Sarath: The unfinished struggle
 

Sunday Essay by Ajith Samaranayake

(This week marks the 20th death anniversary of Sarath Muttetuwegama, the late MP for Kalawana. The following article appeared in 1989 on his third death anniversary).

Only last Thursday, a young attorney-at-law was speculating on how Sarath Muttetuwegama, if he had been still alive, would have adjusted himself to the violence-ridden politics of our time. Several of his companions expressed the view that he would have been intensely unhappy at the need to travel with body guards and the consequent crippling of his movements when the young lawyer said, 'Perhaps he would have hooked by night. He was a great one to do that.'

Way

'Hooking by night', was his way of describing Sarath's unusual and unconventional ways of travelling. As Mervin de Silva in his tribute to him in the 'Lanka Guardian' said Sarath Muttetuwegama would drive his battered little car at any time of the day or night from home to court house, political meeting, provincial courts and most of all to Kuruwita and Kalawana every weekend. It was while driving the car in this way that he was killed at the wheel on the night of May 18th in the Ratnapura New Town three years ago.

Surath Ambalangoda writing in the 'Aththa' put it differently. He wrote 'hitha honda miniha mahamagama maleya' (The good hearted man died on the road). Sarath's travel's were not undertaken for personal gain. Most of them had political objectives. To Sarath Muttetuwegama's generation the automobile, the motor car, was a hugely liberating influence. The battered little car gave him independence of movement and often he would dismiss his driver and take the car himself. The use of the car was an extension of his independence of spirit.

Tribute

Sarath Muttetuwegama as Minister Lalith Athulathmudali said in his obituary tribute in Parliament was a much loved man. The Minister said that though a lawyer Sarath never took silk or became a great judge. Though a politician he never held ministerial office and was only a back bench MP of the Government once and an opposition MP in his last stint. He was not the leader of his party. But yet his death drew forth a monumental tide of emotion because the people instinctively understood that he was a good man and a courageous and honest politician.

Complex

Sarath Muttetuwegama was a complex character in politics. Born to the patriotic Kandyan aristocracy of the Sabaragamuwa province he was educated at St. Thomas' College, Bandarawela and Mount Lavinia in the brahminical tradition of the English - speaking elite. As a law student and a young lawyer he drank deep of the Bohemian and unconventional life of the young turks of Colombo. But yet he returned to Ratnapura as a young politician deeply committed to the welfare of the peasantry of the area and the plantation workers of Indian origin in the interests of which groups he did not see any essential contradiction. He lived as a lawyer, husband and father in Colombo but returned every weekend to the country side. It was from Kalawana one of the largest and most backward constituencies in Sri Lanka that he was elected to Parliament twice.

Contribution

Sarath Muttetuwegama's biggest contribution was as the sole MP of the Communist Party and the most articulate voice of the opposition from the late 1980s up to his tragic end untimely death in 1986. With the Tamil United Liberation Front concerned with problems of the Tamil community and just two provinces in Sri Lanka and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party debilitated by internal disputes and the removal of its leader from Parliament, it fell to Sarath's lot to carry out a virtually single handed struggle against the monolithic UNP majority elected in 1977, and perpetuated by the Referendum of 1982, Sarath did these with good sense, courage and decency. He never compromised on fundamental issues and confrontational politics of the harsh kind were alien to his personality.

Qualities

When fighting qualities were needed however, he never flinched from the challenge. He was able to silence the government party's cacophony not so much through toughness but sarcasm and ridicule. He was universally loved as a good companion and the raconteur without par in the lobbies of Parliament. Sarath Muttetuwagama matured politically during the late 1950s and the 1960s when the Sri Lanka Freedom Party was the dominant factor in Sri Lankan politics. This was a time when the Communist Party was steadily moving towards the SLFP and young politicians like Sarath Muttetuwegama could not resist this pull. Left to himself Sarath may not have approved of this but when he first entered Parliament in 1970 he did so as a member of the SLFP - LSSP - CP - United Front. He was however always in the left wing of the Communist Party and was in fact chosen to express the views of the radical CP group in Parliament on the Criminal Justice Commission Bill which this group opposed.

Tragedy

It is perhaps the tragedy of politicians like Sarath that they should have politically matured at a time when the traditional left was in alliance with the SLFP and new forces such as the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna were emerging to usurp in their influence. Sarath Muttetuwegama led the Communist youth league in the late 1960s and early 1970s when Vasudeva Nanayakkara, another Sabaragamuwa radical, was leader of the LSSP youth league. But with both parties supporting the SLFP government there was a steady drift from these two traditional left parties while the JVP ranks were augmented.

The tragedy of Sarath Muttetuwegama and other young leaders of his generation in old left parties was that they were not given the opportunity of addressing themselves to these problems. Party hierarchies often stifled the initiative of such young leaders who could have brought these parties back to the mainstream of working class politics. The old left is today paying the price of this monumental myopia. On top of this in Sarath's case though a professional politician by choice he did not have that overwhelming drive for power. As a result he did not receive the rewards he was entitled to even within the Communist Party.

After communal violence of July 1983 politics in Sri Lanka took a different turn altogether which greatly disturbed Sarath and contributed a great deal to undermining the potential of the old left in Sri Lanka. Because of their internationalism and the non-communal character of their politics the CP and the LSSP were driven to support the devolution of power.

Live

Sarath did not live to see the Indo-Sri Lanka agreement, the arrival of the IPKF and the acceleration of the JVP's campaign against the CP and other old left parties but this was the inevitable by-product of post-1983 politics of the left. This eclipse of conventional agitational politics on the left and its replacement by the politics of the communal problem Sarath saw as a great setback for the old left. It was under these circumstances that he died a few days after making his last speech during the emergency debate after the bomb blast at the CTO in Fort. The leader of the MEP Dinesh Gunawardena has often described Sarath as the man who brought left politics from the town to village and bridged both city and country side.

That he was able to do this as a product of the urban political culture was a stupendous achievement. He was never mentally crippled by the knowledge that he was 'appo' to the villagers. The transition from rural aristocrat to left-wing politician he achieved easily.

He was an ebullient representative of the progressive politics of our time and it is tragic that his should have been and unfinished struggle.