Columns

Fascinated by the inventive genius of the Consumer Affairs Authority, Sri Lankans are now armed with the additional burden of a measuring tape. This is in the event that a delectable looking coconut or two carried home might pacify the beguiling boss in the kitchen. They now wonder what round thing will next fall prey to the thinkers at CAA.

It appears that some are still trying to trace who was responsible for this great idea. It was only the other day, as it were, that our amateur sleuths, mainly legal and some illegal, were trying to track down the mastermind who drafted the controversial 20th Amendment. So one-sided it was on behalf of the hosts that some sporting types raised their suspicion of match-fixing that they alerted the ICC though what the author of 20A, whoever that might be, had to with tampering with the law, one is not quite clear. But then as experts claim, it is a clear case of tampering. Well, anything is possible these days.

Yet nobody really pinned the culprit as it were, by name, though several names were mentioned. Those who followed the guessing game claimed that the man or men (why not a woman the gender benders asked at the perceived discrimination) had made a hash of the drafting. The person or persons unknown would have been caught way back when if our ace investigators had not been dispersed here and there in pursuit of the elusive coronavirus that has surfaced once more.

Not even the self-proclaimed world leader Donald Trump’s triumphant claim that he had overcome the deadly virus has only proved to be another of his hollow boasts.

Employing a Sri Lankan colloquialism — knowing people know — some were pointing the finger at Prof. Dr. Minister Bandula Gunawardena PhD. Asked why Minister Gunawardena is suspected it is said that this innovation smacks of straying “outside the box” as one-time Central Bank Governor Nivard Cabraal was encouraging Viyathmagans and other sophists of the day to do, some said that Trade Minister Gunawardena was the most likely to trade years of red tape for the measuring tape.

We are reminded that some years ago, Tuition Master Gunawardena argued that a local family of four could live on Rs 2,500 a month. If he could wave such a magic wand and give hope to ordinary households, then he is capable of greater things.

One does not suppose Minister Gunawardena, after decades of producing economists from his tuition classes, is going to turn out lethargic inhabitants like those that the observant but rather hyperbolic Robert Knox noted in his day. There they were, lying under coconut trees, waiting for the nut to fall instead of showing the dexterity of some of our graft-grabbers who make the loot disappear even faster than acres of our precious forests and wetlands.

These days, public servants, better known to the general public as executors of unwritten laws, are more likely to show great enthusiasm in the exercise of civic duties than in the days of Knox.

In fact, while in search of an insightful quote from the Englishman who spent decades or so in Lanka mainly in the Kandyan kingdom, I unexpectedly came across a recent article on Knox by Ravi Perera in a local daily. In it, he says the people of this land “even then were political animals, showing keen interest in the goings on at the King’s Court. Given that the humble subjects of the small kingdom were affected almost on a daily basis by the capricious moods of the monarch and his high officials, this perhaps was only a natural measure of self-preservation.”

“Here are no laws, but the will of the King, and whatsoever proceeds out of his mouth is an immutable law”, wrote the knowledgeable Knox.

Robert Knox was lucky that when he wrote such denunciations of King Rajasinha II as a dictatorial old monarch, the King of Kandy was long gone, I suspect, and no amount of appeals to the Privy Council or resort to the 19th Amendment would have saved Knox’s bacon or whatever. Anyway Rajasinha II was hardly conversant with the Queen’s English as they say. Otherwise Mr Knox would have learnt some bitter lessons for insulting the Sri Lankan monarch’s citizens as a slothful lot.

In this age of pandemics, governments cannot cling to old fashioned ways of ruling nations. There are those who even think that constitutions as basic laws are outdated. Others believe that the judiciary itself is antiquated. Whoever is the modern monarch as it were, should be the ultimate ruler and the people must pay the price for calling for human rights, free speech and other such unnecessary appendages like the appendix which is of little use to man or beast

It used to be said that in ancient times the country’s monarch would have those suspected of crimes (never mind if they were minor or not) tied between two arecanut trees and torn apart. It sounds apocryphal for one cannot believe that our Royal ancestors would be guilty of such inhuman treatment. This seems a highly exaggerated means of making the world believe Sri Lanka’s rulers were so callous they had no respect for human rights and even humans. But then times have changed haven’t they.

Consider, for instance, the portfolios that some of our ministers hold. The other day I was having a quick look at the cabinet and non-cabinet ministers and ran into so much rubbish. If you believe all that you will believe the 28,000-odd lies, half truths and fairy tales that Donald Trump has uttered since he became president, according to fact checkers.

Our constitutional experts and others who serve as advisers will tell you that nowhere in our ancient statutes is the arecanut-tree treatment considered an offence with nuts falling all over the place onto betel leaves.

It is only now that bypassing the measurements of a coconut and over-pricing it has become law. There is speculation that when 20A reaches the Committee Stage in parliament this new coconut law will be added to the amended amendment. But that it said to be only temporary.

When the new Constitution is presented for the approval of the people sometime next year, there will likely be other provisions under new articles titled “Fruits, Nuts and other odds and ends which will include more than coconuts. It is said that the drafters will be working in tandem with ministers, non-cabinet ministers and bureaucrats with the attributes of Aristotle to produce new laws and messy and lengthy portfolios that would give the government printer insomnia.

Take for instance State Minister Janaka Wakkumbura. One of his subjects is betel production. But nobody seems to be interested in producing arecanuts. What would our ancient royalty with particular interest in arecanut trees have said at such neglect! Or take the tasks allocated to the former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Nalaka Godahewa. Two of his subjects are waste disposal and public sanitation. One wonders where State Minister Godahewa started his ministerial duties. Personally I would begin at the beginning — from the place where he is a member.

My old friend Vasudeva Nanayakkara has been gushing in parliament for 50 years or so. Now they have given him the portfolio of water supply. Where? Anyway that will stop him from spilling forth.

With the budget due shortly what political and bureaucratic shenanigans are going on behind closed doors must surely worry consumers and workers who have lost their jobs or are probably in search of work to keep heart and soul. Who knows whether new types of measuring tapes or other gadgetry will appear in the market place to coconut tree climbers as Minister Arundika Fernando spread the good word from half way up a coconut tree?

Today, it is coconuts that are subject to measurement. As the consumer authorities know there are smaller fruit that could come under the tape law. Oranges for instance! Why not lemons? Even the limes could be divided by size. Some bright spark would name them lime and sublime.

Better still, why not measure every new parliamentarian who enters that august assembly for size — weight and waist size — if the tape measure is long enough to go round a ministerial waist with sufficient elasticity that is. Then do it every six months. That should prove a hilarious journey from the sublime to the ridiculous.

(Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who was Assistant Editor, Diplomatic Editor and Political Columnist of the Hong Kong Standard before moving to London where he worked for Gemini News Service. Later he was Deputy Chief-of-Mission in Bangkok and Deputy High Commissioner in London before
returning to journalism.)