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Personal
Recollections There was something about him even then that made him stand out from the rest. It was not only his large size and height. There was also a certain air about him that conveyed an unmistakable impression of importance. Or, as much of it as one could have at the tender age of 18, for that was when most of us entered the old University at Thurstan road. You saw it in the birdlike inclination of the head as he reflected on what one said, in the pipe which he invariably stabbed in the air to accentuate a point, and in the careful and incisive manner in which he would deliver an opinion even in a casual conversation. He was clearly someone who would make his mark early. And he did. I had known Felix for some years before we met at the University. It was through his uncle Sammy and the fabulous parties at his Mahanuga gardens home where the cousins gathered; Felix and Christine from 'Granta', the house up the road and our particular friends, Gwen, Sonia and Yasmine. Our friendship with the Sammy Dias's family prospered in the familiar round of outstation postings - a characteristic feature of colonial public service life. In 1947 we lived in Mount Lavinia and the family friendship was tested in the run-up to the elections to the first Parliament, when "Uncle Sammy" decided to contest the redoubtable Dr. Colvin R. de Silva for the Wellawatte-Galkissa seat as one of the only candidates of the hastily formed Swaraj Party. My father, whose sympathies then were for the LSSP since, as he put it they were the only 'honest fellows', was persuaded to be Uncle Sammy's chief election organiser and "Auntie Esther" and my mother became temporary suppliers of free lunch packets to the party workers. The campaign however was a disaster. Uncle Sammy lost, the Swaraj Party disintegrated but the family friendship and my links to Felix survived. Felix, cut an impressive figure at the University for several reasons. He was a very articulate speaker, versatile in a range of interests-though not given too much to field sports-non-conformist and always innovative. All of these were combined with an exquisite sense of humour. Of the memories of Felix at the Varsity almost 50 years ago - we never called it campus then - one or two stand out. There was the occasion, I believe in his second year, when he decided to contest for the Presidency of the Union. This normally involved, as in the real political world outside, a great deal of canvassing and treating of the electorate. But Felix was going to do it differently. He decided on principle that he would do no canvassing or treating and his campaign was restricted to the formal announcement of his candidature and one leaflet setting out his impressive claims for the post. Inevitably he lost to Balasubramaniam, who did everything allowed in the book and a little more besides. But Felix had made his point. The other memory is of his companionship with Lakshmi, one of his batch in the Law Faculty. It was not unusual in those days for quite a few couples to 'go steady' at the University. But this was special. Their inseparableness was a feature of the Thurstan Road landscape. It was never intrusive, never bothered anybody else and was altogether beautiful as a caring and loving relationship. Clearly it was going to last forever, and it did. My next contact with Felix was almost ten years later when I was Secretary in the Prime Minister's office. It was a time of political turmoil and trauma for the SLFP. Mr. Bandaranaike had been assass inated in a conspiracy which reached deep into the party and Mrs. Bandaranaike had initially refused to contest for the vacancy caused by her husband's death or take up the mantle of the party's leadership, Mr. Dahanayake, who succeeded Mr. Bandaranaike, had called for elections in March, 1960 and the Attanagalla seat had been divided into two - Attanagalla and Dompe - by the 1959 Delimitation Commission. It was in these challenging circumstances for the party that Felix arrived on the political scene, Felix Dias Bandaranaike, became MP for Dompe. I was privileged to work closely with him in my capacity as Secretary to Mrs. Bandaranaike when she became Prime Minister after the elections of July, 1960, and Felix was made Minister of Finance and Deputy Minister of Defence and External Affairs. There was absolutely no doubt that Felix was Mrs. Bandaranaike's chief advisor and support at that time. Politically he was a neophyte and only 29, but the manner in which he harnessed his immense skills and organizational ability to master his subjects, Finance and International Affairs, and his tremendous capacity for work soon made him one of the most important members of the Cabinet. Among the new skills to be acquired were oratory in Sinhala and learning to be a grassroots politician in all these new and varied roles-and he saw the humour in being MP for Dompe-he performed, on what he, more than others in politics realized, was yet another stage, with his usual flair, brashness and self-confidence To those who did not know him well he must have appeared at times arrogant and impudent. To those who did, and I count myself among them, he was only enjoying himself hugely. The first five years, with Mrs. Bandaranaike in the Senate, gave Felix the space to put on a virtuoso performance in the House, acting most of the time as the ears and voice of the Prime Minister. On the world stage, too, the combination of the first and only woman Prime Minister with a brilliant, articulate and ebullient young Minister as advisor was irresistible. Together they made a tremendous impression; in China - with the Afro-Asian initiative in resolving the Sino-Indian boundary dispute, in the Belgrade and Cairo Non-aligned Summits and in many other parts of the world as well. The relationship between the two cousins-in-law was absolute - warm, trusting, forthright and good humoured but never exceeding the bounds of propriety and protocol. Felix's puckish sense of humour, an integral part of his make-up came tellingly through at even the most serious moments. I recall particularly the before-the-big-event anxieties of preparing the Prime Minister's speech for the Opening Ceremony at the Cairo Summit. There was considerable stress around, since Mr. Bandaranaike's speech at Belgrade in 1961 had made the world headlines with its dramatic beginning. At the height of the Cold War, she had made a stirring appeal for peace to the world leaders "as a woman and a mother". It was a call no other leader on earth at that time could have made, for her position as the world's only woman Prime Minister was unique. Could we, her speech writers, match that at Cairo in 1963? We had all relaxed that afternoon visiting the Cairo Museum and marvelling at how well the three thousand year-old mummies had withstood the ravages of time. Back at the Nile Hilton in the 12th floor suite, it is 10.30 p.m. and Felix, Glanny Pieris, Lakshmi and I are still searching for the dramatic opening for tomorrow's speech. Mrs. Bandaranaike just before retiring to bed peeps in to ask how we are doing. "Fine", replies Felix, "We've got the opening we've been looking for. Sirima, now that we are in Cairo why don't you start your speech with the worlds "As a woman and a mummy I appeal to you all', etc. It would go down quite well here." The Prime Minister doubles up in laughter, the speech-writers meeting collapses and we make do the next morning without the dramatic opening sentence. Perhaps Felix's finest hour in his short but distinguished political career was the manner in which he first countered and then unravelled the attempted coup 'd etat of January, 1962. This daring attempt at a takeover of the government by a large group of highly placed Police and Army officers could well have succeeded if not for the swift and decisive actions of a few, foremost among them Felix and "Jingle' Dissanaike. Once the coup itself was aborted on Saturday night, Felix from early Sunday morning and continuously for the next two and a half days, almost single-handed, began the meticulous and painstaking business of examining and cross-examining the principal suspects, all leading lights of the Police and Armed Services. They came singly or in groups, some in uniform, some in civies to Temple Trees and were taken up to the drawing room in the new block for interrogation. What was remarkable about the exercise was the complete absence of melodrama. No one came in handcuffs, the place was not bristling with machine guns, there was not the hint of third degree. Every story was broken down by incisive and systematic questioning in which Felix's logical mind and legal training came into play. Felix's sense of duty was tested to the full when he had to interrogate and fix guilt on some of his closest relations. He and 'Jingle', who had similarly to find against his brother, came out tall here. It was a time when the call of duty prevailed against the uneasy compromises which lesser men at other times have permitted themselves. In a society where blood is always said to be thicker than water. It was only to be expected that Felix's exceptional brilliance in the political firmament would earn him the envy and the hostility of lesser stars. Being a man who acted on principle and a pragmatist not blindly committed to ideology, he had many detractors. To those on the left he was 'Satan', the embodiment of all evil; to those on the right, whose agenda he was perceived to have purloined, he was a danger and to many of those in the Centre, where his own party was, he was thought to be too radical or too conservative. In the great electoral swing of 1977 the voters of Dompe, to whom he had given so much, rejected him and he bowed out of politics, and after a cruelly unwarranted removal of his civic rights, of public life altogether. So Felix who in the seventeen short years of his political life made more of a mark on this country and the world than did many of his peers, paid the price that finally all who aspire to greatness in politics are forced to pay - the realization that memories are short and that there is no limit to man's ingratitude. Thinking of Felix's manifold and often unsung contribution to this nation's economic and political development, it is hard to accept that he achieved all this in such a short space of time. He died 12 years ago at the early age of 54. He was literally a comet who blazed momentarily across our skies leaving in his trail a luminescence which the passing of time can hardly erase. A response to Mr. Hemal A.
Pieris In a Democratic country all its citizens are equal, at least in theory. If the Tamil politicians abandon their narrow communal politics and join national stream of politics of their choice, and work for the weal and welfare of all the people in Sri Lanka, then there will be no objection whatsoever from the majority community, of their attaining to the highest rank and position in the land. As early as in 1911 a majority Sinhalese electorate elected Sir. Ponnam-balam Ramanathan, a Tamil in preference to Sir Marcus Fernando, a highly respected Sinhalese. Colombo City has elected several Tamils and Muslims as its Mayor. Muslims who are an other minority community in Sri Lanka have not only been elected to Parliament to represent predominantly Sinhalese electorate but have become Cabinet Ministers in successive Governments. In their entire history going back to 2500 years, the Sinhalese Buddhists have never been ultra nationalists or tribalists or chauvinists. But when some party or other challenged their identity and unity they have met the challenge in defence of those values. (4) the report says that ' the needs of the Tamils were largely ignored by the Sinhala majority'. This is yet another baseless allegation. Surely, it is the duty and the responsibility of the Member of Parliament who represents a given constituency to look after the needs of the people of his constituency. That is why a special Member is elected to represent a particular constituency. As a matter of fact, the predominantly Tamil constituency in the Mannar, Vavuniya and Mulaitive Districts have been represented until recently by Jaffna Tamils. The Tamil members of the Parliament have spent their time in beating the tribal drums and taking the innocent Tamil people in war path against the Sinhalese rather than attending to the needs of their voters. Why blame the Sinhalese for their neglect? The government or the majority community should be blamed if only they attempted by some way or other, to block their efforts to improve the lot of their constituents! There has been no such charge made even by Tamil politicians. As a matter of fact the Tamils had, in the past, got a better deal by way of provision of funds than the Sinhalese. A handout published by the Information Department in 1983 entitled Sri Lanka - the Truth about Discrimination against the Tamils says in this connection: 'Lest it be thought that financial discrimination is practised against the Tamils in the sense that a smaller per capita expenditure is provided for the Tamil areas, the 1982 Decentralized Budget provides a per capita expenditure of Rs. 29.51 for the Northern Province (96.6% Sri Lankan Tamils) which is the highest per capita expenditure in the country. The other provinces range from Rs. 23.06 (in a province where the Sinhalese are 97.5% of the population) to Rs. 26.71' (5) the WCC Report says that in addition to the grievances of the Tamils listed by it ' the claim that Sri Lanka should become a Buddhist nation led to much bitterness and counter-claims to establish the North as a separate Tamil State' As far as we are aware no responsible Buddhist lay leader or a Member of the Maha Sangha or a leading Budhdist organization has ever claimed that 'Sri Lanka should be a Buddhist nation'. In his evidence before the Sansoni Commission the Most Venerable Madihe Pannasiha Maha Nayake thera stated the Buddhist position in this regard as follows: 'From the dawn of history the Sinhalese and Tamils had been living together in Sri Lanka. It would therefore be correct to say that the whole of Sri Lanka is the traditional homeland of the Tamils and the Sinhalese and the other communities that have lived in it' (Sansoni Commission Report. Sessional Paper VII of 1980). These words imply that there is only one nation in Sri Lanka; the Sri Lankan Nation and that the Sinhalese, the Tamils and the Muslims and the Burghers are communities which comprise the Sri Lankan Nation. The WCC Report goes on to say: 'We were repeatedly told that this was the worst period in the history of Sri Lankan Tamils. As a first step the bombing and helicopter strafing had to be stopped, together with the blockade of food and medicines, particularly attention was called to the Eight Nations Paris Consortium, which had just approved its yearly grant to the Sri Lankan Government, Clearly the one billion dollar granted in aid would release funds for the continuing war against their own people. Reconciliation was becoming increasingly difficult, especially for the younger generation, who had never known a time when the two communities, Sinhalese and Tamil, had lived peacefully together. ÔAs individuals, we have no problem with the Sinhalese' said one leader, Ôbut as a community they are very oppressive. Deception is the cornerstone of Sinhalese Government policy. There is a lion on the national flag, but it should be a jackal'. By funding the Sri Lankan Government, observed another, the West is expanding the war to the Third World. Will nobody listen to our cries of agony and distress. 'In Lithuania, the blockage of fuel by the Soviet Government was stopped when people in the United States demonstrated in the streets. The Tamil nation was free for a thousand years; do we not have a right to be free now, just as the Lithuanians do? If a Federal solution can be found in other parts of the world cannot we have the right to seek and secure such a solution here as well? This shows that the Tamil separatist politicians have made the ordinary Tamil people believe. - that the Sinhalese are a people who are aggressive and for that reason, difficult to get on with; - that the Sri Lankan Government, dominated as it is by the Sinhalese majority, is itself very aggressive; - that the Sri Lankan Government started the war and is continuing the war in this spirit of aggressiveness; - that the Sri Lankan Government is using the funds given by the industrialized countries in the West for development, in its war against the Tamil people. - that it is not possible for the Tamil people to come to a settlement with the Sri Lankan Government because 'deception is the corner stone of its policy and therefore the Christian nations in the West must intervene in this war of aggression. The WCC Report also says: ' the support given by the ecumenical community to the North and the South is very different. Even the missionaries concentrated their efforts more in the North. As a result, a larger percentage of Tamils are Christian than the Sinhalese. And the Tamils have the co-operation of 50 million other Tamils in South India'. (P.25) The ratio between the Tamil Christians and the Sinhalese Christians is said to be 60:40. Anyone reading the WCC Report intelligently and with an open mind can see for himself that the views and opinions contained in it are those of the Tamil Christian majority. Of course, the World Council of Churches is a democratic organization. So is the National Christian Council in Sri Lanka. Naturally, the majority view must prevail. But let not the Christian intellectuals say that there is no Democracy in Sri Lanka and the form of Government which functions here is Majoritianism in which the views and the opinions of the Sinhalese Buddhist prevail. What is sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander. The Report, however, makes a very perspicatious observation at page 24. It says: 'People believe themselves to be in an ethnic conflict but the real issues - those between power and justice - are far deeper. That is what we should be addressing. And the people who are suffering are not those who can change the social structure. In 1956, Mr. S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike attempted to put an end to the inequity and injustice done nearly 95 per cent of the peoples of Sri Lanka belonging to all ethnic and religious groups during a period of over a century, by the British Colonial Government. But the 5 per cent of the population who had acquired wealth, position, power and privilege started a collision course with the Government in the name of Gandhism. Later it developed into a confrontation between the Sinhalese and the Tamils. A cold war between the two parties ensued. And now the cold war has become a terrorist guerilla war. In the circumstance it is wrong to call this a civil war or an ethnic conflict. It is not a war between the ordinary Sinhalese people and the ordinary Tamil people. Let us remember that more than 25 per cent of Sri Lankan Tamils, mostly Jaffna Tamils are living in the predominantly Sinhalese areas, following their avocations and living in friendly terms with their Sinhalese neighbours. There of course have been clashes between the two people because of the leaders of both parties rousing the dormant tribal instinct in man. The WCC Report says that the conflict in Sri Lanka is not an ethnic conflict but a conflict between power and justice. Every civilized religion claims to stand for Truth, Justice and Peace, these three spiritual values go together. There cannot be Justice without Truth; and there cannot be Peace without Justice. In the circumstances, in the national crisis we are faced with today, it is incumbent upon the leaders of all religions to sink their sectarian differences and get together and find out, in the first instance, the root cause or causes of the conflict, how and why it developed into an armed conflict and how the conflict can be resolved. It is here that Truth, Justice and Peace must operate. If the root cause of the conflict is due to injustice done to any ethnic or religious group that must be found out and removed. The leaders of religion alone can do this because this is primarily an ethical problem - a problem relating to justice and equity; a problem relating to human values. They also have no political axes to grind and political places to go. They have the goodwill, the moral training and the leisure to undertake such a task. They will have the goodwill and support of the peace-loving peoples of all communities in the country. Concluded |
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