By
Prof.Rajiva Wijesinha M.P.
(Text of a Spech Delivered by Prof Rajiva Wijesinha at Peradeniya University on 18th February, 2015)
Lakshman Kadirgamar (April 12, 1932 – August 12, 2005)
I am immensely honoured to have been invited by Mrs Sugandhi Kadirgamar to be Chief Guest at the ceremony to hand over to Peradeniya University the portrait of the Hon Lakshman Kadirgamar, easily the best Foreign Minister Sri Lanka ever had, and also an old friend.
I met him first at Oxford, where he lived for many years after he had graduated from that university. He had had a most distinguished career there, which included having been President of the Oxford Union. I met him in September 1973, in the vacation after I had just failed to get on the Standing Committee of the Union – having been knocked out by less than half a vote in the new Single Transferable Vote system that had been introduced, which militated against those who had a wide range of friends, in favour of those with strong support from particular constituencies.
I sometimes wonder whether my deep commitment to pluralism has been influenced by that experience.
Mr Kadirgamar certainly succeeded as a politician, in early days and later, through his sympathetic understanding of all points of view. This enabled him in turn to ensure that all those with whom he had interactions appreciated that he was thinking of their interests too. Thus, though his commitment to his native country was absolute, he ensured that all those who had interests in this country felt he would do his best to prevent anything they might find adverse.
This had been the cornerstone of our successful foreign policy in the first few decades after independence. Unfortunately J R Jayewardene saw himself as a Cold Warrior, and the first think he sacrificed was our special relationship with India. Sadly many of those in the Foreign Ministry absorbed the dominant outlook of those days, and were resentful of the Indian intervention in 1987, without thinking of the aggressive approach J R had adopted, which naturally provoked a reaction. The Annexures to the Indo-Lankan Annexe are evidence of the worries India had, and it is a tribute to the consistent geniality of Indian policy that, once those worries were assuaged, they have proved a firm friend to us.
Unfortunately I am not sure that Mr Kadirgamar’s dynamic approach has been studied or understood by those who took over Foreign Relations from him, in 2002 and then again after his tragic assassination in 2005. I believe the present Foreign Minister did achieve some successes in 2006 on the lines of those Mr Kadirgamar achieved, but he was not able to entrench an analytical approach in the Ministry.
In particular it was sad that he did not see the need, which Mr Kadirgamar had tried to satisfy, to build up think tanks which could study the way the world was moving, and provide analyses and recommendations for policy makers to work with.
For practical man that he was, Mr Kadirgamar never forgot the intellectual foundations Oxford provided him with. Though perhaps the most contemptible of his successors has been compared to him on the strength of their shared Oxford connections, there is a world of difference between doing a doctorate at Oxford – which demands suitable intellectual capacity and great dedication, but shuts one up within oneself – and other courses where one’s thinking skills are sharpened through discussion and debate with a host of similar outstanding minds. Lakshman Kadirgamar also participated fully in the social and political life of the university, which helped to nurture what I have termed a pluralistic outlook, just as the traditional pluralistic election system for the Union – which we did manage to restore soon afterwards, if too late for me to achieve anything except the Standing Committee – encourages pluralistic sympathies.
But though for obvious reasons I have celebrated what Oxford gave Mr Kadirgamar, we should always remember what he said when the Oxford Union unveiled his portrait. He said then that, though Oxford had provided the icing, the cake had been baked at home. He was talking about his essentially Sri Lankan approach to life and politics, but he was also referring to the fact that he had first been an undergraduate at Peradeniya. He loved the place, as did all those who were here during those halcyon days when this university combined academic work and a creative social life as had been intended by Sir Ivor Jennings, its first Vice-Chancellor.
Sadly the days so beautifully described in Yasmine Gooneratne’s novel. ‘The Sweet and Simple Kind’ now seem long gone. The University fiction that I began to read in the days when my teaching career began here, way back in 1980, dealt with violence and despair, as in Prof Sarachchandra’s deeply moving ‘Curfew and a Full Moon’. But from my discussions with students over the last few weeks – none as yet from Peradeniya I fear, but in theory they should be even more dynamic – I have found an intelligence and an openness that older generations would do well to emulate. I do hope that, in terms of a new vision for Higher Education that you should all try to introduce, there will be more sympathetic and more open contact between staff and students, with discussion taking the place of confrontation, with rote learning and dogma giving way to the exchange of ideas and information.
I have served on many Boards in my life, but the one I enjoyed most, and from which I benefited, was that of the Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies, which Mr Kadirgamar set up in 2002 when he had ceased to be Foreign Minister. As you are aware, he was killed the night after a function at the BCIS, and after that the place fell apart. I tried at one stage to revive it, and perhaps I should have grasped the opportunity offered in 2006 by the former President to chair that Board. But I did not feel it appropriate after I had brought the waste of such a resource to his attention. Later, when I conveyed a message to the effect that I was ready, given the failure of the Centre to fulfil Mr Kadirgamar’s vision, the President asked me instead to take charge of the Peace Secretariat.
So I moved from academia to national politics. In this there is no better model to follow than Lakshman Kadirgamar. I learnt then about how he had handled the world, whilst always being sensitive to Sri Lankan concerns, both security concerns and the concerns of the Tamil people who suffered so much under the LTTE. Sadly he was not here to witness the end of the LTTE in Sri Lanka, and to ensure that we used that opportunity to involve the Tamil people fully in democratic politics. We need to do more not only to ensure that the Tamil people become equal partners in the public sector as well as the private sector, but also that we empower them through education and training to fulfil their potential, as we should be doing throughout the country. If we keep this proud product of both Peradeniya and Oxford in our sights, we cannot fail.
Courtesy:The Island