5th Column

My dear pohottuwa brothers and sisters,

I thought I must write to you after seeing your protest march or satyagraha this week which you called ‘Janabalaya Colombata’. I am not saying it was an utter flop, but even you must admit that it wasn’t the great success it was meant to be. I am sure you must be disappointed about that.

Protest marches and satyagraha’s are nothing new to our politicians. When SWRD was in power, it was JR who took the lead in organising a march from Colombo to Kandy to protest SWRD’s proposed pact with Chelvanayakam. That seems to be where protest marches began in Paradise.

When Methini was in charge in the mid-seventies, JR again used to stage a satyagraha almost every week. At that time, Methini tried every trick in the book to prevent crowds gathering around JR, but judging by his landslide victory in 1977, JR’s hard work seems to have paid dividends.

Then it was Mahinda maama who launched a paada yatra from Colombo to Kataragama, over a two week period. Mahinda maama was twenty-five years younger then and lasted the distance. That march was against Preme’s government. Its success led to Mahinda maama emerging as a blue leader.

The Green Man, never comfortable with mingling with the hoi polloi on the streets, tried to take a leaf out of Mahinda maama’s book nine years later. He called it the ‘Jana Bala Meheyuma’. People came to Colombo from everywhere, and hey presto, a few months later, the Greens were back in office!

Mahinda maama obviously believes in Paada Yatra, because he organised another one two years ago, this time from Kandy to Colombo. That was a moderate success, signalling that he had enough chaps from the Blue camp with him to outnumber those with Maithri. That was a test run for his return.

Now he seems to be addicted to these marches because this week’s protest was yet another of those. I must warn you though, pohottuwa brothers and sisters, if Mahinda maama keeps doing this every year, the gloss will soon wear off and instead of giving their support, people will start to complain.

I think we saw a bit of that on Wednesday too. It is true that the Greens and Maithri got together and did their best to block you by not releasing venues for a rally and trying to stop buses from bringing in people. Still, not everyone was impressed because what you did caused a lot of inconvenience.

In fact, Maithri and the Greens may have helped you, even if they didn’t mean to. By not allowing a venue for your protest, you didn’t have to fill up a place like Galle Face. All you had to do was to make sure that the Lake House roundabout was occupied – and you managed to do that.

Still, offices closed early and many scrambled to get home fearing there would be no public transport. Others were worried that all hell would break loose and people would get seriously hurt. Thankfully, that didn’t happen but, apart from a show of strength, I don’t think you won over that many voters.

You may have used the opportunity to mark Gota’s political debut because we did see him join the march, but that raises more questions than answers. Where was Basil? Why didn’t he take centre stage? Or, was all of this staged to showcase what a talented organiser Namal baby is?

The other question I keep asking myself is, if you – and indeed the Greens too – are so keen to stage paada yatras and protest marches, why don’t you do so every day? That will save the country billions of rupees because we then don’t need to spend money on luxury duty free vehicles for all of you.

Also, why is it that both you and the Greens stage these protest marches only when you are in the opposition? That seems to be the only time you are mindful of the cost of living or the lack of democracy or whatever it is that you are protesting about. You don’t march when you are in office!

The fact of the matter is, pohottuwa brothers and sisters, you don’t have to do much to get people to vote for you. Maithri and his blue chaps are in a mess, and the Greens are not able to get their act together. So, people have to vote for you, not because you are good, but because your rivals are worse than you!

Yours truly,

Punchi Putha

PS – The theme of your protest campaign was Janabalaya Colombata. I am sure that was someone’s idea of a catchy slogan, but the reality is that the people have only a limited amount of control over what happens next. You may say Janabalaya Colombata, but the reality is ‘balaya Medamulanata’!