By Vishwamithra –

“A woman’s true tenderness, like the true virility of man, is expressed in action of a conquering kind.”  ~Joseph Conrad, Nostromo

When expressed in terms of a portion of a whole, 56% is a majority, A comfortable one. That is the percentage, 56%, that constitutes the female component of the total voting population in Sri Lanka as at elections time in 2024. Grandmothers, mothers, wives, sisters and aunts make up this majority. Their influential power in a family is manifestly greater than that of their counterparts- males. The hand that rocks the cradle is immeasurably more forceful than the hands that physically build a house; they are more supple than the flexibility that men exercise during their hard business transactions they negotiate in offices; they indeed are more unbending and decisive when it comes to deals with family squabbles.

Their ability to change their minds in a nanosecond, makes them unpredictable; it keeps the man in the family on edge; a lover on trembling grounds of suspicion and indecision, because woman is entitled to change of mind anytime, without exception. That is her strength, that is her unique quality and that is what makes her exceptional and always in demand. It is always the mother or grandmother in the family that is called upon to reconcile many an irreconcilable issue. A troubled son may not listen to his father, but he will, more often than not, obey his mother.

The food cooked by the mother is always more delicious than those you can get at any expensive restaurant. Mother’s dishes would beat any highly paid man-chef anytime, anywhere. With all this significance and exceptionalism attached to ‘woman’, despite the fact that Sri Lanka produced the first woman Prime Minister in the world, later her own daughter becoming the President of the country after four decades, why haven’t any of the political parties, except the National People’s Power (NPP) paid any reasonable attention to the woman in society?

We are not a patriarchal society like India. We deify our parents, especially our mother without any hesitancy. Yet when it comes to lending prominence and extraordinary recognition, we pause and tend to think twice before doing such an ordinary deed. We were engrossed in traditional worship of men partly due to the fact that in the days gone by only men were the sole breadwinners of our families. Yet even in such traditional circumstances of family life, it was always the mother, wife or grandmother, barring some extraordinary circumstances where an overly domineering father would rule the waves, who dominated the family rule. Whichever way one looks, one simply cannot outperform the duties of a mother and or a wife- woman.

However, what kept woman in the background of shadows? Was it because of the particular timidness or shyness of the wife, or was it at times the presence of sheer domineering behavior of the father or husband? Despite these random conditions of the times, woman’s chores at home alone contributed to the overwhelming sense of responsibility and duty to balance the expenses against income when it came to management-affairs of the household. Mother and mother alone managed to keep this dynamic equilibrium moving in a very changing organism of family-life.

Paying tribute to that woman once in every year by way of birthday or Mother’s Day cards is utterly superficial and purely ornamental. Our men have fallen into that shallow hole of once a year greetings.

However, when it comes to politics, especially at times of election campaign time, all of a sudden, woman becomes important Not because of a lifelong commitment to the notion of nobility of woman as an indispensable part of our lives; but as a cursory fulfillment of a pledge taken long time ago at a function of traditional significance. That is not enough.

Arithmetic alone testifies to the singularity of this dominant partner in all our lives- woman. Fifty two percent (52%) of our population are our women. When it is taken in the context of the voting population, it increases to fifty six percent (56%). Organizing this component of our population, taken in isolation as well as in the midst of changing dynamics of electioneering, is strategically critical apart from extending a noble hand to a unequaled element of our daily lives.

Of all political parties that are engaged in the Presidential Election campaign, only National People’s Power (NPP) has realized the significance of this element of the campaign. The NPP may have had the arithmetical value (56%) when they launched their ‘Gahenu Eke Mitata’  (Women in one Cluster) campaign. When its singular significance dawned on Ranil Wickremasinghe and Sajith Premadasa, it was too late and too little for them. 60% to 70% of the 56% has already committed to the NPP. Kudos to the NPP.

When the NPP held their first ‘Gahenu Eka Mitata’ rally in Matara, Ranil and Sajith made a sterile attempt to imitate and failed miserably. Consequent to the Matara meeting, one could notice that the great majority of the NPP meeting attendees comprised of women of all ages; old, young, middle-aged and adolescent, they filled the space of the ground of the rallies. That was no accident. It was a result of a strategic and tactical move very cleverly and intelligently crafted by the thinkers of the NPP.

But the cliché goes as follows: proof of the pudding in in the eating. Will these women execute the function that is expected of them? Would they convince their families, friends and neighbors to go to the polling booth come election day and vote for Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD)? Harini Amarasuriya the quiet but forceful power behind the organization of Gahenu Eka Mitata campaign has contributed her mite, without sparing any effort, sweat of tears.

Harini, a man in the sense of physical strength and endurance, amongst men and women is not second to any top tier leadership men and women in the NPP. Quietly blowing oxygen to the NPP’s leadership structure, Harini’s role in the organization seems to be a gracious movment of a simple and unsophisticated lady amongst upper-class snobbish men and women. Her sophistication dwells in the very substance of her scholarly orations; it dwells in the efficiency with which she achieved near-perfection getting together the most unsophisticated and simple women all over the country and making them a proud pillar of strength and stoicism in a chaotic political environment. Harini also seems to be blessed with some enormously talented second tier speakers and organizers whose names I shall refrain from mentioning here.

If one takes the time to observe more carefully the countenances of the women who gather at the NPP rallies, one beholds pride, simplicity, poverty, emotional richness and physical fatigue and above all singular ambition to work, to withstand and endure any hardship and fight clumsiness, societal wrongs and prevail. Prevail they shall!

The mud-slinging campaign has begun in earnest. That is part and parcel of election campaigning. One has to be ready for that and one is left with no alternative but counter them with equal force and power. Only one more week, next Saturday, September 21^st the country will trek to the polling booth and elect the next President. It has been a peaceful campaign so far; everyone’s hope is that  it would continue like that for another seven days.

Sri Lanka has suffered beyond all imagination for the last two and half years. An economic collapse of the worst order; petrol, diesel and gas lines skirting the surrounding environs up to miles; starvation setting in the rural hamlets; in the midst of this social illness, an upheaval of hitherto unknown proportions, and an Aragalaya culminating in the ouster of the incumbent President. The old JVP is now known as NPP; its policies and principles are totally different from the Marxian-based economic and governance principles. Its leadership seems fresh and devoid of Rohana Wijeweera’s rigidity, ruggedness and anachronistic, doctrinaire tinge. AKD is a fresh face with a fresh agenda.

Are Sri Lankans ready for that freshness or would they embrace the old political skeletons of Ranil Wickremesinghe and Sajith Premadasa? There is no difference of policy and principles between Ranil and Sajith. It’s the same old Arrack in a different bottle. Two and half years’ endurance of suffering must mean something more than just a change of government or that of a regime. For change to be totally meaningful, it must be full, whole and absolute. Sri Lankans have to show that they are worthy of the 56%- they must ‘break the proverbial egg.’

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