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| Saturday, 6 December 2003 |
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Anil Moonesinghe: an appreciation by Anura Bandaranaika M. P., Senior Advisor to the President
I really got to know Anil Moonesighe, whose death anniversary falls on the 8th of December, after he joined the SLFP Parliamentary group in 1983. I had known him before, but not at the level of intimacy, we achieved while we were in Parliament together. Anil first became a Member of Parliament in the social revolution of 1956. He was one of those who entered the House in national dress, the symbol of those who linked themselves with the culture and aspirations of the masses. This was not a mere pose: he was genuinely happy to be around ordinary people and could chat with them about the health of their grandparents as if they were his own. He worked with considerable energy for his beloved Agalawatte electorate. In 1964 his party, the LSSP entered into a coalition with the SLFP and Anil became Minister of Communications in my mother's Cabinet. He once again conducted himself with energy, efficiency and most importantly, honesty. Later, under the United Front Government, he was Chairman of the Ceylon Transport Board, where he showed his considerable organisational skills and brought him more popularity than his period as Minister. In the late 1970s, after the defeat of the entire Left, he came to the conclusion that an agglomeration of all progressive forces was required. He threw himself into the Presidential campaign of 1982 and the subsequent, infamous referendum, with his customary energy and vigour. He successfully contested the 1983 by-election in Matugama constituency, which bordered on his previous electorate, Agalawatte, as the SLFP candidate. When he re-entered Parliament in 1983, he was a rather more thoughtful and cautions person than the young firebrand of '56. He was appreciative of the difficulties I had faced in the House since 1977: his first speech was completely drowned out by heckling from the Government benches. In the years that I was Leader of the Opposition, he and less than a dozen other MPs had to face the combined night of a gross of UNP members. We were a tightly-knit group in those days, our unrepresentatively small number contributing to our camaraderie and esprit de corps. He became the SLFP spokesman in Parliament for Transport, a subject very close to his heart. Time and time again he spoke of the necessity for combining compassion with discipline to provide an efficient public transport system, an essential infrastructural need if the country were to develop. He combined a deep practical knowledge of the nuts and bolts of running a bus depot - his speeches were sprinkled with comments such as the difficulty of carrying out bus repairs at night- with a remarkable erudition regarding the political economy of transport in the Third World. He had an absolute passion for history, a passion that he spelt out in many of his speeches. He always tried to see himself in the mirror of history, to see how he would be judged by future generations. He compared Sri Lanka with other countries, locating them in the context of history. He also had a sense of humour. He could be seen at the restaurant in Parliament, convulsed by laughter as he shared jokes and stories with other MPs of similar inclination. He was fundamentally a political animal. Even when relaxing away from the grind, he would take a 'busman's holiday' by arguing about politics with whoever he met. In the 1988 presidential election and the general election of the next year, he faced the terror unflinchingly, on one occasion missing an attack only due to his notorious lack of punctuality. Many lives were saved in those days through his personal intervention. However, he found the system of 'preference votes' distasteful. The violence-free elections of 1994 he found even worse than the previous one, which had been overshadowed with terror. He disliked Machiavellian politics, and the positively Byzantine intrigues that he faced in the latter stages of his career made him profoundly uncomfortable. He had an unfortunate tendency, in a politician, to call a spade a spade, which lost him a lot of popularity. When my mother's star was on the wane, he continued to visit her when so many confidantes of hers no longer did so. He had a profound respect for her, both as a person and as a politician. Even after her demise, he continued to display her portrait in his office and at his residence, having been, meanwhile appointed Ambassador to Vienna. By his death, Sri Lanka lost a politician of integrity who was fervently devoted to his motherland and I lost a friend. |
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