75th Independence Day

The first session of Parliament after Sri Lanka gained Independence was on the 10th of February 1948. There was huge excitement among school children like myself who were among those chosen to line the stairs of the House of Parliament (the old one) for the ceremonial opening by His Royal Highness, the Duke of Gloucester.

There was a sort of electricity in the air. Independence was virtually the only topic of conversation among adults during the preceding six months and although my contemporaries and I were still pre-teens, the atmosphere even among youngsters was exciting – even exalting. Without a doubt the hopes and dreams of our first Cabinet of Ministers were laudable, sincere and eminently well meaning.

Despite the war, Sri Lanka (still Ceylon) had enjoyed a calm government. Used to British systems of governance we imagined that a switch over to a national government would simply extend this efficiency of daily living under the control of the Ceylonese. We certainly never dreamt of today’s debacle. Were our founding fathers alive on this 75th anniversary would they recognize this hungry, bloodstained, desperate and bankrupt island as the one they so blithely accepted as being the best success story in all of Asia?

Our first government consisted of honourable, liberal minded, decent, upright men. They had entered politics as genuine patriots sincerely desiring to keep Sri Lanka a prosperous and united land. Unlike the politicians of today they were well educated or at least experienced men. They did not join governmental parties for personal gain as do the modern politicians of today. They were sincere in their beliefs and the country was content. All four main races of Sri Lanka were well represented by exceptionally good men. There was unity among them to start with and this unity was felt all over the island….or so we thought. I will take Matara – a town in the south – as an example of this unity. Matara was ruled by the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British. Its citizens were Sinhalese. Tamils, Burghers and Muslims, who mixed indiscriminately, went to the same schools, invited each other to celebrate their holy days, did business with each other and mixed socially. The question of separation among its citizens never entered anyone’s head. (Knowledge by courtesy of a highly honourable government servant from Matara)

While it is true that the British divided and ruled their Empire, it was something we could have easily handled at the time of Independence if we had not made the fatal mistake of further dividing ourselves into language streams. Our leaders meant well but our educational policies were not governed by the same sensible views as were the Indian educational policies.

The education policies of our first government sounded the death knell of future unity. In spite of sociologists and educationists sounding warning bells the Cabinet went ahead arbitrarily forcing future students into pre-chosen streams of language depending on their birth. The division of Ceylon had begun then. (It was only rushed into immediate application by Mr. S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike’s 24 hour switch) And here we are, 75 years later, after a dreadful civil war, trying to climb out of a deep, dark hole we were forced into by the actions of that first Cabinet of well intentioned men who were going to bring in Sinhala Only but at a later date..

Literally thousands or words have been written on the appalling and unnecessary tragedy in which Sri Lanka now finds itself. We have earned the contempt of the world and our national pride is at zero as we go begging for money while doing nothing to punish the blatant corruption of those who landed us in this quagmire in the first place. Sadly, such men are still around.

We have to make a comparision with India at this stage. How has India become one of the world’s leading nations while we are at rock bottom after our dazzling beginnings? D.S. Senanayake was no Nehru but his basic common sense resulted in many successful schemes. A false national pride, however, was no match against the Sinhala chauvinists in succeeding Cabinets. A newly empowered class of Sinhala/buddhist chauvinists were brought in by Mr. S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike and I quote here an extract from Canon de Saram’s speech at the S. Thomas’ Prize Day in 1958 when he called him “a man with much cleverness but little wisdom who is prepared to sacrifice the peace and prosperity of the nation to gain petty and personal triumph.” S.W.R.D. had to let the comment pass, “As the era of political thuggery to silence government critics had not dawned,” said a later commentator.

I reduce our present tragic state to one single factor. This may be considered oversimplification but in my mind there is no doubt that the demotion of English to second class status was the ONE main cause of ALL ensuing problems. The ONE UNIFYING factor was removed by the downright blindness of men who simply did not understand how to hold a few million people together while India has united a subcontinent in its drive to general prosperity and success. The language issue in India was handled tactfully while the maladroit manner of the Sri Lankan politicians could not have been greater.

When Sri Lanka switched to making Sinhalese and Tamil the mediums of instruction it was setting the stage for division and disunity. There is something liberalising about the English language. I cannot say why, but experts have agreed it is so. India wisely allowed English to continue being available to those who wished to study in it allowing her people choices while making Hindi a compulsory subject. The result has been stupendous. The retaining of English has contributed to the unity of a highly multi-racial country. For instance, it has liberalized their ingrained caste system. There have been both Muslims and Hindus as presidents of India. Sri Lanka has had only Sinhala Buddhists in that august office.

The Indian Constitution was written by Dr. Ambedkar of the untouchable caste. India’s present President is an educated woman from one of India’s lowest tribal caste villages. And all this was possible because of the unifying influence of English. The Sinhala chauvinists can disagree with me, as they usually do, but what better proof is there than the tragedy of Sri Lanka today? Thanks to a stupid belief that native language boosts patriotism, we have our people being forced to study in a language spoken ONLY by a few million people. I think it is an undisputed fact that if our clever race of Sri Lankans were given a choice the majority would choose English as their medium of instruction. J.R. Jayawardena’s disastrous Constitution further set the stage for today’s debacle. Since then every high handed action of the party in power is somehow declared ‘legal’. Laws are interpreted to suit a Parliament that is now afraid to face an election. 75 years ago our confidence in the future was unbounded. Today we are a frightened, desperate people. We have no confidence in our parliamentarians who are so out of touch with reality that the members imagine they STILL have the support of the people. Do they not HEAR the rising voices of anger? Are they deaf to the cries of fear? How can they disregard the daily protest marches of all sections of society? Are they insensitive to the undercurrent of sheer hate that surrounds them?

I must make a point of mentioning Education. It has always been my prime concern and seeing its appalling state has been heartbreaking. We can fool ourselves that we are ‘literate’. Being able to read and write a little does not make us an educated nation. We are an extremely poorly educated people. Our government schools are badly financed and badly run. Principals and teachers are regularly in the news for misconduct and corruption. Our universities are probably among the worst anywhere (They were among the best 70 years ago).

Among the many, many mistakes we made perhaps one of the worst was the disbanding of the Civil Service. Our Civil Servants were a group of highly educated and incorruptible men who played no part in politics. They served any minister and whatever party was in power with diligence and discretion. One by one all checks to government power were removed by unscrupulous leaders. This has been a litany of some of the contributary factors to our present malaise. “Power,” said a political analyst “is a heady wine. It is a life enchanter.” Sri Lankan politicians have given themselves handsome fringe benefits and emoluments, so much so that politics is the most financially rewarding career at the moment.

Added to this is the fact that our political parties are family heirlooms. D.S. was succeeded by his son, Dudley, S.W.R.D. by his widow, Sirima, Philip G. by Dinesh G. and Mahinda by his brother, Gotabhaya, with Namal waiting in the wings. Our 75th Independence is a celebration of failure. We are a disheartened and unhappy nation. A fitting conclusion to my comments today is something anticipated by a man with a brilliant brain, Dr. Colvin R. de Silva. In June 1987 he said prophetically, “My country gained our Independence from the British Empire. I hope your generation does not have to begin the Independence struggle all over again.”

This is exactly what seems to be happening now.

Dr. Goolbai Gunasekara is a wellknown Sri Lankan educationist and author She was the Founder Principal of one of Colombo's best known International Schools, The Asian International School. Moreover, she is a popular speaker and has lectured in India as well as Sri Lanka. She won the Zonta Award for Woman of Excellence in Education and was the Gold Award Winner of Inspirational Woman of the Year 2016.