Mahadenamutta and his golayas

Tuesday 9th August, 2022

Sri Lanka is no doubt a land like no other. Nowhere else in the world are intellectually-challenged, self-important characters are allowed to go places as leaders, causing irreparable damage to vital sectors, especially the economy. Sri Lankans have earned notoriety for not only suffering fools gladly but also electing and deifying them.

Mahadenamutta, a self-proclaimed pundit who always comes out with stupid solutions which turn out to be worse than the problems he undertakes to sort out, is a character we come across in local folk stories, the most interesting being the one where he has a goat beheaded to save a pot, which its head is stuck in, and then gets the pot smashed to extricate the poor animal’s head. But going by what is unfolding in this country, one wonders whether Mahadenamutta actually lived here and his descendants are holding responsible positions in politics and in the state service.

Some Wildlife Department officers have proved that they are proud descendants of Mahadenamutta by carrying out a rescue operation in Hatton. In a bid to save a leopard, they felled a tall tree, on which the animal had got stuck while escaping from a wire trap. The falling tree crushed the poor creature, and then the officers removed the trap! Minister Mahinda Amaraweera lost no time in ordering an investigation into the incident, and this is a baby step in the right direction. Much more needs to be done to save wild animals that stray into villages and estates.

Leopards continue to perish in traps and at the hands of villagers and hunters in the hill country; these endangered creatures must be protected and those who harm them severely dealt with. Leopards invade villagers as their natural habitat is fast shrinking owing to human activity. Instead of conserving forests, the government has, in its wisdom, introduced a scheme where their buffer zones are released for agricultural purposes. If this disastrous policy is followed and the ruling party supporters are allowed to clear the areas necessary for the recovery and natural expansion of forests, people will have more wild animals roaming in their villages, and the Wildlife Department will go on cutting down many more trees with animals trapped thereon!

Wildlife officers are not alone in emulating Mahadenamutta. It is also thanks to the Mahadenamutta in the garb of political leaders and servile panjandrums that the national economy has collapsed on the hapless public, crushing them, so to speak. They slashed taxes recklessly to win elections, and threw around billions of rupees by way of pandemic relief for political reasons, printed colossal amounts of money, defended the rupee at the expense of the country’s foreign currency reserves and then opted for a free float of the rupee. They refused to seek IMF assistance last year despite warnings by the Central Bank experts and other economists. A blanket ban was imposed on agrochemicals in the name of green agriculture, which should have been implemented in stages; it was lifted after it had ruined the agricultural sector and incensed the farming community beyond measure. Having thus caused the economy to collapse, the ruling party Mahadenamuttas are now trying to resurrect it by undoing what they did.

The Wildlife officers responsible for the leopard’s death are now up a gum tree, but the Mahadenamuttas in kapati suit and their bureaucratic golayas or pupils have got off scot-free, to all intents and purposes despite having ruined the economy and reduced the country to penury.

When Parliament was prorogued the other day, the COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises) had begun questioning some government officials responsible for bankrupting the country. The COPE now stands dissolved and will have to be reconstituted fast. It will become compliant and stop investigating how the economy was ruined unless its former members are reappointed with Prof. Charitha Herath as its head. One can only hope that all those who have caused the people to be crushed under a heavy economic burden just like the poor leopard in Hatton will be brought to justice.