I am deeply honoured by the invitation though I am somewhat skeptical that I am one of the ‘distinguished’ alumni of this university as Professor Kumar has so kindly stated in her letter of invitation. I have seen many distinguished persons who were my fellows in this university during the 60s and 70s and it is perhaps that most have left our shores that I am here by default!

Though I should say in my own defence that I have accepted your invitation out of the great regard I have for Peradeniya and my fellow alumni. Indeed the constraints on my time are such that I decline more such commitments than I accept.

In the message I wish to convey today, and I have a serious message, I would first like to broadly sketch my impressions of Peradeniya and the influence they had on my thinking and work. I recall the atmosphere and ambience of Peradeniya in my first years in the late 60s. I am sure universities in Sri Lanka were always best during the pockets of rule of the more liberal UNP of those times. There was always the space for discussion, often filled by the irresistible stimulus to contest capitalist certainties. You could throw stones and not get shot.

The sight of Dudley Senanayake’s 1968 Independence day celebrations in Kandy dissolving in a hail of stones as we threw our then mainly Parade- Ground Army out of the Campus must come in contrast to the battle-hardened formations that I hope will bring about a speedy end to the tragic military conflict in the North.

Somehow, the arrival in 1970 of the Coalition government saw the discussion becoming stilted as new incumbents - busy donning the trappings of power - were impatient to be reminded of their own recent rhetoric.

This was then the context or the counterpoint - or were they the portents of the first JVP rebellion – that quixotic tilt of the galkatas against a sleeping establishment – which, when awoken, with a fright started firing in all directions. And it has yet to stop!

I left Peradeniya exactly at this time, 38 years ago, to take up a job at Hayleys in Feb 1971. I have spent all of the time since here in Sri Lanka and at Hayleys and having started as a management trainee I have risen to the position I hold now. In this time I may have been responsible for recruiting more graduates for management and professional positions than any other that I know. I have hence thought on the substance and quality of university education in some depth. So if nothing else I bring a kind of unique perspective.

Hayleys has played a singular role in the post liberalized economic era by focusing on adding value to industrial and agricultural production. A large segment of our business is in manufacturing for global markets using agri-based raw materials available in Sri Lanka which were previously exported as commodities - for instance rubber and coconut products. Hayleys has acquired a reputation for its sustainable business practices in terms of impact on the environment and maintaining high standards of social responsibility and ethical behaviour. For this it has been the recipient of many awards but one that I do consider a great honour was to be invited by the UN Secretary General to the UN’s First Private Sector Forum on sustainable development - attended by top CEOs, heads of state and multilateral institutions - on September 24, 2008, prior to the opening of the General Assembly.

However, it could be the work I have done with Dipped Products or DPL which perhaps may merit some of the recognition being accorded to me today. In a period of 30 years I have seen this initial investment of some two million rupees grow to a multinational with revenues of Rs 12 billion- with some seven production facilities in Sri Lanka and Thailand, a marketing company in Italy and interest in the plantations.

In a country whose industry is two-thirds focused on apparel manufacture, it is one of a handful of industries that uses the scientific and engineering skills available in Sri Lanka and I am very gratified that DPL has employed and retained many chemists, engineers and scientists who may have otherwise left our shores - as I am sure Dr Kumar would testify to - many of them from Peradenya.

So what did Peradeniya do for me?

Its most significant impact was to bring me into contact with the young people of our country with an intimacy which would not have been possible except in a residential campus.

Getting to know the mainly ‘rural’ Sinhala undergrads and coming to understand them and their ways was an important experience for me.

The Tamils – especially the large numbers coming from the great schools of Jaffna – were largely better spoken in English and hence more outgoing, but the more conservative of them were no different to the Sinhala student-body.

I could not quite place the differences of the Batticaloa Tamils from their Northern brethren – being sure there were differences but not knowing what precisely.

I discovered to my delight the surprising sophistication of the boys and girls of the coastal cities from Matara and Galle to Negombo - St Aloysius especially - which produced some of my best Muslim friends - and marveled at the contribution Christian schools had made to education in Sri Lanka.

I did however have some challenges in understanding the aggressive ‘ragging’ culture.

Observing the gradations and the nuances of behavior from the quietly simple to the more sophisticated and the academically brilliant made me realize the richness of the social tapestry of our country.

My academic experiences at Peradeniya had a very important influence on me. Undoubtedly the Chemistry and Math worked for me, as later I used the knowledge and techniques to develop process technologies new to Sri Lanka at the time.

However, the value of this influence was less on the structured lecture room process - as I usually failed to be inspired by the mindless transmission of notes from lecturer to student. It had more to do with the content and tone of the intellectual interaction. The fact that I spent so little time on my lectures and so much on reading and discussion on all manner of subjects – often unconnected with the sciences - would profoundly affect my life and work in the future.

Nevertheless I have to admit that there was yet something missing. I tried to reconcile my expectation of the intellectual atmosphere of the great universities of the world with the experiences at Peradeniya and knew we were probably achieving less than our potential, given the gifts of this magnificent location including the magical gardens and impressive architecture; and above all the intellectual resources of the faculty and student body.

There were those flashes of promise as at the Pop Science Gossips, brilliantly moderated by Dr Osmund Jayaratne, which were hugely stimulating for many of us; there was also the interactions with Prof Ashley Halpe at the Music Society and the Dram Soc which allowed space for the pursuit of aesthetic and intellectual interests.

The great theatre and dance of Dr Sarathchandra and Chitrasena in the ‘wale sellam’ are permanently etched in my memory.

And of course, who can forget the great moments in the lecture rooms that eventually became the stuff of university folk lore.

But there was always something holding back the free and unfettered interaction across the community. At the heart of this were clearly the confusion, tension and resistance to the free use of English. And of course the underlying social and cultural divide it was instrumental in creating. I believe that by not recognizing this openly and confronting it by giving expression to it, we perpetuated and probably contributed to a culture of denial here at Peradeniya with huge consequences for its great potential.

The understanding of our interaction with the world in any spectrum of knowledge - from trade and commerce, environment and climate change, health and nutrition, international law, peoples and cultures, or whatever subject from the sciences to the humanities you choose - is a process of discovery and unraveling a web of often confusing threads of information. We are all competing in one way or another to project our ideas and create value.

The most efficient pathway which has been available for this is the use of English. It is spoken and used by perhaps one and a half billion people and the internet is accelerating the process. We have been in denial on this point for too long and all the while we lose our advantage. I have been through too many bright young people who have struggled with the lack of access to English and the confidence to use it, which would have been theirs if we recognized and supported that need. Unfortunately the quality of graduates that I have come across confirms a long- term declining trend.

I see from recent pronouncements at the national level, of the need to reverse this but I think in this university and elsewhere there is a resistance to change. The arguments are well known. But all the while we are losing out in the great competition for ideas and the economic value they represent. My work has been at the forefront of this competition for a long time. I believe we have got this hopelessly wrong – and I was told as much by a Professor at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad who has witnessed Sri Lanka fall back over time.

English is spoken universally and confidently in Indian universities, with young people reverting to their Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati, Hindi and Urdu etc at will. We have had a rich tradition of English in this country - whether or not it was baggage from our history - but unfortunately we have over time dismantled the capacity we enjoyed when we needed to use the advantages we possessed.

In a world which is becoming increasingly integrated, it is by acquiring skills in language and social intercourse that we can realize the potential of this country and its people. I realized in my first days in this campus that the mindset of the times was out of sync with the developments the world was witnessing –for one the European Community was just being formed. I realized that I had competencies my colleagues would have difficulty to master. This was pure intuition nearly four decades ago and my presence here talking to you would sadly suggest that I have not been too much off target.

It is never too late to correct mistakes and our young people deserve this. As a business leader I can tell you that the world is facing in its current financial meltdown cataclysmic changes which will affect everybody, even those in this campus. So the threat is really up close and personal and more so for the young people who look to us for guidance. I would call on this great university to live to its potential by giving leadership where it is likely to have the greatest benefit.

After all, as the tablet outside the senate building has silently reminded us over nearly six decades, we were established to be "more open than usual."