Politics is in my blood. I was weaned on social justice from a young age. My political and social bend is a mystery I am trying to untangle with this essay.
Political assassination
The whole thing started in my kindergarten days when I was four. Kadayamma, my grandmother, took me to a funeral procession. Holding her hand, by the side of the main road, I watched the funereal motorcade passing. It was a huge motorcade decorated with white flowers, carrying the body of the then-prime minister of Sri Lanka. As it passed, my grandmother explained the circumstances of his death. The prime minister was assassinated. Everyone mourned his death, including Kadayamma. She was his fan.
Religious discrimination
Three years later, the Sri Lankan government was on an anti-Catholic crusade. It ordered the expulsion of foreign priests and nuns and the take-over of privately run Christian schools. Kadayamma, a strong Catholic who believed in community spirit, was aghast. The Catholics in Sri Lanka took up strongly against this injustice organising sit-ins and erecting barricades in front of the churches and schools. Kadayamma, the activist boldly took part in the protests and sit-ins. On some days, I accompanied her, playing with boys my age at the church compound behind the makeshift barricades. Newspapers of the day vilified the Catholics, a minority in Sri Lanka. They carried the headline “Catholic conspiracy” in bold letters on their front pages. It was an attack on my community. In our family, adults discussed the mayhem at dinner. It was a gobbledygook for a seven-year-old brain, but my small brain understood the evils of marginalisation.
After a protracted conflict, the government won. Our local priest, who hailed from Belgium and the one who baptised me, was deported from Sri Lanka. The whole village was distressed at the loss of their beloved priest. The government acquired our village school affiliated with the church, where my father had studied. Everyone in my village was angry at this injustice.
Political rallies
As I was turning ten, I accompanied my father and my sister to Anuradhapura, a central city in Sri Lanka, for a day trip, flying in. We attended a political rally at the main sports ground in the middle of the city, my first ever political activism. On a huge stage was the then-prime minister of Sri Lanka, the first woman prime minister in the world. It was a spectacle with flags, fiery speeches blasted by loudspeakers, colourful banners, and cheering crowds. I watched everything on stage with awe and curiosity.
Back home, during that election campaign, the deputy leader of the opposition visited our neighbourhood. Standing under a tree, he addressed a small crowd. He mingled and interacted easily among our neighbours, a few houses away from my home.
During that election campaign, I accompanied my grandmother to political rallies. Politicians walked onto the podium with garlands on their necks among loud clappings from their supporters and delivered fiery speeches, mocking the opposing political party and policies. Great spectacles for a ten-year-old.
Elections
My father, being a government worker, worked on election duty. He oversaw a few polling stations in our electorate.
My mother was not a leftist at heart but sympathised with my father’s leftist yearnings. I think she voted rather quietly for the opposing party.
On election eve, my father sat glued to the radio listening to the results as they were announced. I stayed up with him late into the night, listening to the results, electorate by electorate. Supporters of the winning party lit firecrackers when the results for prime seats were announced. All the while, I listened to my father on his thoughts on the emerging political landscape. His political views were moulded from his humble beginnings as a struggling student, supported by a widowed mother.
On the next day, he brought the newspaper with the results. I read the newspaper in full, taking in all of the results, noting the names of the electorate and winning candidates. It was great exposure to the electoral map in Sri Lanka.
With that election, one of my father’s friends, who studied together in the same class, became our local member of parliament. His win was not sufficient for his party; they lost power. He represented the leftist side of politics.
My father did community work in our neighbourhood. In that role, he visited his friend, now the local MP, when he needed the local member’s intervention. I was my father’s companion during these visits to the MP’s home. While the two men were chatting, I played with the MP’s daughters.
Five years later, it was election time again. I was now a teenager. The leftist opposition party came to power in a landslide. The whole country rejoiced and went into a joyous frenzy. Enjoying the moment, I walked up the main road with my friend and next-door neighbour. On the streets, the atmosphere was like a huge carnival. Buses plastered with posters of the victorious leader plied on the main road. Cars drove in procession, covered with flags, hooting their horns. The country was ecstatic.
Exposure to politicians and civil matters
When I was sixteen, I was at a relative’s funeral home. The local member of parliament and my father’s friend, a minister now, was at the funeral. He approached me, smiling and asked whether I was Thomas’s son. He bent down to my level and chatted with me, enquiring about my studies for a few minutes.
That year, my father was promoted as a local government commissioner. He worked with elected officials ther civil matters in this role. They became regular visitors to our home. I enjoyed being with them, exposing myself to political machinations and how the governance systems worked.
After school, I dropped in at my father’s office for some days before returning home together. In the council office, until he finished work, I mingled with his colleagues and co-workers. Elected members emerged from their cabins to talk to me.
In my father’s new role, he took part in conferences. Spouses and children were invited to the off-site events in various parts of Sri Lanka. Our family stayed in bungalows sharing accommodation and meals with many politicians, their partners, and children. They were joyous times.
While the politicos and officials attended the conferences, I became friendly with many of their kids. I played and mingled with them, exploring the surroundings.
A couple of years later, when I started working, my friendships with the sons of the ministers and politicos blossomed. Some visited me regularly in my workplace in Colombo, going out for movies and meals.
In the evenings, at home, I’d often get into conversations with my father that always had a socialist twist; he always thought of the downtrodden, the vulnerable and the unrepresented citizen. My father was appointed the chairman of the local peace council, where minor conflicts could be resolved without court action. He was also appointed a Justice of Peace to recognise his services to the community. Visitors to our home increased. My father was busy, and his time at home became limited.
Unknown to me at the time, I was weaned on social justice.
As fate would have it, my exposure to Lankan politics stopped abruptly. Before I could cast my first-ever vote as a young adult, I left Sri Lanka for good.
Political victimisation of my father
A year later, after I left, Sri Lanka had an election. The opposition party came into power with a huge majority of 5/6th. My father’s friend did not contest. In his place, a new local member of parliament won the seat from the winning party.
The new member, now a government minister, did not like my father. The new MP, a racist, thrived on mob power and did not respect decency and fairness. He took revenge on anyone who held different views from his.
It was difficult for my father, who never sought political patronage. The new MP arranged to dismiss my father from his job on a trumped-up false charge. It was raw political victimisation, and illegal intervention, a normal thing in Sri Lanka, even today.
My father was a broken man with no income and tarnished pride. It was a huge blow to him. When my father wrote to me with the disturbing news, I cried. I knew how fulfilled my father was in his work. My younger brother was still in junior school. As the eldest child, I could not allow our family to be destitute or dispossessed.
I was furious. Moving into action like any son, I wrote to my father, promising to look after my family. It was an emotional letter. From that month, without a second thought, I sent a huge portion of my salary to my father. He could spend my entire salary, many thousands of dollars, in any way he wished. That’s all any son could do to his father.
My father won the case with my financial support and a protracted legal case that went on for two years. The unjust dismissal was overturned, and he was reinstated with back pay. But the damage to my father's psyche had been done by the hooligans who came to power in 1977 in Sri Lanka.
I often wonder what would have happened if I could not support my father. My younger brother’s education would have been abruptly interrupted. I was disillusioned with Sri Lankan political system after what happened to my father.
Activism passes down
Though I was too young to cast my first vote in Sri Lanka, it was in Australia that I cast my first-ever vote.
It is easy to interact and engage with Australian government representatives. They are decent human beings. I have campaigned for many of them in the past. My kids and I have mingled with them, including prime ministers, without a second thought. It is so natural.
It is no wonder my four children have become great Australian citizens and activists of their time. They, too, are passionate about social justice, equality and sustainability, just like their grandfather. I am proud of them.
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