. They cancelled appointments considered ‘important’.  This, many would have thought, is a must-go.  ‘Must-go’ because they all love Bandula and more than that, they are acutely aware of the massive contribution that Sekera made to Sinhala literature.  No one was disappointed although things got off the ground late.  I didn’t want to miss even a minute, so I got there right on time, dragging a reluctant friend who had time to kill and no one to kill it with. Hafeel Farisz was glad he came along.

There was a script but then again Bandula Nanayakkarawasam is too creative to stick to any script, even his own. He improvised.  He entertained with anecdote. He referred to connections and built and strengthened ‘connectivities’.    He laid out his life and demonstrated what a critical part the community of literary figures, past and present, played in shaping it in particular ways.  Again and again he returned to Sekera. 

Amaradeva was asked to speak a few words and then, gently, persuaded to sing ‘Ese Mathuvana’ with Bandula at the maestro’s ear prompting.  Amaradeva, as always, recalled that his creativity and that of Sekera were intertwined, using the line gee pothai mee vithai (the book of verse and the glass of wine), even though Sekera had a life outside of Amaradeva of a magnitude and versatility that Amaradeva’s life outside of Sekera just cannot match.  But there was indulgence of course.  Sekera would have been 85 today.  Amaradeva just passed that mark. 

There were speeches.  Many.  That’s because Bandula is by nature someone who celebrates inclusivity. He wanted a lot of people to ‘say a few words’. They all did. They kept it short and they spoke sense.  There were two ‘special’ speeches, one by Wickramarachchi and the other by W.S. Bandara, Bandula’s disapamok anduru thuma at Richmond. 

Bandara spoke at length. He entertained. He taught.  He spoke about education and educating. He drew examples from Richmond, spoke of the use and abuse of libraries, critiqued education policy and inter alia spoke of values that sustain civilization and the threats engendered by the abandonment of the same.  It was not hard to understand why and how Bandula Nanayakkarawasam does the things he does. 

If that was introduction to ‘beginning’ then Wickramarachchi’s speech described the end (pertaining to the particular moment that was this event). He spoke of his fascination of Sekera and his appreciation of Bandula’s efforts through ‘Rae Ira Pana’.  Fittingly, Sekera’s children gifted him with a printed copy of one of Sekera’s paintings. 

Ravinda Mahagama Sekera later explained, ‘the original of that copy is not with us and no one knows where it is.’ Indeed there many of his paintings are lost.  Ravinda said that there are a few at home but there could be over a hundred others.  Some had been sold at the one and only exhibition Sekera had held.  He had gifted away many to his friends.  Most did not even carry his signature. Ravinda observed that it is possible that those who possess the paintings might not even know they have in their possession a Sekera painting.

He was a giver.  And giving and sharing was what Sekera stood for or represented through his work.  Bandula pointed out that Sekera reminded everyone that nothing is taken away when we go away forever but in the intermediate hours of living sharing is possible and wholesome.

Bandula had lined up songs for the evening and they were slotted in nicely amidst comments and speeches.  They were well-picked.  He’s good at that; this is why ‘Rae Ira Pana’ was so popular after all.  He prefaced each performance with a relevance-note.  All of it was poetic as befitted reciter and occasion.  Most poignant was a rendering of ‘Ese mathuvana’ by M.R. Shah, former President of the Bank Employees’ Union.  Bandula, in introducing Shah, spoke of union politics and things that cut across ideological preferences and political affiliations.  Shah is no Amaradeva of course, but his rendition was nevertheless beautiful. 

Asanka Liyanaarachchi, an undergrad and winner of ‘Kavitha’ the university version of ‘Super Star’ sang ‘Aetha Kandukara’, coincidentally just as Pundit Amaradeva arrived.  The song and the lyric are not the preserve to the recognized and honored, Bandula often says.  This is why he had an employee of the Galle Post Office and friend sing ‘Wasanthaye Mal’.  Nelu Adhikari sang ‘Parasathu Mal’; Sujatha Attanayake would have been proud. Kapila Poogalaarachchi sang ‘Seethala diya piri sunila vilai’ a song that Bandula had picked from Sekera’s unpublished lyrics, thereby foregoing an opportunity to pen a song himself, again very ‘Sekarist’ of him.  There was Gayathri Ekanayake, a teacher at Visakha, who sang ‘Ruwan wala duhul kadin’.  They were all very good.

Bandula is a treasure house of anecdotes.  He has a fantastic memory for seemingly inconsequential things.  He recalled how Kularatne Ariyawansa had indulged in mild browbeating one night and how he, Bandula, had ended up writing a song that ‘Kule Aiya’ had been asked to write, ‘Nim Therak’ (Sunil Edirisinghe).  Kule Aiya had turned up at the studio and had been livid that Bandula had let his, Kule’s name remain as lyricist.  That’s respect, he said.  Kularatne Ariyawansa would have none of it, not least of all because it was beautifully written.  Bandula always acknowledges the influence of the pera parapura, the greats who came before, of whom he claims that Sekera was the foremost.  This is perhaps why he asked a host of guests to offer comments, some many years old, some his contemporaries.  And so we had Buddhadasa Galappaththi, Samantha Herath, Praneeth Abeysundera, Lal Hegoda, Rohana Weerasinghe and Sunil Ariyaratne making brief observations of the event, Bandula, Rae Ira Pana and of course Mahagama Sekera.

‘Listening to all this, doesn’t it give you hope for this country?’ my friend Hafeel asked me.  ‘When was I ever pessimistic?’ I replied.

Optimism apart, the fleshing out of hope or giving it corporeality of some kind requires hard work, tender hearts and the seeking out and strengthening of solidarity.  Bandula, true to form, put it best.  Here is a rough translation:

‘Let all that is best in all of us come together and create another Mahagama Sekera who would then unravel who we are and the world we live in and thereby show us the pathways we ought to choose so we can reach a better, more tender, more knowing world.’

What better tribute to that beautiful human being.

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Dinesh Chandimal: Sporting Personality of the Year 2014

Greatness in sports is often measured in the number and margins of victory.  Domination of a discipline or a sport over a long period of time naturally wins accolades.  Sports, after all, is mostly about winning. And yet, not everything that stands out for standing ovation has to do with besting the opposition.  Sometimes it is rising to the occasion to the point that you rise above yourself and your self-interest.  This is why ‘The Nation’ picks Dinesh Chandimal as the Sporting Personality of the Year 2014.

On that day in Dhaka there couldn’t have been any Sri Lankan without a smile.  There couldn’t have been many Sri Lankans anywhere in the world following the World T-20 final who is did not smile at that particular moment when Sri Lanka defeated India to win ICC silverware after 18 long years.  The entire team had broad grins. The officials too. And yet, one smile was special.  It belonged to someone who didn’t take the field.  Dinesh Chandimal.

There was a report that Chandimal wept when he heard he was dropped for the Semi-Final against the West Indies (he had been docked for the game against New Zealand due to a slow over-rate).  We don’t know if this is true.  It is never a happy thing to be dropped.  It is probably worse not to be picked at all (ask Marvan Atapattu, he has booked the defining chapter on ‘The Book of Drops’ if and when it gets written).  It was not that Chandimal was not picked.

It was not that he was dropped (he could have, so we are told, insisted on playing and that would have been it). What is ‘special’ about it all is that he was the designated captain of the team that went on to win the Championship.  And he, the captain, was dropped!   ‘Devastating’ doesn’t quite describe what he probably would have felt.

The man was woefully out of form and as Lasitha Malinga’s short and successful ‘captaining’ experience showed, a team that already had four skippers (Mahela Jayawardena, Kumar Sangakkara, Tillekeratne Dilshan and Angelo Matthews) didn’t really have to worry about him being dropped.  As someone pointed out, there was the ‘National Captain’, Lasith Malinga, and there was the ‘Leadership Council’ made of the aforementioned skippers.  Mahela led the leaders, it was pretty obvious.

What is beautiful about it all is that it was an issue for everyone except for Sri Lankans.  It is hard to think that the press of any country would not have raised a lot of questions if a designated captain abdicated for all intents and purposes in favor of one the men he is supposed to be leading.  For Sri Lankans, apart from a few wry jokes, it was as it should be. Logical to the last letter.

Still.

Still there’s the small issue of a young man who had been appointed captain and had to lead players who had a dozen years’ worth of experience more than he did.  There’s the small issue of having left Sri Lanka as captain and having to watch the final from the dressing room.  There’s also the small issue of Dinesh Chandimal running around the ground after Sri Lanka won the match, carrying the man who put the final touches to the campaign on his shoulders.  Dinesh Chandimal helped hold Kumar Sangakkara high.  He couldn’t stop smiling a schoolboyish smile.  That delight was unadulterated. That admiration was unadulterated.  And in this, there was as much ‘team,’ ‘team-spirit,’ and ‘leadership’ than anything we were privileged to watch unfold out there in the middle of the ground.

There was courage on the part of the selectors, that unhappy, ready to be maligned tribe; for they dropped the captain. Had Sri Lanka lost, someone might have said ‘you can’t win a match after dropping the skipper’.  Someone else might have said, ‘why did you pick him in the first place?’  A third might say ‘were you crazy to make him captain?’  Sanath was bold. Chandimal was humble.

Now that’s a World Cup story right there.  In some strange, round-about way, therein lies a gene-fact of a team-corporeality that helped bring the World Cup to Sri Lanka.  We didn’t have a single stand-out player in this tournament (as opposed to the previous two editions).  We do best, perhaps, when we do it together.  Dinesh Chandimal did his part and did it well.  With utmost grace.  Take a bow, Chandimal

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GL's Formula and other tidbits

GL's Formula

Prof G.L. Peiris knows enough to know the old story about lies, damned lies and statistics.  He turned the Geneva 'loss' into a victory. A moral victory only of course, but any victory is better than the defeat that was recorded.  A feel good interpretation it was. Simply, the abstentions were counted as 'nays'.  In an open vote, his assertion does have some validity, especially since countries like India, in their comments, rubbished the US Resolution enough for anyone to conclude that they rejected it.  Still, a vote is a vote.  What's counted are the ayes and nays.  Sri Lanka lost, (un)fair and not-so-square.  GL could have called a spade a spade. He didn't. 

 

Kabir's elaboration

Actually it was Lakshman Kiriella who started it.  He said that if GL's Formula is valid, then it can be argued that the UPFA lost the last general election. It's a simple matter of counting un-cast votes as votes against the Government.  Except of course that such elections are not about choosing a position (as in a Resolution).  But Kabir Hasheem, latched on to the GL Formula after the UNP came second best in yet another election.  He said that if you counted in those who didn't vote, it can be concluded that the majority of the voters are against the regime.  Neat.  Too neat.  The same principle can be used on the UNP (and, for that matter, the DF and JVP too!).  If the UPFA was 'rejected', what could be said of the UNP, DF and JVP? They were routed (if those who didn't vote can be considered as being against these parties since they didn't come out and mark a cross against the elephant, torch or bell). 

 

Remorse-Attacks

A British Sri Lankan who allegedly knocked down a man on the Puttalam-Kurunegala road on Saturday is reported to have died after suffered a cardiac arrest on seeing the victim.  We can't tell for sure what brought on the heart attack, but if it was the sight to the victim, as reported, then we can call it a remorse-attack.  We don't want to wish death on anyone, but if wrong-doing brought on that kind of discomfort we would probably have a sick parliament, a sick cabinet, a sick opposition and most of all a sick and dying corporate sector!

The get-a-face method

The UPFA has a face.  Mahinda Rajapaksa's.  The Democratic Party also has a recognizable and in some ways respected face. That of Sarath Fonseka.  The JVP didn't have a decent face for decades.  Anura Kumara Dissanayake is not exactly a Rohana Wijeweera and that can be both good and bad, but Anura is a fresh face.  If freshness of face matters, then the UNP was handicapped vis-a-vis these other parties.  Ranil has a face, but it's a bad-news-face.  The problem, however, is that the UNP doesn't have an alternative face.  Sajith?  Hmmm....probably not as bad as Ranil's, but he's no longer fresh either. He has a spoiler-face.  The UNP then is a party that's in search of a face. 

Awaiting an All-India protest against the Indian abstention

 

India's Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and Union Shipping Minister G.K. Vasan have are both “agonised and shocked” by India's abstention at the UNHRC vote on Sri Lanka. They should be joined by all other ministers, 'union' and otherwise, and indeed by every person elected to office, whatever the office.  In fact all Indians should be shocked out of their skin by India's abstention.  After all, India made a solid argument against the resolution.  It was so well argued that the only thing to be shocked about is the abstention. The force of the argument was such that India should have voted against the resolution.  It was almost like saying 'Hey! I think your resolution is the stupidest thing to have been tabled at the UNHRC, but I will remain wishy-washy about it'. 

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Winners, losers and also-rans in the South and West

Speak to any leader or spokesperson of any political party that contests and election after all the results are out and it would be surprising if you can find even one person who does not come up with one or more positives.  Even someone who voted for the party that got less than a dozen votes from a province which has close to two million voters is happy. He or she would say ‘I made the correct choice and it is not my fault that others are stupid!’  Elections are winner-makers, therefore. 

Bragging rights

The ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) was the winner.  The number of votes and seats as well as the margin of victory over the closest rival certainly yields bragging rights.  The United National Party (UNP) would have to strain to claim victory; the party’s vote-share declined in the West and improved only marginally in the South. In terms of absolute numbers, again, there’s a decline in the West and a tiny gain in the South; this despite an increase of approximately 200,000 and 100,000 eligible voters in the two provinces respectively. 

The victory-claim is necessarily convoluted. The party has to draw from the UPFA’s relative losses (votes, share, seats), throwing in a ‘friendly’ interpretation of rejected votes and abstentions.  The UNP can thus claim that the majority did not turn up to show support for the government and add that the President’s Geneva-related call was snubbed. 

The Democratic Party (DP), new to the PC elections, has stronger victory claims.  They pushed the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) to 4^th spot in the Western Province, picking up 9 seats as opposed to the latter’s 6.  In the South, where the JVP is stronger, the DP came 4^th and yet bagged just 2 seats less than the JVP.  It can now claim that it is a viable option for those who are sick of the two major parties and are not enthused by the JVP.

There was an almost 4 fold increase in the JVP vote in the Western Province. The improvement in the South is relatively less.  The overall improvement allows the JVP to claim that there’s a swing not just away from the UNPF but towards the JVP, something the UNP cannot really claim. 

These claims have to be weighed in terms of the overall context in which the election was held, meaning the key issues that the respective campaigns focused on, the timing of the election, the differences if any with the situation in 2009, which was when the previous election was held.

CONTEXT

There are two comparisons that are relevant.  First, between the political contexts of 2009 and 2014; the previous elections to these two provincial councils were held around the end of a 30 year long struggle against terrorism at a time when the Government’s military strategy was about to deal a death blow to the LTTE (Western, April 2009) or had just done exactly that (Southern, October 2009).  That was euphoria-time and as such would have helped inflate the vote in the UPFA’s favor.  Euphoria is not forever and a more realistic picture of approval and disapproval was on the cards this time around.  If one added ‘regime-fatigue’, it would further explain the drop in numbers for the UPFA. 

There’s another comparison that should be made: the degree of loss (UPFA) in these two provinces against the 2009-2014 comparison in the most recently concluded provincial elections outside the North, those of the Central and Wayamba provinces. The UPFA actually gained in the Central Province in 2013 (compared to 2009).  It’s ‘losses’ in Wayamba, in terms of vote-share, was minor. Indeed, in terms of absolute numbers, there was a gain in Wayamba. 

In this context, the decline in the West and South is significant and warrants examination.  In other words, if euphoria-decline didn’t translate into vote-decline in Wayamba and the Central Province, then it could not have been a factor in the West and South. 

The UPFA had the incumbency-edge and you can count blatant and surreptitious abuse of state resources as part of that advantage.  The UPFA was riding a wave of election victories stumped only by the largely expected loss in the North.  An incoherent, disorganized and even confused United National Party further handicapped by in-fighting and inevitable bickering added to this edge. 

‘Geneva’ was painted into the election context, by the UPFA as well as the opposition parties.   The President openly said that the outcome of the UNHRC vote was not important; what mattered was the people of Sri Lanka.  The opposition picked up on this, countering that the UPFA was deliberately brining in a ‘non-issue’ to distract the voter from real, experienced, problems right here in Sri Lanka; problems related to things like rule of law, democracy, corruption and general hardships. 

A third factor was the possibility of a low voter turnout.  There was election-fatigue.  The Southern and Western PCs did not stir up a lot of enthusiasm among the people as would have a general or presidential election.

EXPLANATIONS

We can go about this exercise in terms of the fortunes (and their fluctuations) of each party in relation to others in the fray and in the context of party-specificities.  In other words, who lost votes to whom and who managed to ‘steal’ whose votes. 

For example, where did the 100,000 or so votes that the UPFA ‘lost’ in the Southern Province end up? Well, some of those votes might have not made it to the polling booths.  On the other hand, if percentages mean anything, a drop from 68% to 58%, cannot be explained by stay-at-home alone.  Some may have thought that it’s not worth the bother since the margins indicated a win anyway.  Others, however, may have thought that the margin allowed for ‘lesson-teaching’ as some have argued, especially since this was not a key national election.  Where did they go?

On the face of it, the biggest beneficiaries of any defection appears to be the JVP and DP, although theoretically ex-UPFA votes could have gone to the UNP while ex-UNP votes in turn going the JVP-DP way.  Either way, the two ‘smaller’ parties have gained at the expense of one or both these parties.  Now it can’t be that such a voter would have thought his/her vote would result in either the JVP or the DP coming on top.  Perhaps some were swayed by manifesto, rhetoric or ‘freshness’, the DP being a ‘new face’ and the JVP having re-garbed itself with a name-face change at the top, Anura Kumara Dissanayake having replaced Somawansa Amarasinghe as party leader.   

Quite apart from the ‘protesting’ nature of such votes, it has to be recognized that both the DP and JVP contrasted themselves from the UPFA and UNP by laying greater stress on issues related to good governance or rather the related rhetoric carried more weight when it emanated from the JVP and DP than from the UNP.  UNP Governments don’t exactly have stellar track-records on such matters, after all.  Moreover, that party’s commitment to things like democracy, transparency and accountability have become seriously suspect considering the way various key individuals and factions have behaved within the party.   

The DF, on the other hand, is led by Sarath Fonseka, a man who is identified with ‘discipline’; ‘discipline to the point of brutality, arrogance and crude dismissal of course, but discipline nevertheless.  The JVP, as always, carried out a disciplined election campaign, polythene-less and thuggery-less; it was a party-first, focused and decent campaign.  

The ordinary voter who has to face the indignities that flow from a highly politicized system of law(lessness) and (dis)order or see the same on a daily basis, even if he/she is likely to re-vote for President Rajapaksa and the UPFA in a critical election (based on the ‘known enemy’ or ‘lesser enemy’ theses), may have seen an opportunity to vote in a way that preference could be ‘seen’. 

Hirunika Premachandra's emphatic victory has to be read as an indictment on Duminda Silva and everything vile that he is associated with.  His brother's media outfit, it must be remembered, did not spare her, spewing venom throughout the campaign.  The people stood with her. It was as much an anti-Duminda vote as one against the look-elsewhere preference of the regime when it comes to strong arm tactics by 'friends'.

Whether it was by default (in the above manner) or by conscious agreement with policy and program, the rise of the DP and the re-emergence of the JVP have given these parties platforms for advancement that the electorate has not given either the UPFA or the UNP.  What they do with it is of course left to be seen. 

The JVP, certainly, can congratulate itself for remaining in the equation even after suffering several setbacks.  The JVP appears to have struck a chord with the urban middle class, including people who probably preferred Mahinda Rajapaksa to Ranil Wickremesinghe and the UPFA to the UNP.  Whether this sudden loyalty is of the ‘lesson-teaching’ kind or something more enduring only time will tell. 

What is important is the fact that the JVP has provided a rallying point for those who have given up on this government fixing institutional flaws and don’t see the UNP as an entity that could ever be serious about such things.  The party has roughly come to where it was in 2000.  It is excellently positioned to provide leadership to agitation and given history to collude willingly or otherwise with forces seeking to manufacture political instability.  The endgame of such a scenario won’t see the JVP coming to power but being decimated in order to make way for a pliant or even servile governing entity.  The political maturity of the JVP will be tested of course. 

The DP and its leader Sarath Fonseka, can now begin to woo both UPFA and UNP votes.  It might be harder to win over some big names but there will always be second or third tier individuals who are disgruntled with party leadership.  They won’t make a difference; Arjuna Ranatunga did not, after all. 

Is this the beginning of the end of the UPFA, as some have argued? Well, if those who came out to vote were the diehard loyalists, then we can talk of solid vote bases.  That’s 37% in the Southern Province and 34% in the Western Province in the very least.  In a general or presidential election the numbers would be close to 40% or more.  That’s a comfortable enough starting point for any party in any campaign.  Add average abstention figures and the UPFA would be hovering over 50%, which is what is needed in a presidential poll, a victory in which would naturally snowball into a more than adequate performance in an ensuing general election. It is something that should worry the opposition, whose numbers taken individually or as a whole is still a long way behind.  It should be read as an indictment.

Things can change and can change very fast of course.  As of now, the result must tell the regime that all is not well.  There are questions that need to be answered, problems that need to be resolved.  A critical mass is building up out there far away from the comfort zones of the powerful.  Politics is not arithmetic.  There are moments when a single incident can wreck the equation and make for a sweep in one direction or another. 

Some might say that the Government has lost legitimacy.  Perhaps and perhaps not.  If not, it is not too far away from that turning point.       

msenevira@gmail.com

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