Remembering Chanaka
The idea of liberalism in Sri Lankan politics is intimately associated with the life and writings of the leader and founder of the Liberal Party, Dr Chanaka Amaratunga. He passionately believed in the liberal idea, hoped fervently that it would inspire the body politic and be integrated into it and the political culture of Sri Lanka. His all too brief life prevented him from realizing this and from resisting as formidably as he could the equally passionate anti liberal forces and their opportunistic apparatchiks from enshrining a narrow, populist nationalism as the conventional orthodoxy of the day.
Writing about Chanaka is not easy for me. We were each other’s oldest friends – a continuous friendship, unbroken by political differences, of almost four decades.  Our friendship spanned St Thomas’ Prep to College to university – he at Oxford and I at the LSE, which he too later joined to do his doctorate – to Liberal International conferences in Europe and North America, countless evenings that melted into morning at his flat, at mine, at the Oxford and Cambridge Club, numerous restaurants and at home. We talked, he mostly, about politics in Sri Lanka and elsewhere, philosophy, literature, films, theatre, classical music and rank gossip and yes, too many excellent and some indifferent dinners, bottles of claret, port, cognac and champagne, hunks of cheese and kilos of chocolate were consumed with as much discrimination as to their quality and particular properties as undiscriminating relish in respect of their sheer, sensory pleasure.
I have yet to meet someone who could get so thoroughly involved in an idea as well as in a person and talk about that subject endlessly, literally endlessly and knowledgeably when it came to ideas. In this respect he had boundless energy. One interesting and particularly pertinent aspect as it later turned out, was that whilst he was certain and confident about ideas he was more curious than confident about judging character and people. Especially endearing personal qualities of Chanaka were his generosity and his love of being teased – which he was endlessly by all of us who were his friends. He adored the attention and lapped up the affection.
It is difficult to disentangle the personal from the political, the Chanaka I knew as my oldest friend and the Chanaka I knew as the aspiring politician. Entangled too within all of this is Chanaka the liberal in thought and deed.  I parted company with the Liberal Party because I was convinced that his desire to get into Parliament through the National List of the Premadasa UNP was a negation of the liberal idea and too sordid an entry of the Liberal Party into the national legislature.  We would not have agreed about an alliance with the SLMC either. As time went by the Chanaka who had left the Jayawardene UNP over the referendum was willing to enter into Faustian bargains with whoever was willing to put him on the National List. This was sad – he always said to me that he needed to get into Parliament to raise the profile of the Liberal Party; I always responded that the end did not justify the means and that if this were the case the party should be disbanded and turned into his campaign organization. The question of him ever standing for election never arose.
He believed that he was grappling with the moral dilemmas of practical politics as framed by his ideas and popular appeal or lack thereof, and that I was being too idealistic. We never resolved this. After I resigned and he cheated out of his Nationalist List seat by a trusted lieutenant, our conversations ceased to be about the political. That betrayal broke him in many ways and in that period his passion focused elsewhere.
Chanaka was as much a Tory as he was a Whig and right up to the end. He defined himself very much in terms of British politics, the Westminster tradition of parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy. A monarchist through and through, and at the same time, a passionate individualist, he deeply abhorred totalitarianism of any form but was perfectly willing to forgive and even condone the excesses of a Haile Selassie or the Shah of Iran at the same time as he would be scathing in his denunciation of a Stalin, Mao, Castro or Pol Pot. His near religious commitment to individual liberty led him to champion the virtues of the Premadasa regime, the Thatcher government and the Reagan administration. He loathed the LTTE, JVP and the soviets; had nothing but contempt for the Labour Party of Foot, Benn and Kinnock. A great proponent of proportional representation, he veered towards the Social Democrats in British politics, largely I suspect because they had left the Labour Party and because of his great admiration and respect for Roy Jenkins.
In the Sri Lankan context, the politician he truly admired was Dudley Senanayake and the one he was fondest of was Anura Bandaranaike. They were in his book, true democrats, unfettered by unfettered ambition or greed for power, gentleman who would reform the status quo if it needed to be reformed.  They like he, knew of a world outside of this island and they like he, would never be given to a shrieking nationalism. They did not have to. They were born to rule, but never harshly.
In the Sri Lankan context Chanaka was a staunch federalist and determined opponent of the executive presidency. He wanted to see the German electoral system adopted here and a second chamber. He was ambivalent on the North-East merger and convinced that the LTTE had to be defeated. Implicit faith in the Rule of Law and constitutionalism, he wanted a strong bill of rights, although the practical defence of human rights and association with the vulnerable and victimized did not come naturally to him or arouse great passion within him. His consuming interest was in the architecture of a liberal democracy; not in the citizen. As for the economy, it was a subject that he was least interested in except for absolute devotion to capitalism.
It is tempting to think as to where he would have stood in these times of the chinthanaya, allegations of war crimes, the culture of impunity, majoritarianism and amidst all of this new opportunities and political firmament. For my part, when I think of Chanaka and the liberal idea he so loved, the words from Tennyson’s Ulysees that I quoted at his funeral always come to mind:
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are,
we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
###
The 19th of April was the 52nd birthday of Dr. Chanaka Amaratunga, the founder of the Liberal Party of Sri Lanka. Groundviews invited leading political commentators to contribute to a special edition commemorating Chanaka’s role in politics and the liberal movement in Sri Lanka.
Other essays in this series include:
- TWO CONCEPTS OF THE CONSTITUTION: AN ESSAY IN MEMORY OF CHANAKA AMARATUNGA by Publius
- IN MEMORIAM DR. CHANAKA AMARATUNGA by Tissa Jayatilaka, Executive Director, United States-Sri Lanka Fulbright Commission
- A Liberal Dilemma by Dr. Devanesan Nesiah
- THE TRAGIC TRAJECTORY OF CHANAKA’S LIBERAL PROJECT by Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka
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“We talked, he mostly, about politics in Sri Lanka and elsewhere, philosophy, literature, films, theatre, classical music and rank gossip and yes, too many excellent and some indifferent dinners, bottles of claret, port, cognac and champagne, hunks of cheese and kilos of chocolate were consumed with as much discrimination as to their quality and particular properties as undiscriminating relish in respect of their sheer, sensory pleasure.”
This about sums up the Liberal Party’s Foundations from Ex-Royal-Thomian-Oxbridge types of Sri Lanka. Add the late Anura B to the Liberal Cabal and we have the most unpalatable and sour medicine to Sri Lankan identity and prosperity. Bad Karma dear P.Sara. Bad Karma indeed!!
I mean no disrespect to Dr. Amaratunga or Dr. Saravanamuttu, but it seems to me that liberalism hasn’t taken hold in SL because it is too often discussed over “bottles of claret, port, cognac and champagne, hunks of cheese and kilos of chocolate,” while populist nationalism is discussed over paang and parippu.
What I cannot understand is why people who never did nothing to nobody but talk is not only highly overated but also venerated.
iam a sri lankan not with very much education.iam only a civil e. by proffesion and could call myself a bachelor of economics.i did not even go to a school in colombo.living in germany from 1963 ,i would say i have a good practical knowledge of poltics.i have visited the whole of the former soviet block,with open eys and ears ,hence just like dr.janake amaratunga i loathed the soviets , mao, jvp, in short marxism and lennism.actually soviet u. specially under stalin was national soscialist,just like maos china and ofcourse the jvp from 1971 upto now.at the beginning of the ltte liberation movement i wished them success,because of the chauvenestic politics of the unp under j.r. ,later i loathed them too. living in germany i was much influenced by social democracy,but with time i was convinced liberal democracy is much better and probably more suitable for s.l.unfortunately i was able to meet dr, j.a. only 2 times.i was much impressed the way he spoke and his vision.(IAM NO TORY SUPPORTER NOR A ROYALIST).unfortunately he left this world.i do not find anything wrong in his attempt to come into the parliament through the list.to propagate liberal politics is not that easy in a society where politics is more ethnical and religious.i do hope one day the sinhale,tamil,and the muslims would understand liberal politics and move away from ethnical religious mindset.present day so called marxist please understand totalitarian form of governning has failed just like imperialism. ranjit de mel berlin/colombo
Adwise
Sometimes you venerate people for holding on to honourable ideals and leading their life according to what they preach. Because not many people are capable of living such lives.
My opinion that liberalism never picked up in sri lanka because we are an unintelligent nation. Sacrifice and justfullness is the key to the liberalism and lord Buddha is the utmost liberelist that I can think of but us as namingly followers of that liberelism we are no way near implmenting it in our souls.
It is a waste of time talking about liberalism in Sri Lanka.I 100% agree with underdog’s above comments.Simple as that.These Amaratungas and Saravanamuthththus are not representing even the middle class people of Sri Lanka.These guys are just doing politics to make fun out of poors.In a Buddhist country you can not have another liberalism other than Buddhism.Because Buddhism is the utmost and very first liberalism in the world.Therefore no existance for the guys like Amarathungas and Sarawanamuththus here in Sri Lanka.SORRYMA THAMAI !!!!
“It is tempting to think as to where he would have stood in these times” – probably at the same place where the other liberal leader of the time Raijiva ended up?
So gusgemba, if I get what you’re saying correctly, only people who are Sinhalese-Buddhists and speak(i.e. pander to)the middle classes are true liberals in the country of Sri Lanka? I guess then, all the minorities and others who do not agree with the Sri Lankan version of Buddhism should just bow their heads down to people who truly ” speak” for the overwhelmingly-Buddhist middle class.
Chanaka was a much understated politician in that his connection to the Senanayakes did not endear him to the latter UNPers when JR handed over the mantle of of power to a grass-root politician in the name of Premadasa.
With Premadasa’s Presidency came the awakening call of the common populace that the aristocraric set-up of the Bandaranaikes and the Senanayakes did not augur well for the late 20th century politics.
It could very well be that the votng populace had had enough of power at the top.
Ariyaratne’s Sarvodaya, JVP and the LTTE started the uprising that Sri Lanka’s politics shoud not be left in the hands of the few who were doppelhangers of the British elite who handed over the mantle of power to the English speaking brown sahibs as the late Tarzie Vittachi would describe.
It was a wake-up call when Premadasa scoffed the elite and chose to surround himself with men/women with patriotism at heart rather than the Oxbridge elite.
He whipped up Sinhala nationalism and to placate the minority he engaged the likes of Paskaralingam.
But deep in his heart he did not want ot secede even an inch of autonomy to the Tamils in the North and East. he paid a great price. he was assassinated for his efforts by the LTTE.
His downfall was that he wanted a little piece of the action in the same elite he derided.
He went to great lengths to prove he is the saviour of Mother Lanka and that he is second to none when it came to governance. He also chose to make a replica of King Wickremarajasighe’s chair and deluded himself as the king of kings.
Could this megalomania have been averted had the Liberals whipped up support from grass-roots. Could not Chanaka and his ilk left their comfortable enclaves of armchair talks and engaged with the populace to weed out the curse of a monolithic narrow nationalism?
Dear Mr.Janaka, Many thanks for your comments which I do appreciate very much indeed. But with all the due respect, I would really like to know just a few instances of Sacrifice and Justfulness the people under mention have exhibited ever!
People have the liberty to view Buddha in many points of view but his sole role and task was only to show the path to Nirvana through the Fourfold Way of Mindfulness and the factors leading to it via the Noble Eightfold Path. Therefore suggest we keep him out of these discussions as we are dealing with people who might take kalpas more even to be tangential to what Buddha preached through the practice of the Five Precepts at least. Especially the third and the fifth ones at that!
Best regards Sir,
@gusgemba: oh, how aptly you have chosen your own name.