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The title of my article this week is the title of the felicitation program organized and conducted in Sri Lanka at the Bhikkhu’s abode – Mitirigala Nissarana Vanaya Monastery – and streamed virtually worldwide. It was to mark Ven Uda Eriyagama Dhammajiva Maha Thera’s 70th birthday; “his 33 years of monastic life; his contribution to the Buddha’s Dispensation and his introducing mindfulness to school children and dissemination of mindfulness amongst all.” The free online event was streamed online on Saturday February 5.
The term ‘a career’ comes in here as he, in lay life, was a qualified agriculturist in the mercantile sector who gave it all up at age 37 and joined the Sangha as a forest monk. Most fortunately he did not recluse himself once he was higher ordained, rather did he engage in dhammaduta work – spreading the Word of the Buddha in many countries including the US, UK, Germany and Australia, and to lead Sri Lankans on the correct Path. But his life’s work now seems to be propagating sathi.
About a decade ago, he introduced and actively promoted the concept and practice of Sathi – Mindfulness. His great beneficial innovation was to start Sathi Paasal or ‘schools’ for Sathi introduction and practice. Children are targeted, as young as primary students, with no preaching of Buddhist Dhamma. Emphasized here is that there is not the slightest intention of conversion to Buddhism or judgment of other religions. Children of both sexes, all religions, and from different strata of society are welcomed in the paasal which are mostly daytime sessions conducted by trained teachers. Sathi as an educational concept is now within the school curriculum, Ven U Dhammajiva Maha Thera having worked closely with the Education Department in preparation of syllabi and training teachers. The concept is spreading in other countries too.
‘A life’ as given in the title of the felicitation program was referred to by various speakers referring to his life as a monk. He was born in Eriyagama, a hamlet close to Kandy. Details of childhood were missing in the articles I researched. (A biograohy in Sinhala is available). He graduated with both BSc and MSc degrees from the University of Peradeniya and was a CEO of a foreign company based in the island. In 1977 as a graduand on vacation at home for one month, he had his father falling seriously ill. He nursed him but he died. That had a strong impact on him, when he earnestly pondered on life and its eternal dukka – unsatisfactoriness.
He became “disillusioned with the fruitless pursuit of material enrichment.” On November 16, 1988, he ordained and in June 1990 received higher ordination. From the time of ordination up until 1992, he was under training by the great meditator – (then believed by many to be an Arahat) – Matara Sri Nanarama Maha Thera of the Mitirigala forest hermitage. He nursed this monk too and when he passed away in 1993, U Dhammajiva Thera went to Burma for intense vippassana bhavana.
He learnt a fourth language Burmese and helped much in translation of scriptures. Requested to return home to Mitirigala Nissarana Vanaya, he did so, continuing studies of Pali, Abidhamma; and translating and writing. Thus he continued in near solitude up until 2006 when requests poured in from very many countries to visit and preach and teach meditation. And now a huge beneficial gift he has bestowed to our future generation, promoting and facilitating mindfulness, which is now accepted as most beneficial to the individual, family, society, and in extension, a country itself. The newest concept it that sathi in people impacts on the environment, the warming of which threatens the entire world.
‘A Journey’ in the title of the felicitation is of course Ven Dhammajiva Thera’s upward path to end samsaric existences, and his leading others to the Path, while enriching their lay lives with dedication to mindfulness.
On Saturday, February 5th, an entire day’s felicitation program was organized and carried out with virtual worldwide participation. It was in three slots: the morning session in Sinhala with a video clip of a sathi class in session. The evening session was from 5.30 – 8.30 pm excellently facilitated by Tara de Mel. The final session to 11.30 pm was also in English with different mediation methods being elucidated such as Tibetan, Theravada etc.
In the second session about which I write, Bhikkhu Bodhi was the first speaker. He narrated how he got to know Ven Dhammajiva and invited him to New Jersey to co-conduct medication retreats. A Sri Lankan who has attended some of these retreats and also attends Saturday sutta discussions conducted by Bhikkhu Bodhi said he found Ven Dhammajiva Thera an excellent exponent of the Dhamma. He said the Bhikkhu was a pride to Sri Lanka.
The American monk Bhante Yogavacari Rahula started his address by quoting the words of the Buddha that it is a blessing to hear the Buddha Word and difficult to obtain suitable conditions and difficult to go on the Path. He said: But Ven Dhammajiva has achieved much, spending his time and effort in new creative ways for the good of lay people and particularly for children.
is not only good for a person and society but beneficial to the environment too, which is now severely threatened. He recalled how when he was in Sri Lanka and staying in the Nilambe meditation centre in the 1970s, and 80s, a young, bearded, troubled man grappling with questions visited him wanting advice. The young man said he wished to give up lay life which seemed so unsatisfactory. Bhante Rahula had asked him to renounce lay life immediately and go forth to homelessness. The young man had done so, and thus was the Sangha enriched with the entry of Uda Eriyagama Dhammjiva Thera.
A Tibetan monk too spoke on Ven Dhammajiva whom he got to know well.
A discussion followed facilitated competently by Tara with panelists Richard J Davidson and Chris Ruane. Davidson (b. Brooklyn, 1951)) is Professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and founder and chair of the Center for Healthy Minds and affiliated Healthy Minds innovations. Christopher Shaun Ruane (b. 1958) is a Welsh Labour Party politician who served as MP for the Vale of Clwyd from 1997-2015 and 2017-2019.
He co-founded the Oxford Mindfulness Centre to establish mindfulness practice in the UK Parliament, training 260 UK parliamentarians and 460 staff members, in between his MP years. In 2018 he re-established the All Party Group on Wellbeing Economics. “He has been a consistent campaigner for embedding wellbeing considerations in public policy formation and decision making.”
The questions asked, mostly by Sri Lankan women, were both incisive and probing while the answers were full and most satisfying.
I must pay my personal tribute to the Maha Thera to whose teachings I have listened, and observed a sathi paasal session in progress. My nephew in Kandy donated a family inheritance of some acres of land – Nagastenna in Boyagama, Peradeniya, to the Mitirigala Nissarana Vanaya and to receive the deed, Ven U Dhammajiva Thera himself arrived at my nephew’s home in Anniewatte. He was certainly arresting to look at and spoke extremely clearly.
He made one statement that startled me then (three years ago) but the truth of it has dawned and become crystal clear as time went by. He queried: “Do you consider and call yourselves Sinhala Buddhists?” Pregnant silence ensured.”If you do, you are not a Buddhist.” He did not use epithets ‘true’ or ‘devoted’. His pronouncement has proven to be the stark truth. The term is used with its ring of majoritarianism and superiority. Why does a Buddhist need an appellation or qualifier?
I heard recently that a bit of land owned by the donor which belongs to his sisters was sought by the head bhikkhuni of a nuns’ pirivena, their present building being cramped. Permission was sought from Ven Dhammajiva since the land was now owned by the Nissarana hermitage. He was more than willing for the sathi paasal premises to be adjacent to a nuns’ abode. Magnanimity shown again.
We are so thankful and praise Karma or whatever for giving this land so many devout and truly saintly bhikkhus and among them those who also help others to progress on the Path. Ven Uda Eriyagama Dhammajiva Thera who, starting with children, helps those willing to benefit from mindfulness, Sathi, is a shining example of sanctity plus pragmatism.
HIGHER EDUCATION —THE PRIVATE SECTOR AND ITS GRAVE SHORTCOMINGS
Moulding a complete citizen through comprehensive and meaningful education
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About six weeks ago Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), warned that the attempt to revive the 2015 deal that restricted Iran’s ability to enrich uranium was on the brink of collapse. Three or four weeks more without an agreement, he said, would deal the talks a “fatal blow”.
The problem was that since ex-president Donald Trump unilaterally trashed the deal in 2018, imposing ‘maximum pressure’ US sanctions against Iran in the hope of extracting further concessions, the Iranians have been gradually discarding the controls they agreed to in the original deal.The three European countries that guaranteed the deal, Britain, France and Germany, backed the IAEA chief up, warning that “the more Iran is advancing and acccumulating knowledge with irreversible consequences, the more difficult it is to come back to that deal.”
In other words, once the Iranians have learned all they need to know to enrich uranium to weapons-grade, they cannot promise to forget it again. They will have that knowledge forever, which sort of defeats the whole purpose of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the ridiculous official name of the 2015 deal.
In fact, it’s worse than that. On 9 July Tehran announced that it has installed new centrifuges that will let Iran enrich uranium up to 90% purity – enough for nuclear warheads.They are adjustable centrifuges that can easily be switched between different levels of enrichment, and Iran says they are currently set for only 20% purity. But the JCPOA set the maximum permitted enrichment at 3.67%, so Iran is already way beyond the limit.
To make matters worse, enrichment gets easier as the purity levels increase. To go from uranium ore to 3.67% takes a lot of time and energy. To go from there to 20% takes much less – and to go from 20% to 90% even less. The Iranians can cross the last hurdle whenever they want.Moreover, the rest of the world will just have to take their word that they haven’t gone to 90%, because 27 of the special cameras that the IAEA installed to verify that Iran is not exceeding the agreed enrichment level were turned off in June. The remaining 40 can be turned off whenever Tehran wants.
And what’s the rest of the world going to do about this? Not much. In fact, it seems in retrospect that neither Washington nor Tehran really expected to resurrect the 2015 deal: too much time had passed, and they were just going through the motions.
When Joe Biden entered the White House in January, 2021, his previous statements about the JCPOA obliged him to try to repair the damage done by Donald Trump. However, he put more effort into placating anti-Iran hawks in Congress than into talks with the regime of reformist Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (the man who originally signed the deal).
Biden would have known that Rouhani’s presidency had only six months left, and that he was likely to be followed in office by the hard-liner Ebrahim Raisi. (Rouhani could not run again, and the Supreme Leader’s people were disqualifying rival candidates.) Yet Biden barely lifted a finger to restart serious negotiations.Then, after Raisi replaced Hourani at the beginning of August last year, the US and Iran agreed on a five-month time-out, allegedly to give Raisi’s new administration time to get up to speed on the issue. Why did Biden consent to that? Because he knew it was already a lost cause.
2021 was the year when Iran’s enrichment levels rose to levels far above the JCPOA’s limits. When negotiations finally restarted last December, everybody knew that the deal’s original purpose had been overrun by events. Iran has become a ‘nuclear threshold’ power, able to build actual bombs within six months of the word ‘go’ at any time in the future.
That is the reality, which is why subsequent talks have been rather lackadaisical. Iran is clearly in no rush to build actual nuclear weapons, and nobody gains by abandoning the talks completely, but they aren’t going anywhere and everybody knows it.
This is a disappointment, but not a disaster. Possible Iranian nuclear weapons at some point in the future are less threatening than real North Korean nukes in the present, and the Far East has learned to live with that. The Middle East is a tougher neighbourhood, and there were few signs of panic during President Bidens recent tour of the region.He didn’t even have to promise that American nuclear weapons would be available to deter a potential nuclear-armed Iran. Israel’s several hundred unadmitted nuclear weapons are quite sufficient for that.
The task ahead for Sri Lanka is to transform its economy from an inward-looking, public sector driven, debt dependent one into an export-driven, private sector-led economy that a broad share of the population can participate in and benefit from. A set of “structural” reforms based on global best practice can be undertaken unilaterally by Sri Lanka to begin to set its economy on this path without waiting for externally imposed “conditions”. Proactive steps in this direction can send strong positive signals to international creditors and development partners that Sri Lanka has a path to recovery, hasten the debt restructuring process, and unleash the potential of Sri Lanka’s economy to achieve rapid and sustainable economic growth that can improve the lives of all Sri Lankans.
At present, Sri Lanka’s economy is undermined and vulnerable to shocks from a range of underlying weaknesses, including limited growth potential due to its inward orientation; dependence on rolling over unsustainable levels of external debt; public expenditure dominated by debt service and maintenance of a unnecessarily large public sector that leaves inadequate room for investment in productive infrastructure and human capital; and suppressed potential of the private sector to create jobs and income-earning opportunities by unwarranted regulatory restrictions. As a result, Sri Lanka has seen continuous challenges in maintaining macroeconomic stability; is uncompetitive in the global economy; and has been unable to generate sufficient broad-based income-earning opportunities to substantially raise the living standards of all Sri Lankans. In the last few years, these weaknesses were aggravated by imprudent revenue and monetary policies that led to the current extreme crisis and hardships among the people. A basic reform agenda to address these underlying weaknesses and shift Sri Lanka to a sustainable economic growth path would comprise the following steps:Restore macroeconomic stability. Key measures would include (a) maintaining prudent monetary policies to contain inflation and ensure a stable, market-determined exchange rate; and (b) reducing the fiscal deficit and thereby the need for government borrowing by increasing government revenues through tax reform and reducing unnecessary government expenditures. Tax reform can involve broadening and simplifying the tax system rather than just increasing tax rates on a narrow tax base. Expenditures can be contained by reducing unnecessary or wasteful spending, such as on maintaining a large public sector or supporting loss-making state corporations, rather than by reducing essential expenditure on public infrastructure, health and education services, or the social safety net.
Remove unnecessary obstacles to private investment and business activity. A range of unnecessary rules, laws, licenses, permits, fees, documentation and other obstacles exist that inhibit private sector economic activity that can create employment and income earning opportunities. Steps are warranted to rationalize the regulatory environment so that it enables and encourages private sector investment and business activity while protecting core public interests. Increased private sector activity during the current crisis can help deliver basic goods and services; generate export earnings; maintain and increase employment; and expand income earning opportunities.
Enable market signals. A wide range of state directives distort market signals and mis-direct investment, including price controls, tariffs, subsidies, interest rate controls, and other state directions. Steps to remove these barriers to market signals are warranted in order to channel economic activity into the most efficient and competitive areas and thereby enhance the prospects of rapid, sustainable economic growth.Ensure a competitive environment. A range of sectors are dominated a single or a few public or private sector firms that undermine the benefits of a market-driven economy, such as lower prices, higher quality products, customer-orientation, and innovation. Efforts are warranted to ensure a competitive environment, dismantle monopolies, and identify and break up any cartel-like behavior. Maintain and improve essential infrastructure to the extent possible. Within the constrained fiscal environment, priority may need to be placed on ensuring adequate basic infrastructure services that support increased economic activity, including reliable electricity, water, transport, and communication services. Some public infrastructure development can also serve as a safety net transfer measure through temporary employment generation.Ensure financial sector stability. Although the financial sector has been relatively well-performing to date, is likely to be under increasing stress in the current environment. Close monitoring and timely intervention may be warranted to avert major instability in the financial sector that can severe adverse implications for recovery of the economy.
Enhance the efficiency of the justice system to support economic activity. Continuing deficiencies exist in the capacity of the legal system to support strong private sector-led growth, including inefficient enforcement of contracts and resolution of insolvency. Steps are warranted to address these weaknesses and ensure that the legal system fully supports rapid growth in economic activities.Develop “smart” industrial policy. When markets are enabled, restrictions on private sector activity removed, and a level playing field established, then selective interventions to enable or encourage the development of specific industries might be considered. Such interventions need to have a clear rationale, be transparent, time-bound, and firm-specific rather than sector wide. Enhance and target social safety net transfers. The current crisis requires a substantially enhanced safety net system to avert extreme deprivation among population. Given the need for prudent fiscal management, these transfers would need to be managed carefully. At present weaknesses exist in the safety net system, with benefits leaking to those not in need; many of those in need being left out; and the prevalence of untargeted measures such as subsidies and price controls that are inefficient and distort market signals. Use of modern technologies can improve the accuracy of targeting, reduce leakage, and reduce fraud. Steps to enhance the quality and efficiency of the safety net are therefore warranted, including through removal of indirect transfers such as untargeted subsidies and price controls in favor of direct cash transfers; and use modern technologies to identify, target, and transfer resources to the vulnerable population.
Begin reform of the higher education system. The higher education system represents a bottleneck to progress toward rapid economic growth. Limited opportunities deprive many young people of the ability to fulfill their potential and the commercial sector has little use for skills imparted by the system. Steps are warranted to broaden and expand access to higher education; enable private tertiary education provision; and improve the quality and relevance of tertiary education.
Begin reform the civil service to create a lean and dynamic public sector. As the current crisis has revealed, Sri Lanka cannot afford to maintain such a large public sector as the large wage bill increases the need for unsustainable government borrowing. Extensive public sector involvement in commercial activities and in regulating private sector activity also inhibits growth in private sector economic activity that can create employment and income earning opportunities. Steps are warranted to reduce the size of public sector and contain the wage bill; reorient the public sector toward objective-based management; and encourage a behavioral change in the public sector on enabling rather than obstructing private sector development and a market economy as best means to improve the lives of the people. Inform the public of the costs they are bearing under the current economic structure to build a consensus on the direction of reforms. Reforms to change the structure of Sri Lanka’s economy offer the potential to create broad-based income-earning opportunities and improved living standards and are thereby in the best long term-interests of the people. The public can be informed of the costs and lost opportunities they are bearing under the current economic structure, including the costs of unnecessary regulations that benefit the few over the many; state directives that distort markets and suppress investment, exports, and job creation; and public funding of loss-making state enterprises that serve no essential public interest. Narrow vested interests in resisting change would also need to be systematically identified and overcome. Strategies would also need to be developed to systematically identify and overcome narrow vested interests in both the public and private sectors that will seek to resist and obstruct change.
The agenda above reflects global best practice in enabling a market economy to work to generate income earning opportunities for the population and supplementing this with public sector interventions to support human development and a social safety net. Proactive implementation of these measures will greatly enhance the prospects of a faster recovery and alleviation of the extreme hardships being endured by the people; support timely debt restructuring and access to international sources of finance; and set the country on the path to rapid, sustainable economic growth and improvement in the living standards of all Sri Lankans. For further discussion of these issues, see: http://ardesilva.com/2022/06/07/slstrategy/Asita De Silva is an international development consultant, former staff member of the World Bank Group, and former executive at Hayley’s Group. The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own and do not reflect the views of any institution or agency.
The writer can be reached on asitadesilva11@gmail.com
Historically, the city of Colombo always faced a conflict, or contradiction, between an almost endless set of high-rise buildings and largely poorly constructed streets. As far back as 1907, for instance, it was observed that “large improvements would have to be carried out in the direction of widening such streets, while legislation by the Municipal Council should be enacted to “fix the line of streets and prevent encroachment thereon”, which would have saved money spent on buying buildings, “the erection of which ought never have been allowed.” The gap between the affluent and depressed wards not surprisingly became a cause for worry: the “native wards” were all “deficient”, with the exception of the European and chief residential quarters, which appeared “well provided.”.
There was, of course, a Colombo that existed before all this. The Rajavaliya referred to it as “Kalan Thota” or “Kelani Ferry.” Emerson Tennent has noted that the Moors, who took over the coast and harbour in the 12th and 13th centuries, renamed it as “Kalambu” or “a good harbour.” It gained prominence gradually thereafter: Ibn Batuta would describe it as “the finest town in Serendib.” The town remained under the control of a Muslim Vizier named Jalestie. Tennent observed that this was because the Sinhalese were uninterested in trade, which is somewhat true: as K. M. de Silva notes in A History of Sri Lanka, the principal source of royal income in Kotte was not trade, but rather land revenue.
Kotte would, of course, bear witness to two wars of succession, both compounded by Portuguese presence in the island. The latter were concerned with two priorities: gaining a monopoly over the cinnamon trade, and establishing commerce in Colombo.
According to de Silva, the first objective was generally considered less important than the first, but it nevertheless was crucial for the ambitious imperialists to gain control over the area; to this end they established an unfortified fort in Colombo for trading purposes. It is with the advent of the Portuguese, moreover, that Kalambu became Colombo: a name that more or less “approached that of Columbus”. But it was more than a change of name: as the Census of 1946 notes, under the Portuguese the city transformed from “a small stockade of wood” to “a gallant city fortified with a dozen bastions.”
But the Portuguese and the Dutch after them had to contend with two seemingly never-ending conflicts in the country: between the Kotte Kingdom and colonial authorities on the one hand and the Kotte Kingdom and pretenders from Sitawaka and Kandy on the other. The wars of succession weakened Kotte, and the Sinhalese monarchs, whose interest in trade depleted, in effect handed over commercial matters to colonial authorities. Despite this, however, authorities were never able to expand the city beyond Pettah, “between the lake at one side and the rocks, which form the harbour, on the other.” It was left to British officials to develop Colombo into more than just a military enclave.
To begin with, the British made use of what the Portuguese and the Dutch had left behind. The former especially had turned Colombo into a fortress. After the conquest of Kandy in 1815, the British began tapping into the region’s commercial potential in a way their predecessors had not. Once again it was the port which facilitated this shift in policy; by 1907 it had become “one of the principal ports of call of the world”, and was described as “the Clapham Junction of the East.” The British added a railway system to the shipping line; here too Colombo became the centre. Over the years the Fort area changed: it became a hub for government establishments, banking houses, and European businesses.
Interestingly, despite its veneer of sophistication and grace, British officials were not impressed with the new capital. “Colombo presents little to attract a stranger,” noted Tennent in 1859, and he had much to complain about: “the prevalence of damp”, “the nightly serenade of frogs”, and worst of all, “the tormenting profusion of mosquitoes” which had lead to outbreaks of dengue that had never visited the better developed areas of the municipality. Through all this, incidentally, a gap emerged between the centre and the periphery, in effect between the affluent and the indigent wards.
At first it was the areas developed by the Portuguese and Dutch which became hotspots for the colonial officials and the native elite. The area from Fort to Hulftsdorp, which James Cordiner had once described as “a more comfortable residence for a garrison than any other military station in India”, would in 40 years turn into what Prince Alexey Saltykov described as “a botanical garden on a gigantic scale.” This was facilitated by several factors: the breakdown of the old order, the shift from the interior to the littoral, and the emergence of a plantation economy. Moreover, Prince Saltykov made his remark about Colombo at a time when the old elite was yielding place to a new bourgeoisie.
The transition from a mercantilist to a semi-feudal economy in the first half of the 19th century was accompanied by the rise of a new colonial bourgeoisie. While the traditional elite had depended on the patronage of the British officials in terms of land bequests and perpetuation of familial dynasties (which led to the concentration of power within the Bandaranaike-Obeyesekere clique), the bourgeoisie took advantage of favourable economic conditions and prospered through capitalist-rentier enterprises.
Arrack renting became the main avenue of growth for the nouveau riche; by 1876 the annual rents from this trade amounted to £ 218,600 (£ 28,035,560 or Rs. 12,093,260,379 when adjusted for inflation). Profits from the arrack trade, however, were never invested in productive enterprises (as they were in other colonies) and were instead invested in coffee, coconut, graphite, and plumbago on the one hand and items of conspicuous consumption which helped distinguish them from the rest of the country on the other. Property in this regard was seen as paramount; it had a say in how the “posh neighbourhoods” shifted from Pettah, Hulftsdorp, and Maradana to Cotta, Colpetty, and Cinnamon Gardens.
Initially, the elite purchased land in the Pettah-Maradana-Kotahena-Mutwal area. Even in the last few decades of the century these places were at the forefront of British colonial activity in terms of commerce and education: all the major credit institutions were in the Pettah, while the two biggest schools in the country (one public, the other private) were established there: the Colombo Academy in Hill Street (the first batch of which consisted of 21 students from elite Burgher families within the neighbourhood, among them Richard Morgan, Charles Loos, and Christoffel de Saram) in 1836, and S. Thomas’ College in Mutwal 17 years later. This is certainly not to forget the Medical College and the Law College, built respectively in 1870 and 1874.
These trends were reflected in the lands purchased and palatial residences built during the period: Solomon Dias Bandaranaike, S. C. Obeyesekere, and G. G. Ponnambalam all built their manors in Hulftsdorp. Vinod Moonesinghe contends that long before Cinnamon Gardens became a plush neighbourhood, “the prime residential areas were Mutwal (for Europeans) and Kotahena (for locals), plus Grandpass for ‘country homes’.”
According to Moonesinghe, land values in Cinnamon Gardens rose after the Race Course moved from Galle Face, and the “process of gentrification” in the area culminated when Royal College shifted to its current location in 1912. But even then, this process was not fully complete: as Denham notes in Ceylon at the Census of 1911, while land in Cinnamon Gardens fetched Rs. 5,000 per acre, land near the Slave Island, Maradana, and Pettah stations fetched more than four times that amount. In other words, it would take another 30 years for the shift from one part of Colombo to another to complete.
The writer is an international relations analyst, researcher, and columnist who can be reached at udakdev1@gmail.com
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