A Critical Analysis of Corruption in India

[Written in 2013]

Introduction

Perception of corruption in India

‘Corruption’, is universally perceived as the abuse of power by individuals or groups, for private gain. Corrupt behaviour – because it is publicly derided and often illegal – often takes place privately (Choi and Thum 2005); making it difficult to measure or reliably estimate its actual social and economic costs (Galtung 2006). India has gained notoriety as a country where corruption is more visible than in others because of the pervasiveness of low level corruption that people encounter routinely as a part of daily life as well as a number of high profile corruption scandals (Parry 2000; Vittal 2012). When Kisan Baburao Hazare (also known as Anna Hazare) launched his public protest against corruption in August 2011, it garnered wide public support from across the social spectrum in India particularly the middle class (Banerjee 2011). From the poor who are often victims of abuses of power by law enforcement officials, to the burgeoning middle class who are often forced to bribe rent-seeking officials to access public services and the rich who often profit or lose based on political patronage; corruption is a visible and tangible reality for a majority of Indians.

Recent scandals have exposed politicians who had subverted due process (Acharya 2012), allegations of fraud levelled against organisers of the Delhi Commonwealth Games (Majumdar 2011) and Indian Cricketers who were convicted of match-fixing (ESPNcricinfo 2013). These indicate that corruption pervades many aspects of public life and a broad range of institutions in the country. They contribute to the perception of India as a country where corruption is pervasive (Srivastava 2001).

Research outline

This research will examine the historical, structural and social underpinnings of corruption in India. Given that corruption is often rooted in political and economic systems, the historical analysis will focus on India’s political transition from the British Raj to independent democracy as well as its economic liberalisation two decades ago. A key argument in this paper will be that the pervasiveness and magnitude of corruption in India is a result of policy imbalances caused by rapid political and economic transformations.

It will also draw on recent cases to illustrate the most prevalent forms of corruption as well as their magnitude. The impact of corruption in India will be discussed in terms of both the social risks and economic cost for a rapidly developing democracy with a burgeoning middle class. However, the role that corruption plays in keeping the enormous state machinery of India functioning despite shortcomings will also be examined, highlighting the institutional reforms that must precede action aimed at eliminating corruption. Finally, the emergence of anti-corruption movements and their impact will be analysed. The scope of this research is to analyse the spread, intensity, variety and future outlook of corruption in India. Analysis of specific anti-corruption measures and prescription of policy alternatives is not in scope.

Literature review

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

The spread of corruption in a society – as much as its eradication – is often a gradual process. Depending on the level of awareness, tolerance of, and attitude towards corruption, they may eventually become a feature of bureaucratic culture (Simpser 2013). Therefore, understanding corruption in a country or an institution requires a historical perspective and recognition of the specific conditions that spawned it. Any analysis of corruption in India must consider the broad social impacts of the two most pivotal events in India’s recent history: independence from the British Raj in 1947 and the liberalisation of its economy in 1991.

Political Transition

Historically - before western colonisation, social organisation in India was based on a class hierarchy that inhibited social mobility and avenues for realising political or economic aspirations of citizens (Heller 2013). The British Raj largely maintained the status quo – supplanting aristocrats with a colonial administration with broad discretionary powers (Lee 2013). Realising India’s vast capacity for wealth generation, the British government ensured that its colonial officials were well paid, but also imposed heavy penalties for dishonesty (Jones 2013).

Independence in 1947 brought sweeping changes to the social structure of India in a short time. It also inherited from British rule, a population that was no longer as tightly bound by their caste or class, and had aspirations of social mobility – and an education system that would elevate a vast portion of the population from the largely oppressive class hierarchy (Das 2013). Running the massive state machinery required a powerful bureaucracy, so the Indian government retained much of the powers that were once vested in its colonial officials but slashed their salaries (Sabharwal and Berman 2013) - creating an imbalance between the broad powers they exercised and the wealth they could access. The educated masses who sought to advance their social status by joining the public sector found themselves underpaid (Roy 2013). The confluence of excess power and low remuneration of public officials proved to be fertile ground for bureaucrats to use their powers to relax the strict regulations imposed on citizens by the state in exchange for bribes.

The left leaning Nehru government also imposed taxes - sometimes as high as 93% - on the rich and sought to enforce them through underpaid bureaucrats who exercised a broad range of discretionary powers (Kattumuri and Singh 2013). Such policies created incentives for officials and their constituency to profit by subverting due process. The taxation system in India continues to be one of the most corrupt public institutions (Das-Gupta and Andrade 2013). A high degree of State intervention in trade and manufacturing also spawned massive public enterprises which were vulnerable to political interference (Roy 2013). Furthermore, the geographic scale and cultural diversity within the federation of Indian states inhibited monitoring and control of power exercised by elected as well as appointed public officials (Patel 2013). With minimal oversight, elected officials were in a position to personally profit from state enterprises with minimal risk.

Economic liberalisation

After centuries of economic exploitation by the west through colonial occupation, the newly independent Indian government remained suspicious of foreign investment. Its socialist leaning economic policies curtailed private enterprise and market competition (Nilekani 2013). Therefore, until its commencement of landmark liberal economic reforms in 1991, the largest Indian enterprises and most valuable assets were owned and controlled by the state. Historical and cultural factors explained above had already enabled the permeation and normalisation of high-level corruption in the public sector. The privatisation agenda of the early 90s presented unprecedented opportunities for them to exploit public assets for private gains. As the government’s economic liberalisation policies began to kick in and investment in high-value public assets and enterprises were opened to private investment, those with close ties to political elites stood to profit the most (Vittal 2012).

It is worth noting that some industries such as technology companies that emerged and grew faster than government regulations could keep up, were relatively unconstrained by public sector interference and undue regulation. They have grown rapidly to become world leaders and a backbone of industry in India’s economy despite government corruption. A key innovation by India’s technology sector in recent years has been the introduction of a biometric personal identification platform for all citizens – which has the potential to minimise corruption and streamline bureaucratic processes across many public service institutions (Gelb and Clark 2013). If successful, it will help automate public services and thereby help minimise the need for bureaucratic intervention and slash service delivery costs (Kapoor 2013).

LAW

Corrupt behaviour and bribery have been criminalised in India under its penal code since 1860 and the Prevention of Corruption Act specifically targeting corrupt behaviour was introduced in 1988. However, much of meaningful action against corruption in India has been made possible by the Right to Information (RTI) act that was passed in 2005 (Relly and Schwalbe 2013; Suthar 2013). It has helped relax provisions of the Official Secrets Act 1923 that previously inhibited public access to government information and mandated the regular proactive reporting of certain government information – minimising the need for citizens to raise formal RTI requests. Under provisions of the RTI, citizens are entitled to receive government information within 30 days of a specific request – provided it does not adversely impact national security (Jain and Saraf 2013).

The campaign conducted by Anna Hazare in 2011 for a ‘Jan Lokpal’ or People’s Ombudsman on corruption – having revived popular demand for an independent office with broad anti-corruption powers two years ago – has not yet achieved its goal. The bill was passed by the Indian lower house but has been blocked in the upper house. It will be a test of integrity for key Indian policy leaders including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. More importantly, it will help gauge the momentum in public opinion against corruption. Those who criticise the bill points out however, that it is not a sufficient or critically important policy tool for combating the culture of institutionalised corruption in the country (Banerjee 2011).

RECENT HIGH-PROFILE CASES OF CORRUPTION

In February 2012, India's Supreme Court annulled 122 telecom licenses after it was revealed that then minister of communications and IT - A. Raja – had corruptly subverted due process in awarding them (Acharya 2012). Instead of being sold at public auction, the wireless phone licenses were sold at a colossal loss to the state, to a few privileged companies which the minister had tipped off ahead of their competitors. Raja was jailed for 15 months but has since been granted bail – even after perpetrating a scam that Time Magazine rated second behind Watergate in its ‘Top 10 abuses of power’ list (Tharoor 2011). The spectrum was later auctioned for $27 billion confirming the estimated value as per India's Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG). In April this year, Raja submitted a statement indicating that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P. Chidambaram were fully aware of the 2G bandwidth allocation process and approved of his decisions at the time (Singh 2013). Presently, there are also allegations of subverting due process in the allocation of coal blocks to public and private enterprises between 2004 and 2009, but it is not clear whether they are linked to corruption.

In March 2011, a diplomatic cable released by whistle-blowing website Wikileaks revealed an American official’s description of witnessing "chests of cash" shown to him by an official of the Congress party (WikiLeaks 2011). The cable further revealed the cash being described as reserved for bribing MPs to buy their support for a vote of confidence on the US-India nuclear deal.

Even sports have not been spared from the corrosive influence of corruption. The Indian government was seriously embarrassed by allegations corruption and fraud connected with its hosting of the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi (Majumdar 2011). Indian politician and member of the ruling Congress party Suresh Kalmadi faced a life sentence for his alleged role in the scandal. However, Kalmadi was granted bail in early 2012 after serving a 10 month prison term and the trial has not progressed since, further highlighting possible irregularities in the criminal justice system (TNN 2012). In 2012, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) suspended India's Olympic Association over claims of corruption surrounding its internal election process. Also, four high profile Indian Cricketers were convicted of match-fixing last September (ESPNcricinfo 2013). A court order has been issued to investigate the President of the Board of Control for Cricket in India and his son-in-law regarding their possible involvement in the scandal (Correspondent 2013).

The scale of corruption in India is partly made possible by the globalised financial services sector. Trillions of dollars' worth of proceeds from corrupt activity in India is estimated to be held in offshore bank accounts, though the exact figure may not be known (Kumar 2013). This highlights the fact that high-level corruption is a truly global issue – and its prevalence in India or any other country reflects more on a global system that enables, fosters and profits from it.

FIGHT AGAINST CORRUPTION

Social activists such as Anna Hazare and Kiran Bedi have recently gained prominence and broad following in Indian public life for their anti-corruption advocacy and campaigning (Khandekar and Reddy 2013). This highlights a growing and potent public discontent of the Indian government’s inability and sometimes unwillingness to tackle issues of corruption proactively (Goodwin 2013). There are indicators that the correlation between a growing middle class and reducing levels of corruption may hold true for India – as long as the middle class is actively engaged in the anti-corruption movement (Webb 2013). But little progress has been made so far and even symbolic victories such as the Lokpal bill of 2011 have stalled in the legislature. Much of the anticipated progress in the fight against corruption has not yet fully materialised, but increasing levels of social awareness and civil engagement provide cause for optimism.

Technological innovations such biometric identification for all citizens - promise to streamline bureaucratic processes and promote citizen empowerment by enabling easier access to public services for a large number of the population that have remained marginalised for generations (Kapoor 2013). Cheap and robust technological solutions have the potential to become a key ally in the fight against corruption, but they remain a fair distance from reaching fruition (Karna 2013).

Analysis

Continued failure of successive administrations to tackle corruption effectively, and the dominance of a political class that has benefited from it, have allowed corrupt behaviour to permeate many aspects of public life in India. Subsequent generations who have been born into the system have grown to accept corruption as part of public life (Simpser 2013). However, neither specific examples nor perceptions of the pervasiveness of corruption are symptoms of moral decadence; but signs of broader public policy failures, weak institutions and erosion of the rule of law. Even though they have a corrosive social impact in isolation, some have evolved as means of circumventing bad or inefficient policies, and have evolved to be net positive outcomes at least economically.

Lack of public accountability has historically been a key enabler of corruption in India, but RTI legislation coupled with heightened public awareness is increasing the risks for senior officials who engage in corrupt behaviour. Reducing high level corruption can deter corruption at lower levels (Bhattacharyya and Jha 2013). A higher degree of automation that can minimise the need for bureaucratic intervention in public service delivery, citizen empowerment through education and political organisation are proving to be more effective in the fight against corruption in India.

Nepotism and cronyism

Despite being a democracy for three generations, India’s historical social organisation paradigms of class hierarchy, caste clans and family ties have not been supplanted by egalitarian principals. As a result of the cultural primacy of the family, aspirations of the family and community are often inseparable from the aspirations of the individual. India is by no means unique in this regard, but its religious traditions and culture foster instincts that favour the greater good of the group over the individual (Gupta 2013). The ethical constraints on nepotism and cronyism based on egalitarian principles sometimes contradict the fundamental human instinct to favour those with familial ties or shared identity over those who we cannot relate to. As evident in the stark contrasts in levels of opulence and poverty lying side by side in its population centres, and irregularities in its justice system, few Indian citizens – if any – can subscribe to egalitarian ideas about equal opportunity and fairness for all. Nepotism and cronyism have gained credence in a society that is equally defined by the absence of policies that advance egalitarianism and meritocracy.

Political structure

The scale of India’s democracy, the collective demands of its citizen’s political and economic aspirations and the scale of diversity in Indian society have mandated devolution of political power to regions defined by distinct language and cultural traditions. Successive Indian central governments have depended on broad coalitions of federal level power brokers with diverse interests to gain and retain power. Such interdependencies have weakened checks and balances in the Indian legislature that would otherwise enable corruption among politicians to be prosecuted more proactively. For example, it is alleged that the Indian Prime Minister knew of irregularities in the 2G spectrum auction, but failed to take action against the relevant minister as that may have destabilised the ruling coalition.

Economic impact

The actual economic cost of corruption in India would be difficult to measure or estimate – not merely because corruption at most levels is invisible but also because of the scarcity of information. Variations in public awareness of corruption across the immense scale, diversity and geographic spread of the population and lack of reliable information channels would pose significant challenges in the collection as well as collation of data (Galtung 2006). However, there are two salient points that are relevant.

One is that the growing middle-class is rapidly building up a critical mass of people who are aware of corruption at all levels in society and articulate open dissatisfaction about the status quo (Harindranath and Khorana 2013). High profile corruption scandals contribute to a growing perception of the Indian market as one of high-risk as much as it is one of great opportunities (Gill and Mand 2013). There is a significant risk that such an environment may attract the wrong type of investors. Both these factors can have highly destabilising effects on the political climate and economy in India respectively.

The second point worth noting is that corruption in India has been spawned by imbalances in its policy framework caused by rapid political and economic transformations. It is perhaps a sad reality that India’s public infrastructure has not expanded to keep up with its growing population (Swerts et al. 2013). Intensifying competition for limited resources exacerbate certain ingrained forms of corruption that have gained legitimacy by evolving to offer better alternatives to bad social policies. Policies and regulations such as laws that refer minor traffic infringements to court are outdated, and have a negative impact on workforce productivity and judicial efficiency. Bribing a police officer in such instances - though illegal and corrupt - may have a positive economic impact.

Conclusion

India is too vast and diverse a country to be defined merely by perceptions of pervasive corruption. As the world’s largest democracy with a history spanning the entire length of human civilisation, the scale and complexity of policy challenges it faces – including anti-corruption measures – are unparalleled. There can only be a few – if any - precedents or examples of success in other countries that have practical relevance to India. Despite ongoing social developments, corruption will likely continue to be a feature of Indian public life. Given the mass of its population and its growing influence in international affairs, it is likely that the world will have to adjust to accommodate and work with the issue of corruption in India.

References

Acharya, Guru. 2012. "India: Case Study on the Supreme Court Ruling on the 2G Spectrum Scam." Available at SSRN 2048719.

Banerjee, Sumanta. 2011. "Anna Hazare, civil society and the state." Economic and Political Weekly 46(36):12-14.

Bhattacharyya, Sambit and Raghbendra Jha. 2013. "Economic Growth, Law, and Corruption: Evidence from India." Comparative Economic Studies 55(2):287-313.

Choi, Jay Pil and Marcel Thum. 2005. "CORRUPTION AND THE SHADOW ECONOMY*." International Economic Review 46(3):817-836.

Correspondent, HT. 2013. "Match-fixing case against Srinivasan." In Cricket News. http://www.hindustantimes.com/sports-news/cricket/match-fixing-case-against-srinivasan/article1-1146416.aspx: Hindustan Times.

Das-Gupta, Arindam and Fernanda Andrade. 2013. "An Analysis of the Effectiveness of the State Tax Administration in India with Particular Reference to the Value-Added Tax." Available at SSRN 2195540.

Das, Purba. 2013. "Casteless, Raceless India: Constitutive Discourses of National Integration." Journal of International and Intercultural Communication(ahead-of-print):1-20.

ESPNcricinfo. 2013. "BCCI probe finds four players guilty of match-fixing." In India news. http://www.espncricinfo.com/india/content/story/670975.html: ESNP Cricinfo.

Galtung, Fredrik. 2006. "Measuring the immeasurable: boundaries and functions of (macro) corruption indices." Measuring corruption:101-130.

Gelb, Alan and Julia Clark. 2013. "Performance Lessons from India’s Universal Identification Program."

Gill, Amarjit and Harvinder S Mand. 2013. "Barriers to the growth of small business firms in India." International Journal of Business and Globalisation 10(1):1-13.

Goodwin, Morag. 2013. "Corruption and Human Rights in India. Comparative Perspectives on Transparency and Good Governance." International Journal of Constitutional Law 11(1):265-270.

Gupta, Abhik. 2013. "Altruism in Indian religions: Embracing the biosphere." In Altruism in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Springer.

Harindranath, R and Sukhmani Khorana. 2013. "Civil Society Movements and the ‘Twittering Classes’ in the Postcolony: An Indian Case Study." South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies(ahead-of-print):1-12.

Heller, Patrick. 2013. "Movements, politics, and democracy." Routledge Handbook of Indian Politics:270.

Jain, Vivekanand and Sanjiv Saraf. 2013. "Empowering the poor with right to information and library services." Library Review 62(1/2):47-52.

Jones, Patricia. 2013. "History matters: New evidence on the long run impact of colonial rule on institutions." Journal of Comparative Economics 41(1):181-200.

Kapoor, Aditi. 2013. "Financial inclusion and the future of the Indian economy." Futures.

Karna, Singara Rao. 2013. "The Largest Democracy (India) Poised for Electronic Government and Electronic Democracy." Call for Papers:59.

Kattumuri, Ruth and Manju Singh. 2013. "Historical developments and goals of social protection policies in India." Social Protection, Economic Growth and Social Change:77.

Khandekar, Aalok and Deepa S Reddy. 2013. "An Indian summer: Corruption, class, and the Lokpal protests." Journal of Consumer Culture.

Kumar, Arun. 2013. "Illegal flows in India's BOP accounts, their components and impact on the economy." External Dimensions of an Emerging Economy, India:28.

Lee, Alexander. 2013. "Redistributive Colonialism: Caste, Conflict and Development in India." In APSA 2013 Annual Meeting Paper.

Majumdar, Boria. 2011. "Commonwealth games 2010: The Index of a" New" India?" Social Research: An International Quarterly 78(1):231-254.

Nilekani, Nandan. 2013. Imagining India: Ideas for the new century: Penguin UK.

Parry, Jonathan P. 2000. "The “Crisis of Corruption” and “The Idea of India”." Morals of legitimacy: Between agency and system 12:27.

Patel, Malay R. 2013. "TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN GOVERNANCE: AS REFORMING TOOLS IN INDIA."

Relly, Jeannine E and Carol B Schwalbe. 2013. "Watchdog journalism: India's three largest English-language newspapers and the Right to Information Act." Asian Journal of Communication 23(3):284-301.

Roy, Tirthankar. 2013. "The Making of Modern Indian Business."

Sabharwal, Meghna and Evan M Berman. 2013. Public Administration in South Asia: India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan: CRC Press.

Simpser, Alberto. 2013. "The Intergenerational Transmission of Attitudes Toward Corruption." Available at SSRN 2241295.

Singh, Shalini. 2013. "In letter to JPC, Raja links PM to all key 2G decisions." http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/in-letter-to-jpc-raja-links-pm-to-all-key-2g-decisions/article4645399.ece: The Hundu.

Srivastava, Chandrika Prasad. 2001. Corruption: India's enemy within: Macmillan India.

Suthar, Sudhir. 2013. "Protecting Freedoms, Guaranteeing Rights: Study of Freedom of Information Act, Us and Right to Information Act, India." Guaranteeing Rights: Study of Freedom of Information Act, Us and Right to Information Act, India (August 6, 2011).

Swerts, Elfie, Denise Pumain and Eric Denis. 2013. "The future of India's urbanization." Futures.

Tharoor, Ishaan. 2011. "Top 10 Abuses of Power." ed. Time. http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,2071839,00.html: Time Magazine.

TNN. 2012. "CWG scam: Kalmadi gets bail after staying in jail for nine months." In CWG scam. http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-01-19/india/30642347_1_oc-director-timing-scoring-result-cwg-scam: The Times of India.

Vittal, N. 2012. "Corruption in India." IASSI-Quarterly 31(1):1-7.

Webb, Martin. 2013. "Disciplining the everyday state and society? Anti-corruption and Right to Information activism in Delhi." Contributions to Indian Sociology 47(3):363-393.

WikiLeaks. 2011. "162458: Cash-for-votes ahead of confidence motion." In The India Cables. http://www.thehindu.com/news/the-india-cables/article1544916.ece: The Hindu.

Bibliography

Halpern, Laszlé. 2013. "IN TRANSITION." Handbook of the Economics and Political Economy of Transition:275.

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N.P. Campbell: Scientist, Missionary, Soldier

 

Click to download

In the grand tapestry of life, there are threads that shine brighter, threads that weave stories of such profound depth that they transcend the ordinary. One such thread is the life of Norman Phillips Campbell. It is with a sense of profound respect and admiration that I pen this forward. Campbell left an indelible mark not only on Trinity College, Kandy, but also on the countless lives he touched with his spirit of service.

Born in Chicago and educated at Oxford, Campbell was a brilliant scientist, tipped to be the next Lord Kelvin. Yet, he chose a path less travelled – when he chose to serve as a missionary teacher at Trinity College in what was then Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), saying “I believe I would do more for science itself by teaching the elements to a people new to it, and training the young there to give their contribution to it. But above all I want to serve Christ…” His dedication to service and his Christ-like compassion were legendary, earning him the love and respect of all who knew him – especially the poor and marginalised.

In the words of Alexander Garden Fraser, the Principal of Trinity who recruited him, Campbell was “the crowning glory” of the College. Fraser wrote after Campbell’s death, “I have only indicated the greatness and wonder of a man I have known who was like Christ… he was our pride, and to win his smile we would have gone far.” It is this greatness and wonder that we celebrate as we delve into the pages of this biography.

Campbell’s legacy at Trinity College is multifaceted. He served as a Professor of Chemistry and Scout Master, founded the Social Service Union, and designed a number of buildings at Trinity. It was in the Social Service Union that left the deepest imprint of himself, and which in turn defined the spirit and character of the school. His undivided devotion to science and the person of Christ has become a part of the identity of Trinity College, a gift for which we remain profoundly grateful.

As he left Trinity to join England’s war effort in 1914, he explained to his students why he felt he must enlist. “…every evil thing that you and I have done during all our lives has helped to bring on this war” he argued, and “evil grows as… the circles widen when a pebble is thrown into a still pool.”

Having taken responsibility for his own sin which led to the war, he felt he must therefore atone for it. “If peace were declared to-morrow, it would not make things better. The evil which brought about this war would be left exactly where it was.” “…war is not simply killing, it is also a willingness to be killed, if need be, not for one’s own sake, but for the sake of others; it is this that ennobles war” he reasoned.

Having been wounded in a gas attack in 1915, he returned to the field. On 3rd May 1917, he died of a gunshot wound to his shoulder, near Arras in Northern France.

This digitised version of Campbell’s biography, written by his wife Lettice Margaret Campbell and first published in 1922, is a tribute to his extraordinary life. It is my hope that the readers will find inspiration in Campbell’s story, just as I have. His life serves as a reminder that the pursuit of knowledge and the spirit of service are not mutually exclusive, but rather, they can and must coexist and enrich each other.

As you read, may you be inspired by the life of Norman Phillips Campbell - a man of science, a man of faith, and above all, a man of service.

How it all began: Revisiting the Vision of the Pioneers & Protagonists of Trinity College, Kandy

  source: Trinity College Kandy 

Presentation by Harendra Alwis at a webinar organised by the library council of Trinity College on 25th June 2022 as part of the sesquicentennial celebrations of the school.

Rediscovering Trinity: How it all Began? Revisiting the vision of the pioneers & protagonists 

 

Presented by the Trinity College Library Council

The third episode of the Rediscovering Trinity webinar series discusses about several strands from history in a retelling of how Trinity began and trace the lives and work of a few of Trinity’s pioneering figures, to weave together a story about the school that may illuminate our present moment and offer hope for the future to all Sri Lankans.

Posted by Trinity College, Kandy on Sunday, 19 June 2022

Thank you, Fr. Principal, Librarian Mrs. Illangakoon, and members of the library council, for inviting me. The Chaplain, Parents, friends, well-wishers of Trinity and Trinitians. I really appreciate the time you are dedicating to be part of this webinar tonight or if you are watching a recording online. To the majority of you who are in Sri Lanka, I hope the topic of this webinar and your association with the Trinity story will prove meaningful especially at times like these.

Introduction

I am preceded in these webinar series by two illustrious old boys.

Mr. Keshan Thalagahagoda made the point - which stood out for me - that the primary responsibility of a Trinitian is to be a good citizen. Prof. Gishan Dissanaike led an illuminating reflection, about the relevance and ingredients of an all-round education… the kind that nurtures good citizens and empowers them to think and act.

When Rev. Alek Garden Fraser was asked to outline his vision for Trinity, more than a century ago, in a country and a world that was very different from now, he spoke along the same lines.

He said:

The aim of Trinity is;

First.- To train Christians in Ceylon to present Christ through their lives; that their hearers may realise [Christ] not as a foreigner, but as the real and true fulfilment of all that is best and highest in their own aspirations and of their past.

Second - To make the pupils good citizens of their land,

(a) By carefully relating all that is taught them to the needs, problems, and language of their people,

(b) By deliberately striving to foster and encourage their sense of responsibility and readiness to act and, so working, to produce leaders.

Alek Garden Fraser (Circa 1915)

To be clear, he did not advocate for people to be converted to Christianity, but instead, for all Trinitians to be “Christ like” - that also not according to transplanted ideals about Christ, but the best and highest values in our own culture and faith and being true to our own history and heritage.

He intended for Trinitians to be leaders who can understand their own people and their problems. But not self-ordained leaders or out of a feeling of entitlement to be leaders merely because we call ourselves Trinitians. Rather, for us to feel a genuine sense of responsibility for our fellow citizens, the ability to address their problems and a will to serve their interests.

What Keshan and Gishan have outlined, is evidence that the vision of Alek Fraser has not only remained relevant after a century, but perhaps more now than ever before.

That leaves me to share the stories that gave birth to that vision and what it took to institutionalise them at Trinity. The stories I am going to share may not be new, but I hope they will open new perspectives when woven into the story of Trinity.

Preamble

If I may borrow the words of John Berger, “never again will the story of Trinity be told as though it were the only one.” The story of Trinity is one strand in a rich anthology. I am not here to reaffirm that Trinity is “the best school of all’. The story of Trinity is way more fascinating and way more important than one about wanting to be the best. Most of all, it is a story that matters. Especially if you are Sri Lankan. And regardless of whether you have anything to do with Trinity.

To someone looking from outside and able to see only what is tangible or measurable, Trinity may seem unremarkable. There are schools that are older, that have produced more influential people, that have better facilities… Even as Trinitians - our own assessment of the school is often tied up with the achievements of a few. Be that a list of notable alumni or the tally of trophies we’ve won, or even the fact that famous people like the Queen and Mahatma Gandhi have visited our school.

They are all important aspects of the Trinity story for sure, but it is all too easy to focus on them to the exclusion of the vision and institutional legacy of the school that we need to celebrate and continue to cultivate. That's the reason why the story of how Trinity began, needs to be rediscovered. It is only when we see the story of Trinity as a part of stories about our community, nation and the world that gave rise to it, that we can grasp its relevance in our present lives and appreciate the hope and promise it offers for the future.

How it all began

Carl Sagan, in his pioneering documentary series - The Cosmos - famously pointed out that “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe”.

What if you wish to make Trinity from scratch? How far in history would we have to go back?

Homo sapiens settled our island about one hundred thousand years ago and their course in history has been shaped by the world they came into contact with; from those who traded along the maritime silk-road of which our island was a notable link between east and west and renaissance of Europe almost half a world away, followed by their subsequent conquests of the East… Perhaps Trinity may not have been established had not the Kandyan kingdom successfully repelled successive European invaders for over 300 years - much longer than any comparably sized state was able to do anywhere else in the world…

But relax… I am not going to elaborate on any of those stories. Just to draw a mental picture, I think each of us are like droplets in the river of history; a river that has been nourished by all those streams and many more. Trinity is like a little lake - if not a pond - up in the mountains, where some of us have languished for a while and acquired shared memories.

So, this is a story about how this pond of ours came to be; and a few streams that gifted its distinctive rich waters. This pond and the streams that flow into it matter to the extent that they nourish the thirsty souls living around it.

CMS

On 12 April 1799 a group of men and at least one woman among them, met in a first-floor room in the Castle and Falcon Hotel at Aldersgate Street in London. They came from various walks of life; among them preachers, writers and two members of the British Parliament - Henry Thornton and William Wilberforce. They were social and religious reformists who held deep convictions about issues of social justice, gender discrimination and poverty. They were united in one cause above all others – and that was the abolition of slavery! It was the time when Britain was in ascendance on the world stage - on its way to becoming perhaps the greatest empire the world has ever seen, and much of its wealth and power was built on the institution of slavery.

Meeting at the church Missionary Society was founded. The Society was founded in Aldersgate Street in the City of London on 12 April 1799. Most of the founders were members of the Clapham Sect, a group of activist evangelical Christians. They included Henry Thornton MP and William Wilberforce MP.

Wilberforce was their leader and John Newton – a former slave ship captain turned preacher - who composed the famous hymn “Amazing Grace” was one of their mentors.

That meeting in 1799 would lead to the formation of a ‘Society for Missions to Africa and the East’. In 1812 it was renamed The Church Missionary Society for Africa and the East or CMS as we know it. Its goal was the emancipation of the body, mind, and soul - through the promotion of universal education and health in the expanding British Empire. In other words, where the justification for slavery came from arguments about the genealogical inferiority of non-Europeans, they aimed to educate the masses of the new colonies as a means of emancipating them. Because a “race” that is capable of doing mathematics as it were, could not be considered ‘inferior’ enough to be enslaved.

The CMS is the main catchment that nourished the Trinity pond.

‘Ceylon’ featured prominently in the deliberations of the C.M.S. from its early years, however, it was not until 1817 that they moved to establish a mission here.

Its committee appointed four preachers as missionaries to Ceylon and they arrived in Galle on June 29, 1818. Rev Samuel Lambrick was assigned to travel up to Kandy to establish the mission there. In October 1821, the Rev. Thomas Browning arrived in Kandy with his wife, to join him, but in May 1822, Rev. Lambrick was transferred away from Kandy. In June 1822, Rev. Browning received a government grant of land, which still forms part of the present Trinity College compound. So, the first institution that would eventually become Trinity, was established there exactly 200 years ago.

The first CMS mission house established on the same site where Trinity College, Kandy is today (1823)

Plantation economy, slavery, and indentured labour

At the time, agricultural produce accounted for the majority of international trade and European powers were competing with each other in South Asia to control the spice trade - which was among the most profitable. As is always the case, plantations, to be profitable, required cheap labour which in the Americas, came predominantly from enslaved Africans. It was William Wilberforce the same person who founded the CMS - who successfully led the motion in the British parliament, to abolish the slave trade there in 1807.

There is a movie called - “Amazing Grace” Directed by Michael Apted about this very story.

Britain would abolish slavery altogether in 1833. But once the slave trade had been abolished in Britain, a large number of ships that were used for the transportation of slaves across the Atlantic had no use. Many of them lay anchored in ports from New Orleans to Baltimore.

Back in Ceylon, the Uva-Wellassa rebellion of 1817 to 1819 shook the British East India Company and they were spending more to suppress the population in the provinces than what they earned from trading there. So, there was a push in the 1820s to introduce industrial scale agriculture in Ceylon. For that, the government opened up land for European planters, but they needed a steady source of cheap and compliant labour. In a cruel twist of irony, many of the old slave ships were cheaply repurposed by the British in the 1820s and 1830s - for among other things - transportation of indentured people mainly out of India as cheap plantation labour throughout the colonies from the West Indies to South Africa and Mauritius, as well as Ceylon and the Malaysian peninsular. These ships were used also to transport the produce of those plantations and more notoriously Opium that was grown in India to be sold in China - leading ultimately to the opium wars.

A distribution map of Indian indentured labour during the British Raj sourced from Reddit.

The British administration in India was responsible for causing a number of famines. The poorest in South India, who perhaps suffered the most from those famines, were promised a better life in Ceylon and brought here as labourers to work in the plantations from the 1820s and this continued till the 1920s. They were ‘offloaded’ in Mannar and marched treacherously on foot to Anuradhapura and then to Matale - along what became known as “Skeleton Road”. Many died along the way and a British planter described that “one could fill two carts with the skulls of those [migrants] who have been abandoned, unburied.” The survivors would be quarantined in Matale for two weeks and screened for diseases, then brought to Kandy to be sent off to plantations all over the country.

Agriculture has always been the bedrock of Sri Lanka’s economy, and it was colonised by successive European nations that wanted to control the spice trade. But it was the British who set up industrial scale plantations. Kandy - given the location, became one of the main trading hubs - where the produce of the hill country plantations was brought to be sent to Colombo.

People, brought from South India, have to this day, sustained the plantations and thereby the rolling fortunes of the Kandyan economy during the British period - and for decades afterwards. Their staging post in Kandy was in Mahaiyawa, where some of their descendants live to this day. Those men and women and their descendants who have lived in Mahaiyawa since the 1820s, became one of the streams that enriched the Trinity pond.

Recent images of the Mahaiyawa Slum

The Colebrooke-Cameron Reforms of 1833 opened up the Ceylon Civil Service to locals for the first time and standardised the education system - making English the sole medium of instruction. An English education became a gateway to power and wealth for aspiring Ceylonese, and Christian Missionary schools were especially favoured by the government which gave them an advantage over non-Christian schools.

As a trading hub, Kandy attracted both the rural elite - who were essentially plantation owners and administrators as well as the urban elite - the new professionals who ran the trade exchanges and machinery of government. They all needed a school that would provide an English education for their sons. The CMS mission in Kandy had both the means and favour of the government to fill the need better than any others. And so, it did.

When the hill country coffee plantations prospered in their march across the hills, they drew in professionals from all over the country and people seeking riches from other parts of the empire, and the school thrived. But whenever the coffee plants withered - the school too lost the population that sustained it. Fortunes of the CMS schools in Kandy were tied to the plantation economy.

Cultural and religious revival in Ceylon

Meanwhile, the world and our own history kept opening up. As a natural reaction to British government policies including those which unfairly advantaged Christian missionary schools, and also boosted by the archaeological discoveries in Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa including the ‘discovery’ of the Mahavamsa by George Turnour - the 1840s paved way for a Buddhist revival in Ceylon. The growing opposition to Christian Missionary work came from scholarly monks like Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala thero. They were not narrow-minded religious conservatives but men who had broad breadth of vision and by all accounts, were very liberal minded. Further afield, Charles Darwin published “On the origin of species” in 1859 which undermined the authority of the Biblical creation narrative on objective and rational terms. So, despite favourable government policies, the latter half of the 19th century was a very tough time to be a Christian missionary, especially in Ceylon.

Ruwanweliseya (circa 1891)

The decline of coffee plantations and the introduction of tea in the 1870s finally helped stabilise the Kandyan economy. In retrospect, if not for the stability and prosperity brought about by the tea plant, the CMS missionary school in Kandy would have also continued to blossom and wither with the economic cycles.

An early Tea plantation in Ceylon and James Taylor (left) credited with the introduction of Tea.

So, during the course of the nineteenth century, the CMS mission that was founded half a century earlier… and a colony of South Indian labourers brought in by the most powerful empire the world has ever seen… and a resurgent Sri Lankan consciousness would all converge on either side of what is now DS Senanayake Veediya and Katugastota road in Kandy. It is a valley that stretches like a hammock towards the Mahaweli river, from the Kandy lake - strung from two mountains - Hantana on one end and Hunnasgiriya at the other. This is where Trinity College Kandy began, in 1872.

View of Kandy from the Kandy Lake in the foreground to the Hunnasgiriya range in the distance (circa 1890).

The founders of Trinity College in 1872, were separated by more than three generations from the founding of the CMS. Slavery was a thing of the past in Britain and more recently in America with the end of the American Civil War in 1865. Perhaps feeling absolved of past sins, they saw England and the West as the wellspring of all that was civilised and civilising. Britain already controlled India and had decisively won the Opium wars, bringing the mighty Chinese empire to its knees. So, it was perhaps natural for them to see it as their great mission to make the rest of the world more like them - to evangelise and Westernise the East. Even if early CMS missionaries at Trinity were not blind to the cruelties of empire, they did not publicly question the notion of the British empire as an institution ordained by God to gather all the nations under her flag. The curriculum at Trinity (and content of the library) at the time, reflected this adulation of western civilization to the exclusion of much else. It was not only far removed from the students and the community it wanted to serve, but ignored the archaeological facts being unearthed before their very noses - that the Ceylonese they were ‘educating’ in European classics were themselves heirs to a grand civilisation much older and at least as rich as theirs.

Vision of the pioneers

It is unlikely that Alek Garden Fraser was the first Principal of Trinity to have a great vision for the school, but his was more aligned with the trajectory of history and the genuine needs of the community. Perhaps even more importantly, he had an ability to bring together a team of similarly inspired men and women to realise his vision. There is nothing worthwhile that an individual - alone - can do. Executing a vision requires a team of capable individuals and space for them to also enrich it with ideas and energy of their own. Part of Fraser's team were handpicked from the far corners of the Empire stretching from England to Australia, but the majority of them were drawn from local stock. And it is mostly the lives and work of those men and women that breathed life to the great pioneer’s vision.

I quoted Fraser’s own statement of vision earlier, but how did he and his staff achieve it? Well, they have left many vital clues in their own accounts, and also in the Trinity they built.

The College Chapel invariably occupies a special place in our memories of Trinity. To me, that is because it captures for the ages, the spirit of Trinity and her pioneer’s vision in its true sublimity. However, by the time Rev Gaster drafted its plans, Trinity was already the leading national school in the island. The vision depicted in the chapel was more a reality than a dream.

Architectural draft of the Trinity College Chapel by Rev. L.J. Gaster

The idea about what Trinity could become was conceived during the construction of a very different monument a decade earlier, half a kilometre away: at Asgiriya.

It may be tempting to imagine - that by merely reflecting on the murals in the chapel - that we could understand and emulate their message in our lives. But as Jacob Bronowski - author of “The ascent of man” wrote; “The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is the cutting edge of the mind.” Fraser had the wisdom to realise that building an institution based on rich values required more than a visual meditation, but active participation. He shared that vision with Mr. Don James Abeywardene Jasinghe - his master builder and they decided that the ground will be built by the students and staff themselves. As a project, they recognised it’s potential to fulfil a much larger purpose than the building of a Cricket field, but of the construction of a collective identity and a shared sense of responsibility.

One of the most moving accounts of the construction of Asgiriya comes from Miss. Valesca Reimann’s history of Trinity, where she describes this rather poetically:

“The making of the new cricket-pitch began to assume gigantic proportions. It was found that after moonlight nights there was a miraculous advance on the following morning, as though gnomes or pixies had been at work in the silence of the moon. And so, it was. But the gnomes were college boys in their clothes and pyjamas working swiftly and singing lustily to the accompaniment of Mr C.B. Weerasinghe’s violin. Almost like Nero fiddling at night to the destruction of Rome. But this destruction of a hill was the construction of a field”.

 As a project, he used it to establish a school without racial, religious or class barriers within, as well as in its interactions with the world around. As they toiled hard to build their ground, Trinitians would have learned that they could not do it alone - they depended on the help and generosity of others. Fraser also got help from neighbouring villagers to do specialist tasks. The association of the ground with workers from the neighbourhood in Mahaiyawa has been a lasting one - from construction to its maintenance up to now. The ground itself, and the fields of sport that it represents would be at the heart of a Trinity education.

Asgiriya Cricket ground (circa 1920)

Visiting teams that commented on the ‘beauty’ of this Cricket field were merely captivated by the vistas from the pitch. But the true splendour of Asgiriya lay beneath its surface. How could the boys not aspire to win every game they played, on a surface that they had literally planted themselves?! I am not saying that the Trinity identity was chiselled out of a hill at Asgiriya, but it would have been unimaginable without it.

Before construction commenced at Asgiriya, Trinity was still a provincial school among many like it. By the end of construction in 1915 - Trinity had completed her magical transformation. In that year, Amicus - an illustrated weekly magazine at the time reported;

‘Trinity was first in the Intermediate Examination, first in the Arts Scholarship Examination, first in cricket, first in physical drill, first in military drill, first in shooting, first in boxing – for the Shield remains with them – without equal in rugger, and in running equal second.’ and by means of this ‘astonishing record, this provincial institution has forced its way into the very front rank of our great public schools and means to stay thus’.

Dare I say, in that moment in history, Trinity had even become “The best school of all”!

Being the best and knowing it, even for a mere decade in the 1920s, can breed an unhealthy ego. Merely being Trinitians is often sufficient to infuse even into us - a century later - an air of superiority. When we talk about the “Trinity Spirit” or sing about the best school of all, or even win the Bradby like we used to from time to time, we often do so out of a sense of exceptionalism - the unfounded assumption that we are better than the rest. But the reputation of Trinity and of her legendary Principal, was built fighting against such a sense of exceptionalism.

The ’Communicant’s Union’ of Trinity College was founded by Rev. W.S. Senior in 1909 - around the same time the land in Asgiriya was being secured. Members of the union dedicated themselves to preaching the bible in neighbouring villages. One cold evening in 1913, some members of the Communicant’s Union were preaching in a village where they shared stories about Jesus, as a man who served the poor and healed the sick. An old villager interrupted them, and said, “Yes. We know the man you are talking about. He lives at Trinity College and in fact he was here a little while ago and gave me this coat because he saw I was cold.”

The man was speaking about Norman Phillips Campbell, whom Fraser had recruited as Professor of Chemistry and Scout Master at Trinity. He was a brilliant scientist - tipped to be the next Lord Kelvin - when he left Oxford and followed Fraser to Trinity.

He founded the Social Service Union in 1910.

The idea that a spirit of social service should be integral to a sound education was argued by another great educator and contemporary of Fraser in India - Tyndale-Biscoe - in his book “A mission school and social service”. It inspired Rev. Fraser to do something about people living in the slums of Mahaiyawa, where he noted ‘'the conditions were intolerable”. It was Norman Campbell who formulated the programme through the Social Service Union.

Among the projects of the SSU, they consulted local doctors to supervise the boys as they visited the poor and sick in and around Kandy town as well as at the hospital. A group of students built a shelter for rickshaw pullers while another group ran a school for their children while younger members of the Union organised Christmas treats for them. The union ran a program to help opium addicts and beggars by investigating their circumstances, fulfilling their basic needs, and helping them get access to rehabilitation. The Union also organised lectures at the college on contemporary social issues. Rev. Fraser said of Norman Campbell, that 'he saved men who were confirmed opium-eaters or drunkards, using his own bedroom to lodge them in....’

Norman Phillips Campbell

Norman Campbell is one of my favourite heroes in the story of Trinity. Not to be confused with Rev. John McLeod Campbell who became principal of Trinity following Fraser. Norman was a brilliant scientist who also practised Christ-like service. It was he who designed the science laboratory building at Trinity memorialising the great scientists including Darwin. In a world freshly divided between science and God, he held deep convictions about both without any conflict. His undivided devotion to science and the person of Christ would become imprinted on the identity of Trinity College Kandy and remain one of the profound and unique gifts I am personally grateful for receiving from the school.

His spirit of service would become the spirit of the school - as Mr Hilary Abeyratne so movingly described to me at his residence in the Mornington Peninsula one evening in 2011. Perhaps, it is not too far-fetched to imagine that David Paynter himself may have been an active member of the Social Service Union, or that he may have heard the story about how Norman Campbell and his students had once gotten into faeces ridden drains in the Mahaiyawa slums to unclog them, while leading a landmark survey there. The survey that they conducted, triggered a debate about it in the Legislative Council - the parliament at the time - and led to the passage of legislation which improved the lives of those people.

It is worth noting that some of the descendants of labourers brought from South India were not afforded citizenship in Sri Lanka until as recently as 2003, while many were sent back to India by subsequent Sri Lankan governments after independence in order to maintain a favourable balance for their respective parties in the ethnically divided electorates.

Even though the school’s level of active involvement in the community has declined over the years, the idea that Trinity should be deeply involved in the life, education and improvement of the community was a deeply held conviction of her pioneers. Fraser used to say, “If I go into a village and see the place full of flies and mosquitoes, the poultry scrawny, the streets untidy and the houses dilapidated, I know at once that the school - if there is one - is not doing its job.”

Time does not afford me the luxury to elaborate on the love of the land and people of Sri Lanka that W.S. Senior’s poetry inspires or reflect on the influence of K.J. Saunders’ - another hand-picked by Fraser - as a man who had a deep respect for eastern philosophy and Buddhism in particular. If we were forced to identify one man for creating a culture of deep mutual respect and unity of race, religion, and class at Trinity, it would be the work of Saunders along with Fraser that should be credited. There are Trinitians alive today, who are more qualified than I am to speak of how Miss. Valesca Reimann’s love of music, of history and humour have touched their lives. The architecture, murals, and sense of worship the Chapel inspires, speak to us of all those things. Each of its fifty-four pillars are unique, and yet uniform in design and equally responsible for the load they bear. Each of them speaks with gratitude - of those foreign and local donors - whose generosity made them possible. Each of them also confidently bears an identity that is both cosmopolitan as it is ancient, but always firmly rooted in local soil. It is a place that inspires love and unity among all nationalities and religions of the land.

More than four generations later, we are beneficiaries of the vision of our founders only because they were successful in institutionalising it at Trinity. I recall Dr. Jayantha Dhanapala’s Prize Day speech in 2004, where he pointed out:

“...that institutions, as the aggregator of individual achievements over the years, are ultimately what endure the test of time. Nothing is possible without men; but nothing is lasting without institutions.”

Traditions and culture are major components of the institution that is Trinity, but the role of leaders cannot be overstated. The School Officer's Guild, the Staff Guild, Principal and Board of Governors as its custodians and stewards share a great responsibility for advancing that vision.

The visions of missionary educators are not without detractors, both in their time and since. One of the criticisms is that their mission to educate was in many ways a gateway for evangelisation - the conversion to Christianity of people from other faiths. The second is that they both failed to criticise the evils of empire and at times strengthened imperial ideology. Any response to these criticisms requires both an impartial and case-by-case analysis.

Also, the criticisms as well as any response to them need to consider their historical context - which E.F.C. Ludowyk outlines in his well-considered evaluation of the role of Christian missionaries in Ceylon, where he says:

“Most valuable in what came through the missionary to his pupils was in effect neither indoctrination nor familiarity with the Christian story; it was schooling coloured by certain values derived from the teacher’s own education in his homeland. What these men and women believed of course influenced their personality as teachers, but it was their character as men and women rather than their beliefs (in so far as they could be separated) which left its mark on those they taught. For all its inadequacies and misdemeanours this kind of education had most effect through the contact of the pupil with persons whose qualities of mind and character had much to give them. One can only regret that contacts such as these were available only to so few.”

Conclusion

In the final analysis, the vision of the pioneers was to institutionalise an ethos of unity and a spirit of service at Trinity College Kandy. To that end, they initiated traditions to habitualise, monuments to memorialise and a holistic education to empower the men, and women, who would pass through this institution. Here, I echo what Mr. Thalagahagoda and Prof. Dissanaike has already spoken of so eloquently - that the vision of the pioneers of Trinity was to educate and equip Trinitians to be good citizens.

But why good citizens? Why not aspire to produce powerful but benevolent leaders? That question would have baffled us at any time in the past, but the answer is clearer today than ever before. There are leaders who rule and leaders who serve. Each must be moulded and raised very differently. The pioneers of Trinity envisioned that Trinitians would be able to understand the masses, empathise with them and serve their community, the country, and the world competently - out of a sense of responsibility.

That is why, as I promised this would be, the story of Trinity College is both fascinating and relevant to all Sri Lankans, especially at the present juncture in our history. The wisdom behind their focus on moulding good citizens is dawning on us now. At this very moment, on our streets, we as a nation are beginning to realise that our hopes of the future depend on the wholesomeness of our citizens, rather than the benevolence of a few powerful rulers.

Finally, even though we have much to treasure in the vision of our pioneers, as times change, we as its stewards have the right and responsibility to revise and update it. Does it need revision? Probably not. Does it need to be updated? Of course, it does. For one, our avenues for social mobility are not limited to the colonial civil service anymore; to every Trinitian leaving school today, the whole world is open for play. It is vital, but not enough that we understand our own people and our own history; we need to encourage students to learn world languages, world history and geopolitics. The world today is connected in very different ways than it was in Fraser’s time, and on wholly different terms. Technology like quantum computing and fusion energy, perhaps even more than imperial powers, may govern the dynamics of the world order in years to come. All these, and existing issues like climate change, will present new problems and opportunities that are unprecedented in human history.

There is a need for law and legal reasoning to be introduced as a serious subject or practically as a model court system at secondary school level. While our responsibility to be good citizens cannot be overstated, perhaps we have even greater obligations to fulfil as parents, partners, siblings and towards our parents, and need an education that sufficiently emphasises those and equips us to meet them. More broadly, education policy has to keep up with the social, political, technological, economic, and ecological change around us, and Trinity, like she has done in the past, has a lot to contribute to meaningful and visionary reforms.

There is an even more enduring lesson in the 200-year history of the CMS missionary school in Kandy. That is; Trinity is not an island oasis. The fortunes of our school will remain inseparable from the fortunes of our community - in Kandy, in Sri Lanka and the world. It is not by any measure of how much we are better than others that will determine the prosperity or greatness of our school - but by how ably we serve and how ‘Christ-like’ we mold each subsequent generation to be.

I thank God for the wisdom and faith of the pioneers and the resilience of the community that has sustained our school, and pray that her leaders, teachers, students, and alumni will strive, despite our limitations, to be a blessing to our neighbours.

Thank you all very much!

The greatest hero of our time, and civilization

The Cricketing world will pause for a moment, to celebrate the legendary career of Kumar Sangakkara that has drawn to a close, and then move on; a bit richer for the legacy he leaves behind, for the standards he raised, expectations he upheld and for his story being entwined with the story of Cricket. He has already confirmed his place among the greatest test batsmen the game has ever seen. Yet the people of Sri Lanka will pause for longer and with heavier hearts; not merely beset by doubts about who now will rescue their hopes the next time their openers get dismissed in quick succession. To most Sri Lankans, he is more than the greatest Cricketer their country has ever produced. By far the most loved and respected Sri Lankan of his generation in Sri Lanka and throughout the Cricket playing world, for Sri Lankans, he is also their Hero. Our choice of heroes - as individuals and as nations - reflect more deeply and authentically, our history and character as well as our hopes and aspirations.

The first popular hero of the Sinhalese was a king named Gamini from Sri Lanka’s Deep South. Gamini was a rebel from his younger days, raging against his father’s inhibition to evict Ellalan: a Cholan invader who occupied richly irrigated Northern plains - the rice bowl of Sri Lanka. It earned him the nickname ‘Dutugamunu’, meaning ‘Gamini the Wicked’.  When he eventually waged his successful military campaign against Ellalan, he did so with the army that his father had built, having marched along the East Coast through Tamil villages where his father had nurtured friendships in order to supply his troops. Gamini’s army is said to have been led by ten ‘giant’ generals with superhuman powers that his father had recruited and around whom he had organised his troops. The impassioned king and his ten giants led a heroic campaign against many odds to unify the island politically - in 205 BC - for the first time in the islands recorded history. Despite the connotations of this event, Tamils and Sinhalese continued to live rather peacefully together for centuries to come.

Yet, for two millennia, as Sri Lanka came under constant attack and threat of invasion, the quintessential Sri Lankan hero conformed to a version of Gamini’s prototype – usually a tragic-heroic king or royal princeling who defended his race from foreign invaders and protected his faith from heresy. Every generation and historical epoch that followed was characterised by the nationalism and fervour of heroes they spawned; whose lives reflected the fears and aspirations of their time and whose tales become the progenitor of heroes that came after. The stereotypical Sri Lankan hero therefore, was invariably a brave nationalist. From Dutugamunu in the third century BC, to Veera Puran Appu in the nineteenth century, this type of heroism crystallized in the national psyche to the exclusion of all others. Despite its heroes, a stable, independent and unified Sri Lanka did not materialise for another two thousand years, and the intermittence of political and geographic unity never allowed a coherent and inclusive national identity to emerge; let alone the unity of hearts and minds of the diversity of people that inhabited the island and those who came from afar to trade and settle.

Like Gamini, for much of the island’s long, rich and conflicted history; its heroes have been cast on the field of battle. They distinguished themselves in conquests waged to unify their land politically, but opinions about their heroism or villainy remained divisive because they often fought to protect their own ethnic, religious or cultural identity to the exclusion of others. It has therefore been a common feature even during its struggle for independence from British rule, that Sri Lankan heroes of one community were often perceived as villains by others.

Therefore at its birth as a modern nation state in 1948, the Dominion of Ceylon faced a serious deformity that would cripple it for decades to come. Strong nation states - more often than not - are born out of collective struggles; through which emerge their defining values, legends, myths and - perhaps most importantly - heroes that personify and embody all the vital elements of a nation’s identity as well as the aspirations of its people. While each community had their own leaders and historic legends, there wasn't a single heroic figure that represented the identity of an inclusive nationhood and the aspirations for peace and unity among its people within a pluralistic state. Instead, narrow visions of national identity and short-sighted politics led to decades of divisive communal violence. Most notably at the end of the war in 2009, Sri Lanka needed - more than ever – a voice of intelligent cosmopolitanism that could elevate the island nation from the divisive legacy of its past heroes and their fearful insularity from the outside world. They needed someone who would inspire the myriad cultural and religious groups to unite. Yet, it was a void that the island’s conflicted history was ill-equipped to solve by itself.

Sri Lanka required a different kind of battlefield for a new and revolutionary type of heroes to emerge – who could unite its ancient peoples in heart and mind like never before. Cricket would prove to be that battlefield and their first heroes came in the form of Arjuna Ranatunga and his own band of ten ‘not quite giant like’ men. Fittingly, they were as diverse a group as the people they represented. They came from the all walks of life including the urban middle class and the rural heartlands that had rarely fitted the template of heroes past. Their vocation was even more peculiar. Cricket was very much a symbol of foreign conquest and occupation of the island. Heroes were more likely to be made fighting it than playing the game. Besides, heroes are often inclined to imperil themselves in pursuit of immortal glory – whereas Cricketers are required to do the opposite. Upul Tharanga was ever lauded for bravely chasing deliveries outside off stump nor Chandimal for courageously hooking bouncers down deep square-leg’s throat. But Arjuna's men nevertheless managed to achieve something that no Sri Lankan heroes have ever done before. 2201 years after the famous campaign of Dutugamunu and his ten giant worriers had briefly united the island politically, a contrastingly modest and unassuming band of eleven men united Sri Lanka in heart and mind - for the first time in the island’s history - in 1996: when they won a world cup (or “THE world cup”, if you are Sri Lankan).

Until 1996 and then again in the early 2000s, Sri Lanka’s cricketers, much like the celebrated kings and rebels of their ancient past, were tragic heroes who valiantly resisted foreign attacks; but often failed despite their own bravery and ingenuity. Most notably, they failed against better equipped and organised conquerors. Yet, whereas history had often trickled down in little streams, they were a torrent that carved out within a decade - a special space for Cricketers to stand among Sri Lanka's pantheon of heroes. The legends of Aravinda, Sanath and Murali were created on the field. Underdogs for much of their careers, they rose heroically to often rescue Sri Lanka against intimidating oppositions and sometimes, single-handedly carried the hopes of their nations to victory. The boys reflected every culture and faith, but played for a united Sri Lanka. Muththiah Muralitharan and Aravinda De Silva were embraced by all as Sri Lankan heroes. Even though the batsmen were hardly consistent enough to be relied upon and the bowlers - except Murali and Vass - were required more for rescue operations than conquests of the opposition, they represented a vision for what the country and her people could aspire be if they were united and has equal access to opportunity.

The colonial legacy in Sri Lanka had left a deep and enduring imprint in its society and culture, and Cricket was perhaps its most visible icon. The timidity of the colonised was another that persisted for decades after political independence. Aside from a few exceptions like Duleep Mendis - Sri Lankan Cricketers had modest ambitions - easily satisfied with a draw against major test nations. Much like the Israelites who had to wonder in the wilderness for 44 years after being rescued from slavery in Egypt, it took the passing of two generations of Sri Lankan Cricketers, for them to unshackle themselves from the game they were drilled to play, and discover the way they were meant to play it. So, it was not until the 90s, in the coming to the fore of Jayasuriy's devastating stroke play and lethality of Murali's perplexing action, that they were finally assured enough in their own identity to disregard the text-books and express themselves more authentically. Murali, Kaluwitharana, Mahela, Avishka Gunawardene and Sangakkara – unlike even Arjuna and Aravinda’s generation – had no direct links to the Cricketers who had only played the game as they were taught by the masters of a forgotten era.

With the opening up of the Indian economy and the advent of dedicated sports TV channels in the 90s, the modern international game transformed into a commercial enterprise - almost unrecognisable from the refined pastime that it used to be, both on and off the field. In that context, it makes little sense to compare modern Cricketers against the greats of its past because the yardstick had changed. Yet, even in that comparison, Kumar Sangakkara statistically ranks among the best three test batsmen of all time. But Sri Lankans who celebrate his heroism don’t often cite statistics to quantify their argument. Where Cricket is much more than a sport, even numbers don’t mean what they say. As much as he has been relied upon consistently to bat his team and country to victory, people all over the world remained glued to their TVs after the match was over – to hear him speak. Though his hero’s journey had started on the pitch with bat in hand, he came to the fore behind a microphone.

Heroes are more inclined to monopolise the limelight than share it, so it would not have been a surprise if the war hero of Sri Lanka’s past and the Cricket hero of its present eventually clashed: for one to emerge dominant while the other is relegated to the shadows of time. At an august gathering at Lord’s in 2011, Kumar recalled an encounter he had with an unknown soldier, at an obscure checkpoint somewhere in the labyrinth of Colombo’s streets. By the soldier’s own admission, the Cricketer was the more dominant and valuable hero. Remarkably, Kumar had survived an armed attack just a week earlier. It is possible to imagine that the soldier would have never experienced the heat of battle himself - but could only hope that the next vehicle he hailed down to inspect would not be a fatal choice. Yet, the unknown soldier and the great Cricketer took turns appreciating each other’s contribution to their own lives and the life of their country - calling each other ‘heroes’ before departing, perhaps never to meet again. They were both right of course; and so the Cricket star and soldier both were enhanced by that experience.

In that speech, Kumar went on to brew a cocktail of emotion; with wit, humour, passion and rage. His words that tugged at the heartstrings of the Cricketing world, and from Sri Lankans in his worldwide audience, it drew tears. A few months earlier in November 2010, Mathews and Malinga had turned an impossible chase against the odds at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Jayawardene had scored a match saving century just weeks before. But, in all the years since Arjuna and his team won the world cup in 1996, it was through Kumar’s voice that Cricket spoke most compellingly to Sri Lanka’s hearts and minds. His words also made Sri Lankans look at themselves in a way that made them sad, and angry, and laugh. That story and the broader content of his speech, has since held a mirror for Sri Lankans look and understand themselves and the world more deeply. Cricket writers all over the world invariably wove it into the story of Cricket too, and thus Kumar grabbed the conscience of the world on that day in a way that it could never escape. Those who doubted him before could not resist his charm afterwards. His moving lecture at Lord’s was perhaps the inception of his heroic status in the international game, and the way he spoke and conducted himself outside the field has been the foundation of its longevity. But the roots of his legend lay buried deeper in the land and its history, up in the hills of Kandy.

Through much of the island’s history, the irrigated lowlands of the North and the fertile South Western plains nurtured Sri Lanka’s cultural, political and economic centres. The wealth of ancient Sri Lanka and its heroic architects were made in its northern and western plains. Vestiges of great monuments that had witnessed bygone times of immense prosperity and creativity, as well as the continuous cycles of conflict that raged over them, still lie in ruins there. Kandy did not feature in any legend or myth in all that time; no hero of consequence in Sri Lanka’s glorious past was ever known to have been born or raised there. Even with the ripening of time, Kandy could not produce a hero on its own accord, but required a long and remarkable collaboration with an occupying enemy and a struggle with its own geography.

A game like Cricket could never grow organically in the mountains around Kandy. Even when it was brought in as a foreign implant, roads had to be straightened and mountains - quite literally - had to be moved before the game could dig in its roots and draw from its fertile soil. One such effort was sparked by the vision of a man named Alec Garden Fraser who took over as Principal of Trinity College at the turn of the twentieth century. He wanted the school to have a Cricket field and ambitiously acquired crown land spanning over two nearby hills to build one. There was no heavy machinery or equipment at hand, so the students and staff of the school made their way to the site a few hundred yards from the school premises, every day; where over a couple of years, they cut down the bigger hill and filled the valley below to make their field. Yet it would be Kandy, in Kumar and Murali, that would produce the two greatest Cricketers ever to play for Sri Lanka to date. Kumar learned his Cricket at Trinity and played much of his Cricket as a schoolboy on the Ground that Fraser built; and nearly a century later, scored two test centuries and a double century there.

Fraser was not done however. Much to the displeasure of his own colonial secretary, he envisioned that his school should nurture Sri Lankan leaders who were immersed in their own culture and learn about their own history and proud heritage. Fraser made social service, the teaching of local languages and comparative religion a cornerstone of his education policies, much to the dismay of the colonial authorities at the time. Perhaps Kumar Sangakkara was innately predisposed to reach out to his own people with respect and empathy and speak against injustice. Perhaps it was instilled in him by the individuals and institutions that nurtured him. Whatever the case may be, the qualities that people of Sri Lanka would later celebrate as his ‘heroism’ were not cultivated on the Cricket pitch alone. His empathy for the struggles and triumphs of life in many corners of Sri Lanka and of the world not only reflects the best features of the rebellious past and proud heritage of his people, but is also informed by a deep and soulful knowledge of it.

Heroism is always bestowed by popular consensus. It is the common man who elevates heroes to their status and immortalise them in legend. Heroes are made exceptional among the common and ordinary men and women of the land and that relationship is symbiotic. The legend of Kumar Sangakkara the man was made among victims of a Tsunami and inhabitants of a war-ravaged landscape in the North and East as much as by a fairy-tale test century at Lord’s. Kumar still speaks of the power of Cricket to unite and heal the diverse communities of his war ravaged country. If the reception he gets whenever he visits the north and east of Sri Lanka is anything to go by, few Sri Lankans have personified that message as effectively as he has. That is what makes him a hero. If heroes like him had lent themselves to previous generations, Sri Lanka could well have been a different place. Loved and respected by Sri Lankans of all cultural and religious backgrounds, as well as fans and opponents all over the world – the power of his personality has been unique among Sri Lanka’s pantheon of heroes in its ability to unite as well as inspire humility.

Especially in contemporary Sri Lanka - emerging from three decades of war - celebration of the lives of ‘war heroes’ comes naturally. Cricketers - at least until they won the World Cup in 1996 - were not more than celebrities, among actors and music stars. Merely six years after the war ended, Kumar and Mahela in particular have become iconic and exceptional heroes of their time - eclipsing even the heroes of contemporary military campaigns. The association of Cricketers to heroism - even after 1996 - especially in a country at war, was not only improbable but cut against the grain of the traditional mould of the nationalist heroes of the past. Yet, the privileged place that Cricket occupies in hearts and minds of people has deep roots in the grand and conflicting historical narrative of the island. ‘The boys’ – as Arjuna and Aravinda often referred to their teammates – have been a beacon of hope and an example of what Sri Lankans could be as a nation and as individuals. Heroics on the Cricket field infused hope during the most hopeless of times – and that hope was very different from the kind that military victories inspired. Kumar Sangakkara’s sensitivity to the heartbeat of his people and the humility with which he served the game and its fans has entwined his story and the story of Cricket with the proud history of his country and of the people for whom he played the game.

But it was with these famous words, that he united them;

I am Tamil, Sinhalese, Muslim and Burgher. I am a Buddhist, a Hindu, a follower of Islam and Christianity. I am today, and always, proudly Sri Lankan.

Through those words, he epitomised the hero that Sri Lanka, in his generation, so desperately needed. Described by Prof. Michael Roberts as an ecumenical Sri Lankan; in him, the diverse ethnic, religious and cultural communities of the island have found a hero they could all love and possess in equal measure. For a country that enjoys neither great influence nor privileged status among world powers, he has risen to capture the love and admiration of the world and represent the best of the proud history and rich culture of his people in a way that hardly any Sri Lankan has been able to do before. For that alone, he is without equal among all the heroes of our generation, and is arguably unparalleled in Sri Lanka’s history and civilisation.

In a post-match interview, Kumar once famously called on his team mates to understand their place in history. As much as history is made by heroes, they are nevertheless fallible human beings. As much as they reflect what we can hope to be, they also stand to warn us against blindly attaching our future hopes and ambitions to individuals no matter how brave or virtuous they may be. Very few Cricketers have retained their ability to inspire and awe in life beyond the boundary. Some have even turned into villains. Therefore, being the astute student of history that he is, he will have an important message to deliver to his fans and team mates on the eve of his retirement; that the legends of heroes like him are not meant to be venerated, but to inspire. Their heroism is worth nothing if all they inspire is nostalgia and longing. The greatest heroes are those who make others feel they too can, and indeed must, become heroes themselves. Kumar is the son of a lawyer and a teacher, and perhaps could have achieved even more if he had been born to a Jewish carpenter and his virgin wife. But in the years after his retirement, he will probably devote his time to raising his own children to be independent and productive citizens, because every parent must by default, also be a hero. As much as he became a hero to his people when his country desperately needed one, the greatest tribute to his legacy would be to see more heroes like him emerge in years to come; not only from the Cricket fields but from every other walk of life.