The interesting dialogue on the ‘Mandarins’ in the Sunday Island, between my colleagues, one from Royal and the other from the other place, has prompted me to reminisce about some of my own experiences in the Civil Service. I shall do so with anecdotal presentation but take care not to name names where such mention could embarrass their progeny.

I was the first to be recruited to the Civil Service from a central school. That was in 1957, immediately after the so-called ‘cultural revolution’. We were eight in the batch. Our first meeting was to be with the Secretary to the Treasury (ST). I came for the meeting by train, wearing a white suit but carrying my tie in a pocket. The tie-knot was fixed for me in Colombo. Immediately after the meeting with the ST, we were introduced to the Director of Finance (DF) who was to be in charge of our training.

Roles reversed

We had to introduce ourselves to the DF sitting in a semicircle round him. All my colleagues were from Royal, St. Thomas’, St. Peter’s and other well known colleges. They identified themselves along with their schools. I felt nervous but I was somewhat relieved as I was sitting at the end of the line. When it came to my turn the DF looked at me with a glint in his eye and asked,

"From what school are you Mr. Somadasa?" My name was unfamiliar to him.

"I am from the Galahitiyava Central School, Sir." I stammered followed by a sigh of relief.

"Where on earth is that?" guffawed the DF looking round at the others for class support but none of them even grinned. Their stony silence appeared to disappoint the boss. Looking back at the incident, I often think that the ‘cultural revolution’ had started at least a decade before 1956, most probably with the advent of free education.

I had a chance to ‘avenge’ my embarrassment exactly 15 years later. By then I was the Director of Small Industries and Chairman of the Industrial Development Board. I had been invited by the SLIDA to deliver the keynote address at a passing-out gathering of nearly two hundred SLAS recruits. Before I started my speech I looked at the galaxy of bright young men and women, from the podium and called upon them to introduce themselves.

They were all from central schools and maha vidyalayas except for a solitary exception who stood up apparently with the same uneasiness I faced on my first day in office and stuttered, "I’m from S. Thomas’ Sir."

"Where on earth is that?" I asked with mock amazement.

The whole house burst into roars of laughter to the chagrin of the sole survivor. The ‘Education Revolution’ had come of age, perhaps concurrently with the massively expanding ‘Cultural Revolution’ growing protruding teeth.

Leonard Woolf

The reference to Leonard Woolf in my colleagues’ contributions, reminds me of an incident my father related to me nostalgically. Woolf had been the AGA of Hambantota when my father was a ‘Monitor’ (a trainee teacher) of less than eighteen years, at Usveva. The AGA had come on horseback to Dabarella and asked the Vidane Arachchi (VA), of that place to run in front of his horse to show him the way.

The old VA had run ahead of the horse as far as his legs could carry him and fallen down on the track through sheer exhaustion. Woolf had galloped over the fallen VA and come to the Usveva school. The headmaster of the school was down with malaria and my father being the only other teacher, was taking classes. Woolf had been impressed with the skill of the budding teacher.

While the inspection was on, the VA had limped his way to the school. On seeing him the AGA had ordered him to run ahead of his horse to Angunkolapelessa but the VA had pleaded saying, "Ane Hamuduruvane, I cannot run even a foot more". Woolf had given him the ‘standing sack’ and offered the post to my father, which the latter wisely declined.

This incident would appear to show that the sensitivity of Woolf, the writer, was in direct contrast to the crudity of Woolf, the colonial administrator. Such contempt of the ‘natives’ was noticed even among some post-Independence mandarins. A colleague of mine used to refer to colonists in the multiplying resettlement schemes as ‘the great unwashed’. At least he recognized their power despite their squalor!

The class complex

For most of our seniors who joined in the colonial times the service had come to an end with Independence. There were a few exceptions among them such as M. Rajendra, Baku Mahadeva, M. J. Perera and M. Chandrasoma.

The prejudice against the post 1956 recruits was such that when the then G.A. Colombo was contacted to officiate at the registration of my marriage, he bluntly refused remarking, "I can’t marry that central school fellow". But most of the Post-Independence recruits found no difficulty in identifying themselves with the new wave.

Despite the class prejudice within the fraternity, there was complete solidarity among them whenever any member was under threat from outside. When I was a Deputy Director in the Department of Education, an Education Officer (EO) in charge of a district went out of his way to befriended me claiming to be the only departmental officer who did not resist the appointment of a Civil Servant to the post I was holding.

One day the EO walked into my room and stealthily produced a scurrilous pamphlet written against me and confided in me that the writer was his own Accountant. The EO appeared to be very upset that such a low thing had been done to me in whom he had reposed so much faith and affection. I immediately rang up the then DST to report the incident promising to send the pamphlet for his perusal. The DST did not want evidence. My word was good enough. The Accountant was transferred out of his home town by wire.

Months later it transpired that the scurrilous pamphlet was a concoction of the EO himself. His ruse had been to use my clout to get rid of his bête noire who was probing his questionable deals. Most probably both the EO and the Accountant are dead by now. But I still feel ashamed and guilty for allowing myself to be used, though unwittingly, as a tool to harm an innocent man.

Variations in level

I found no uniformity in quality among those with whom I had to work. There were men of brilliance side by side with the most mediocre. This disparity applied also to those who came from central schools. Perhaps the fault was with the assumption that brilliance in education automatically led to excellence in administration.

The scheme of selection did not leave much room for ascertaining ability, aptitude and attitudes. Such assessment was left to the interview which could not always balance unfair advantage gained through the choice of subject. This dichotomy casts doubts on the popular myth that all civil servants are invariably administrators par excellence.

I agree with Gamini that the training given to the cadets was routine and faceless. It did not inculcate any values in the trainee. We had Hewison, an Englishman, to guide us. He tried to impart social graces in addition to formal training.

Hewison invited our batch to dinner on a Sunday. I was very nervous to attend and the nervousness grew as the day approached. By evening I had fever and I ‘reported sick.’ Hewison pretended to believe me and invited me to a one-on-one dinner which I managed with minimal accidents with my cutlery and getting past ‘bowl’ and ‘fall’ reasonably within Hewison’s comprehension.

Training by example

Although the training syllabus had been meticulously drawn up it was administered haphazardly. I was supposed to be personally under the G.A. watching his every move, seated in his room but in actual fact I saw him only twice or thrice during the year I spent in Jaffna.

The elaborate monthly report was filled up by the O.A. and signed blind in absentia by the G.A. I do not believe that my report was very flattering. The O.A. did not like my nose as I hobnobbed too much with his Assistants whom he disliked. He was a psychotic man who subsequently ended his life by suicide.

It is my belief that the best training is imparted through example. In that sense, I did not receive any training until I came to the Land Development Department three years after recruitment. Up to that time I thought the best way to work was to show off but do the least.

In the LDD, I met Godfrey Gunatillake who was the Deputy Director there. Godfrey who was immersed in work with commitment, kept my nose to the grindstone. He took me out on circuit all over the island. He was a hard taskmaster and a relentless supervisor. I still remember how he counted unused bricks with me at dead of night at a construction site in the heart of the jungle in Aethimoleveva.

In his rare lighter moments, Godfrey used to tell me about one of my predecessors in office who earned traveling by covering about five hundred miles in a day. Reportedly, at the inspections, he had had enough time only to wave to the Officers-in-Charge of the Units concerned.

When I was being put through my paces, I cursed Godfrey inwardly as a workaholic and a slave-driver. But in retrospect I now realize that he was the man who awakened me by example to the onus cast on a servant of the people.

I did not find Godfrey’s equal in the places I worked thereafter but his example alone was enough for me to take off. I applied his ‘Karmayoga’ wherever I worked after leaving the LDD and may I say with the greatest humility that my commitment to work was appreciated everywhere.

The crusade

At Trincomalee I spent most of my time in the field trying to solve the problems of the people. Where I could not go by car, I went by jeep. Where the jeep could not go as in Thirumangalay, I went lying flat on a bullock cart covering myself with a raincoat as a protection against the thorns of the overarching branches. Where I could not reach a place by road vehicle at all, I went by boat.

On a boat ride up the tributaries of the Mahaveli, I found jungle folk cultivating cash crops on the riverbank drawing water from the river with a well sweep. I explained to them that they could cultivate more with less trouble if they used pumps. A pump was furthest from their minds as it was unthinkable within their resources. I arranged a bank loan for them and they were expected to collect the machines from the Kachcheri.

My diary lodged with the Government Archivist contains many such anecdotes. Unfortunately the best of it, being the last few hundred pages, are lost forever. They covered the last six months of my stay at Trincomalee when the Buddhist Congress Sessions and Independence Celebrations were held for the first time in a Tamil majority district. They disappeared in the rush in which I was unceremoniously shunted out to the ‘Pool’ immediately after the 1970 General Election.

The charge against me was that I belonged to the opposite side, a charge that has been consistently made against me whenever there was a change of government, until I was ‘permanently transferred out’ at the age of forty five in 1977 with the advent of the ‘Counter Revolution’.