Tribute

Maheswary Velautham

HR activist and social worker:

Mrs. Maheswary Velautham was assassinated on May 13, 2008. Her demise brought darkness to the arena of human rights and human dignity.

She was a powerful voice, an able lawyer, a dedicated human rights activist, a humane social worker, a religious humanist, a modern rationalist a remarkable philosopher, an excellent orator and a unique writer. She was a literateur who dedicated herself to clear conscience.

She uttered the words that came from within-she expressed her conscience. She was a fearless Defender of the Rights of Humanity for which the price and prize was her life. She has become a martyr for truth, freedom, human rights and human dignity.

“I met her at the Ministry of Social Services and Social Welfare for the first and the last time during a meeting in the Minister’s Conference room. The day was May 9, 2008 (Friday).

She was present as the Advisor together with the Secretary to the Ministry of Social Services and Social Welfare Ms. V. Jegarasasingham another able and well accomplished lady from the Sri Lanka Administrative Service both of whom have been responsible for the rapid progress and development of the subjects under the purview of the Ministry of Social Services and Social Welfare under the able direction of Minister Douglas Devananda.

The meeting was followed by a working vegetarian lunch with red rice, pappadam, fried bitter gourd garnished with onions and tomatoes, curd, rasam and dhal. Mdme. Maheswary Velautham, the Secretary Ms.V.Jegarasasingham and two other Officials were amongst those present.

That was the last official supper.

“Soon after lunch, Mrs. Maheswary Velautham invited me to her Office Chambers on our way to the NISD for a meeting. For almost one hour she was having a discussion on meditation and yoga and the reflection of the presence of the Creator.

During the discussion she was calling the Ministry of Defence to expedite the issue of the MOD clearance as she was contemplating to travel the next day to Jaffna to see her ailing mother. She revealed that her prayers and meditation have had a positive impact on her mother’s health condition and that her visit to Jaffna would save her mother from death.

She said that there was no necessity for my bodyguards to accompany us and that I could travel in her vehicle with her and her bodyguards to the NISD that day for the meeting at 3.30 p.m. Our conversation continued.

She was as innocent as a child when she made her deliberations on religion, meditation and philosophy. I was shocked to learn that she was assassinated on May 13, 2008.

“I have heard and read about Mrs. Maheswary Velautham’s work but when I met and heard her in person I was impressed by the deep sense of commitment, loyalty and sincerity of this noble lady.

“Each of us has lost friends and relatives. They have been killed for the vile pursuits of the killers.

There is no justification to kill. Those who killed these people thought that they had the truth and they had the whole truth and anyone who didn’t share it, was a legitimate target. They thought that the differences they have with us, political and religious were all that mattered and served to make their targets less than human. Our common humanity matters more.

“No terrorist campaign apart from a conventional military strategy has ever succeeded. The purpose of terrorism is to terrorise, to change your behaviour if you become a victim by making you afraid of today, afraid of tomorrow and afraid of each other. Therefore, by definition terror campaign cannot succeed unless we become its accomplices and out of fear to give in.

“We must remember good times and the bad, how we as a society have been together and share our commitment to equal opportunity without diversifying the crisis into further chaos. This is a moral imperative. All men are created equal and they are endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights, that amongst these are life, equality and pursuit of happiness.

Mrs. Velautham lived to fight for these rights and ideals.

“Mrs. Maheswary Velautham was the only lady lawyer who was simultaneously doing wonders as a Defence counsel for those charged under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

She deserves to be honoured posthumously with a National Civil award for her bravery, charisma, professionalism and service to the Nation.

“It was well-known that Henry Brougham gained fame in the public eye by his defence of Queen Caroline.

In 1828, in his celebrated speech on Law Reforms, Brougham completed with a peroration which has often been repeated: “It was the boast of Augustus...that he found Rome of brick and left it of marble...but how much nobler would be the sovereign’s boast when he shall have it to say that he found law dear and left it cheap; found it in a sealed book-left it in a living letter; found it in the patrimony of the rich- left it in the inheritance of the poor; found it the two edged sword of craft and oppression-left it in the staff of honesty and the shield of innocence! “ Ms Maheswary Velautham was a Brougham of our times.

Dr. T. C. Rajaratnam