Sunday Times 2
What’s the impact of Poya Day political Bana
View(s):Poya Day ‘Bana’ (sermons) in the media have over the years been increasingly hyped up in piety and if the impact has been positive on viewers and listeners, should Sri Lankan society comprising 75 percent Buddhists be in its present state?
Poya Day sermons, particularly on TV, have become unabashedly politically polarised and two TV channels have no qualms about mixing up politics with the doctrine of the Enlightened One.
The state-owned channel Rupavahini on Poya Days broadcasts from Temple Trees — where the official residence and office of the prime minister is located — while a private channel has been of late broadcasting Bana where Opposition and Samagi Jan Balawegaya Leader Sajith Premadasa features prominently among the worshippers, with other party leaders, members of their families and children.
The Temple Trees sermons have Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena featured as the chief of the devotees and other prominent figures of the government among the listeners with their wives and children.
These two TV shows with the devotees clad in unsullied pure white, listening to the intonations of monks in chairs resembling thrones fit for rulers rather than of a monk — quite in contrast to the simple chair covered with a cloth used a few decades ago — attempts to project an ambience of piety in which the leaders are immersed.
The preachers quite often are monks favouring the party and the leaders’ line. Clever monks are able to weave in declared party principles to the preaching of the Buddha while others unabashedly wax eloquent of the greatness of their leaders sitting at their feet.
While Buddhism was used in the pre and post-independence eras of Lanka by the UNP to ward off dialectical Marxists that comprised the then opposition, the political Bana preaching of today is a legacy which both Dinesh Gunawardena and Sajith Premadasa inherited from Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Rajapaksa used the strategy of using temples spread throughout the country to promote himself as a saviour of Buddhism. His strategy was as follows: He visits temples near and far, carrying trays of jasmines, going down on his knees worshipping monks. Of course, his TV crew films it all. After a brief talk with monks, Rajapaksa emerges from the audience hall and finds his favourite reporters asking him dolly questions on the politics of the day which he in cricketing terms dispatches over the boundary like a good batsman should. All this went on primetime TV. Not content with that, he began holding live Bana sermons at his official residences on Poya Day. These tactics appeared to have worked with the Buddhist majority at the elections.
Thus, Dinesh Gunawardena, son of the ‘Father of Marxism’ in Lanka, Phillip Gunawardena, as the prime minister and Sajith Premadasa, whose father didn’t pose off as an extremist Buddhist had no option but to resort to Poya Day sermons, under their political flags. It is a vote catcher that cannot be ignored.
What has been the impact of this open Political Buddhism on the doctrine of Gautama Buddha in Lanka? Crimes unimaginable a few years ago are being reported with frequency these days. Has the nexus between the people and the temple been weakened or even lost? What impressions do these political sermons have on foreigners who are targeted by Buddhist missionaries? Some observers say that the worshippers at temples on Poya are mostly women and children and the males stay at home watching cricket matches with booze even though all booze outlets are closed by the high and mighty to keep the Poya Day holy.
What do the Mahanayakes say on Poya Day Political Bana?
Cricket with an accent
Our cricketers, playing against New Zealanders who are front-rankers in the game, won one match and lost others. But that’s cricket. All credit to the team that won the first T-20 game. The team comprises players mostly from the provinces — ‘Gamey Kollo’
However, whether we win or lose, a moment of great embarrassment comes after the match when most of these players are interviewed by international commentators. Our heroes are reduced to zombies mumbling gibberish because of their inability to answer in English. This has been happening since the time TV interviews began after the matches and has been steadily deteriorating.
We recall the words of a cricketing great who changed the concepts of One-Day cricket as told to us by a sports reporter: ‘seeyak gahana eka prashnayak nowey. Ara Tony Greig karayage prashna walata uttara denda mage belle kadenewa’ (Scoring a century is no problem. But answering Tony Greig’s questions is a neck-breaking task.) Yet this amazing man improved his English so much that the ICC made him a cricket commentator for some matches upon his retirement.
Another stunning example of mutations of cricket and usage of English is of a young man some decades ago, who kept wickets calling out in his native tongue: Danda, danda, Murali karakawala me pettha danda; Niyamai. Niyamai; Allanda, allanda. On inquiry about his identity, we were told he was from a school in the UK (Udawattekelle).
In cricket, he holds some world records and his command of the English language has resulted not only in his appointment as the Chairman of the MCC but has been before the Oxford Union to be interviewed on his cricket career.
This may be the utopia for our anglophiles. We read all about it in an excellent report in gushing prose about the man.
But Oxford English is not what’s required by our boys down under in New Zealand. The Oxford accent would be a further burden on them.
The Immediate solution to the Lankan problem would be the use of translators for interviews of those who can’t speak English. But that is no permanent solution. Cricket’s lingua franca is English for it is impossible to translate cricket’s metaphors such as short leg, square leg, fine leg, googly and yorker. With ‘tuition sirs’ and ‘tuition Misses’ freely available on the internet, shouldn’t competence in English be made compulsory as compulsory fitness for our wielders of the willow?
Royal-Thomian
In response to our comments on March 10 that records made in three-day matches cannot wipe out records made in two-day matches, reader Dilip Kumar states:
I fully agree with the sentiments expressed by you in your above article with respect to the President and the Royal-Thomian big match.
Being an old Thomian myself, I too expected STC to get the better of Royal in the big match….
What ultimately happened is now history.
Yes, it is a bit unfair that the records set up during the time when the game was a two-day affair, are just swept aside now that the game has been converted into a three-day match.
For instance, Duleep Mendis clobbered his 184-run record for S. Thomas’ in the two-day game in 1972. He took a little over two sessions of play to achieve this. The present holder of the highest individual score of 197 runs took Sumithra Warnakulasuriya of Royal nearly a full day’s play plus one session. Unfortunately, it is not possible to have a set of records for the two-day game and a separate set of records now that we are playing a three-day game.
Anyway, this year’s match confirmed a belief I have always held. In team games, the side that gives the better performance on the day of the match will come out on top. Royal did just that.
Doublespeak’s query: Can batting records of ODIs and T-20s in the Battle for the Ashes between England and Australia replace batting records of the past in Test cricket between the two sides? Shouldn’t pundits of cricket be guided by logic rather than by old-school loyalties or other reasons?
(Gamini Weerakoon is a former editor of the Sunday Island, The Island and consultant editor of the Sunday Leader. He can be contacted at gamma.weerakoon@gmail.com)