A glimpse into the life and work of Jekhan Aruliah

• Commemorating May as a month of peace

Our interview today is part of the annual series we began three years ago themed May as a month commemorating peace. Here we dedicate our specifically selected content to remember what 18 May 2009 should signify; as a historical lesson of a three-decade-long abyss a nation should never fall again into. In our series we select hope and progression rather than stagnate with the past, but neither do we stifle memory’s sharp plunge into sorrow or glorify one side of the conflict narrative.

We feature today Jekhan Aruliah, born in Ceylon, brought up in London and who graduated from Cambridge University in 1986. 

A veteran IT professional, he is an investor, investing strategist, and entrepreneurship coach focusing on the North of Sri Lanka, promoting peace and unity through shared prosperity of a nation. 

He has built links with the Tamil expatriate community, encouraging them to engage and invest to build up the economy of Sri Lanka. 

In this interview Jekhan shares his mission to promote and strengthen the talent of the Northern Province, giving his insights about Jaffna and its potential.

By Surya Vishwa 

Q: Please tell us about yourself and why you decided to settle in Jaffna from 2015?

A: In 2013 my brave, beautiful wife Kshirabdhi passed away unexpectedly in a London hospital. She had courageously fought chronic illness for several years. She was 40 years old. Our only child, then 16-year-old son Karnan, completed two years of schooling, entering university in the UK in 2015. After dropping him at the campus I moved back to Jaffna. 

Though I say “back” there is actually no “back” about it. This was not a return to Jaffna. I had never lived here before. I have no close family here (though distantly related to several) and had no friends though now blessed with many. But it was a great opportunity to make a difference in the next phase of my life.

I had migrated to the UK as a two-year-old baby. My parents spoke only English to us, reserving Tamil for that which they decided we didn’t need to know. To this day and I expect to my end of days I neither speak nor understand Tamil. My father, a civil and marine engineer, loved maths and science. He transfixed his three children with stories of Archimedes, Newton and Einstein, of Arabic numerals and ancient Indian universities. We all three duly graduated in Physics. My elder sister continuing in that field became a professor of physics at University College London, a worldwide top ten university. I escaped, entering the IT industry.

Though I left Sri Lanka when I was a two year old, I have always felt a pull to this land. I can’t explain where the pull came from. My family didn’t mix much with the Sri Lankan community in the UK when we were children. In 1993 I found an opportunity to join a British company outsourcing software development to Colombo. In the seven years I was in Colombo I met and married my late wife and we had our son. We returned to the UK in the year 2000.

It was that inexplicable pull, my son excitedly leaving for university, and my personal tragedy losing my wife, that brought me to Jaffna in 2015.

Q: How do you see Sri Lanka and Sri Lankans?

A: The tragedy of Sri Lanka is its myriad lost opportunities. Take Sri Lankans out of Sri Lanka and they do extremely well. They are top professionals, they are partners and directors leading companies. They stand shoulder to shoulder with the best in the world. And yet despite its many gifts and assets, human and natural, Sri Lanka itself remains a poor country. 

We are languishing with unacceptable levels of poverty and malnutrition. In reality Sri Lanka remains two nations. The developed Western Province is one and the drifting rest of the country is the other.

Q: What is the main focus of your work?

A: The main focus of my work is to support the economic development of the North. Why only the North? Because I am just one guy, who lacks the capacity to do more. One individual who by random chance has his ancestral roots in the North. That’s just how the dice landed, no more reason than that.

Q: Any further comments? You are advising the David Peiris company who are growing their presence in the North isn’t it?

A: I am only a catalyst. 

My main efforts are to help people who want to invest. I don’t try to persuade people who have not decided or don’t want to invest. For the same effort it takes to turn a “no” to a “maybe” which still probably goes nowhere, I can support several “let’s do it” with far greater impact.

You mention the David Pieris company. Their President Mr David Pieris had made the decision to grow his company’s presence in the North before he ever met me. I advise and support them in what he had already decided. And I admire them for what they have done and what they will do. They are investing much effort and talent and money in the North creating value added services: training vehicle mechanics both male and female, and software developers. Their visions for the North still continue to develop even further. I will continue to support them.

Q: After the end of the unnecessary bloodshed of three decades what do you think Sri Lankan society should focus on?

A: Equitable economic growth.

In my time in Jaffna, I have made some friends from other countries. Sometimes in foreign diplomatic corps. One pointed at his own state in India, proud of its impressive economic development. Despite the continuing political and bureaucratic corruption there he told me his home state was coming close to European levels specifically citing Portugal. The private sector there is succeeding in spite of corruption. We should focus on equitable economic growth despite our many political and bureaucratic maladies.

Q: What do you think Sri Lankan politicians should focus on especially in terms of policy initiatives?

A: Our political classes should first focus on healing themselves. 

Decades of selfishly sacrificing the nation for the benefit of friends and family has consequences. Consequences that were ignored by the wealthy until national economic collapse meant even their own cars ran out of fuel.

I believe that healing needs to come from within the politicians. Political parties have been nett value subtractors for decades. I know there are good people who are politicians, sincerely doing their best for the nation. But they are swimming against a fierce tide. That tide must be slowed, stopped, and reversed.

The greatest thing the politicians can do to support economic growth in Sri Lanka is to heal themselves from their decades’ ingrained habits.

That is my reason for having nothing to do with politics.

Q: Once in a conversation you described yourself rather in jest as a ‘one man advertising agency for Northern economic development’. You are indeed seen as this in both the work that you do at a practical level and as a mainstream writer promoting the North and its industry capacity in addition to being active on social media. Any further comments?

A: The perception of the North is very negative. Often ignorantly so, but sometimes justifiable so. There are many “experts” in Colombo and the diaspora who confidently tell things that are simply wrong. A few years ago I was asked to review a report by a leading Colombo consultancy. It cited as a positive example the great success of a company that had already gone bust awhile earlier. A lot of the “expert” knowledge comes from Google and from casual conversations with those who have hardly set foot north of Anuradhapura. There is not enough expertise coming from direct knowledge and experience.

There are great successes in the North, but I admit too few. I highlight the existing successes to showcase ‘what already is’ as a pointer to ‘what could be’. We already have shining lights in the IT sector, agriculture, food and drink export, and manufacturing. North based companies are successfully exporting goods and services around the world. 

For those who think the Northern youth are hopelessly crippled by intoxicants scudding around on motorbikes funded by diaspora remittances, I can show you the opposite. I can take you to the well managed disciplined organisations where Northerners work diligently, creatively and successfully. 

I can show you, these successes, but I regretfully admit these are still too few. 

I must say in setting them up there is a price to pay. A price paid in frustration and patience and care and of course in money. There once was discipline and high aspiration in the North, but much of this has left. Either left to another country. Or left the hearts and minds of those still here lacking belief that discipline and high aspiration will bring rewards.

Those not ready to pay the price required to launch a successful enterprise leave. Often they blame the North, spinning a story that discourages others. Blaming the northerners for their failures. But you don’t blame an uncut diamond for not sparkling. The north can be made to sparkle by those who know how to cut it to make it sparkle. Then the sparkle will attract others.

Yes, I call myself a ‘one man advertising agent’ half in jest. My role, one of them, is to encourage businesses to see our rough diamonds. And to meet those who can show how they made them sparkle.

Q: Could you speak of your writings especially in the Lanka Business Online and detail out what you think should be the priorities for the media in relation to people centric development of the North of Sri Lanka?

A: I must thank my brother-in-law Prashan Nagendra, my late wife’s brother, for pushing me to write. He is the CEO of his software company EFutures. He is the greatest networker and marketing expert, the bedrock of his company. Prashan got me onto Lanka Business Online, and pushed me onto Facebook. He told me, correctly, if I want to make a real difference there is no point sitting quietly doing my own work: I have to get the message out, and build the network to amplify that message. Prashan, as an ace marketing man, knew what he was talking about. So I did as he told me. He still scolds me saying I don’t write in Lanka Business Online enough. But writing 1,500 words takes a long time if it is to be done to my satisfaction!

Our media, social and mainstream, needs to do a better job covering the North. You rarely see a commentator from the North on TV or interviewed in the papers. And when you do, it is usually the same small group repeating their own side of the story. Their side needs to be heard, but to get a truer picture others should also get airtime. 

Q: This year we mark 15 years after the end of the civil war. For the past years we heard the word reconciliation being bandied about. Could you speak of what the word means to you?

A: I am sorry they chose the word “Reconciliation”. This is often combined with the word “Truth”, as in “Truth and Reconciliation”. We need “Truth” for many reasons which I won’t go into here beyond this quote: “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it”. This is a country that has seen a series of anti-minority pogroms, insurrections and civil war. A country whose economic failures has taken it to the IMF 17 times since 1950. We have much we are failing to learn from past truths.

I ask myself; what exactly is ‘reconciliation’? Who is being reconciled with whom? Or do we just want the poor to be reconciled to their poverty? The injured to be reconciled to their injuries and injustice?

In my opinion better than ‘reconciliation’ would be ‘empathy’. Empathy with why the other side did what they did. We need this to comprehend a little better why a gentle people were made bloodthirsty. Empathise, even if not necessarily understanding, with their fears, their traumas, how they were manipulated, and why a few in all communities were able to destroy the lives of the many in all communities.

Q: You were well settled in UK. Was it worth to have returned giving all that up?

A: This has been one of the most fulfilling periods of my life. When the light fades from my eyes, I will feel content.