Political developments following Mrs. B’s disenfranchising & development of radio

Excerpted from volume two of Sarath Amunugama’s autobiography

The resolution to disenfranchise Mrs. B and a few others was passed in Parliament by the use of a steamroller majority. Prime Minister Premadasa led the charge and several vituperative UNPers, like Premachandra, made a mockery of the debate by insulting the former Prime Minister. It was a sad day for Parliament and the country. Amirthalingam made a valiant effort on behalf of Mrs. B. Though Mrs B’s disenfranchisement helped JRJ to be returned in the 1982 Presidential election it had long term deleterious effects which came back to haunt him.

Firstly it embittered her party which then went to the country in an unforgiving mood and missed the restraining hand of Mrs. B who earlier had a good relationship with JRJ unlike with Dudley. When it came to ethnic compromises which could have been negotiated with the more experienced Mrs. B, the UNP was now faced with an opposition which was hell bent in sabotaging everything proposed by the President. It also saw the rise of Vijaya Kumaratunga and his Mahajana Party which was decidedly leftist and highly critical of JRJ’s economic policies.

They took the lead in campaigning for socialist policies which were opposed to the President’s open economy. In place of the aging Mrs. B the President found in Vijaya a formidable opponent who could appeal to the youth. JRJ’s nominee for youth affairs, Ranil, could not hold a candle to Vijaya. But perhaps most importantly the political space created by the vacancy of Mrs. B, was the opening that the resurrected JVP clearly wanted. With its commitment and political venom, not hitherto seen in the country’s politics, the JVP attacked JRJ and wrecked his plans for an orderly economic transformation which would have ensured the continuity of his legacy.

At the same time the bitterness that invaded politics also inhibited a consensual approach to the ethnic question. The infuriated SLFP boycotted all–party conferences on the ethnic problem and adopted an Anti-Tamil, Anti-JRJ line. Amirthalingam who accepted the post of Leader of the Opposition too had to pay a heavy price. As the Leader of the Opposition, he lost his militancy. His party was overtaken first by a multiplicity of armed Tamil political formations and later by Prabhakaran’s LTTE. Some time later Amirthalingam and his chief Parliamentary comrades were gunned down in their own home by the LTTE.

All in all, we may conclude that in retrospect, the decision to disenfranchise Mrs. B, though it paved the way for JRJ’s second term of office, was a blunder which changed the political landscape of the country. Sri Lanka paid a heavy price for putting tactics over ethics in politics. Perhaps if my friend Gamini and my Minister Anandatissa had prevailed, our fate may have been different. But they did not succeed, and the country inexorably drifted into three decades of murderous fratricidal conflict.

Regional Radio Stations

A perennial problem of radio broadcasting in Sri Lanka related to poor transmission. This meant that the signal from the Colombo tower was not received clearly in the outstations. While urban listeners around Colombo had no complaints, rural folk were inhibited from using radio because of the weak signal. The solution was to erect booster towers which would carry a strong signal within their radius. Fortunately, we were able to negotiate with the Federal Republic of Germany to get the equipment required for a good all island reception.

Once the equipment arrived, we erected booster towers in Deniyaya, Maho, Kokavil and Uda Peradeniya which made radio much more listener-friendly. There was a rapid growth of listenership in the rural areas serviced by our new transmission grid. The new towers also helped us to add a new dimension to radio broadcasting in the country. I found that the latest research on broadcasting recommended the introduction of ‘narrow casting’. This meant that more emphasis was placed on smaller, more homogenous and development-oriented broadcasting units which enabled more interaction between broadcasters and listeners.

The old `top-down’ approach was replaced with a more participatory and collaborative methodology. I therefore suggested that in addition to boosting the Colombo signal we should convert the new transmission stations into regional Radio Centres. While staff could be initially found from the already overstaffed SLBC, funding was also available because JRJ as Minister of State in the Dudley Cabinet in the 1965-70 period had converted Radio Ceylon into a Corporation with its own budget and sources of income.

The SLBC was easily persuaded to adopt the Regional Stations and Raja Rata, Ruhunu Rata and Meda Rata Radio came into being creating a revolution in radio broadcasting in Sri Lanka. This step could be taken because in Anandatissa we had a Minister who was very supportive of innovations. Also, the SLBC under Eamon Kariyakarawana and professionals like Thevis Guruge and engineer Buell were quick to implement this scheme as they had the backing of the Ministry. These regional stations threw up many talented musicians and singers. Perhaps the most famous of them was Divulgane, the singer from Anuradhapura who held the country in thrall and became, later, the Governor of the NCP.

We were lucky to be in the limelight just when the global debate on the New Information Order was coming to the fore. Developing countries complained of a serious imbalance between the mass media coverage and facilities of developed countries and the ‘new nations’. Some called it the new imperialism. Without the basic tools of communication, the poorer countries could not get their voice heard. Their problems, history and culture could not find expression. Instead, the image of primitivism, corruption and incompetence was communicated to the world.

A New Information and Communication Order [NIICO] was the ‘sine qua non’ of a global dialogue which would rectify the imbalance and the consequent inequity of the prevailing world system. This matter was raised at the Non-Aligned meeting held in Colombo in 1976. Its resolutions supported the demand for a more just and equitable global Information system. As Chair of the Non-Aligned movement Sri Lanka drew global attention as a leader in the fight for NIICO. With JRJ in power and his unique attempt at what Time Magazine called ‘Roll back socialism’ many western donors could be persuaded to fund our media institutions.

For instance, when Denmark was willing to fund a people based radio station, Gamini Dissanayake agreed to take it under the wing of the Mahaweli Authority and the Mahaweli Radio which became known worldwide was born. I negotiated with Knud Ebbotson of Denmark radio and with funds and technical staff secured, we launched Mahaweli Radio which became a model for new concepts of Development Communication. Since many of the donor countries accepted the criticism that foreign aid was not effective in ameliorating rural poverty, they were willing to encourage, and fund, new initiatives in poverty alleviation like Sarvodaya and Mahaweli Radio.

We were in the centre of the Non-Aligned movement as well as the debate on economic growth in the third world. It was a good time to be in charge of the media. At that time, we were global leaders in harnessing foreign assistance for developing TV [Japan], Radio Transmission [FRG], Film and Community screenings [FRG], Community Radio [Denmark], and Film editing [France]. Almost all of this came by way of grants because we were first on the scene. In addition, I arranged for training in all these fields and many of our media personnel were sent on training courses arranged by UNESCO and our partner donors.

I was also targeting the setting up of a TV training Centre which was necessary for the growth of high quality TV programming. Thanks to the Freidrich Ebert Stiftung of the FRG I was able to establish this training school at no cost to Government. All these rapid developments In media were noted by many small countries in the world who planned to enter the new world of mass communication.

It was when we got into the nitty gritty of transmission towers for Radio and TV that I realized that our geographical location gave us a great advantage. For a long time, our radio transmissions were better received in India than Akhila Bharati, the Indian broadcasting service. From Sri Lanka we could cover the whole Indian sub-continent while India had to depend on a large number of ground stations. So it was that when Hillary and Tenzing tuned in from the top of Mount Everest they had to listen to Radio Ceylon.

‘Geet Mala’ the most popular Hindi music request program was beamed via Radio Ceylon. Hindi movie producers would first have their film songs broadcast through our transmitters which could reach all parts of India. BBC would at that time rebroadcast their Asia bulletin via our station. This created a problem for us at that time because Indira Gandhi had censored All India service broadcasts under the state of emergency declared by her. But most middle-class Indians beat the ban by tuning into BBC.

Indira Gandhi was very angry at this breaking of her blockade and her Ambassador in Colombo would frequently visit us in the Ministry to stop our rebroadcasts. I discussed his request with Anandatissa who refused to comply because we had a standing agreement with the BBC. Many distinguished Indians who were unhappy with the state of emergency wrote letters of appreciation to us.

At this stage we received a high level application from the Federal Republic of Germany to locate a re-transmission tower for Deutsche Wells [Voice of Germany] in Trincomalee. Trincomalee, as the British who operated SEAL radio from there during the second world war well knew, was the ideal location for transmission to the Far East since there is no land mass between there and the western coast of Japan.

Without hills and other obstructions, the radio signal skims over the sea and is powerfully received in Southeast Asia and Japan.

I accompanied the head of the German Information Office to Trinco and walked all over proposed sites for a transmitter. It was then that I came across the tank farm which had been the nerve center of British naval logistics after the fall of Singapore during the Second World War. During this period we had several re-transmission towers in Sri Lanka. In addition to Deutche Welle, there was an American broadcasting station beaming into India from Iranawila, which had been authorized during the regime of Neville Jayaweera and was adding revenue to the SLBC budget.

However, all these stations have now became superfluous due to the advent of satellites. Messages could be beamed direct from the host countries via space located satellite transponders. This system is called DBS [Direct Broadcasting Satellites]. Thus these broadcasters pulled out of terrestrial stations and SLBC lost a good source of income. The spotlight that was focused on the Trinco Tank farm by the German initiative persuaded the Government to repair some of the tanks.

The decision to develop them as a joint venture with a Singaporean company drew a strong protest from India which emphasized the regional strategic value of Trincomalee harbor. This led to much acrimony and even became part of the Indo-Lanka agreement signed by JRJ.