At the intersection of literature, sociology and philosophy

 

A few weeks ago, writing on the library that is Professor Desmond Mallikarachchi, I recounted a conversation that took place more than twenty five years ago at the end of a thesis defence. My last official words to the committee were as follows: ‘I have come to understand that the distinctions between sociology, philosophy and literature are arbitrary and false. I do understand the need for disciplinary boundaries and that you are required to make sure I stay within them.’

The words just came out. Partly as an excuse for incompetence. And in part because I wanted to diffuse a tense situation. Deep down, though, I was speaking the truth of my convictions. The moment returned a couple of days ago.

I was revisiting Desmond, as I had promised. We spoke for about five hours. Needless to say it was quite enlightening and stimulating to listen to him. There were some breaks when he had to attend to household matters. I was in one of his working rooms. There was a table with notes, some in files and some not. Piles of them. And a book shelf too. I browsed.  I would tell him later that it made me want to visit him more frequently.

Anyway, he spoke about philosophers and sociologists, philosophies and sociologies. He told me he was writing an article about Emil Durkheim for a volume felicitating his colleague Kalinga Tudor De Silva. He spoke about the unwarranted fixation that sociologists have with facts. Or numbers. He spoke of the ideological preferences that may have influenced Durkheim. Many other things which would bore the reader, probably, and even me in a different context.

Anyway.

Anyway, we discussed methodology, quantitative and qualitative. I spoke about research I had conducted more than 25 years ago which I worked into the thesis that was defended and ended as described above. It was about a cluster of villages identified with particular castes. My piece was about the ways in which people located in lower strata of the caste structure negotiated honour and dignity. These, I said, cannot really be quantified or even categorised.

Facts are important. Numbers too. Marx, Desmond said, was all about ‘data.’ He used numbers. He was relentless in gathering information, much of which came as numbers. Quantitative data. But, he pointed out, it was not only about numbers. Value can take other forms, he implied. And he offered a gem of an example.

‘I was once lecturing some sociology students in a masters program. One of the students asked me if I could explain the difference between “quantitative” and “qualitative.” I said “yes.’ I said I can do it in verse. And offered them this line, “menalada puthe kiri dunne mama numbata” (did I, my son, measure the milk before giving it to you?).’

It is the last of a four line verse. The mother visits her son because, she says, she was hungry. The son gives her two measures of rice. She says that love for a child turned her blood into milk (as is commonly said) and observes that measurement was non-existent in her mind when she fed milk to her son when he was an infant.

There. In a nutshell.

Desmond had added, ‘Can you measure the quantum [of sorrow] in a single tear?’

If one person cried his heart out and another’s eye yielded just one tear, would the sorrow of the latter be less? Not all things can be quantified. Quantity does not always tell the whole story.

Is a novel contained in 567 pages or, let’s say, is made of 134,982 words superior somehow to one that is told in, say, 81 pages or has just 21,453 words? Is a novel necessarily a superior literary product than a short story. Is poetry a lower caste genre? Are poets inferior to those who prefer to write prose? That’s another way of illustrating the point.

There is error is ‘reading’. Desmond said, ‘If you send a Buddhist, a Christian and a Marxist to America and ask them to describe it, they will come up with three readings vastly different from each other.’ Subjective, yes. And yet, numbers are not innocent either. They too mislead.

Twins, then? Separate and yet not. Not mutually exclusive, I suggested. He agreed.

Our reading of things and processes is framed by what we have previously read, our outcome preferences and our inevitable limitations. Our writing is influenced by what we ‘read’ and how we’ve read it, both substance and style. So, are we a bunch of half blind or mostly blind dabblers seeing the world in fragment and fervently believing that we’ve seen it all? At times, yes. Even scholars are not immune to such ‘ailments.’ They are tripped by conviction. And they quarrel with one another. Sometimes that’s a good thing. Sometimes not.  

Anyway.

Anyway, I left Desmond’s place in Naththarampotha around 5.30 after a brief chit-chat over a cup of tea. Driving back to Colombo I realised that in that moment of milk, blood and tears, I was privileged to inhabit a rare intersection of sociology, philosophy and literature.

And now, three days later, writing this, the dedication I penned at the beginning of the thesis draft I had submitted suddenly came to me:

‘To the silent eloquence with which silence trips the word.’

Again, cheeky. Flippant. An excuse too, one might say, for incompetence. At some level though, it is again an intersection of sociology, philosophy and literature. A Naththarampotha moment anticipated a quarter of a century before. An end it was and still can be. And yet, a beginning too.

[This article was published in the Daily News under the weekly column title 'The Recurrent Thursday'] 

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The Desmond Mallikarachchi Library

 

Way back in the late nineties, the Department of Development Sociology, Cornell University, had a weekly seminar series. On Wednesdays, if memory serves. Typically some renowned academic who happened to be visiting the university or someone specifically invited would speak on a subject on which they had written extensively. Occasionally a graduate student, usually someone who has just defended or was about to defend a doctoral dissertation would be invited to speak. On one occasion, three masters students spoke.

‘Here I am, standing between two colleagues who had just defended their theses, required to speak on my as yet undefended and perhaps indefensible thesis.’

Ice-breaker. Nerve settler. I got quite a few laughs. I remember the tentative title and not much else: ‘Journeying with honour and dignity in search of the vague and indeterminate.’ Today, a quarter of a century later, I can laugh at it all, but instead tend to smile.

Anyway, I did attend the ‘thesis defence.’ After much cajoling and veiled threats. I still remember the pre-defence meeting with my committee (Shelley Feldman and Phil McMichael) and the then Director of Graduate Studies, Chuck Geisler. I ran into Shelley where two corridors met, just outside the room where the meeting was to be held.

‘So young man, do you have a story?’

Shelley was an excellent academic and possessed a strong and even fearsome personality. I just smiled and said, ‘Shelley, when did I ever not have a story?’

We both laughed.

‘We are not putting you on the spot. No one is being judged here,’ Chuck’s voice was reassuring. Then he asked, ‘so what do you have to say?’

That was putting me on the spot, right there.

‘If the question is, “what have you been doing in the eight months that have passed since you last met with your committee,” the short answer would be ‘living.’  

Cheeky. But I had more to say.

‘This thesis is like a plate of rice I’ve been eating for two hours. I’ve lost my appetite and would rather push the plate away. That said, I have completed the thesis.’

And I drew from my bag three printed-and-bound copies of the manuscript. They were thrilled. The defence was scheduled. And I was told, ‘with minor revisions we could give you a terminal masters; but to officially put you on course for a PhD you would have to do extensive revisions.’  

‘I have come to understand that the distinctions between sociology, philosophy and literature are arbitrary and false. I do understand the need for disciplinary boundaries and that you are required to make sure I stay within them.’

Parting shot. With another smile.

My colleagues, as was the practice, had prepared post-defence snacks. I updated them. And said, ‘I am not sure what we are celebrating here.’

So, there were no revisions, minor or major. I returned home, having completed the coursework for the PhD and nothing else to show. Still just a graduate. Unemployed. And wandered into journalism.

Since then, there have been occasions when I’ve asked myself a few questions beginning with ‘what if.’ Rare. And quickly dismissed. I continued however to acquaint myself with ‘the latest’ in social theory, mainly because of sporadic and yet stimulating conversations with accomplished friends in academia, especially Kanishka Goonewardena and Pradeep Jeganathan. I’ve flirted with the idea of returning to postgraduate studies. Again, rare and quickly dismissed.

Until last evening.

Last evening I visited Prof Desmond Mallikaarachchi at his home in Naththarampotha, Kundasale. At 81, he was still thinking, processing and writing. Still alert and insightful. Stimulating. It reminded me of S B D De Silva, the unheralded but easily the most intellectually honest economist the country has known, who was researching well into his nineties.

Desmond spoke of Gananath Obeyesekere, David Leach, Bruce Kapferer, Marshall Sahlins, Terry Eagleton, Pierre Bourdieu, Richard Gombrich, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Antonio Gramsci and of course Karl Marx. He was not name-dropping. The names were mentioned in the course of elaborating on some idea related to some topic we happened to be discussing. He spoke of his own work, almost in passing.

I listened, along with two other contemporaries from Peradeniya University, Premasiri Werawella and Priyantha Wickramasinghe. Desmond was formally attached to the Philosophy Department of that university. We were not listening to a philosophy professor, though. He sounded like a sociologist at times and at times an economist, a psychologist, a linguist, a historian, a political scientist and an anthropologist. And although in so many ways poorer than he, none of us felt that he was talking down to us. He spoke as though to equally accomplished colleagues. We offered the rare comment. He listened. Responded. I cannot remember ever encountering such scholarship and humility resident in a single person.

I was too young, too distracted by the politics of the moment and affairs of the heart to understand that Desmond Mallikarachchi was like a university within my university. Too stupid to look for him.

Too late.

Peradeniya, like most universities in Sri Lanka, divides itself into disciplines. I studied sociology. ‘Philosophy’ was another country. I didn’t have a visa and didn’t even think of a visit. That shouldn’t have been an obstacle because Desmond was a ‘global citizen’ and went wherever he wished. My bad.

Again, ‘what if…’ came to mind. For a moment. But there’s consolation. There is his work. And there’s the open invitation: ‘aney, onama velavaka enna…mehe navathinna puluwan (please come…whenever you want…you can stay the night).’

I don’t know if there are doors and windows in Desmon Mallikarachchi’s heart and mind. Probably not, but even if there were, they are always open.

It’s too late for me to return to theses that never got written, I know. Yesterday I learned that there’s a process I had to follow in order to access the Peradeniya University Library. I will go through the paces soon. There’s also a library in Naththarampotha, Kundasale. The Desmond Mallikarachchi Library. No protocols. No tedious processes to follow. Open 24/7.

I will visit.   

[This article was published in the Daily News under the weekly column title 'The Recurrent Thursday'] 

 

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Simply, Desmond!

 

Desmond Mallikarachchi, Former Head, Philosophy Department, University of Peradeniya · who also taught German and French philosophies at Peradeniya following retirement and film and aesthetics, film theory and ideology at the University of Kelaniya turned 81 as I write, i.e. on the 18th of June, 2025.

I was not his student in a formal sense for my subjects in the Faculty of Arts in my first year were Pure Mathematics, English and Sociology. I read Sociology thereafter for a special degree which was not completed due to the turbulence of the late eighties. Nevertheless, Desmond was a teacher and I a student. Yes, ‘Desmond’ and not ‘Prof Desmond’ or ‘Prof Desmon Mallikarachchi’ or ‘Prof Mallikarachchi’ or ‘Sir,’ although I can’t ever remember addressing him by name or title. In my mind he was and is ‘Desmond.’ Simple.

My first encounter with Desmond was on the 12th of November, 1986, or perhaps a day or two before or after. The occasion was the annual commemoration of W M Weerasuriya who had been shot dead ten years previously. He was the keynote speaker at the event organised by the Dumbara Action Committee. For those too young to know or too old to remember, ‘Dumbara’ refers to the Dumbara Campus of the University of Peradeniya. It was located in Polgolla and was for first year undergraduates of the Arts Faculty and second year students of the same faculty reading for a general degree. Student Councils having been banned, the more politically inclined had decided to set up ‘Action Committees.’ The Dumbara Action Committee was affiliated with that of the Peradeniya University and the action committees of all universities came under the umbrella of the Inter University Student Federation.

Desmond must have said something about Weerasuriya. He must have touched on the political issues of the day. All I remember is Desmond urging students to find, own and speak with their own voices. He stressed, ‘your identity.’

He was not with or for the dominant student group at the time, the JVP-affiliated Socialist Students Union. He was ‘left,’ though. His subject was Marxism and he was a Marxist. It didn’t take too long for me to understand why he was not excited about student politics, even when there came a point where people were scared to say they were opposed to the JVP, not three years after JVPers were embarrassed to say they were. Simply, he read Marx. He was a Marxist scholar. He knew what Marxism was not.

For all this, Desmond did not invite the wrath of students who thought otherwise. He was respected. He was consulted about doctrinal issues. He welcomed one and all, was always sober and always spoke to the point.

I remember attending one of his public lectures in the early nineties in Peradeniya. I don’t remember the exact title, but it was about the purported death of Marxism following the collapse of the Soviet Bloc. The funeral was for Marxism, not Marx, at least in the right-wing press which of course dominated the media at the time. Desmond criticised those who announced the death of Marxism and their ideological preferences as well. He essentially asked and answered the following question: ‘Marx va maranna hadanne kavuda saha ai (Who wants to kill Marx and why)?

A question was put to him after he delivered his speech. Actually there were three questions asked in Sinhala and which could be translated as follows: ‘Is Marx’s death not called for by those who hold a gal-katas to the head of workers to compel them to strike? Is Marx’s death not sought by leftists who opt for coalition politics? Is Marx not being killed by those who have put a full stop to the dialectic following the assassination of Trotsky in 1940?’

There was a pause. Then he answered in a measured tone, again in Sinhala of course: ‘ow, ow saha ow (yes, yes and yes). Thereafter he spoke at length on the wider political spectrum and how the ‘left’ in its error could in word and deed play adjunct to capital and capital interests.

Criticism is easy, and this one learnt without having to attend any classes on political theory. Self-criticism is a different creature altogether. Desmond had the kind of humility that comes from deep and serious reflection on all manner of processes. It can’t be taught, but the possibility of humility and indeed its worth can be taught, not by ‘teaching’ per se but being that kind of individual. Desmond seemed like that. At least to me, in the few chance encounters I’ve had with him.

I haven’t spoken with Desmond in quite a while. Our encounters have been sporadic and random, sometimes somewhere in the Arts Faculty and sometimes somewhere in Kandy. He never taught me so I never expected him to know me. I would introduce myself and he would say ‘of course,’ and speak as though to a friend from a long time ago. Simple.

I don’t remember much of professors and lecturers who didn’t teach me or whose extracurricular work I was not a part of, for example theatre. Names were known. Faces became familiar and then with time less so. Desmond was different. Quiet and self-effacing and yet most certainly a presence in the University of Peradeniya and perhaps elsewhere too, I wouldn’t know.

It would have been good to say ‘hello’ and wish him in person, but I am not like that and he wouldn’t expect such things either. I just happened to see a social media post wishing him. So I shall too, here. Good health, peace of mind, deep reflection and wholesome engagement, as always, Desmond. Happy birthday!

[This article was published in the Daily News under the weekly column title ‘The Recurrent Thursday’]

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If there's to be 'university' in the university

My batchmate and present editor of The Island, Prabath Sahabandu has a peculiar sense of humour. The year was 1990.  He was in his final year at Peradeniya.  I remember him accosting a fresher at the library.  There was an elderly person at one of the book shelves.  Browsing. Prabath drew the attention of the fresher to this person. The following is an English translation of the brief conversation:

‘Do you know who that is?’

‘No, Honourable Senior’ the fresher replied.  ‘Jyeshta Uththamaya’ (the term used) was obtained from ‘Hnourable Senior’ I was told, but I doubt if the original is used at all now. That’s a story in itself, but we shall let it go.

‘That itself shows how ignorant you are!  That’s Ediriweera Sarachchandra. Have you heard of him?’

‘Yes, Jyeshta Uththamaya.’ 

‘Do you know what he’s doing here?’

‘No, Jyeshta Uththamaya.’

‘He’s studying for a repeat (exam)’ (repeat ekak goda daaganna paadam karanava).

This was followed by a lecture on the importance of attending lectures, submitting tutorials and studying: ‘He is in his seventies and he still hasn’t completed all his repeats; do you want to end up like that?’

‘No, Jyeshta Uththamaya!’

Prabath was having fun, but what he was saying was not funny.  Student don’t take university seriously or as seriously as they should. They don’t take themselves seriously either. A few days after we entered university we were told about a ‘truism’ by our seniors: craamanta class nehe (those who cram do not get classes). There was and still is an anti-scholarship culture that is deliberately nurtured by those who engage in ‘politics’ and by the intellectually challenged; especially in the social sciences and humanities. 

This is not to say that the university system has produced generation after generation of morons.  Scholars and scholarship has emerged despite this anti-intellectualism fostered by certain students and a socio-political-economic overall that appears to reward and celebrate the sophomoric, the pedestrian and abysmal, intellectually speaking.  That’s because certain students rise about the conditions of their studentship, which includes, sadly, a faculty of lecturers where the voices of sanity, scholarship and integrity are drowned by sophomoric cacophony. 

Sasanka Perera of the Sociology Department, delivering the key note address at a felicitation of Siri Gunasinghe, elaborated on this situation.  He observed that Siri Gunasingha had gone against the grain at Peradeniya, both as writer and academic, and contended that this was because the conditions at the time allowed it.  Where there was space for free inquiry, the unfettered expression of ideas, a culture of criticism, value for humility, and all this underlined by academic honesty, there was space for the ‘maverick’ and the conditions for what begins as ‘marginal’ to become ‘mainstream’. 

Sasanka laments that academe has lost its critical edge.  It has been replaced by an unabashed slide towards a culture of sycophancy, a happy readiness to genuflect before political reality at the cost of doing justice to the salary one gets. 

Recently we had vice chancellors supporting a presidential candidate.  They did not make it clear that they were doing this in their personal capacity.  Their designations were mentioned.  The relevant academics did not correct the error, if indeed it was erroneously reported.  Some academics howled in protest, but I am convinced that this had more to do with the candidate who was supported than the act of supporting.  It was not the first time that academics have endorsed candidates or parties.  There were not protests; no whines, no whimpering. 

Universities are not politics-free and should not be. Indeed, that’s not even possible.  On the other hand politics is more than loyalty to particular party.  It is about being compelled by logic. It is a decision to defend the truths one subscribes to. It is about being prepared to debate, being humble to acknowledge error.  It is about engagement.

Sasanka said there’s a new ideological strain in the university system. I heard him say ‘A new Marxism’ (nava marsvaadayak).  He was punning. He had taken the term from ‘mark’ and ‘marks’ and not ‘Karl Marx’.  He was referring to the ‘points system’ or ‘marks’ that someone in the university needs to get in order to become a ‘professor’.  There must have been some logic to this new system of dishing out professorships, but what we have today is a gross devaluation of that title.  The kind of intellect, intellectual curiosity, discipline, scholarship, dedication to the noble vocations of research and teaching etc that one assumes goes with the title is clearly (and sadly) absent in many of the (Neo Marxist/Marksist) Professors in our universities today. 

I am not particularly educated about the situations in the fields of engineering, medicine, veterinary science and agriculture, but the arts faculties, most discerning observers would admit are not exactly turning out men and women who are capable of making waves in the theoretical fields of their choosing.  There has been very few articles or books that can claim to have expanded the overall understanding of a given phenomenon or social process.  It is certainly pitiful when ‘academics’ attach articles they’ve written to newspapers (including appreciations and obituaries as well as comments totally unrelated to their subject) to obtain the necessary ‘marks’ for promotion.

Sasanka made another observation.  He said that if things are to change, then there should be a recognition of the fact that this ‘marksism’ is not a good thing.  The truth, sadly, is that very few people are unhappy about the way things are today. 

According to Sasanka, there is little chance in the university system for someone like Siri Gunasinghe to emerge.  I disagree.  Things happen because certain conditions are amenable to their happening and things also happen in agitation against the status quo. Tougher.  Not impossible.  That however is for the future to pass judgment on.

The universities are not like schools. The drop-out rate is very low.  Sarachchandra didn’t have ‘repeats’ to deal with and I doubt if any current student would at the age of 70 + have ‘repeats’ to worry about. People graduate, sooner or later.  The question is: how are we to assess the worth of this ‘graduation’ when the worth of those who impart the knowledge and assess the students is under question? 

The Ivory-Tower Syndrome is not specific to Sri Lanka of course.  There is a certain insular and even incestuous streak in the whole academic business. Academics prefer the security of close-door engagement and when they do venture out, it is for a limited ‘outing’, slipping back into the arrogant shell called ‘I-am-a-scholar’ at the first sign of threat.  Still, in Sri Lanka, even within the closed doors, there seems to be very little conversation taking place.  Outside of crass party politics, that is. 

I remember S.B. De Silva explaining why the Senior Common Room of the Arts Faculty, Peradeniya was empty most of the time: ‘they are in Polgahamulla’.  Polgahamulla is a place where people give tuition to external students.  Nothing wrong in that.  Nothing wrong in academics turning into consultants for I/NGOs to earn a few more bucks.  What’s sad is that all of this is turning them into lazy creatures who are, moreover, extremely averse to doing the job they are being paid to do: teaching.   Oh yes, they teach, but there teaching and teaching.  A good teacher has to update him/herself with the latest developments in the particular field.  This will not happen if they are not interested in reading and engaging and these two seem to be low-priorities. 

Something has to be done about the encouragement of mediocrity via Marksism.  There is a need to overhaul the entire system of instruction and scholarship and if we wait too long, we won’t have the necessary human resources. They would all be dead.  The sophomoric, even with the best of intentions, would not be able to sort things out.   We would have to wait for some messiah.  We should be able to do better than that. 

In 1986, Desmond Mallikarachchi of the Philosophy Department, Peradeniya, addressing students at Dumbara Campus, Polgolla, insisted that ‘the university has left the university’ and that the struggle should be to recover identity. 

Who is going to bring the university back?  Not Marksists, certainly.

Malinda Seneviratne is the Editor-in-Chief of 'The Nation' and can be reached at msenevira@gmail.com.  This was first published in May 9, 2010 in the 'Sunday Observer'.  

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