Sunday Times 2
The lesson from Subha and Yasa
View(s):I remember the first time I saw what was probably Simon Nawagaththegama’s finest stage play—Subha Saha Yasa.
The finer details of the plot need not concern us in today’s article. What reminded me of the play was my remembering one of the final scenes in which the newly enthroned king, Subha, was dealing with his ministers and senior administrators.
Basically, the plot rests on the uncanny resemblance between the king Yasa (thought to be Yasalaka Tissa, who reigned from 52 to 60 CE) and his royal gatekeeper Subha. The king, fond of practical jokes, persuaded Subha to change places with him. Exchanging his royal vestments and adornments for the gatekeeper’s military uniform, Yasa placed Subha on the throne and took the gatekeeper’s place at the entrance to the throne room. From this vantage point, he watched his ministers and courtiers when they came to have an audience with the “king” and chuckled to himself while watching the way they falsely fawned over the ‘royal’ personage.
One day, the ‘gatekeeper’ laughed a little too uproariously at his ministers and courtiers obsequiously addressing the ‘king’—so much so that Subha from the throne ordered his guards to arrest the loud and disrespectful ‘gatekeeper’ and put him to death. In vain did Yasa protest that he was the real king—he was duly arrested and summarily executed.
Subha now found himself on the throne, master of all he surveyed, with the power to right all the wrongs of the previous regime. Having started life as a lowly guard in the palace, he was well aware of the travails of the common man, and being an idealistic sort of chap, he was determined to do good by his subjects and make life better for the ordinary working people of the country. He promptly ordered his ministers to ease the burdens on the poor citizens and make more food available for the people at a reduced price.
Unfortunately, the new king was quite inexperienced in running a kingdom. Having had no more training than that of a palace guard, he had no experience of administration or governance. He was unfamiliar with the wheels that went around within the wheels of government. Time after time, when he questioned his ministers and administrators as to why they had not implemented his directives, they went to great lengths to provide Sajith-like lengthy discourses as to why what the king wanted could not be done.
Recalling my first experience, as a young man in my thirties, of watching Nawagaththegama’s brilliant satire, my mind this week was taken back to that scene where King Subha realises that the entrenched administrators who ran the country had their own way of running the show—and nobody, even the most idealistic and well-meaning king, could get them to shift their procedures. As one former administrative service officer used to tell me, “Everything is governed by the AR and the FR”—the Administrative Regulations and Financial Regulations.
As the Scandinavian King Canute of England (1016 to 1035 CE) demonstrated, a king can command—but whether he can force his commands to be carried out is another story.
So President Anura Kumara and Premier Harini—who have been given a mandate to right the wrongs of the previous regimes and have come into office determined to improve the lot of all our citizens—will need to tread carefully to get their job done. They will need parliamentarians and officials with the same sense of commitment and moral rectitude that they themselves have.
The NPP has been wise to not accept any Jumping Frogs—those opportunistic politicians who seek to enrich themselves by crossing over to any party, which they believe will give them the best chance of creeping into office. Thankfully, several parliamentarians of the old disgraced regimes have decided that it would be prudent to refrain from contesting so as to avoid the loss of face that would undoubtedly come if they face the hustings again and lose as they undoubtedly will. In the past, they have managed to hoodwink us gullible voters—but these politicians have now realised that we voters are not as gullible as we have been in the past. The 2024 presidential election, for the first time since Independence, demonstrated an unexpected maturity of outlook in the Sri Lankan voters.
The 2015 Yahapalanaya promise of ‘good governance’ was simply a cover for the massive swindles that followed. The Rajapaksas were dishonest and made no secret of the fact that they were dishonest; Maithripala Sirisena and his crowd were equally dishonest but pretended to be honest. They were wolves in sheep’s clothing in contrast to the Rajapaksas, who were wolves in wolves’ clothing. Despite changes in rulers and regimes, in party affiliations and political alliances, the corrupt and powerful continued to thrive, proving to our suffering nation that politicians in power will always protect politicians out of power, quite irrespective of projected political differences.
So let us hope that AKD, Harini, and the team that they will put together after the November election will help to usher in a reform of the system, an end to state corruption, and punishment as promised for the corrupt and the criminal.
May they, unlike King Subharaja (who ruled just for six years after King Yasalaka was deposed before he himself was overthrown), be blessed with ministers, parliamentarians, and officials with their same outlook and ethos—and can help them to get the job done.
Our nation deserves nothing less.