{"id":74435,"date":"2018-02-06T02:42:52","date_gmt":"2018-02-06T09:42:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=74435"},"modified":"2018-02-06T02:42:52","modified_gmt":"2018-02-06T09:42:52","slug":"sujeewa-pushpakumara-doloswala-owns-the-local-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/02\/06\/sujeewa-pushpakumara-doloswala-owns-the-local-government\/","title":{"rendered":"Sujeewa Pushpakumara Doloswala owns the local government"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n
Let\u2019s get to the name and the man later.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Let\u2019s begin with what this is all about.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Local Government.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Local government elections, that is.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>In other words, municipal councils, urban councils and\u00a0pradesheeya sabhas<\/i>; all reduced, in the parlance of the political, to the\u00a0gama<\/i>\u00a0or village.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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Whether it is a candidate or a party, a man or a woman, a seasoned politician or a newcomer, the (at this point) respectful request is \u2018give me\/us the\u00a0gama.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u2018<\/i>Respectful\u2019 because the candidate and the party need the voter.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Once vote is cast it\u2019s another story. We know that script too well to go over it.<\/span><\/div>\n
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There\u2019s no \u2018virgin\u00a0gama<\/i>\u2019 any more; no self-contained, self-sufficient and internally coherent entity that is geographically describable.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>People move.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>They commute from\u00a0gama\u00a0<\/i>to\u00a0nagaraya\u00a0<\/i>for work.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>It\u2019s a small country after all.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>They move out and settle elsewhere.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>And the town enters the village in numerous ways too.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>First there were newspapers, then radio and television and now smart phones and the internet.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>And people who go out, either for employment or education, also come back and when they do, they have \u2018town-stories\u2019 to tell.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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So when people talk of \u2018gama\u2019 and local government authority as one and the same or use the former as a proxy for the latter, it\u2019s a bit misleading if not promotion of a downright falsehood.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>But these are do-gooder days and do-gooding (or promising to do-good) days.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>They all want the villagers to come together and deliver the village to them.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u2018They\u2019 as in politicians.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>It\u2019s essentially an \u2018I am your savior\u2019 kind of charade.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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As for the villagers, they are supposed to convince themselves that they are a bunch of impotent nincompoops who are all of a sudden offered the unexpected gift of having someone sort out their problems.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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But then again, there are villagers who know what\u2019s what.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>They know that it is best not to depend on anyone else simply because they\u2019ve been lied to, hoodwinked and cheated time and again.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Sujeewa Pushpakumara Doloswala wasn\u2019t thinking about such things.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>He wanted a playground for the village.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>It was not just him of course.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>It\u2019s a bunch of young people living in a village called Kudamaduwa, located between Piliyandala and Kottawa.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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For years, they had petitioned politicians to get them a piece of land which they could turn into a playground.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Politicians are full of promises and not just when there\u2019s an election around the corner.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>They were asked to identify a plot of state land.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>There were none.<\/span><\/div>\n
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So they played in rubber estates and in the premises of the village templed.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>They did not give up though.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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Finally, Sujeewas, known to all as Sujee, gathered everyone and said \u2018let\u2019s buy a piece of land.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>They went to the Chief Incumbent of the temple, Rev Kalawellaragama Chandananda Thero for guidance. The Thero advised them to go about it in a systematic way.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>So a leaflet was printed and distributed.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Everyone in the village were summoned to the temple.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Not everyone came, but a considerable number did.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>The old and the young, men and women, all came together.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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That was how the Kudamaduwa Sports Club came to be formed.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Office-bearers were elected.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>They figured they would need around 6 million rupees to buy a piece of land that was suitable, a rubber estate.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>They were around the village soliciting contributions. In the first round they managed to collect 20,000 rupees. Anyway, the owner decided he didn\u2019t want to sell it.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Then one day, Indika, who looked after buffaloes in the village, told them of an abandoned paddy field that was up for sale.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>However, the owner had been reluctant at first.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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\u2018So we went to meet him.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>The office-bearers and the\u00a0haamuduruwo.<\/i>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>There were issues with the property.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>First, there was no access road.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>The deeds weren\u2019t clear.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>There was no survey plan.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Tissa Mahattaya, the lawyer in our village, told us to get it surveyed and that he would thereafter get the legal aspects sorted out.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>The\u00a0haamuduruwo\u00a0<\/i>found a surveyor.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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\u2018We needed money, though.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>So we went from door to door. Some people were suspicious, some scolded us, but the majority supported, especially those who weren\u2019t very rich.\u2019<\/span><\/div>\n
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It had been tough, Sujee explained.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>On one occasion the Chief Minister had come and said he will give three million rupees.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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\u2018He asked us to stop collecting money.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Nothing happened.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>We went to meet him with the\u00a0hamuduruwo.\u00a0<\/span><\/i>\u00a0Finally one of his secretaries said \u2018this won\u2019t happen\u2026you continue to raise funds the way you did before.\u2019<\/span><\/div>\n
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It was a big blow.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>It would be even tougher to go from house to house and ask people for money.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>They didn\u2019t give up though.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>They finally purchased the piece of land.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Then they had to fill it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>This too they did, bit by bit.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>They even purchased a strip of land so that an access round could be made.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>They still had to construct a small bridge over a ditch.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>This too cost them.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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Sujee and his friends organized a kite festival on two consecutive years.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>The profits were channeled to construct the bridge.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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And now it\u2019s all ready.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>The playground for the young people of Kudamaduwa, now and for many years to come.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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\u2018We will hold an\u00a0avurudu uthsavaya<\/i>\u00a0there this year, after a\u00a0pirith\u00a0<\/i>ceremony,\u2019 Sujee said proudly.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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Many contributed in many ways; some with money, some with labor.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>There were others who encouraged.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Sometimes it would be a matter of knowing someone who would help in some technical way.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Sometimes it was about giving food or tea to the man operating a backhoe machine they had hired for a few hours.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Sometimes it was just a thumbs up sign.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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Sujee insists \u2018it is not about me, and I could never have done it by myself.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Everyone in the committee helped.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>The\u00a0haamuduruo\u00a0<\/span><\/i>\u00a0was always a tower of strength.\u2019<\/span><\/div>\n
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If one were oblivious to things and processes in the community one would not know about the playground and nothing of the efforts expended to get it done.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Such a person would see Sujee as the guy as a barber.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>A successful one, sure, for even those who leave the village for whatever reason come to him for a haircut; successful, always with a smile, a doer more than a talker.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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He smiles when we discuss politics, especially the forthcoming local government elections.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>He is most certainly aware of what\u2019s what in the village and in the country and that\u2019s why he smiles, not cynically but with that quiet understanding of the mismatch between promise and delivery.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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He had a simple theory:\u00a0hithai ekamuthukamai thiyenavanam karanna bari deyak naha\u2026\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/i>\u00a0If there\u2019s unity there\u2019s nothing that can\u2019t be done if you put your mind to it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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Of the village, with the village and for the village. That\u2019s what Sujeewa Pushpakumara Doloswala and his friends are all about.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>The names will be forgotten in years to come, like we\u2019ve forgotten the names of those who turned population in a people, a geography into a nation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>But it was never about names and glory.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>It was always about community and things that last.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Doesn\u2019t hurt to mention a name, now and then.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Like Sujeewa Pushpakumara Doloswala and others who truly own\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>and run the local government.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE Let\u2019s get to the name and the man later.\u00a0\u00a0Let\u2019s begin with what this is all about.\u00a0\u00a0Local Government.\u00a0\u00a0Local government elections, that is.\u00a0\u00a0In other words, municipal councils, urban councils and\u00a0pradesheeya sabhas; all reduced, in the parlance of the political, to the\u00a0gama\u00a0or village.\u00a0\u00a0 Whether it is a candidate or a party, a man or a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-malinda-seneviratne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74435\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}