Creative clan of state bureaucrats

by Kalakeerthi Edwin Ariyadasa

Nothing in the universe could be more unlike a London street than the bund of the tank in Anuradhapura. Everything shines and glitters in the fierce sunshine, the great sheet of water, the butterflies, the bodies of people bathing in the water or beating their washing upon the stones, their brightly coloured cloths. Along the bund grow immense trees through which you can see from time to time the flitting of a brightly coloured bird, and everywhere all round the tank wherever you look are shrubs, flowers, bushes and trees, tree after tree after tree”.

- Leonard Woolf in ‘Growing’
Ceylon Civil Service (1902 – 1912)

Though it may sound strange, the stark truth is that the State Bureaucracy of Sri Lanka pre-dates the British colonial era by 15 years. The pioneering British civil servant, who initially joined the imperial administrative set-up in Sri Lanka, was John D'oyly. This was way back in 1801. Considered this way, the state bureaucracy of Sri Lanka, is 211 years old today.

The history of these two colourful centuries of state bureaucracy presents a rich mother-code of treasures to anyone, who possesses the daring and the unshaken will to mine it assiduously.

Two diligent administrative officers – Mangala Karunatilaka and Harshani Amaratunga have jointly faced the demanding task of selecting an admirable galaxy of state bureaucrats – both past and present – whose distinct asset is the contribution they have made to the field of creativity – over and above the performance of due and exacting administrative services.

Their work on The creative efforts of the members of the 200-year-old Sri Lankan bureaucracy is titled “The assets of two hundred years-one.” The book is in two sections: 1) the sowing and 2) the golden harvest.

In the segment titled “the sowing”, cameo biographies of 14 British civil servants are accommodated. In a generic classification, I feel tempted to characterise them as “soul inheritors of Robert Knox”.

Exotic isle

They travel over (‘sail over’ in the early instances) to this exotic isle, cherishing domineering dreams as behoves the self-appointed bearers of the Brown man's Burden.

But the wisest and the most sophisticated among those British civil servants were overwhelmed by the cultural grandeur and the exquisite historic legacy of this ancient land.

Some of them in their unabashed serendipitous surprise interpreted the gems of the host culture's creative tradition, in English. William Charles MaCready translated a whole series of Sinhala classical poems into English illuminating his versions with befitting exegetical support.

The joint authors have featured him here. If an objective assessment is made, the consensus of opinion will vehemently favour the identifying of Leonard Sidney Woolf as the British civil servant, who paid the greatest tribute to the Sri Lankan way of life, through his creative efforts.

As a dutiful public servant he fulfilled his responsibilities to the hilt. His affection for Sri Lanka assumed phenomenal proportions.

In his autobiographical writings he has emphatically effused about his sentiments towards ‘Ceylon'.This is one of his assertions:

”The jungle and the people who lived in the Sinhalese jungle villages fascinated, almost obsessed me in Ceylon. They continued to obsess me in London in Putney or Bloomsbury and in Cambridge.

Indigenous administers

‘The village in the jungle’ was a novel in which I tried somehow or other vicariously to live their lives”. Leonard Woolf's “Village in the Jungle”, assumes a larger significance as a universally valid parable of the decay of civilisations, avidly, greedily and avariciously man grabs swaths of nature for his ephemeral structures. The ever-alert nature – the waiting jungle, in this instance – asserts itself and brings of under its tide and sway.

In the wake of Leonard Woolf and other British civil servants, the local (indigenous) class of administers took over. Their creative achievements are recorded in this work, in the segments categorised under “The Golden Harvest”. The implication is, the path-finding British civil servants did the sowing and their home garden successors harvested the golden, bumper yield.

What leads to some the controversy, is the paucity of numbers in the indigenous group. It is popularlary known that the state is the biggest employer. Besides, the members who served as state level administrators from 1801 on could easily exceed a million.

It is exactly a century since, Leonard Woolf left the Ceylon civil service in 1912.

In such a context one cannot help but wonder why only 59 people have been selected from among numerous indigenous officers in the Sri Lankan Administrative service. The joint-authors have a very valid and highly acceptable explanation. Others will be duly celebrated in the subsequent parts of this book. The British civil servant – a white man from across the oceans – received a popular deference bordering on veneration. But the indigenous successors of those practical in a more egalitarian social context. Nevertheless, these indigenous state bureaucrats, too displayed a highly impressive creative dexterity.

To put it mildly the life of the average state bureaucrat is an unending conjugation of ever-accumulating crises. Interviews, reports, field-visits, ceremonies, enquiries and meeting deadlines occupy more than the hours a clock allots. In the middle of the night, you are awakened from your sleep by a development that needs your urgent, personal attention. Over and above that in the imperial days, the state bureaucracy was relentlessly assaulted by Administrative Regulations and Financial Regulations. The state bureaucrat has to be creative as a form of counterpoint to these quotidian frustrations.

Such state bureaucrats as Wimalaratna Kumaragama and Haputhanthirige Leelananda Gunasekera – popularly known as Leel Gunasekera, pioneered their creations to console themselves in the lonely remote posts they were obliged to man.The book features 58 personalities from Wimalaratna Kumaragama to P. Kanishka Sri Lal. Among them we have very well-known creative administrators from a wide-variety backgrounds – fiction writers, lyric composers, critics, actors, musicians, artists and film personalities.

Women bureaucrats

Several women bureaucrats are accommodated here. Outstandingly among them are Jayantha Rukmani Siriwardhana and Sumithra Rahubadda. Minister Sarath Leelananda Bandara Amunugama enters the publication exhibiting a gamut of creative achievements. It is essential to single out an exceptional state bureaucrat, who stands out for a number of unassailable reasons. He is the oldest living ex-state bureaucrat R.D.K. Jayewardene.

His creativity traverses along many paths and avenues. His interests are multifarious.

He is a practising artist, creates award winning poetry and fiction. He acquired a name as producer of modernistic plays. In his 91st year this ultra-talented bureaucrat is deeply and profoundly concerned with the pageant of life. Though illness has partly restricted his movements, his creativity asserts itself unceasingly.

The book by these two authors, is only a beginning. But, even within its unavoidable limitations it celebrates the ever-alive creativity of the state bureaucratic community. Some may be quizzical about those missing personality though they are pre-eminently high-profile.

Thus, I am sure will be put right eventually. The work as it is signifies the triumph of dedicated hard work.

Evoking a middle-eastern blessing can say: “May the tribe increase”.
The tribe of course is the creative state bureaucratic clan.