Father of "1956" and the children of 2006
Thu, 2006-10-05 04:41
H. L. D. Mahindapala
The major problems of the dynastic control of the SLFP were decided once and for all when the people elected Mahinda Rajapakse as the President in November 2005. But the Bandaranaikes were clinging to the last dynastic strand of the umbilical chord left: the Presidency of the SLFP. That too was finally severed when the Party elected Mahinda Rajapakse as the President, handing over total power both of the Party and the state.
For the first time in 55 years the reins of SLFP power held by the Bandaranaikes changed hands. A network of intertwining forces - political, legal, constitutional and external factors - combined to ease the incumbent President Chandrika Kumaratunga out of her seat, paving the way for Mahinda Rajapakse to succeed her. The expectations of Anura Bandaranaike to succeed his sister, Chandrika Kumaratunga, failed to gather any momentum because he was riding on the Bandaranaike name, hoping that the mantle would fall on his shoulders automatically, without working for it, or earning his dues by identifying himself meaningfully and actively with his father's political legacy.
The rise of Mahinda Rajapakse eclipsed the Bandaranaikes but not the Bandaranaike legacy. In fact, the rise and rise of Mahinda can be attributed to the Bandaranaike legacy which he embraced in toto. Mahinda displaced Anura Bandaranaike because he adopted, cultivated and pursued the founder's legacy - shawl and all! The parallelism between "1956" and "2005" go beyond the symbolism of the dress code into a wide range of politics. It was a case of history repeating itself to revive the aspirations that were languishing between "1956" and "2005". The parallels are too stark to be ignored.
There are differences too. When in 1956 the Senanayakes stood aside it contributed substantially to the fall of the UNP. But in "2005" not even the Bandaranaikes working against Mahinda Rajapakse could defeat the forces launched by their father. The last presidential election once again reaffirmed that the dead hand of their dear, departed father is more powerful than the living Bandaranaikes.
The Bandaranaike children who refused to recognise the power of legacy they inherited were brushed aside. Their movements away from their father's legacy into an unrealistic and unrewarding realm of their own tolled the bell for them. For instance, Chandrika Kumaratunga betrayed her father when she signed a secret memorandum with Ranil Wickremesinghe on the eve of the last election to undercut her own nominee, Mahinda Rajapakse. It was worse than treachery. It was like a mother throttling her baby in the cot. It was immoral and obscene.
Besides, the Bandaranaike progeny, over-awed by the prevailing Western ideologies and fashions (e.g., shopping at Marks and Spencers in jeans with back-to-front baseball cap) were busy dismantling their father's legacy than reviving it, or reinforcing it, or taking the people along creative grassroots politics of Bandaranaike. In their speeches and policies they hardly referred to the foundations laid by their father as the source of inspiration to take the nation forward. They were inhibited by the overwhelming propaganda of the Westernized, English-speaking elite (hiding behind the NGOs) who joined hands with the extremist Jaffna Tamils todenigrate Bandaranaike as the cause of all the evils in the post-independence era.
I do not know whether I have missed any of their speeches but I cannot recollect from memory the Bandaranaike children putting up a spirited defence of their father's commitment, contributions and concerns for the nation. Bandaranaike carried on his shoulders the historical burden of the silenced generations and released their suppressed historical energy in 1956. But his offspring shied away from "1956" as if it was a kind of political leprosy. Chandrika traipsed into vulgarized Marxism that had no tint of red, pink, violet or mauve. Vatti ammas have more red in the betel chew they spit out than in Chandrika's socialism. Ultimately she boasted that she can be a better capitalist than the capitalist. Anura, of course, drifted without any firm political commitments into a world of his own, feuding with his family more than with his political opponents.
In so many direct and indirect ways they joined the anti-Bandaranaike lobbies and distanced themselves from their father. From time to time these political deviants did not hesitate to join the parties of the left and the right that were out to bury their father's name. The descendants of Bandaranaike - the nobodies who became somebodies because of their father's sacrifices - failed to defend their father, or to exercise power on the pro-people ideologies of their father, or to serve the people who elected them in the hope of carrying forward their father's legacy. To be abandoned and betrayed by one's children must be the most unbearable act of ingratitude. If he was living Bandaranaike would not have hesitated to declare, with a flash of his customary disdain: "Et tu, my children!"
After reaching the pinnacles of power by invoking their father's name they spent their political energy to close the gates opened by their father. Of course, they were proud to be the Bandaranaikes - the children of two prime ministers, they claimed boastfully! They made careers out of being Bandaranaikes. To remind the people regularly of their connection to Bandaranaike they made their ritual trips to Horogolla to lay their wreaths annually more for the cameras than to serve the memory of their father. In the end, Chandrika, like all pretentious children who claim to know better than their fathers, wasted two terms of her presidency on film stars, at tax payers’ expense taking her children on a safari to the pyramids in Egypt, promoting P(acha)-Toms and generally surrounding herself with corrupt officials who made packets out of arms deals. Not once can I remember her speaking in defence of her father, his lasting legacy which the people remembered with respect though forgotten by his children.
Mrs. Bandaranaike was more pragmatic. As the immediate heir to her husband's legacy, she was the beneficiary and the recipient of the forces that flowered in "1956". She not only had the advantage of breathing and living the zeitgeist of the Bandaranaike era, but was also swept into power on the waves generated by "1956". Her affinity to the Bandaranaike tradition was far greater than that of her children. The period from 1956 to 1970 was dominated by Bandaranaikeism. Numerous political parties were vying with each other "to inherit the mantle of Bandaranaike, whose popular image came to be exploited by them for their own political advantage" wrote Prof. Wiswa Warnapala. (Sri Lankan Freedom Party, p.xvi, Godage International Publishers). He added that in the general election of March 1960 the Commissioner of Elections recognized 18 political parties and "(N)early 8 parties out of the 18 had some link to the MEP Coalition of 1956, and they made use of the name, Bandaranaike, to legitimise their formation as a political party. This, in fact, was a new political phenomenon in the country." (ibid).
The Bandaranaike children too traded on the Bandaranaike name to legitimize their politics which had no relevance to the undercurrents of the historical grassroots forces that led to the groundswell of "1956". They were content to climb to power on the coffin of their father - one of the greatest Sinhala-Buddhist liberals - without lifting a finger to serve his ideals or his legacy. Apart from laying ritual wreaths on the death anniversaries they did not actively embrace or pursue the legacy of "1956". They were drifting away from the values enshrined by their father in the national consciousness into a fairy land of theories imported from the West - a practice that their father discarded quite early in his political career. If the children could not stand up for their father who gave them everything can the nation expect them to stand up for the people who breathed life into the SLFP?
The most insufferable trait of Chandrika Kumaratunga was her pseudo-intellectual pose with questionable claims to an academic respectability merely by rubbing shoulders with some French wine-bibbers at Sorbonne. Her father who had greater credentials from Oxford deliberately adopted the policy of not being subservient to the Western theories, values or models. In fact, like all nationalist returnees from the West, he rejected the Occidental formulas, norms and political recipes for the emerging nations. At a time when the new nations waking up from centuries of colonialism were swinging towards xenophobia he maintained a democratic balance in erasing the evils of colonialism and restoring the lost heritage of the nation.
I remember him lounging in an arm chair at the Kurunegala rest house during the lunch break at the Kurunegala sessions of the SLFP (it was a tense time with divisions within the SLFP widening) and lambasting Sir. Ivor Jennings for transplanting the Westminster model on the native soils of Sri Lanka, Pakistan etc. In his search for home-grown solutions he swung in the opposite direction of the West. He was the right man who arrived at the right time to release his people from centuries of colonial oppression. In the end his ideology prevailed while all the Western imports, including the Marxists, fell by the wayside.
The essence of the Bandaranaike ideology, derived from his experiences at Oxford, was not to be imitative slaves of the West.
Thu, 2006-10-05 04:41
H. L. D. Mahindapala
The major problems of the dynastic control of the SLFP were decided once and for all when the people elected Mahinda Rajapakse as the President in November 2005. But the Bandaranaikes were clinging to the last dynastic strand of the umbilical chord left: the Presidency of the SLFP. That too was finally severed when the Party elected Mahinda Rajapakse as the President, handing over total power both of the Party and the state.
For the first time in 55 years the reins of SLFP power held by the Bandaranaikes changed hands. A network of intertwining forces - political, legal, constitutional and external factors - combined to ease the incumbent President Chandrika Kumaratunga out of her seat, paving the way for Mahinda Rajapakse to succeed her. The expectations of Anura Bandaranaike to succeed his sister, Chandrika Kumaratunga, failed to gather any momentum because he was riding on the Bandaranaike name, hoping that the mantle would fall on his shoulders automatically, without working for it, or earning his dues by identifying himself meaningfully and actively with his father's political legacy.
The rise of Mahinda Rajapakse eclipsed the Bandaranaikes but not the Bandaranaike legacy. In fact, the rise and rise of Mahinda can be attributed to the Bandaranaike legacy which he embraced in toto. Mahinda displaced Anura Bandaranaike because he adopted, cultivated and pursued the founder's legacy - shawl and all! The parallelism between "1956" and "2005" go beyond the symbolism of the dress code into a wide range of politics. It was a case of history repeating itself to revive the aspirations that were languishing between "1956" and "2005". The parallels are too stark to be ignored.
There are differences too. When in 1956 the Senanayakes stood aside it contributed substantially to the fall of the UNP. But in "2005" not even the Bandaranaikes working against Mahinda Rajapakse could defeat the forces launched by their father. The last presidential election once again reaffirmed that the dead hand of their dear, departed father is more powerful than the living Bandaranaikes.
The Bandaranaike children who refused to recognise the power of legacy they inherited were brushed aside. Their movements away from their father's legacy into an unrealistic and unrewarding realm of their own tolled the bell for them. For instance, Chandrika Kumaratunga betrayed her father when she signed a secret memorandum with Ranil Wickremesinghe on the eve of the last election to undercut her own nominee, Mahinda Rajapakse. It was worse than treachery. It was like a mother throttling her baby in the cot. It was immoral and obscene.
Besides, the Bandaranaike progeny, over-awed by the prevailing Western ideologies and fashions (e.g., shopping at Marks and Spencers in jeans with back-to-front baseball cap) were busy dismantling their father's legacy than reviving it, or reinforcing it, or taking the people along creative grassroots politics of Bandaranaike. In their speeches and policies they hardly referred to the foundations laid by their father as the source of inspiration to take the nation forward. They were inhibited by the overwhelming propaganda of the Westernized, English-speaking elite (hiding behind the NGOs) who joined hands with the extremist Jaffna Tamils todenigrate Bandaranaike as the cause of all the evils in the post-independence era.
I do not know whether I have missed any of their speeches but I cannot recollect from memory the Bandaranaike children putting up a spirited defence of their father's commitment, contributions and concerns for the nation. Bandaranaike carried on his shoulders the historical burden of the silenced generations and released their suppressed historical energy in 1956. But his offspring shied away from "1956" as if it was a kind of political leprosy. Chandrika traipsed into vulgarized Marxism that had no tint of red, pink, violet or mauve. Vatti ammas have more red in the betel chew they spit out than in Chandrika's socialism. Ultimately she boasted that she can be a better capitalist than the capitalist. Anura, of course, drifted without any firm political commitments into a world of his own, feuding with his family more than with his political opponents.
In so many direct and indirect ways they joined the anti-Bandaranaike lobbies and distanced themselves from their father. From time to time these political deviants did not hesitate to join the parties of the left and the right that were out to bury their father's name. The descendants of Bandaranaike - the nobodies who became somebodies because of their father's sacrifices - failed to defend their father, or to exercise power on the pro-people ideologies of their father, or to serve the people who elected them in the hope of carrying forward their father's legacy. To be abandoned and betrayed by one's children must be the most unbearable act of ingratitude. If he was living Bandaranaike would not have hesitated to declare, with a flash of his customary disdain: "Et tu, my children!"
After reaching the pinnacles of power by invoking their father's name they spent their political energy to close the gates opened by their father. Of course, they were proud to be the Bandaranaikes - the children of two prime ministers, they claimed boastfully! They made careers out of being Bandaranaikes. To remind the people regularly of their connection to Bandaranaike they made their ritual trips to Horogolla to lay their wreaths annually more for the cameras than to serve the memory of their father. In the end, Chandrika, like all pretentious children who claim to know better than their fathers, wasted two terms of her presidency on film stars, at tax payers’ expense taking her children on a safari to the pyramids in Egypt, promoting P(acha)-Toms and generally surrounding herself with corrupt officials who made packets out of arms deals. Not once can I remember her speaking in defence of her father, his lasting legacy which the people remembered with respect though forgotten by his children.
Mrs. Bandaranaike was more pragmatic. As the immediate heir to her husband's legacy, she was the beneficiary and the recipient of the forces that flowered in "1956". She not only had the advantage of breathing and living the zeitgeist of the Bandaranaike era, but was also swept into power on the waves generated by "1956". Her affinity to the Bandaranaike tradition was far greater than that of her children. The period from 1956 to 1970 was dominated by Bandaranaikeism. Numerous political parties were vying with each other "to inherit the mantle of Bandaranaike, whose popular image came to be exploited by them for their own political advantage" wrote Prof. Wiswa Warnapala. (Sri Lankan Freedom Party, p.xvi, Godage International Publishers). He added that in the general election of March 1960 the Commissioner of Elections recognized 18 political parties and "(N)early 8 parties out of the 18 had some link to the MEP Coalition of 1956, and they made use of the name, Bandaranaike, to legitimise their formation as a political party. This, in fact, was a new political phenomenon in the country." (ibid).
The Bandaranaike children too traded on the Bandaranaike name to legitimize their politics which had no relevance to the undercurrents of the historical grassroots forces that led to the groundswell of "1956". They were content to climb to power on the coffin of their father - one of the greatest Sinhala-Buddhist liberals - without lifting a finger to serve his ideals or his legacy. Apart from laying ritual wreaths on the death anniversaries they did not actively embrace or pursue the legacy of "1956". They were drifting away from the values enshrined by their father in the national consciousness into a fairy land of theories imported from the West - a practice that their father discarded quite early in his political career. If the children could not stand up for their father who gave them everything can the nation expect them to stand up for the people who breathed life into the SLFP?
The most insufferable trait of Chandrika Kumaratunga was her pseudo-intellectual pose with questionable claims to an academic respectability merely by rubbing shoulders with some French wine-bibbers at Sorbonne. Her father who had greater credentials from Oxford deliberately adopted the policy of not being subservient to the Western theories, values or models. In fact, like all nationalist returnees from the West, he rejected the Occidental formulas, norms and political recipes for the emerging nations. At a time when the new nations waking up from centuries of colonialism were swinging towards xenophobia he maintained a democratic balance in erasing the evils of colonialism and restoring the lost heritage of the nation.
I remember him lounging in an arm chair at the Kurunegala rest house during the lunch break at the Kurunegala sessions of the SLFP (it was a tense time with divisions within the SLFP widening) and lambasting Sir. Ivor Jennings for transplanting the Westminster model on the native soils of Sri Lanka, Pakistan etc. In his search for home-grown solutions he swung in the opposite direction of the West. He was the right man who arrived at the right time to release his people from centuries of colonial oppression. In the end his ideology prevailed while all the Western imports, including the Marxists, fell by the wayside.
The essence of the Bandaranaike ideology, derived from his experiences at Oxford, was not to be imitative slaves of the West.
