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| Wednesday, 19 January 2005 |
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Prof. C. Suriyakumaran - 83 years 'young' today
While we record this tribute to the truly innovative works and outstanding contributions of Prof. C. Suriyakumaran during his long years both here and abroad, we are aware that numerous others would share what we set down below - and more. We recall that on his 80th birthday, there were also Ms. Karu Jayasuriya, Alawi Mowlana, Shelton Ranaraja, Manel Abeysekera and others recalling their links with the works and contributions of Prof. Suriyakumaran. Age has not hampered him in his varied contributions; only, now it has slowed him down, contending with an unexpected illness. For ourselves, it is noteworthy that each one of us came to know him in widely different ways, each a tribute to his widest interests and interactions. For the first mentioned among us, it was when struggling with a problem in the Ritigala Area Development that would have stopped it from going further. Its main goal of conservation, was threatened by the sustained robbery of the rich vegetation from the Ritigala mountain. In a remarkable stroke of genius as it were at a crowded meeting at the Provincial Council headquarters in Anuradhapura, after listening to the attacks on the poor of Ritigala and called upon to round up the discussion with his conclusions he simply stated to a stunned audience that they must rob the plants - for their sheer living, which none at the meeting had thought of discussing. In a simple, broad based program of development for the villagers and involving all key facets, he also urged an immediate collective Home Garden project that would produce also the very plants that they were said to be robbing - simply to keep them from starving, and no one caring. Within months, they earned more money than they had ever in their clandestine ways. On a later visit, with a prospering Village Area Development, Prof. Suriyakumaran when asked, simply stated, now, the robbers of Ritigala have become the guardians of Ritigala! - with none needed to protect the mountain, and no hard hearted official to catch them for no fault of theirs. When, later he recommended and helped us apply to Government to start up a bio-diversity technology centre there. (soon refused on the grounds of 'duplication', simply because there was one at Gannoruwa there happened to see later in South India a network of prospering bio-technology centres that today, along with others, pulled up India to the heights that she is now in. Both during and after this period Prof. Suriyakumarn has quietly and consistently guided us in our countrywide activities in various fields that involved people, resources, environment and development. That was his style. Another of our colleagues had been witness to his outstanding contributions from the mid-forties in local government, under S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike including on the Provincial Councils to come, Bandaranaike himself once said of him on a paper prepared by him (as reported in The Ceylon Daily News of July 2, 1947): "The Chief Item on the Agenda was..... the report on local government by C. Suriyakumaran.... The Minister (Bandaranaike called it "the best document he had seen on this or any related subject for years.... a great contribution at the present juncture.... In any context (it) must be considered one of high quality and he gave the assurance that he was determined to give this report prime importance in the near future". Following the creeping of discrimination within the administration, he reluctantly moved into the United nations, holding some of the most pivotal positions, ending up as Deputy Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Asia; and later on the environmental side, as one of the four headquarters global directors, later heading UNEP in Asia and the Pacific. In the later, he set a pattern both in ideas and initiatives said K.H.J. Wijeyadasa in a tribute "It is no exaggeration to state that Prof. Suriyakumaran has pioneered the environmental crusade in the Asia-Pacific in those years and made lasting contributions for development of the technologies of environment assessment through his publications.... I am indeed proud to be a close associate.... fellow environmentalist and a fellow countryman". On his roles in Asia, the late T.B. Subasinghe who also launched the UN 50th Anniversary felicitation Volume in his honour in 1995 and Prof. Suriyakumaran was in that role an indispensable and leading figure.... Few parallels exists of individuals having been in the centre of so many achievements." During all his years abroad he never forgot his home. It was on the occasion of his home leave that he launched for example, a notable three set series of lectures at the Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies on (a) Devolution; (b) South Asian Co-operation and (c) Environmental Management. It was during the second series that a person came up to him to ask if he could have a separate meeting with him and that he was a 'Karu Jayasuriya' - a request readily granted - which he said later helped him greatly in the private sector SAARC negotiations that followed. |
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Produced by Lake House |
A tribute by Ven. Thanthirimale Chandrarathana Thera (Ritigala
Hamuduruwo) - N. Sivakurunathan - V.K. Nanayakkara - Jayantha
Wickremanayake
