By Malinda Seneviratne –

What was Sri Lanka like in the year 2011? That’s fifteen years ago. Long before ‘The Aragalaya,’ before the crisis that was the logical end-point of decades long dabbling in patently flawed economic think and perhaps precipitated by key policy errors of the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government, not to mention the Covid pandemic and the Ukraine-Russia war.

It was a time of political stability which of course doesn’t necessarily mean things were all rosy on the political front. Mahinda Rajapaksa had just won a second term on the strength of policy direction that ended a decades long war on terrorism. His main rival at that election, Sarath Fonseka, the former Army Commander who played a key role in the defeat of the LTTE, was behind bars for reasons of political expediency more than anything else.

The opposition was in disarray: the United National Party had to ‘borrow’ a candidate to face Rajapaksa. The JVP was just a tag-along political outfit. The people, at least going by the numbers, were not unhappy with a Rajapaksa second term. The economy was doing well, perhaps thanks to the ground being cleared for economic activity following the end of the war rather than any policy-magic of the political leadership.

In other news, Sri Lanka made it to the World Cup final. Things weren’t too bad. The year 2011, upon reflection, was another country in another century.

Things happen during any calendar year. Always. Of the political and economic ‘overall’ certain things stand out, but what’s remembered depends on what’s important and inconsequential for the person recollecting. Academics, especially economists and political scientists, on the other hand, would be better positioned to offer diagnosis and prognosis. The rest, for the most part, probably remember that which was too important to forget at a personal level.

Few would think ‘Colombo Telegraph’ if nudged to recall ‘2011.’ Understandable. Things such as newspapers and websites start slow. It takes years to secure a memory-slot in the minds of the readership. And even when this happens, it’s just one of those things taken for granted. When and how things started aren’t really important.

Uvindu Kurukulasuriya had to remind me. Uvindu didn’t exactly launch the website that’s known as ‘Colombo Telegraph’ and what came to be known as ‘CT.’ There was no elaborate or even modest launch. One might say ‘a whim’ but Uvindu isn’t your typical whimsical journalist. He was, even at that time, well-known and respected as a journalist who understood the importance of research-generated facts. He had the added advantage (or maybe ‘disadvantage’) of a conscience. Ethics were important to him. He knew the meaning of the dictum ‘facts are sacred, comment free.’ He had the ideological and political drive to comment, and the memory too, but for the most part he drew from established facts.

Uvindu lived in the UK. Self-imposed exile and a generally laidback lifestyle sans any significant personal ambitions, materialistic or otherwise, offered him enabling ‘leisure.’ That said, the work was anything but leisurely, as anyone engaged in content-creation of a political kind would know. It’s relentless. He mined Wikileaks. He offered comments. And, by and by, people started contributing analytical pieces. FoC. Over time, I believe ‘getting it into CT’ did much for the personal/professional profiles of some authors; a clear indication that CT had risen to a certain degree of prominence in the firmament of online discourse.

I cannot remember how my association with CT began. I do remember visiting Uvindu or being invited to his place a few days before he left Sri Lanka. I can’t remember the year. We weren’t buddies. In fact, the first time I met him, at the Borella Kanatta. I can’t remember whose funeral it was. Uvindu punched me (in a good hearted way) for my involvement in a response-ad to a full page ad that the Free Media Movement had inserted in the Daily Mirror. He appreciated my political engagement and critiqued something I had written (I believe it was an article on HL Seneviratne). We became friends, even though ideologically and therefore politically we were in two different camps.

Anyway, at some point, Uvindu asked me to write to CT. I think he was kind enough to accommodate articles I wrote for newspapers. I may have written a few pieces just for CT, but they were exceptions. My recollection is that for the most part Uvindu wanted people to write fresh pieces for CT.

We communicated. He sometimes called. Sometimes there were Skype calls. It’s those conversations that told me how meticulous Uvindu was in processing content for CT. He insisted that I stop using double-space between sentences. I complied simply because I knew it was tedious for him to correct that particular error. And eventually I got used to ‘single-space.’ It was not just such technical things; like any good editor Uvindu would now and then get back to me on spelling and sentence structure, and at times even claims made.

He was kind. CT generates a lot of commentary and for the most part Uvindu doesn’t filter. On occasion, though, he would point out a particularly acerbic comment on something I had written (and there were many, by the way, for most of the readership were ideologically aligned with Uvindu’s positions and therefore opposed to mine!) and ask if it’s ok to go. I can’t remember saying ‘not ok,’ ever. Such courtesies there were.

From my first editor, Manik De Silva, I had learned that a good editor should have a liberal editorial policy. Uvindu accommodated me. Others may have not. And have not, actually.

It’s about friendship, but not only that. There were commonalities that counted. For example, our histories in that amorphous country called ‘left politics,’ particularly the LSSP. In my case, by association. There were values we shared.

We were friends and ideology and political preferences notwithstanding we supported each other. Sometimes he would get me to ‘fix’ a headline or ‘clean up’ some news item, even if the content or slant might be disagreeable.

He would often inquire about my financial situation, knowing well that it is never easy being an unemployed (and unemployable, perhaps) graduate. He has helped me with whatever he could afford at various points over the last 15 years. As he has many people. Millions, I am sure, if it were all added up. CT generates income, but not the kind of bucks that could be mined if Uvindu was that way inclined. He just did what he thought needed to be done. He just lived a modest life, satisfied with basic ‘necessities.’

I’ve seen it all. In 2017, when I visited the UK with my family, Uvindu took us on a rudimentary tourist-round. And invited us to his place for dinner. As always we talked politics, but more than that about just being, the lives we led, our friends (and political opponents). We laughed. We always do when we talk over the phone.

I can’t think of a man more principled than Uvindu when it comes to ‘The Left.’ Unlike most ‘leftists’ he didn’t look the other way when ‘comrades’ erred. He held them to high standards and if they strayed he called them out.  The late Victor Ivan, for example.

There are things I know about Uvindu which I will not mention because it’s too personal. The emotions, I mean. He has a sharp, inquisitive and analytical mind, but the organ that endears him to me and which is what CT is all about, come to think of it, is Uvindu’s heart. I’ve seen it.

The year 2011. A lot of things may have happened in those 12 months. Uvindu Kurukulasuriya started the Colombo Telegraph. Whether CT precipitated or in some way contributed to the political unfolding of the past 15 years, I cannot say. Shaped thinking, that it did. And that’s good enough.