Rajpal's Column

20th August 2000

No tickets for this spectator sport, Lankan politics

By Rajpal Abeynayake

Where is Bodhi Ranasinghe? How is Chandraprema doing, and did Milinda Moragoda enjoy the hospitality at the CID headquarters? All this constitutes the garnishing on the real hot story. Which is that the October 10th election is going to be unclean, and wholly unprincipled. But we do not need to maintain the facade of sticking to principles.

This is what the UNP and the PA have firmly told the voters already. In a week when a book about Sri Lanka's saffron robed brotherhood is getting some worldwide attention (Seneviratne's) it's curious that the UNP seems to have taken the whole policy yo-yo. These days, the UNP marches up the slight Borella junction incline, with the nabobs of the Mavubima Surekeeme Viyaparaya.

This the UNP hopes will do some damage control with the Venerables, and the vast Buddhist majority who are voting with the Venerables. Buddhism and the Buddhist establishment are two different things, says the general line of argument which has been adduced in books such as "Buddhism Betrayed'' and the new analysis by Seneviratne. But, the Buddhists having a Theravada "establishment'', along with their respect and allegiance to the Buddha's teachings, is about the same as the Vatican having a vast Roman Catholic establishment (empire?) that is one of the richest and most powerful on earth. Or Thailand having a very influential Buddhist brotherhood that is on fraternal terms with King Adulatej.

The problem with the UNP is that the party seemed ideologically willing to go against the will of this Buddhist establishment. The heavily varnished furniture of Temple Trees would bear witness to this fact in the last few months. But now, the UNP suddenly acknowledges the Buddhist establishment, and a whole new chapter would have to be written about the saffron robed brotherhood by all these authors.

Yes, "Buddhism'' is a political establishment in Sri Lanka, as much as the Church of England is a political establishment that relates filially to the British monarchy for instance. That's obvious as night follows day, even though books such as Buddhism Betrayed have tried to make some sort of scandalous new revelation of it.

But, the UNP, for reasons of its own, ideologically chose to veer away from this establishment, and has now remembered to turn full circle and come back within the folds of the saffron robe. The PA also has turned the full circle, and has a new Prime Minister announce to the press that "nothing will be passed unless the Malwatte stamp of approval is on it.'' This position of course could have been arrived at by both parties, without taxing the Temple Trees furniture for something like four months. But, in the meantime, the PA, becoming still more pious, gives the go-ahead for the arrest of Thadi Priyantha Chandraprema, and assorted others. No matter that Chandrika Kumarantunga also retreated to England because she was being besieged by those whom Thadi Priyantha is now accused of picking a quarrel with — in those hazy eighties.

To be precise, Chandrika Kumarantunga virtually fled to England, after her husband was gunned down by the JVP, in the presence of her children. ( Ronnie Peiris, Doughie Peiris, what the hell, what's in a Peiris?)

For the PA, this is the high point of a strategy of being dangerously unprincipled on issues which involve past political killings. People such as Thadi Priyantha may be slim pickings for the PA, but the PA is buying into a strategy that seems to ask for another thousand Thadi Priyantha's to be created.

Winning elections in Sri Lanka are about going behind saffron robes, and about creating dissension among political opponents. The People's Alliance has been able to do that, partly thanks to an economic base that was created by the United National Party before it.

The People's Alliance never came close to the dangers that the UNP faced, in 89 with the JVP or in 1987, with Rajiv Gandhi and Big Chief Dixit's memorable parippu excursion. Elephant Pass this year, was the closest the PA came to a crisis that would have forced the party to mend its generally unprincipled, disgracefully expedient style of politics and governance.

But, again the PA seemed to have been enriched and emboldened by the previous experience of the UNP. As one American Magazine ( the New Republic ) pointed out recently in a country feature on Sri Lanka in its feature pages, the Sri Lankan war has become a lifestyle that bothers particularly no one in the country.

At least five per cent of the employed ( the forces ) survive because of the war, the feature points out.

Irrespective of the pros and cons of that analysis, what's irrefutable is that, as a country Sri Lanka and the economy has learnt to be resilient, and to treat the war as a ongoing irritant.

The "turnaround'' and the "stabilisation'' after Elephant Pass, is a repeat of this formula that was perfected initially by the UNP regimes (some of which didn't seem to be interested in quite finishing off the war in the first place.)

Since there is no economic guillotine that is going to roll down on the government, and also thanks to an opposition, the going principle seems to be that every unprincipled act has to be followed by one that is ten times more expedient. What more needs be added?

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