By

Don Manu

JHU turncoat, twice crosser Udaya Gammanpila’s conscience is an extraordinary item in the man’s set up and has so far never fallen short of being able to rebound at an instant’s notice.

Given the bashing, its proud owner says it has been subjected to this month – two whole sleepless days of shadow grappling with the invisible Holy Ghost – Gammanpila is a lucky bloke to own such a versatile, all weather product which shows no sign of wear and tear, coming as it does highly insured, in case it is accidentally left on a Polonnaruwa bus or is parked in another’s Colombo 4 garage by mistake and the address forgotten. Remarkably it also comes up with clever by half money raising ideas.

Consider earlier this year how Gammanpila hit the jackpot when his inner voice told him how to finance his Western Provincial Council election campaign. He asked the money from the public. He said he has powerful rich friends who would single handedly fund his election bid but that he does not like being under any obligation to them. For that would have meant, he said, he would have to do favours for them. Far more comfortable to ask the Great Lankan public to delve into their pocket bottom and come up with the hard earned dough to put Gammanpila on the easy road to provincial power.

Furthermore, when he decided to tap, he made the pitch at the correct sum. An affordable hundred bucks was perfect. Gammanpila showed he knew his onions when it came to the value of money. And he would not be under any obligation to anyone and thus not have to pay heed to their requests. Not even those from the public. For who is the member of the general public who will come to him and say just when he is drinking from his cup of victory, ‘Hey, Gamman, I gave you a hundred bucks, remember? Can you do this small tender favour for me?” What a stroke of genius, his conscience or whatever he prefers to call it at any given time these days, had come up with to kill two birds with one stone? None knows exactly how much the public donated but that hardly matters now, does it? Gamman’s conscience knows it and for Gammanpila that is good enough for him.

This December, much has been demanded of his conscience. At the start of the month he had to grapple with his conscience to betray the UPFA and, along with his party the JHU, leave the Government and join hands with the opposition candidate Maithripala Sirisena. How many sleepless nights he spent grappling with his conscience to commit the first betrayal, he hasn’t told anyone as yet. Having taken part in the drafting of the Memorandum of Understanding the JHU intended to have with Maithri, he endorsed it by signing it and thus crossed the river and ostensibly burnt his boats on the opposite banks where Maithri forces had set up camp.

But rough winds blow hard in makeshift tents and, away from his feathered bed at his comfortable UPFA home, his conscience rose to hover over him and to say it has had a change of heart. It kept him awake for two long days whilst going through the motions of battle. His vacillating conscience triumphed without much ado and though Gammanpila had burnt his boats when he crossed over, a submarine, of possible Chinese make, had been kept conveniently close at hand, submerged to whisk him back to the bank of return.

And last Thursday December 11, he held a news conference to announce the result of the grappling bout which had led him back to the old haunt. He had decided, he announced, to rejoin the UPFA, to desert Maithri and support Mahinda again.

In making this 360 degree turnaround, he said he had consulted no one except his conscience. At the last minute he had informed the JHU Secretary Champika Ranawaka but no one else. Most importantly he declared, he had not attempted to influence anyone else to cross over with him to the UPFA back again since it grieved him to leave the party. “It is not my intention see the JHU fragmentised and broken into splinter groups,” he said.

After an exist and then a re-entry followed by a slick performance in front of the TV lights justifying it all on the basis of his conscience last Thursday, Gammanpila grandly announced this Wednesday that 17 elected members of the party, including seven monks who are Pradesiya Sabha and Urban Council members in different areas had returned to the UPFA’s fold.

In another turnaround, he also announced plans to form a new party to represent the Sinhala Buddhists in direct rivalry to the Jathika Hela Urumaya which only last week, he said, he never intended to wreck.

Perhaps it is another one of those bright ideas suggested by his clever conscience in his now blissful dreams to establish another party for Sinhala Buddhists. For Gammanpila devoid of the JHU nest has lost his raison d’être and is now like a fortune telling gypsy without his card picking parrots.

His need is understandable. But does the country need yet another bunch to represent Sinhala Buddhist. Is Kandy under Chinese occupation and does this Gammanpila think he is the Dalai Lama of Theravada Buddhism?

Buddhism has existed in this country for the past 2558 years. Despite five hundred years of foreign domination starting from the 15th century, this country has remained Buddhist to the core. Since gaining independence this nation has always had a Buddhist Head of State, a Sinhala Buddhist government and, since the seventies, a Constitution which has made Buddhism the state religion, afforded it a higher status than the other religions. If at all the doctrine of the Buddha needs protection it is from these Buddhist parties that distort the message of Buddhism to achieve their own vile ends.

Udaya Gammanpila should reserve his many talents for more pressing needs of the hour. How about promoting religious harmony rather than seeking discordance. With his new Sai Baba style afro hairdo, Udaya Gammanpila has all the trappings necessary to emerge as the new godman of Lanka. Soon perhaps, who knows, he might even graduate to expounding a Make Love, Not War, Love all Religions philosophy; and, instead of dishing out ash from his palms to devotees to apply on their brows, may even end up issuing receipt for each hundred rupees collected from the devotees to fund his new ashram, without any obligation to a single benefactor.

To the affable, dapper, modest, humble to the commonest dust, modern day savant Gammanpila, the world is now his oyster; and with such a remarkable conscience to shrewdly guide him through every turnpike and over every pothole safely to his goal, he is surely heaven blest with that diadem of a conscience pirates would give a king’s ransom to own. What a pity it is not for sale.

Courtesy: Sunday Times