• Mevan Pieris launches book on the Mudaliyars

Former cricketer Mevan Pieris is providing a historical account of the Mudaliyar class Govigama family combine in the recently published The Community, which was launched at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute on 21 March.

Making the opening remarks was Arun Dias Bandaranaike, who referred to the use of the term “the community” at the 90th  anniversary of the Dutch Burgher Union in 1998, where Harold Speldewind spoke about the community. “It was a collective noun which had been regulated to be a proper noun and also prefixed with a definite article ‘the’ community,” Bandaranaike shared.

He added that Speldewind wasn’t referring to a community that was in any way porous, and was instead built around exclusivity. “Either you were Dutch Burgher or you were not,” Bandaranaike said, adding that if one was curious to know if this applied to the community discussed in Pieris’ book, they had to read The Community.

In The Community, he said, the reader will see that references are made to a community within the community: The Mudaliyars. Bandaranaike went on to call them the leading lights within the community, of whom the author gives us a glimpse.

The Mudaliyars, he went on to say, have been treated somewhat harshly over the years. “They have been thought of as being worthy of being ridiculed as those seeking privilege, elitist in mind…” Bandaranaike said, sharing that they were seen as a people who went behind colonials to advance themselves, becoming land owners, and with that, the Mudaliyars wanted to preserve their status quo.

“In fact, people like the Maha Mudaliyars have been, at times, referred to as traitors. That’s one end of the scale,” he said, adding that on the other end of the scale was the above-mentioned ridicule.

S. Thomas’ College Warden Rev. Marc Billimoria

Key to the study of history

One could question who the author had in mind when writing this book; surely, not many today have interest in a community that belongs in the past? Addressing the audience and this question, S. Thomas’ College Warden Rev. Marc Billimoria said: “In this day and age of rapid social change and egalitarian views, Mevan’s book will not perhaps appeal to many outside of certain circles. Obviously it will be of great appeal to the families that form the community. It would be of interest to alumni of schools like S. Thomas’ College, Royal College, Bishop’s College and Ladies’ College, that members of the clan attended. Certainly, it will be of interest to students of history, and even interested members of religious communities, such as the Anglican Church in this country to which many of the Mudaliyar families belonged and which was supported by many of the Mudaliyar families over the years.”

However, Rev. Billimoria added that, knowing the author’s ability to tell a good story, he had no doubt the book will be one, despite its size, the reader will not be able to put down that easily.

Speaking about his own interest in The Community, Rev. Billimoria said: “I am a student of history, especially the history of the colonial and post-colonial period. And so when an invitation to be part of a book launch that deals with a subject like this came to me – the book launch of what would be Mevan’s magnum opus – it was one that I just could not decline.” He added that his earliest forays into the story of the clan or the community, as written about by Mevan Pieris, were way back when he was a student of S. Thomas’ College, and read in the school library Sir Soloman Dias Bandaranaike’s memoir, Remembered Yesterdays.

This foundation for an interest in history made him keen to read Pieris’ book, Rev. Billimoria said, adding: “Another reason that made me very keen to read about this Mudaliyar clan is because, through my maternal grandmother, the late Ophelia Alice de Saram, I too, can state a claim to be a descendant of Domingo de Saram Wanigasekera Ekanaike Attapattu Mudaliyar, the de Sarams being one of the oldest of the low country Mudaliyar families.”

Meeting on the playing field

The guest of honour at the book launch was delivered by business leader and former diplomat Somasundaram Skandakumar, who spoke about his relationship with the author, which began with cricket. Given the date of the book launch, and Skandakumar’s alma mater Royal College’s win at the 144th Battle of the Blues, he joked: “Sandwiched between the learned professor and the revered warden, I feel so much like a dwarf today. But thankfully, the sterling performance of Royal over the weekend has certainly given me a few additional inches.”

He added that he has known Mevan Pieris for almost six decades, having first met on the playing field of the Battle of the Blues in 1965. “And the Thomians were sweeping everything before them. They had a lethal combination of bowlers in Mevan Pieris and Barney Reid, and match by match, they virtually annihilated every school team. As they moved towards the Big Match, we realised that even the glorious uncertainties of cricket were in no way going to help Royal to bring off a win. So we decided we would concentrate on an honourable draw.”

And an honourable draw is exactly what Royal College got that year. Skandakumar went on to say that two years later, their paths crossed again, with both playing cricket in university.

Moving on to The Community, he said, “As Rev. Mark Billimoria said the book itself may have its share of criticism… There was a favoured group of people from the times of the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British, who prospered, and at the tail end of the times of the British, they did make a very significant contribution to the wellbeing of society.”

Skandakumar went on to say: “Today, 75 years post-Independence, I don’t think I will be faulted if I, having lived here since my birth in 1948, and never imagined at the time that I was in university that we would be where we are today, would say that I have never been more humiliated than I am today. And therefore I was wondering if this would be an appropriate time for us to press the restart button, to start appreciating what we have in the resources of this great country of ours, the talent of the people, like what Mevan has achieved today, and move forward.”

Business leader and former diplomat Somasunadaram Skandakumar

Learning from the past

Chief guest Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) Parliamentarian Prof. G. L. Peiris referred to this humiliation of Skandakumar in his address, saying it calls for a reflection on what Pieris writes about in The Community.

“History has a continuity about it. And some of the characteristics of the society that is depicted in the pages of this wonderful book will serve us well in deciding how best, as Skandakumar said, we press the reset button. Where do we start? What has gone wrong? How can we make an objective evaluation on the mistakes that we have made, in the spirit of candour and humility? And how do we begin the journey which Skandakumar rightly characterised as a dire necessity for all of us living in Sri Lanka?” Prof. Peiris shared.

He said that he was of the opinion that the fundamental problem that is also the source to all other problems in Sri Lanka was that we have lost the capacity to conceive of a mature nationhood, a nation we all belong to irrespective of caste, creed and religion.

“We have over the decades, unwittingly no doubt, built walls rather than bridges and we have concentrated on ourselves, our own clan,” he said.

In terms of The Community, Prof. Peiris said he was honoured to speak at its launch for two reasons. “The first reason is my lifelong association with Mevan with whom I, a couple of days ago, reminisced about the happy days that we spent many moons ago at the school by the sea.”

The second reason has to do with the theme of the book. “Rev. Mark Billimoria spoke about a bygone age. Yes, certainly. The very vivid picture of a society that flourished in this country many decades ago is a bygone society,” he said, adding that it still has an influence on many aspects of contemporary life in Sri Lanka.

“The focus in this book is on the Mudaliyars and the niche that they occupied in successive administrative structures over a very long period spanning four centuries. It starts with the Portuguese, who introduced in this regard, a very fluid system,” Prof. Peiris said, adding that the Dutch adopted a different attitude.

“They invested the Mudaliyars with a sense of dignity, mainly in external manifestations, like medals, very impressive uniforms and things of that kind,” Prof. Peiris said, adding: “They were succeeded of course by the British and we find a definite ambivalence in the attitude of the British to the role of Mudaliyars.”

This was brought out radically, he said, in the actions of the former Governor of Ceylon Thomas Maitland, with the Mudaliyar system later abolished.