Howiviewit’s Blog

I wrote this letter to Udaya Gammanpila roughly a month ago but unfortuntely received no response. I assume it must have somehow  ended up in his recycling bin. Udaya Gammanpila sounds like a pretty decent candidate primarily because of his pledge to declare all his assets prior to the campaign and remaining transparent from here on after.

He is also concerned about the environment and prohibited the use of posters during his campaign for this reason. For further information on him take a look at his website at www.udayagammanpila.com

While he may have many other flaws, the one that gets most peoples attention would be the party he sides with, the Jathika Hela Uramaya (JHU) which is classified in some parts of the world as a militant political group. The grenade attack on Shah Rukh Khan maybe a reason as to why. I personally don’t understand how Buddhist priests could join parliament without jeopardising their faith.  Therefore I wrote the following letter to him hoping that he could clear things up for me:

Dear Mr. Gammanpila,

Firstly let me congratulate you on your candidacy for the upcoming Western provinicial election. I can imagine that working on the campaign trial must be a difficult task and I wish you the best for that!

As you may have realised by reading the name on this email or when I was added by you via facebook, we almost share the same Surname, differentiating only with the letters ‘m’ and ‘n’. I too share the same concerns as yourself with regards to the environment. I applaud your polythene and poster free election campaign and hope that other candidates in this election as well as those in the future will follow suit as I feel that people of our country do not need constant reminding of what a candidate looks like in order to vote for him/her. Thank you for keeping our streets cleaner and utilising new technology such as your informative website, to reach out to people instead.

I think transparency in an election and then in government is an essential, but sadly I feel that it is something that is severely lacking in Sri Lanka. This can and is proven through facts and figures and unfortunately mismanagement of tax payers money is a continuous, what seems like ever-increasing and an eternal problem. Once again I am glad that you are willing to declare your assets from the start of your campaign onwards. I sincerely hope that this becomes a legality in the future for all politicians and figures of the state and I hope it would be something that you too will argue for on behalf of the citizens of our country.

For the reasons mentioned in your ten-fold pledge, I feel your candidacy is one which people could have hope in for the WPC elections. However Mr. Gammanpila, there are matters which do concern me, especially when it comes to your political party, the Jathika Hela Uramaya (JHU). I too am a Buddhist and I strongly believe in The Buddhas way of life and his teachings and would like to consider myself also as a ‘Buddhist Practitioner’. It is because of Lord Buddha that I too question things with regards to day to day life. However, this is the first time I have actually had to say it out loud as I feel that my religious beliefs are a matter of personal concern and not the concern of anyone else but me. Maybe it is because of this and because of my undying respect towards Lord Buddha that prevents me from supporting a party that has combined Politics; one of the most corrupting forces which has clearly proven to be corrupt in our country and all other countries I can think of, with Buddhism.

Initially I categorically opposed the JHU like so many other concerned Citizens and Buddhists of our country who, either felt worried that it was a party of ‘Radicals and religious chauvenists’ , or felt that the religion they follow wholeheartedly has been seized from them by a political party (JHU) and put on a political platform to allow critics in the political arena to discredit the religion as a whole by assuming that this political party represents all Buddhists in Sri Lanka as a whole.

However, certain objectives successfully carried out by the Party are accepted, such as the initiative to clamp down on foreign fundamental Christian organisations who promote forced conversions. I think this is a key issue as it is the most vulnerable people who get dragged into such situations. On the other hand, these people are this vulnerable and convert due to some sort of failure in government, usually due to socio-economic reasons. I do think this matter should be addressed and I understand that it can cause distress amongst some of the Buddhist clergy however I do not think that creating a political Buddhist party is the way to go about addressing such issues. I am sure the government would be more than receptive should the Buddhist clergy have simply voiced their opinion on such issues to the government instead of trying to become the government. I personally feel that the best way to overcome the problem of fundamentalists and immoral conversions would be if the respected heads of the Christian clergy worked closely with the government and members of all other faiths to tackle such problems. As a lawyer I’m sure you would know of any possible complications that a law banning conversions could potentially create to those who may want to convert simply out of choice.

In an interview of yours which I recently watched you say that ‘the state is the actor who has the exclusive right to use violence’. This maybe true in political philosophy and governments may argue that they require this power, however I do not understand how a political party made up of Buddhist priests and pious laymen support any sort of violence towards other beings without going against their religious beliefs. In the interview you said, “even during Gautama Buddha’s time not everybody complied with non-violent principles”, I too agree, however isn’t that why Prince Siddhartha left his political office to go in search of the middle path? Did he not leave because he could not have both attained nirvana and carried out duties of a political figure as they are contradictory? This is where I am most confused as to why the Buddhist monks who are members of the JHU would choose a political path and potentially jeopardise the noble path which they started on and inevitable confuse us lay people further when we try to come to a conclusion on issues such as acts of violence on human beings and tolerance of one another.

I wish you all the best in the upcoming Western Provincial elections, and wish you all the success in helping to build a cleaner, greener Sri Lanka which is unified as one country and considered every citizens motherland no matter what there race, religion, class or caste. I leave you with a quote from Lord Buddha:

I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done