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| Lessons Learnt by the ‘Lion of Ruhuna’ -An open letter to H.E. Mahinda Rajapakse by Elmore Perera |
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(Lanka-e-News 28.June.2010 11.55PM) I wish to draw your Excellency’s attention to a letter under the caption “When Rev. Small sent Rajapakse to Wesley College”, from Edmund Dissanayake published in an English Newspaper of Friday 14th May 2010. Therein was stated, inter alia, the following:
At Richmond, the cricket captain was elected by students’ vote. So it was that the most eligible person for that post, D.M. Rajapakse
was elected in 1914.
At the 1915 election, everyone expected Rajapakse to be re-elected. But what happened was something very shameful. Prior to the election,
a very rich lad, De Mel, had treated the students in the canteen. When the election results were announced, Rajapakse had lost.
The infuriated Principal, Rev. W.J.T. Small announced at the school assembly; “On your vote, De Mel has been appointed captain. Rajapakse will join Wesley College tomorrow. Richmond will not play cricket next year.”
At the annual Royal – Wesley Cricket Match played at Campbell Park on 28th and 29th February 1916, batting first Royal were dismissed for
111 runs. D.M. Rajapakse who opened for Wesley scored 16 runs in a total of 237. In their second innings Royal were skittled out for 78 runs (Rajapakse taking 3 wickets for 8 runs).
Rajapakse was involved fully in the service of humanity. On 7th March 1936, he was elected to represent the Hambantota Electorate in the State Council. This cricketer and politico of the South enjoyed the appellation ‘Lion of Ruhuna’.
The firm and fair manner in which the clearly unacceptable offence of “treating” was dealt with, resulted in D.A. Rajapakse, George Rajapakse, Chamal Rajapakse and Mahinda Rajapakse, thereafter seeking and obtaining education at Richmond College rather than at any other school in the South. If the result of the “free” vote had been
reversed or nullified, those who had exercised their vote as a result of the inducements, freely given and freely accepted, would have maintained the correctness of their actions and made life difficult for the Rajapakses.
In the three short years Your Excellency spent at Richmond College with E.R. de Silva and Shelton Wirasinha, Your Excellency must surely have become aware of Revs. Langdon, Darrell, Small and Sneath - at the very least as the four Principals after whom the four “Houses” were named. Your brother, Hon. Chamal Rajapakse was privileged to be educated at Richmond for a much longer period and will certainly vouch for the exceptionally high standards of spiritual and ethical values
at Richmond College, under which the likes of C.W.W. Kannangara and P. de S. Kularatne. had been produced.
The Reservoir of Good-will that Your Excellency still enjoys should not be frittered away by intolerance of any constructive dissent and the encouragement of the divisive tendencies that keep surfacing at regular intervals.
Apart from considering the recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, I would venture to suggest that, in your Excellency’s efforts to unify the nation, Your Excellency could well benefit from the core values that were both professed and practised at Richmond College, where I was privileged to have all my primary and secondary education. |
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In conclusion, may I commend to Your Excellency the admonition of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the US, that “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little” With best wishes,
Yours sincerely,
Elmore Perera |
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B.Sc., LL.B, F.C.M.A., Dipl. PMD (U. Conn), TREND (U. Conn), CSSI,
Chartered Management Accountant, Chartered Surveyor,
Management and Training Consultant,
Attorney-at-Law, Commissioner for Oaths,
Notary Public and Company Secretary,
Former Addl. Director SLIDA and Surveyor General,
Past President, Organisation of Professional Organisations,
Vice President, Citizens’ Movement for Good Governance. |
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