Mangala: The great ‘what if?’

It has been three months since former Minister Mangala Samaraweera’s passing. When he died of COVID-19 complications, Samaraweera held no political office.

Yet he is profoundly missed, now more than ever perhaps, and more than any other politician of his generation. With his untimely demise, Mangala Samaraweera left huge questions about Sri Lanka’s political future unanswered. It was so when Lalith Athulathmudali and Gamini Dissanayake, politicians from a previous generation, also died too soon. 

We know that individuals of such stature might have one day altered this country’s destiny, had they only lived a few years longer to fulfil their promise. With the Gotabaya Rajapaksa administration flailing and failing on every front, with the economy in freefall and reconciliation out the window, now more than ever we feel Mangala’s loss. 

The pain of his passing is made more acute by the knowledge that had he survived his brush with the deadly COVID-19, he might have made a bid for the presidency. All politicians are tainted by the trappings of high office, but because we will never know if this was to be the case with Mangala Samaraweera, we are left with unending questions about what that presidency might have looked like.

On the third month anniversary of his death, tributes, personal stories and anecdotes are pouring in from those who knew Mangala well. The diversity of these contributors from sportsmen to statesmen, business leaders to community organisers, public servants to activists, artists to professionals, members of the Diaspora to the clergy speaks volumes about Samaraweera’s legacy. In life, he touched so many people from numerous walks of life.

These testimonies contain something quite rare in Sri Lankan politics. Most of these narratives are devoid of the desire to slavishly lionise or ignore the shortcomings of the man and politician Samaraweera had been. 

In an era of political cult-building, with the ruling regime and the aspiring opposition both indulging in building and maintaining cults of personalities around their respective leaders, it is a rare and precious thing for a politician to be admired for his strengths and commitment as much of the weaknesses and failures that marks him as human. 

Mangala Samaraweera was an idealist, a doer, a liberal champion, a pacifist, a fantastic Finance Minister, a great diplomat, a wonderful mentor and a caring and faithful friend. He was also an imperfect person; a man who was constantly evolving, failing, falling and redefining.

The testimonials are true to the man. Mangala Samaraweera had a rare ability for self-assessment and criticism. He has repeatedly admitted to mistakes and errors in judgement in his political life. When self-criticism has been so forthcoming, there is no reason for eulogies to build a false narrative around his life and the way he lived it.

And that is one of the key takeaways from the life Mangala Samaraweera lived. That flawed leaders can still do the right thing. That they still have the capacity to lead a country where it needs to go. Sri Lanka does not need “saviours” and strongmen. Sri Lanka needs leaders with compassion and empathy, who understand the capacity for human failure and the infinite potential for redemption and course correction.

This week, Sri Lanka sorely needed such leadership. After the tragedy in Trincomalee in which six persons including little children lost their lives in an avoidable accident, there was nobody within the Government or outside it, who effectively empathised and spoke to the collective pain that was felt across the country. They could offer no comfort or acknowledgement of failure, only a desperate desire to play a blame game and abdicate their responsibility towards the citizens. 

We felt this keenly as a country even after the deadly Easter Sunday terror attacks, the final phase of the ethnic conflict and other violence in the past. For decades, Sri Lanka has been bereft of leaders who can reconcile, speak to the inner goodness and kindness in all Sri Lankans and champion a cause that is greater than ethnicity and religion.

Confronted by this reality, perhaps the greatest loss for Sri Lanka from Mangala Samaraweera’s passing is the kind of leader he might have been.