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| Sunday, 14 August 2005 |
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Lakshman Kadirgamar - April 1932 - August 2005 by Ajith Samaranayake
The public career of the slain Minister of Foreign Affairs Lakshman Kadirgamar had all the aura of a meteor ascending the heavens just as his fabled oratory had all the qualities of a dazzling fireworks display. Although an internationally - acclaimed barrister and an authority on the Intellectual Property Law Kadirgamar swam into the public mind just over 10 years ago when he took what in retrospect appears now to be a fateful decision to enter into the quagmire of Sri Lanka's contemporary politics. Joining the SLFP shortly before the General Election of 1994 he was nominated to Parliament as a National List MP and was made Minister of Foreign Affairs. Since then he has been the most polished speaker in Parliament and the most articulate advocate of Sri Lanka's interests in global fora. Looking at the life and death of Lakshman Kadirgamar a tragic trajectory seems to have been in play. It was in September 1959 that Prime Minister S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike was to proceed to New York to address the UN General Assembly. On the way he was to touch down in Britain where his alma mater, the Oxford University, had invited him to address the Union where the young Kadirgamar was the President. But the Prime Minister was assassinated days before his departure and it was left to Lakshman Kadirgamar to carry the torch. Now 46 years later Foreign Minister Kadirgamar himself has been assassinated on the eve of another session of the UN General Assembly. Educated at Trinity College, Kandy, the University of Ceylon, Peradeniya and the Law College he proceeded to Britain where he obtained the B.Lit from the Oxford University and was also President of the Union. He was a Barrister of the Inner Temple and as the Director of the Intellectual Property Organisation from 1976 to 1988 could have lived the comfortable life of a Sri Lankan domiciled in the neon-lit paradisial West but chose instead to return to his roots and serve his country. This he did by joining the People's Alliance which had been forged by President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga in 1994 as a broad front with the purpose of dislodging the UNP Government which had been in power for 17 years. And as Foreign Minister he was called upon to take up the awesome challenge which was nothing less than standing for a honourable solution to the long-festering National Question while at the same time informing the international community of the depredations of the LTTE once the country had returned to conflict. What made his mission almost impossible was that he was a Tamil but yet he carried out his task with typical aplomb which made him a hate figure in the eyes of extremist Tamil opinion. In death as in life Lakshman Kadirgamar will be cynically dismissed by these quarters as the token Tamil in the Cabinet, an anglicised Tamil who had no roots in the Jaffna Tamil community. The circumstances of his life may well have made this happen and distanced him from the life-giving roots in the soil but I recall a moment when in one of his speeches (the occasion of which I cannot now recall) he made both an erudite and nostalgic foray into the history of Jaffna which he related to our more tumultuous times. As a public speaker he was in a class of his own. He was never a bombastic speaker but his language was elegant to the degree of perfection and his ready turn of phrase, wit and engaging smile made him one of the most pleasant speakers on the public platform and a consummate conversationalist in private. It was a pity that immersed as he was in the affairs of the Foreign Ministry which itself he streamlined giving a place to career diplomats over political appointees and broadening the range of Sri Lanka's relationships, he was not able to evolve or articulate a broad political philosophy in consonance with his intellectual capabilities. But there is no doubt that he was a liberal democrat of the best mould sympathetic to new currents of thinking proof of which was offered in a strange way when the JVP favoured him as a Prime Minister and when in times of crisis between the SLFP and the JVP during the last year the JVP always sought his counsel. To strike a personal note I had the privilege of accompanying Lakshman Kadirgamar on his first overseas visit as Foreign Minister in 1994 to India. In our press party were the then Editor of 'The Island' Gamini Weerakoon and the Editor of the 'Sunday Times' Sinha Ratnatunga. He had arranged for us to be put up at the then vacant residence of the Sri Lanka High Commissioner but invariably entertained us for meals at Hyderabad House, the Government of India's State Guest House, where he himself was put up. In his party were the High Commissioner-designate to India Mangala Moonesinghe and Jayantha Dhanapala, now the Secretary General of the Peace Secretariat and a fellow Trinitian. On an express request made by the Minister the Indian Government put an Airforce helicopter at our disposal to take us to the sacred sites associated with Lord Buddha so that we were doubly privileged to tread the path that the greatest son of India took on his trek in the quest for emancipation through those ancient plains. The journey was made all the more poignant by the presence of Mr. Mangala Moonesinghe whose ancestor Anagarika Dharmapala had waged a titanic struggle for reclaiming Buddhagaya. Our last meeting was on July 9 when Bandula Jayasekera of 'The Island' rang to say that the Minister would like to host a small dinner party. Six of us sat for dinner at his official residence, the Minister and his wife Sugandhi, Bandula, myself, Rajpal Abeynayake of the 'Sunday Times' and Malinda Seneviratne. Malinda had his soup and departed saying that he had to keep vigil over Chitrasena in his last illness but the rest of us spent a pleasant evening lengthening into night when the Minister was in a reflective, even philosophical mood, which attempts one now in retrospect to speculate whether he had foreboding of his death a month and three days later. My last image is of him accompanying us to our cars under that night sky. To end with the beginning it is melancholic to think that Lakshman
Kadirgamar who ascended the skies like a meteor should have been
extinguished in like manner. Although 73 years old his public career spanned
just over 10 years but he has surely left behind an imprint quite
disproportionate to those years and we shall recall for all time that
pleasant visage and whimsical smile and that turn of phrase which will never
find repetition now. |
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