Surangani Ellawala – 1939 -2016 :

Farewell ‘Mother’

Surangani Ellawala, Governor of the Central Province, the first Sri Lankan woman to hold that post, passed away on March 14. She was 76. Appointed the 9th Governor of the Central Province on January 27, 2015, she was serving as Governor at the time of her death.

Wife of late Nanda Ellawala, she remained in the background for over 30 years playing a supportive role to her husband and later, her son Ratnapura District MP Nalanda Ellawala, who was tragically gunned down in February 1997. She was drawn into politics, following Nalanda’s murder, first winning a landslide in the Provincial Council elections and later going on to win a seat in Parliament on a People’s Alliance ticket.

We pay tribute to a gentle woman of courage and conviction with an interview based article that was published in the Sunday Observer in 2000.

She calls herself, ‘mother’ and bravely walks through life in shoes that are of two different sizes – those of her husband and son.

Two men so dear to her, that talking about their deaths, still bring a flood of tears to her eyes. That the shoes may be ill fitting, she refuses to accept. For, her one grand mission in life is to bring to reality the dreams of her husband and son, who meant so much to her.

Mother, grandmother, friend, confidante... Surangani Ellawala is not what you expect as a politician; even a circumstance induced politician. Soft spoken with a penchant for poetic diction, she doesn’t have that obdurate quality, that hardcore steeliness which makes politicians, even women, stand apart from rest.

She comes across as a woman who’d rather be at home, being the loving grandmother that she is, indulging her two grandchildren, with her special brand of love and care. Or maybe, stay at home and enjoy her enduring passion for art and literature.

But circumstances have compelled her to live otherwise. And circumstances have propelled her to the limelight and to a political career with a seat in Parliament as a representative of Ratnapura.

“In hindsight, if I had the experience I have now, I wouldn’t have entered politics.

Disillusioned

I would have said No, and would have been firm about it,” she says, somewhat disillusioned by the pre and post election activities, that has left her tired, hurting and wanting to retire to a place of peace and solitude.

“I am a private person. I don’t share my feelings very much,” she says, dreaming of a day when she could leave the limelight behind and wake up to a normal day as a normal woman. “If I had the choice, I wouldn’t have been a politician,” she repeats.

But she didn’t have a choice when fate deemed otherwise.

She didn’t have a choice when fate was cruel enough to foist a tragedy no caring mother has to endure – the cold blood murder of a son.

And she didn’t have a choice when a grieving constituent urged her to take up the causes that were so dear to her son.

Although no novice to politics, having been by her husband Nanda’s side throughout his illustrious political career, Surangani says it was the cruelty of her son Nalanda’s murder that propelled her to cross the line and enter a world that was so familiar to the two men in her life.

She contested in the Provincial Council elections, and won with a landslide majority. With 54,000 preferential votes, she didn’t do too badly at the recently concluded general elections either.

Slogan

Her campaign slogan was ‘mother’ and she considers herself a mother to all the children of Sri Lanka. And that motherly feeling extends to her political ambitions.

“If I can achieve just a dot, make their life a little bit better, I will be happy,” says. She will also be happy if she can bring to reality the dreams of her husband and son – the building of a better Ratnapura for its people.

“Nanda started the dream, Nalanda wanted to bring it to reality it. Now I want to complete it,” she says. In a way, that is also her mission in life, not so much because of the dreams nurtured by her husband and son, but because she also feels strongly about the people of her constituency.

Position

“I desperately feel for the human beings. I am moved by those who come to me with their problems and their requests,” she says, both glad that she is in a position to help them, because of her position as Member of Parliament, and confident that she would be able to do the same, even if she was an ordinary person.

“I would have continued with the work, even if I had not been in politics,” she stresses.

- Hana Ibrahim