The 1969 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership

BIOGRAPHY of Ahangamage Tudor Ariyaratne

AHANGAMAGE TUDOR ARIYARATNE was born on November 5, 1931 in Galle, the major city of the south of Ceylon. Said to hang like a pearl from the tip of the Indian subcontinent, and famed for its gems, and coconut, tea and rubber plantations, the island was still part of the British Empire when ARIYARATNE was growing up and attending school.

As befit a child of Buddhist parents, he was sent to the village priest for his first formal education. The temple was adjacent to the family home in Unawatuna, a village just outside Galle, and young ARIYARATNE began lessons there at the age of three. At five he started in the village school but was taken upcountry in 1939 as the clouds of World War II gathered. He remained in Meddakanda at the Buddhist Mixed (coeducational) School until he graduated at the age of 13.

Lessons at the Meddakanda School were in the medium of Sinhala, the Sanskrit-based language of the Sinhala ethnic majority, although English was the official state language. When ARIYARATNE returned to the coast in 1944 he began to study at Buona-Vista Senior School where instruction was in English. In 1945 he joined Mahinda College, Galle, which was "the premier Buddhist educational institution in the south" also using English as the medium of instruction. In spite of changing languages, ARIYARATNE had a "brilliant career, always coming first in class and winning almost all the prizes that came his way as the best student of the school."

ARITYARATNE came from a deeply religious middle class family, steeped in Buddhist culture and tradition, and with strong literary leanings. Several of the family elders had written books in Sinhala. His parents believed that the best thing they could do for their children was to give them a good education.

ARIYARATNE’s father was a successful businessman who, according to his son, made "big money" but immediately spent it on the poor so that "he came home virtually penniless." He died in 1970 at the age of 87, devoted to good works to the end of his days. His mother was equally unmaterialistic and selfless. Although she was neither midwife nor nurse, she was always available to care for the ill or assist at a birth, leaving her own household chores until later. Today at 70 she lives with her son and is active in his work, going on field trips and camps with him whenever she can. ARITYARATNE, a middle child, has two older sisters, both teachers, a younger brother who is an engineer in the United Kingdom, and two younger sisters who are housewives.

Passing his Senior School Certificate with a First in Science, ARITYARATNE was exempted from the London Matriculation Examination. He began the study of medicine but a sudden illness on his part and economic difficulties at home stopped these studies. He left school in 1953 and helped support the family as a science teacher at Buona-Vista, his village alma mater. He continued to study privately and passed the London University Intermediate Examination in Political Science and Economics as an External Student after which he entered the Government Training College for Teachers where he majored in English and General Science and graduated as a science-trained Secondary School Teacher. He then went on to Vidyodaya University where he obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree.

Obviously influenced by his parents' piety and concern for the underprivileged, ARITYARATNE spent his evenings as a teenager teaching at night what he had learned at school during the day to youths not attending school. He assisted in organizing temple ceremonies, conducted Sunday classes to instruct young people in Buddhism and engaged in rural development activities. While he was in the Senior Form at Mahinda College he had an experience that made a great impression on him and helped direct the course of his later life.

He had been in the habit of sharing his lunch money with an old woman who was a coir worker—twisting coconut fiber into rope 10 hours a day, six days a week—yet she did not have enough money to feed herself. ARIYARATNE assumed either she was a lazy worker or the price of coir was badly depressed. On inquiring into the situation he found that neither was true—a greedy middleman paid her starvation wages and sold her work at a tidy profit. Finding she was not alone in these circumstances, he organized the first Coir Workers Cooperation Society in the south, made up of 80 women workers, and became its secretary. As a result of these activities he was waylaid one night in an alley and stabbed. The wound, fortunately, was not serious.

In 1956 at the Maharagama Government Teachers' Training School he founded the school's Social Service League and became its first president. He engaged in lectures and radio talks in support of League activities. While at Maharagama he came to the attention of Principal M.W. Karunananda of Nalanda College, Colombo, the second most prestigious Buddhist college in the country. Karunananda had requested that the staff at Maharagama recommend a person with a sense of social responsibility to join the faculty of Nalanda, a school which had a history of social involvement. ARITYARATNE was recommended and has been teaching there ever since.

Karunananda found in ARITYARATNE the qualities he was seeking—a highly qualified teacher who was not just interested in preparing students for examinations but was dedicated to instilling in his students an understanding of the problems of their times and their ethical responsibilities to themselves and to their fellowman. He considers that ARITYARATNE has "rare qualities of leadership" and, although he himself encouraged and helped in the development of student work camps which grew into the national Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement, he recognizes ARITYARATNE as "unquestionably the leader of the Movement who works with a missionary zeal" and as the "only one who can reach the hearts of villagers."

In his first year as a teacher at Nalanda, ARITYARATNE spent his free time making a socioeconomic survey of the so-called "backward communities" in the Northwestern, Uva and Eastern provinces. In most cases these communities are made up of the Rodiya caste, untouchables from ancient times who live in utter poverty and degradation, with even the Buddhist priests unwilling to serve them.

In 1957 he extended his education in rural and social problems and their possible solutions by an extensive study tour of India, traveling from Madras State in the south to Uttar Pradesh and the Punjab in the northwest. The main purpose of his visit was to meet and talk with Acharya Vinoba Bhave, a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi (and the 1958 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Community Leadership "for inspiration and help to the man on the land"), who had carried Gandhi's principles of non-violence a step further and had developed the philosophy of "giving" into a political and economic system. His movement, known as the Bhoodan (landgift) Movement, was sweeping India.

In April 1951 Acharya Bhave had walked into an area troubled by Communist-led terrorism against landlords—where more than 3,000 people had lost their lives—and asked that gifts of land be given him to distribute to the landless. The response was both unexpected and immediate. By 1956 over 4,000,000 acres had been given throughout India. Recognizing that fragmentation of land had its own disadvantages, Bhave later proposed gramdan—the pooling of land—by villagers and reorganization of the villages along cooperative lines.

When ARITYARATNE arrived in Madras and began seeking the leader of the Bhoodan Movement, everyone knew of Bhave but no one knew where, on his continual walking-and-asking tour of the country, he was. Finally in Delhi ARITYARATNE learned that Bhave might be found in the Punjab. Although this was December and cold and he had come from the tropic climes of Ceylon, ARITYARATNE boarded a train for the suggested destination. Arriving there at night, a foreigner, alone and chilled to the bone, he cried out to the crowd on the platform asking if anyone knew where he could locate the Acharya. A Bhoodan worker stepped out of the

melee, wrapped a blanket about his shoulders and walked him to a distant village where the leader was in residence.

After prayers the next morning ARIYARATNE learned that Bhave was maintaining silence. Desperate after looking for him across India, ARITYARATNE approached the great man, explaining that he was seeking to understand the concepts of Bhoodan in order to apply its principles in Ceylon. The Acharya broke silence and conversed with him for over an hour.

ARITYARATNE walked with Bhave for a week, and as he tells it, he was in great physical discomfort all the way, but in a state of unparalleled exhilaration. Bhave explained that the Bhoodan Movement was based on the principles found in all great religions of truth, non-violence and self-denial, and his own perceptions that "all the present ills. . . result from possession" and "cooperation without co-sharing is a mere mirage." "As I spoke to the great man," ARITYARATNE has said, "I began to realize the oneness of humanity and all barriers between man and man seemed to dissolve."

Back in Ceylon and determined to introduce the benefits of the Bhoodan Movement there, ARIYARATNE decided to ask, instead of land or renunciation of self or property, for shramadana, the sharing of labor. This fit the Buddhist tradition of the "middle way"—an avoidance of extremes—and the ancient Sinhala customs of "gifting labor" for community projects such as building roads and water channels, and of "kaiya," where a whole village would organize itself cooperatively to plant, harvest and thresh rice.

The Sanskrit words sarvodaya shramadana explain fully the meaning of the movement that he began at this time. Sarvam means totality or whole, and udayam is uplift or all-around progress, thus sarvodaya means the total uplift of all. As ARITYARATNE interprets it, in an individual sense it means "fulfillment of the human being, realization of the purpose of his existence on this earth, and is not different from the attainment of the Supreme Goal often referred to as Mukthi or Nirvana or Self-realization or the Kingdom of God." In a societal sense it signifies "the greatest good, not of the majority, but of all."

Shrama means physical and mental energy, and dana means gift; shramadana is sharing or giving your mental or physical labor. "Man is not the master of what he possesses," ARIYARATNE says, "but only a trustee of what in reality belongs to society. Therefore giving back to society a part of our physical and mental energy is not charity but elementary honesty, a simple duty."

In December 1958 ARIYARATNE was ready to test his ideals. With the understanding and support of the college, ARIYARATNE and the Nalanda students and faculty whom he had organized into a Social Service League were ready to do shramadana work in a village. They had prepared over a period of three months by visiting the Rodiya village of Kanatoluwa where they had taken a socioeconomic survey and discussed and planned with the villagers what the villagers themselves felt needed to be done. Material and equipment had been collected; both the shramadana volunteers and the villagers were psychologically prepared.

This was no "do-good" effort to "spoon feed" the villagers. It was a cooperative attempt to involve the village in solving its own problems, in a true self-awakening to their own abilities and their self dignity.

In Kanatoluwa the 75 volunteers found 40 poverty stricken families with 67 school-aged children—and no school. Nearby villagers shunned the inhabitants, who lived mainly by begging. Their hovels were dilapidated and their fields deserted. For 11 days shramadana workers lived and worked side by side with the villagers, building wells and latrines, clearing fields, repairing houses and starting a school. They danced with the villagers, bathed the children and tried to explain to the people the rudiments of health and maternity care. Several government departments, particularly the Department of Rural Development, cooperated by supplying materials and training. Nearby higher caste villages were astounded to see the "elite" of Colombo—the educated and the professional—mingling with outcastes; they came to see and, toward the end, to help. Today each family has a home, well and latrine. The village has a center for training residents in the making of rattan items, a school and 19 acres of productive land.

The work at Kanatoluwa was recognized as a social breakthrough. Prime Minister Bandaranaike sent his congratulations by way of his wife: "The progressive step taken by the Nalanda Vidyalaya Social Service League in selecting for development a village inhabited by a community which is cast out by others and condemned to languish in misery, is acclaimed as a National Service of the Highest Order. . . . I hope that this . . . .will serve as a foundation of a national movement of social regeneration." Mrs. Bandaranaike, herself to be prime minister when her husband was assassinated, added that "the wonderful spirit of service and the enthusiasm displayed by the students of Nalanda Vidyalaya are very praiseworthy."

One of the results of Kanatoluwa was requests from other backward communities, including two aborigine villages, for similar help. As more and more asked for help, more and more came forth to give assistance— primarily teachers, students, monks, social workers, doctors and similar professionals; the concept of shramadana was in tune with the basic culture and tradition.

During 1959 ARIYARATNE was busy teaching at Nalanda College, organizing further shramadana work camps and lecturing throughout the island. In 1960 he was instrumental in establishing the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement (SSM). In that same year he organized the First International Shramadana Camp in Ceylon and co-sponsored the Ceylon Saukyadana (Medical Aid) Movement. Now a national association, the SSM moved its headquarters from Nalanda to central Colombo. People of all faiths—Buddhists, Hindus, Moslems and Christians—who would subscribe to the principles of the Movement (truth, non-violence and self-denial) and give seven days of voluntary annual labor were welcomed as members. Dues were nominal or non-existent.

In 1960, also, ARITYARATNE married Neetha Dhammachari. They had met a few months earlier at a work camp. Only 18 when they were married, Neetha has been his devoted helpmate ever since, even giving up a teaching career to work with the Movement. Today she is responsible for the Sarvodaya Education Section, the Sarvodaya Library, and often for the food supply and the welfare of women at the camps. They have three children, a daughter aged eight and sons aged six and two. The children have been carried to camps since they were three months of age and have been workers since they were old enough to help. "In a good family," ARITYARATNE has said, "there are four elements—sharing, kind words, constructive activity and equality." These are very evident in his.

The work camps require a tremendous amount of preparation as well as on-the-site labor. Requests must be investigated and an analysis of the job made. On their part the villagers need to have a clear understanding of what they want and what is entailed, i.e., how much work they are willing to do and how much material they can supply. The SSM provides the balance. Once a survey of village needs has been made by the SSM staff, accommodations for the shramadana workers have to be obtained or built; food, tools and pure drinking water have to be stocked, and sanitary arrangements provided for. Aid is often solicited from nearby villages, particularly ones which have already experienced a SSM work camp.

The most effective working unit is a village of 100 to 150 families. Camp is inaugurated in the evening after village chores are finished and after all the workers have arrived, usually by their own means. At 6 p.m. (the sun sets early because Ceylon is close to the equator) an elder or a young child lights a coconut oil lamp. The national and the Sarvodaya flags are raised and the assembled village joins—with a Buddhist priest if one is available—in prayers. All sit in a circle and sing village and Sarvodaya songs. A sense of closeness having been achieved, each person is asked to express his views or tell something about the village and its needs. One of the goals of the camp is to create a sense of oneness among the villagers and between villagers and volunteers.

Often village problems stem from lack of unity within. Family may be against family and all against the outsider. As Bhave has said of modern India, even in a village of only 100 families there is often no cohesion; each one lives for himself, exploiting the others and all are exploited by the trader, moneylender, doctor and lawyer from town.

ARIYARATNE sees as a basic problem of the village a loss of faith in self. Through the 450 years of colonial rule and in the early years of independence people were taught to look to government for problemsolving. At the same time government more and more gave its attention to the cities at the expense of the rural areas, although even today 80 percent of the people live in the countryside. Moreover, disintegration of the social structure because of party politics, use of immoral means to achieve presumably moral ends, materialism, greed and loss of religious values have eroded village as well as town life. "The world today is the cockpit of many warring ideologies, political doctrines, different faiths and the struggle for economic prosperity," ARIYARATNE wrote in 1962, but the SSM is the "exact opposite of party and power politics and organized religion in that it has no barriers of any sort whatsoever. It aims at the attainment of utmost happiness through doing good without expectation of reward. . . its concern is the welfare of all." The state is not in the position to make changes in the hearts and minds of men where the change is necessary, therefore the need exists for sarvodaya, the total awakening of the mind, spirit and body of men. This, then, is the goal of the work camps, to establish a network of internally democratic, self-supporting and self-reliant villages by maximizing the villagers' potential.

Camp life is divided into four segments—work, study, religious activity and recreation. Normally six to eight hours are spent by village and shramadana workers in manual labor: building roads; repairing tanks (reservoirs); digging drainage ditches, water channels, wells and latrines, and sometimes building a school. Two to three hours are spent in the study of the principles of sarvodaya and of more healthful, prosperous ways of village living.

A major concern of ARIYARATNE has been to involve youth in the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement. As of 1969 over 60 percent of the population of Ceylon is below 25 years of age and 19 percent is between 15 and 25; the latter constitutes a potential work force of 2.3 million. To his great credit, of the 250,000 persons who have worked in SSM camps, 90 percent have been young people—and discipline has never been an issue. ARIYARATNE states unequivocally that "any country that considers youth to be a problem can never progress because youth is not a problem. It is an asset." However, with free rice, free education and free medical care in Ceylon today, youth does not have the same incentive to work as before when families were often dependent on their extra earning power, and society does not place goals before the young that demand their best. ARIYARATNE is determined, therefore, that young people be included in policy making and policy implementation, thus giving them the opportunity to understand and be involved in solving the socioeconomic problems facing society.

The working hypotheses of the Movement are that man is fundamentally good and that love begets love. The principles as enunciated by ARIYARATNE are, in the personal sphere: 1) live a simple life, 2) employ only pure means to a pure end, 3) be concerned for the good of all, and 4) be aware of the oneness of all men. As a social being one should: 1) "steer clear of party affiliations" (party politics he feels are self-seeking, divisive and a remnant of colonialism), 2) help—do not add to the burden of the state—by depending less on centralized planning and decisions and 3) achieve village self-sufficiency.

Until 1962 the SSM was the only shramadana movement in Ceylon. The idea of sharing one's labor was so well accepted by then that other shramadana groups sprang up, although most died because they did not have the backup philosophy of sarvodaya. They gave free labor but did nothing to awaken the villagers to a new and meaningful attitude toward themselves and one another.

In 1961 the Department of Land Development and several other government agencies (which had actually used voluntary labor in the 1940s and 1950s) took a close look at shramadana, noting that "the potential of labor and service latent in human beings who are unemployed and underemployed is non-monetized capital awaiting investment." The government study pointed out that there were approximately three million in the rural work force and most of them un- or underemployed. If each would give seven days labor annually it would mean 20 million man/days of work. At the minimum wage of rupees four per man/day, that would represent rupees 80,000,000 of capital investment per year, and would necessitate a minimal amount of external (state or foreign) aid as catalyst. In 1962 the government formed the National Committee of Shramadana under the umbrella of the Freedom From Hunger Campaign, which non-government organizations were invited to join. The Department was pleased that "the 'Sarvodaya Shramadana,' with perhaps the widest experience in harnessing volunteers for rural work designed to promote intercommunity harmony," affiliated itself with the Committee.

ARIYARATNE was unanimously reelected in 1962 as the National Convener of the SSM, which involved his voluntarily undertaking "to make maximum sacrifice of his . . . time, thought and energy to promote the movement" by: 1) maintaining records, 2) publishing Sarvodaya, the Movement's monthly magazine which he had begun in 1961, 3) coordinating the activities of various councils and boards, and 4) convening the councils of Elders and Workers.

The National Council of Elders was selected by the National Council of Workers to guide and advise the Movement and to act as liaison between the Movement and the state. The National Council of Workers, which included representatives from other welfare agencies as well as SSM volunteers, had the responsibility of coordinating and implementing programs; organizing training sessions seminars, classes and conferences; circulating SSM literature (which ARIYARATNE considered of the utmost importance), and selecting the National Convener and the National Council of Elders, all of whom were volunteers.

In 1964 at the Fifth All-Island Conference of the SSM, the Movement organized itself into the Lanka Jatika Sanodaya Shramadana Sangamaya (LJSSS) in order to meet government qualifications as a state-approved charity. A light red open lotus blossom was chosen as the symbol of the new organization and the motto, "Let us go from village to village and do service to all." ARIYARATNE was to be its Secretary until 1967 and after that its International Secretary.

Work undertaken by the LJSSS was similar to that done by the SSM. For example, for the year April 1964 through March 1965 the LJSSS was instrumental in building eight main and approach roads to villages; cleaning up two hospital areas and planting flower and vegetable gardens; clearing jungles; engaging in a soil conservation project; building public wells and latrines, a school playground, two irrigation projects and new houses; repairing tanks, and assisting in government cyclone (hurricane) relief measures. Over 1,700 volunteers participated, giving 19,550 hours of labor.

In June 1695 the National Shramadana Service decided at its annual meeting to ask the LJSSS to initiate a leadership training course. The Director reasoned: "if the Shramadana Movement was to be meaningful as a national endeavor, these high standards [taught to their own volunteers] should be introduced to the other shramadana groups as well."

The Shramadana Leadership Training Course, first offered in July 1965, was conducted in Sinhala (as most LJSSS programs still are since the Movement operates primarily in the southern, Sinhala, portion of the island; it eschews English since English is not the language of the villages, although some of its publications are in that language in order to reach the townspeople). Courses were offered to Trainers, Camp Organizers and Student Leaders. All courses extended over an 18-month period and were devoted to both theory and practical work. The Student Leader Course is an example. Under theory, 40 hours were devoted to sarvodaya shramadana concepts, 30 to human development, 30 to the economic and political structure of Ceylon, 50 to language training (elementary Tamil, the language of the Indian minority) and 80 to special lectures on such diverse matters as UN organization and juvenile delinquency. Practical work was devoted to social skills and technical know-how, educational visits to various institutions (e.g., home for the handicapped and police stations) and shramadana camps and field work.

Even before he became International Secretary of the LJSSS, ARIYARATNE made several trips abroad in connection with the organization's work. In 1965 he toured Israel for three months assessing kibbutz and other rural cooperative settlements. In 1966 he attended a three week Asian Experts Conference on Voluntary Service in Bangkok at the invitation of the International Secretariat for Voluntary Services. In April 1967 he attended a Regional Seminar on Urbanization in Singapore by the World Assembly of Youth (WAY) and the following year he was invited to speak at the South East Asian Youth Seminar on Rural Development in Bangalore, India. In his speech he pointed out that the Third World is a world of youth and the need is to present the young with ideals and vision. "A soul force lies dormant in all of us," he said, and "no human life is worth living if this inner man and treasures are not discovered and experienced." An Indian clerk who heard him speak was so moved he took leave and went to Ceylon to work in a camp.

ARIYARATNE participated in the WAY Assembly in Belguim in 1969 and was elected to the WAY Executive Committee. He followed the meeting with a lecture and fund-raising tour of Belgium, France, Holland and England where he has built up a network of cooperating organizations.

During these years ARIYARATNE also served, always as a volunteer, on the Ceylon Advisory Committee of Rural Broadcasting and the Advisory Commission of National Services Schemes of the Education and Land Development departments. He conducted shramadana classes at the request of police, probation officials and others, gave uncounted lectures and radio talks and wrote numerous books, booklets and articles on youth, rural development and the principles and program of sarvodaya shramadana. With all these activities he continued to earn a living for himself and his family as a teacher at Nalanda College. This was possible because he allowed himself no more than five hours sleep a night—writing and reading while others slept. He sets aside 15 minutes of each 24 hours for reading on a subject that has no obvious bearing on his work.

Although he attempts to lead others by the precepts of the "middle way," never demanding more of them than they are willing to give, he drives himself to the point that his health often fails. Arthur Hopcraft, who wrote of the developing world in Born to Hunger, says that "following him throughout Colombo's street traffic was like chasing a terrier through a football crowd."

Slight and unprepossessing, with a high-pitched voice and wearing clothes "lent by a friend," ARIYARATNE was then working out of a single room in his extremely modest house in a Colombo slum. "It was piled all over with pamphlets and files so that there was barely room to open out a couple of folding chairs. From this mass of matter Mr. ARIYARATNE would pluck documents from time to time with sudden and unerring snatches."

ARIYARATNE has come to recognize the need for a regular office and full-time paid organizers. In June 1966 he wrote the Asia Foundation, which had been giving assistance in cash and equipment for several years, listing basic LJSSS requirements. Besides office space and furniture he suggested five paid full-time Senior Field Organizers and 25 paid full-time Junior Organizers—an indication of the growth of the Movement and the perceived need to see that gains made by the camps arc solidified; five vehicles (jeeps and/or lorries); audio visual equipment, and capital for material, equipment and for publishing 10,000 copies monthly of the Sarvodaya. Some of these needs have been met. The LJSSS organization has its own office and a fair amount of equipment, including vehicles. It has some paid staff.

Until 1966 the Movement had undertaken only specific projects in requesting villages. At the Annual General Meeting of that year, however, a change in policy was made. It was decided to join in celebrating the Birth Centenary of Mahatma Gandhi by undertaking the "100 Village Development Scheme," with roughly five villages to be chosen from each of the island's 22 provinces. (The Scheme has already embraced 182 villages and is now being planned for 1,000.) It was to be carried out, officially, during the calendar years 1967-1970.

A widespread newspaper and radio campaign began immediately, inviting village applications. All applicants were sent data sheets to list location, size, access, volunteer organization in existence, government agencies in the village, crops, employment conditions, number of families, main economic and social problems, ways villagers would participate, names of local leaders and a date and place for village and LJSSS workers to meet and discuss the projected plan. A volunteer team then met with village leaders and took a socioeconomic survey of the village, family by family.

The Executive Committee makes the final decision as to which villages to include, with preference going to the most needy. A program is chosen necessitating the least capital and the most labor, such as road building, tank repairing and ditch digging. Villagers are involved in the program from the planning stage to eventual evaluation; "the least difficult task has been that of getting community cooperation."

Unlike the earlier work camps which set out to accomplish a specific task, the 100 Village Scheme is long-range. The targets for the first year following the initial shramadana camp are:

1) a continuing series of camps to complete the tasks begun, demonstrate to the village its own "latent strength," and train the villagers in skills, community action and social values;

2) discover and train village leaders and bring into existence a Village Planning Body;

3) link the village with nearby educational and welfare institutions to provide continuous training opportunities and "mutual help and fraternal understanding";

4) conduct a census on economic, social, educational and cultural life; health and medical needs; and expectations;

5) develop three workers from each village who can become National Reconstruction Resource Personnel;

6) link each village project with one private voluntary and/or supporting agency possessed of financial resources;

7) evaluate the work done, the outside resources utilized and the ability of the village to "shoulder the stresses and strains of such a consciously laid down Plan. . ."

This is a new and much more sophisticated approach, recognizing that village problems are interdependent and require an integrated solution. Economic backwardness, disease, civic indifference, educational numbness, social disintegration and organizational inefficiency are interrelated and must be met by changing attitudes and providing—besides a spiritual and cultural awakening—continued access to scientific knowledge, leadership techniques, financial resources and health services.

Selection of the 100 villages was completed by December 1966. Work actually began on December 22. The first village was Kuttikanda, southeast of Colombo. Encircled by hills, it consisted of 90 families with a total of 600 people. It had both a temple and a school, but access was by footpath only. Typically the first project was to build a motorable road. Of the first 14 villages in which work was started, all but one lacked road access, all had severe un- or underemployment problems, and most lacked health services and educational facilities.

Other projects with which the Shramadana Movement has been associated over the years have been the "weeding program by school children," promoted by Upali Senanayake who credits ARIYARATNE as his inspiration. The LJSSS responded to the Ceylon Tourist Board's request to "help clean up Colombo" in October 1967 and "more than 1,000 people, mostly working people and senior students, participated." They removed posters, cleaned pavements, planted flowers and shrubs and even painted boundary walls if the owners supplied the paint.

Since 1958 when the centuries-old racial antagonisms between Sinhala and Tamil flared up, ARIYARATNE has constantly sought ways of reconciliation through the Movement. In the early years Sinhala shramadana workers joined with the Tamils of the Gandhi Sevah Sangham to form Shanti Sena (Peace Camps) and work together as brothers. In April 1964, on the "fourth occasion that we are encamping in the north for this sacrificial act," 300 SSM workers helped build a road linking two Tamil villages. ARIYARATNE commented, "We recognized no barriers except those of Good and Evil. We strive to bring together the good of all men and to banish evil from the minds and hearts of all." In August of that year the Gandhi Sevah Sangham came south to assist the Sinhala in a similar project.

ARIYARATNE has had some disappointments along with his successes. A village cooperative started in 1962 in a remote pare of the country had to be given up because of difficulty of access. The Movement's monthly, Sarvodaya, his special concern, frequently suspended publication because of lack of funds. Money was a problem because the Movement in the beginning urged chose seeking to make financial contributions to distribute the funds themselves. As the work of the Movement became more systematized, money raising became a necessary chore. The government did not always fully approve Movement projects. One government agronomist suggested that using children to weed paddy fields undercut the country's effort to double rice production by reinforcing the farmer's idleness and his dependence on others, and by discouraging him from adopting new seed varieties and modern methods. Family planning was not incorporated into village health services and population increase often neutralized economic improvements.

ARIYARATNE himself was sometimes difficult to get along with. He has been accused by Movement personnel of "wanting things done his own way," and has been rebuffed or reproved on occasion by the bureaucracy. All recognize him, however, as "a good and dedicated man." He never disparages anyone and when he talks with villagers he can identify completely with them and "gain their confidence and support." He uses simple words and speaks in terms of local traditions. At a Rodiya village where he earlier organized a road building camp, the people say that he alone cares for them. "ARIYARATNE is a great man. Nobody came here or looked on us, only ARIYARATNE."

K. V. Reddy, Asian Secretary of WAY, thinks ARIYARATNE’s approach to rural problems is the "best he has seen adaptable to societies which are very traditional and whose way of life revolves around the paddy field." He is an "exceptionally dedicated man who has made use of a philosophy which has roots in the culture of the people."

Senanayake comments, "I consider him even greater than Gandhi because Gandhi only gave non-violence as a philosophy to the world but he was not able to make India practice Gandhian principles. ARIYARATNE is different. He has a concept based on tradition and actual practice by the villagers."

ARTYARATNE himself has no time to listen to what people think about him. He is too busy pushing forward, firm in his belief that "peace within man and peace among men," if developed, can work its way up from village beginnings to national and international spheres until the prayer of the Buddha, "May all beings be well and happy," is answered.

December 1970
Manila

REFERENCES:

Annual Reports. April 28, 1966—May 15, 1967 and May 16, 1967—May 4, 1968. Colombo: Lanh Jatika Sarvodaya Shramadana Sangamaya.

Ariyaratne, Ahangamage Tudor. Introducing Sarvodaya Shramadana. Colombo: Lanka Jatih Sarvodaya Shramadana Sangamaya. N.d. Pamphlet.

______. Letter to N.G. Noyes, Asia Foundation, explaining organization and listing needs. June 6, 1966.

______. Presentation made to Group Discussion. Transcript. Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, Manila. September 3, 1969.

______. The Role of Voluntary Organizations in Development Assistance. Ceylon: Kularatne & Co., Ltd. 1969,11 p.

______. Sarvodaya Shramadana Movemnet of Ceylon. Maradana, Ceylon: Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement of Ceylon. 1962, 32 p.

"Award Money to go for Village Scheme," Ceylon Observer. August 12, 1969.

Description of organization accompanying letter to Asia Foundation from the Sarvodaya Shramadana National Association of Ceylon. 1965.

Fonseka, C. de. "Shramadana: Mobilization of Unutilized Human Resources," International Development Review. Washington, D.C. March 1965.

Hopcraft, Arthur. Born to Hunger. London: Pan Books Ltd. 1968.

100 Villages Development Scheme. Colombo: Lanka Jatika Sarvodaya Shramadana Sangamaya. 1967, 8 p.

Lanka Jatika Sarvodaya Shramadana Sangamaya. Projects and Field Training camps Organized by the Central Organization from 1.4.64 to 31.4.66. 4 p. (Typewritten.)

______. The Training Scheme for Shramadana Trainers, Shramadana Camp Organizers and Shramadana Student Leaders. N.d. (Mimeographed.)

Mahatma Gandhi Centenary Celebrations 1869-1969, Programme of the Ceylon National Committee. Borella, Ceylon: Y.M.B.A. Press. 1969, 8 p.

Maldeniya, Henry. "Shramadana Movement, One Man’s Idea Is Sweeping Through Ceylon—The Idea of Voluntary Labour." Newspaper clipping. No publisher, n.d.

Nadarajah, K. "Bringing Out the Good in Man Is His Aim," Ceylon Times Weekender. August 12, 1969.

Noyes, James H. "Ceylon's Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement," Program Quarterly. San Francisco: The Asia Foundation. No. 48, June 1968.

Ratnayake, Premil. "Ceylonese Whom Manila Honored," Ceylon Daily News. August 19, 1969.

Sarvodaya (Magazine). Ceylon: Sarvodaya Shramadana/Lanka Jatika Sarvodaya Shramadana Sangamaya. Issues 1961-1969.

Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement of Ceylon. Colombo: Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement of Ceylon. 24 p. (Mimeographed.)

Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement of Ceylon. Colombo: Lanka Jatika Sarvodaya Shramadana Sangamaya. Sarvodaya Publications No. 5, 1967, 41 p.

Sarvodaya Villager Leaders' Confenrence, Conference Plan. N.d. (Mimeographed.)

Sarvodaya Village Leaders' Conference 1969 Jan. lst-2nd. 4 p. (Draft-mimeographed.)

Shramadana (Organ of FAO Freedom from Hunget Czmpaign in Ceylon). Colombo:

National Shramadana Service. Govt. of Cqlon Press. Issues 1967-1969.

"Story of Shramadana," The Freedom From Hunger Campaign in Ceylon. No author, publisher or date. 13 p. (Mimeographed.)

"UNESCO Gift Coupon Program," WAY Information Bulletin. World Assembly of Youth. N.d.

"Youth Activates Ceylon's 'Hundred Villages,' " Manila Daily Bulletin. June 17, 1969.

Letters from and interviews with people acquainted with A. T. Ariyaratne and the work of the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement and the Lanka Jatika Sarvodaya Shramadana Sangamaya.