Unto self too, but not the people
Shastri Ramachandaran

Rendering Unto Caesar
by Bradman Weerakoon. New Dawn Press Group (An Imprint of Sterling Publishers), New Delhi. Pages 396. Rs 900.

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

— William Shakespeare

Bradman Weerakoon, admittedly, is the underling. The stars in his firmament are the nine prime minsters and presidents of Sri Lanka under whom he served. Of late, quite a few underlings - in the descriptive, not pejorative, sense of the term - have come up with their accounts. Former bureaucrats P C Alexander, T S R Subramaniam and B G Deshmukh are the ones that come to mind, besides former Chief Election Commissioner J M Lyngdoh.

All of them claim to "render unto Caesar." and unto themselves, too, with a vain righteousness that is inevitable when such books are centred round the authors. Bradman is no exception.

The book is pitched as "A fascinating story of one man's tenure under nine Prime Ministers and Presidents of Sri Lanka", suggesting that Bradman, as Secretary (to all of them?), was up close to the top with an exclusive inside view, from April 1, 1954 to April 2, 2004. 50 years. Neat dates, neat period. A tidy and truthful arrangement of the facts of the posts he held reveals both suppresio veri and suggestio falsi.

For over 30 of these 50 years, Bradman was not the secretary to either the Prime Minister or President. Take the key figures of this period. In Chandrika Kumaratunga's 10 years at the helm (1994-2004), Bradman was nowhere near the hot seat. He was not the secretary either to R Premadasa (1989-93), who he served as an Advisor on International Affairs; or J R Jayewardene (1977-89) who appointed him as Secretary in the Ministry of Plantation Industries. He was far away from Colombo and Sirimavo Bandaranaike during her second, and longer, term from 1970 to 1977. And, for 11 years (1970-76 and 1984-89), Bradman was in "exile".

He was Secretary to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, from December 2001 to April 2004. His first tenure was as Assistant Secretary to Sir John Kotelawela, PM from 1954 to 1956. Bradman "stayed on virtually as secretary", first to S W R D Bandaranaike (1956-59) and then to W Dahanayake for about seven months. Thereafter, he was Secretary to Sirimavo Bandaranaike during her first five years in office from 1960 to 1965 and her successor Dudley Senanayake (1965-70).

This gloss-over, however, does not merit dismissal of the book on the eventful last half-century covering all but six years of post-independence Sri Lanka. Bradman does a good job of profiling the personalities - Sir John, JRJ, Premadasa and Sirimavo - with a wealth of anecdotes. He is careful to desist from saying anything that may not show these figures in a good light. He is not unkind to any of the presidents and prime ministers of the last 50 years, but the restraint slips somewhat to betray that he takes a dim view of those who did not favour him with a position of proximity. He is most admiring of Premadasa (on whom he had earlier authored a flattering book) but unable to resist taking a dig at Chandrika Kumaratunga.

The personality profiles would be useful to biographers - that is if they are still foraging to write on figures who are no longer on the scene. When it comes to the two -Kumaratunga and Wickremesinghe - who command international interest today, Bradman fails doubly: He has little to write on Kumaratunga; and what he has written on Wickremesinghe is sterile stuff that offers no insights into the man and the workings of his mind.

Unlike the anecdotes, the events Bradman writes about are all too well known. He does not enrich understanding with insights or information on the processes behind the scenes of shaping policies and dealing with their consequences. In large parts, the book is mere reportage with little assessment and even less depth.

Any book on Sri Lanka, especially at this time, raises expectations of some new light that may be cast on the Tamil-Sinhala conflict. That the ethnic conflict is not the creation of any one politician but the cumulative condition of the compounding actions of successive prime ministers and presidents, is self-evident. In recent years, there have been cataclysmic setbacks and dramatic advances in the ethnic conflict: the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, the Premadasa government's nexus with the LTTE as well as the insurrectionist JVP, the failure of earlier efforts to get negotiations going, the Norway-brokered peace process and its collapse and the evolving role of New Delhi and the international community at every stage, to mention a few. On these, Bradman does not venture beyond the familiar surface.

The author cannot be accused of presenting facts (that are) capable of being given new or many meanings. Analytically, too, the narrative is weak, if not feeble. As witness to history, Bradman is simply not up to it.

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