I saw the news on social media that the award winning drama director Rajitha Dissanayake has resigned from the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation today. He has stated that he resigned as he could no longer bear the constant harassment by the radio administration.
I would like to remind Director General Chandrapala Liyanage that some of the administrators of the radio station can be cut down with a coconut stick falling from the coconut estates in Medamulana. But it is not easy for radio to create a progressive artist like Rajitha Dissanayake who is a resource for radio. Having worked for a day or so at this institution, I am ashamed that radio controllers have become so insane.
What more evidence is there to say that these rulers only want rhetoricians who come forward with iron fists and make the whole country stink?
Rajitha joined the radio as a producer. He had a Bachelor of Arts degree with a degree in Journalism. Rajitha is also retiring from radio as an average producer. Little do most of the radio broadcasters know that there was a proposal at one point to give him even the top chair in the radio.
Rajitha is also a close friend of mine. He is also a friend of many others who have become radio controllers. But he never used those friendships for personal gain. When I was the Director General, the Secretary to the Ministry of Mass Media and the Deputy Minister of Mass Media, he did not come to my room for any personal request. I can honestly say that not only me but also former chairmen like Sudharshana Gunawardena can tell the same story about Rajitha.
The late Mangala Samaraweera wanted to give Rajitha the top chair in radio. I was Mangala’s Deputy Minister at the time of that discussion in the Ministry. But Mangala did not tell me anything about it. It was only later that I came to know that Rajitha had refused to meet Mangala Samaraweera on the matter. Ruwan Pradhanandis has all the details about this. Rajitha remained an average producer while many bowed to the authorities to get positions. He was happy to intensify his creative life.
There are many programs produced by Rajitha on the radio. Rajitha was able to give the radio the intellectual contribution of the best resource persons in the country for those programs which were created on the subjects of art, literature, drama, folklore, aesthetics, philosophy and politics. Rajitha, who sat shoulder to shoulder with those eminent saints, nurtured those programs with his knowledge and full enjoyment. They will go down in history as the great communication resources needed to create a cultural man and do justice to Rajitha.
Professor Liyanage Amarakeerthi translated a very important book into Sinhala for the cultural discourse of our country three years ago. It is a book on art and man written by Professor Erwin Edman, a renowned scholar and philosopher. Amarakeerthi has presented this book to Rajitha Dissanayake, who ‘continuously engages in the art of his choice, nurtures the art of Sinhala drama and reminds the country of the connection between art and man’.
Rajitha’s medium is stage drama. It has shrunk these days. But it would be good if the radio controllers who planned to take Rajitha home kept in mind that the day would come when it would be re-developed by Rajitha himself.
Rajitha has chosen his own path. In the words of one of his own plays, it is an ‘irreversible’ path. Rajitha go ahead.
Karu Paranavithana