NGO scams to run a parallel state with foreign aid

by H. L. D. Mahindapala

Part II

Recently the Western diplomats stood up to defend the NGOs. Obviously, they felt that the NGOs, who were their local partners in meddling in the domestic agenda, were under attack. It was a rare display of public solidarity which confirms the symbiotic relationship between NGOs and Western embassies. Normally, both parties acknowledge their mutual you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours arrangement only tacitly each time a diplomatic function is held in town. Prominent among the guests are the usual suspects picked from the NGO circus, parading with a glass in hand, with this or that drink, as if they are the Sultans of High Morality, or the Cabinet Ministers for Omniscience.

Though the NGO hacks do not have any political clout at the basic grassroot level, hobnobbing in the rarefied atmosphere of the elitist cocktail circuit is an essential part of their display of presumed importance in national politics. But their covert alliance, with fancy political footwork, failed to stop the rising tide of public opinion against the politicized NGOs. The mounting pressure was too much and it was necessary to run to the foreign pay masters to repair the damage done to the battered faces of the fallen Humpty Dumpties in the NGOs.

It is against this background that the Western diplomats ganged up to give the NGOs a boost. The U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Robert Blake came out defending NGOs when he told the recent meeting of Sri Lanka's donor community in Galle: "Many NGOs have been the target of unsubstantiated allegations in the Sri Lankan press....."

There can be no such accusation against Dr. Susantha Goonatilake's book, Recolonisation. Foreign Funded NGOs in Sri Lanka. His book is loaded - if not overloaded - with facts and figures driving home, in page after page, the corrupt practices of NGO leaders who have betrayed their own declared principles, objectives and grandiose mission statements.

Besides, given the importance of NGOs to maintain Western dominance, mainly through interventions in domestic politics, Dr. Goonatilake sets out to map "new conceptual and theoretical approaches ....to look at the role development NGOs play in shaping national and global civil societies." NGOs have been mushrooming in every nook and corner of the developing world. "For instance", he says, "Bangladesh, a country of deep NGO penetration, has been designated a 'franchise state' by Wood (in his book, States Without Citizens: the Problem of the Franchise State). NGOs have accompanied a process whereby the state in some developing countries has been replaced by a virtual parallel state. A new Western instrumentality has emerged with enormous consequences."

Mini saga

He explores this new instrumentality in Sri Lanka by examining the NGOs that had penetrated four key areas: 1. development, 2. academia, 3. foreign relations and 4. human rights. He begins with A. T. Ariyaratne who heads Sarvodaya, "the largest development NGO." The chapters on Sarvodaya contain a mini saga of one of the biggest NGO frauds, part of which was exposed by a Presidential Commission of Inquiry by Justice Wanasundera.

Dr. Goonatilake takes Ariyaratne apart until nothing is left of him except the fig leaf. In the end he removes that too leaving him stark naked. He reveals how Ariyaratne began his career of a do-gooder by hijacking a self-effacing rural development officer's programs designed to uplift the lives of the outcasts (Rodiyas) in Kanatholuwa, a village in the Kurunegala district. Long before Ariyaratne launched into his lucrative career, this village had come under the Rural Development Department's Backward Communities Programme headed by D. A. Abeyesekera, "a modest and far-seeing idealist". Apart from this governmental programme for rural development, a left-leaning social activist like Vincent Subasinghe had built 28 houses of wattle and daub for these villagers in the 1930s and 40s.

But Prof. Nanadasena Ratanapala, one of the official publicists, claims that Sarvodaya activities began in 1958 when Ariyaratne marched into this village. Dr. Goonatilake states that there was no such thing as Sarvodaya in 1958 to begin with. Prof. Ratnapala also claims the march into Kanatholuwa was "revolutionary in itself because whoever could fancy a band of educated and elitist men moving into a village, a part of which was inhabited by the Rodiya Community (untouchables)." That, of course, is the hype of the publicist. But the villagers remembered mostly Abeysekera and when Sarvodaya put up a signboard at the Sarvodaya District Office in Kuliyapitiya labeling Ariyaratne as the "Hero of Kanatholuwa" the villagers were shocked and angry, says Dr. Goonatilake.

Not surprisingly, after the initial burst of activity Ariyaratne disappeared from Kanatholuwa but he was very busy producing newspaper cuttings of his work. In one year he claimed he had 937 media clippings. - i.e., 2.5 news items a day. In addition Prof. Ratnapala produced his Collected Works Vol. 1 consisting of a mere 169 pages. Says Dr. Goonatilake acidly: "Such writings belong to a genre most people would find embarrassing to compile and issue as "collected works".

To boost his image further, almost to the level of a white-robed messiah, Prof. Ratnapala wrote about the Sarvodaya philosophy: "The Sarvodaya philosophy is a synthetic ideology and a universal concept. All forms of creative altruism and evolutionary humanism, be it from Marxian aim of material integration, Rousseau's option of social integration, or Asoka's endeavour of moral integration, just give a few examples, are inherent in the Sarvodaya philosophy practice by us, for ours is an attempt to bring about total human integration."

This platitudinous and bombastic verbiage sounds more like a sales pitch for a kokatath-thailiya or an achcharu haliya than a cohesive and integrated philosophy. Quite aptly, Dr. Goonatilake states: "The philosophy, as summarized by these words, appears not only eclectic but also a jumble of undigested and contradictory concepts." (p.45).

Another intriguing aspect is growing wealth of Ariyaratne who began his career as a teacher at Nalanda College on a salary of Rs. 150. By 1980 he was running a budget of Rs. 60 million. In contrast, the Ministry of Rural Development was allotted only Rs. 15.8 in 1982 - roughly one-fourth of Sarvodaya budget. "Yet," says Dr. Goonatilake, "there were more government-sponsored Rural Development Societies active than the more generously funded Sarvodaya Movement.....(and) the Rural Ministry was more effective, despite its lower budget, than the Sarvodaya Movement. (pp. 57 - 58).

Now in theory, NGOs are supposed to more efficient and effective instrumentalities of delivering goods and services to the people by cutting out all the bureaucratic red tape. But in practice the dedicated government servants have delivered, without all the fanfare and the ballyhoo of Ariyaratne's gobbledygook, greater service to the rural poor than Sarvodaya.

Perhaps, one of the most obscene aspects of Ariyaratne's movement was the "cult of personality". Several branch offices displayed Ariyaratne's photograph with the legend "Leader you are immortal!" Dr. Goonatilake adds: "Such expressions were not even applied to the President of the country! The degree of leadership worship seemed to be even more acute than practised by politicians. This is attested by the hagiography published by the movement (read: by the leader himself) titled Salute the Rising Sun." (p.60).

But when the Public Commission began its inquiries complaints poured in against the Immortal Leader! Of these 29 allegations were selected for inquiry. The Commission found that most of them related to him and his family. The Commission also noted that these dealings were going on at a time when Sarvodaya was proclaiming the ideals of community ownership and self-denial.

Irrelevant

Last but not the least is the saga of how he misled and dodged the Commission of Inquiry into NGO set up in 1990s headed by Justice Wanasundera. He was filing irrelevant objections and using ruses not to provide information. He told the Commission that the land and buildings were worth on Rs. 12 million when the audited balance sheet of Sarvodaya showed that they were worth Rs. 65 million. The cost of vehicles owned by Sarvodaya was Rs. 50 million but when the Commission called for a detailed listing of vehicles owned Sarvodaya sent only a schedule of bicycles. (p.64)

He also launched a concerted move objecting to public hearings though NGOs proclaim from roof tops that the public has a right to know. When the Commission was faced with the flood of complaints it asked Ariyaratne to give evidence in person. But his lawyer raised objections denying the need for Ariyaratne to testify. Ariyaratne was arguing that he had an obligation to the international organisations and had to travel out of the country.

The Commission censured him bluntly saying: "If Mr. Ariyaratne had any sense of responsibility and knowledge of priorities, he would have known that his first duty is to submit himself to the tribunal of his own country rather than those outside."

This should give the readers a taste of the seedy side of NGOs. There is more and if the readers want to know all about it don't forget to buy the book.

It's a thriller of different genre. It is a rich store of the hidden activities of the NGOs. It narrates the smelly story of lilies that fester.......! But this is not all. Dr. Goonatilake's chapter on ideological clones of the West is equally exhilarating. He takes you through the tangled web of diverse and contradictory ideologies, theories and their proponents mainly in the academia. He has dealt with the leading theoretical contortionists, from S. J. Tambiah of Harvard to Bruce Kapferer of London University. Analyzing the far-fetched constructions of their inventive imagination Dr. Goonatilake says that they "are seriously flawed in terms of not only the basic facts on the ground, but also in terms of the methodology they use and the conclusions they draw."

Their primary objective was to prise open the Sri Lankan reality, trying to figure what constitutes the Sinhalese and what makes them tick the way they do. NGOs and academics were obsessed with the Sinhala-Buddhist identity. These anthropologists ignored the interactive forces of the north and south and focused almost exclusively on the south not so much to understand the reality behind the Sinhala-Buddhist identity but to attack it from various angles. Invariably their theories, findings, research, monographs, seminars, publications arrived only at one point: Sinhala-Buddhism as the sole cause of the national crisis.

Their blinkered research dismissed the complexities of the intertwining north-south relations and settled quite merrily on the simplistic mono-causal theory of blaming only the Sinhala-Buddhists. Once again Dr. Goonatilake provides a rich text on these ideological distortions. Briefly, without going into the case studies of all the ideologues discussed in his book, it should be mentioned that Tambiah gets his fair share of comeuppance. He shows how Tambiah has done a back flip on several issues by admitting some of his mistakes. These admissions and revisions, it must be said, adds to the credit of Tambiah even though it is rather late.

Key sources

Dr. Goonatilake says: "Tambiah's faulty interpretations and constructions also owe to the fact that some of his acknowledged key sources are associated with foreign funded NGOs." Kumari Jayawardene of the Colombo University and her husband Lal Jayawardene were two key figures who financed and supplied some of the anti-Sinhala-Buddhist material tused by Tambiah.

In his egregious book, Buddhism Betrayed? Tambiah was propounding the unsustainable mono-causal theory of blaming the Sinhala-Buddhists facing a crisis which had many complex and criss-crossing strands. In a later book, Levelling Crowds, Ethnonationalist Conflicts and Collective Violence in Sri Lanka Tambiah moves away from his mono-causal theory of blaming only the Sinhala-Buddhists. He acknowledges that the "disease" he thought was peculiar to the Sinhalese was a common factor shared by Hindu nationalists, Islamic fundamentalists and even in Western Europe.

Dr. Goonatilake says: "Tambiah now finds that ethnic conflicts occur worldwide and that they are not due to primordial factors or based on imagined histories invented by a newly literate intelligentsia. Similarly, rioting is not a peculiarly Sinhalese Buddhist activity but indulged in by other groups as well, both in and out of Sri Lanka. And as in Sri Lanka, the police, army, other security forces and public officials of other countries also participate in riots."

Tambiah also concedes now that the Sinhala-Tamil conflict is at least partly based on external factors (e.g., India). He has also changed his view about the reformer Dharmapala who was described as "an uncharitable propagandist". Now he sees him as a "famous charismatic and innovative leader." Dr. Goonatilake adds: "Tambiah now admits that the British used a divide and rule policy in the region." Tambiah also changed his earlier view of blaming the Sinhala-Buddhists for the Kotahena riots during colonial times. He now accepts the judgment of the British inquiry which blamed the aggressive Catholics. Tambiah further states that the 1915 riots "were triggered by the Islamic consciousness of the Coast Moors from South India ." This should upset Michael Roberts who was collecting some gossip to be presented as oral histories blaming the Sinhala-Buddhist for the 1915 riots. The credit goes to Dr. Goonatilake for tracing and documenting these contradictions in the ideological world shaped by partisan academics whose mono-causal theories provided ample fuel the fires of mono-ethnic extremism burning in the north. Tragically, in the guise of being independent researchers these biased ideologues were in reality playing an active political role in manufacturing the anti-Sinhala-Buddhist theories which went a long way to fuel the fires of north-south crisis. In critical political crises where bullets takes the place of ballots it is not the finger that pulls the trigger. It is the ideologically fixated mind that prompts the finger to pull the trigger.

Velupillai Prabhakaran did not come out of nothing. He came out of the ethnic venom mass produced by the ideologues who never deviated a millimetre from the 40-50s manifesto of the mono-ethnic extremists of the north. The Tamils today are paying for the sins of these misguided ideologues, their imagined geographies, their concocted histories and the political myths that made them feel and look much bigger than what they really are.

Racist platform

They were doused, for instance, in the myths of discrimination - the vote-catching racist platform of peninsular politics. And when the fires of racism were ignited they caught fire, setting off a conflagration that engulfed the entire nation. Now these myths are being exploded one by one. I nearly fell off the chair the other day watching Radhika Coomaraswamy telling Zena Bedawi of BBC that the Tamils had not suffered any economic discrimination which in its wider sense means, jobs, land, education etc. She added that this has been confirmed by recent research. But isn't this the myth on which generation of Tamils were brought up to hate the Sinhalese? Isn't this the main myth that was cranked up by the Churches, academics, NGO pundits, media mediocrities, foreign diplomats and even fake political gurus like Chandrika Kumaratunga and Ranil Wickremesinghe? Isn't this myth that is thrown around by every Tamil propagandist to justify Tamil violence? Isn't this what the ignorant wire services - Reuters, AFP, AP you name it - parrot in winding up their reports on the current conflict?

Dr. Goonatilake's meticulously researched book is a penetrating essay that cuts out the myths, the airy-fairy theories and goes deep into the nitty-gritty of reality. It separates the truth from the fictions of anti-Sinhala-Buddhist academics, intellectuals and other hired hacks in the NGOs. It is a book written for readers to think out of their narrow box. Those who read this book will be rewarded with new political insights into the hidden agenda of the Sri Lankan reality and politics. It is an indispensable guide to go behind the scenes and understand the alien and anti-national forces exploiting the Sri Lankan crisis to line their pockets with foreign funds.