Lakshman Kadirgamar’s 80th birth anniversary tomorrow:

Kadir spearheaded an international crusade against the LTTE

Miran PERERA

Lakshman Kadirgamar was a great human being, an extremely successful sportsman in his youth. He gave up a lucrative and eminently successful legal practice to pursue the dream for a united, peaceful and prosperous Sri Lanka. He was a rare combination of intellectual brilliance, political wisdom and personal courage and integrity. The entire nation grieves for him. His brutal assassination created a vacuum that will be well nigh impossible to fill

The 80th birth anniversary of the late Lakshman Kadirgamar falls on April 12, 2012. The cowardly assassination of former Foreign Minister Kadirgamar removes from our midst the epitome of the gentleman politician the likes of who the country would not see for a long time to come.

Lakshman Kadirgamar

Lakshman Kadirgamar was a hero of our times. He was a true patriot who paid the ultimate price in the service of his motherland. Minister Kadirgamar was a Sri Lankan national who believed passionately in a united and democratic Sri Lanka where all people would live with dignity and freedom. He envisioned a negotiated political settlement for the ethnic problem that combined devolution of political power with pluralism and democracy. He strived hard for the democratic rights of the Tamil people, and constantly grieved the subjugation of Tamils to LTTE authoritarianism.

Minister Kadirgamar’s contribution towards Sri Lanka’s improved international relations had the seal of a fine art in diplomacy all of his own. The increased bond forged with friendly neighbours and pioneering of several trade agreements are but a few of the bequests derived by this country through his skills and diplomacy. However his most valiant effort on behalf of the nation was his international crusade against the LTTE which saw a ban imposed on the organization and a clamp down on its worldwide funding. His successful lobbying to have Vesak placed on the international calendar would always remain in the hearts of an ever grateful nation.

Legal practice

Lakshman Kadirgamar was a great human being, an extremely successful sportsman in his youth. He gave up a lucrative and eminently successful legal practice to pursue the dream for a united, peaceful and prosperous Sri Lanka. He was a rare combination of intellectual brilliance, political wisdom and personal courage and integrity. The entire nation grieves for him.

His brutal assassination created a vacuum that will be well nigh impossible to fill. The assassination of Minister Kadirgamar was a horrendously barbaric act of terrorism against an unarmed civilian perpetrated by those who opposed all the noble values he stood for, freedom, harmony, brotherhood and peace. He joins a long list of distinguished Tamil leaders such as Alfred Duraiappa, Amirthalingam, Neelan Thiruchelvam, Sam Thambimuttu, Sarojini Thiranagama and Kandasamy who were murdered by the LTTE in an attempt to subjugate the Tamil people through violence and terror.

At Oxford University Lakshman Kadirgamar carved a niche for himself by being the President of the union. He was the Private Secretary to Justice Gratian, a pupil of Lord Justice Orr, a President’s Counsel of Sri Lanka, Attorney-at-law Sri Lanka, Barrister-at-law UK and had advised the governments of Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Korea, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Iran, Laos, Malaysia, the Maldives, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Papua, New Guinea, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam on their Intellectual Property Laws. He drafted Sri Lanka’s code of Intellectual Property Act in 1979.

Kadirgamar had been in the specialized agency of the ILO on application of standards, and before that a member of the Chambers at 1, Brick Court Temple (Lord Devlins Chambers) of which Justice Gatehouse, Justice Phillips and Lord Alexander were then members. He appeared as a leading counsel in a number of Privy Council appeals mainly from Sri Lanka.

Cultural diversity

He has been the finest Minister of Foreign Affairs we have had and did much to super grade the day-to-day affairs of the ministry. Kadirgamar shaped his thinking in response to existing socio-political realities be it questioning the domination of the Western cultures as President of Oxford Union in England, or as a Senior Statesman in Sri Lanka challenging the social fascist hegemony of the LTTE.

The Sri Lankan society to him was not a complex one. His world view was quite uncomplicated. Everyone of its citizens had a right to live in dignity within this island and no one could deprive another of that sacred right. His philosophy of life, political philosophy and cultural philosophy both as a Sri Lankan and as an uncompromising internationalist derived from this simple axiom. Kadirgamar vehemently denounced any tribal and parochial labels as his identity.

The Sri Lankan identity enriched by 3,000 year old multi-cultural ethos shaped his intellectual personality celebrating cultural diversity. A liberal to the core who nurtured the best of democratic norms it is not surprising that Kadirgamar opposed right down to the wire any centrifugal forces threatening the territorial integrity of Sri Lanka thereby depriving this island society of its inclusiveness.

When one recognizes Kadirgamar as a civilized and cultured human being his personality must be set against those who are uncivilized. Much has been written on his contribution towards Buddhism’s position in the world through the UN and his closeness to some members of the Buddhist monks and the Buddha statues that adorned his private office.

United nation

Kadirgamar took pride of the fact that he had won the Light of Asia contest as a student of Trinity College. While some wished to make him an exclusive Sinhalese and Buddhist, others have misread his liberal attitude as a way of patronizing the majority community. Kadirgamar’s respect for all religions, languages and cultures expressed in numerous eloquent speeches were not for mere public consumption and playing to the gallery as some may wish to believe. It was a way of life for Kadirgamar through absolute conviction of his belief that while taking pride in his or her culture one must celebrate and respect other cultures.

Respect for diversity was his norm. Kadirgamar’s genuine concern for the voice of the voiceless especially the Tamil and Muslim communities under a totalitarian regime in the North and the East deeply grieved him. On several occasions he noted the alarming growth of a cultural void in the North and the East due to the dehumanization of those communities under social fascism. His concern for the preservation of culture at the grassroots level was carried out without much fuss.

Kadirgamar was an exemplary citizen of Sri Lanka. There was not in him a trace of racism. He was Sri Lankan to the core. Great and irreparable as the loss of Kadirgamar is, the greater tragedy that neither the zealots among the Sinhalese who mourned his death nor their counterparts within the Tamil community who rejoiced over it understood or yet truly understand Lakshman Kadirgamar the man. He desperately strove to make all Sri Lankans live together as a united nation.

His fine art of diplomacy put Sri Lanka on the map. It was part of his long-term plan to raise the level of Sri Lanka’s contribution to the world of culture and the arts. He felt that with the kind of heritage, we Sri Lankans are heirs to what we ought to give the world as he so aptly put it.

Something more than just tea, tourism and terrorism that unfortunately we have become known for in recent years. All in all Kadirgamar was a peerless fellow traveller, a man of utmost refinement of word, thought and deed. Sri Lanka can ill afford to lose sons of his calibre. But then it is the tall trees that catch the wind. He will be much missed by every decent Sri Lankan in the dark days and years that loom before us.