Journalism inadvertently learned

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In 1992, a subcommittee, perhaps, of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL), devoted to ‘human rights’ undertook to file a fundamental rights application on behalf of a group of activists, mostly undergraduates and young graduates as well as a couple of ‘old’ activists, 50 and 60 years of age.

There were 14 in total. They had been arrested while having a political discussion in a temple. Another individual who had once been a monk in the same temple was arrested two days later on suspicion of involvement in the political project of the group, which the Attorney General of the time submitted to the Panadura High Court amounted to a conspiracy to overthrow the Government through means other than those enshrined in the Constitution (or words to that effect).

They were initially detained (without a detention order) at the Wadduwa Police Station. Four days later, they were separated into three groups and moved to other locations. They were all harassed verbally and physically, both at the Wadduwa Police Station and in the facilities they were moved to later.

Three weeks after the arrests, they were enlarged on bail. The activists, clearly lacking the financial resources necessary for litigation, approached the BASL. They agreed to file FR applications (it was called ‘The Ratawesi Peramuna Case:’ SC Applications No 146/92 to 154/92 and 155/92). Later, the Attorney General would initiate legal action in the Panadura High Court, alleging sedition. Both cases were heard. The FR applications were upheld (on February 17, 1994) and the state ordered to pay compensation. The High Court case was dismissed.

That judgement has been cited in many FR applications since and has been considered important enough to warrant multiple mention in Justice Dr. A.R.B. Amarasinghe’s book on fundamental rights in Sri Lanka.

Students of the law and those interested in litigation pertaining to human rights violations might find it interesting reading, but this is about processes and peculiarities in the justice system. It’s about affidavits.

Senior lawyer Santha Jayatilleka was tasked to prepare the affidavits of all the petitioners. That was how I learned the word ‘affidavit’. And that’s how I learned the basics of interviewing people. I was his de-facto research assistant and was asked to talk to and take down the political and personal histories of all the petitioners. In detail.

And so I did. I listened to them relating the life stories of all my fellow-detainees and now fellow-petitioners. I took notes. And I realised that all lives are not just unique but epic in their own ways. Even the lives of the relatively younger petitioners. Of course the stories of Sunny Dayananda (at the time 50 years old) and M.D. Daniel (60) were the most colourful of the lot. They had, simply, lived longer.

There were no mobile phones back then and I didn’t have a recorder either. I just wrote down what they said as faithfully as I could. I probably asked a few questions to clarify things that seemed unclear or confusing, but by and large I took their word. It didn’t occur to me that they may have privileged certain things and downplayed or suppressed that which they may have believed to be inconvenient, but looking back I still feel they were all quite honest about what their lives had been.

The point? Nothing to do with law. Nothing to do with politics. It’s about how we learn certain skills not knowing whether or not they would become useful in a different context.

Almost 10 years later, i.e. in 2001, I was arm-twisted by the Editor of the Sunday Island, Manik De Silva, to interview Lalith Kotelawala. Apparently the advertising people of Upali Newspapers Ltd., wanted the English and Sinhala newspapers to carry a feature on the man.

‘Lalith Kotelawala bears his heart,’ is the title that Manik gave to the piece I wrote. Then he said, “Maybe you could interview someone from that generation every week.” And so I interviewed (I forget the order) M.S. Themis, H.I.K. Fernando, Pundit Amaradeva, Nanda Malini, Victor Ratnayake, Fr. Vito Perniola, Dr. Wimala De Silva, Swarna Mallawaarachchi, Dr. Gunadasa Amarasekera, Dr. P.R. Anthonis, A.Y.S. Gnanam, A.N.S. Kulasinghe, Dr. A.T. Ariyaratne, General Denis Perera and probably a few others.

At the time I didn’t realise it, but now I do know that all that I did was to repeat that ‘affidavit-exercise’. “Tell me your story,” was what I said essentially. They told their stories. I wrote it all down and then crafted it into a more readable feature for the Sunday Island. Sanath Jayatilleka wrote the affidavits based on what I had jotted down; Manik De Silva crafted my pieces to make them more readable.

Thirty one years ago I was one of 15 people arrested, beaten up, abused and illegally detained. It was a university of sorts, that experience. It was a school for journalism too, come to think of it!

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