My one time student now leads the Sri Lanka Army -the fifth in the line of Anandians to do so. Assisting him is another military personality also my student commanding the east -Major General Dhammika Pananwela. If past tutelage did not attract me to these ‘children’ in later life, certainly their intellectual vibrancy did, for I do not suffer from the restricted constraints of club and school mentality besides –ethno / religious / socio / political bindings, which leanings make us keep ‘dropping catches’ in seeing what is not perceived reality. If the system could endure and implement their intellect, well and truly good. If not, they are surely not the losers. What makes the present Army bigwig Mahesh Senanayake above board? How does he differ from very many army guys despite the horrendous ethnocentric ideals he was exposed to of which I was a witness at Ananda which ran contrary to the lofty and sublime in Buddhism not to forget the high degree of such ideals in all ethno /religious schools. Sri Lanka suffers from the rigours of ethnocentricity and a pluralistic whole can only come off from schools that are devoid of such segregation.
Shedding his institutional legacy of ‘label Buddhism’, Mahesh clearly stands out as a practising Buddhist thanks to his home and has included into his official as well as personal regalia an all-inclusive approach which we clearly see in his Dambana visit. Not even rarely that a military man would take time off to spend the day with a peripheral community – the Veddahs, now better termed Aadivaasis. The Army Commander Mahesh Senanayake did just that recently which report was covered by the Daily News, truly a story of developmental journalism when all that the people are given by way of news to chew and taste are elitist and sensational concerning royal births and nuptials, of bombs how many wounded and the number of women and children killed among other stuff. This is not to undermine the importance of the latter needless to speak of the insignificance of the former but the absence of journalism - the kind that fosters social well-being is to be regretted.
Social whims and fancies of status
Mahesh fills a lacuna. Though not a journalist he has inspired my membership into social good. Forsaking his gun and moving out of his uniform even for a while, Mahesh broke protocol and fast-tracked into Dambana –the Veddah terrain to chat to them and look into their grievances and bring relief to this community it so richly deserves.
If there is a territorial claim to this land, certainly it is only the Aadivaasi clan who could do so and none other for it is a historical fact that the rest are migrants from alien countries. When the former Veddah chieftain’s son graduated from the Colombo University, his choice preference was not on upward social mobility of class, wealth and social status but the continuity of his pure consciousness and his decision to get back to his acclimatized vocation of farming - not far from wrong for he saw the futility of pandering to social whims and fancies of status, wealth, luxurious living and a system serving job which lures only mediocre minds. He was aware of the conditioned mind that came off the education he received and the resultant loss of intellect – the herd instinct, the rigid compelling inbox thinking that has increased the deadly effects of a tangled web into which the entire social whole has got trapped with nothing positive in sight except the breakdown of the social fabric. Certainly, he is better off than being a servile slave of a system that warrants a persistent ‘Aye Sir that denies independent thinking, creativity and loss of intellect.’
Only a chosen few find liberation from the constraints of rigid conformity in the system serving and to rest on his laurels is certainly not for Mahesh. Believing in the undeniable fact that the Aadivaasi people are the original sons of this soil, he passionately speaks out for them and is persistent that great care should be taken to preserve for posterity their identity, traditions, customs and culture. Striking an all-inclusive chord he aligns himself with the ideal that they are as important as Sri Lanka’s hills, mountains, rivers, waterfalls, trees, forests, waterways and wildlife. The army had much interaction with them at the height of the war and this institution in return owes a well of gratitude to the oldest inhabitants of this land when their knowledge and expertise were there for the asking to treat the wounded soldiers.
Mahesh to this day is overcome with emotion as he gratefully remembers how they ungrudgingly gave their best in emergency treatment when no alternative was at hand other than the traditional medicine. Rather passionate over ethno /religious unity, Mahesh in my tête-à-tête with him almost always recalls how with the donning of the uniform these divides become dysfunctional. Being part of military training, the all-inclusive approach to keeping off all forms of bias is uppermost his mind. But unfortunately for Mahesh, his lofty thoughts of egalitarianism, social justice and social development collide with a biased majoritarian based constitution. He is not unmindful of the conflict of interest the legislature and military bear. “All I can do is within the parameters of the military and cannot transcend into parliament,” he disclosed.
Constitutional provision
True, Mahesh’s role is finite though an out of the box thinker. He sees the larger picture yet not for him the outstretched wings. Understandably so, for that which entails constitutional provision is not even remotely connected to the military domain - the two being distinct elements. But knowing him as I do, Mahesh is all out at least to inspire future constitutional architects into delivering constitutions that align with natural law. As he quite rightly proclaims, “I am not the Army Commander of only the Sinhalese but of all communities including the Aadivaasi people. I want to see all communities living in peace.” Instead of pandering to jingoism, he believes in the utmost for the best be given in constitutional amendment to efface the imbalance therein in to bring about a permanent peace. This writer recalls how changes to the constitution were on several occasions met with stiff opposition - a notable crier being Wimal Weerawansa, an outstanding ultra nationalist -for that is where his vote base holds.
Mahesh believes the Adivaasis to be a people with their own way of life, best left untampered. “The continuity of their culture and traditions are all part of our heritage and makes our history all the richer, “he emphasised enabling his former teacher to find similarities in the pronouncements of R. Sampanthan who in an interview with this writer many moons ago when asked why he should not join President Rajapaksa in his northern developmental efforts said: “We the Tamil people of this country have our own culture, traditions, customs, beliefs and preferences. No amount of houses, roads, schools, bridges and hospitals will make us happy unless and until we are allowed to live in the way that we want without us being told what we should have, what to do and what not to do.”
A constitution contains the wishes and aspirations of a nation’s people and if any segment of that population remains disgruntled, that constitution becomes ineffective which knowledge the present Army Commander is not in short supply. I see in Mahesh more of an intellectual and less of a warrior. He does not have in him the element of control. In fact, he unfailingly would offer his junior officers to be seated as he gestures with a vertical line and exclaims, “Equality, that’s Buddhism.”
Buddhist concepts
The striking high moral ground he believes that it is always the human being that is right because morality springs from being human. “The divisive tendency this country suffers is far removed from being human who does not go down well with scholarly Buddhist concepts. “All else is temporary. Therein again is Buddhism,” he says. But call it fate, Allah’s will or God’s, the finest of such military men may come and go but unless synchronized with constitutional regularity of egalitarianism or equality where one race or one religion is not upheld and given pride of place, we fall short of the moral clout to the much sought after peace in this country. Going by the Buddha words of even his body not being his own, the writer asked the army commander how come then we have a Budunge Desaya. His colossal room reverberated with fits of laughter, a reply was not to be. Only later I realised may have driven him up the wall with a firmly held glass ceiling.
While conscious of the fact that the Tamil community’s rights have been overlooked, he does not see war as a solution to bring redress. “True we admit that the Tamil community has been wronged but the LTTE’s war theory is no ideal solution to those wrongs. There is always a refined, more polished way out.”
This brought to writer’s mind how the Indians on independence eve led by Mahatma Gandhi resorted to a ‘rail track snooze’ insisting on Swaraj that penetrated into British good sense. Preferring the moral imperative and drawing world attention to the unjust of British colonialism, they renounced whatever was bloodthirsty and no doubt made Nehru’s independence rendition of ‘stroke of the midnight hour’ a stunning reality.
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