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On Sunday morning, news reached Colombo that Felix Dias Abeyesinghe, a former Commissioner of Elections and High Commissioner to Australia, a terrifically upright public servant and a great family man, had passed away peacefully in the Australian capital of Canberra. He had been battling Parkinson’s for some time, and the inevitable end-stages of the sorrowful disease had come. By some twist of fate, he was to be cremated on his 88th birthday.

I had heard of Mr. Dias Abeyesinghe as a young reporter working for the then Davasa Group. He was the Elections Commissioner who introduced the first one day election in Sri Lanka back in 1960 ( previously elections were held over 3 days), and that he would have done at the age of 42.

My first official contact with him was when he granted me a rather rare interview on the eve of the 1977 General Elections.

The first thing that struck me when I walked into his simple office, was the number of telephones on his big desk. There must have been about 20 of them – all hotlines, I was later to be told, to the Assistant Commissioners of Elections in the various districts. It was like an “Operations Room” during some military campaign. Such was the logistics that went into ensuring a parliamentary election in Sri Lanka. The fact that none of the telephones ever rang during our one hour interview – which appeared as the front page lead story on the eve of that elections, was indicative of the well-oiled machinery that was in place. Those were hard fought elections, as they are today. But power had been devolved to the men in the districts – calls were to be made only if they could not handle it at their levels.

History recorded a landslide win for the UNP at that election, but the bigger victory was for democracy in Sri Lanka. There were no allegations – not even a hint of it - of partiality by the Elections Department; and there was no need for humbug foreign election observers to come and give worthless certificates about the conduct of an election in this country, or to make profound statements at news conferences and issue reports about the standards of elections here. The fact that despite deteriorating standards in every institution of government today, that the Elections Department still earns the respect of the vast mass of the citizenry, give or take a few instances which doesn’t involve the Department itself, is largely due to public servants of the calibre of the late Mr. Dias Abeyesinghe, who served the public service – and the country - with honour, dignity, efficiency, and impartiality.

When he retired as Commissioner, the reputation of the Elections Department was spotlessly clean. His loyal duties to his country continued thereafter, when he served a stint as our envoy in Canberra during the difficult period of the 1983 riots back in Sri Lanka, and then served as Secretary to the All Party Conference in 1984, when the then Government tried, in vain, to settle the northern insurgency amicably. And then, he went to spend his well-earned retirement with his wife and son in Canberra, where he kept abreast of all the happenings in Sri Lanka – especially the many elections.

Despite the many accusations of polls-rigging and the way elections were conducted in the modern age, he steadfastly defended the public service, for he understood the pressures they were subjected to.

In service, he showed ample leadership qualities that must have inspired peers and subordinates alike who worked for the public service. There were a galaxy of such people in the public service at the time, but his job was particularly high-profile. Of the many challenges such a man in such a job would have had to face, one came in the early days of his career when a political whiplash could have easily relegated him to cold storage, and the second, at the tail-end of his illustrious career. One showed his impartiality in the face of political interference, the other his partiality for the welfare of the voter.

Way back in early 1960, or thereabouts, the authority to assign a party symbol passed from the Minister of Home Affairs to the Commissioner of Elections. The onerous responsibility of assigning the ‘Hand’ symbol to the Sri Lanka Freedom Party was contested.

Mr. Dias Abeyesinghe, as a relatively young public servant decided, after an inquiry, that the symbol had to go to Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike and the SLFP. He received messages from both, the caretaker Prime Minister Dr. W. Dahanayake and then Home Minister Stanley Zoysa, but he took the pressure in his stride and did exactly what he believed was the correct thing to do.

In his last report on a General Election, he commented adversely on the practice of marking a voter’s finger with an indelible ink. He felt that this was an insult to a voter; an assumption that he was dishonest. He wanted that done away with, not that a multiple voter is discouraged by the ink anyway.

These are but two illustrations of the man who was held in very high esteem by all the political parties contesting elections as a thoroughly fair man.

I went to see Mr. Dias Abeyesinghe last year. In fact, I made it a point to go and see him. He took his debilitating illness with characteristic dignity. His mind was racing back in time, nostalgically, to the times when public servants were servants of the public, and not political servants. He was a good listener, too.
I knew I would not see him again, but a stream of friends, relatives and one-time colleagues continued to make it a point to drop in and pay at least a courtesy call on this fine gentlemen, in the evening of his life. He could relate to people of any age with consummate ease, and an easy-going bon-homie. He was a good Christian, as good as they come, and a true Thomian serving its Board of Governors for many years. To many, he was like the ancient Roman pater-familias, the head of an extended family. He led a good and full life; and he served his Motherland well. He was not only awarded a Deshamanya, but he deserved it. He was indeed, a Pride of the Nation.
Eddie

Felix Dias Abeyesinghe served as the Commissioner of Elections from 1959 to 1978 and later as High Commissioner to Australia.
He died last Sunday of pneumonia caused by the end-stages of Parkinson’s disease, and was cremated in Canberra.

While her close family and friends kept vigil, prayed and wept in shocked disbelief as Jeanne’s young life ebbed away, we couldn’t even begin to find any consolation in Wordsworth’s sentiment that “the good die first!”

The truth how good she was and her true excellence, only hit us as we watched her flower filled coffin being lowered into her grave. As a child, growing up with her four sisters, playing with her numerous boisterous cousins, she stood out for her quintessential goodness. One of them, remarked when proposing the toast at her wedding that they all regarded her as ‘mother superior’, as she perhaps was a restraining influence on their mischievous pranks!

Her parents probably never had to reprimand her even once as she was an obedient daughter, excelling both in her academic studies, as well as in her chosen field of Information Technology. After she married Conrad, she continued her role as an exemplary wife, and together theyfaced the unfamiliar and rigours of life in Kuwait.

After returning to Sri Lanka, they provided a wonderful home for their two sons, Rushitha and Chiren to grow up in. Jeanne’s unstinted energy supplied them with all their needs.

She broke rest whenever they were ill, personally prepared all their favourite foods and zealously encouraged and promoted all their educational and extra-curricular activities.

Though only 8 and 5 years, they showed prowess in both studies and sports, mainly due to Jeanne’s untiring efforts. There was an unusually close interaction and rapport between all the members of this wonderfully happy family- her parents, four sisters and brothers-in-law, whom Jeanne described as golden (rathran). Their 11 children, as well as the progeny of other cousins, provided a close knit, congenial environment at Kelaniya, when awareness of Jeanne’s fatal illness struck with the force of a bolt of lightning!

Jeanne had always seemed the healthiest in the family. Unwilling to worry anyone, she probably concealed her aches, pains and discomfort under her usual cheerful exterior. Else how could her medical condition have remained undiagnosed till less than two and a half months before her death?

Now, as all in her close family circle try to come to terms with the first bereavement that affected their generation, they can only find consolation in the fact that Jeanne was mercifully spared the harrowing agony and anguish involved, if she had to face the medical treatment prescribed for her ailment.

Deeply religious, with a life-long, special devotion to Mary, she was privileged to have a vision of the Virgin Mother beckoning her with a bouquet of flowers, a few hours before she died. As she and all of us continue to believe “Life is eternal and Love is immortal and death is only an horizon and an horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight!”

Jeanne, the only relief we have in our grief is the knowledge that you are resting in peace, though hidden from our mortal sight.

Christopher Wickremesinghe was my husband, Simon’s uncle. But over the years he became my uncle as well and we affectionately called him Uncle Kitty. Knowing him was an experience I’d never forget, for he was no ordinary mortal. Here was a man who was totally absorbed with life and its many facets. Working with wildlife was his primary interest, and his outstanding efforts in this field won for him many international and national accolades.

When I first got to know Uncle Kitty, he had already retired from Government service and was involved in planting crops on his land at Mahiyangana. This venture however was terminated when a fire destroyed the property. In the latter years of his life he kept close contact with us and used to drop by for Sunday lunch and talk to us regularly on the telephone. It was during these times that I learnt more about him.

I learned that he was a keen hiker in his youth and how as a student while exploring the Minipe area, studying the ancient irrigation systems, he met our first Prime Minister, D. S. Senanayake, who took an instant liking to him which later developed into a ‘guru-pupil’ relationship. Uncle Kitty was responsible for being one of the founders of the Historical & Geographical Society of his school, Trinity College Kandy. He joined the Medical College as a student but after a few years a virulent attack of malaria prevented him from doing his exams and he decided to abandon the course.

Nature was close to his heart and he loved nothing more than roaming the jungles. He told us how he opened an account with Cargills (one of the largest Department Stores at the time) through whom he purchased medicines which he then distributed to the Bintenne Veddhas on his visits to those areas. It was not surprising therefore, that he chose a career with the Wild Life Department which he joined in 1950. He was appointed as a Game Warden in the National Parks while still a young man.

Uncle Kitty’s days as Warden were ones of accomplishment and excitement; animals went out of control, needed to be rescued, poachers were rampant, tours had to be arranged for special visitors, and flooding and drought caused their own kind of disasters which affected the terrain under his administration.
Today, a plaque bearing his name stands in the Yala Sanctuary marking his exemplary service in the Wild Life Department.

He was a skilled photographer and was appointed by the internationally reputed Time/Life Magazine to cover the first Colombo Plan Conference held here. I have seen some of his photos, among them some superb black and white pictures of D. S. Senanayake with Jawaharlal Nehru (then PM of India) as well as some interesting studies of Leonard Woolf.

Uncle Kitty was also a gifted pianist and possessed a great love for classical music. Reading was also an important part of his life. A few years ago we were delighted when he was honoured with two prestigious International awards for Wild Life Conservation. The first took him to Holland where he received the Golden Ark for Conservation, personally presented by Prince Bernhardt of the Netherlands. The World Wildlife Fund awarded him the Conservation Merit Award which event took place in Malaysia. In 1998 the Biodiversity Elephant Trust of Sri Lanka presented him with the Conservation Gold Medal.

In recent times Uncle Kitty virtually lived by himself and used to sometimes feel lonely and bereft at the loss of many of his old friends. He once told me, ‘I can’t talk about the old times to anyone now as there’s no one who’d remember them’. Nevertheless, he did have a band of people - from those who worked for him, to relatives, neighbours and close friends – who looked after him in their own different ways. The telephone became his chief contact point and we called each other often, Uncle Kitty and I; we’d talk about cooking, the latest antics of our dogs, birds that visited our gardens, music, books we had recently read – or we would call each other just to say “How?” His two dogs were his staunch companions and dearest friends.

We shall certainly miss Uncle Kitty.

His spiritual convictions led him to Buddhism and Sai Baba, and I am certain that although he has left this world, Uncle Kitty has finally gained happiness and peace in his new Home.