Reading Peradeniya: Memories of a University edited by K. M. de Silva and Tissa Jayatilaka filled me with a "lacerating nostalgia" for the beauty and romance of what was once a world-class university. And I know whereof I speak.
Having spent most of my adult life in Asia as a Peace Corps Volunteer
and Foreign Service officer, I can say-without fear of contradiction that
the loveliest university in South or Southeast Asia is the University of
Peradeniya. Its possible rival is the 
Science
University of Malaysia, located on the island of Penang. With grace, tact
and erudition, Messrs. De Silva and Jayatilaka have woven the historical
memoir of a university drawn from their own superb essays as well as those
from seventeen other graduates who attended the university from 1952 until
1990.
Part of the book's charm is that it taps into the nostalgia for our youth that seems to deepen as we age. For V. S. Pritchett, it was his pre-World War I childhood - "Edwardian England is a time and a land seen across the vast dark chasm of war. Over there the afternoons seem to linger in the mellow sunlight..." For Ashley Halpe, who entered Peradeniya in the early 1950's his golden era was the undergraduate years at Peradeniya when the campus "fragrant with shadow," was the venue of films, concerts, debates, tennis and football matches, philosophical society meetings, and hall socials. For Tissa Jayatilaka, who came a generation later in the early 1970's, his varsity years seem to have been a glorious swirl of sports (cricket, inevitably), socializing with his debonair fellows without regard for their ethnicity or religion, and receiving intellectual stimulation from such outstanding - if sometimes quirky - scholars as Cuthbert Amerasinghe and V. Kanapathypillai ("German Pillai").
The American writer Christopher Buckley believed that "Any life is the more interesting for ending badly." The same, in a perverse way, may be true of the University of Peradeniya.
Without making more than necessary of the sad decline of what was the finest university in the Indian subcontinent, the contributors limn the results of chronic under funding, the jettisoning of English as the medium of instruction at the university, and the remorseless politicization of the university, which culminated in horrific violence on campus in the late 1980's. It is a curious thing that in both Sri Lanka and the United States "elitism" is a pejorative word when applied to a university, but not to, let us say, a Sri Lankan national cricket team or an American university's football squad. Many things may be said of today's Peradeniya University, but the term "elite" would, in almost any sense, no longer seem appropriate.
Were it not for his untimely death, Ediriwira Sarachchandra would doubtless have contributed to Peradeniya: Memories of a University. As it is, he has written movingly of the physical glory of his alma mater. Readers will recall that in his novel Curfew and a Full Moon, Professor Sarachchandra wrote that:
"The Peradeniya campus is beautiful at all times of the year, but particularly in the months of Duruthu and Bak, which correspond to spring in colder climes. Then, it is like a vast pavilion decked gaily as if for a festival, with festoons of flowers hanging overhhead, and yellow petals falling lightly from them to rest in cool green grass and make a carpet for the feet, while bougainvilleas twine themselves into multi-coloured trellises all around."
Surely, every Peradeniya graduate and lots of us who are not would want to own this handsome volume adorned as it is with the attractive watercolour paintings and sketches by Stanley Kirinde, and blessedly free of typographical errors. (I suspect my fomer colleague at USIS, Colombo, Yvette Ferdinands, contributed to this happy state of affairs.) The contribution of Kanthi Gamage, the ICES Librarian and Documentalist, in assisting the editors deserves special mention.
One final word. The essays that comprise Peradeniya: Memories of a Unversity are not necessarily an exercise only in recalling and recounting golden days that are gone forever. Perhaps they are a call to action. Bertrand Russel noted that the proof that a thing is possible lies in the fact that it once existed. Perhaps, as we cast a backward glance at the Peradeniya that was, depicted in the pages of Peradeniya: Memories of a University, it will lend encouragement to those who would resurrect this venerable and beloved university so that it can once again play a vital and indispensable role in education and socializing the future elite (Yes, the elite-the intellectual elite!) of Sri Lanka. - The writer was Cultural Affairs Officer of USIS, Sri Lanka from 1993 to 1997
This book entitled "The Swiss Constitution: Lessons for Sri Lanka" by Jayantha de Almeida Gunaratne, published by the Centre for Policy Research and Analysis, Faculty of Law, University of Colombo fills a long felt gap in the field of Constitutional Law and Constitutional Reform in Sri Lanka.
It has reached the hands of the public at a time when there is a lot of debate on Constitutional Reform on the one hand and when our country faces major problems in its long history.
The author in the introduction to the book refers to the "political instability and turmoil that started with events of July, 1983", "the war in the North and the East" and "the Southern Insurrection in 1989" and he justifiably finds a relationship between the above developments and the inadequacy of political institutions of Sri Lanka and the premises on which they stand. Thus, setting the background, he endeavours to discuss the salient features of the Constitution of Switzerland in the First Part of the book and reflects on the lessons that can be drawn from the Swiss experience in the process of Constitutional Reform in Sri Lanka in the Second Part.
Also, this book uncovers the story of a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and bi-religious Society which has a population and extent of land equivalent to Sri Lanka in a system with a federal structure committed to local autonomy, citizen participation and rejection of personalized politics. While Part 1.2 traces the origin of the Swiss Confederation to the pact of Confederation (Bundes brief) of 1291 it records gradual expansion of the original confederation by reference to a number of treaties and covenants which carried the seeds of the Federal Constitution of 1848 which lasts until the present time.
The author in setting out the instances in which the institutions of popular initiative and referendum as provided in the Swiss Constitutions describes them as institutions of Direct or (semi-direct) Democracy. While citing numerous illustrations in bringing about changes to the constitution and law through these institutions, the author ventures justifiably to defend these institutions by meeting the arguments against these institutions.
The ability of the voters to express their will independent of the people in the government on important public issues, the opportunity to reflect and re-think, ability to monitor the pulse of the people and the educative value have been identified as important features of these institutions. He finally traces the birth of the institution of proportional representation existing in Switzerland to the roots of the initiative and referendum.
Part II of the book makes a genuine effort to suggest Constitutional Reform in Sri Lanka from the Swiss experience. In Part II - I, in comparing our political system with the Swiss one the author makes a strong case for the need for the establishment of institutions of popular initiative and referendum in Sri Lanka.
The introduction of an issue earlier in governmental process, the ability of the voters to initiate legislation, opportunity to legislate in respect of matters neglected by the elected representatives, opportunity to avoid one man visions and elitist philosophies, institutionalization of protests have been identified as advantages of the institution of popular initiative, if it can be adopted, that, the Sri Lankan public can enjoy. Encouragement of legislatures to make compromises, accommodation of opposition views, promoting decisions to be broad-based have been cited by the author as advantages of referendum. It is no doubt that when one reads this chapter he will feel how much reliance this author has had on the will of the people rather than the elected representatives.
Furthermore, it is submitted that this theme runs through the book from start to the end as a golden thread reminding the reader of the importance of direct democracy and its relevance to our country at this crucial juncture of our history.
Part 11.4 proposes a Council of Provinces for Sri Lanka as a second legislative chamber in the light of the Swiss Federal Council in order to ensure the voice of the majority as well as the minority at the highest level of national representation. One striking feature is the author's suggestion with regard to the introduction of popular initiative and referendum in Sri Lanka in a more meaningful manner.
This, it is submitted, has not been touched upon by the other writers on constitutional reform. However, this author has made a strong case which no reader will be unconvinced by.
It is also commendable that this book also carries an official translation of the Swiss Constitution.
This book, though small, with its clarity, lucidity and simplicity of language has made out a strong case for the need for constitutional reform in Sri Lanka - in the light of Swiss experience. No doubt this will contribute much to the public discussion on constitutional reform in Sri Lanka.
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