Shiranee Mills: It’s time for her to bow out

“This writer’s impression is that she was vastly influenced by Grace Bunker who for a time was some kind of a “generously-paid” volunteer with free board and other complimentary etceteras in Jaffna and along with her, Dr Cally Rogers-Witte of the Wider Churches Ministries of the United Church of Christ (WCM-UCC) who must have given her the assurance that Uduvil Girls College was under her authority and she would whole-heartedly support Father Jeyanesan.”
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by Victor Karunairajan

(May 05, Muscat, Oman , Sri Lanka Guardian) Notwithstanding whatever that may have arisen at the District Court, Jaffna and her obvious flirtation with the illegal contraption, the Church of the American Ceylon Mission (CACM) about which she had perjured in court, she has to face the consequences of her imprudent and injudicious actions. If she has any respects for the famed mission institution, Uduvil Girls College of which she is an alumnus, her conduct would have been totally different.

It appears she did not even have an iota of consideration for the best interests of the students as their Guru-in-Chief that demands the highest integrity possible especially from a principal. She will now have to persuade herself to terminate her services and leave the school premises.

This writer is conscious there are people who are reacting to this issue in various ways but most, if not nearly all, want her to leave Uduvil without any further brawl or broil. She has warranted this herself and should not blame anybody else for this poignantly distressing consequence. Above everything, she has let the school down, an institution that has known great principals including one who was her own, Miss Hudson Paramasamy.

There are some who are quite vociferous in their support for Shiranee Mills and even show their wolverine fangs against her critics ignoring she is an affirmed accomplice of the coward and fraudulent wooden nickel, Father Sellathurai Jeyanesan and his red-stoled god men. They include some of her relatives and friends and those who know her husband and are his pals.

A certain pale face who should have known better, traveled great distances to thwart the course of justice and frustrate its process even using veiled blackmail. He was part of the group that was holing up for Shiranee Mills against the JDCSI. This boorish Boer should have known not to play hide and seek or worse, the Dutch version of the roulette. Going back to the late 1950s, those to whom the backdoor was the only avenue open are indeed shy of the front ones.

If this writer be permitted, the troubling question is who then is a missionary, confronted with a vast expanse of gray area in this respect; foggy perhaps! Are all pale faces missionaries?

There are also people who have lost their hold and clout with the Jaffna Diocese of the Church of South India (JDCSI) and Jaffna College having exploited these institutions to their advantage and that of their kith and kin for years and have now found the turn of events uncomfortable for them.

Desolate and desperate, they are now seeking the mercenary types outside the church to denigrate and disparage the JDCSI; especially with revolting revulsion using Jaffna College as the Trojan Horse for this purpose.

The reality is that a powerful elitist and nepotistic fortress has been shattered and certain dreams devastated; a major long overdue spring clean-up is on now. This writer has advocated such a scouring scrub for some years. Among many instances of rank and rancid nepotism was also raised the question of Vellore Medical College scholarships.

How can anyone justify three recommended for three successive years, all children of three sisters and worse, one of them a son of the bishop of that time?

Even with the Secondary School department of Jaffna College, the post-Selliah period following the sudden demise of S V Balasingam, took a terrible dive and literally ravaged the quality of educational leadership in that campus. There were two terrible eras, one as long as an almost twenty years of sheer sterility. During the other, mercifully only for seven years, the school was headed by one whose record in respect of ethics, morals and integrity was rotten to the core; a fact known even before he was appointed principal.

Why was the community slumbering when these were happening? Did anyone dare to challenge the Jaffna College Board of Directors over such an appointment at that time?

The interests of the two institutions do not matter at all to Father Jeyanesan and his cohorts and cronies; only their selfish proclivities. They will sell their own souls to the devil for defying decorum, decency and decorousness let alone for the scraps and snippets the horned creature they think they have interceded would throw at them.

Studying the various papers concerning the recent events especially since July 2007, it is evident Shiranee Mills has been mostly misled by certain forces headed of course by Father Sellathurai Jeyanesan. But then, she should have known better allowing herself to be manipulated unless of course she had her own axes to grind against the JDCSI for some reason or other. Grinding such axes is not good for a head of a school and that too of the stature Uduvil has enjoyed for decades.

This writer’s impression is that she was vastly influenced by Grace Bunker who for a time was some kind of a “generously-paid” volunteer with free board and other complimentary etceteras in Jaffna and along with her, Dr Cally Rogers-Witte of the Wider Churches Ministries of the United Church of Christ (WCM-UCC) who must have given her the assurance that Uduvil Girls College was under her authority and she would whole-heartedly support Father Jeyanesan.

The July 2007 correspondence foolishly indulged in by Dr Cally Rogers-Witte is proof that supports this observation. She stooped too low and her letters to Bishop Daniel Thiagarajah were utterly condescending and discourteous. It is crystal clear Dr Rogers-Witte has been hand in glove with Father Jeyanesan and has even visited him in Toronto, Canada.

Associated with them is her deputy Dr James Vijeyakumar with a circlet of corruption on his head related to the Thumpalai Scandal. It was the false and arrogant assurance of Dr Rogers-Witte that must have misled Shiranee Mills.

She went too, too far by even allowing the school premises to be used for demonstrations against the Bishop of the JDCSI, the legal head of Uduvil Girls College. It was from her premises the doors of the Uduvil Church were boarded up. Shiranee Mills is not the only person trapped by Father Jeyanesan to support his activities once he lost the race to become the head of the JDCSI. Some of his CACM people, especially his priests are hoping and praying for an amnesty from Bishop Daniel Thiagarajah and the Executive Committee of the JDCSI.

Father Jeyanesan’s biggest and most worrying concern however, was having to account for the millions he had collected in the name of the JDCSI which as its bishop he would have done a grand “Close Sesame” with the greatest of ease. But circumstances determined otherwise and he needed to be head of a church and what more ideal than one that carried the name “American Ceylon Mission” to bewilder and bamboozle the believers in the way of the bogus battalions of tele-evangelists in the USA?

Incidentally, when Shiranee Mills was facing the tremors of examination and cross-examination on a falsely sworn affidavit at the District Court, Jaffna, where was her fellow defendant, the chief one in a sense and why was he not in court, even absconding defying a warrant for his arrest? How can such gross cowardice be tolerated by any community? Based on this one single performance it is evident Father Jeyanesan, but for the forces of the dark, is certainly not leadership material.

Any seat of learning is sacred and sanctified and Shiranee Mills has sullied that at Uduvil Girls College that was held in recent decades by Miss Lucy Bookwalter, Miss Hudson Paramasamy, Mrs Saraswathy Somasunderam and, her immediate predecessor, Dr Miss Chelvi Selliah. Mrs Mills, sadly, is now left with no option but to, at least at this hour, honourably tender her resignation.
- Sri Lanka Guardian