Sunday Times 2
My brother and friend Shahul
View(s):My Late brother Abdul Cader Shahul Hameed’s 92ndbirth anniversary falls on 10th April and I would like to give a brief snapshot of this exemplary gentleman.
My brother was educated at St.Anthony’s College, Katugastota, Vijaya College and Zahira College Matale. He showed a flair for English writing and it started with the Children’s Corner in the Sunday Observer, to which he was a regular contributor from the age of 15 years.
A.C.S. Hameed
I suppose politics was in his blood. While being in school in Standard VII, he launched a magazine called the “New Broom” for Matale schools. This enabled him to gain a following in his school and others associated with it. He used this recognition to run for the head prefectship when he was just in the Ordinary Level class. He won. This sort of thing is unheard of even today, but then my brother was a rare jewel.
To say that someone is a politician is a maligned term today. But, in yesteryear, only the best aspired for political office, in that it required someone who principally wanted to help others and their communities irrespective of class, creed or race. In this respect, my brother organised the Matale Student Union, of which he was elected first President. Being interested in adult education and teaching English, he was responsible for establishing a number of educational institutions in Matale and the Kandy District. He was the Director and Principal of Winchester College, Matale (named after the famous public school in England). The institution prepared students for foreign and local examinations conducted in English.
In 1956, he joined the United National Party and became actively involved in national politics. He contested the general election held in March 1960, and since then he had been returned consecutively in eight elections and counted thirty-nine unbroken years in the legislature. This is one of the longest unbroken parliamentary records for any member.
In1977, when the UNP returned to power, my brother was elevated to the cabinet. In doing so, he became the first Foreign Minister of this country. This requires some explanation. Since independence the Ministries of Defence and Foreign Affairs were held by the Head of the Government. In 1977, J.R. Jayewardene created the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a separate ministry and appointed my brother as its first Foreign Minister.
It is noted that Jayewardene rarely intervened on foreign policy matters, seeking to act through his Foreign Minister A.C.S. Hameed. That was because President Jayewardene had implicit faith in my brother to do what was right in furthering the interests of the country – he trusted my brother. This, too, requires some explanation.
At one time, there was a rift between Jayewardene and Dudley Senanayake and rightly or wrongly, things came to a head in 1972 when Senanayake moved to have Jayewardene expelled from the UNP. Events record that a young parliamentarian by the name of A.C.S. Hameed challenged the legality of the procedure for expulsion, thereby thwarting any moves to expel Jayewardene. The rest, they say, is history. J.R. acknowledged this and realised a true friend in my brother, and I can personally state that my brother was given the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the ministry of his choice, in return for his assistance to J.R. during those tumultuous years from 1972 to 1977.
Foreign policy
With Sri Lanka holding the chairmanship of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) during 1976-1979 period, my brother was constantly called upon to deal with some of the thorniest international issues of the 1970s.
For example, which of the two Cambodian factions had a rightful claim to the seat at the UN (the General Assembly session that day was held up for over four hours as he negotiated behind closed doors trying to resolve the dispute with the backing from the UN’s Legal Advisors); or should Egypt, which had signed the Camp David peace agreement with Israel in 1978, be driven out of NAM. There was also sharp division in the NAM over the disputed territory of Western Sahara in the Maghreb region of North Africa’ and the spilt in the NAM over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979-1989).
In many ways Sri Lanka could wrestle about her weight class by making a viable contribution to foreign affairs and this returned many economic benefits to the country. This dovetailed neatly with Jayewardene’s policy of the open economy in that many countries, to which Sri Lanka had lent its assistance, were happy to help in the form of economic aid to Sri Lanka.
Law of the Sea
One of his greatest contributions to this country was when he played an active role in projecting Sri Lanka’s national interests at the third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea. He was closely associated in formulating Sri Lanka’s case for special treatment in the delimitation of its continental shelf, given the special geological features present in the southern part of the Bay of Bengal. He coordinated with the Sri Lanka delegation to the Conference and engaged in intensive consultation with key delegations during his visits to New York and Geneva.
These efforts resulted in a Statement of Understanding being incorporated in the Law of the Sea Convention, which accommodates Sri Lanka’s concerns. This has brought about extensive economic benefits to the country, through the exploitation of resources in the extended areas of maritime jurisdiction. My brother also actively encouraged the formation of the Indian Ocean Marine Affairs Cooperation (IOMA) to serve as a consultative body of India Ocean States, in promoting their interests in the use of marine resources of the Indian Ocean.
Foreign employment
The Middle East boom was from 1973 and due to restriction in issuing passports and existence of exit permit discouraged foreign employers coming to recruit from Sri Lanka, the Central Bank annual report of 1977 states only 10,000 workers had gone for employment in the Middle East. One of his first ministerial directives was to remove all restrictions on issuing of passports and also opened embassies in the Middle Eastern countries. In 1977 the only embassy in the Arab world was Egypt. Today millions of Sri Lankans are employed in the Middle East and it was he who laid the foundation for this opportunity to grow.
Assistance to the Muslim community
My brother was principally a pluralist at heart and had an abiding belief that we were Sri Lankans first and foremost. The fact that he successfully represented Harrispatuwa, an 80 percent Sinhalese electorate in the Kandy District and developed it into a first-class electorate is testament to that belief in pluralism.
But my brother did great things for the Muslim community, to which he belonged. In 1955, he was elected president of the Central Ceylon Muslim Assembly and it was through this organisation that the Kandy Muslim Teacher Training College was inaugurated. At that time, there was a big shortage of trained Muslim teachers, and the organisation went a long way towards alleviating this need for qualified teachers.
Another significant achievement was the amendment of the Finance Act No. 11 of 1963. Due to this Act, Muslims were deprived of their rights to buy or sell land without proving their citizenship. As a consequence, thousands of deeds were stagnating in land registries island-wide without being registered. Although this problem was not faced by Muslims from the Kandy District as they had ge name in their certificate of birth, it was a problem acutely felt by Muslims in other parts of the country. My brother recognised this grave issue and raised the problem with President Jayewardene and the Cabinet. Later this Act was amended, thereby enabling Sri Lankan Muslims to buy and sell land without proof of their citizenship like any other citizen in this country.
Let me finish by saying that to know my brother was to know tremendous intellect and wit in equal measure. My good friend Thalif Deen recollects an incident that is the stuff of United Nations legend. My brother was to deliver an address at the United Nations General Assembly on behalf of President Jayewardene and Deen recollects it as follows:
One of his memorable moments was when an Eelam activist/lawyer from London, Krishna Vaikunthavasan, surreptitiously gate-crashed into the UN, took his place in the speaker’s roster, and tried to upstage him [i.e. Hameed] by walking onto the podium of the General Assembly and unleashing a diatribe against the government.
When the president of the Assembly realised he had an interloper on his hands, he cut off the mike within minutes and summoned security guards to bodily eject the intruder from the hall. And as He [i.e. Hameed] walked up to the podium, there was pin drops silence in the Assembly Hall.
But the unflappable Hameed, unprompted by any of his delegates, produced a riveting punchline:
“I want to thank the previous speaker for keeping his speech short”
He said, as the Assembly, known to tolerate longwinded and boring speeches, broke into peals of laughter.
I want to conclude with a prayer for my good friend and brother:
O! Allah, make his grave a garden of bliss and also make the grave not a place of hell fire.
Allahummaj al Kabrahu Rawlathan min Riyalul Jinan Wala Thaj al Kabrahul Huffrathan min Hufrin Niran. – Aameen.
May Allah Almighty grant the highest felicity to this departed soul in Jennathul Firdous.
A.C.A.M. Nuhuman