I initially met Ven Madoluwawe Sobitha Thero just about 10 years back, through my dad in-law Padmavarna Wijayatilake. The early introduction stamped me. There was an emanation about Sobitha Hamuduruwo. That is the reason when a companion, Martin Pieris, needed to compose a book about noticeable Sri Lankan identities, I said that Sobitha Hamuduruwo must be in it as well as should be highlighted in the spread.
In every one of my experiences from that point the impression I had of Sobitha Hamuduruwo as a visionary and a courageous pioneer who could assemble individuals to an admirable motivation was reaffirmed on numerous occasions.
He had a decent comprehension of the condition of things in the nation. He had a dream of what this nation could be and he had a guide that would take the nation there. Above all he had the persistence and will so important to make it every one of the a reality.
Sobitha Hamuduruwo dependably championed causes that he considered were just. He never agonized over outcomes which were regularly brutal and included wounds to his individual. Regardless of this, he at times concentrated on the character of the individual or gathering that brought on him damage, picking rather to focus on frameworks and procedures that created such results. Through it all, he never dismissed the targets that provoked him to pick a specific strategy.
He was not the only one in detecting the ruinous and undemocratic way taken by Mahinda Rajapaksa, yet amazingly even as he tackled the man, he saw personally that the individual was the result of a genuine systemic defect. This does not imply that he didn't condemn the person. At the point when General Sarath Fonseka was captured, he rushed to call attention to what others knew yet were frightened to express: 'The annihilation of the LTTE was being changed over into a triumph of a gang'.
He perceived that Mahinda Rajapaksa should have been be crushed yet all the more critically saw that such a consequence was however a solitary and deficient stride in what must be a more extended excursion towards setting up sacred protections against domineering guideline. This is the reason he buckled down for very nearly five years to manufacture a typical automatic stage through the endeavors of common society as opposed to political on-screen characters to vanquish Mahinda Rajapaksa. This is the way the National Movement for Social Justice appeared.
Sobitha Hamuduruwo held broad dialogs, at first with Karu Jayasuriya, Dr. Ranjith Cabraal, Jayampathi Wickramaratne, Nirmal Ranjith Devasiri and J.C. Weliamuna and later with an expansive number of different people and associations. They presumed that the one thought that could unite differing political strengths was annulling the official administration. He took an interest in more than 200 gatherings around the nation to assemble individuals to this thought. He did this in the midst of numerous difficulties, however inevitably all real gatherings and common society associations revived to bolster him.
The initial step was to push all gatherings and political pioneers to concede to a typical hopeful. By the center of 2014, there were numerous who needed Sobitha Hamuduruwo to approach as the regular applicant against Mahinda Rajapaksa, yet he energized Ranil Wickremesinghe and Chandrika Kumaratunga to discover another person since he felt it wasn't right for an individual from the ministry to be the established leader of a popular government. He was especially baffled that areas of the state-run media steadily assaulted him of having individual political aspirations however he didn't permit this thwarted expectation to divert him from the more extensive political undertaking. To be sure, all through the procedure, Sobitha Hamuduruwo concentrated more on the goal of institutional change instead of a change of identities.
That was the way he saw things, dependably. It was about the nation. He knew the LTTE must be crushed yet was constantly upset by the way that residents of the nation were slaughtering each other. He was a patriot for all nationals and their rights, paying little mind to their ethnic personality or religious confidence. Indeed, even in the keep running up to the Presidential Election, his emphasis was on a thought and a triumphant idea. It was this idea that the general population revived around, the idea of nullifying the Executive Presidency and building up Good Governance.
That idea was basically introduced by the conviction that frameworks must be changed with the goal that substitutions won't be more regrettable than the supplanted, as he contended had dependably been the situation. He made it clear that supplanting Mahinda Rajapaksa was less essential than changing the framework that delivered autocracies.
Sobitha Hamuduruwo was persuaded that the position, given sacred procurements, made occupants feel they are exempt from the laws that apply to everyone else. He knew through experience that few if any would tell such people reality in light of the fact that the position and the force inserted in it was so scary. Before long, he contended, paying little heed to talk about being overseers and not proprietors, rulers carry on as though they claim the nation.
His endeavors made the whole world consider Sri Lanka, much in the same way that the nation became a force to be reckoned with because of the neutral endeavors of Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranayake who was likewise the world's first female Prime Minister, the World Cup triumph in 1996, the deplorability of the tidal wave in 2004 and the annihilation of the LTTE in 2009.
This time it was around a nation meeting up to topple a tyranny, however respectably without gore and above all around a project that looked to make shields against domineering inclinations. Sobitha Thero got it going. He championed a thought and made a triumphant idea. He drove a development that would guarantee triumph, paying little mind to who the applicant was. He avoided government officials as much as possible and in light of current circumstances. He knew they were generally disposed to guarantee to manufacture extensions regardless of the possibility that there was no waterway. The exemption maybe was Karu Jayasuriya and even he was viewed as more a trusted companion as opposed to an animal of legislative issues. This development was not lawmaker drove. It was a common development that looked for not to convey a legislator to control but rather to guarantee framework change.
Sobitha Hamuduruwo had desires for the nation. He was baffled about late advancements, particularly the gradualness of the change venture. This disappointment was and is shared by numerous. This is the reason that there was emphasis of the dedication to Good Governance and the abrogating of the Executive Presidency from all quarters upon his passing. At the end of the day, even in his passing and may we say particularly in his passing Sobitha Hamuduruwo has succeeded in re-conscientizing the whole citizenry, reminding everybody that the adventure is long, that triumphant a fight bodes well just if the war is additionally won.
Ven Maduluwawe Sobitha Thero is no more. While everybody wishes him the incomparable joy of Nibbana, in this lifetime, in this nation, the individuals who admired him as a visionary pioneer, on the off chance that they are straightforward in their distress and really wish to celebrate Sobitha Hamuduruwo, need to rededicate themselves to the reason that he championed. He imagined an area where nobody is exempt from the laws that apply to everyone else, an area where citizenship has meaning, an area without political support or nepotism, an area where strong frameworks with the right sacred shields guarantee that there can be no wrongdoing. Such an area will be conveyed just if the residents take the activity and don't abandon it in the hands of lawmakers who might, as they frequently have, falter when individual plans become possibly the most important factor.
We need to inquire as to whether we wind up living in such an area and if the answer is "no" then we need to persistently work towards securing for ourselves such an area, to the point that Sobitha Hamuduruwo imagined for every one of us. In short it is officeholder on each one of the individuals who related to Sobitha Hamuduruwo's venture to visit their still, small voice over and over, and to test word and deed against the ideas he championed, for he set up for every one of us a structure for legitimate and principled political behavior. That alone would be tribute to this visionary Sri Lankan, this outstanding Buddha-Putra whose direction and initiative we are all special to have profited from. Sobitha Hamuduruwo must seat, as it were, each dialog on great administration and distressfully required political change. He can't be overlooked and the individuals who do would never be excused by the general population of this nation.
