Professor Nalin de Silva and the Bodu Bala Sena
Posted on August 29th, 2014

C. Wijeyawickrema

Why this essay

          We can handle a Dayan Jayatilaka or C. A. Chandraprema or a Kumar David. We can ignore Tisaranee Gunasekara or the Colombo Telegraph website.  We can confront a Bahu or a Vasu.  But how can we deal with a Prof. Nalin, when he writes that Bodu Bala Sena is an extreme organization?  It is difficult because it is as if pani waraka gahata hena gahuva wage,” (lightening thunder bolt on the sweet jack fruit tree).  Anyway, I have decided to give it a try using the Buddhist Path to respond to him—The Come and Examine Path or the reasonableness test to be followed by a separate essay ASAP.

          Nalin (N) has every right to support Mahinda Rajapaksa’s bid for a third term.  He is now a member of UGC appointed by MR. He can use any argument/logic to back up why he wants MR to be a third term president.  But, he cannot be allowed to call BBS an extremist group (his essay in the Daily News on August 29), because it is not true either from the subjective or objective criteria that N often suggests in his writings or talks.  I think he is taking the kabaragoya becoming a talagoya approach. N who has done lot of service to Sri Lanka, suffering tremendously due partly to the actions of GL Peiris, the slippery black-white VC of Colombo University, taking this new approach now, is sad and unfortunate.

          N and I both come from Panadura, he from Wekada, myself from Walana. We are of the same age, and had grown up in the shadow of the Ven. Migettuwatte Gunananda Statute located at the site of the Great Panadura Debate.  Our educational paths were totally different due to economic poverty of my parents with a big family to feed.  My childhood was associated with the Siri Siddhartharamaya at Walana where Ven. Walane Siddhartha lived. Very few know it today, that in the 1840s Ven. Siddhartha went from Panadura to Ratmalana, to be at the battle front” (frontier?) to save Buddhism. He started the Parama Dhamma Chetiya Pirivena  and his students created  the Vidyodaya and Vidyalanka  Pirivenas, the two citadels, two power houses that rejuvenated Sinhala Buddhist heritage in the then Ceylon.

          Nalin and I are the Children of the 1956. But he opposes BBS and I support it to the tilt. I agree with the BBS idea 99.9%. Why we differ is not like comparing the late Ananda Guruge with Neville Jayaweera  (two CCS men who had poor, disadvantaged child hoods) or the question Prof.  J. B. Dissanayaka once asked, Why Stanley Tambiah and Lakshman Kadiragamar were so different in their attitude toward the Sinhala Buddhists that they grew up with,” but will help readers to understand the mission and role of BBS better.

          Pondering over this matter, I realized that I had an encounter with N in April 2004. He objected to JHU in April 2004. He was behind Mrs. Chandrika! I was able to trace from the Internet an essay that I wrote then which is copied below. Before I write a new essay, this time in Sinhala, this old essay is reproduced to show how we evolve or become wiser in our ideas as we get older, which means that I would have made slight modifications to my old essay, if I were to rewrite it today.

          It is my sincere wish that I could have a fruitful dialogue with Prof. Nalin on the relevance and the role of Bodu Bala Sena in saving Sri Lanka’s 2600 year-old Sinhala Buddhist heritage .

http://lakhanda.itgo.com/professor_nalin_de_silva.htm

 

 

Professor Nalin de Silva (2004) and Sir Isaac Newton (1686)

C.Wijeyawickrema, LL.B., Ph.D.

Introduction

A recent piece of writing by Nalin titled, The peace of Chandrika” (The Island, May 19, 2004), reminded me of two previous math professors: C. Sunderalingam and Sir Isaac Newton. The write-up is incoherent, chaotic or disorganized. It reveals a disturbed mind set. Sunderalingam was ready to die to prevent caste pollution of Hindu kovils, so blind and so unconcerned of social science or political geography. As the odd couple who became the two most prominent among several cats on a rock, Nalin and his social philosophy teacher Dr. Gunadasa Amarasekera, behave after April 2nd more like two wounded wild boars. Their pride and prediction shattered, they continue to attack JHU movement with a vengeance just like Sunderalingam attacked the harijanas in Jaffna with palmyra sticks. More unfortunate is Nalin’s similarity with Sir Isaac Newton. Daniel J. Boorstin, in his classic, The Discoverers (Random House, 1983, pages 408-417) recorded for us the wild boar nature and the dishonest aspects of Newton. Newton did not know Buddhism, but Nalin wrote mage lokaya.” We have a right to expect Nalin to practice what he preaches as his latest writing piece is evidence against him for violating Mettha and Muditha. After all, the Unibomber got caught because of his writing.

Nalin says his friends tell him about e-mails. Since I sent e-mails directly to him and because the e-mails did not return and there is clear signal in his later writings that he has seen those e-mails that I sent to him, I cannot understand what kind of pride Nalin is trying to build up for him by denying that he is beyond the reach of e-mails. In a previous letter that I sent to the Island, titled, God Vishnu and Professor Nalin de Silva,” I tried to bring to his attention several rules of commonsense. Island did not publish my letter but my letter went as an e-mail to both Nalin and his philosophy teacher Dr. Gunadasa Amarasekera and to several e-mail networks. I also prepared a research essay titled, The Anti-Mahavamsa Movement in Sri Lanka.” The Island newspaper did not publish it, but it was on the internet. I sent a copy of this to both Nalin and his teacher asking them to educate me.” After reading Nalin’s latest Island write-up I however, felt that I can try to educate the duo a little bit.

Mathematics, the language of science

Nalin, in his Peace of Chandrika,” and Gunadasa, in his Olcott Buddhist?” (Island, same day) tell us that Tissa Devendra cannot read Sinhala. The use of language incompetence as a weapon to attack another is a black white tradition in Sri Lanka. Since language is only a vehicle of communication just like a type writer or a bicycle, what is important is the person and not the vehicle. Two Englishman, Rhys Davids and [Scotsman] Paul Harris helped Sinhala Buddhists without first speaking in Sinhala. SWRD had only grade 2 or 3 level of Sinhala writing and reading competence. Ardent LSSP member Amaradasa Fernando once wrote to the Island (in July 1999) stating that Professor F. R. Jayasuriya could not read or write in Sinhala. A common trait that I have experienced with all those who called JHU a karumaya before April 2nd and now demanding a Dharmarajjaya from it which even the King Ashoka could not deliver (he kept killing two peacocks and a deer for dinner), that they go blind to what they have been preaching and attack others below the belt. For example, recently I had to tell a journalist not to worry about my law degree since he did not have a law degree of his own to talk about.

Leave Olcott alone

Nalin and his teacher talk about a concept of Olcott Buddhists. In their frustrated behavior this odd couple has become no different from a Jayadeva Uyangoda or a Gihan Perera or Tyronne Fernando or Mangala Samaraweera. They do not realize that they are dropping two drops of cow dung to the pot of milk that they themselves were so painstakingly help collecting since the beeshana samaya. One of them says that Olcott Buddhists were there before Olcott came to Ceylon in 1880. If so why not leave Olcott alone?

Sri Lanka’s problem was not Olcott but about 200 families who have been destroying Sri Lanka since the 1830s. When these families opposed to declare Vesak a public holiday in Ceylon, Olcott fought for it along with the white colonial governor. These families started wearing Buddhist masks in the 1920s and 1930s and SLFP and UNP ruling families have been either Christians or bedroom Christians. Because the duo made a mistake of supporting a sandhanaya, which has a record of so far so bad (as opposed to JHU’s so far so good record in and outside parliament), instead of rethinking what went wrong they are trying to bring in new concepts to cover their sinhalatva mask.

Proud service of Olcott’s grandchildren

The April 2nd election results in Sri Lanka were a math lesson by God Vishnu. The human agency in this regard was the brains of those who thought it necessary to connect the former SU with JSS to prevent the agents of the 200 black white families hijacking the sacrifice that Ven. Soma made on behalf of Sri Lanka. Nowhere in the modern world, 500,000 voters (Olcott Buddhists?) brought career politicians to beggars kneeling down for votes inside the parliament. Overnight the Asapuwa became the place presidents and prime ministers creep in the middle of the night. Seven Buddhist monks became the king makers of Sri Lanka, where the words Sinhala Buddhists were ugly and bad adjectives a few months ago. In America for hundred years the third party movement could not do what took place in Sri Lanka within two months.

During 1920-24, the 200 ruling Christian families in Ceylon agreed to a formula to nullify the majority status of the Sinhala Buddhists. Two Colonial commissions of white men (Donoughmore and Soulbury) rejected this formula. But in 1978 JR Jayawardena and AJ Wilson implemented this formula with a suicidal parliamentary election system. The plan was not only to kill the Sinhala Buddhist heritage but to prevent any local level unity among the Five Great Forces. But God Vishnu intervened and brought exactly the opposite results of what JRJ and AJW intended. 500,000 Olcott Buddhists decided the fate of Sri Lanka. Both SLFP and UNP suddenly gave up non-Buddhist candidates and elected Buddhists as prime minister and speaker. Even the parliamentary election was so peaceful in 2004 because of the influence of the JHU party.

The Sinhala Buddhists got a beachhead in the parliament to dissolve the corrupt system both from within and from outside. What makes Nalin and others so upset (as evidenced from his incoherent writing piece) is the realization that before the next presidential election, 500,000 urban JHU will become a 5 million or more great force in rural Sri Lanka. SLFP and JVP are actually doing the leg work for JHU by their own inappropriate and desperate behavior of attacking JHU rather than attacking Tamil terrorists and the UNP which fed the snakes.

E-mail Dutugemunu’s

It is sad that Nalin does not realize that King Dutugemunu is not a name to drag into an e-mail business. E-mail has become a powerful tool linking people just like the way that I was able to e-mail Nalin and his teacher my essays. If they want to treat them as arrows or flowers is their own business. We are happy to harvest the benefits. Already at least Nalin’s mind is in disarray. One fact that he needs to know is that so many e-mail senders also send foreign exchange. While the workers in Arab countries send money orders to their kith and kin, those who live in the west send money for projects that benefit poor people (not blood relatives) in Sri Lanka.

I can remember an occasion that my e-mail helped Nalin. He accused that Norway had voted against the UN Declaration to make World Vesak Day. I used e-mail to verify this from the UN Documentation Librarian and she informed me by e-mail that Norway was actually a sponsor of the Vesak Day and that it was adopted unanimously. I conveyed this to Nalin via e-mail, so that he will not look like a joker before the world of readers. Norway can be bad in handling SL politicians but that is no reason to blame Norway based on false facts.

Seventh Great Force (Olcott’s great grandchildren)

Nalin must understand that the e-mails are from what we call the seventh great force in Sri Lanka. This is the 1956 children who went to Sri Lankan universities in the Sinhala medium who now live in the west. Most of them tried to serve their motherland after graduation and left it due to frustration of corrupt politics of 200 families and their officer catchers. This was more like Jinadasa’s trip to Sinhale in the movie Gamperaliya. The only pasture they had in Sri Lanka was their education.

Whatever west Nalin has in mind, the seventh great force believes that masses in the east and the west are under a tiny group of ruling families in any given country or a continent or the global economy. West is full of corrupt habits but in the west there is better recognition of individual freedom and choice. Both western ruling families and the western masses can benefit from the Dharmarajjaya concept that the JHU is offering. Sinhalatvaya will be automatically protected when we go towards the Dharmarajjaya, one step at a time. Offering a seat to Anandasagaree was an example. Neutralizing the two stolen votes of rogue JHU MPs was another. This is similar to what the Milinda Panna records of the Devadatta rock meeting the protective rock. The impact resulted in a piece of neutral rock that hurt the Buddha’s foot. Please do not let Sinhalatvaya die with the two of you or even before your death. Do you want to be like another Vasudeva or a Bahu movement?

Sir Isaac Newton’s dark side

..Newton became a councilor, and then in 1703 president—in effect, dictator— of the Royal Society….As his prestige grew, so did his dyspepsia, his unwillingness to give credit to others or share credit for his great discoveries..[compare with Nalin’s joker story]

..When William Whiston, his former assistant in mathematics at Cambridge .was proposed in 1720 [for a Fellowship] Newton threatened to resign as president if Whiston was elected… [compare Whiston with Champika Ranawaka]

..In 1686, when Newton sent to the Royal Society the completed manuscript of Book I of the Principa, Robert Hooke immediately claimed that the basic ideas had been plagiarized from his communications to Newton a dozen years before…

..far from acknowledging Hooke’s priority, Newton went back to his manuscript and deleted references to Hooke’s work….He kept Hooke as his favorite enemy for the next seventeen years…

..Newton’s later years, when he had become the idol of Philosophic” London, could be chronicled in his acrimonious quarrels with subordinates and his vindictive plots against any who threatened to become his equal.

7 Responses to “Professor Nalin de Silva and the Bodu Bala Sena”

  1. Senevirath Says:

    nalin’s article——
    There will be no reconciliation among whites and blacks in the U.S.A. for another 150 yrs. but in Sri Lanka B.B.S the so called extremist organization has joined hands with a Hindu organization………….
    ———————————

    once ven gnana saara once said that he prefers west than china etc… we have all these problems because of weterners
    will westerners help to save our heritage. ANY REASON TO LIKE WESTERNERS

  2. Senevirath Says:

    ananda sangaree wants 13a +. he claims everything with “‘meththa””

  3. Christie Says:

    BBS and Hinduthwa. Jai. The cat is out.

  4. AnuD Says:

    It is good BBS and Hindus made one group. Hindu gods are keeping inside buddhist temples.

  5. AnuD Says:

    Even Prof Nalin de silva knows that this govt does not have good governance.

    Even the Sri lankan voters know that Mahinda Rjapakse is not good But there is no one to replace him out there. Those who are at the front are not going to work.

    Some good candidate can come out, if sinhala-buddhists are united. Otherwise, he takes a big risk and Mahinda Rajapakse destroys him. Remember, when SF came out propaganda machine went full throttle and destroyed him.

    The question is all same. but, who is the most considerate one. In this world, there are no ones who is unspoiled. but, Mahinda Rjapakse made Sri lankan voters a laughing stock.

  6. Marco Says:

    The author C Wije says.. “and I support it to the tilt (read as hilt- 100?). I agree with the BBS idea 99.9%.
    Would the author share with us the BBS idea of 0.1% that he does not agree with?
    Would it be “sleeping with the enemy?”
    I wonder if the likes of LK, ST if they were alive, would have agreed with the BBS way of Buddhism.

    It is not often that i agree with Nalin De Silva put he was spot on to call it an extreme organization.
    They have already commenced the destruction of the Buddhist heritage in Sri Lanka and setting a bad example to the Buddhist way of life. Thankfully, the powers that be are slowly coming to terms with the BBS

  7. Nanda Says:

    “They have already commenced the destruction of the Buddhist heritage in Sri Lanka and setting a bad example to the Buddhist way of life.” – very very micro brain statement.

    These examples can be found in plenty in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq , Saudi , Pakistan .
    BBS not doing that. They are politicians fighting to protect the heritage of Sinhala Buddhists (and Hindu Tamils) not against. We should question the part in the brackets only.

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