Michael Roberts
The three-day conference on 16-19 August 1974 devoted to the topic of AGRICULTURE IN THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF SRI LANKA held at the excellent conference facility at the Department of Agriculture at Gannoruwa – within easy distance from the Peradeniya University campus – was an instance of the capacities and vitality of the Ceylon Studies Seminar at the Peradeniya University. The CSS had been launched in 1968 and its story has been documented elsewhere with an emphasis on the roles of Prof Gananath Obeyesekere, myself, Vijaya Samaraweera, SWR de Samarasinghe, CR de Silva, typists Mrs Hettiaratchchi & Kumaraswamy and cyclostyle-operator Sathiah (see …………………………………. https://thuppahis.com/2018/10/02/nationalist-studies-and-the-ceylon-studies-seminar-at-peradeniya-1968-1970s/).
Piyasiri
CR …. and Sathiah
The timing of this enterprise in 1974 arose from the importance of the transformations being carried out in the dry zone via irrigation and colonization projects. Among these, the harnessing of the waters of the Mahaweli Ganga as it flowed through the hill country in order to generate hydro-electric power was a process that had far-reaching impact for the island as a whole [1]. Since the river constituted one boundary of Peradeniya campus, we ‘citizens’ of that spot were in the midst of a momentous process.
mahaweli-river-akbar-bridge-peradeniya-university-grounds-located-across-view-262441407
So, that was the incentive for the efforts taken to assemble a diverse range of administrators and scholars to discuss the implications of these developments. That effort demanded money. The PEOPLE’s BANK stepped forward to service this effort; and roped in the BANK OF CEYLON as a partner. This was due to the clout of one of Directors at the People’s Bank, the LSSP theoretician, HECTOR ABAYAVARDHANA.
Hector’s commitment to the island’s welfare had been displayed in his role in the think-tank known as The Community in the early 1960s – an outfit and forum that drew on the capacities of such personnel as Rhoda Miller de Silva, Richard Hensman, Godfrey Gunatilleka et al. It so happened that Hector was among the 146 personnel I interviewed and recorded on tape in the course of the Roberts Oral History Project pursued between late 1965 and 1969.[2] The cassettes and/or the digitalized versions of these sessions with Hector at his home in Thimbirigasyaya on the 2nd April and 27 December 1967 may be of interest to those pursuing the broader background to our topic today. Hector was a committed Sri Lankan patriot of Marxist persuasion. As it happened, we gelled. When I sought money for the Gannoruwa conference, he readily accepted the challeng to secure funds for the enterprise (that is my memory anyway).
Quite a number of foreign scholars were around in the island then. They happily and usefully participated in the conference – with Mosher at the Agriculture Faculty, Pera-Uni, serving sometimes as Chair of some sessions.** My wife and I were able to house one of them Mick Moore from the University of Sussex. As it happened, Martin & Sarah Southwold from Manchester University happened to visit Pera-Uni — from their field site in the Kurunegala area (?) – about then. Martin asked me what it would cost them to participate. “Nothing. Just turn up” was my reply. His amazed pleasure is still within my ‘pictorial’ memory bank.
SUCH, then, was the Ceylon Studies Seminar. The conference it promoted at Gannoruwa in mid-August 1974 has been one of its most meaningful academic efforts. It is fortunate that Piyasiri Wickremasekera has retained a copy of the bound proceedings. This document is also available in some US and Sri Lankan repositories.
** Robert Chambers, Antony Ellman, John Harriss, Barbara Harriss, Ronald Herring, K. Izumi, Deborah Winslow Jackson, K. Matthew Kurian, AT Mosher and Mick Moore.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/SCSB-5521822 …. re Rhoda Miller de Silva
https://thuppahis.com/2021/05/14/peradeniya-practices-face-to-face-in-debate/
https://island.lk/standing-on-the-shoulders-of-giants/
END NOTES
[1] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahaweli_Development_programme
[2] See ROHP …. https://thuppahis.com/2020/12/11/the-rohp-in-ceylon-1966-70-interviews-and-select-transcriptions/
