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| Sunday, 12 May 2002 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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The
battle to be nagara guttika in Kao-lan-pu
by FACTOTUM A little bit of backward looking romanticism may not be out of place at a time when the battle is on in Kao-lan-pu (Colombo) for the post of Mayor (nagara guttika) as it was known in ancient Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa where as far back as the 5th century BC local government was known in this blessed isle. There is no record of intense campaigning by contending parties at that time. Neither is there evidence of periodic elections for these posts but the fact remains that a tradition of local government was inherent until colonial rule saw to its decline and then reinstalled it as a novel experience to train locals in the art of self-government as envisaged by the invader but in reality was a means of relieving Central government of the burden of administering a growing metropolis. The emergence of councils in Colombo and Kandy in the latter part of the nineteenth century was the result. The practice of holding elections to the council was set in motion long before there were elected members to the Legislative Council. There were nine elected members as against six nominated in that first council of 1866 to train them 'to make personal sacrifices for the common good' which is the recurrent theme in all manifestoes even now, a good hundred years and more later and a major claim made by all our elected representatives though hotly debated and disputed by the elector. Be that as it may, the noble intention of the then Governor had been to prepare councillors to 'exercise with fairness, moderation and self restraint, the power and privileges conferred on them, and carry on self-government with justice to the contending interests and classes.' All contenders in the fray these days claim to set those very same standards of ever so long ago. We can all pat ourselves on our backs that we have not deviated from the original path. After all, the coloniser took a leaf off our ancient book and set these councils in motion. Galle conceded its primacy as a port of call a few years after the opening of the Suez Canal and Colombo acquired that status five years after the first election to the newly formed Colombo Municipal Council in 1866. From then onwards upto the present day control of the commercial capital has been vied for with vigour and it has served as the launching pad for many a national figure. The Moorish trading settlement became a popular port of call for ships from China, Persia, India and Arabia to be followed by the invaders from Portugal, Holland and England. Ironically, increasing trade was indirectly linked to the downfall of the Island's Kingdom. The then King of Kandy laments this in a despatch to the Dutch in the mid seventeenth century thus: "I have for many long years had a longing to destroy the city of Colombo and raze it to the ground, as it is the origin and mother of all evil that has come upon this island and the natural kings of the same, killing the same and keeping them from their kingdoms." We are fortunate that the royals, nay the Royalists of today have no such destructive architectural designs and are in fact making a bid to bring in one technical and another medical know-how to upgrade the city and improve the lot of the tax payer reinvoking the pledge may by the pioneers 'to make personal sacrifices for the common good' taking a cue from the bakers and bus magnates who have gamely decided in that vein (or were they prevailed upon?) to delay hikes until the hustings are over. |
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