MARY RUTNAM’S LEGACY

By ECB Wijeyesinghe

Canada has given many generous gifts to Sri Lanka, but none more precious than the valiant little woman who, at the turn of the century, settled down here and cast her lot, for better or for worse, with the people of this country. It was, indeed, on an auspicious day that the petite Mary Irwin from Ontario fell in love with a young and handsome Tamil named S. C. K. Rutnam from Jaffna. She was a Doctor of Medicine and he was a student of Philosophy who had secured the Master of Arts degree and turned his talents to the educational field.

CHILDREN

Their union resulted in the birth of five brilliant children – four sons and one daughter. The sons – Alan, Donald, Robin and Walter – reached the top of the class in everything they did. So did their sister Helen. Take Donald, for example. I have watched him at close quarters both on the playing field as well as in the classroom. Nearly 60 years ago I had a bird’s-eye view of him making notes at the Chemistry lectures of Professor W.N. Rae and the Physics classes of Prof. A. E. Grant at the Technical College.

Seated immediately behind Donald I was fascinated by the zeal with which he jotted down the words of wisdom that fell from the lips of the lecturers. Donald Rutnam appeared to absorb everything like a blotting paper and gave us, sluggards, the impression that the world’s workers must have their reward, if not in this world, at least in the next. In the sports field, too, he played like a Trojan.

At Royal College he excelled in boxing, tennis and cricket. And to cap everything he romped away with the University Scholarship for Science. In England he sat for the Civil Service examination and was chosen to serve in India. This preamble is merely to show that the Rutnam children were very much like their parents, especially the mother, who served her adopted country with a deep affection akin to patriotism of the highest order.

Apart from her progeny, the finest legacy that Dr. Mary Rutnam left to this country was the Lanka Mahila Samiti, the federation of women’s institutes which has perhaps more than any other body of social workers, spread the gospel of equality, fraternity and justice preached by President Jayewardene and Prime Minister Premadasa.

The Lanka Mahila Samiti is probably the only women’s association in Asia to have hit the world’s headlines and to capture the imagination of people dedicated to the emancipation of the underprivileged. Though the Samiti movement was founded by Mrs. Rutnam 50 years ago, it took nearly two decades to win international recognition. That was achieved chiefly owing to the publicity it received in foreign countries interested in rural reconstruction and development. Once, that great woman journalist, Mrs. Betty Hunsworth, wrote a long article about this unique movement in the “Christian Science Monitor”, the celebrated Boston daily which is regarded as a model of competence and accuracy by all sober-minded pressmen.

BETTY

Mrs. Hunsworth was the Colombo correspondent of that prestigious journal in addition to being one of the stalwarts of the “Ceylon Daily News”. She came to Ceylon with a German film company which wanted to make a movie of the life of the Buddha, but somehow could not get going, partly owing to opposition from the conservatives. She then took to journalism and created history by starting the Blue Page which placed many well-known local writers on the first rung of the journalistic ladder. Two other journalists helped Mrs. Hunsworth to make the “Daily News” women’s pages the envy of rival newspapers. They were the demure Hilda Roversi, a niece of Sir Solomon Dias Bandaranaike, and the ebullient Anne Abayasekara whose chaste compositions are still being widely used by the SLBC.

Mrs. Hunsworth’s dramatic criticisms were sound as she had been trained for the stage and she always took the trouble to see that her reviews of plays appeared on the morning after the opening night. She was, in short, a dedicated newspaper woman. It was not surprising, therefore, that her four-column article on the Lanka Mahila Samiti in the “Christian Science Monitor” in 1952 was displayed under an eight-column banner heading and illustrated with a bevy of Kandyan maidens engaged in making fans and baskets out of talipot palm fronds.

The article was as much an advertisement for the Samiti as it was a boost for the beauty and grace of Sri Lanka’s womanhood. Standing by the pretty girls in the picture were two attractive Samiti sevakas, Violet Rajapakse and Loranee Senaratne, then in their prime, but still active in many fields. The passage of time has left no wrinkles on either of them. Violet continues to be an outstanding and indefatigable social worker and the leader of the group that guides the destinies of the Samiti movement. She is ably assisted in her work by Anoja Fernando, who was once called “The pride of Ladies’ College”.

Violet Rajapakse has all the attributes of leadership which she has inherited, like her brothers, from their father, the late Francis de Zoysa, K. C. Violet may not have Bunty’s knowledge of the law, nor the keen perceptive police mind of Sidney, nor the histrionic gifts of Lucien but when it comes to addressing a meeting or untying a difficult knot she is a match for any of her brothers. She sails into any situation with confidence and provides the solution to any problem in lucid language and with a finesse that would do justice to a career diplomat.

WORTHY

She is, in this respect, a worthy successor to women like Senator Cissy Cooray, Mrs. Sirima Bandaranaike, Lady Coomaraswamy, Mrs. F. B. de Mel, Mrs. N. S. Perera and many others who kept the torch that was lit by Mary Rutnam. Almost all of them emerged from their comfortable homes in Cinnamon Gardens to labour in the remotest parts of the Island, bringing new life to village communities and rescuing them from the jungle-tide of apathy and ignorance.

It takes a certain amount of courage and a good deal of sacrifice to move into primitive surroundings and educate the poor and ignorant village women in subjects such as nutrition, child welfare, food preservation, gardening and home economics. Wherever the Samiti sevakas work they leave a trail of peace and progress. In such areas, lawlessness and crime have disappeared and husbands who were addicted to the bottle have sublimated their weaknesses, and now prefer to help their wives to bottle pickles and chutneys.

Today, thousands of village women from all parts of Sri Lanka are looking forward to a centre whither they can bring the elegant work of their deft hands. What they are praying for is a showroom for their hereditary skills and a clearing-house for their produce. It may be difficult to believe that Colombo 7 women can be made to move like missionaries carrying the message of the great religious teachers and to live and work among the lowliest of the lowly. But the miracle has happened. Barriers of caste and creed have been almost wiped out and in over 1,200 societies, formed in every district, the communities have been brought together and Democracy reigns supreme. But the females in the remotest rural areas of the island, without exception, know that the present Government will grant them their due place in the rising sun of the island’s prosperity, and incidentally give their voices too a hearing.

And 200,000 village women can’t be wrong.

(Excerpted from The Good At Their Best first published in 1979)