Wayward journey of middle class: Some Reflections

by Gunadasa Amarasekera

(A talk given by Gunadasa Amarasekera at the Royal Asiatic Society)

When Dr. Punsara Amarasinghe requested me to speak on my long novel in nine volumes I was rather reluctant, not because of anything else but my physical condition. Nearing my 96th year, I have lost almost all my faculties. I am almost deaf and unable to join in a conversation, leave aside a discussion. My eyesight is extremely poor. I suffer from memory loss. I cannot speak off the cuff and have to put it down on paper.

Despite these infirmities, I thought I should accept his invitation for a number of reasons.

Firstly, I found out that Dr. Punsara Amarasinghe is an avid reader of mine. He has not only read all these nine volumes but almost all my other works. (Now, that is a compliment no writer can ignore). How can I let him down?

Secondly, this work which I launched nearly thirty- five years ago, having had a number of reprints has hardly drawn the attention I expected from the so- called critics and intellectuals. Leaving aside the literary merits of this work, the political, the socio- economic insights contained in them should have stimulated/provoked those intellectuals to take them up even to debunk them. As such, Punsara’s initiative to draw attention to what I said was welcome.

Thirdly, looking back on what I wanted to convey I find what I said then, is more relevant now to us, going through a severe economic and political crisis, than at that time.

Fourthly my narrative advocating Buddhist civilisational values, I felt, would find a response in economists following Schumacher who pointed out the validity of Buddhist economics. The latest in this trend I came across is in Professor Clair Brown’s book ‘Buddhist Economics’. She had in fact come to our country some time ago to see how this centre of Theravada Buddhism is pursuing Buddhist economics. What she saw instead, were limousines of the latest model plying the streets of Colombo, and skyscrapers outdoing each other to reach the skies. She was thoroughly disillusioned. I hope this narrative by a Buddhist would vindicate us at least in a small way and also make her revise her opinion regarding us.

What prompted me in ’83 to embark on this voluminous narrative may be of interest, in understanding it. A brief account may be of help. It may also be relevant as some have branded this as a political tract presented in the garb of fiction.

What fallacy prompted those detractors to brand this narrative as a political tract? It is vital to examine it at some length as it has a bearing on the growth of the novel especially at this time.

Politics as such has been outlawed from our serious fiction. A good example is the novel Yuganthaya by Martin Wickramasinghe-our most social conscious novelist.Yuganthaya is based on a political theme- the struggle for a socialist state. But in it we do not come across the personalities who championed it, those stalwarts who dominated the scene are absent, their activities have been ignored. We do not see the prevalent politics of the time which engulfed the society. Instead of presenting that vital background the author resorts to an abstract, symbolic presentation.

As a result, Yuganthaya becomes a sort of intellectual exercise by a romantic individual. It is by no means- an end of a yugaya- an epoch.Yugantahya has had no impact, it is hardly referred to, today, when it is extremely socially relevant to the times.

Symbolism and abstract conceptualiaation, that the author had resorted to has a place in poetry; as a matter-of-fact symbolism is the essence of poetry, this is not so in fiction. Realism is the essence of fiction. It must be presented in all its complex manifestations, it cannot be selective, it must be representative, totally and completely. The heterocosm the novelist creates must accommodate all that complexity.

The negligence of this fact by our novelists has had two results; avoidance of politics in their serious works and the acceptance of this by the readers as the norm – a criterion of judgment.

This is highly undesirable at this juncture, when politics has to come in a big way to our creative work. This, I believe is what Solzhenitsyn meant when he said that a great novelist is a state within a state. To be a state within a state one has to be highly conscious and aware of politics- a political animal.

I have not been a political activist, however, I have been even as a teenager, a keen observer of what was happening in the country, in the political landscape. (It may have been due to the influence my father had on me). I was a political animal of sorts.

I was there at the Torrington Square when we received Independence. I watched with contempt our Prime Minister arriving there in top hat and tailcoat. I was there at the Town Hall when Bandaranaike formed his party. I was on the streets of Kandy cheering away when the ’56 victory was announced. I was in depths of despair when JR Jayewardene hoodwinked the entire nation with his Dharmista slogan and pushed his neo-liberal economic policy on us which resulted in two insurrections, one in the South and one in the North. The US with the collaboration of India was planning to impose Federalism on us. The neo liberal economic policy ruined not only our economy but also our culture and civilizational values. My dreams had by then vanished. I was feeling .dejected and utterly hopeless. I needed to unburden the oppression within me. It was this mindset which forced me to embark on this narrative. It was a therapy I needed very much.

In order to achieve it I needed an alter ego through whom to articulate my thoughts. It had to be a Piyadasa from the middle class to which I too belonged. Further it had to be the journey undertaken by this middle class. You might ask why the middle class? Obviously, it was the middle class after the ’56 victory that determined the destiny of this country for good or for bad.

How and when did this middle class emerge? The genesis of this class had to be sorted out first. The first volume of this narrative Gamanaka Mula attempts to unearth it.

Prior to the emergence of this middle class-the rural society, the village that was there, was no different to that which was there in ancient times. Anagarika Dharmapala has provided a description of that society.

‘The villagers lived a circumscribed but contented life. There were no big land owners, no capitalists. Every family had a plot of land which they cultivated. There were grasslands and forests for their common use. People lived a contented life helping each other. There was no place for individualism. Collectivism was the basis of their living. The sangha led a collective life and provided the necessary guidance’. Life at Yatalamatta where Piyadasa spent his childhood was a close replica of this society.

How did a middle class emerge from this background? How and when did this middle class emerge?

By the beginning of the last century there appeared a new class in the village. It consisted of vernacular teachers, headmen, post masters, and petty government officials. Unlike the villagers they had a consistent income by way of a monthly salary. They were fairly educated too, and had an inkling of the changes that were taking place outside their village. They realised that if they were to keep abreast, they will have to send their children out of the village and give them an English education.

Piyadasa’s mother was the headmistress of a school. His father was an enlightened person and a devotee of Anagarika Dharmapala. They decided to send Piyadasa to the Christian school at Baddegama first and then to Colombo to stay with his aunt who had come to live in the suburbs of Colombo where her husband was employed. They had no children of their own. The parents of Piyadasa had no great ambitions. They were quite happy if Piyadasa could be put in trousers and employed as a clerk. These middle-class ambitions soared only after 1944 with the advent of the Free Education system.

Being a keen student Piyadasa matriculated and entered the University College in Colombo to follow a course in Economics. It was the tail end of World War 2.

The society in which Piyadasa moved in Colombo was a hive of activity with nationalist and Buddhist resurgent movements, raging across that society. Free education was the main issue that kept these movements going. Figures like Malalasekera and Mettananda dominated the scene. Piyadasa and his friends attended those meetings and got thoroughly involved in them.

With the establishment of the University of Ceylon at Peradeniya, Piyadasa had to go there. It came as a surprise to Piyadasa to realise that in spite of those magnificent buildings reminding one of Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa, it was a dead city, devoid of any intellectual or political activity. If there was any political activity, it was confined to a miniscule Trotskyite group for whom it was a parlour game to be engaged in, till they joined the Civil Service. Piyadasa was neither interested in such politics nor the civil service. Anything resembling any intellectual activity was the cultural activities initiated by Sarachchandra. It was to overcome the boredom of living that Piyadasa drifted there. But very soon he fell under the spell of Sarachchandra who was an out and out aesthete who was not concerned with anything happening in the society. In fact, he was very cynical of these national or Buddhist activities. He considered those leaders as hypocrites. He was even cynical of his own discipline of Indian philosophy and Western Philosophy. He considered them as blind alleys and often quoted Omar Khayam’s verses to justify his view. When Sarachchandra over a glass of beer quoted those verses by Omar Khayyam, Piyadasa listened to him spell bound.

The spell was short lived. Sarachchandra left for Japan and Piyadasa was left high and dry with nothing to look forward to in that desert.

He had nothing to look forward to. His attempt to win the heart of a girl whom he adored had failed. His aspirations to get an academic post too failed. In sheer desperation Piyadasa applied for a government job and obtained the post of an Assistant Commissioner of Agrarian Services and moved out to Kalutara. The volume Inimage Ihalata describes this period of his life.

Kalutara was a sleepy town. The only ‘living spot’ was the government Servants’ Club- where the government servants spent their evenings drinking till midnight. Piyadasa too followed them. Thereafter the only avenue to kill the boredom was to practice what Omar Khayyam had advised – to seek the pleasures of the flesh which soon filled him with disgust. The volume Wankagiriyaka describes this phase in Piyadasa’s life.

For his good fortune things changed quite unexpectedly. He fell in love with a woman after his heart and got married. His good fortune did not stop there. Quite unexpectedly he was offered a post at the Peradeniya University. Piyadasa and his wife came to live in Kandy, in a room at Queen’s Hotel where they listened to the thewawa at the Dalada maligawa, morning and evening. The volume Yali Maga Wetha discusses this period of his life.

In Kandy, Piyadasa came across a group of more or less his own age who were political animals who were very concerned about what was happening in the country. Their company awakened the political animal in Piyadasa that had gone to sleep over the last two or three years.

The group consisted of two die-hard Marxists Alaya and Bassa and, Thilakasena and Weera who were more inclined to SLFP politics. They met in Thilakasena’s room at least every other day, went on till late midnight engaged in violent debates. The two Marxists’ attitude to the failure of the United Front Government which they had helped to win was the non-implementation of the Marxist theories by the government fully. Thilakasena was of a different view. He attributed the failure to the forcing of the Marxist policies without considering the Buddhist cultural background of the people. Piyadasa went further and attributed the failure to the models we have borrowed from the West without seeking an indigenous model based on our civilisation which had disintegrated with foreign conquests but had left a civilisational consciousness in the minds of the people. This was challenged by the two Marxist who saw it as a fantasy on the part of Piyadasa.

(To be concluded)