Politician – The Final Arbiter Or The Eternal Scourge Of Sri Lanka?

By Vishwamithra –APRIL 28, 2021

“The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason.” ~ T S Eliot

Mudiyanse stepped out to his unkempt front lawn, if you could call it a lawn. Yet the delicate touch of the morning dew added a tender tad to the coarseness of the patches of grass that sparsely populated the front yard. A shack of a house which was a home to Mudiyanse’s family stood in the middle of twenty plus perches of state-land, granted to him in the nineteen hundred and eighties by the Swarnabhumi program; its disorganized order might be a jarring sight to the eyes, but the moisture of the dew was more of a soothing balm to his  tired and weary feet which had not felt the comfort of footwear for decades.

Mudiyanse works as a day laborer, lending his bodily strength to many jobs available in the adjacent township that came about with the development of the region thanks to a new garment factory. It was inaugurated with much fanfare. Political leadership in the country at the time had laid emphasis on opening new vistas for the economic growth in the rural regions. As a result of one of those landmark development programs launched by the government of the era, a garment factory came up, whose private money went in as investment. Mudiyanse did not know the investment part, nor would he care. His education level reached just the level of reading and writing. And it was a stretch.

Almost all the village damsels who did not have the fortune of continuing schooling beyond fifth standard and who were in that employable age are now employed in the Garment Factory. The hamlet did not have any bus service prior to the establishment of the new venture. Now a bus is running, not only to transport the women who had found work in the factory, but also for the general transport, a service which was not available in the village until the factory was established.

Life is hard in these far-out corners of Sri Lanka. From sunrise to sunset, the struggle looms larger than an average Sri Lankan could cope with; the hamlet was located in the heartland, in the intermediate zone; sun was not very cruel as in the arid zone but rain too was not frequent as in the wet and fertile districts. This harsh reality may not be limited to a third world country like Sri Lana. Even in most developed countries, there exist isolated pockets of communities living on the edge of nowhere. The difference, however, is the political environment, its relevance, its adverse or favorable effects or the total absence of any political influence, on decisions on matters of daily significance for the families that live among these communities.

Especially in South Asia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and the Maldives, except perhaps Bhutan, politics has been playing a critical role in man’s socioeconomic and cultural growth and decline. Being introduced by the British Raj nearly a century ago into a democratic way of electing men and women into power, governance became accepted as an integral part of social climbing for the rich and  educated. As was evidenced in the early twentieth century, the elites amongst the majority Sinhalese and as well as other minority communities (Tamils, Muslims and Burgher), specifically among Northern Tamils, were opposed to granting of universal franchise to all men and women over 21 years of age.

Schools in Ceylon from 1814 to 1897

Since July 25. 1814, when the first ever school was established, (Richmond College, Galle) up to late November, of 1899, sixty three (63) schools were established in Ceylon. Of the 63 schools, nearly 40%, 24 in all, were located either in the Jaffna peninsula or in Trincomalee or Batticaloa districts in the North East. The first Sinhalese Buddhist school, Ananda College, Maradana, was established only in November 1886. Out of these 63 schools only six, less than 1%, could be called Sinhalese Buddhist schools. The anomaly was so stark and forbidding in the context of the demographics of the country. The schools established outside the North and North East, of the thirty none (39), thirty three (85%) were established by non-Buddhist institutions, by the Catholic or other Christian-denomination Churches.

My writings in the past have always been secular in genre and most critical of all organized religion and extremist-thinking. Yet one simply cannot disregard bare-bone facts. The incongruities that existed, or created by the then power-holders, became a ready election-tool in the hands of the greedy politicians who were backed by Buddhist fundamentalists at the time. Tamil riots which were not a factor prior to 1956, became not only a polarizing instrument, it extended its reach far beyond 1956, all the way up to the present day.

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