By S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole –

Prof S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole

As I write this article on [former Speaker] Asoka Ranwala’s claimed  doctorate allegedly without having one, he has resigned promising to produce the evidence and admitting no error or false claims on his part. We need to wait and see if he produces the evidence.

However, I think too much is said about it in a country where academic standards are low and academic jealousies high. It ought to be different but we are born into this cesspit and must accept that mis-claims will be common, and learn to deal with them with compassion and work hard with our government that is keen to clean up. Perhaps it is an opportunity for President Anura Kumara Dissanayake to bring new perspectives in going for a new person at least as a temporary measure not to distract from the workings of government at this crucial time.

What I do point out is that those who fling accusations are no angels. They are using the opportunity without foundation to glorify themselves. It is former MP Professor Ashu Marasinghe of the United National Party (UNP) who said at a press briefing in Colombo, on 11 December 2024 that “Waseda University’s repository does not list his [Ranwala’s] name among doctoral theses or academic publications.”

It is the UNP that started the game of claiming a doctorate without having one. Mr. W. Dahanayake without a doctorate but as Minister of Education holding the Education Ministry’s purse strings got an honourary doctorate from University of Ceylon. Likewise, the Rajapaksa brothers have Honourary Doctorates from Colombo and were often referred to with the title doctor at the beginning before better sense overcame them. While Mahinda Rajapakse has been cautious in not letting an honourary doctorate go to his ego, Gotabaya Rajapakse has been careless, seemingly believing that he really is a doctor in the Sunday Observer where it is stated “In the footsteps of inspirational leaders Dr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa is a ‘born leader’ as he has exercised effective leadership as Secretary of Defence and Urban Development.” Gothabaya Rajapaksa has even gone further,   starting a Facebook group called Dr. Gotabya Rajapaksa Group:

As the Bible says, Proverbs 16:18,  “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” Fall he did!

Deakin University in Australia after honouring Ranil Wickremesinghe with their doctorate, has referred to him as Dr. Wickremesinghe: “Delivering the 2017 Deakin Law Oration, Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister the Honourable Dr Ranil Wickremesinghe has called for renewed regional attention to ensure free and safe navigation in the Indian Ocean.” When a university abuses its honourary doctorate calling the awardee doctor, it speaks ill of its own academic standards. Thus we have one more charlatan listed with the title doctor with no thesis in the Deakin University Library. Fall, he too did.

The Sunday Times editorial too on 19 Feb. 2017, decided to join the suckups writing “Did Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, now Dr. Ranil Wickremesinghe, overreact in asking the Cabinet to declare a State of Emergency and to call out the troops to meet the challenge of an impending drought?” To call him doctor is downright editorial sucking up to authority. The people in the recent two elections have put such editors on notice.

Ada Derana too did not wish to be left out of the opportunity to suck up: “Prime Minister Dr. Ranil Wickremesinghe Launched Sri-Lanka’s First Free Educational Web-Based Platform ‘YouCompare.lk’” (March, 9, 2017)

Let me say that many speak on the subject knowing little about it and its ethics norms. First there is the normal doctorate and then there is the higher doctorate which comes in two kinds, the earned higher doctorate and the hnourary doctorate to honour the awardee. I do not know what the former Speaker is said to have or claimed. The PhD is normally always earned but in ever-inventive Sri Lanka full of suck-ups even the master’s degree has been given as an honourary degree, as do some of the lower rung British universities.

Because these doctoral degrees can be earned or granted in honour, it is the ethics norm that when one is granted a doctorate in honour it is listed after one’s name as D.Litt. (Honoris Causa) or D.Litt. (H.C.) etc. For, as an example, to list a D.Sc. (H.C) as D.Sc. is to pretend that it was earned – earned usually by submitting one’s publications for examination to establish if they have contributed to the establishment of a major discipline (whereas the doctorate contributes knowledge to an existing discipline).

The Tradition in Sri Lanka

The precedent in Sri Lanka weakens the traditions behind honourary degrees. For example  Hon. Wijeyananda Dahanayake our Prime Minister (Sept. 1959-March 1960) is known best as  Bunis Maama who introduced free buns to us with a cup of milk  at school (I believe with funds from US Aid). While poorer students played football with the buns or threw them to a crows as if to show they are not poor, when I managed to collect a few, my mother made the best bread-pudding I have ever tasted. I therefore do not grudge honouring Dahanayake for his contribution to “bun-pudding” at home.

However, as Prof. S. Mahalingam, PhD Sheffield, D.Sc. (Eng.) London told me, Dahanayake’s initial letter-head correctly listed D.Sc. (Honoris Causa). At the time it was said, as Mahalingam put it to me, that Honoris Causa woud soon disappear and it did. This is seen in the above picture where Hon. is for his being a Member of Parliament and not for his Doctorate being Honourary. Dahanayake had no doctorate but he effectively pretended to have earned one through seminal publications. Parliament to this day keeps up the lie.

So this academic charlatanry, indeed chicanery, has its home in the UNP Parliament and the now resigned Speaker regrettably was only following parliamentary norms and in the footsteps of W. Dahanayake, Ranil Wickremesinghe, and Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

A word on my master’s degree and my master’s degree supervisor Charles John Carpenter of Imperial College. Carpenter had worked as a Senior Lecturer in the West Indies and joined Imperial College with a thick publication record. He was too established to register for his doctorate so he worked with his Master’s and was soon awarded his D.Sc. (Eng.) degree by London based on his publication record.

Unlike our national leaders who claimed to have a doctorate without having one, he who had a higher doctorate continued as Mr. C. John Carpenter. That is true honourable leadership.

I was raw then in 1976. Fortunately my Lecturer at Katubedde, the late Dr. C.B. Rajanathan, was then doing his doctorate at Imperial College. He urged me strongly, “Work with Carpenter. Any topic he assigns you will turn to gold.” So it did. My M.Sc. thesis turned into two indexed journal articles. When I was at Peradeniya, when my undergraduate project students published indexed papers when most lecturers could not even publish one indexed paper a year, some of my collegues slandered me saying, “Hoole gets students to do his work and then puts his name on their papers.” Sure. My critics did not understand that that is the nature of research. Like Carpenter, a good supervisor gives the idea for  a project, guides his students as they flesh out the details, and then writes a paper with them.

The point is two-fold. First, accusations in Sri Lanka come too easily and are borne of jealousy and rooted in lack of self-worth. It is like the dirty establishment politicians in fear of the AK Dissanayake clean-up, throwing mud at the government ignoring their own dirty history. Two, good leaders like Carpenter gel with their students and create academic progeny who keep science growing.

Just like that, AK Dissanayake’s government is new and we must give it space to allow its deas so strongly edorsed by the people to grow and spread. We must wait to find out what Speaker Ranwala has to say. Does he have even an honourary doctorate? Did Dahanayake, Ranil Wickremesinghe and Gothabaya Rajapaksa have earned doctorates as claimed in referring to them as “Doctor”? Ranwala is one man who might have made a wrong claim about his credentials. However, it is no blot on the government’s escutcheon compared to the misleading claims of those experienced political giants – conmen really –  like W. Dahanayake, Ranil Wickremesinghe and Gothabaya Rajapaksa.

Did Ranwala claim he has an earned doctorate as he is accused? Remember, even if he did make a false claim, when a friend whom we trust makes such a claim, we simply accept it on trust without asking to be shown the certificate. If Ranwala made such a false, it cannot be put at the feet of AK Dissanayake or his government. Let President Dissanayake deal with Ranwala after hearing the explanation we have been promised.

Remember. This is a new government. We must give it the space to enunciate its policies and implement them. It is wrong to shut that space at this critical time for informed discussion when long-experienced politicisns like W. Dahanayake Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Ranil Wickremesinghe of whom far more is expected, have cheated us, conning us, directly or through their supporters like The Sunday Times Editor, into believing that they have earned doctorates based on seminal publications.