Great gentleman Gamini Dissanayake
Sixteenth death anniversary tomorrow:
Dame Betty Boothroyd, Speaker of the House of Commons of the United
Kingdom once said, “From the numerous occasions that I have met Gamini,
it is clear that he has a vision for Sri Lanka and its people. While one
could consider him an idealist, the very fact that he delivered in terms
of the gigantic Mahaweli Scheme, illustrates that he is also an
extraordinary performer. It is a testimony to his pragmatism and
determination.”
Gamini Dissanayake |
Today, 16 years after his cowardly assassination by the LTTE, it is
relevant to ask what this vision was that Gamini Dissanayake had for his
country and its people. How did he set about translating his vision into
action? How far are we from achieving that vision? ‘Vision’ was indeed a
word that Gamini loved. For him, it meant something like ‘ the grand
scheme of things as I would like them to be’. In articulating this
vision he once said, “My vision is of a country where every person
contributes their mite - both physical and intellectual - participating
in the mainstream of economic growth as partners. Everyone shall reap
the fruits of his or her efforts and benefit from a balanced and
sustained march to prosperity - that is the Sri Lanka of my dreams.”
To Gamini, these were not mere words or political rhetoric: they were
an articulation of a mission statement, the rationale by which he
charted his political course.
Mahaweli
One of his major undertakings which helped him to go in this
direction was the Accelerated Mahaweli development program. Over the
eight year period that he was the minister he led this project to
unprecedented success and achievements. It was because of this project
that the country was able to achieve self-sufficiency in rice for the
first time in its post-colonial history.
He encouraged commercial agriculture by the middle class in the
Mahaweli areas. He wanted these middle class entrepreneurs to give the
thousands of Mahaweli farmers the lead to high-income agriculture by
showing them the many markets that were available to them and the
requirements and standards of those markets. They would show how value
could be added to basic agricultural products produced by these farmers.
He constructed five dams across the Mahaweli River in a cascade and
made maximum use of the hydropower potential of this river.
This output doubled the installed capacity of electricity in the
country. The availability of electricity not only helped industries
(including the garment industry) to start up, but also doubled the
coverage of rural electrification.
The value of the electricity produced by the Mahaweli Project in its
first decade alone paid back the enormous loans taken to fund the whole
project, including the massive irrigation works and settlement schemes.
For just over a year, Gamini was the plantation industries minister.
In that short time he brought radical management strategies to this
century-old industry. These new strategies, which were unique in their
socio-economic scope, immediately brought better results to the industry
as a whole. Even today the cluster system, which he innovated, is the
form of management practised, though the dream he had of integrating
Tamil estate workers with their Sinhalese brethren in up-country towns
and of empowering both societies through land ownership, remains a
forgotten dream.
Settlement
Organized settlement is not a new experience. In Sri Lanka settlement
or colonisation schemes, as they were known then, have been in operation
since the 1930s. The Accelerated Mahaweli Development Program, however
whilst using the experiences of the past, injected a new dynamism to
human settlement, the results of which have had a tremendous impact on
the rate of development of the settlement regions and the country in
general.
The Mahaweli’s achievements have been recognized in other parts of
the world where human settlements are discussed and these achievements
and successes have been noted with much appreciation.
Another of Gamini’s brainchild, the Mahaweli Cultural Centre, brought
to gather the traditions and cultures of the different ethnic groups of
settlers in the Mahaweli Project areas. Here, whilst the old cultures
were encouraged to flourish, a new and harmonious culture was also
formed. Gamini proudly patronized all the cultural and religious
activities in the Mahaweli areas.
Any activity that involves the movement of people, especially
families and in a number of instances, whole communities, must
necessarily be handed with care, sympathy and a deep understanding of
human feeling. The understanding must necessarily be form the
perspective of the moved rather than that of the mover.
A clear vision of the future of those moved and settled must be a
precursor of any human-settlement activity. A genuine interest in the
progress and welfare of those resettled is also a necessity for
sustained successful settlement. As the visionary behind the Mahaweli
settlement program, Gamini had all these abilities and qualities.
Lalith Athulathmudali once said of Gamini, “Politics is a continues
turn of the wheel of fortune. One has to be judged in victory and
defeat. One has to endure encomiums, praise, abuse and insults. Gamini
in his years of politics experienced all these and still endeavoured to
work according to his ideals and place his undoubted skills and
experience at the service of the nation.”
Gamini was not without his problems in the local political arena. His
baptism of fire into politics, at a tender age, was when he was elected
to the Nuwara Eliya seat, only to be ousted by an election petition. In
the ensuing by-election, he went on to retain his seat despite the whole
might of the government and political machinery being pitted against
him. That was Gamini in Opposition.
At the receiving end
Then again in the 1990 a vindictive President Premadasa
unceremoniously turfed Gamini, who had worked tirelessly to put
Premadasa in office, out of Cabinet. Not stopping at that, Premadasa
brought false allegations against Gamini, subjecting his adversary to a
painful lawsuit from which he was, of course, easily acquitted.
Ironically, this had the reverse of the effect Premadasa intended,
transforming Gamini into a hero and not a victim. Sirimavo Bandaranaike
stepped in to offer words of support and encouragement, with Opposition
MP Mahinda Rajapaksa actually attending court and marking his name pro
Deo as a member of Gamini’s defence team.
Later, Premadasa forced Gamini to leave the country under threat to
his life. The astute Gamini made use of this time and went to Cambridge,
where he got himself a Master’s Degree. He came back to the country
unexpectedly, via a devious route and presented himself in Parliament in
the nick of time. Otherwise Premadasa would have seen to it that he was
unseated from his seat in Parliament as well.
Sport
Sri Lanka has always been a cricket-loving nation playing the game
since the advent of the British to this country. However much our
standard of cricket improved in those days, the game was limited to
matches with our neighbours from the subcontinent, India and Pakistan
and occasional one-day matches with the Australian and MCC teams that
went England and Australia. This was when they travelled by ship and the
ship docked to refuel etc.
Though many of our administrators including most of the Presidents of
the Cricket Board tried to take Sri Lanka to the next level of world
cricket, they failed. This was because of the ganging up of the world
cricket hierarchy to prevent another country from Asia getting into the
fray and outnumbering them.
With Gamini taking over the Presidency of the Cricket Board, he was
determined to get test status for Sri Lanka. He did this with his
ability to present Sri Lanka’s case coherently, answer all the questions
put to him and meet all the arguments against Sri Lanka being accepted
to test cricket. His was a great victory never matched in the history of
international cricket.
Sir Garfield Sobers, one of cricket’s all time greats, whom Gamini
persuades to come and mould our fledgling cricketers, said, “During the
time I spent in Sri Lanka I met many fine people. One of the finest I
had the pleasure and privilege of coming to know was Gamini Dissanayake.
What he has done for Sri Lanka Cricket will become more visible and
appreciated with the passage of time. I do not know whether the guide,
philosopher and friend of the Sri Lanka cricketers at that time is any
longer involved in the administration of cricket. It is my perception
however that he has done for them what few others could do.”
- Jayantha Jayewardene |