Dr Sarath Obeysekera

I was intrigued to read the above news item in Today and wonder what is the definition of a Leader ?

Oxford definition is !

The person who leads or commands a group, organization, or country: or  a  protest group- natural leader

Among the past people who were playing the role of the Leaders in Sri Lanka were ,D S Senanayake,  Kotalawala ,S W R D Bandaranayake,Dudley Senanayake. Sirimavo Bandaranayke,W Dahanayake,J R Jayawardane , D B Wijethunge ,R Premadasa , Chandrika Kuamrathunge/Bandaranayke  ,Mahinda Rajapakse .and now we have Ranil Wickramasinghe and our incumbent president Maithreepla Sirisena .

Premadasa was full of Prema” ,Love and compassion and Pala” means ruler though many argue about it ,despite my opinion is that he was a good leader in his own right

 Kotalawala and D B ‘s surname does not elaborate any relevance to leadership  ,and of course Wijyananda had a part of the name Nayaka” though Wije” means victory and Nayake means leader

Part of names of each person has some relevance to the leadership like D S was a leader of a Senawa” means Head of a  Batalian” and the last name of  S W R D,Chandika ,Sirimavo had something to do with again the word Nayake means Leader  .’

Mahinda was just a person obedient to the state : as per his name Raja-Pakse” though we all consider him as a leader good or bad”!

Ranil is having a name with meaning Heroic Lion .which is quite close to a Leader where lion is a leader .

  Maithreepala is the only leader who has his  name with word Mathree means kind and compassion which leads to conclusion  that he is ruling pala” with kindness and compassion.

I suggest that by looking at the history we should consider voting people Like Anura Dissa”nayake”, may even be S B Dissa”nayake” , ( who had some dreams to become the PM sometime back” ,Rajitha Sena”Ratna  ( Who may have same dreams one day) ,of course not a Gamman”Pila as he is good in dividing or making Pila” among the parties

As per a utterance  made by one minister having  name Rajapakse” recently defined  a  person with title Field Marshal as a wel-vidane surely cannot be a leader

Finally the name Piraharan comes to my mind but my knowledge in Tamil is nil hence I cannot say that his name has any relevance to the leadership ,though he was a evil Leader like Idi Amin and Hitler ( தலைவர் ) –Thalivar” should have been the first name relevant to the leader ???

Whole country should now look for lawmakers  with names with  a part has  relevance to leadership Otherwise we will have leaders like Bush” who has always beating the bush .

So ,Professor Wijessoriya should clearly define how a leader should be though in my opinion Sri Lanka needs a  Benevolent Dictator” like Lee Kwan Yue !

Dr Sarath Obeysekera