Post-COVID-19 lockdown introspection for every Sri Lankan

Did we start mass cultivation of trees such as jak and mee that could have greatly 

benefitted the people and the soil as it did during the times of kings?

During the COVID-19 lockdown we had two months to introspect about how we have lived before, as individuals, community or country. The fact for us to find out is if we did any introspection at all or if we just returned back to the ‘usual’. 

The COVID-19 lockdown time showed us that how we have lived was mostly as automated, unthinking machines, living by rote. Threatened with mass death many went ‘back to nature’ conscious of what they were consuming and may have ditched at least for a while, for the sake of their pandemic threatened immune systems, much of the imported packaged and processed substance that passed off for food. Yet how much more have we to change? Do we even consider the proportion of which is not right with how we live as a nation and as an individual? 

The power of the individual is not to be under-estimated. Each person can influence a nation. The below article is by one such individual, an 84-year-old perennial ‘youth’ Ranjit Seneviratne, an engineer by profession who after working with FAO, based in Rome, at the height of the green revolution that introduced chemical agriculture, realised that going organic using the farming tradition of Sri Lankan heritage was the alternative for a true non-poisonous food security. Thereafter he was instrumental in influencing the introduction of organic agriculture to Sri Lanka working closely with Ranjith de Silva who pioneered organic agriculture in this country. 

For the past 30 years Ranjit Seneviratne has researched widely medical history, the latest medical findings and the link between the immune system and how we cultivate, what we eat and how we eat it. He maintains an organic forest garden (as an experimental lab with him as the guinea-pig) in his premises in the heart of the city in Kollupitiya, and advises people how to avoid accelerating old age. 

Apart from helping young people to nourish the soil naturally and grow their own food he also shows them how to do simple exercises which keep the immune system healthy. They often cannot keep up with him. He lives what we can call an idyllic life debunking the myth that aging and illness (and misery) comes together. He lives with his wife who is 81 who is also an epitome of youth.

By Ranjit Seneviratne 

What happened on 4 February 1948 – to us the people?

Nothing. We received something called ‘Declaration of Independence’. The only change was we changed our rulers and our civil servants – they were our own people.

Did we change our healthcare system to what it was before the Brits took over?”

No – even though in our history many of our kings were healthcare professionals.

Even today we are using the medical system pushed by Big Pharma based on research from the 1920s – a hundred years ago when Pasteur, Lister and others saw bacteria as ‘disease causing’ using the microscope (that is, based on ‘micro’ scale when today’s research is based on ‘Nano scale’). 

Nano scale research and the discovery of the micro-biome – show that we are only some 40% ‘human’ and 60% micro-biome (bacteria, viruses, fungi, etc.) with separate types found in the mouth, digestive system, skin, other organs and even the brain. These bacteria help us digest our food and protect us like an army from other (pathogenic) invading armies of nasty bacteria, viruses and fungi. Our ‘good’ army of bacteria help us with our mood, thinking power, wellness and vitality. 

Many research have also found that because we were designed to eat leaves and fruits (for say five million years before the discovery of fire) our bodies have ‘receptors’ for plant enzymes and other molecules whereas today’s ‘medicines’ based on the petroleum industry are copies of say just one chemical from the plant, so that the body cannot recognise it. In fact these single ‘medical bullets’ only target the symptom by disabling an organ. But all organs have multiple functions and this disabling of an organ naturally disables these other functions causing unintended consequences, which are what are called ‘side effects’. It should be remembered that Hippocrates father of modern medicine declared that ‘Let food be thy medicine, and medicine thy food.”

On the other hand – cutting edge research is finding that our Hela Wedakam, Siddha and Ayurvedic herbs are the way to go – to build up our immune systems not with injected vaccines – that could include aborted human and animal tissue preserved with stuff such as aluminium and formalin (termed as adjuvants). On the other hand, we can ‘vaccinate’ ourselves with the latest viruses and bacteria (new ones are generated every 40 minutes or so) by eating raw leaves, fruits, seeds and nuts. Think about it – there are no ‘pandemics’ of animals, our dogs or cats suddenly dying in mass scale or crows falling out of the sky dead, even though they eat a lot of the food we eat.

The foreigners have now realised the great benefits of miracle foods of our lands. Medical specialists such as Dr. Mark Hymen even advises Americans to eat ‘curry’ and the talk is about wonder superfoods turmeric, cinnamon, ginger, ashwagandha, lunuwila (bacopa), etc. etc. all of which we have in abundance but which we neglect to cultivate at a national level. But they are now growing these in Florida and California, while we don’t even seem to know what we have. They are even growing jak as a ‘fall-back’ crop if future climate changes make it impossible to grow cereals and their research is showing that eating jak prevents diabetes – a huge problem caused by eating cereal grains. Could the increase in diabetes in Sri Lanka be due to eating wheat products? Today bread (certainly not a heritage food of our culture) and curry is cheaper than rice and curry – how come? Is there a price manipulation to make an imported food cheaper than local food?

What happened to our diet?

After 1948 what happened to our diet? Did we start eating our own traditional foods or did we continue to eat in a sort of traditional way but with imported wheat, processed white sugar (instead of jaggery) and European veggies – cabbages, carrots, beets, tomatoes peppers, etc.? 

Fortunately our ancients when they realised that eating large amounts of rice caused illness they found that a mix of medicinal herbs that they made into a ‘guli’ prevented illness and insisted that we must always eat rice with this herbal guli – which today is our ‘curry powder’ and we eat them balled as ‘gulli’ in the rice. 

After 1948 did we change our agriculture to what was before the Brits destroyed our forests with foreign trees – tea from China, rubber from America, pine from Europe, etc.? Did we start mass cultivation of trees such as Jak and Mee that could have greatly benefitted the people and the soil as it did during the times of kings? Did we stop an economy influenced by foreign interests that made is clear our precious forests to grow new ‘plantation’ crops of European Pine and African Palm Oil, etc.? Did we learn to recognise our money spinners like ‘Walpenella’ that brings in millions per tree and God knows what other precious species we have ignored. 

If we had been thorough with the nature-based agriculture of our ancients, the ‘Green Revolution’ agro-chemical based agriculture would not have had widescale influence in Sri Lanka and destroyed our soil. And we would have prevented the off shoot of chemical agriculture; the need for ‘fertility clinics’, steep rise in diabetes and the thousands who died of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKDu).

Did we change our education system from the ‘dog eat dog’ humanity destroying ‘competing to be first’, ‘best school’ syndrome that we have? 

No – research shows that humans are ‘altruistic’ (care for others) and so are chimps and even mice as part of a survival strategy. Instead, we are training children to do the opposite. Our education system actually makes us into predatory animals that ‘feed’ on the poor worker in order to become rich. We pay our workers so badly (including teachers) and we have normalised exploitation.

Did we initiate ‘Group Learning’ systems – where groups were made up of clever children and not so clever, so that the clever ones helped the less clever and laid the foundation of a caring society which would have eliminated creating ‘educated’ sociopaths who carry out inhuman ragging.

Did we change our legal system? No. We continue to have the ‘Roman Dutch’ Law. The late Justice Sri Lankabhimanya C.G. Weeramantry at a public talk he gave said that the USA changed their laws when they broke away from the UK, because the law favoured Royalty and the Rulers and therefore he said we must do the same. The question is ‘Will we’? Have we seriously observed how the poor are treated at a Court of Law? As an engineer, I was trained to think in terms of being ‘cost effective’ (best product for the least cost) – I found it unbelievable that each court hearing was more or less just to add one word or characteristic to the plaint.

Did we change how we run our country – the Parliament? No – we are ruled by a Parliament modelled on the British – the ‘Party’ system. Basically the rich rulers against ‘Labour’ – the workers. In all countries where there is this system of having an ‘Opposition’ – in other words ‘those who oppose’ – common sense would make us realise that there can be no real ‘cooperation’ – to build the country, because there is a built in failure mechanism of ‘opposing’. But today it is even worse. The reality is that Parliaments are basically ‘debating societies’. The real power is with the ‘one percent rich’ who control the world as those such as Vandana Shiva has pointed out. 

Coming to the poisonous topic of agro chemicals have we ever realised that we have to stop imported agro-chemicals and secure our knowledge of agro-forestry so that they would provide enough and more forest tree leaves and twigs – natural fertiliser found in a forest to serve as agro fertiliser which we could turn into mass scale rural businesses?

Have our energy needs been replaced with solar systems we can easily resort to? 

If we truly think out and make the needed changes big businesses – food and agro-chemical importers would suffer initial losses, but they have enough financial muscle to change to many health-based businesses such as novel frozen wellness food exports (which could be big post-COVID, especially if we specialise in ‘forest grown’ products simply because forest-grown products are naturally more nutrient dense according to research and common sense. Big businesses will thrive if they think out the diverse paths they could take as alternatives to what they focus on now. 

What we need is a whole new mindset and a genuine willingness to change for the sake of safeguarding the heritage, integrity and future of our country. But could all this be a pipe-dream? No. That small country Bhutan is actually doing this – food for all, free health and education for all, forest corridors connecting all forest reserves and similar to the agro-forests suggested – forest cover that makes it the only country in the world that is carbon negative, with the promise to be carbon negative forever. 

What we need is a whole new mindset and a genuine willingness to change for the sake of safeguarding the heritage, integrity and future of our country. But could all this be a pipe-dream? No. That small country Bhutan is actually doing this – food for all, free health and education for all, forest corridors connecting all forest reserves and similar to the agro-forests suggested – forest cover that makes it the only country in the world that is carbon negative, with the promise to be carbon negative forever