In the name of Sobitha Thero:End State Corruption 

by Rajan Philips-November 14, 2015

The state funeral to honour Ven. Maduluwawe SobithaThero was wholly appropriate. That was the least the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government could have done. It was also the easiest. But what will the government do to continue the unfinished work that the late monk started? That is the question. Both President Sirisena and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe were genuine in their grief, and effusive in their tributes. But how committed are they to fulfill the promises they made at the Thero’s funeral - to "scrap the executive presidency, effect electoral reforms, and bring about social justice"? The people’s expectations have shrunk even as their frustrations have swelled. No one is under a 100-day illusion any more to see executive presidency abolished, electoral reforms achieved, and social justice dispensed. But no one is prepared to wait any longer to see the government commit itself to ending state corruption. A government that cannot end state corruption cannot end the presidency, bring about electoral reforms, or deliver social justice. And a government that will not commit itself to ending state corruption cannot be trusted to fulfill the promises made at Sobitha Thero’s state funeral. The memory of Sobitha Thero deserves more than a state funeral. It deserves government commitment to end state corruption. It deserves people pressure to force government commitment and action.

By any historic measure, Sobitha Thero has carved for himself a special niche in the time honoured ‘heritage of the bhikku’ in Sri Lanka. As a political bhikku in the post-independence era, he has played a path breaking role in successfully championing a secular political cause, in contradistinction to other political bhikkus who have often turned secular political questions into chauvinistic slogans. The political cause he championed was encapsulated as the abolishment of the executive presidential system. It became the ‘single issue’ in search of a ‘common candidate’ to take on the then President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who had dispensed with the term limit on presidency and turned the presidency into a family rule without rules or limits. It was a measure of his standing in society and politics that SobithaThero was the first person to be identified as the most suitable ‘common candidate’.

The idea that caught on

The idea of Sobitha Thero becoming the single-issue common candidate was first mooted way back in 2012 by Kumar David from the political Left. Whether it was inspired prescience or cold calculation by a Marxist, the idea caught on and found resonance among all Sri Lankans cutting across ethnic, ideological and political boundaries. In old terms, it turned out to be a communally inclusive idea and not a communally divisive idea. The mainstream media ignored the idea and the candidate, with a leading newspaper editorial making reference to the idea as a sideline curiosity without mentioning Sobitha Thero’s name. Those who did not think much of the idea, or much of the prospect of Sobitha Thero as common candidate as they were in open awe of the electoral invincibility of Mahinda Rajapaksa, are now not only lamenting the death of Sobitha Thero, but are also blaming the yahapalanaya government for hastening his death.

The idea did not ultimately evolve into a Sobitha Thero candidacy, but the genesis of the idea and its association with Sobitha Thero must give the lie to the claim that the defeat of Mahinda Rajapaksa was the result of regime change engineered by outsiders. It was regime change alright but it could not have happened without Sobitha Thero’s catalytic role and the courage of the people to defy the odds and vote against a powerful incumbent. In the early days of the idea, I wrote in anticipation that Sobitha Thero could do in Sri Lanka what Jayaprakash Narayan did in India in bringing down the infamous Emergency-Rule regime of Indira Gandhi in 1976. Now we can say with a sense of gratification that Sobitha Thero accomplished in Sri Lanka what Jayaprakash Narayan had achieved in India. Like Jayaprakash Narayan in India, SobithaThero has become the Sri Lankan manifestation of what Morris Jones called ‘saintly politics’ in the Indian context - ascetically disinterested in office but holding those in office to high ethical standards.

In electoral terms, the single-issue/common candidate idea became the basis for the first successful political campaign ever in Sri Lanka that found acceptance and resonance among all the communities irrespective of their gender, class, language, religion, caste or geographical location. The current insistence in some quarters, on the majority of the majority is a shameless throwback to the politics of communal representation that the majority community leaders once denounced as a sinister scheme of colonial rulers wanting to divide and conquer the people of Sri Lanka. Now it is the local masters who would rather divide and rule, forever if possible. By championing the cause of abolishing the presidency as a national priority, Sobitha Thero has opened the path for the political bhikku in the modern era to espouse secular causes without lapsing into narrow chauvinism. In historical perspective, it would be a restoration of the traditional tolerance for other religions and languages that was the hallmark of the state-sangha relationship that prevailed in the island for nearly two thousand years, and one that is historically precious and unique among state-religion relationships in different societies.

Although it became the single issue, abolishing the presidency was in itself the culmination of multiple frustrations in society. It has been said that the straw that drove Sobitha Thero to launch his campaign against executive presidency was the menace of drug use and trafficking and the corruption and killings they entailed. It was the abhorrence of corruption that ultimately caused the defeat of Mahinda Rajapaksa. In the political transactions between the emergence of the single issue idea and the emergence of Maithripala Sirisena as the common opposition candidate, there were too many compromises, IOUs, and giveaways that submerged the original idea and allowed the old operators and their old ways to take control of the new movement. The January and the August elections were expected to deliver a new government that would be different from its predecessor not just in appearance but more fundamentally in substance. There is a growing frustration that there is little difference in substance between the old and the new regimes. Even the appearance has become indistinguishable given the size of the cabinet and the distribution of portfolios. Those who hoped and worked for substantial change were becoming resigned to the ways of the new government.

The brazen defence in parliament of the Avant Garde project by two lawyer ministers, unable to differentiate between the legal opinions of defence lawyers and the investigative responsibility of the state, relit the fire against state corruption. The death of Sobitha Thero in the midst of this controversy provided a poignant spark to people’s anger. The government seems to have responded in a way that they should have ten months ago. Given what we now know of the new government’s limitations and contradictions, it would be farfetched to expect the government to successfully embark on a constitutional overhaul. That would be a distraction and a disaster. It would be far better for everyone concerned with good governance to lower their expectations and push the government to do everything it can and must, to identify, expose and end state corruption. That would be a lasting legacy to Sobitha Thero.