By S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole –

Prof S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole

Caste and Corruption

We are used to a world where certain families, certain communities have higher standards and are relatively free of financial corruption. A good example is Dudley Senanayake who, for one who dressed regularly in a suit, is said to have had only two suits and two sarongs and some T-Shirts at the time of his death. An AI search says, “while it’s difficult to verify the precise number of suits he owned at the time of his passing, Dudley Senanayake was known for his dedication to public service and his unwavering integrity.” While people are unable to point to any financial corruption on the part of JR Jayewardene, he was politically corrupt and an ASP associated with his security detail, testified to goings on at Temple Trees involving his daughter-in-law.

Ranil and Maithree Wickremesinghe

Political corruption is a different matter as we have seen. The Rt. Rev. Lakshman Wickremesinghe literally cried at the Maruthanamadam Ashram which he visited after the 1983 riots, bemoaning that a close relation had been involved in its organization. His nephew Ranil has indeed been known for political corruption with many allegations swirling round him – Batalanda, Central Bank, giving free rein to those under him to make money and then using that to control them, etc.

However, credibly sustainable financial corruption allegations are from his Achilles’ Heel – his wife, Prof. Maithree Wickremesinghe. She had her BA from London and was recruited by University of Kelaniya as a Lecturer (Probationary). Most fulfil the conditions of probation for Arts Departments, the major condition being the need to finish a1-year postgraduate degree, far below the requirement of a 2-year degree in science. A probationary appointment is initially for 3 years which may be extended a year at a time to 5 years. She was unable to get this done and had to be terminated as required by the Universities Act No. 16 of 1978 Part X, Section 72: “Every appointment to a post of teacher shall, in the first instance, be for a probationary period of three years, which period may be extended by the Governing Authority of the Higher Educational Institution to which such teacher is attached, by one year at a time for a further period not exceeding five years:

Kelaniya had exhausted its extensions and came to the UGC which allowed Kelaniya to terminate her and rehire her as if on a freash appoinment. It had not been done for anyone in Sri Lanka and was a special, extraordinary favour to Ranil.  It seems that Kelaniya did not advertise the position or did readvertise and mysteriously found her to be the best of the applicants.

At the time, around 2004, Maithree had no publication corpus of note. Nor a postgraduate degree for promotion. But she has risen to be Senior Professor since. Her subsequent publication record now is very questionable in its impact for a Senior Professor. The site scholar.google.com with name spelt as Maithree Wickraramasinghe would show that most listings are trivial for mention in Google Scholar (like a blog in the Sunday Times in which her family, the Wijewardenes, hold controlling shares) and reviews of other people’s works and listings authored by others but have cited her. An example of the latter is the D. Miss. Thesis that has a brief citation of her: Herman Andriezen, “Understanding Evangelical Charismatic Church Leadership in Kandy: The Dilemma of Serving in a Hierarchical Culture,” Singapore Bible College, Nov. 2023.

I believe Maithree’s reappointment after terminstion was wrong because the position had to be advertised and I am hard pressed to believe there were no better applicants.

All the salaries she drew under the new appointment I believe to be improper and may be termed fraud.

It is this Maithree who was made an Honorary Professor when Ranil was President. It was at Wolverhampton University which achieved university status only in 1992. I believe that no academic review is requiired to make one an honorary professor, especially in a university without long-established traditions. Ranil being President was in all likelihood a part of the consideration in granting her the title Honorary Professor.

Ranil and Maithree attending the graduation ceremony was during the buildup to the graduation ceremony which was the celebration of Maithree’s professorship. It was, I deem, no state function and therefore the visit was strictly private and not a state event.

The government putting the matter to court is right and we must let the judiciary decide definitively.

The government must be congratulated for putting it in the hands of the judiciary and we must wait to see if similar actions are in order for Mahinda Rajapaksa’s grandiose trips and for Gotabaya’s diverting a flight because his pilot friend could not fly the usual bigger aircraft, with loss of 56 passengers to carry his puppy on the smaller aircraft.

And Maithripala Sirisena knowing who was behind the Muslim Pogrom and refusing to say who, seems an obviously chargeable offence – accessary after the fact, as a minimum. He needs to be locked up and held behind bars until he reveals the evidence he has.

Why is the CID not acting against these individuals?

Mainline Protestant Churches – Wooly Headedness of the NCCSL

The mainline churches’ National Christian Council of Sri Lanka (NCCSL) is an association of Protestant Churches consisting of the Church of Ceylon (Diocese of Colombo), Church of Ceylon (Diocese of Kurunagala), Church of South India (Jaffna Diocese), Methodist Church of Sri Lanka, Baptist Sangamaya, Presbytery of Sri Lanka, Lanka Lutheran, the Salvation Army of Sri Lanka, Church of the America Ceylon Mission, Christian Reformed Church, Assemblies of God, and Church of the Four Square Gospel. The last 4 joined recently.

Until the 1940s we Christians were strongly rules-based and it was easy to practice our religion – there is but one God, do not lie, do not commit adultery, etc. With the founding of the World Council of churches in 1948, the emphasis shifted to unity. To be united meant ignoring doctrinal differences. Methodists could divorce and remarry, but Anglicans could not. With the entry of the Pentecostal churches, the mainliners have no Holy Spirit when they pray so do not attend their services. Anglicans say like the Roman Cathoics that the Church gave us the Bible so the traditions and practices of the early church have teaching authority. The other churches deny that saying the Bible is simply there. This leaves in the air the Doctrine of the Trinity which flows from the Church and not directly from the Bible.

Unity meant the dethroning of hard doctrine. Love is the dominant word. Differences are bad. These changes eliminate racial differences for the good of all, but enhance tensions when doctrine clashes with acceptance of free-love and homosexuality.

Without doctrine, we have from the NCCSL website, a move towards Common Liturgy and Worship, and respect for the doctrines, traditions, symbols and practices of the other major religions. We are urged to refrain from ridiculing or exploiting any weakness of a given religious community or leader for our own gain – so our stance against child marriage or even polygamy and adultery as practised by Krishna and Siva must be dropped; as must our poisition on Krishna practising homosexuality for a night.

Despite NCCSL’s inclusivity, enhancing NCCSL power remains a target. As the website says, (NCCSL) is a prominent ecumenical organization that represents the Christian community in Sri Lanka. That is, the Roman Cstholic Church is dismissed as Christian since it is not part of NCCSL’s inclusivity that includes every non-Christian religion except Catholic Christianity

Earlier with rigid doctrine, there was shame in deviations from the faith. We rarely saw clerical theft or adultery, and when these happened, it was punished. At lest to avoid the shame we desisted from these sins. Now as these deviations multiply, there is rarely punishment. As a son of a Vicar, I had heard of a few deviant priests and their quick punishments. When a Methodist Priest who was brought up by the missions stole money when he grew up to be in charge, he had to run away to India.

By the 1990s, Kindernothilfe (KNH), a German non-profit organization had its funds embezzled by NCCSL clergymen.  They falsely claimed that houses were built behind LTTE lines where verification was not possible. Their game was up when a clergyman certified houses claimed as built by his partner were not to be seen. I was on the Standing Committee of the Anglican Church then and Kenneth Fernando who was in charge of KNH in Sri Lanka kept the conversation to his lieutenants who usually sat next to him at a big meeting table.

With such coverup, one of the clergymen involved who had been taking orphanage girls on his trips from Batticaloa and was in jail for that, became a serious candidate to be Bishop of the CSI (Jaffna Diocese). Such was the misery that befell the Church as shame went away from us. Today Sri Lanka’s problem is that we feel no shame for the bad things we do.

The Protestant churches’ clean image is gone. In many free churches, the pastors who were lifted up by the church from their lowly backgrounds steal with no shame. They feel entitled. Even the richer pastors as in the Grace and other Presbyterian churches located in Colombo are thieves, and where not, often accessories to theft. Even in the Anglican Church, retired bishops Kenneth Fernando and Duleep de Chickera, have unlawfully violated a trust deed relating to the Bishopric Endowment  taking Rs. 50 lakhs each to buy themselves cars, as the Archdeacons took Rs. 110 lakhs each. Shame is gone.

How Bishop Kenneth weakend the hold on us of doctrine, he wished  a deceased Buddhist Monk in the Anglican church newspaper, “May he attain Nibbana. The new Kenneth doctrine was, resting in peace till our resurrection was as true as release from the cycle of rebirth.

The New Methodist Scandal involving Rs. 17 million

As I write today (22 Aug.) I have news of a new scandal in the Methodist Church. In a letter calling for prayers for the church, Rev. Asiri Perera, a former  President writes,

“Please be in prayer tomorrow 19th [August] as Nishantha, the Secretary for Finance has been called in to the Fraud Bureau for investigations.

“Thus far things have moved slowly but steadily bringing to light what has been done in secret by him and Rev [William Premkumar] Ebenezer Joseph my successor as Presiding Bishop.

“Some say  Nishantha takes it very lightly, while others say he was with a troubled look at the headquarters the day he received the summons last week.

“Let the Lord handle him and the investigators tomorrow.”

Joseph is from a humble background from the hill country where his father was an evangelist. Joseph rose to be General Secretary of NCCSL for 14 years and was the President of the Methodist Church of Sri Lanka for two terms during 2005-2010. He was the recipient of the World Methodist Peace Award 2022. He is  the Co-Secretary of the Congress of Religions and the Secretary General of the Inter-faith Coalition for Peace. Having pioneered many innovative peace-related programmes, including interfaith initiatives, he passionately promotes interfaith activities addressing issues of religious freedom as well. He promoted ecumenical relations among various Christian denominations and inter- and intra-faith dialogue. This is how Methodist internet archives describe him with pride.

Doctrine seems to have been of little interest to him.

I pray for the return to a sense of shame among all Sri Lankans. That would set everything right. At least we would be lawful for fear of the loss of shame, if not the fear of God.