By Vishwamithra –

“You are the big drop of dew under the lotus leaf, I am the smaller one on its upper side, said the dewdrop to the lake” ~ Ravindranath Tagore

PM Amarasuriya

Harini Amarasuriya was second only to Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) on the election platform. The public looked to her as the female alternative to AKD, the leader of the movement that spearheaded the NPP to power. Her 56% campaign (women comprised 56% Sri Lanka’s voting population), galvanized the women folk for the support of the National People’s Power (NPP) and caught the eye of many a political pundit and the average voter more so. She led the women’s power to a dazzling display of authentic rural awakening. With each passing day of the 56% campaign, she showed, without a break, why she mattered. And the voters believed her and followed her to the polling booth.

Educated in Bishops College Colombo, one of the elite girls schools in Colombo, Harini did not stop there. Enriching her resume by attending the University of Delhi and then obtaining her PhD from the University of Edinburgh, her comprehensive academic accomplishments could hardly be matched by any parliamentarian currently occupying and warming the seats of the House of the People. The expectations of her were quite high and the promise lofty.

But what happened to her? Upon being promoted to the exalted seat of Prime Minister, those expectations reached a higher plain. The average voter, especially those women who followed her from one campaign meeting to another may have surmised that here was a woman, born in the Southern city of Galle, connected to the Amarasuriyas, one of the wealthiest and most elite families in the South, Harini’s curriculum vitae could not have been more ideal for a so-called people’s movement, a left-leaning political party such as the National People’s Power, the old Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) with a veneer of moderation and open market-friendliness.

Leave alone the politics of the given context, Harini’s scholarly achievements should have attracted any serious political party, either on the right or left of the spectrum. Her followers included among others, a second tier of women speakers who emerged on the 56% platform. They must be eternally grateful to her for there would not have been another opportunity for them to begin their journey and mature as national level speakers other than on a fresh and contemporary political stage.

But political power is nasty and vicious; its influence on a country’s travel from one stage to another could have an intoxicating effect on those who choose to practice politics as their full-time profession. Everyone of Harini’s disciples may not have been tempered with the same degree of discipline that Harini has displayed up to the time. Nevertheless, Harini has shown the same degree of political and administrative discipline that AKD has exhibited so far. Seemingly calm and poised in the face of many a crisis-ridden situation, Harini, in fact, is a marvelous example of a leader one could adopt as a role-model.

But her journey should not end there. Being Prime Minister is a weighty and burdensome responsibility. Abstract leadership qualities alone would not suffice. She, being also the Minister of Education, has an enormous task of leading the country’s education sector with fresher ideas and more unfamiliar ideals. She is a product of yesteryear’s system and that alone should lead her to the realization of more defined and specific goals. This is the first time that Sri Lanka had a woman as its Education Minister. Children, when they attend school, more often than not, identify their teacher in a ‘sari’ than in a full suit like a male teacher. That is a clear and a given advantage. A woman at the helm in any institution could wield more power than a man indeed.

After more than six months in power, Harini acts as if she is still in search of her own identity. She was chosen as Prime Minister, disregarding many a qualified man in the NPP lot, not for the sole reason of she being of fairer sex. The inherent advantage that it gives the NPP-led government, the acceptance in the international arena emanating from her academic qualifications, having proven her organization skills in the 56% campaign and the sheer pleasantly motivating personality that she bears add to her potential as a clear-thinking and strategic-minded Minister of Education; but all that seems to have come to naught.

It is absolutely depressing to write these unkind words about her performance to date. The writer is as disillusioned with her as must be the hundreds of thousands of women who reposed infinite faith in her during the campaign time. It is more than obvious that education as an inseparable part of Sri Lanka, its core content, its delivery via elementary, junior, secondary schools and ultimately at the university level is much to be desired. The so-called free education, especially at the secondary level, for both G.C.E. Ordinary level and Advanced level students is no more free at all. Hundreds of thousands of secondary school children attending private classes conducted by their own school masters at prohibitive charges has made our education beyond the reach of the rural children whose skills and talents could be measured now only in terms of ordinary or sub-ordinary levels.

Is there any way, shape of fashion by which this treacherous drama of private classes be terminated? Many an educationist may have set his or her heart on finding a lasting solution for this ruthless feature of our children’s lives but apparently no one seems to have made an attempt even to identify it as an ill-natured aspect of this unfortunate and unwelcome feature of our education system. Free market economic principles may have to be set aside; socialist and fair-minded systems do exist and they must be explored too if the intentions are kind and overpowering with reasoning backed by unpitying execution.

Has Harini paid any attention to this feature? If so, has she set in motion any new methods and MOs in order to stem the decaying of the country’s very future- our children’s education? These questions should bother our Minister of Education. Free education was introduced in Ceylon in 1945. Our first Prime Minister was elected in 1947. But it had to wait until 2024, seventy seven long years, to produce a President from Thambuththegama Central School. Surely our Prime Minster who is also the Education Minster knows these hard and cruel facts. CWW Kannangara, the man who introduced free education in Ceylon too attended a prestigious elite school in the South, Richmond College, Galle. But that did not prevent him from seeing the true nature of our glaring inequalities of the then education system; but he had the skills and above all, the will to inaugurate a brand new system that opened the vistas for hundreds of thousands of boys and girls in the rural Ceylon.

If Kannangara could do it, so could another product of the South, Harini Amarasuriya. I am not writing here to spell out the exact content, its shape and the means by which the potential changes could be initiated and delivered. It’s totally up to the Minister in charge and her massive bureaucracy in the Education Ministry and the Department.

But something must be done, not tomorrow or day after; it should be done yesterday or the day Harini Amarasuriya took oaths as the Minster of Education. Each day that passes by is an year lost for our children. I’m not, as was told earlier, mapping out the exact corners and contours of a system that must be executed. I’m asking her to take the initiative to introduce changes that could eventually produce hundreds of Anura Kumara Dissanayakes all over the country. Can’t we be proud of such an achievement so that the ultimate power of governance would come back to the very blood and flesh of our rural men and women of Sri Lanka, from the Deep South to upmost North.

Prime Minster under the present Constitution does not enjoy any additional power as it enjoyed under the Westminster system of governance prior to the introduction the Executive Presidency in 1978. The position carries prestige and recognition. But that prestige and recognition also carries the burden of responsibility and deliverable skills and talents. Harini Amarasuriya does carry the talents and skills. All she needs is the will and her disciplined application of the knowledge and expertise she gained through her own higher education.

Let her be worthy of it.

*The writer can be reached at vishwamithra1984@gmail.com