Gamini Dissanayake the man he was and what fired the Mahaweli project

Excerpted from volume ii of the Sarath Amunugama autobiography

Since Gamini played an important role in my career I will reproduce here an essay which was entitled; “Fifty; A Beginning”, that I wrote for a felicitation volume which was published to mark his 50th birthday. When I presented the first copy of this volume to JRJ at Braemar, he looked at the title and said, half in jest “I hope it is not the beginning of the end”. Gamini who joined me for the presentation was not amused.

My article in this volume covers Gamin’s considerable contribution to the development of both politics and economic growth in the country. Unfortunately, a few years after this book was published, he was killed by a suicide bomber of the LTTE. Gamini then was on the campaign trail as a Presidential candidate in 1994. He was becoming more and more confident of winning the top prize.

His death was a personal blow to me because I was one of his chief supporters. I was with him that fatal morning in Kandy addressing propaganda meetings. He wanted me to return with him by helicopter to Colombo for the final meeting at Thotalanga on the out skirts of Colombo. But I had an engagement in my electorate and stayed back to see my father and mother in Nugawela. That was a fateful decision since had I got back in the helicopter to Colombo I would have been with Gamini and most probably have been killed along with him.

This is what I wrote in the felicitation volume:

“My earliest recollections of Gamini go back to Trinity College. I was a part of a group of students in whom our principal Norman Walter reposed great hopes as scholars who would enter the University thereby contradicting the oft stated, and certainly ill-deserved notion, that Trinity mostly produced “flannelled fools and muddied oafs”.

“Some of us would assemble regularly at the Kandy Public Library which had an astonishing range of magazines and books. Then we would spend the evening together, walking round the Kandy Lake debating many of the issues we had read about and needed further discussion. On these walks round the lake we would often encounter the Dissanayake boys playing near their lakefront home.

“I remember Gamini most because he had the habit of probing us, his peers, for new ideas and information when we spoke to him. We had a more mundane reason also for knowing Gamini and his brothers. They were the children of the owner of -Silverdale’, Kandy’s best known cafe. After our long walks we would retire to ‘Silverdale’ for a snack and an iced coffee and envy the Dissanayake boys whom we imagined could tuck in to all that delicious food at will!

“Gamini’s father, Andrew, was a leading citizen of Kandy. He had come down from Kotmale and started several businesses, which proved to be so successful that he was a well recognized Kandyan entrepreneur of his time. He was a very affable and gentle person – characteristics which have been inherited by his eldest son. Dissanayake pere (Snr.) always had time for the people of Kandy. We would see him at public gatherings with a large circle of admirers and friends around him.

“He was involved with the politics of the hill country, of Kandy and the Nuwara Eliya regions in particular. He was the President of the All-Island Local Authorities Association and had come to know, at a personal level, the acknowledged father of local government in Sri Lanka, the charismatic S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike.

“After the departure of Dudley Senanayake into semi-retirement from national politics many leading Kandyans found no basis for supporting the ruling UNP caucus of the time. Many of them joined Bandaranaike’s SLFP. Andrew Dissanayake was nominated for the Nuwara Eliya constituency by the SLFP in 1956. He won handsomely and was appointed a deputy minister in the Bandaranaike government.

“Unlike many of his party colleagues, and very much like his son Gamini later on, Andrew was devoid of rancour and hatred. He treated all his constituents and parliamentary colleagues with consideration. This civilized approach to politics has obviously had an impact on Gamini who grew up in an atmosphere of political engagement. Many national party leaders would drop in at their home for a meal and Gamni was an avid listener to their political discussions.

“By 1970, Gamini had passed out as an advocate and was busy building a civil practice in the Chambers of Neville Samarakoon, Queen’s Counsel, another distinguished alumnus of Trinity College. The legal milieu in which he moved, Neville Samarakoon and B.J. Fernando in particular, brought him closer to the ruling circles of the UNP and at the age of 27, Gamini was nominated to stand for his father’s old constituency.

“By this time the SLFP had been rent apart by internal quarrels and Andrew, with many of his early SLFP colleagues, had retired from politics in disgust. It is worth recalling that the SLFP led by Mrs. Bandaranaike, was keen to field young Gamini Dissanayake once it became known that he would enter politics. However, it was Dudley Senanayake’s request that prevailed.

“Dudley threw his full support to the young aspirant even though Nuwara Eliya was, at that time, represented by Donald Ranaweera, a UNP Member of Parliament. It was not an easy decision, since the incumbent UNP MP was the publisher of the Times Group of newspapers and an important financier of the party. Ranaweera also had the backing of the Deputy Leader of the party, J R Jayewardene.

“However, Dudley and JRJ finally decided to field Gamini. It turned out that the decision was the right one. Though the UNP, met with a disastrous defeat in 1970, Gamini emerged as a successful candidate. If I remember right, he was the only newcomer to the UNP benches in Parliament that year. The recently formed SLFP government vented its rage on the young MP. It resented the entry of a son of one of its own stalwarts into the ranks of the UNP.

“The SLFP took the defeat of their candidate, William Fernando, Felix Dias Bandaranaike’s protege, as a major affront. Gamini had to face an election petition and a fresh election. He won again which served to enhance his image in the country and reinforce the view that the UNP was getting over its defeat and was on a ‘winning streak’.

“The 1970 to 1977 period was perhaps the best years of the UNP as a mass organization. Though small in numbers in Parliament, UNP MPs challenged the might of the SLFP and was able to outwit and out-maneuver them. Gamini was in the thick of this campaign. He emerged as a front rank speaker and organizer of the Opposition.

“There were three national level speakers of the UNP who went round the country: JRJ, Premadasa and Gamini. He drew large crowds at meetings and became a firm favourite of the party rank and file. Under the leadership of J R Jayewardene, the UNP swept back into power in 1977. They humbled the coalition government of Mrs. Bandaranaike. Gamini’s role in this historic struggle, was recognized by the party when in an internal party poll for its highest executive body, Gamini obtained 110 votes, second only to the veteran R. Premadasa, who polled 118 votes. On the basis of this watershed poll, Gamini emerged as third ranking leader of the UNP, after Jayewardene and Premadasa.

“Accordingly, he was assigned what was to be the most spectacular project of the 1977 UNP government – Mahaweli development. This was in addition to the subjects of Lands and Land development, which were the traditional focus of attention of successive UNP regimes. The Mahaweli project which was just another development programme undertaken by the SLFP, though it was inaugurated during the Dudley Senanayake regime, was expanded into the key lead project of the JRJ government.

“The UNP accelerated the Mahaweli programme which was planned to be completed in 30 years to six on the orders of JRJ. Five major dams – Kotmale, Victoria, Maduru Oya, Randenigala and Rantambe – were constructed with foreign assistance. Three hundred thousand (300,000) acres of land were irrigated and 7,500 megawatts of electrical power was generated through this giant hydro-electrical, agricultural and farmer settlement scheme, the magnitude of which was unprecedented even in Sri Lanka, a country best known for its historic hydraulic civilization.

“As acknowledged by President Jayewardene, the accelerated Mahaweli programme would not have been a reality but for the dedication, skill and perseverance of Gamini Dissanayake. I think it is fair to say that the government itself did not realize the enormity and complexity of this task when it announced the revised Mahaweli scheme.

“At first the World Bank advised against it stating that Sri Lanka did not have the expertise or the resources to undertake this project. After a stormy meeting with World Bank bureaucrats, President Jayewardene requested them to get back to Washington, saying he was going ahead with or without multi-lateral assistance. The World Bank finally relented after JRJ threatened to close down its office in Colombo.

“The Bank, now represented by its sagacious Vice President, David Hopper, undertook to back the project. It was a promise that was faithfully kept by the international community under the umbrella of the World Bank. The reservations of the World Bank were echoed by local critics who said that the accelerated scheme will never become a reality. It is here, I think, that Gamini’s natural leadership qualities, good sense and the ability to get the best out of his staff became crucial to the Mahaweli scheme.

“He did not waste time on getting cheap publicity. His officials know they could debate an issue with him without being publicly humiliated and shunted aside. He backed all his staff who could do a job of work– be they engineers or baas unnhes. He assembled a group of officials who were the envy of the Sri Lankan public service. Most of all they were enthused with the feeling that they were doing a worthwhile, patriotic task and their youthful minister was ‘a co-worker’.

“As a minister, Gamini always had his eye on the ‘grand concept’ of the Mahaweli and did not waste time nitpicking. His management style has always been to carefully select his aides and then let them get on with the task of doing the job. Sri Lankan professionals – engineers, surveyors, accountants, managers and administrators, who since independence had become pawns in political gamesmanship, found that their skills were, at long last, recognized and rewarded. An aspect of the Mahaweli Development Scheme which has not been properly recognized is that it served as a ‘hundred universities’ for engineering and scientific personnel.

“These `Mahaweli graduates’ of every rank are a tremendous manpower resource. Unfortunately their skills have not been used by our national planners. The decision to accelerate the Mahaweli scheme was perhaps the most effective decision of the Jayewardene regime. This was the peak period of international cooperation. Western regimes were launching their strategy of `rolling back socialism’. Sri Lanka was identified as a lead democratic regime which was turning its back on a controlled economy and switching to market economics. The snag, however, was that the country did not have major development schemes in the pipeline. Donors were ready to support the new government but were demanding realistic and well-designed project proposals.

“The new UNP regime came up with many hare-brained schemes. But the donors were not buying them. It was only the Mahaweli project that could interest the big donors. It was Gamin’s signal contribution that he could rally his engineering, scientific and administrative staff to come up with viable project proposals. He did not rush his staff to produce schemes which would generate cheap publicity for himself. He personally visited donor countries and argued the case for funding.

“On many occasions his detractors, both within and outside his party, would speak about delays in the early phase of the accelerated scheme. As minister in charge, however he knew that the early planning had to be perfect. He defended his planners in Parliament and gave them enough time during the ‘gestation period’ of the new scheme. This strategy paid off. International donors ranging from the USA to the USSR endorsed the Mahaweli scheme.

“The World Bank treated it as one of its `showcase’ projects. It was only after the project was launched that even its detractors realized that the timing of the young minister was near perfect. In real terms, the investment on Mahaweli could never be repeated since inflationary pressures on the world economy during the last decade and the political inwardness of western nations, has totally changed development cooperation patterns in the Third World. There will be no Mahawelis in the future.

“Just as the Mahaweli scheme was a bold initiative in the field of domestic agriculture, Gamini’s short tenure as Minister of Plantation Industries could have led to a rejuvenation of our plantation agriculture. With an intimate knowledge of planting, the socio-economic conditions of the Kandyan peasantry and a wide network of contacts in the tree-crop industry, he was ideally suited to undertake this task. He brought the same enthusiasm to his new Ministry.

“In his usual style he assembled a group of top-level professionals with whom he established a close rapport. Then, he presented a series of proposals which, as in his Mahaweli days, were accepted at all levels including international donor agencies as quite practical. The estate cluster system, decentralization of management, upgrading of professional skills and benefits, estate-village integration and the push for value-added exports and international cooperation among all primary producers, were parts of this landmark development package.

“Another area in which Gamini made a vital contribution was the Indo-Lanka Accord. It is a little-known fact that our highest military leaders requested Gamini to intercede and bring about a settlement in what they called an ‘unwinnable war’. The Generals who made this request were Attygalle, Ranatunga and Seneviratne.

“They first broached this subject with the young minister when he and I were being helicoptered together with them to the President’s House in Kandy for an urgent discussion as the northern war was taking a disastrous turn. After this meeting they flew back to Colombo and continued their plea in Gamini’s home at Alfred House Gardens. Once Gamini was convinced that it was in the national interest to negotiate with India, he set up an informal link-up with Indian policy makers.

“His greatest achievement was the beginning of a dialogue with N Ram, who had been an influential advocate of the Tamil cause. A very close personal relationship followed. While our ineffectual foreign policy establishment fretted and fumed the good relations established among three young people – Rajiv Gandhi, Ram and Gamini – became the basis of an understanding which yielded the dramatic accord of reconciliation.

“President Jayewardene and High Commissioner Dixit who were the principal negotiators could always rely on this groundwork of friendship which for the first time linked the vital triad of Colombo-Delhi-Madras. Gamini’s commitment to a fair and just solution to our ethnic problem was made manifest through his fearless defence of the Accord, when both extremist groups – the LTTE and the JVP – placed him on their ‘hit list’ for not supporting their extremist positions. Gamini is a rare politician totally devoid of racial, religious, and other prejudices.

“During the last four years Gamini has gone through many traumas. But his commitment to politics as the best way of serving the people is constant. Recently, Gamini and I were travelling by car through Dambulla to Anuradhapura. We drove through miles and miles of green paddy fields which were irrigated by Mahaweli waters. We had both known this area earlier as an arid dry zone. We were silent for a long time. Finally, Gamini said quietly, ‘This is what makes politics worthwhile’.”