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| Sunday, 30 October 2005 |
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The battle of Thurstan Road Sunday Essay by Ajith Samaranayake 'Compare and contrast' is the favourite catch-line of the English literature teacher.
So what points of comparison and contrast do the two main Presidential candidates offer the political essayist? The most obvious point of departure (the Old School Tie or the 'Noose of Colonialism,' as it was called by the late Prof. A. D. P. Jayatilleke nicknamed 'Jacko' by fellow old Royalists, being far from unloosened from the Sri Lankan male neck) would be school. Ranil Wickremesinghe, son of the former Managing Director of Lake House and the eminence grise of the Senanayake-Kotalawela UNP, went to Royal College while Mahinda Rajapakse attended the adjacent Thurstan College considered by snooty Royalists as the country cousin if not a poor relation. This comparison itself offers a vast commentary on the sociology of Sri Lankan politics since independence and the differentiation within the political class triggered off by the two crucial years, 1948 and 1956 for Royal was the bastion of the old anglicised elite and Thurstan a symbol of the newly-resurgent and assertive middle-class rearing at the leash. Both the contenders then come from political families but while Esmond Wickremesinghe was the power behind the UNP throne and given to a politics of manipulation D. A. Rajapakse was a grassroots politician battling in the open. What is more, being at Thurstan Mahinda was in and out of 'Sravasti' the MPs' hostel situated close by and came to know intimately the colourful figures of parliamentary politics. In contrast, Ranil was having genteel tea with the Bandaranaikes at Rosmead Place Anura being his class-mate even as the Esmond Wickremesinghe - run Lake House was attacking Prime Minister Bandaranaike ferociously. That early apprenticeship among political giants stood Mahinda in good stead when he entered Parliament in 1970 as the youngest MP proposing the Vote of Thanks to the then Governor General William Gopallawa. He also learnt invaluable lessons in the school of hard knocks from his uncles the late George Rajapakse and Lakshman Rajapakse whose joint mantle he has inherited and carries with his self-effacing brother Chamal also a MP and Deputy Minister. The rural-urban divide then is the major contrast in the political characters of the two contenders. Rajapakse comes from the deep south the land immortalised by Leonard Woolf in his 'Village in the Jungle', the land of poverty, pestilence and superstition on which the all-pervading jungle steadily encroaches. Wickremesinghe on the other hand is an urban politician groomed and reared within the UNP party machinery shaped by his uncle J. R. Jayewardene after he broke the stranglehold of the easy-going, patriarchal Dudley Senanayake on the UNP. Mahinda Rajapakse is therefore the more senior in politics but ministerial office came to Wickremesinghe first in the Jayewardene dispensation of 1977. He was made in quick succession the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Youth Affairs and Employment and Minister of Education. In the Premadasa administration he was Minister of Industries and Leader of the House and Prime Minister under President Wijetunge. By contrast the 17 long years which the SLFP led in the wilderness ensured that Rajapakse would only assume office in 1994 first as Minister of Labour and then as Fisheries Minister until he was elevated to Prime Minister last year. But this was a blessing in disguise because it gave him invaluable experience in the art of street fighting. Not that Mahinda Rajapakse fought with his bare knuckles. But while the Old Left had mouthed the term 'extra-parliamentary tactics' more as a bogey to scare the Right one feels rather than a practical method of struggle Rajapakse gave flesh and blood to novel forms of extra-parliamentary agitation. He was the live-wire behind the highly-successful Pada Yatra and Jana Ghosha campaigns against the Premadasa regime. The Pada Yatra which he led from Colombo to Kataragama instilled a new sense of elan to the anti-UNP forces. Although attempts were made to detain him at the Katunayake airport he was able to successfully carry with him dossiers pertaining to disappearances and human rights violations which he produced before the International Human Rights Commission in Geneva. I remember the then Opposition Chief Whip Richard Pathirana hosting a dinner at 'Sravasti' for the conquering hero on his return. So while Wickremesinghe was busy with administration Rajapakse although his name denotes loyalty to the regime or the Raj was equally busy trying to toppled the UNP's ancien regime. In terms of personality too there are points of difference. Wickremesinghe suggests an urbane, laid-back personality, a technocrat rather than a mass leader, while Rajapakse's is the more robust persona. Neither are very compelling speakers but here too Rajapakse scores with his baritone voice and delivery. Wickremesinghe incidentally would have done better if he had continued to adhere to the matter-of-fact simple speaking style of J. R. Jayewardene which he had emulated for long and which one feels comes easily to him rather than go in for blood and thunder gesticulating outbursts as he is sometimes wont to do now. By choice if not the logic of political circumstances Mahinda Rajapakse is now at the head of a bloc of heterogenous forces holding high the banners of patriotism and populist socialism while he himself offers the image of an emblem of reconciliation. Wickremesinghe on the other hand seeks to suggest a sober managerial approach to the problems of governance. Whether it is the grassroots mass appeal of Rajapakse or the muted technocratic approach of Wickremesinghe which will tug at the electorate's heartstrings, November will in many senses be Sri Lanka's encounter with destiny. Postscript: Thurstan Road has a further symbolic connotation since Mr.
Wickremesinghe's private residence is situated on a lane leading off this
road now renamed after the great Sinhala scholar and grammarian Munidasa
Cumaratunga. |
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