Dr. A.M.A. AZEEZ (Plus*) – ICONIC NATION BUILDER, By Susil Sirivardana

A.M.A.Azeez was born in Jaffna in 1911 and died in Colombo in 1973. His comparatively short life of 62 years forms a captivating swathe in modern Sri Lankan history.Viewed as a whole, perhaps its greatest lesson is as a metaphor for Nation Building. Juxtaposing Azeez’s lifework  besides the needlepoint in time that we are poised today, we thought it appropriate to explicate this theme for our collective reeducation. Azeez is a superb role model at a time when authentic Nation Builders are rare. It is here that Azeez emerges as An Iconic Nation Builder. He merits the studious attention of every single Sri Lankan.

There is a difference between this analysis of Azeez and the numerous appreciations of his life and work written by many hands over the years. We find that since Azeez’s achievement is so diverse and multi-faceted, there is quite an understandable  propensity for  writings about him to selectively deal with one or two prominent aspects of his vast achievement. While paying homage to this great son of Sri Lanka, such an approach seems to miss out on a unique quality of his  significance. That is to approach his lifework as one tightly interwoven narrative. Azeez brought an integrated moral and spiritual integrity, a rigorous intellectual  acuity and a total commitment to every single phase of his career. The metaphor of Nation Building lies in this  sum total viewed in its holism.

History placed Azeez’s career in the most strategic of times. The first thirty six years of his life, were deeply entrenched in the first four decades before Independence, when Sri Lanka was negotiating the first phase of its Nation Building trajectory from fully-fledged colonialism through  modern nationalism to independence. As we shall see later, he was caught in its tension as a colonial Civil Servant. The last twenty five years were spent after Independence. Both these phases may be said to have posed ‘cruel’ challenges to him in the sense that he was called upon to make decisions that either furthered or undermined Nation Building. This is where he excelled – every single decision he made, eloquently underwrote the pre-eminent Nation Building compulsion.

Further, there is an unenviable symmetry to his career. It seamlessly divides itself into four phases which facilitate critical evaluation. Phase one, from birth to 1933, is a period of growth and preparation for national service. The second  phase from 1935 to 1948 is in the Ceylon Civil Service. The next thirteen years from 1948 to 1961, involves two parallel roles as Principal of Zahira College, Colombo, as well as a member of the Senate. The last years or fourth phase was as a member of the then prestigious Public Service Commision from 1963 to 1970 and the period of his greatest literary output in Tamil and English during 1962 and 1973. The spirit and substance of Nation Building runs through all phases. Each phase marks a deepening and consolidation of the phase before. Symmetry is indeed the right word for such a trajectory.

THE JOURNEY OF THE SELF

Azeez’s life is one of continuously scaling heights. How did he do it? It is that method and process that we refer to in the title, The Journey of the Self. His growth into adulthood was marked by a process of inner growth. The term Self, connotes this particular experience of personhood which is a holistic concept. It works through a process of critical dialogue with one’s Self. The benefit is in internalizing particular capacities. It is a process of psychological maturing. He acquired these capacities throughout his childhood, and later, through family and human relationships. The result was enrichment in intellectual perspicacity and self-confidence.

Also The Journey of the Self  applies in two complementary senses. The first is the journey of the Self in the early years of childhood, boyhood, university and adulthood. The second sense is larger and bigger. It refers to the journey of enhancing the inner person and its capacities, throughout his life. It is this second process which enables him to successfully address newer and bigger challenges as he plays multiple roles in complex circumstances.

Marina Ismail recreates for us this touching early period of childhood and boyhood.  “He wished to impress on us that the simple way of life with love, affection and understanding among the family members which he had experienced, was far superior to all the wealth in the world. He also wanted to emphasise that life was not all a bed-of-roses for him and that he had to work hard to achieve his ideals which made his life meaningful” He lost his mother when he was seven, but this loss was compensated in ample measure by the love showered on him by his maternal grandparents and aunt who really brought him up. There is absolutely no doubt that he enjoyed a childhood with an abundance of emotional bonding.Azeez “would study late into the night with the aid of a flickering oil lamp, while Ummamma (The grandmother) feeling concerned about him and wishing to keep company, sat nodding away in a corner”. Again she says ”The children who lived down Mohideen Mosque Lane played, learnt their lessons and prayed at the nearby mosque. The boys regularly attended prayers dressed in checked sarongs, white shirts and distinctive white skull-caps. Much time was spent in religious instruction at the Allapichai Madrasa which later became Muhammadiya Mixed School, and it was at this early stage that my father began to have a deep respect for religion, a respect he instilled in us.” Or ”The lane was their playground”. Though the grandfather could have afforded to send him to school in a buggy cart “my father had to walk the one-and-a-half miles to and from from school every day. This was indeed an enjoyable trip, for all the boys walked together laughing and chatting”. The boys were Muslim and Hindu. Not even a whiff of present day segregation.

As Prof.  Ryhana Raheem perceptively observes, when he returned to his boyhood school in 1963 for its Golden Jubilee Address, he did not talk about Cambridge or University College but about his first school.”I now feel thrice-blessed that I did go to Vaidyeshwara Vidyalaya and nowhere else. My period of stay, February 1921 to June 1923, though pretty short quantitatively  was extremely long qualitatively. It was at Vidyalaya that I became first acquainted with the devotional hymns of exquisite beauty and exceeding piety for which Tamil is so famed through the ages and throughout the world.” After Vaidyeshwara, he went to Jaffna Hindu College. He often quoted Prophet Muhammad’s  “Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave “ and Francis Bacon who said “Knowledge is Power”.

Azeez’s was a modern mind .His attitude to women’s education is significant. He believed that girls  must receive modern education upto the highest levels. He strongly advocated his daughter going to Peradeniya University and on the eve of her departure told her: ”I should be happy with my studies: should not think of material benefits, but read the subjects one liked  and try to do one’s best.” Enlightenment rings through these words. He set further examples with girls in his extended family. He did not believe in Purdah, though he stood for modesty in women’s dress. He disapproved of the conventional dowry system for girls .

Azeez was an Exhibitioner in the University College in Colombo, having entered it in 1929. He did History Honours and passed out with an Upper Second class. In his homage to his dear friend and colleague, C. Vanniasingam, he reveals that the intention while at university was to become a lawyer. Additionally, he won that year’s (1933) one and only Government Arts Scholarship to continue his studies in England, where he proceeded to St.Catherine’s College, Cambridge in 1934. However before sailing for England, he had sat for his Ceylon Civil Service examination. Within a month of being at Cambridge, he heard that he had passed the Ceylon Civil Service and decided to take up that appointment and immediately returned to the island. He was the first Muslim to enter that Service.

In tracking his personal journey, we should be mindful of the nature of these times. These were the inter-war years when revolutionary change was reverberating in the world at large, especially in the colonial societies. The Russian Revolution  and its inspiration, the Great Depression and the conflicts in Germany, the awakening in China and Japan,and the Indian Independence Struggle were all revolutionary events. Within Sri Lanka too, there were historic changes happening. Particularly the effects of the Donoughmore Commission and the granting of universal franchise, with the consequential election of the first and second State Councils. This period of the two Councils, from 1932 to 1947, saw the determined unfolding of a process of countrywide change in all aspects of governance and development. However, there was one very significant  gap – a structural gap – in these propitious change processes, and that was Nation Building. That was missed out and submerged in the rhetoric and realpolitik of the lead-up to Independence. We have analysed this elsewhere in detail and called it “the absent fundamental” in our polity.  This is what makes Azeez’s achievement, together with a few other exceptional persons ahead of his times, very special. Azeez , who was very much in the mainstream of intellectual and policy making in his society, due to the strength and tenacity of his vision for Sri Lanka, succeeded in manoevring his way in the polity, consciously and deftly avoiding the pitfalls in the path of Nation Building. In fact that is the narrative that we are celebrating today.

This is where Azeez’s intellect towers above the mainstream. It is facile to say that his study of history had armed him against these dangers. It was, as we are striving to show, something much larger and more whole. His whole make-up was different and composed to produce a very different kind of outlook. To put it simply, he saw Sri Lanka – and himself -in a very different way. It is that we have to understand. Let us now move to the next important transition, which will reveal a lot more. (Sailan)

Home           Sri Lanka Think Tank-UK (Main Link)         

Dr. A. M. A. Azeez (Plus*) – he placed service before self

I am privileged to write the commemorative article on late Dr. A. M. A. Azeez to mark his 37th death anniversary on 24th November, 2010. This article is a way of expressing my gratitude to this outstanding Sri Lankan who made a difference to the quality of life of so many of his fellow countrymen, especially the underprivileged minority Muslim community. I write as an old Zahirian, and as one among many others who had benefited immensely from the school’s educational system back in the 1950s when Dr. Azeez was Principal.

In this article I have presented some high points of his life in order that we may reflect upon some of his unique personal qualities and achievements, which I believe can be of great inspirational value. Dr.Azeez was born to an upper middle class family in Jaffna in 1911 and died 62 years later in Colombo. In this short time frame he managed to squeeze in an impressive curriculum and an enviable career full of accomplishments and successes as an academic, administrator and educator.

As a child Dr. Azeez was brought up within the Islamic faith. His religious convictions had a significant influence on shaping his adult life. He was an ardent believer in discipline, generosity and community service which are three of the key precepts of Islam. Throughout his life he had maintained a personal character and integrity that were beyond question, and as a family man he was considered to be a faithful husband and a model father. He was married to Ummu Kuluthum (grand-daughter of M.I. Mohamed Alie J.P., the first Persian Vice-Consul in Ceylon) and had three children, sons Ali and Iqbal and daughter Marina.

Dr. Azeez had his early schooling at Vaidyeshwara Vidyalayam and later at Jaffna Hindu College which at the time were well respected Hindu schools. At school he excelled in studies and specialized in Tamil literature and culture. From today’s perspective it might appear strange how a Muslim student could have realized his academic dreams in Hindu faith based schools. At this point I may draw a parallel with my own experience when I as a Buddhist could study at Zahira College, Colombo without ever feeling a stranger amongst the majority Muslims. That was in the 1950s. I am not too sure if we can relive such situations anywhere today with all the anti-religious and ethnic rhetoric that is floating around us.

In 1933 Dr. Azeez graduated from the University of London with an Honours Degree in History. This won him the Government scholarship to Cambridge University, England to do post-graduate studies but he opted to become a member of the prestigious Ceylon Civil Service. That was in 1935 when Sri Lanka was still under British Colonial rule. He became the first Muslim to join the Ceylon Civil Service. That was a great personal achievement for Dr. Azeez and a morale booster to the country’s minority Muslim community. Two of the key projects he handled in the Civil Service are worth mentioning here. As Additional Secretary to the Ministry of Health he helped bring under control the great malaria epidemic that hit the Kandy district at the time. It was considered to be a success story in crisis management.

Perhaps the most demanding tasks he had to face on the job arose in the early 1940s when he was Assistant Government Agent in Kalmunai, Eastern Province. The country at the time was facing the prospect of a food shortage due to the ongoing Second World War. Within two years of dedicated effort Dr. Azeez had managed to restructure the entire food production and supply chain in the region with amazing results. He had effectively converted the district into the granary of the East. This, according to some reports was perhaps the most important contribution he made to the country as a whole. In the midst of all the good work, he had his disappointing moments too. He was struck by the social deprivation and backwardness of his Muslim brethren living in the Eastern Province. They were people who had been thrown into the margins of society and caught in a no-win cycle of poverty and lack of education – a sort of a catch 22 situation.

Still in Kalmunai, Dr. Azeez had made friends with two inspiring intellectuals from the region, Swami Vipulananda and Abdul Cader Lebbe. The first was a Hindu teacher and scholar and the second an author and poet. Both were strong opinion formers and social reformers. They were convinced that the much needed social and economic reforms in the country could be brought about only through education. Their ideas had a profound influence on Dr. Azeez’s outlook to work and life. This led him to his master vision which was to establish a free and fair democratic society in the country and to upgrade the quality of life of the underdeveloped Muslim community.

In 1948 Dr. Azeez retired prematurely from the Civil Service to assume the post of Principal, Zahira College, Colombo to succeed Dr. T.B. Jayah who was appointed as a Minister in the first cabinet of independent Ceylon. This gave Dr. Azeez the best opportunity of improving the education of the Muslims which was his vision. His decision shocked the Muslim community as they never expected a Civil Servant to sacrifice a bright career to take up the cause of Muslim education. This was an eye-opener to the rich community of the value of education. He took office at Zahira with great enthusiasm and high hopes of realizing his mission. His mission was to transform Zahira College into a Centre of Excellence in Education and Muslim Studies and Culture. A few years later in 1952 he was appointed as a Senator in the House of Parliament.

I joined Zahira College in 1952 having completed my secondary schooling at St. Thomas’ Preparatory School, Kollupitiya. We were a lower middle class family living in Kollupitiya. My mother was a devout Buddhist and very conservative while my father was unpredictable. As a youth I devoted part of my spare time to neighborhood community work and was also involved in small time local government politics.

In the 1950s Zahira College enjoyed a high ranking in the league of leading schools of Colombo. I found the school system very affordable and liberal. I adapted to the school environment very quickly and made a large circle of friends. The school had a multicultural diversity of students and teachers in keeping with Dr. Azeez’s open minded management philosophy. A strong point of the system was its highly motivated and dedicated teaching staff.

The most enjoyable place in the school was the classroom. The classes were very informal and participative, and the student-teacher relationship was extremely cordial. There were even moments of laughter and innocent acts of mischief during class, which was all taken up in a sporting spirit. Academically however, I did not come out as a brilliant performer at the time; most likely I was an above average student. In sports I was more of a cheer leader. I was a strong cricket fan and played soft ball cricket. One of the major school events that drew my attention was the annual science exhibition in which I had participated several times. I am deeply indebted to my science teachers Mr. Natesan, Mr. Selvanayagem, Mr. Ghaffoor, Mr. Balasubramanium and Mr. de Mel. It was comforting to find the Principal and teachers taking a personal interest in the students’ welfare and progress. I remember the time when Dr. Azeez and Mr. de Mel personally took the trouble to coach me for the University entrance interview.

Dr. Azeez’s thirteen year tenure as Principal (1948-1961), came to be known as the Golden Era of Zahira. During this period the school reached peak performance at a national level in studies, sports and cultural activities. It excelled in cricket, soccer and rugby as well as track and field events. The school had also earned a reputation for cadetting, scouting, target shooting and interschool quiz competitions and debating. Over one hundred Zahirians had entered the University during this period. I entered the Science faculty of University of Ceylon in 1956 together with twelve others. They became great achievers and exemplary citizens who had done well in life. Among them were well known University dons, leading professionals and administrators as well as high ranking officers in the army, navy and air force.

As a person Dr. Azeez was well liked by the students and staff. His charismatic personality and ability to connect with people won him a large number of friends. He had a portly figure and had always carried a slight smile on his face. Dr Azeez was well known for his oratorical eloquence, in both English and Tamil. We as students had the privilege of listening to him at the weekly school assembly. His speeches were powerful and thought provoking and often carried a message with an ethical slant.

Unfortunately, despite all his efforts and much to his disappointment, his mission to upgrade Zahira College to a Muslim University status failed to materialize. His dream however resurfaced 12 years after his retirement from Zahira College, and turned into reality in 1973 with the inauguration of the Jamiah Naleemiah in Beruwela. That was the closest he could get to fulfilling his mission. Two other earlier initiatives of his have given continued support to the Muslim youth.

He founded The Ceylon Muslim Scholarship Fund in 1945 to help financially needy students to pursue higher studies. In 1950 he inaugurated The All Ceylon Young Men’s Muslim Association aimed at providing social assistance to the youth.

As a Senator he had been a strong defender of the rights and welfare of the underdeveloped. He had no political agenda for himself, and had always stayed away from irresponsible and opportunistic politics. He opposed the Sinhala Only Bill introduced by the newly elected Mahajana Eksath Peramuna in 1956. He thought the bill would divide the country into ethnic factions and damage the growth and integration of the Tamil speaking Muslim communities. In his brilliant speech in the Senate he made a last minute passionate plea on behalf of the minorities. However, when the bill was eventually passed in the House of Parliament with the support of the United National Party, Dr. Azeez honourably resigned from the UNP. He then took an independent stand until his resignation from the Senate in 1963 on his appointment to the Public Service Commission.

Dr. Azeez was often referred to as a walking encyclopedia because of his profound knowledge in a wide range of disciplines, especially history, politics, Tamil language and culture as well as Islamic studies and Muslim culture. Some of his beliefs and thoughts on these subjects have been vividly expounded in the many articles and books he published over the years, in the English and Tamil language.

Dr. Azeez’s deep sense of citizenship and services rendered to the country were duly recognized and acknowledged by the people and the government. He was awarded the title of Member of the British Empire in 1951. In 1986 the government issued a stamp in his honour as a National Hero. The University of Jaffna awarded him a posthumous Doctorate of Letters at its first convocation in 1980. He won global acclaim when he was listed as one of the 100 Great Muslim Leaders of the 20th Century, by the Institute of Objective Studies, New Delhi, India.

Dr. Azeez’s successes did not come by accident. Rather they came through self-motivation, high self-esteem, sincerity and enthusiasm. His simple and ethical lifestyle gave him credibility. His life was driven by an acute sense of social consciousness; he looked beyond himself. Dr. Azeez died on 24th November 1973, and that marked the end of another chapter in the 20th century history of Sri Lanka. But he will be remembered for ever as a gentleman who had always placed service before self. 

(Rajindra Clement Ratnapuli was a student of Zahira College, Colombo during the Azeez era. He entered the University of Ceylon in 1956 and graduated in Physics (Honours) in 1960. He obtained a First Class Honours Degree in Metallurgical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in 1966. He is a Chartered Engineer, Member of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining and Associate of the Institution of Works Managers (UK.). He is also a Member of the Brazilian Institute of Metals. He.worked in the Ceylon Steel Corporation, British Steel Corporation and then joined the Brazilian Steel Industry in 1980. After retirement in 2002 he was a lecturer at Unileste University, Brazil and was a leading Consultant in his field. He has published several papers and holds two Patents. He now lives in Canada) (Sailan)

Home           Sri Lanka Think Tank-UK (Main Link)