Columns

So, four SLFPers who accepted ministerial appointments in the yahapalanaya Government in March quit their posts on Thursday just two months into their new ministerial tenure. Whatever the justification or otherwise of the stated reasons that precipitated this departure it was a quick turnaround, indeed.

This does raise an important question: Is this pullout ( or is it pullback) the first nascent sign of the end of national government or just a sorry interregnum that will make Sri Lankan politics even more confused than it is already?

Had Alice stumbled into Sri Lanka instead of the fictional Wonderland ,she would surely have found our own native land — the “Miracle of Asia” as some twit had named it — even more curious than anything she would have encountered in her wanderings.

Watching Sri Lanka’s unfolding political scene, I was somehow reminded of the lines from Eliot’s poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”:
“in the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo”.

I’m not at all sure why those lines suddenly came to mind unless it was to remind one that, like the pretentious women in Eliot’s poem, the great pretensions that exist in the name of high principles in our political arena are increasingly turning into a malignancy.

On reading and hearing of the happenings in local politics, I was tempted to pen a couple of lines myself.

“Into government they went and came

Citing troubles in this game of shame”

How many of our elected representatives really devote their time and energies to ameliorating the areas they represent and improving the lives of the people who, perhaps mistakenly or through ignorance, voted for those who eventually ended up in the legislature? Is it not true that by and large it is only one’s supporters who benefit and not all the people living there?

It is bad enough that some of those who are entitled to so many perks and privileges hardly make any useful contribution to the legislative debates and discussions, or do not stay long enough in the chamber even if they were inclined to say a word or two of some significance.

While parliamentary numbers have swelled over the years as increasing population and delimitation of new constituencies demanded, there is now a proposal under the 20th Amendment to further increase the number of MPs from 225 to 255.

Seeing the twists and turns that Sri Lankan politics is passing through — and not always for the better — the public have a right to ask if they must pay from the public purse for the upkeep of greater numbers of representatives, when the ultimate worth of the existing lot is so much in question.
On Thursday, the Speaker had to warn a veteran parliamentarian to watch his language not only because what he said at one point it was crassly unparliamentary but also because there were school children in the public galleries.

The one-time revolutionary and Left firebrand Vasudeva Nanayakkara who was warned by the Speaker to mind his language had apparently lost his cool. It seems it is not just his cool that he has lost. It is also his sense of political theatre that he used to display in the distant past.
I remember one occasion in the old parliament by the sea when Vasudeva Nanayakkara added high drama, possibly at the tail-end of a gruelling day in the House. If my memory serves me correctly, it was in late 1976 or early 77 in the last days of Prime Minister Sirima Bandaranaike’s government.

The LSSP had been thrown out or had left the government — depending on who is telling the story — but the Communist Party was still clinging on.

My memory is somewhat hazy here, but either the day’s sessions were about to end or the House was due to adjourn for tea. Vasudeva, who if I recall was seated in the third row of the opposition benches, quietly stood up as some MPs were leaving the chamber and walked towards the government ranks with something wrapped in white paper in his hand. He crossed the floor to where Ms. Bandaranaike was seated, pulled off the wrapping and laid a wreath on the floor before her.

Then he quietly walked away. Not many MPs noticed it as some were on their feet and others were already walking out of the chamber. But some of us in the Press Gallery — which was the front row of the gallery just above the Speaker — saw it distinctly and I did mention it in my daily sketch on parliamentary proceedings.

Once a highly respected place where, as students, we were taken to listen to parliamentary debates to which such erudite speakers as Dr. N.M. Perera, Dr. Colvin R.de Silva, Pieter Keunuman, Dudley Senanayake, J.R. Jayewardene, Bernard Soysa, Felix Dias Bandaranaike, A. Amirthalingam, S. Sivasithamparam, Sarath Muttetuwegama and many others too numerous to mention, made such valuable and educative contributions, it has fallen to such depths today.

It was because parliament then was such a respected place and MPs made such useful contributions backed by facts and figures and were of public importance that newspapers of the day like the Daily News devoted four pages or more to reporting proceedings in extenso, besides publishing the front-page sketch that was intended to catch the mood of the day and interpret happenings.

To resuscitate a lost political culture would be a herculean task, if it could be done at all. Politicians have lost the trust and the confidence of the people who ostensibly they are supposed to represent.

One reason for this surely is that the glorious promises made at election time or during visits to districts and promises are rarely kept. Ask yourself how many contenders for the executive presidency promised to abolish it once they win elections and assume office. How many of them even tried to do so in keeping with their pre-election promise. Rather, they have not only entrenched themselves in office, but also enhanced their powers.
Whatever might be said of President Maithripala Sirisena he did try to fulfill the promise he made to get rid of this draconian system. But removing the powers from the executive presidency and transplanting them elsewhere will not necessarily bring about the much-needed beneficial change.

It would surely depend on who is exercising those powers. Would every holder of office exercise restraint or be tempted to employ them to instill nepotism and cronyism in the system and defend it with all available powers.

History will recall that Mao Zedong once encouraged his people, saying let a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend. It was viewed as a sign of the relaxation of totalitarian rule. The flowers began to bloom and schools of thought emerged. They were all short-lived.

Ultimately, it is not the system. It is whether we will have benevolent leaders who are more devoted to the country and its people than in furthering themselves.