Heavy-handed response to student unrest is self-defeating

by Shanei 

"These laid the world away; poured out the red
Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be
Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene,
That men call age, and those that would have been,
Their sons, they gave their immortality."


(November 13m Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Rupert Brooke was one of Britain’s great war poets. The words above are an extract from his sonnet Death which Regi Siriwardena quotes in his ‘Among My Souvenirs’, a semi-autobiographical narrative of his life. Siriwardena was an undergrad in Colombo at the outbreak of the second Great War. Professor Marrs was the Principal of the University College at that time. Siriwardena quotes an incident when one of the student societies at that time organised a meeting at College House for the following day to ‘demand the release the LSSP detenus and to oppose the murderous imperialist war.’ The next day, Professor Marrs banned the meeting stating that it was in violation of wartime Defence Regulations. The students’ society responded with a notice that, despite the ban, the meeting would go ahead. So that evening at 5.00, a group of students gathered at College House to hold the meeting. The rooms were locked so they decided to hold the meeting in the verandah.

As they began, Professor Marrs turned up and said that the meeting could not be held as it had been banned and therefore illegal. One of the student leaders then turned to the crowd gathered and asked, ‘Is it your wish that we should continue with the meeting.’ There were many chorus of shouts in favour. So the student leader turned to Professor Marrs with upturned palms as if to say, ‘Sorry, Sir, I am helpless. This is the will of the students.’ Professor Marrs was not impressed. He turned to the student leaders, four of them and told them, ‘You are suspended’ and walked away. So as not to invite further trouble, the students moved to Thurstan Road and held their meeting on the pavement outside College House. Within three days, tempers on all sides had cooled down and Professor Marrs withdrew the suspension and things were back to normal. There was no political interference with the way Professor Marrs handled the situation and the Police were not called in to break up the meeting and beat up/lock up the students.

Rupert Brooke’s poem was about the young men who had signed up to fight in the Army. But his poem could easily have applied to the young men who were and are engaged in another struggle in the campuses, then and now. These are the young men who are being harassed and being forced to turn to violence. These are the young men who are being locked up for weeks and deprived of education merely because they hooted at a political panjandrum, whom the IGP and his Police think it was their duty to protect from such insulting behaviour.

We have had two southern insurgencies because our political leaders paid little heed to the voices and concerns of the youth in our country. We had a northern insurgency led by the Tamil youth again because our political leaders paid little heed to the voices and concerns of the minorities. Is the country again to pay the price for the insensitiveness of our political leaders? The students are the same the world over. They have their concerns and they need to be treated with dignity and their actions handled with the same kid gloves that Professor Marrs wore in 1941.


Politicisation of University Administration

This columnist has just seen a resolution apparently unanimously passed at the recently concluded annual sessions of the Anglican Diocese of Colombo. In the resolution, grave disquiet has been expressed at the increasing student unrest at many of the state universities and at the heavy-handedness with which the Police and the Ministry of Higher Education have responded to student protests. They have urged less political interference with university administration and conclude that the greater threat to academic life in the campuses comes not from the politicisation of student unions but from the politicisation of the university administration. This was also the point made by Professor Savitri Goonesekere recently when she stated that great Universities throughout the world were created through an academic leadership within those universities that recognised the importance of values such as personal integrity, academic independence and the need to prevent political interference in these institutions. ‘If these values are not safeguarded with commitment by academics themselves within the university system, ‘the Pearl of Great Price’ of the Kannangara reforms that enabled many distinguished Sri Lankans of diverse social and economic backgrounds to contribute to democracy and good governance in this country will surely be lost, and replaced by a goodly apple rotten at the core.

Student societies in universities have always been built around support for particular political parties. In the early years of the University, student unions were either supportive of the Communist Party or the Lanka Sama Samaja Party. By the late fifties and early sixties, student societies with ‘affiliations’ to Philip Gunawardena’s MEP and even to the UNP had been formed. The JVP was a later entrant into student politics, though they are today perhaps the strongest and best organised among student unions. But what was important then and now is that membership of a particular student society did not mean that all students in that society supported the national politics of the party to which that society was ‘affiliated’. Indeed, some of the leading members of so-called bourgeois parties in national life had been leading Coms and Trots holding office in the CP and LSSP student societies when they were undergrads. It only shows that allowing the students to let off steam and be treated with kid gloves was the best way to help them complete their education and go out into the world, as many did, as public administrators, police officers, professionals, academics, etc to make their contribution to ‘democracy and good governance’ in our country. Heavy-handedness in dealing with students or getting university administrators to appear on platforms to support a particular candidate at an election or to lend support to a particular political programme are self-defeating measures that undermine academic freedom and academic life. In this context, it was heartening to read some academics in our universities who had the courage to openly denounce such political sycophancy.


Towards Academic Excellence

Some of our Universities like Colombo and Peradeniya have decades-long history of academic excellence. The newer Universities like Moratuwa, Kelaniya and Sri Jayewardenepura were also building up as institutions with academic prestige. Yet today, as Professor Savitri Goonesekere and several other academics have said, our universities are in danger of losing what has been their vibrant intellectually lively community with high standards of excellence in teaching, research and learning. The government must have a vision for our Universities to restore standards of such academic excellence. We do not need private universities if our state universities can be developed and allowed to function with academic freedom, immune from political interference. University administrators – the Vice Chancellors and the Senate - are quite capable of dealing with student concerns if they are free to do so without interference from meddling politicians. The University Councils and the University Grants Commission must also be free of political agendas so that Vice Chancellors are selected purely on qualifications, experience and merit.

The government made a political blunder in the way they have handled the Sarath Fonseka case. They will be making yet another political blunder if they continue to use the big stick against the students. In the past, we have had judicial activism that at times worked for the common good. Only at times because that judicial activism was sometimes mixed with political activism. Despite the eighteenth amendment, it is to be hoped that our judiciary will remain the last bulwark against politicisation of all public institutions, and our universities remain committed to academic autonomy, freedom and .excellence. It is such a robust academic community that can help to modernise our society and provide the intellectual leadership in all areas of public life. This can only be achieved if we treat our students, in their red sweet wine of youth, with dignity.

The Resolution to deprive Mrs. Bandaranaike of her civic rights was passed on 16th October 1979; it represented yet another blow to parliamentary democracy in Sri Lanka. Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike, that illustrious leader who made a tremendous contribution both locally and internationally, for the development of the country and the political modernisation in Sri Lanka, making her historic statement in parliament, said that the Resolution was intended to assassinate her politically, and was motivated by a political need to de-mobilise politically a person who had become the Prime Minister of this country for a period of 12 years. Sri Lanka Freedom Party, with its network of party branches throughout the country, organised a campaign of protest and the UNP, in order to divert popular attention from this act of revenge, gave a different interpretation stating that it was an attempt to topple the government. The move of the SLFP was to mobilise the masses against the act of grave injustice done to its leader.

Mr. Amirthalingam speaking in parliament on 16th October 1980 stated that this is a political punishment; this is a political murder; this is a political killing. You are seeking to kill the position of the Member for Attanagalla, that is the greatest punishment which could be meted out.

Retrospectively and retro-actively you are creating offences and are meting out punishment which are not in keeping with the fundamental rights you have guaranteed and which are a violation of the Universal Charter of Human Rights. Mr. Amirthalingam, speaking further, made an interesting political argument; he in fact, stated that "the only forum before which political offences of this type can be agitated is the forum of the hustings. The people have given the verdict. People have returned Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike to this House. You must respect the judgement passed by the masses of Attanagalla. You have no right now to sit in judgement on what the voters of Attanagalla have done". It was his view that the civic rights of a person who has been elected to Parliament by the popular free vote cannot be removed.

Mrs. Bandaranaike, making a very lengthy statement in Parliament, traced her political career from the time of the assassination of late Mr. S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike and made use of this occasion to refer to numerous services which she rendered the nation in the period when she held the office of the Prime Minister. In an emotionally charged atmosphere, she referred to the major political challenges which she faced as Prime Minister and the nature of measures which she took to protect and preserve the democratic tradition of the Sri Lankan State.

Speaking on her role in the international arena, Mrs. Bandaranaike said that "as Chairman of the Conference of Non-Aligned Nations, I had opportunities to seek solutions to several problems the less developed countries had. I was able to be of help in resolving several issues arising at international levels, acting always in accordance with the principles of the Non-Aligned Movement. I initiated moves to make the Indian Ocean a Peace Zone. I took action to have the rights of this country acknowledged in respect of a Zone up to a 200 miles limit off on shores." Despite all these emotional appeals and entreaties, the Government of the UNP decided to impose civic disability on Mrs. Bandaranaike and Parliament passed the law with 139 voting for the expulsion resolution and 19 voting against it of the 139 who voted for her expulsion from Parliament only 11 MPs are not in the present Parliament of the 19 MPs who opposed it, only 2 MPs are in this Parliament and they are Mr. Anura Bandaranaike and Mr. R. Sambanthan.

The expulsion of Mrs. Bandaranaike from Parliament and the imposition of civic disability on her, in my view, created an imbalance within the Sri Lankan political system, and it, thereafter, gave birth to a process of political retardation in the country. A process of decline in democratic politics began and the entire system, though it underwent changes both politically and constitutionally, became subject to a process of manipulative politics."

Good parliamentary governance which the country experienced since the grant of political independence, began to decline, and an era of political authoritarianism was inaugurated in Sri Lanka. Dr. Chanaka Amaratunga, writing in the Observer of 18th March 1976 had this to say "even his partisan biographer (Prof. K. M. de Silva) is making a very feeble attempt to justify the depriviation of civic rights of Mrs. Bandaranaike by Mr. J. R. Jayewardene who always claimed that he is democratic."

The principles of public accountability and the public exposure of how power has been utilised by those to whom power was entrusted which is a desirable thing in any democratic society. Public accountability is at the heart of good governance and it has to do with holding governments responsible for their acts. Therefore any inquiry into such matters need to be based on certain safeguards. In respect of the Special Presidential Commission of Inquiry Act, such safeguards were not available.

The Civil Rights Movement, in a statement issued on 10th December 1980, stated that this piece of legislation "inflicted a kind of second class justice for political offenders". It further stated that offences such as "abuse of power are vague and hitherto unknown to the law". It argued that all provisions of this piece of legislation were against the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The Article 25 of the Covenant says that "every citizen shall have the right to participate in public life, including the right to vote and to be elected without unreasonable restrictions". This clearly explains that the imposition of civic disability on Mrs. Bandaranaike was a violation of International Covenant on Civic and Political Rights.

Political revenge did not stop there. The Government of the UNP extended it to cover the Election Law which they amended to prevent such persons - whose civic rights have been removed - from campaigning or participating in parliamentary or presidential elections. If they do so they commit a criminal offence and the candidates may be disqualified. These extraordinary measures explained that the purpose was not to cleanse public life but to prevent a formidable opponent from playing her due role in politics. With such measures, including a draconian piece of legislation, the UNP did not succeed in eliminating Mrs. Bandaranaike from the Sri Lankan political landscape. She, with both political determination and tenacity, fought back and Mrs. Bandaranaike, despite her civic disability, remained the most formidable political personality of the opposition.

She galvanised the party and the masses were given proper leadership and thereby paved the way for the emergence of the People’s Alliance and the eventual defeat of the UNP in 1994. There is one important lesson which the UNP in the opposition and Mr. J. R. Jayewardene, in his dotage, must have learnt from the whole episode. No political movement with a mass base can be permanently destroyed by attacking a leader.

It is my conviction that the philosophy of the movement as well as the dynamism of the masses would emerge one day to enthrone the leader of that movement in power. It was this great triumph that we witnessed in 1994 with its historic victory. UNP has failed miserably in their attempt to erase the name of Mrs. Bandaranaike from the political landscape of Sri Lanka; they also failed in their machination to destroy the popular foundation of the SLFP. There is yet another lesson in history.

It is an irony of fate that Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike became the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka again during the lifetime of Mr. J. R. Jayewardene who was certain to have repented on the monumental political mistake which his government committed in October 1980.