‘CLEAN UP’ at the Royal Asiatic Society

Gaston Perera

The Augean stables at the Royal Asiatic Society were cleaned over the weekend. The Society was successful in removing Dr.Paranavitarana and Mr.Situge who had held office as President and Treasurer. At a Special General Meeting held on Sunday, September 3 attended by over hundred members votes of no confidence were passed which evicted these persons.

A sense of anger had long been growing among the members of the Society. Dr. Paranavitarana’s insensitive disregard for national sentiments and national aspirations, his blatant flouting of council decisions, his high-handed authoritarianism and his sly underhand tactics had outraged the members. In the case of Mr. Situge his demonstrable incapacity to deal with the finances of the Society had made his removal a dire necessity in the interests of the Society.

The main charge against Dr.Paranavitarana was his reprehensible conduct in the matter of the project the Society sponsored to study the island’s Portuguese experience. That project had as its central underpinning the intention of studying the Portuguese encounter from the perspective of a colonized people - the Singhalese, Tamils and Muslims who were the victims of Portuguese oppression and atrocity. As President of the Society Dr. Paranavitarana was mandatorily bound to conform to the Council’s decision and participate fully in this project.

What Dr. P actually did was to abandon these responsibilities, completely flout the Council’s decisions, disappear to Paris and take part in a completely different conference on the same Portuguese encounter. This conference was organized by the Portuguese themselves, funded by the Gulbenkian Foundation and was a study of the Portuguese encounter entirely from the perspective of the Portuguese. In other words the object of that conference was a cover-up job to white wash the Portuguese and avoided any discussion of the real issues that were central to the concerns of the Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims of this country.

By participating in that conference Dr. P not only abandoned his responsibilities as President of the Society and flagrantly flouted the expressed decisions of the Council but also acted in callous disregard of the sensitivities of national sentiments and national aspirations. In that sense his action was one of betrayal.

It was these reprehensible actions of Dr. P that forced the members to the drastic step of moving a motion of no confidence against him. No sooner was this motion handed in than Dr. P began to employ underhand tactics to stall it. The proposer of the motion of no-confidence had to lodge a complaint with the Cinnamon Garden police for being abused in filth by Dr. P. The two secretaries mysteriously resigned together to prevent any action on the motions. When new secretaries were appointed and a date was fixed for a meeting Dr. P and Mr. S filed legal action against the new secretaries and the Royal Asiatic Society and obtained a restraining order from Court preventing the holding of he meeting.

Unaware of this more than seventy members turned up only to be greeted by a posse of police armed to the teeth who attempted to hound them out of the premises. Little imagination is required to conclude who brought the police there. Be that as it may on the next calling date the restraining order was vacated enabling the members to hold the meeting.

At the meeting N.G.O types with an anti-national bias were prominently present. That was only to be expected knowing the anti-national charges against Dr. P. There was one legal person ponderously declaiming judicial precedents but these intimadatory tactics were laughed off the stage. Another person called the Portuguese encounter group racist and terrorist and had to be asked to leave the stage.

Such - as to be expected - were the natural advocates of Dr. P. The members however gave them the fitting response. By a vote of 51 to 49 Dr. P was voted out of office.

The case of Mr. Situge was some what pitiful or hilarious depending on how one looked at it. He got on stage and made a confession of his own incapacity and unsuitability. This coupled with the fact that there were glaring discrepancies, as high as Rs. 241000 odd, which he failed to explain, convinced the members of the danger of his continuing in office. He too was voted out by 52 to 48. The Royal Asiatic Society can now look forward to a new era where it can implement its objectives of “instituting and promoting studies in history, etc.”