Absorbing monarchial spirit of yore

S. Pathiravitana

This article was written a few years back

As a people, do we respect the monarchical form of government or do we, as a people prefer, as in the democratic societies in the West, to have a form of government where there seems to be no respect for anyone in particular?

In the common speech of the people in this country the term rajaa or rajek pops up very often. But I don't think it is nowadays in purely metaphorical use or that the speaker is using poetic licence. The last time I heard it in public use was when the former pillar of the UNP, Aswar, in crossing over to the Government called the President a rajaa.

My memories of the use of this term go as far back as my childhood. I remember seeing at one General Election crowds of people in over-packed vehicles roaming the streets waving red flags and boldly shouting the question, Kauda Rajaa? and answering equally boldly, Singha Rajaa.

A.E.Goonasingha was the 'Rajaa' they meant and the man contesting him was T.B. Jayah, the Principal of Zahira College.

There was a bundle of grass trailing behind one vehicle and a man was lifting it up and saying, Mewa thammai Jayah kanney. I think they were celebrating the victory of the fiery labour leader, who later D.S.Senanayaka tamed by making him, ironically, a Minister without Portfolio. We seem to have done away with that convenient political device now.

In 1815, soon after the 'tyrant,' as the British called Sri Wickrama Rajasingha, was deposed on March 2, the new Government proclaimed that the "King of Great Britain was acknowledged the sovereign of the whole island of Ceylon; the preservation of the old form of the Government of the Interior was guaranteed on our part, as well as the protection of the customs, laws and religion of the people."

Well, it didn't take long for the people to realize that Britain, perfidious Albion as she was known, had as usual cheated.

Disheartened by the events that followed there was general dissatisfaction in the Kandyan kingdom. A heartfelt cry arose from a single monk who, having watched a line of ants crawling along, scribbled on the wall of his temple a verse that sighed for the lost kingship of this country:
Annay koombiyanay
Thopatath rajek innay
Moka de karannay
Apey karmaya apata
vannay
Rajek lebunothi-nay
Eda kiribath kannay
Perahera karannay
Sadhu naaden gigum
dennay

Poems lose in translation, so I shall try to give only the sense here. Even you, Oh Ants, have a king, but we have no king. Fate has taken ours away and left us helpless. If ever we do get a king, what a day of rejoicing it will be. We shall make kiribath, lead processions with song and dance to cries of Sadhu and the gay beat of the drums.

Kingship means a hierarchical society and from the viewpoint of democracy that is something to be frowned on. But how tyrannical was our society under these 'tyrannical' kings? Let us call the evidence of one who toured this country just before and after the Kandyan kingdom fell.

He was one who worked very closely with Governor Robert Brownrigg being his personal physician. Governor Brownrigg was a bitter man after the upheaval of events in the Kandyan kingdom, but his personal physician, John Davy, was the detached observer of most events and extremely fair minded.

This is how he found Sinhala society just before the Kandyan kingdom fell:

The Singalese are a courteous and ceremonious people, and whilst they attend most particularly to all their minute distinctions of caste and rank, they are mutually respectful: the man of rank is not arrogant, nor the poor man servile; the one is kind and condescending, and the other modest and unpresuming. The friendly intercourse of different ranks is encouraged by religion...

The yearning for kingship displayed by the monk mentioned above was something that Davy with his observant eye also noticed and recorded.

He realized that the taking over of Kandy was a mistake and regretted "that we ever entered the Kandyan country. The evils immediately resulting from it, certainly greatly exceed the original benefits we conferred on the natives by removing a tyrant from the throne."

A king ruling the people from thousands of miles away, he said, was something they were not accustomed to; "they wanted a king whom they could see and before whom they could prostrate and obtain summary justice."

The yearning for kingship may be seen again in the Constitution that was drawn up in 1978 where the ultimate source of power was vested in the President, just as in the case of the Sinhala monarchs.

But though the constitution claimed to lay the foundation for a Dharmishta society there was little dharma left in it, certainly not the Dasa Raja Dharma a king should follow but a distortion of it.

What was sought in the Constitution that was drawn up was the mere satisfaction of the private agenda of an ambitious man. We have seen how those who have had a whiff of this power ended up with illusions of grandeur and those who wish to read more of it can do so in the well-documented book of V.P.Vittachi, Sri Lanka - What Went Wrong?

Here I have space only to quote an instance or two from this book to demonstrate what these delusions are like. The following quote is from an address made at a meeting of the members of the Commonwealth summit who, Vittachi, adds were bemused listeners;

"Our recorded history is ancient, and goes back in an unbroken sequence to the arrival from North India of King Vijaya in 543 B.C. They have been ruling our country since then, kings and queens of various races and dynasties - Sinhalese, Indians, Cholas and Telegus, British-Hanouver and Windsor and two Presidents, one selected in 1972 and myself, elected in 1977 and 1982, the 193rd in this long and unbroken line of heads of state, possibly the oldest of its kind and unique in the world."

And yet another - At the army tatoo in Anuradhapura stadium, he was reported to have said, "I am a king all right, with all the powers of a king, but I shall never exercise these powers." Subsequently the Daily Mirror was asked to correct the report with, "Parliament has given me the powers of a king, but I am not a king."

Illusions of grandeur drove another President into ascending the Pattirippuva accompanied by his wife to address the nation. Of the four who have sat on the presidential chair so far three have shown signs of being victims to the delusions of grandeur. The fourth lives quietly in Pilimatalawa contemplating the vanity of man.

I have not heard the previous presidents being referred to in common speech either as rajaa or rajina. But the fifth President of this country, from what I have seen and heard, is looked upon as a rajaa.

To the common people the king has always appeared as a source of justice, and as Davy pointed out he is the person "before whom they could prostrate and obtain summary justice". This was not something that was found only in the Kandyan kingdom but a tradition that comes down to us from the days of King Elara who had a bell erected which could be rung by aggrieved subjects to obtain summary justice.

We may not be able to re-install the monarchical form of government to the letter. But we can absorb something of its spirit. For finally what the people want is summary justice to solve their daily problems, whether it is the dirt that is piling up all over the place or a bridge is about to collapse and the local authorities are indifferent to it or that the harvests are left rotting because there is still no proper system of distribution.

Attend to these and the Dharmishta society will automatically follow.