SOME CHILDREN OF FIFTY SIX
"Panas Haye Daruwo" (The Children of fifty six) was the title of the Bandaranaike memorial lecture I delivered in September 1989. I consider myself to be a child of fifty six, and when the then secretary of the S.L.F.P. Mr. J. R. P. Sooriyapperuma wanted the title of the lecture I did not have to think twice to come out with "Panas Haye Daruwo". I do not think that Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse who was then chairman of the Bandaranaike commemoration committee had any problem with the title as he himself, like Ms. Chandrika Kumaratunga and Messrs. Dinesh Gunawardhane and Indika Gunawardhane are children of fifty six in more than one way. In my lecture I dealt with the JVP as well whose members also I consider to be children of fifty six. It was at the height of the "bheeshanaya" and I was not in the good books of either the government of Mr. Premadasa or of the J. V. P. Few months later Mr. Wijeweera was killed and people forgot about the children of fifty six, and the phrase though I occasionally mentioned "panas haye daruwo" in my articles to Sunday Divaina.
Last week two of my friends who were among the defectors from the PA to the UNP, referred to themselves as "panas haye daruwo" and not surprisingly gave the MOU between the children of fifty six in PA and in the JVP as one of the reasons for their defection. These two children of fifty six are none other than Mr. S. B. Dissanayake educated at Poramadulla Madhya Maha Vidyalaya and Mr. Bandula Gunawardhane who had his secondary school education at Lumbini Maha Vidyalaya. Both were undergraduates at the then Vidyodadaya Vishvavidyalaya, presently called the University of Sri Jayawardhanapura, established by the MEP government of fifty six. I must say that I am grateful to them, among others, for trying to do something, though unsuccessfully, to rectify some of the unfair consequences of an injustice done nine years ago by the chief defector when he was in the same side he finds himself now. A third child of fifty six, by the name of Mahinda Wijesekera who was also at Vidyodaya and a student leader of the JVP in the late sixties defected the PA with the others. Mr. Wijesekera was the leader at Vidyodaya, when Mr. G. I. D. Dharmasekera, another child of fifty six was the student leader at Vidyalankara. Mr. Dharmasekera who later joined the MEP and contested unsuccessfully in the Kalutara District is now an Angarika having left party politics altogether. The Chief defector to the UNP last week was never a child of fifty six though he was in the S. L. F. P. for more than seven years and it was saddening to see the three children of fifty six mentioned above going to the wrong "home" with a child of Jennings, again in more than one way. For the child of Jennings it was going back home, having "done" his job. Undoubtedly he is welcome there but the three children of fifty six, after the initial welcome parties would find it extremely difficult with step motherly treatment they are bound to experience.
Many people would blame fifty six for many things. Even the Sinhala Commission appointed by the National Joint Committee of Sinhala Associations blame the government of fifty six and later S. L. F. P. dominated governments for nationalisations and thus weakening the Sinhala "entrepreneur class", if there was such a class. The Sinhalas as a nation are not rational in Weber's or anybody else's sense and capitalism though they do not realise is "foreign" to them just as much very abstract disciplines are not to their liking. (This is true in general in South Asia.) I have no intention of attacking the Sinhala Commission report which has been criticised by people like Drs. Gananatha Obeysekera and Sasanka Perera, who after their training in western Sociology could not be considered as children of fifty six by any stretch of imagination, (the former due to his age as well, neither Dr. Gunadasa Amarasekera qualifies to be a child of fifty six due to his age. Also a training in western Sociology or any other western discipline, alone does not disqualify one of being a child of fifty six. A person like Dr. Gunadasa Amarasekera had the courage and the intuition to break away from the western literary criticism he had been associated with for many years.) though they may be having some parental or grand parental links with the Sinhala Physicians. I am talking of children of fifty six and not of children of every Sinhala school teacher, Sinhala physician though fifty six is associated with the "pancha maha balawegaya." I would neither attack nor defend the Sinhala Commission report but simply state that I do not agree with some of its "findings".
However, I am glad that neither Mr. S. B. Dissanayake nor Mr. Bandula Gunawardhane has blamed the fifty six government and in fact they have made it clear that they were able to "come up" in the society due to fifty six. The MEP government of fifty six and the subsequent SLFP led governments have made mistakes and it was mainly due to not having national theories and concepts on running a government. They have had to depend on either western liberal or Marxist theories and concepts and from the very beginning there have been contradictions. As. Dr. Gunadasa Amarasekera has aptly described by the word "kavandhaya" the S. L. F. P. is a body without a head. It is up to those children of fifty six and others, who have analytical and creative minds to provide the head. However, it takes sometime and we should not be disturbed by what has happened over the last forty five years or so. I know that the growth rate is a mere 0.4% but we should not be deceived by these statistics. The western culture tries to present everything from expansion of the universe to economic growth via beauty of women and sports in terms of numbers but we know that there are so many things in the universe that the numbers are not capable of describing. The numbers are not objective as they are claimed to be. The numbers as well as their usefulness is relative. The decisions of how many cricket matches, especially limited over matches would have been altered if five runs were given to each boundary scored instead of the present four runs and eight runs were awarded to a present "sixer"? Similarly the decisions of rugby football matches would have been changed if the points were awarded on a different scheme. A number is just another concept created by people and I must warn the readers that the western numbers are somewhat more abstract than the numbers found in Bharat Mathematics and the westerners like to attach an objectiveness to number readings. In any event the western society is too much pre occupied with numbers trying to "measure" economic success also with the number of telephones per thousand people etc. When Newtonian Physics cannot explain everything in a "simple" discipline like Physics, it is futile to expect a Newtonian Economics (Economics in a Newtonian paradigm) to explain phenomena that arise in a more "complicated" discipline like Economics. I am not trying to say that our economy is healthy, and all that I would like to emphasise is that we should not go by the western yard sticks to "measure" our success.
The PA government that was elected in 2000 had a tough time from the very beginning. Ms. Kumaratunga may be the most unpunctual lady in the whole world and she may not be the most methodical person in the country. She may have mismanaged the country but the PA government did not fall for those reasons. After all, the defectors from the S. L. F. P. (that excludes Mr. Bandula Gunawardhane) including the chief defector (Pied Piper) had tolerated Ms. Kumaratunga for seven whole years and they would not be able to convince me that it took seven years for them to realise these "qualities" of Ms. Kumaratunga. I would not listen to them either, even if they were to tell me that they tolerated her for seven years because they loved the S. L. F. P. and wanted to do a service by the people. If we love a person or an institution we do not desert them though we may have arguments and disagreements occasionally. How many mothers would desert their children?
How many foreign "experts" wanted the PA to win at the last general elections? At that time I was in Malawi having gone there with my best friend, girl friend and wife (who happens to be the same person!), who would not desert me in spite of not doing a job for the last nine years, and I had the time to listen to the "objective" reporters of the BBC. Just two days before the elections one of them in his so called analysis of the Sri Lankan political situation said that the UNP was expected to win the elections. It was obvious that they were expecting the UNP to win. However, it was not to be so, and the non national forces since then had been trying topple the PA government. In 1994, the non national forces supported the PA led by Ms. Kumaratunga, as they had a job to be done by the PA. A person was sent from the UNP to the SLFP, with the connivance of late Dr. Neelan Thiruchelvam to present the package. However, due to the strength of the national forces the objective was not achieved and by 1997 the non national forces were gradually deserting the PA. Lium Fox agreement was basically for the UNP and Solheim was only preparing the ground for future negotiations between the LTTE and a UNP government. The results of the October 2000 general elections were unexpected and since then it was a case of making things difficult for the PA to carry on. Mr. Hakeem was used first, but the MOU between the children of fifty six in the PA and the JVP was the least the non national forces expected. At that time in these columns we wrote:
"We do not know how long this "alliance" between the SLFP and the JVP would last, but it augurs well for the future of the country. Though the leaders of the two parties, who are still guided by western liberalism and Marxism, may not think so the "alliance" brings together the national forces in the country. The non national forces will do everything possible to topple the "probationary" government and bring back the UNP, the main party of the non national forces. The "probationary" government is something that they would never have dreamt of and the condition put forward by the JVP to the effect that there should not be any talks with the LTTE would not be to the liking of the western powers and Tamil racism............The non national forces have no interest in a SLFP led coalition and we predicted long ago as far back as in 1994, that if the PA fails to satisfy Tamil racism they would be kicked out. The non national forces in 1994 supported the PA for one and only one reason, namely to establish a federal state through the so-called package. The mission of the "intellectuals" and others who were sent to the SLFP in 1994, to draft a new constitution is over and it is time for them to go back home to the fold of the UNP, a mission unaccomplished"
It is very clear that the clauses of the MOU were not to the liking of the non national forces and Tamil racists. It was not only the big business people who had taken "bank loans" who wanted to topple the government. The anti Sinhala Buddhist, born again Christians who lead the business community, the peace corps, the NGOs, the sama mudalalis and the LTTE, the foreign embassies, some leading priests of the Catholic church and some Christian churches all wanted to see the end of the PA government. According to the defense correspondent of the "Sunday Island" the LTTE is expecting to commence negotiations with a UNP government (14th October 2001). With their so called non negotiable conditions only a confederation would result from such talks. LTTE clearly wants the UNP to win. It is beyond any doubt that the "sama mudalalis" who lead the business community prefer the LTTE to the JVP. They are prepared to talk with the LTTE and they hold hands for "peace" but they would not hold hands with the JVP. It is also clear that in spite of the Marxist jargon they use the JVP is essentially Sinhala Buddhist and its members are children of fifty six. The LTTE on the other hand is Tamil Christian (not Tamil Hindu) ideologically (they are also children of Jennings), and the anti Sinhala Buddhist non national forces have no hesitation to hold hands with them. The non national forces through their agent in the PA (he has now gone back to the UNP) have been able to drive a wedge between some children of fifty six who defected to the UNP and the other children of fifty six. It is unfortunate that those few have gone to the home of the children of Jennings. The politics in this country for some time will, in general, revolve around the "battle" between the children of fifty six and the children of Jennings.
Professor Nalin de Silva
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