The bifurcation of intelligentsia

Centre Piece by Ajith Samaranayake

Today we bring you another exciting episode (as the old serial writers used to say) in the debate conducted between Dr. Susantha Gunatillake and the rest on Sri Lankan research in 1987. This piece was written by this columnist under the pen name 'Andare' and incidentally will be the last to be inflicted on the reader.

As we explained last week too it is being reproduced in the context of Dr. Gunatillake's present assault on similar lines on sections of civil and academic society.

The exchange between Dr. Susantha Gunatillake and an assortment of academics and intellectuals is in danger of becoming a private dialogue if it has not already become one.

This in spite of the fact that Dr. G. has taken the fight to the presumably more native pastures of the 'Divaina' as well.

The reason is not far to seek. The average man, even the average intelligent man, is not very worried about how academic spoils are divided among Colombo's academic and intellectual elite. And that basically is what the debate is about, stripped of all its pretensions.

The unconcern of the average reader towards the debate also shows how separated the intelligentsia are from the people and this includes Dr. G. as well. In fact, both he and his detractors belong to the same class and same milieu.

They are all dominantly English-speaking (although now adjusted to a bilingual set-up), living in Colombo and holding membership of the academic and intellectual Brahmin caste, old boys of the same elitist schools and sharing basically the same mental make-up.

The only difference is that the prolonged ethnic conflict has polarised them as no other issue had done before.

Hence the dichotomy we see now between the liberal-radical intelligentsia and the populist-nationalist intelligentsia, each group shouting ritual abuse at the other.

Intelligentsia

The intelligentsia in the generic sense was the product of the liberal academic education spawned by the Jenningsian University milieu.

While one section of the intelligentsia accepted the western liberal values and the world view which went with it without much question the other section was drawn either to Marxism or nationalism. While the Marxists looked forward to the apocalypse the nationalist expostulated about the dominance of English in the university and ballroom dancing at the socials.

The challenge

Both sections however, settled down comfortably in either the groves of academe or the corridors of the CCS (later SLAS). They were basically English-speaking and had by now entered the westernised urban milieu.

But the challenge of bilingualism saw them conquering that hurdle too.

While the more urbanised of these elements spoke Sinhala fastidiously with a mild English accent the more earthy native sons took pride in their proximity to the village after it became no longer unfashionable to flaunt one's roots.

During the last several decades this intelligentsia in its generic sense has undergone several convolutions. There has been considerable traffic across the liberal-radical divide.

Red-hot radicals

Mild liberal intellectuals who took more interest in poetry than in politics have blossomed into red-hot radicals.

The worship of Ezra Pound has been exchanged for the worship of Antonio Gramsci or similarly the radicals of yesteryear have become tame-cat liberals some of them even apologists for the existing order, Marxists have abandoned Marxism for nationalism. Fresh virtues have been discovered in Anagarika Dharmapala and Piyadasa Sirisena.

Ethnic problem

On the opposite pole these worthies have been castigated and condemned as 'racists', a term of abuse which comes easily to some people's lips these days and for wholly surprising reasons as well.

But nothing has polarised them more than the ethnic problem. The liberal-radicals supported the Tamil struggle, advocated a political solution while the populist nationalists refused to concede that there was an ethnic problem at all.

Now the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord and the post-July situation have thrown both groups into some confusion. The fact is that both groups are products of our times.

In the context of anti-Tamil violence which was brutalising society particularly after July 1983 and the mass Sinhala hysteria which was growing the liberal-radicals were bulwarks of sanity.

On the other hand the populist-nationalists realised that there was more to it than resolving the ethnic problem and that it was the growing authoritarianism and intolerance in our society which was pushing the country towards crisis.

Sinhala chauvinists

But their tone was stridently Sinhala chauvinist and this bred distrust about their motives among the uncommitted.

This dichotomy among the intelligentsia and the need for an ideology of sanity suited to our times is at the heart of the present crisis.

The liberal-radicals (or lib-rads to use Kautilyan terminology) were angered by the growing Sinhala intolerance directed at the Tamil people and were impelled to make historical forays to trace the reasons for this alienation.

They were correct in pointing out that if the archetypal historical phobias propagated by popular history and instilled in the Sinhala mind were not fought and combatted there would be no hope of a reconciliation. But this has to be done in an idiom which is easily understood by the people and through methods close to their ethos.

Central question

In fact the central question before Sri Lanka today is how the various communities can best preserve their culture and way of life while being free of any one community's hegemonistic influence and respecting each other's way of life.

For this a synthesis of ideas is necessary. But does the present squabble between the lib-rads and the pop-nats further that common interest?