Recalling a period of great dynamism and pivotal change
Nihal Seneviratne. Pic by M.A. Pushpa Kumara
In 1960, Nihal Seneviratne had that unenviable task of what Banquo in Macbeth called “looking into the seeds of time, and saying which grain will grow; and which will not”.
Aged 25, he had a ‘snap decision’ to make about his future: either take a prestigious Smith Mundt scholarship to the University of Columbia (and thereafter a career as a diplomat), or accept a post as the Second Clerk Assistant at the Sri Lankan Parliament.
The young man chose the seemingly less exciting of the two options, the staid desk beneath the bewigged Speaker, but can today, more than 60 years later, say it was all a highly rewarding career.
‘Memories of 33 Years in Parliament’ to be released on April 30 this year celebrates the high points, scandals, tragedies, the farcical and the slapstick; the moving, the ennobling and the epoch-making at the maha gedera of Sri Lankan legislature.
Nihal Seneviratne was the youngest of a brood born to an eminent surgeon and a Miss Goonewardene of the Rajagaha Walawwa in Akmeemane, Galle. The father was to die while serving as the Police Surgeon in Colombo when Nihal was but 12.
Having had a two-year interlude at Richmond when his father was serving as JMO in Galle, Nihal recalls Galle Fort in the ‘40s with cricket on the ramparts. While at Royal, where he had most of his schooling during Principal J.C.A. Corea’s era, his form master was the inimitable Aubrey Collette, the cartoonist who taught art there and whose irrepressible humour triggered so many delightfully wicked cartoons and caricatures until he finally bid adieu to Ceylon.
The best part of the memoirs, like in Nihal’s previous book ‘A Clerk Reminisces’, has to do with the happenings in Parliament. These range from the hand grenade attack and other dramatic happenings like the move to impeach President Premadasa, Mrs. Bandaranaike’s government losing by one vote, that great lady losing her civic rights and of course shifting the Parliament from that stately British mausoleum to Bawa’s majestic symbol of Sri Lankan democracy mirrored on the Diyawanna.
One of the perks of the job was the chance to accompany delegations of MPs as secretary on foreign tours. Nihal remembers meeting Britain’s Queen Mother and India’s Sonia Gandhi, being bear-hugged by Cuban leader Fidel Castro who enthused about Ceylon tea and being lifelong friends with British Speaker Betty Boothroyd (who nonetheless insisted that Nihal ‘sing for his supper’ by mowing the lawn when staying at her house in Thriplow).
The book records, for many who are too young to recall, a period of great dynamism and pivotal change. One of Nihal’s greatest regrets is how the erudite and the eloquent have gone down in number in the House over the years. It was a privilege he says to have known people of the ilk of Pieter Keuneman, Dr. S.A. Wickremesinghe, Dr. N.M. Perera, Dr. Colvin R. de Silva, G.G .Ponnambalam, Mrs Bandaranaike and Philip Gunewardene.
He puts on record too the marked lack of bon mots and ‘witticisms’ in our Parliament compared to the House of Commons where people from the plummy Churchill to dry Nancy Astor could deliver one-liners of great acerbity.
One chapter is dedicated to how we can aspire to have MPs with better education and understanding, titled ‘Restoring the Dignity of Parliament’.
Having diligently absorbed the spirit of both the Congress and the British House of Commons, Nihal always strove to maintain the same lofty standards. For example, mirroring the practice in America, where a 40-member team was always at hand to compile reports on any subject desired by an MP, he got his own small team to be as efficient.
The book, filled with the shadows of many a great statesman, will, it is hoped, help restore values Nihal sees as threadbare today but essential in the august chambers: discipline, ethics and ‘100% impeccable’ honesty.
‘Memories of 33 Years in Parliament’ will be launched on April 30 at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute and will be available for sale thereafter at the Sarasavi Bookshops.
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