Musings over museum in the east

One is at a loss to understand why there is no smart, pragmatic and prudent thinking among our politicians. In a media release issued by the Presidential Media Division, the President is quoted as saying that he is allocating Rs. 25 million to construct a museum in Kalmunai in honour of the Late M.H.M. Ashraf, the founder leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress and former Cabinet Minister. The media release states that “the memorial museum is to be built … at the request of Digamadulla District Member of Parliament...”

The late Minister’s son and his family may have felt this was an election ploy by whosoever proposed this to the President on the pretext of memorialising his father. He has tweeted that he or his family was not associated with this proposal. If the late Ashraf were alive, the tweet states, he would say “improve educational standards, address issues in agriculture/fisheries, provide access to expertise and generate career opportunities in new markets for the youth of Digamadulla”. It’s sort of saying that the late Ashraf would never have liked this idea. 

The message apparently is ‘Not in my family’s name, and not in the name of my father’. 

He has every right to assert his stance.

Since his tragic death in year 2000, the late Ashraf is remembered mostly during election times or his death anniversary falling on 16 September, by his one-time party loyalists who now belong to different factions and the remnant of the main party. Absent internal cohesion and moral principles, as for instance was seen during their MPs’ voting in favour of the 20th Amendment to the Constitution and in its aftermath, the remnant of the main party and its factions have done and continue to do things that put the Muslim community to shame, but ironically in the name of the community itself. 

In the first instance, the question should be asked why there should be a museum for Kalmunai, whether memorial or not? Is it because people in Kalmunai area complain that nothing tangible has been done to develop the Kalmunai area for two decades, and that the Member of Parliament feels that the best way to appease the people is to build a museum for Ashraf. 

It may be due to neglect, or active shirking of responsibility at the political level, that no major or significant development work has been done in Kalmunai area, but even the legacy of work done by MPs like the Late A.R. Mansoor has been left to disintegrate. If true, this would be called “erasure”. 

Otherwise how to explain the decrepit market building, the nearly collapsing town hall, ever-shrinking and obsolete Kalmunai library – all developed in or before the 1980s. What is the fate of many other projects for which only foundation stones were laid? 

I went around and saw myself all places this time, to gauge whether the public criticism made in this context was justified. Not far from the truth. 

At least, instead of an unwanted, unasked-for museum, if financial allocation is ever to be made, a well-equipped public library (with internet access, conference room, exhibition room, etc.) could be established, for the entire South Eastern region, accessible to all communities there. It may be called “Ashraff Memorial Library” or even “Ranil Wickremesinghe Centre of Library Science.” 

Or, some sort!