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“Not everything is metal, but metal is everywhere. Metal is a conductor of all matter … and thought is born more from metal than stone…”

Deleuze and Guattari, A 1000 Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia

Professor Gananath Obeyesekere commissioned Tissa Ranasinghe to sculpt in bronze the figure of Kannagi/Pattini, a glistening photograph of which is on the deep blue-black cover of his magnificent book The Cult of the Goddess Pattini. Kannagi/Pattini are the two forms of a South Indian mother goddess worshipped by Tamil Hindus of South India and Sri Lanka and Buddhists, whose human origins are in the Tamil epic Silappadikaram, in which she is the main protagonist. The book, decades in the making, was published by Chicago University Press in 1984, one year after the July ‘83 anti -Tamil pogrom, at the beginning of the civil-war in Sri Lanka. I have read on the internet that Ranasinghe was originally commissioned (I don’t know by whom), to make a large bronze statue of Kannagi to commemorate the 1958 ‘race riots’ in the wake of the S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike government making Sinhala the sole national language of Ceylon, thus demoting the status of Tamil as one of the languages of the country. This commission was never realized and it would appear that Obeyesekere’s commission revived the idea on a miniature scale at a critical juncture in the nation’s interracial history.

Ranasinghe and Obeyesekere clearly had decided, fittingly, that the sculpture would be the final scene of mourning, a gesture lamenting the death of her husband, Kovalan, after her remarkable heroic action. The protagonist of the Tamil epic (Kannagi to the Hindus and Pattini to the Sinhala), in her rage against the king of Madura (for killing Kovalan), tore her left breast, throwing it at the city, destroying it with the ensuing fire.

The sculpture shows the single breasted Kannagi (her self-mutilation a sign of her rage and super human power), lamenting beside her murdered husband’s mutilated body. In choosing to represent the Hindu, Tamil version of the legend for the cover of the book on the Pattini mother goddess cult of the Sinhala folk, centred on the Gammaduwa ritual, Obeyesekere and Ranasinghe have emphasised the syncretic nature of popular religious practices in the case of Hinduism and Buddhism as they are practised in Sri Lanka.

Appadurai’s review of Obeysekere’s book

Arjun Appadurai in his review characterises Obeyesekere’s book in the following way:

“This is a book of unusual scope, quality, and scholarly significance. Ostensibly a description and analysis of a single cult in Sri Lanka, it is in fact a major symbolic, psychological, and ethno-historical study of practical religion in Sri Lanka, and of the relationship of that island to Indic culture and society. It is the product of two decades of field research by Sri Lanka’s most distinguished anthropological interpreter, and its combination of textual analysis, ethnographic sensitivity, and methodological catholicity makes it something of a blockbuster”.

My interest here is to take up what Appadurai calls the relationship of the island to Indic culture and society in order to find a way to discuss a possible link between Kannagi and the 11th Century bronze sculpture of Karaikkal Ammaiyar which is the subject of Sarath Chandrajeewa’s small book, “Emaciated female playing the cymbals: A study of an ancient Hindu bronze figurine in Polonnaruwa, Sri Lanka” (2020). The deep history of the co-penetration of Hindu and Buddhist cultures, in relation to bronze sculpture in the late Anuradhapura period has been researched by Chandrajeewa in his doctoral thesis conducted in Russia, on the Veragala Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva sculpture (also published in an elegant book), one among the famous Lankan Bronzes made under the influence of Mahayana Buddhism practised at the Abhayagiri Vihara in the late Anuradhapura period.

These world famous Lankan bronzes were exhibited globally and I saw them here in Sydney at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1994. The small bronze sculpture, of a female musician, identified as Karaikkal Ammaiyar, poet-saint in the Shiva Bhakti (devotional), tradition, according to Chandrajeewa’s analysis, is in a folk idiom made during the Chola rule centred in Polonnaruwa. As a mother goddess, she is worshipped in South India where there are refined, elegant bronze statues of her included in the book. I feel that studying this old ascetic female figure of Karaikkal Ammaiyar, from 11th Century Polonnaruwa period, just might suggest some ways of thinking about female subjectivity, trauma and therapeutic performance modes done under duress, in our time. And perhaps, in so doing, female artists may be able to find new means of expressing new ideas and emotions, which are currently emerging in the most surprising of ways on the streets of Sri Lanka, among its youth or as they call themselves, the ‘Y generation’, especially, people born in the 90’s and now are 30ish.

The old ascetic female singer, Karraikkal Ammaiyar, like Kannagi/Pattini, is not a celestial figure like the canonical consorts of the male Hindu deities but terrestrial, an earthbound mother goddess figures from the folk traditions of India and Sri Lanka, in bronze. They were understood to be humans (whether fictional or actual) before their deification. And according to D. D. Kosambi the mathematician, statistician and historian of ancient India, Indian villages in the Deccan area show ample material evidence of ‘primitive icons,’ stones daubed in red, of a multitude of nameless mother goddess figures. He suggests that these folk practices of the adivasis were subsequently incorporated into more orthodox Patriarchal Brahmanical Hindu caste based religious rituals once the tribal forest dwellers were made indigent and brought into the oppressive Hindu caste system at its lowest end to perform essential tasks considered lowly. This large group of people refer to themselves as Dalit. He says, “Indian mother goddess temples are a direct growth from primitive tribal cults, each of local origin, later brahminised”.

His book, Myth and Reality: Studies in the Formation of Indian Culture, based on extensive fieldwork and brilliant philological analysis of Sanskrit texts, explores these ideas in detail with material evidence, including an array of diverse microliths.

What sort of historical legacy might this little known, non-canonical, folk, bronze sculpture of Karaikkal Ammaiyar in a Polonnaruwa museum suggest to contemporary women artists and performers? Is it even worth looking that far back into our traditions, beyond the modern moment of, say 43 Group and the 20th Century, to imagine how to perform the category of gender beyond the familiar, by now habitual, and perhaps a bit tired moves? What rigorous skills (in developing rich, complex, formal means of poetic abstraction), might it suggest to a receptive mind of a gifted feminist artist or two now? Unlike India, in the absence of hospitable rich local traditions to draw from for women, perhaps casting one’s mind’s eye further afield may not be such a bad thing.

Tough situation for young artists

I am of course not suggesting that women artists ought to start learning to cast bronze now. But rather that young gifted artists should try not to be too circumscribed by formulations often determined by globalised international research protocols, and themes, whether they be those set by the practitioners of American academic art history and its grants and publishing systems or the global art institutions, where artists do have a chance to exhibit and discuss their work. This is probably a tough situation to navigate for young artists. But the effort it takes to be open to one’s own traditions should not be dismissed as ‘oh it’s just traditional’, implying that one shouldn’t go there, as has been done in the past.

Academics and curators should try not to be gatekeepers but mentors who open up possibilities for young artists

The task, as I see it, would be to widen terms of reference and not just fit into researchers’ next book project, which is often determined by professional academic publishing priorities and teaching topics, art-world buzz-words/ideas established elsewhere in the global North.

An idea of the canonical Patriarchal Indian mother goddess popped up recently, in the most unexpected of places, in Asoka Handagama’s controversial film Alborada (2022, in English), about Pablo Neruda’s time in colonial Ceylon as the Chilean consul in 1929-31. There is a kitsch statue of the goddess Parvathi, the dutiful consort of Shiva, in the house that Neruda rents. He created a fantasy around the nameless Dalit woman, who cleaned his toilet daily and whom he raped by likening her to Parvathi. The official Facebook page for the film appears to consist of largely male responses to the film.

I have a general impression that they showed more interest in the figure of the Burmese woman who pursued Neruda relentlessly and whom he rejected violently, rather than with the mother goddess analogy in discussing the rape. Is that because she is presented as the castrating woman archetype, called a ‘Burmese Panther’, ‘the devil’, who arrives with a large knife and is then reduced to a state of melodramatic abjection as a doormat at Neruda’s feet, as though she was saying, ‘sagara jalaya madi anduva oba sanda’ and we are even shown a pool of tears on the floor in a literal minded manner. But at least she is allowed a dignified exit if not much else, our Asian sister, one might say, from Burumaya.

Professor Sunil Ariyaratne’s film, Paththini, a slick epic extravaganza, deals with the Kannagi legend and its Indian lineage just in order to reduce it to reinforcing a Sinhala Buddhist ideology of purity and virginity for women through the exemplary tale of Kannagi and her step-daughter Manimekala, who becomes a Tamil Buddhist. Her dearest wish is to be born a male in her next life so that she can indeed aspire to become a Buddha. The emphasis is on the preservation of virginity (pathiwatha), and the enthroning of male sexuality as the route to attaining Buddhahood.

According to Kosambi the power of the tribal female folk deities, through their ‘unofficial’ proliferation, meant that there was room for women to struggle to find some degree of freedom in the domain of ritual and religious practices even under material constraints of tribal life.

Given that Paththini is the only guardian mother goddess in Sinhala Buddhist culture it would be interesting to look at a minor figure cast in bronze such as Karaikkal Ammaiyar to see if her image can transmit any ideas to us now. Geeta Kapur the Indian art critic, theorist of modernism and curator, once told me that the way the limbs are modelled on the bronze figurine, the Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-Daro (2300-1750 BCE), and also on the Chola bronzes (9th-11th Century CE) are similar, that the limbs are in a tubular form, not sculpted realistically. This tubular form is also perceptible in the arms of the emaciated musician playing cymbals and singing as well. To perceive such similarities is important because they have a strong material basis in craft knowledge but their causality will remain forever obscure, given the vast epochs they straddle.

Nevertheless one can imagine, speculate on what they allow us to think about; the power of visual forms of abstraction, of iconic figures, archetypes of the mother goddess, across epochs in the one sub-continent of great aesthetic and linguistic diversity as in India and in a related adjacent country such as ours, with limited resources.

I feel that there is a powerful formal-conceptual-spiritual link one can draw between Ranasinghe’s sculpture of Kannagi and that of the Karaikkal Ammaiyar presented as an ascetic musician/singer who keeps a rhythmic beat with her cymbals and sings in great abandon, with her ‘eyes wide shut’.

Tissa Ranasinghe’s bronze Kannagi is a thoroughly contemporary icon of a mythical folk mother goddess. It is not a ‘beautiful’ pieta full of pathos. There is such a modern admixture or montage of rasas, rage (raudra), terror (bhayankara), disgust (bhibhatsa), heroism (Veera), evoked by her righteous cry. Whereas, in the state sponsored ideology of Sinhala-Buddhist pure womanhood, encoded in a recent film like Paththini by Professor Sunil Ariyaratne, the Sinhala variant of the goddess is embodied by the ‘pure wife’ Kannagi and her step-daughter Manimekalai, who becomes a Buddhist nun. There is a tradition to this in much liked Sinhala films such as Parasathu Mal (1966), by Gamini Fonseka and Ran Salu (1967), by Lester James Peries, both written by P. K. D. Seneviratne.

In both these films the character played by Anula Karunathilaka brings a new set of attributes into Sinhala cinema. She breaks certain sexual taboos and in Parasathu Mal expresses her anger against the feudal master who exploited her sexually and demands her rights and that of their ‘illegitimate’ daughter. In Ran Salu, however, the narrative problems are resolved by her choice of becoming a Buddhist nun, like Manimekala. While Punya Heendeniya plays the appealing ‘good Sinhala Buddhist woman’ role to perfection and wins the ideal husband, Karunathilaka offers an energetic foil to her, which has its own modern appeal. In relation to this distant history, Ariyaratne’s recent film reinforces feudal ideas of Buddhist, womanly purity, and appears to have linked up with nationalist Sinhala Buddhist state ideology of the postwar period. The mythic epic figure of Kannagi who in her rage enacts heroic justice is converted into an emblem of virginal purity. (To be Continued)

Possible link between TID head’s arrest and Easter Sunday massacre baffles retired DIG

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The Sri Lanka Institute of Directors (SLID) and Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL) recently declared corruption as the root cause of Sri Lanka’s current political and economic crisis. The declaration was made in a statement titled, “SLID and TISL launch ‘Business Against Corruption’ Initiative” issued to the media after the two organisations finalised an agreement on a three-year plan to address the issues at hand.

The statement described the contract as strategic collaboration between the two NGOs. Veteran banker Faizal Salieh and Attorney-at-Law Nadishani Perera signed the agreement for SLID and TISL, respectively.

TISL was launched in late 2002 whereas SLID came into being in April 2000. The assertion that corruption bankrupted the country underscored the failure on the part of successive governments (parliaments), the Finance Ministry, Monetary Board, CIABOC, Attorney General’s Department and the Auditor General’s Department, as well as apparent well-meaning bodies, like SLID and TISL. The way the political party system hindered and diluted the National Audit Bill and the Parliament moved court against the releasing of MPs’ asset declarations indicate the challenges faced in reforming the system.

No less a person than the Governor of the Central Bank Dr. Nandalal Weerasinghe, in May this year, acknowledged Sri Lanka’s shameful status. Dr. Weerasinghe, who retired as Senior Deputy Governor, CBSL in January 2021, was requested to take over the CBSL in April this year in the wake of Ajith Nivard Cabraal’s resignation amidst an unprecedented deterioration of the country’s financial situation.

Nadishani Perera succeeded as TISL’s Executive Director from Asoka Obeysekera in January 2021. Salieh was unanimously elected as the Chairman, SLID for the year 2021/22 at a virtual AGM held on Aug. 11, 2021. It would be pertinent to mention that the then State Minister of Finance, Capital Markets and State Enterprise Reforms Cabraal was the Chief Guest at this meet held a month before Central Bank Governor Prof. W.D. Lakshman was unceremoniously asked to step down to pave the way for the State Minister to return to the Governor’s Office.

Cabraal previously served as the 12th Governor of CBSL from July 2006 to January 2015 and returned. His second stint as the 16th Governor, CBSL lasted just eight months. As the 16h Governor he was elevated to the Cabinet rank. As a result, the Governor’s rank in the Table of Precedence has gone up from 20th to fifth place. The Governor is now ranked below the President, Prime Minister, Speaker and the Chief Justice.

In joint fifth place, the Table of Precedence comprises the Leader of the Opposition, Cabinet of Ministers and the Field Marshal.

When Cabraal succeeded Prof. Lakshman the government was in serious difficulty. Having ignored the IMF’s advice in early 2020 to restructure the debt and drop plans to do away with a range of taxes, the then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s government caused immense damage to the national economy. But the economic fallout cannot be entirely blamed on corruption since the country had to fend off the worldwide pandemic and the 2019 Easter Sunday terror attacks by Islamic extremists, both of which crippled the country’s vibrant and vital tourism industry and worker remittances, coupled with the fallout from the war in Ukraine.

Nadishani Perera declared their primary objective was to eradicate corruption supported by the private sector. She said so in response to a query from us. They’ll be seeking required funding from the ADB, World Bank and other institutions such as the Centre for International Private Enterprise (CIPE).

A toxic combination of waste, corruption, irregularities, mismanagement and ill-advised decisions contributed to the worst-ever crisis post-independence Sri Lanka experienced. Both public and private sectors should accept responsibility for the crisis. Shocking disclosures made by the Auditor General and at proceedings of the Committee of Public Enterprises (COPE), Committee of Public Accounts (COPA) and Committee of Public Finance (COPF) over the years repeatedly proved culpability of Parliament for the financial crisis.

The SLID-TISL project is meant to enhance transparency, accountability and integrity by encouraging ethical business practices, fair market competition, fair pricing and credible leadership.

The joint statement quoted Salieh as having said: “We are mindful of the current state of affairs, the ground realities, and the challenges faced by companies in doing business. Therefore, our approach on this journey is pragmatic and practical and will enable businesses to proactively and progressively mitigate the corruption risk using preventive measures, checks and balances on a voluntary, ‘best efforts’ basis.”

Nadishani Perera was quoted as having said: “Businesses play a critical role in any nation’s efforts against corruption. At this unique and transformative moment in Sri Lanka’s history, as the citizens have risen against corruption, it is of utmost importance that the business community also commits to do its part towards this mission.”

 In spite of high-profile projects reportedly meant to restore public confidence in public and private sectors, the situation continues to deteriorate. That is the undeniable truth. In late Nov 2016, the USAID in partnership with Sri Lanka Parliament launched USD 13 mn (Rs 1.92 bn) project to strengthen accountability, transparency and good governance.

Parliament owed the public an explanation as regards the success or utter failure of the three-year project. Did it achieve its objectives? Perhaps, the then Speaker Karu Jayasuriya, in his new capacity as the Chairman of the National Movement for Social Justice (NMSJ) will care to explain the outcome of the USAID project. The USD 13 mn project should be examined against the backdrop of the Treasury bond scams perpetrated in Feb 2015 and March 2016 under then yahapalana (good governance) rule. Then Speaker Jayasuriya and the US obviously didn’t care that the yahapalana government delayed investigations into the Treasury bond scams and actually nothing really was done about it until then President Maithripala Sirisena appointed a presidential Commission of Inquiry (CoI) that included two sitting Supreme Court judges in late January 2017 to carry out a public probe.

Probably, Sirisena, now an SLPP MP (Polonnaruwa district) must have quite conveniently forgotten how he dissolved Parliament at midnight on June 26, 2015 to prevent the then COPE Chairman D.E.W. Gunasekera from tabling in Parliament his report on the first Treasury bond scam. At the behest of the UNP leadership, the then lawmaker Attorney-at-Law Sujeewa Senasinghe moved court to thwart the releasing of the COPE report. Senasinghe, an Attorney-at-Law even had the audacity to write a book denying the scam.

Regardless of Perpetual Treasuries Limited (PTL) being under the spotlight over the Treasury Bond scams, the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) had no qualms in receiving sponsorship amounting to Rs 2.5 mn in support from the tainted firm for its project, Law Asia 2016. The Colombo Port City and the USAID had been among the BASL’s sponsors for its other events.

 Eight years after the first Treasury Bond scam, what is the current status of the investigations and Sri Lanka’s efforts to convince Singapore to extradite Arjuna Mahendran, under whose watchful eyes as the Governor, CBSL the Treasury Bond scams took place? Can the Attorney General and the Justice Ministry explain measures taken by them since the change of government in July to have Mahendran extradited? Against the backdrop of assurances given by the Justice Minister Dr. Wijeyadasa Rajapakse, PC, that a Bill to combat fraud and corruption would be enacted soon, the public have a right to know how the new government intended to handle Treasury Bonds scams probe/prosecutions.

Singapore-based Mahendran challenged The Island editorial (‘Cops and Robbers’) of Friday August 19, 2022. Denying he fled the country, the Singaporean revealed that his Counsel Romesh de Silva, PC secured the permission of Supreme Court justice K.T. Chitrasiri for him to leave the country. Justice Chitrasiri headed the CoI. The issue at hand is whether Mahendran through his learned Counsel gave an assurance to Justice Chitrasiri that he would return to the country in case the Attorney General initiated legal action over the Treasury Bond scams. Perhaps, Mahendran’s Counsel should set the record straight.

The question is when President’s Counsel Romesh de Silva made the request on behalf of Mahendran and secured approval as the former CBSL Governor claimed, did he give an assurance to the CoI that he would return within a specific period or did the CoI sought such a pledge from him.

Vidanapathirana Associates, on behalf of Ranil Wickremesinghe, several weeks after the last presidential election in Nov 2019, responded to a spate of allegations pertaining to Treasury Bond scams et al directed at the former Premier by yahapalana regime President Maithripala Sirisena. Responding to specific allegation that Wickremesinghe helped Mahendran to escape Sri Lankan justice, Vidanapathirana Associates stated (verbatim): “Mr. Arjuna Mahendran gave evidence before the Presidential Commission and therefore obtained its permission to leave Sri Lanka. He has not returned since then.”

The Attorney General’s Department should inquire into the circumstances under which Mahendran left the country.

 Restructuring/privatization of loss-making state enterprises has received attention as part of the overall economic recovery efforts. However, rebel SLPP lawmaker Dr. Nalaka Godahewa recently raised the possibility of the new government exploiting the current economic crisis to privatize profit-making ventures, such as Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation (SLIC) and Sri Lanka Telecom. The former Viyathmaga activist was responding to President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s recent declaration as regards privatization.

Declaring his whole hearted support for the proposed restructuring of loss-making enterprises, Dr. Godahewa however questioned the move to privatize the profitable ventures. Such privatizations will further weaken the public sector due to the Treasury being deprived of much needed cash. Dr. Godahewa assertion that the vast majority of 94 state enterprises privatized between 1990-2003 during the tenure of late President Ranasinghe Premadasa and ex-President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga were profitable ventures reveals how the powers that be gradually deprived the Treasury of wherewithal.

The lawmaker while making reference to the controversial circumstances China secured the Hambantota port on a 99-year-lease for USD 1.2 bn in 2017, questioned the move to privatize SLIC and SLT.

Commenting on what he called Sri Lanka’s infamous privatization policy, Dr. Godahewa mentioned a few interesting facts regarding the privatized enterprises though he refrained from naming them. (1) The Supreme Court in 2009 reversed the sale of SLIC for Rs 6 bn during the tenure of Kumaratunga’s regime. At the time of the transaction, the SLIC had assets estimated to be worth over Rs 30 bn (2) The Supreme Court also in the same year reversed two more corrupt transactions, namely Waters Edge and Lanka Marine Services (3) A person who bought a plantation company earned a 100 percent profit within 24 hours after he sold the same property for double the amount he paid for (4) Those who acquired a company that dealt with food much more cash they paid for that particular state enterprise. That enterprise had more money in its bank accounts and the safes than what was received by the government from the buyer and (5) Some of those buyers earned massive profits by selling machinery and equipment.

So, no wonder she was dubbed Chaura Regina (bandit queen) by her one-time political soulmate Victor Ivan in a book he published and to this date ex-President Kumaratunga has not dared to challenge the accusations either in a court of law or by word.

The whole privatisation/restructuring programme appeared to have been carried out at the expense of the national economy while successive governments packed the public enterprises with their supporters. But the massive expansion of the public sector took place at the behest of Mahinda Rajapaksa, who served as the President from Nov 2005 to January 2015.

Public Administration Secretary Priyantha Mayadunne didn’t mince his words a few months ago when he declared how the public service had become an unbearable burden to the taxpayer. But why didn’t he speak up earlier? Mayadunne explained how the public service had been recklessly expanded to nearly 1.5 mn whereas the requirement was 500,000. One-time Justice Ministry Secretary Mayadunne emphasized the need to restructure the public service. Mayadunne’s warning to political parties represented in Parliament, state and private sector trade unions and the civil society that they will soon be categorized as traitors unless they agreed to far reaching economic reforms appeared to have fallen on deaf ears.

Regardless of consequences, the government and the Opposition seemed still struggling to score petty political points than reaching a consensus on workable solutions to address grave political, economic and social issues. Their failure to agree on urgently needed reforms agenda is evidence that the public cannot depend on political parties represented in parliament. Instead of addressing issues at hand, particularly the internationally supervised debt restructuring plan, those who are responsible for the economic fallout seemed determined to consolidate their positions while pursuing the same old strategies.

The government owed an explanation as regards accusations pertaining to the planned privatization of the SLIC and SLT.

 According to TISL’s most recent Corruption Perception Index (2021) Sri Lanka is ranked 102nd out of 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption. This assessment is certainly questionable. If corruption allegations directed at decision-makers, both in and outside Parliament, are properly examined taking into consideration the responsibilities of the executive, members of the legislature as well as the judiciary, Sri Lanka must be among the worst lot. The proceedings of the parliamentary watchdog committees, periodic reports released by them as well as the Auditor General’s reports paint a bleak picture. The SLID and TISL should inquire into public enterprises as the former represents nearly 1,000 personnel at top management level at state and private sectors. Instead of taking tangible measures to tackle waste, corruption, irregularities and mismanagement, the anti-corruption project could become yet another lucrative trade.

 Former Samagi Jana Balavegaya lawmaker Ranjan Ramanayake declared as he left Welikada prison last Friday (26) that Justice Minister Dr. Wijeyadasa Rajapakse, PC, asked for a guarantee from him that he would continue his anti-corruption campaign. The declaration was made after Ramanayake serving a four-year term of RI for contempt of judiciary received a presidential pardon after he publicly acknowledged there was no basis for accusations, he directed at the judiciary on Aug 21, 2017 outside Temple Trees. The former MP apologized to the judiciary while promising not to say anything inimical to the judiciary ever again. Obviously, those who had gathered outside Welikada prison to welcome Ramanayake didn’t really comprehend the implications of the politician going back on his much-publicized declarations. During his tenure as a UNP MP, Ramanayake twice lashed out at the judiciary. In respect of the second case the Supreme Court sentenced him to two years RI suspended for five years.

There had never been a proper inquiry into Ramanayake’s audio tapes though they captured the attention of the public. The releasing of audio tapes of conversations among SSP Shani Abeysekara (he hadn’t been appointed Director CID then), the then Deputy Minister of Social Empowerment Ranjan Ramanayake, the then High Court judge Mrs. Padmini Ranawaka and President Maithripala Sirisena, in the wake of the 2019 Presidential Election, sent shock waves through political parties, the judiciary, the police and the civil society.

Controversy still surrounds the circumstances under which the police received the recordings, secretly made by Ramanayake. Selected tapes were released to both the print and electronic media. Attempts to hush up the shocking revelations, pertaining to the Himbutana killings (Bharatha Premachandra killing), and the subsequent judgment failed.

Those in authority conveniently refrained from conducting a proper investigation into the scandalous interventions made by Ramanayake, as well as the conduct of HC judge Mrs. Ranawaka, and Abeysekara, though the police recorded some statements, including that of Mrs. Ranawaka.

Parliament suppressed the matter. The then Speaker Karu Jayasuriya should explain what really happened. Jayasuriya was among those who called for presidential pardon for Ramanayake. The failure to examine Parliament’s pathetic response to the disturbing revelations and the suppression of CDs is a matter for concern.

Did Ramanayake speak to High Court Judge Mrs. Ranawaka to influence the murder conviction against Duminda Silva, sans permission from the party leadership? Did the then top UNP leadership tell him to approach judges in respect of various cases?

Ramanayake is also on record phoning High Court judge Gihan Pilapitiya and Magistrate Dhammika Hemapala. Following the disclosure of a fraction of the tapes, the police recorded statements from Mrs. Ranawaka (retired), Pilapitiya and Hemapala.

Let me focus on the conversations involving Mrs. Ranawaka, Ramanayake, Abeysekara and President Sirisena (now SLPP Polonnaruwa district MP. Sirisena also remains the SLFP leader).

Mrs. Ranawaka had no qualms in declaring that she had no confidence in President Sirisena though she subsequently directly pleaded with him to promote her to the Court of Appeal. Mrs. Ranawaka expressed doubts about President Sirisena when Ramanayake phoned her on July 14, 2016, in the wake of Abeysekara expressing serious concerns over the way the Duminda Silva matter, and related issues, were proceeding to their dislike. Nearly two dozen conversations, involving Ramanayake and Abeysekara, should have been examined without taking them in isolation. According to conversations now in public domain, Mrs. Ranawaka asked Ramanayake to intervene on her behalf when the latter pressed her on the pending judgment on the Himbutana killings. The judge also made reference to the then lawmaker and Attorney-at-Law Ajith P. Perera during her conversation, initiated by Ramanayake. The way the conversation continued, clearly indicated that the call taken by Ramanayake, on July 14, 2016, couldn’t have been the first and they knew each other very well. Mrs. Ranawaka, obviously exploited Ramanayake’s intervention to explore the possibility of moving up the ladder with unbridled political patronage.

Let there be a thorough inquiry into matters of concern. A genuine effort is needed.

I was sent a copy of an article titled, ‘How Sri Lankan Tamils came to have English names,’ written by Vinod Moonesinghe (https://roar.media/english/life/history/how-sri-lankan-tamils-came-to-have-english-names/amp). What follows is but a snippet in response. I offer as a suggestion (and not as an assertion) that these are often not English but Christian names: by “Christian names” here I include the pre-Christian ‘Old Testament’. Of course, one must bear in mind that there are Tamils with English or Western names who are not Christian, and Christian Tamils with Tamil names: I tend to think the last is on the increase.

Empires, whether deliberately intended or otherwise, are powerful disseminating forces. To cite an example, Ludwik Zamenhof (1859-1917) invented the artificial language, Esperanto. He hoped it would be a step towards dispelling misunderstanding caused by linguistic incomprehension. He hoped Esperanto would lead to the creation of greater harmony within humankind. By and large, the attempt failed but today (whether we welcome it or not) we have a natural, a living, Esperanto in the English language, commonly shared and freely used. At present, it is the world’s language. English has this role and status because England had the most extensive empire the world has seen to date. As England declined, so too should have the English language, as happened to Roman Latin. But England’s decline was marked by the ascendency of yet another English-speaking country, the USA. (I think it was Shaw who quipped that England and America are two countries separated by the same language.) English was and is the first-language in Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Several other countries use English as one of their official languages: in Zambia, it’s the only official language.

Christians formed a small, obscure sect until another earlier empire, the Roman Empire, took it as its religion: ironically Christianity, a pacifist religion in doctrine, spread thanks to military might. From Rome, Christianity spread to England, then an unimportant country. The generally accepted story is that the Pope sent the monk Augustine in 597 to England in order to convert the pagans there to Christianity. ‘Fast forward’ a few centuries and England, no longer pagan but a Christian country, dominates the seas and is arguably the strongest power on the planet. But it was not only England: other European nations such as Spain, France, Portugal and Holland were also Champions of Christianity, and saw it as their duty to proselytize. Often it was a case of the Bible in one hand and the sword in the other.

The cradle of Christianity was the Middle East, and Biblical scholars are in agreement that Jesus spoke Aramaic. His original name, Yeshua, was made more linguistically palatable by being altered to “Jesus” – as were several other Biblical names, including those of the twelve disciples. The West, having adopted a religion with roots in the Middle East, adapted it to their culture. Understandably, they appropriated the religion and made it their own, expressing it in their own cultural terms. So it is that the Virgin Mary came to be visualised as totally European, sometimes with blue eyes and even with blond hair. Christianity had become a Western religion. A short story by Doris Lessing, titled ‘The black Madonna’ is about an Italian prisoner of war during the Second World War, detained in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Called upon to paint the Virgin Mary, he causes shock and outrage by producing a black Madonna: a black Virgin Mary for a black people.

Christianity, quite naturally, was brought by Western powers to the rest of the world as their (Western) religion, and the natives who embraced Christianity, in their innocence (and “innocence” sometimes is a synonym for “ignorance”) took over Western cultural elements, names being one of them. I use the term “natives” without apology because though it was once pejorative, it is now a matter of passionate claim and contest. Generally, the natives did not, while accepting doctrine and core belief, express them in their own native cultural terms. They lacked the necessary courage and confidence, not to mention creativity, to say that God being universal and equally accessible to all who believe, there must be the representation of God as an African and in African terms, for Africans; an Asian representation and cultural expression of God for Asians and so on. Africans, Asians and other non-Europeans should not have been made to worship a God in the European image. However, a white God reinforced the superiority of white people. And part of this superiority was white (Christian) names. It can be generalised that Christian natives were less enfolded in traditional culture than those who had not converted. Are Tamil Hindus more embedded in Tamil culture than Tamil Christians? Of course, this raises several questions such as: What is “culture”? Isn’t there more than one culture within a country? If so, can we privilege one expression of culture over another? Can one always separate culture and religion? Doesn’t what is called “culture” change over time? And though not always, isn’t change as good as it is inevitable?

Many Moslem females wear the hijab; Jewish men, the kippah; Sikh men have their turban and so on. These are outward signs of an inner conviction. So too many natives had Christian names to signify their conversion and belief – but the names were not Middle Eastern but European!

Another aspect worth mentioning is that of power, and the prestige, status and allure that go with power. If a new religion is brought to a people by foreign individuals who represent an economically poor and militarily feeble country, it is unlikely that that religion will find fertile soil, will grow and flourish: see Christianity and the Roman and British empires. On the other hand, success, both economic and military, has an attractive shine and one understands those who align themselves with the successful, in this case by taking European names. The economic and military success of Europeans led some, if not many, natives to think that “pagan” (non-Christian) gods were either weaker or false. One is reminded of the contest between the prophet Elijah and the prophets of the (“false”) god Baal where the offering of meat by the latter was not accepted by God. And Elijah mocked them and said: “Cry aloud, for he is a god; either he is meditating, or he is busy, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is sleeping and must be awakened.” (The Old Testament,1 Kings 18: 27).

Names can lead us into cultural and political history. For example, in Sri Lanka during times of anti-Tamil riot and pogroms, physical assault, even life and death, depended on one’s name. Simply stated, whether the name ended with a consonant or a vowel: was it Rajaratnam or Rajaratne? Shakespeare’s Juliet, who innocently asked what’s in a name was, after all, only about thirteen years of age. “Judas” is now an insulting adjective, and no longer a proper noun. Post-Hitler, the name “Adolf” is rare in Germany. Are certain names in Sri Lanka being quietly altered or dropped altogether? Names bear investigation

Finally shaking off his hesitance,

Though the burning shame remains,

The elder staggers in the dark,

To the noisy door of his jaded house,

Now that his power and water lines,

Have been with no warning curtly cut,

His aim being to hit the ill-lit streets,

And to beg for some financial relief,

From passers-by with a kind heart,

To pay his ever piling utility bills,

Now stunning him like bleeding flesh,

But the sight of his despairing wife,

Crouched in grief in a chair in the dark,

Shedding scalding tears over their lot,

Brings the sharpest pain to his heart,

Making him plead for early deliverance,

From this living-death by rulers wrought.

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