H. L. D. Mahindapala

Lenin once said that  Bernard Shaw was a good man fallen among  the Fabians – a group of wishy-washy left-wingers whose airy-fairy politics was neither in capitalism nor in any kind of scientific socialism. It was, at best, a shade of state welfarism within the capitalist framework. Prof. Laksiri Fernando (LF) is of the same ilk. I am  not referring  to his Trotskyite  past when  he was at Peradeniya university. I am referring to his current anti-Sinhala-Buddhist politics. He, of course, says that his intellectual affinities are with Buddhist  philosophy. His objections, as I understand it, are to Sinhala-Buddhist politics which oppose the disproportionate demands manufactured in the thirties and forties by the two intransigent racist gang-leaders, Ponnambalam and Chelvanayakam.

The Sinhala-Buddhists, I am sure  he will concede, have managed to resolve their differences to a great extent with the other two minorities, the Muslims and the Indian Tamils without resorting to excessive and intransigent violence. The main problem has been only with the rabid racists of the North who have been  insisting relentlessly on their pound of flesh, irrespective of the consequences  to the others. It is their bovine obstinacy that has militated against  any peaceful co-existence with other communities. Their position is that peace can  be achieved only on their terms. This is the fundamental flaw in any peace-making process, or reconciliation.

Being habitual whingers the Tamil political leadership have a consistent history of either rejecting the many offers given to them as solutions  to their demands, even with  international guarantees, or kept on expanding the political goal  posts for them to kick as many goals as the want without any restrictions. This is what LF, the the kalatipol scientist, refuses to see. To be most charitable, I could only say that LF is a good man who has fallen into the dustbin of anti-Sinhala-Buddhist garbage. For piling  up the same kind of garbage found  in the Tambiah-Seneviratne school of anti-Sinhala-Buddhist muck-rakers he can  also be classified as an  academic Meetota-mullah”. This kind of academic  refuses to see the rubbish  they  pile up until it crashes on their heads. This is common among  the academic Meetota-mullahs” who think that they are the avant-garde of progressive and lofty thinking when in reality they are sinking in the rubbish dug up initially by Ponnambalam in  the  thirties and  left for Tambiahs, Seneviratnes and Fernandos to build up academic careers on the corpses left behind in the wake of the racist politics of Ponnambalam.

In this  article, I shall deal only with his fanciful notion of the Sangha running a state within state. Out of the blue he suddenly, sus-gala, sees the Sangha running a state  within state. The Sangha is  doing  what  it  has been doing  throughout  its history and for him not to  have noticed this, a  kalatipol scientist, he must  have migrated, not  to Sydney but  to a planet  near the black hole  in the centre of the Milky Way.  However, as a political scientist he has an ethical and academic duty to rise above his anti-Sinhala-Buddhist  politics and consider the consequences  left behind by the non-Sangha activists who have intervened aggressively in obstructing and even reversing state policies. These interventionists have wielded more  power in the state than the Sangha and I have not heard a peep  coming out of him questioning  their unwanted and destructive roles.

I shall select  only three instances to test the validity of  his argument :

Case 1: When the anti-conversion bill was presented the American government  of Bush, a committed Evangelist, forced his will on Chandrika Bandaranaike’s government to reject  it. The American Ambassador delivered the message of evangelist Bush bluntly to the media. Hey presto, the magic worked and  the  bill was shelved. Now which state was running CBK’s state?

Case 2: Whenever the Muslims feels that they are threatened they round up all the diplomats of Muslim states stationed in Colombo and put  maximum pressure on the Sri Lankan state to rein in. Now  can Professori Fernando name the outsiders who are stepping in to run the Sri Lankan state? Here I’m not being  judgmental on the Muslims and their political reactions. I’m only focussing on the role of other states interfering in the domestic affairs  of Sri Lanka – something  which they  would resent and even retaliate against if it  happens to  them.

Case 3: Worst of all, according to the Maha Sangha the NGOs are physically present at government proceedings influencing/directing policy on constitutional changes. No one has heard a whimper from  kalatipol Fernando on  this intervention by hired agents of foreign powers using NGO apparatchiks as the soft power” to push their foreign policies.

But he has come out firing  on all four  cylinders against the Sangha, the traditional guardians of the nation who have sacrificed their lives at times, to serve the people. Of the two who has the legitimate right, to intervene on a critical issue like the making  of constitution? If, as pointed above, foreigners and agents of foreigners are given  the silent nod by kalatipol Fernando why is it wrong for the Sangha to do their bit in  opposing foreigners with their anti-national and anti-Sinhala-Buddhist agenda?

He is contesting  the legitimacy of the Sangha which laid the foundations for this nation. The Sangha also can be considered as a vital part of the home grown civil society (unlike the foreign-funded NGOs who represent foreign governments). If they can’t raise their voices in critical national affairs who else can? But the overwhelming trend in the post-Ponnambalam /Chelvanayakam period has been to delegitimise the Sangha on the spurious argument that their place is in the caves. The entire political thrust of these kalatipol scientists and  historians is aimed relentlessly at debilitating – and  if  possible  eliminating —  the  power  of the Sangha and strengthening  the  power of the anti-national forces as a means of imposing their political  agenda on the nation. This line  of action is  pursued on the bogus assumption that it is the anti-Sinhala-Buddhist NGOs, academics, diplomats, paid  hacks of the UN, and other interventionists who have the answer to the issues threatening national security, peace and prosperity.

The Sangha is very clear in its  mission. The Sangha says categorically that it  opposes the militant rhetoric and activities of the Bodhy Bala Sena. But  it is  urging  the government to look  into the grievances expressed by the Bodhu Bala Sena. It has also expressed opposition to the current moves of the government to change the constitution which seems to be a Sisyphean process : each time  the constitution is  rolled up the mountain to the top it comes down and the constitution-makers have to do  it all over again. This futile process is done not because the people are yearning  for new   constitutions as if  it is some dirty underwear which needs changing every day but to satisfy the insatiable  political appetites of one intransigent minority which continues  to pursue the phantasmagorial nightmares of breaking up the nation. The argument for and against this political ambition has been tireless and inexhaustible. But  I would like to ask kalatipol Fernando one question : can he name one significant solution that has been worked out by the NGO pundits and their likes for the national crisis since the Tamil leadership declared war against the nation at Batakotte (Vadukoddai) in 1976? Where has their interventions led the nation, except, of course, to Nandikadal?

Every peace-maker providing solutions – Rajiv Gandhi, President Premadasa, Neelan Tiruchelvam, etc – was killed. The more they killed the more  the NGO, INGOs and other academic and foreign interventionists clamoured for more concessions. Most of those concessions were given with international guarantees because the Sinhala governments” were said to be unreliable. What happened? All their bogus theories sank in  the  murky waters of Nandikadal.

Isn’t it time for kalatipol Fernando to take a running dive into the cold waters Nandikadal which may – I hope – help him to regain some common sense which is invariably uncommon among his kind?