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People and Events
Non-Celebration

by Nan
The Independence Square is a veritable sparkle of lights. From the decorated roundabout the view of Independence Avenue with its trees draped in multi-coloured jets and the Independence building itself covered with white bulbs is a reminder that we celebrate the 51st anniversary of our Independence. We need no jets and decorations, roads being closed for a week; traffic piling up horrendously all over Colombo and the suburbs, and a ceremony to remind us that independence is commemorated on 4 February. It always has been an important date but now we have ceased celebrating it. We remember that 51 years ago the colonial rulers handed over the governing of Ceylon to its own people, albeit reluctantly. We celebrated then. We cannot do so now.

Frustrated Anger
We moan the death of true democracy and basic decency. We cry for the state Sri Lanka is in, and the depths to which her people have sunk. We despair. We rail ineffectively against those who have brought us to this deplorable state. We are disgusted but only grumble; angry, but contain the anger within or spill it out with close friends.

I give you an ordinary person’s opinion and feelings, ordinary yet perceptive. A person who as a child celebrated independence in 1948 by marvelling at the display of fireworks in the Kandy Lake and admiring the pretty princess in a daffodil yellow dress and her handsome prince as they were driven to the Audience Hall. A person who revered D. S. Senanayake as the Father of the Nation who spoke out for Independence and, concerned about the peasants of the country gave water to the parched, deserted areas. He is remembered specially when the vastness of the Senanayake Samudra is admired or the walking feet take me to the statue in Independence Square.

We should not be celebrating independence. Instead we should be mourning the death of democracy and decay in politics; the disappearance of selfless service and the ever present spectre of cheating and lying. We should be in white mourning the state the country has come to, mismanaged by self seeking politicians. We should be marching not in celebration of independence but in solidarity against corruption in politics, widespread violence and denial of the basic right to choose our government, whether central or provincial, through an honest, peaceful ballot.

The Ballot, we were told and made to believe, was more powerful than the bullet. Stuff and nonsense! Wayamba witnessed the supremacy of the T56; violence and dishonesty swamping democracy and the right of the people to cast their vote peacefully. The Ballot became a mere piece of paper to be grabbed from the rightful owner by thugs, marked, and crammed into a box which his goons "protected". Succinctly said in Sinhala, it was a case of ‘mara chanda’, not ‘hora chanda’, which latter is bad enough, shocking and not heard of thirty years ago.

A friend of mine suffered mentally, emotionally and physically, yes even physically as she watched TV reportage of election hustings, elections and its aftermath. She sits glued to the box and then complains she feels angry, depressed and disgusted and suffers an unhealthy racing of the pulse and palpitation of her heart. She is defiant but merely as a couch potato, believing that letters sent to the powers that be will induce prompt remedial action. She believes the pen is mightier than the sword. She can try her letter writing campaign and see what the results will be. Here again a fallacy.

I get away from TV or watch a foreign news programme. I switched on once and got a bellyful. A post-elections press conference was in progress where Ministers mooed, sported and pop-eyed themselves trying to assume holier than thou stances, blaming their own crimes on others: "They did it so we did the same" and in the next breath "It was all done by the opposing party. We are lily white clean." I switched the TV off. Couldn’t bear to watch nor listen to the distortions. Tried excusing the Ministers as being immature - like children hotly denying an escapade when caught red-handed. But schoolboys merely lower themselves and may tarnish the image of the school slightly and temporarily. Not so what happened recently. The whole of Sri Lanka is affected and the foreigners, media included, look at us shocked. Can’t these people even conduct a honest, peaceful election?

Snippets of the Past
My friend related some stories to me.

Dudley Senanayake was once advised to tell the country that he would somehow or other give rice to the people, to counter the grandiose promise of the opposition they’d get it from even the moon. He refused: I cannot lie to the people, never mind winning the elections.

Now its lie through the back teeth, hire thugs and goons and terrorize the voter, stuff the boxes full within two hours of the start of the poll, encourage every type of malpractice and then blame it all on the opposing side and paint oneself pure white.

I speak of no party. I take no party’s side. I just speak through utter disillusionment and a broken heart at what has happened to Sri Lanka, a state wilfully brought about by politicians and continuing to be aggravated. We definitely need not have this situation of democracy beings stifled.

D. S. Senanayake is criticized for arranging that his son succeed him as leader of the UNP and prime minister. But it may well have been the Governor of the time who appointed Dudley S. knowing full well the three who would hotly contest each other. Dudley is revered as honest and dedicated. He promoted the farmer and that is as it should be since Sri Lanka is basically agricultural. Remember it was said that he only had a couple of hundreds in his bank when he died.

John Kotelawela was outspoken and could brook neither fools nor fraud. He was a visiting lord of the manor, so to say, In Britain, but he always gave due consideration to the Sri Lankan peasant and worker.

They governed the country and we ordinary folk could lead our lives in comparative peace, confident they were honest and had our best interests at heart, not theirs.

Then came the people’s tide, encouraged by he who decreed the Sinhala only policy. The vedamahattaya, the school teacher - swabasha mostly, the farmer were made kings and uneasy lay the crown placed on these politically immature, bloated-by-sudden-recognition heads. Power went to the wrong hands and the government became one of chaos. Remember how some rotter sat on the speaker’s chair in Parliament and was considered great by the leader of the people? What we suffer now could be faced to that era. Unleash people power and lose control and you’ve had it.

The honesty and integrity of the government servant of those eras - pre 1956 - was legendary. To them service to the people was absolute and natural and they were honest.

My brother who was a first batch Divisional Revenue Officer scolded me only once in my life, and in sheer anger. It was when I borrowed an eraser from his office and forgot to return it. He said it was government property and I could not use it, leave alone take it.

Time was when public opinion was important and politicians changed their stance to tide unfavourable public reaction. We the public are now totally disregarded, even when our vote is due, since wooing is pre-empted by stuffing ballot boxes. We are treated like morons and told to fall in line.

The Emperor’s New Clothes
I watched the Independence Celebration (sic) on TV with a very young friend, aged about 12. As is a child’s habit, it became question time.

"Why are those people looking at their clocks? What are they waiting for".

"Her Excellency, the President’s arrival."

"Is she late? If I had to stand like those girls in the sun I would have fainted. Has her car met with an accident?"

"No, all roads are closed to traffic. She is UL."

"What does that mean. She can’t be Air Lanka surely."

"Aunty, why does the President look angry? She is scolding us. This is a birthday party so all should be happy."

"She is not scolding us. She is telling us not to give her sanctimonious advice. She says she gave us freedom of speech etc. though of course it is a people’s right."

"Aunty, she mentioned only her father. Shouldn’t she have mentioned D. S. Senanayake at least? His statue is there. Isn’t he the Father of the Nation? Luckily the lady who announced earlier gave us some history. The President should be telling us about the past and future plans."

"How correct you are, darling."

"I hate the word bheeshana. Is it an animal? Did the President get her Police to kill it?"

"It wasn’t killed. It is still much with us and being encouraged."

"I wish the President smiles like she used to do. Did she have a bad stay in Wayamba?"

"It was a child who saw that the emperor had no clothes on when all else were praising his imagined fine garments."

"I know that story! How he walked naked on the streets and then blamed the people and wanted them to admire clothes he didn’t have".

Words from the mouth of babes!!

The Beli or Gum-Apple tree

by Cecil V. Wikramanayake

"Bada yanakota Beli denava
Beli denakota Bada yanawa.
Thava denakota thava yanawa
Thava denakota nevathinawa"

When you purge you are given Beli
And you purge when given Beli.
Some more Beli and you purge some more.
Some more Beli and you purge no more.

Ayurvedic medical practitioners in ancient times memorised their prescriptions in the form of verses, like the one quoted above, for verse, as this writer has found himself, is easier to remember than prose.

This verse about the Beli fruit was chanted to him only once, when he was at the end of his teens, by the late Court Mudaliyar Muttucumarana of the Wella Usaviya, Matara, when this writer was a stenographer in that court. Now, well past the biblical span, he still remembers it.

But to get back to the Beli fruit. In Matara, as well as in other places, you will find that the ground around a Beli tree in the garden is kept swept and spotlessly clean. Early morning the flowers of the Beli tree that had fallen on to this swept area, are collected and boiled, for Beli Mal tea is considered a healthier substitute for that "cup that cheers but does not inebriate".

In India, the Beli is called "Bael" in Hindi, Marathi and Bengali. It is termed Muredu in Telegu, Bilva in Sanskrit and Bilvan or Vilvan in Tamil and Malayalam, the language of the people of Kerala.

The English called this fruit the Gum-Apple, perhaps to differentiate it from the Wood-Apple, which it resembles in size and shape, but not in colour, on account of the gummy substance round the seeds.

Both the Wood-Apple and the Beli possess a hard outer covering.

The Botanical name for the Beli is Aegie Marmelos of the family Rutaceae.

Both on the sub-continent and in this country, the Beli, like the coconut, is considered a valuable tree to have in your garden, for every part of the tree, also like the coconut, serves mankind.

The leaves of the Beli tree, apart from being used in worship among the Hindus, is used as a poultice for the treatment of ulcers.

Also the leaves, boiled and placed over the closed eyes, are said to soothe the eye and refresh it.

The juice of the fresh leaves form an excellent mild laxative in cases where the patient also runs a high temperature.

The Beli root, (as Harry Belafonte used to sing "like the Lily root, Golly root and the famous randy-scratch-scratch") is believed to cure palpitations of the heart and is also an antidote for snake-bite.

The bark of the Beli tree and the juice of its leaves are used together as a remedy for certain intestinal ailments, and the Beli fruit juice is popular in ayurveda, being used in many preparations.

The pectin and mucilage in the fruit is considered useful in curing diarrhoea, dysentery and similar problems. Eating the unripe or half-ripe fruit is said to improve ones appetite and aid digestion.

Apart from all this usefulness to man, or perhaps because of it, the Beli, in India at any rate, is considered one of the most sacred trees, like the Bo or Ficus Religiosia is in this country.

The Hindu god, Shiva and the goddess Parvati are believed to be very fond of this tree, which is usually planted near a Shiva temple. No worship of Shiva is said to be complete without an offering of Beli leaves.

It is said that Shiva is so fond of this tree that he is also known as "Bilvanandan".

Hindu mythology has many legends about the Beli tree. One such is that Shiva threw Beli seeds on the earth so that his favourite tree could flourish near his temples.

Another story is about a wicked hunter from Varanasi or Benares, who did not believe in god or gods and was an unrepentant sinner.

One day this hunter had failed to find food the whole day. Tired and hungry, he climbed a Beli tree that night to rest. As he rested, his moving this way and that caused leaves of the tree to fall, and they fell on a Shiva-lingam placed under the tree.

Inadvertently, the hunter had fulfilled all the requirements for a Shiva pooja. He had fasted the whole day, and had, without his knowing it, worshipped the "lingam" by scattering Beli leaves over it.

So the unrepentant hunter was redeemed of his sins and was granted salvation.

The Beli tree is also considered the abode of the goddess Lakshimi. The story goes that once her consort, Vishnu asked her why she did not bless certain Brahmins who were attached to the temple, despite their piety and goodness.

Lakshimi retorted that it was because they plucked the leaves off her tree, the Beli, and offered them to the god Shiva.

How like a woman !

Nature loving German
An example for Lankans to emulate

by Suresh P. Perera
Nestling among the misty hills is New Kendalanda estate, where an enterprising German has transformed a 40-acre extent of shrub jungle into lush vegetation in his quest to live close to nature. For Hans Koerper who had fought in the second world war, the battle to give a faceless terrain a proud identity was by no means a daunting task. He came, he saw and started to plant and build. That was in 1982. And today at Kendalanda estate, as it’s known, nature is at its best.

Along the meandering road, seven kilometers off the sleepy township of Urapola, is the scene of the explosion of greenery. Hans, a sprightly figure inspite of his 83 years, extends a warm hand of welcome. When he is hugging nature, he is a happy man. Scores of villagers scurry about keeping the estate in good shape.’

My profound love for tropical vegetation’, he beamed when asked why he opted to settle down in Sri Lanka.

Hans, an author of books on Botany, has travelled in more than 80 countries. ‘I have driven my Landrover tens of thousands of miles in South America. I also travelled widely in India. The choices at hand were many. I even considered moving into Philippines or India, but eventually I picked Sri Lanka because of its lush tropical vegetation’, he recalled.

Hans’ estate has Foreign Investment Advisory Committee (FIAC) status. A year after he embarked on the mammoth mission to make an abandoned shrub jungle productive, the 1983 racial riots broke out.

‘The wave of killings, looting and burning was a burden to the soul. But I held on. I am a guest in this country and I have to be silent. It’s not for me to dabble in politics and judge what other people are doing. I only see plenty of things which have to be avoided to make life pleasant’, he reasoned.

Around 50 villagers depend on Hans for their daily bread, working on his estate keep their home fires burning. The income he receives from Germany is pumped into the estate which is not making anything substantial as profits.

‘Unlike other projects in the country, Kendalanda estate is not taking money out. In fact, it’s bringing in funds from Germany for its daily operations’, explains P. D. E. Karunanayake, a retired Deputy Inspector General of Police, who serves as Assistant Managing Director.

There was a time when plants were marketed on a large scale and business was brisk. Those interested can still take the winding road to the hills where, under a green canopy of vegetation, the neatly fenced estate with its security barrier will come into focus. But whether people buy or not, it’s Hans’ income from a little company cultivating orchids and operating an aquarium in Germany which keeps his estate going.

Born during the first world war, Hans had been subsequently enlisted to the military. ‘It was the second world war and I was on the Russian front in freezing weather. I was discharged from the army in 1945. Ten years later I floated a company which employed 100 people, but in 1998, after a span of 43 years, I sold it. Wherever I went and whatever I did, my heart was with nature’, he reminisced.

To watch those trees grow demanded a tremendous effort as the soil was found to be poor. The rustic shrub jungle which Hans took over has been given new life. He has built an office and residential complex, plant nurseries and required structures in keeping with the natural setting. Hans is deeply in love with nature and wants to be an inalienable part of it.

Hans speaks fluent English for a German. Many are his contributions to the local English print media. A modest and unassuming human being hailing from Seniweg, Geretsried in Bavaria, he is one of those typical friendly Germans. Generous with his smiles and his genuine concern for nature, the environment and the people who inhabit it, has made him a popular personality among the local community.

To each of those who work for him, a monthly dry rations pack worth Rs. 1000/- is given gratis in addition to their salaries and annual bonuses.

Visiting Kendalanda estate up there in the hills was a refreshing experience. The rustling leaves, chirping birds and the gentle breeze were all an integral part of a natural scenario that urban folk can only afford to dream of.

Hans, like all Sri Lankans, is also eager to see peace in our country. ‘It’s a burden to the soul’, he says, ‘when there is no peace’.

To improve the economical aspect, he has set about putting up some guest bungalows on the estate. To attract tourists who are genuine nature lovers is his wish. He has dumped tens of millions of rupees on his estate and unlike other investors, Hans’ desire is not to see his money grow, but his trees.

The transmogrification this genial German has brought about to this unspoilt countryside is perhaps the finest tribute that could be paid to mother nature. At a time when the country’s forests are being raped and the illicit timber trade is thriving, a foreigner from a faraway land is growing more and more trees in a country that is not his. While Hans continue to devotedly nurture his plants and derive intense happiness watching them grow, some of our own people carry on regardless, destroying the forest cover and devastating the environment which is home to all of us.

The environmental degradation will go on and life will turn out to be increasingly difficult in a situation that’s silently sinking. It’s not for Hans to ‘comment’ and ‘judge’, as he says, because he is our guest. It’s left to us to draw a lesson from what he is doing for our little country.

Notwithstanding the descending gloom ‘outside’, at New Kendalanda estate Hans Koerper is silently looking after nature’s needs.

Perhaps, it’s a symbolic gesture of gratitude that the flowers there are in full bloom.

The Kovil and the Poosari

by Cecil V. Wikramanayake
Way back in 1989, a little Hindu shrine beside the waterfall that divides Dunsinane Estate from its neighbour Sheen, was just a little shrine. An altar, with a ‘lingam’ and little else to mark it as being different from the other shrines that dot the up-country estate area.

Passers by would stop at this little shrine, worship and pass on, content that they had done their duty by their gods.

Then, a labourer on Dunsinane Estate, with a religious bent, a wife and five children, the older of the two of whom were boys, decided that he would leave the bread-winning to his wife, who was a tea plucker, and would devote his time to serving his gods.

With more than the recommended number of children already born to him by his wife Janaki, Shanmugam, rather than have his wife undergo an operation to curtail their family, had a vasectomy performed on him.

When he felt the time was ripe, Shanmugam approached the Manager of the estate with a request that he function as Poosari at this little shrine. The Manager readily gave him the authority to do so, also very generously allotting to the shrine that little bit of unfertile ground around the shrine.

There was a huge Eucalyptus tree beside the road in front of the shrine, but little else that could be called vegetation.

Shanmugam went to work on his new assignment. I was there shortly after he began functioning as a Poosari at this shrine, and took a picture of a Pooja in progress.

Amazingly, my photograph, when printed, showed a couple of huge cobras on either side of the altar, with hoods spread open. At the time I focussed my camera on the shrine there were no snakes of any kind to be seen.

When I took my picture they had appeared, goodness knows from where, and there they remained till the pooja was over, when they both slithered away, swam across the pool at the bottom of the waterfall and disappeared into the undergrowth on the Sheen side.

From that day on, worshippers would place a couple of eggs on the altar, sometimes a shallow bowl full of milk. And the cobras would accept their offering, carrying the eggs away and drinking from the bowl of milk.

I was then living at Dunsinane, in the lower division with the woman who is now my wife and the mother of my little son Gautham. I would often come down from the Lower division to this kovil to observe the cobras basking in the sunshine before swimming across the pool to what looked like a cave just below the top of the waterfall, on the Sheen side.

Being a bit of a poetaster, I would sit on a rock near the shrine and scribble away doggerel that came to me via the Muse.

One such was :

The green, green hills are calling
Those beautiful carpets of green
Where the water’s steeply falling
As it rushes along beside ‘Sheen’.

Past Dunsinane’s reputed Kovil
Where cobras will come to the shrin
And worship the gods with the people
Who claim they are godlings divine.

Over the years Shanmugam toiled, single-handed, in building up the little shrine into a Kovil worthy of "Karumariamma’. He only spent the money that was put into the till by devotees for this purpose, asking money from no one. He bought a few bags of cement with the first offering. Found sand from the stream below. Then he set about building cement bricks.

A carpenter in Punduloya, coming to worship there one day, volunteered to make him some frames out of wood for brick-making. He accepted it gratefully. His brick building speeded up.

Having worked on the estate in various capacities, he was quite adept as a carpenter, mason and what-have-you. Little by little the shrine grew bigger.

His sister Saraswathie, who had the gift of goddess Karumariamma possessing her when in a trance, after which she would cure people of their ailments as well as perform other things that were considered miracles, added to the fame of this Kovil when she became the first woman in that district and perhaps elsewhere, to walk the fire in front of the Kovil some seven or eight years ago.

Saraswathie followed this up the following year by performing the "Paravi Kavadi" when she was pierced, while in a trance of course, by hooks, hung up twenty feet above the ground on one end of a ladder which was affixed to a tractor, and taken from a spot about a mile from the Kovil, along the winding road, past the labourers’ quarters, to the kovil, where she again walked the fire after she was taken down from the scaffolding.

On this occasion, word had gone round the estates, and the Manager of Dunsinane, a Tamil and a Hindu, himself offered a pooja at this kovil.

Not long ago, I went up again to Dunsinane with my wife and child to spend "Thai Pongal" with her daughter and family. It was my first visit there after about four years.

I could hardly recognise the Kovil at which I had once photographed the cobras at the altar. And even as we stopped there to pay homage to my wife’s personal goddess, Karumariamma, I could see Shanmugam, wearing only a white sarong tucked up, hard at work erecting a wall between the flowing water and the Kovil.

He stopped work and came forward to greet us in the traditional manner.

"Don’t you have anyone to help you?" I asked him.

"It is not necessary " replied Shanmugam. "I have all the time in the world to devote to the gods. My wife is here to help me. We have built a little room beside the Kovil for us to sleep. My children are all married and settled down. So why do I need anyone to help me?"

Shanmugam told me that the reputation of this Kovil, for the answering of prayers, has spread far and wide. So much so that pilgrims to Kataragama who travel through Nuwara Eliya and Ella along the road from Watagoda, make it a point to stop at this Kovil to offer a pooja, often spending as much as a couple of hours here.

From the kovil we walked up the 159 steps (a short-cut) and walked from there along to road to the Lower division to my step-daughter’s quarters, past the kovil near her place. That kovil too comes under the aegis of the estate. But with this difference the management of the estate, which collects a subscription from the workers for religious purposes, gives that money to this kovil for its maintenance, upkeep and development.

But I saw no development there. If there was, it was negligible compared to the kovil down below, by the waterfall.

Devotion to ones religion is rare today. Most people are content to pay lip-service, while paying greater attention to that commodity which has often been referred to as "God’s younger brother".

To find a man like Shanmugam these days is rare, and deserves to go down in posterity. Don’t you agree ?

Jinadasa vs the Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd., (ANCL)

The Supreme Court last week held that the fundamental rights of a senior Lake House employee, Mr. B. A. Jinadasa, had been violated by The Associated newspapers of Ceylon Limited (ANCL).

Dr. A. R. B. Amerasinghe with Justices Priyantha Perera and Shiranee Bandaranayake agreeing, found no rational explanation for ANCL’s conduct in terminating Jinadasa’s services as secretary of the company. It also said that there are no reasonable grounds for reversing the company’s earlier decision to designate Jinadasa as General Manager/Secretary of the company.

"The decision to terminate the services of the petitioner’s was in my view therefore purely dependent on the will and pleasure of the first respondent (ANCL) and capricious and not restrained by considerations of impartial, even handed dealing", the judgment said.

The text of the judgment is reproduced here:

The first respondent is the Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd. Although in their statement of objections the respondents submitted that the first respondent was "not a state instrument’ whose actions constitute executive or administrative action within the meaning of Article 126 of the Constitution", learned Counsel for the respondents stated that he was not taking up that objection and would rest his case on the facts relating to the alleged discrimination which were claimed by the petitioner to have violated his fundamental rights guaranteed by Articles 12 and 14(1) (g) of the Constitution.

The Secretary of the first respondent, was on extended service and on his way out. His post had to be filled, and when it was advertised, the petitioner was appointed Additional Secretary with effect from 03 May 1988. Upon the retirement of the Secretary, the petitioner was appointed Acting Secretary and Secretary in 1989. In their statement of objections, the respondents stated: "the Petitioner was selected for employment by the 1st respondent because he was the only candidate who turned up for the interview. He was recruited not on his merits but because the 1st respondent had no other choice."

Petitioner

The petitioner had a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics (Special) from the University of Ceylon: he was an Attorney-at-Law; a registered Company Secretary under the Companies Act; the holder of a Master’s Degree in International Relations from the University of Colombo and a Certificate in Diplomatic Training from the Bandaranaike Institute of Diplomatic Training; and he had been an external Consultant in Management for the National Institute of Business Management, Manager/Legal at the State Trading Corporation, Company Secretary/Legal Advisor, St. Anthony’s Group of Companies. His work as Assistant Secretary of the Sri Lanka National Salt Corporation had been highly commended by the Chairman of that Corporation. Documents FR1 and FR2 produced by the respondents establish that only one of five candidates summoned for the interview "turned up". According to those documents some person wished to see the petitioner, which he presumably did and satisfied himself about the petitioner’s suitability. There is a comment that "His spelling is not very good", but in another minute it is stated: "He seems good material, and will surely improve on his spelling."

The choice of the petitioner for appointment was, seems, appropriate. On the 18th of August 1995 the petitioner was, in terms of a "notice" issued under the hand of the Director/(Operations and Legal) appointed General Manager. (See also the letter of the Director/Operations and Legal dated the 18th of August 1995).

On the 31st of March 1997, the Chairman of the first respondent informed the petitioner that the "Management" had decided to place him in the "Special Grade" at a specified salary point "with effect from 01st January 1997."

On the 5th of January 1998, the Chief Executive Officer of the first respondent informed the petitioner, identifying him as "General Manager/Secretary", (vide P9) that the petitioner’s salary had been increased with effect from the 01st of January 1998.

I believe one’s salary is ordinarily increased and a person is upgraded if an employee’s work and conduct are, upon a proper evaluation based upon laid down procedures, proved to be satisfactory.

According to the respondents, the Board of Directors of 1st respondent decided at its Board meeting held on the 6th of April 1998 to terminate the services of the petitioner as the Secretary of the 1st respondent (vide P97), because, it was alleged, that the Board had lost trust and confidence in the petitioner and were wary about allowing such an important post to be held by the petitioner. It was said that "the 1st respondent is a commercial establishment which cannot function with the petitioner as the Company Secretary who has failed to secure the trust and confidence of the Board of Directors."

It would appear that the only grounds for the alleged lack of trust and confidence were based on the following matters:

1. It is alleged that the petitioner was warned on the 2nd of August 1990 by the then General Manager for leaving the office without informing anyone of his whereabouts. (7R9). There was an end to that matter, for subsequently on the 16th of August 1995 the petitioner was appointed General Manager and on the 1st of January 1997 he was promoted to the Special Grade in Executive Group A and in January 1998 he was given an increased salary. The 1990 episode could in the circumstances hardly be regarded a ground for a lack of trust and confidence in April 1998 considering the intervening events.

2. It is alleged that on the 19th of April 1991, the Director/Financial Consultant alleged negligence and irresponsibility on the part of the petitioner. On the 26th of April 1991, the petitioner explained the circumstances of the matters on which the allegations of negligence and irresponsibility were based. It would appear that the Director-Financial Consultant was not satisfied with the petitioner’s explanation and felt it necessary to refer the matter to the Board for disciplinary action. On the 23rd of May 1991 the petitioner discussed the matter with the Director/Financial Consultant, offered him his apologies, requested him to explain matters to the Chairman and there was an end to that matter for as we have seen the petitioner was subsequently made General Manager, promoted to the Special Grade and give salary increases.

Secretariat

3. The next matter relates to delay in taking action on a letter from the Labour Secretariat. The letter had been received at 1400 hours on the 26th of August 1991 by the General Administration Department and minuted to the petitioner who, however, did not recollect seeing the letter before he went on leave the next day. The letter related to a matter that was not within his purview. Nevertheless it was found that "he should have cleared his tray of all correspondence before leaving office on the 26th...." It was recommended that the petitioner "be reprimanded for his lack of responsibility." That was the end of that matter for, as we have seen the petitioner was subsequently made General Manager, promoted to the Special Grade and given salary increases.

Misconduct

4. There was the Abeyratne case. It is alleged that on the 11th of July 1996 the petitioner had been warned for misconduct. The matter arose from the interdiction of Mr. Anura Abeyratne. The petitioner’s fault, it seems, was that he had instructed the Manager/Personal & Administration to fix a formal inquiry on the 28th of June, 1996, without reference to the Director/Operations & Legal and that the Inquiring Officer selected had been from the Panel appointed by the previous management". It is said that "the Board directed that the General Manager/Secretary, Mr. B. A. Jinadasa should be warned that he should refrain from repeating such actions in the future." There is nothing to show why the petitioner was in any way guilty of misconduct by fixing an inquiry without reference to the Director/Operations and Legal or by referring the matter to the Panel approved by the previous management. It might also be mentioned that although the case in the Labour Tribunal instituted by Mr. Abeyratne was settled and he was reinstated at the instance of the Chairman, yet there was nothing to show misconduct on the part of the petitioner. It is pertinent to reproduce the observations of Mr. Percy Wickremasekera. Director/Legal Consultant of the first respondent to its Chairman at that time, on his decision to settle Abeyratne’s case: "I understand that you have called the Legal Officer and given her orders regarding the Labour Tribunal case filed by Mr. Anura Abeyratne. Since you are not the Director Legal nor even a person with any knowledge or understanding of Law or Legal matters your action is all the more damaging to the Company’s interests. Regarding this case there is a decision of the Board and all you have to do is to abide by the decision and not act in an indecent haste. You must also know and understand that professionals such as Lawyers cannot be ordered to act against their conscience. Therefore this is to request you not to interfere with the work of the Legal Division as you are neither competent nor knowledgeable to do so." In any event, the Abeyratne matter was at an end and the petitioner was subsequently promoted to the special grade and given salary increases.

5. The next matter related to a complaint in February 1997 by Mr. Anthony M. E. Fernando who had alleged that at an interview for the selection of a freelance advertising canvasser the petitioner had asked Fernando whether he was trying to intimidate the panel by forwarding his application through the Deputy Minister of Media and Information and whether he hoped to obtain the support of the Deputy Minister’s people to sustain his canvassing programme. (7R34).

6. It was who alleged that "Without the prior knowledge and authority of the Company and although he is not a journalist, Mr. Jinadasa had been a member of the Sri Lanka delegation to the Indian Journalists Association Congress held in India recently." (7R15).

Although the Board had decided on the 22nd of January 1997 to place the petitioner on the Special Grade and to increase his salary, on the 19th of March 1997, the Board decided not to implement the decision in view of the matters referred to at (5) and (6) above. It was recorded in the Board minutes that "The Directors agreed that greater integrity is expected from a person holding the position of General Manager such as Mr. Jinadasa." In their Statement of Objections, the respondents stated that the petitioner’s promotion and salary increment were withheld for misconduct. In fact the halting of the promotion and the withholding of the salary increment were only temporary, for the Board, noting that the issue regarding the complaint by Fernando had been "settled" and that the newspaper which carried an article alleging that the petitioner had been a member of the delegation to India had been corrected by the newspaper, implemented the decision of the board dated the 22nd of January 1997. (P138A).

What was it that had happened since the petitioner’s salary as General Manager/Secretary had been increased on the 1st of January 1998 that warranted a conclusion that the petitioner’s conduct lead to any loss of faith or confidence in the petitioner or want of reliance on what he said or did? What was there to doubt the credence of what the petitioner had stated in his advice on various matters? In my view, the evidence does not show any reason to conclude that the decision of the Board on the 6th of April 1998 was warranted. On the other hand, there were letters produced in evidence from former Chairmen of the first respondent as well as from the present Chairman, commending the work of the petitioner.

The grounds for the action of the respondents as set out in paragraph 13 of the respondents’ statement of objections cannot be regarded as the justification for the respondents’ decision, for they, among other things, took place before the increase of the petitioner’s salary as General Manager/Secretary on 1st of January 1998. Past charges were either mistaken or lapses forgiven and they were therefore irrelevant when the respondents decided to terminate the petitioner’s services.

I can find no rational explanation for the conduct of the respondents in terminating the petitioner’s services as Secretary of the Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Limited. Nor are there any reasonable grounds for reversing its earlier decision to designate the petitioner as General Manager/Secretary. The decision to terminate the petitioner’s services was in my view therefore purely dependent on the will and pleasure of the 1st respondent and capricious and not restrained by considerations of impartial, even-handed dealing. I therefore declare that the petitioner’s rights guaranteed by Article 12(1) of the Constitution have been violated by the termination of his services.

However, there is in my view no evidence to support the allegation that Article 12(2) of the Constitution has been violated. As pointed out by the respondents, the petitioner’s appointment as General Manager/Secretary on the 16th of August 1995, his promotion to a higher grade on the 1st of January 1997, and his salary increment on the 1st of January 1998 took place under the present government. Moreover, the present Chairman had given him a letter of commendation on the 27th of November 1997.

The decision of the Board of Directors of the first respondent dated the 6th of April 1998 terminating the appointment of the petitioner as Secretary of the Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd., is set side.

I make order that the petitioner shall continue to be designated as General Manager/Secretary although it was a matter within the competence of the Board of the first respondent for the sake of good management to decide whether there should additionally be a Chief Executive Officer and to allocate such duties to the Chief Executive Officer and to the General Manager/Secretary as the Board deemed fit.

The first respondent is ordered to pay the petitioner a sum of Rs. 75,000 as compensation and Rs. 25,000 as costs.

Before I part with this judgment I should like to refer to the fact that the Brief in this case, as in many others, ran into many hundreds of pages. There was no orderly arrangement of the documents, and, therefore, it was necessary for much time to be taken to locate documents cited by Counsel during the hearing. In such a situation, the adverse effect on the efforts of Counsel in presenting his or her case and the difficulty for judges in following submissions are obvious. I would respectfully recommend that due consideration be given to the making of appropriate rules with regard to the preparation of judges’ briefs prior to argument.

Goan Priests in Sri Lanka

by Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya
The Christian Church was established in Sri Lanka by the Portuguese. The people in Mannar invited Saint Francis Xavier who was in India at that time. His kind and considerate ways had won over many converts. He could not accept the invitation but sent a representative who made voluntary conversions. Missionary activity began in 1543 under Friar Joao Vila de Conde, after an invitation from the King of Kotte, Bhuvenekabahu VII (1521-1551), who had suzerainty over the other two kingdoms, Kandy and Jaffna. Bhuvenekabahu’s grandson, Dharmapala was baptized Dom Joao who became known as Don Juvan Dharmapala (1551-97). Thus a Christian King sat on the Sinhalese throne breaking a 2,000 year-old tradition.

The new converts had to acquire Portuguese surnames and a Christian name at baptism, and also had to adopt Portuguese customs. The Church in Sri Lanka was a microcosm of the Church in Portugal. The Portuguese did not, however, train an indigenous clergy and made no attempt to adapt the Church to the conditions prevailing in the island. It is therefore not surprising that when the Dutch took over (in 1658) and maltreated the Roman Catholics and forced conversions to the Calvinist faith, the Catholic Church rocked and tumbled and fell to its foundations. Konkani mother-tongue speaking Goan priests stepped into rescue Catholicism in the island during this crisis, a practice which continued for a period of 150 years.

The enduring work of Father Joseph Vaz is now being recognized by the Vatican. The Catholics in Sri Lanka, however, already regard him as a Saint, who was sent for their salvation and he is known as the ‘Apostle of Ceylon’. Father Joseph Vaz came to the island in 1687 and worked single-handedly for 10 years. His personal qualities which included simplicity, humbleness, charitability, zealousness and patience enabled him to make an immense contribution. According to Father S. G. Perera, a reputed historian, the most striking feature in Father Vaz’s life was his complete trust in Providence and the prudential manner in which God guided him throughout his missionary life. Father Vaz began to erect chapels and kept someone in charge of them in order to instruct the young and to read devotions on Sundays and feast days. In 1696, he was appointed Vicar General for Cochin with jurisdiction over the entire island of Sri Lanka. Towards the end of 1696, two other priests from the Goa Oratory, Father Joseph de Menezes and Father Joseph Cavalho came to assist Father Vaz in Sri Lanka.

Father Vaz recognized the need to indigenise the Catholic Church. He made the indigenous languages the medium of evangelisation and ensured that his companions learnt them. More importantly, he requested Father Jacome Gonsalvez who came to the island in 1705 to devote his time solely to creating a vernacular Catholic literature. Father Gonsalvez is considered to be the ‘Father of Sinhala Catholic Literature’, the founder of Sinhala-Christian hymnology and a pioneer of Passion Plays. The Devaveda puranaya (a compendium of the Holy Bible and of the Catholic theology) is his magnum opus. The Vedakavaya (a poem of 537 stanzas on the same theme as the former) is his equivalent composition in verse. His 20 Sinhala literary works are testimony to his attempt to indigenize Catholicism in Sri Lanka. They also speak for his poetic ability and mastery of Sinhala. He knew Portuguese and mastered Sinhala, Tamil and Dutch in Sri Lanka. He ensured that his works were disseminated and engaged scribes to make copies on palm (ola) leaves for this purpose.

Father Gonsalvez’s achievement in creating a Sinhala Catholic literature from scratch under such grave conditions is quite remarkable.

The Dutch prohibited Catholic Priests, the Practice of Catholicism and Catholic Marriages. The Catholics had to meet in each other’s houses to practice their faith. Many Catholics took refuge offered by the Sinhalese King in the Kandyan kingdom, and Kandy became the headquarters of the Catholic Church. The British, who followed the Dutch, officially recognized the Catholic Church. In fact, Sri Lanka was the first country under British rule to liberate the Catholics. Today, there are several denominations of Christians in the island but the Catholics are the majority.

Sri Lanka was originally attached to the Society of Jesuits’ Province of Goa. In 1601 the Society’s new southern province of Malabar was created with its headquarters in Cochin. In 1838, Vicente do Rosayro, a Goan, became the first Bishop of Sri Lanka, when it became an autonomic ecclesiastical territory detached from Cochin.

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