Nationalism is never the best word. A Nationalist of the late Dr. Nalin de Silva’s sort wanted to be known as a Nation-first patriot, not necessarily a Nationalist as the word is commonly used at its hackneyed worst. When he passed away last week there was an outpouring of grief.Some of it can be seen as a self-righteous expression of guilt rather than grief, no doubt tinged with genuine sorrow of course, or at least a measure of it. Why guilt? Most of the pillars of the Establishment could not quite see eye to eye with Nalin de Silva because he seemed to question everything and everyone. He was the quintessential enfant terrible of his time.
But who was Nalin de Silva anyway? He was a brilliant man. He was a top-notch theoretical physicist with probably more than a mere touch of genius, and a person who knew history, Sinhala language and geography more than most subject experts. But something seemed to drive him as well, perhaps some inner sense of incompleteness. He was driven to rebel against the Establishment, while on the one hand being a pillar of that same Establishment himself, making him a paradox embodied.
How exactly was he a “pillar of the same Establishment”? While he questioned authority figures and railed against established forms of scholarship while exposing the shallowness and hypocrisy inherent in modern society, he was also a fervent supporter of a future Buddhist State. In that cause, few could be more pro-Establishment than he was.
He seemed to dedicate his life to the latter cause, even though to the last he argued about theoretical physics and its nuances, which only a select few such as him could either understand or be interested in.
For a Buddhist, however, he was remarkably unrestrained in many ways, which was why most Buddhists revered him even though some of them couldn’t quite stomach his irreverence and probably, inwardly, hated his guts.
DISCOURSES
Be that as it may, probably the more important question is where does the nationalist movement stand today, when it is rapidly losing de Silva and his ilk who were integral to the movement during the State’s campaign against the armed and dangerous LTTE?
It seems Nationalism is at the crossroads. It is why those such as de Silva were probably more disillusioned than usual. They felt there was no appetite for the same Nationalism that marked the dangerous days of war, especially after our problems became more economy-related than security centred, what with the meltdown of 2022.
It seemed Silva and others like him saw this as a lack of commitment. Also they may have felt that the raison d’être for their type of nationalist activism was sadly no longer extant. It is probably why Silva never mellowed with age as did most others, and seemed to rage more, and in a shriller tone as he got older. He seemed to be convinced that nobody was listening, as if he was preaching to a deaf horde that was rootless and completely alienated from their origins.
Perhaps instead of becoming louder and more insistent, he could have probably stopped to question himself and his modus operandi. But that kind of introspection could not be expected of De Silva, and that was both his strength and his weakness.
Despite his irreverence towards most key figures among the educated and semi-educated elite, with his short temper, or maybe because of it, he managed to focus a great deal of attention towards the pro-Sinhala Buddhist cause he espoused.
For that, Sinhala Buddhist activists and fellow national minded citizens would consider his passing a major loss. However, he did not want any type of posthumous glorification. He states so in a brief piece in which he ruminates about impending death.
FALLIBLE
He was no doubt a flawed man as we all are, and says so in that piece about inevitable death. It is this writer’s observation that he was more enamoured with the concept of Sinhala Buddhism and the agency of Sinhalese as protectors of Buddhism, than the content of Buddha’s discourses per se.
But for espousing the Sinhala Buddhist cause his way, with the accent on “Sinhala” Buddhism, he was held in high esteem at least in an understated way by elite Sri Lankan Buddhists. When he was alive, it seemed they did not want to articulate their admiration for his stand as he was not happy if people did not accept all his positions one hundred percent.
But very few people were willing to accept everything he advocated unquestioningly, and that is to be expected. However, he created waves, and due to the controversy he attracted, had a considerable public following. Those who disagreed with him followed his writings and speeches intently and that was rather obvious.
As a theoretical physicist, he debunked Western thought systems and referred to Western scientific method and science as a “pattapal boru” (Damn lies).
He was not wrong to the extent that narratives in Western science are often tailored to fit a prevailing theory, but are sometimes debunked with time. But not content with stating that Western scientific systems are fallible (which knowledge system isn’t?) he went to the extent of claiming they are a total lie while claiming that local Sinhala knowledge systems are superior.
CAVEAT
About the latter assertion, he did not offer rigorous proof and did not feel the need to do so. It seemed he wanted people to take his word for it, and that was characteristic of him. But despite this superciliousness, his fervour was attractive to certain people, because he seemed to genuinely believe in the causes he espoused.
He, like Ramanujan the genius mathematician hailing from Tamil Nadu before him, claimed to have been inspired by the gods and while Ramanujan said that his Family God Namagiri revealed complex mathematical formulae to him, Nalin De Silva said he was inspired by the Natha Deviyo (Natha Deity) to discover the origins of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD), the malady plaguing the Anuradhapura District.
For this he was unreasonably lampooned and targeted for abuse by the scientific community, but it would be fair to say that unbeknownst to him perhaps, Nalin de Silva was part showman, part brilliant mathematician and theoretical physicist, and part the forever-child in search of himself. The latter is not stated disparagingly even though some may take it to be so. No matter.
Nalin De Silva’s impact on contemporary Sinhala Buddhist culture was certainly not inconsiderable. For that, a great many people are eternally grateful to him though de Silva himself has always said he was misunderstood or not understood at all.
But when he said he does not want to be posthumously revered, it was probably because he did not suffer the hypocrisies of society gladly. He knew he would be lamented when he passes, which is why he wrote he would rather die abroad, though with the caveat that he wants to be reborn in this country in order to accomplish his dream of a Sinhala Buddhist State.
At this particular juncture, however, with the passing of persons such as Nalin de Silva and those before him such as Gomin Dayasiri, it begs the question, would the cause of Sinhala Buddhism survive the same way it did during the War?
Perhaps, change is inevitable. The form that change would take, would probably be seen in the next few years. The personalities that helm that cause would change, and the cause of Sinhala Buddhism or Buddhism per se in Sri Lanka, may transform into something different and more suited to the challenges of the current era.
At the moment, there are few people alive who could engineer a transformation by making Buddhism not merely the religion of the majority, but the crucible of the Buddha’s genuine word. Buddhism is about compassion, detachment and eschewing delusion.
