Former Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike. MP Dr. Harini Amarasooriya. Minister Kanchana Wijesekara.
By Professor Ari Ariyaratne
The year was 1970. The time was around ten in the morning. In a rustic village located in Giruvapattu, Hambantota District, Ceylon, the villagers were gathering around an election rally held by the junction where the coastal road leading from Colombo to Kataragama, and a road leading to Weeraketiya meet.
The rally was organized by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), one of the two main ruling parties since the post-independence in that country, to promote the candidacy of a newcomer, Mahinda Rajapaksa.
He was one of the sons of the late D. A. Rajapaksa, who represented the Beliatta electorate in the Ceylonese parliament. His opponent Ranjith Atapattu, a medical doctor by profession, was contesting from the United National Party (UNP), the other main ruling party. The latter’s father was a lawyer named D. P. Atapattu, who also served as the parliamentarian representing the Beliatta electorate until 1970 after defeating D. A. Rajapaksa for the first time in 1965.
In the meeting, a well-built and tall man in his late twenties by the appearance, delivered a speech filled with radical rhetoric, the hallmark of the student leaders in local universities then (and now).
The villagers listened to him with fervor. His name was Mahinda Wijesekara.
After his speech was over, another local speaker was stressing the point that although the Rajapaksas and the Atapattus are political opponents, they belong to respectable families of govigama caste in Ruhuna nevertheless!
At that moment, it was announced that the chief guest of the rally was approaching the meeting ground and all eyes were moving toward the approaching jeep. In the back seat of the jeep was a man dressed in European attire, wearing round glasses, and smoking a pipe. He smiled and waved at the crowd before descending from the jeep and entering the meeting stage.
He was late Felix Dias Bandaranaike, who went on to become a powerful cabinet minister in the Sirimavo Bandaranaike government from 1970 to 1977.
Upon seeing the chief speaker, Wijesekara rose to the occasion immediately, grabbed the microphone from the local speaker almost forcibly, and shouted out loud: “Sirimavo Bandaranaike methiniyata—.”
“Jayaveva,” villagers reacted enthusiastically.
“Devana vihara maha deviyata—,” shouted Wijesekara again, to receive the villagers’ prompt response “Jayaveva.”
A seventh grader in a local school witnessed this moment. It was that slogan (“devana vihara maha deviya”) meant by Wijesekara for Sirimavo Bandaranaike, that became one of the catchphrases in the Presidential Election campaign of Chandrika Bandaranaike in 1994! History does indeed repeat itself!
Wijesekara did not stop there! He started to climb the rungs of the ladder leading to the world of Sri Lanka’s political elite class, a journey that took him up to the level of a powerful minister in the governments led by both ruling parties.
The revolutionary movement he aspired to during his university days was crushed twice by ruling elites, first in 1971 and second in 1987-1989, and he said or did nothing on that behalf. Eventually, however, the vengeance came in the form of a bomb blast. He did not die, but he is a living dead, nevertheless!
A generation later, today (March 8, 2023), in Sri Lanka’s parliament, his son Kanchana Wijesekara was shouting at Dr. Harini Amarasooriya, the female parliamentarian representing National People’s Power (NPP).
She was talking about brutally assaulting the women’s protest led by her and other activist women on a day important to men and women, but especially women.
The great American poet Robert Frost once wrote: “Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough to hate. To say that for destruction, ice is also great. And would suffice.
Ari Ariyaratne received his PhD in anthropology from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, USA. He is a Distinguished Professor at Heartland Community College and an adjunct professor at College of DuPage. He is the author of the textbook titled Key Concepts of Cultural Anthropology (2020). His second textbook, titled Key Concepts of Four-Field Anthropology, will be published in the near future.
