Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

29 January 2018                                     

Sexual  Favours at the Workplace

Muslim or Common Sri Lankan rule?

[The Board of Directors of SriLankan Airlines, which won a new lease of life, decided by majority vote to sack their Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Suren Ratwatte. The board met on Thursday for the first time after all of them except one handed in their resignations, but Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe asked them to continue in office until the board was reconstituted. The board took up the continuation of Mr. Ratwatte as CEO of the national airline despite it not being on the agenda and voted by a majority a 5-2 vote to remove him.] Sunday Times report ‘SriLankan Board votes to sack CEO Suren Ratwatte’

This move confirms that the Board does not want the influence of Mr. Ratwatte and all those who identify with him to influence their minds at Governance level. Like at the voters level, at Policy level also we have the duty to make belief-based decisions. The mind needs to be still when we vote as per Belief. A vote as per our Belief would bring us peace of mind, even if we lose at the physical level. Sadness without anxiety is also peaceful.

A Service is complete at the level at which the Satisfied Customer meets the Satisfied Supplier. At that level, the customer as well as the Supplier are Governors / Owners/One. Their Natural qualities affect each other for better or for worse. Pilots are primary service providers  of an Airline and Mr. Suren Ratwatte  was Pilot before he became CEO.  Like Academics becoming Vice Chancellors – Pilots becoming Administrators especially of other seniors tends to be disastrous – due to their lack of wisdom in General Management. The Sri Lankan Government, at the time of appointing Mr. Ratwatte to the position of CEO published the following details:

[SriLankan Airlines has appointed Capt. Suren Ratwatte as the Airline's new Chief Executive Officer, from October.

Captain Ratwatte is a pilot with over 30 years of experience in the field whose first appointment was with SriLankan's predecessor, Air Lanka in 1984.

 He joined Emirates in 1989, where he held several positions in the Company. With over 18,000 flying hours in a number of different types of aircraft, including the Boeing B-777 and Airbus A380.

 Captain Ratwatte is a holder of Bachelor's and Master's Degrees from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society and an author of several published works.

 He is a well-known human factors researcher and practitioner, having published a number of articles and essays in the field.

His expertise includes a variety of senior instructional and management roles in airlines, most recently was the Human Factors Manager of Emirates Airlines.]

I joined Air Lanka in 1979 when the new Airline was first formed. To date I carry the corporate wisdom of all those who contributed from various angles to facilitate my completion of the experience at the level of Senior Manager. Many of them were groomed by Singapore International Airlines. Hence I carry Singapore International Airlines standards as mine. In contrast, it looks as if  Mr. Ratwatte  has been carrying Emirates Airlines in himself – including as Human Factors Manager.

One of the observations by Economy Next through article  ‘SriLankan Airlines board to be sacked soon?’ published in June last year included the following:

[State Enterprise Development minister Kabir Hashim who is responsible for the national airline vowed earlier this year to "clean up the mafia" at SriLankan.

Several ministers came to Kabir’s defence on Tuesday and pointed out to both the President and the Prime Minister that Dias had been allowed to get away by snubbing his own minister for too long and called for his immediate removal.

"At this stage, the Prime Minister intervened to say that he will very soon reconstitute the board with new people," a minister said.

"I regret that I have not been able to make any changes, but I am determined to clean up the place," Hashim said in January. "I will not give up. I will fight to get rid of them."]

As per the above report one could conclude that Minister Kabir Hashim failed to follow Due process of Governance but took an Administrative approach when he stated that he would clean up the mafia at Sri Lankan. A governor who uses Administrative pathway to express himself loses his power to consolidate the Governance powers of all owners of the Institution he is part of. In this instance that Institution is not only the National Carrier but also the Government of Sri Lanka that Mr. Hashim fails.

Interestingly, the above report concludes as follows:

[In April 2015, the Weliamuna report said SriLankan Airlines was a paradise for sex predators, with the top management demanding sexual favours from staff, leading to a breakdown of discipline at all levels.]

The rights and wrongs of sexual conduct would vary as per our respective religions as well. Enjoyment of sexual happiness is an art in Hinduism – confirmed by the Kama-sutra as well as the phallic symbol representing Lord Shiva as Love. Lord Shiva represents the philosophy of  transcending body consciousness. Any earned pleasure in which we lose/transcend  body-consciousness raises our pleasure to happiness.

As per my knowledge, including through family, Child-marriages were the norm in Hindu families a century ago. They still seem to be a custom in Muslim families in Sri Lanka. But today Child-marriages are considered illegal in majority countries that Sri Lankan Airlines operates to. The way a Muslim would identify with enjoyment of sexual pleasures / happiness would vary from the way a Hindu who genuinely worships Lord Shiva would or a Westerner of our times would. The above conclusion by the Weliamuna team is invalid to the extent, there are provisions in the laws of Sri Lanka to take action against such individuals. Section  363 of the Penal Code of Sri Lanka, for example  provides as follows:

[363. A man is said to commit " rape " who has sexual intercourse with, a woman under circumstances falling under any of the following descriptions:-

(a)without her consent even where such woman is his wife and she is judicially separated from the man;

(b)with her consent, while she was in lawful or unlawful detention or when her consent has been obtained, by use of force or intimidation, or by threat of detention or by putting her in fear of death or hurt;

(c)with her consent when her consent has been obtained at a time when she was of unsound mind or was in a state of intoxication induced by alcohol or drugs, administered to her by the man or by some other person;

(d) with her consent when the man knows that he is not her husband, and that her consent is given because she believes that he is another man to whom she is, or believed herself to be, lawfully married;

(e) with or without her consent when she is under sixteen years of age, unless the woman is his wife who is over twelve years of age and is not judicially separated from the man.]

As a Muslim, Minister Kabir would identify with the special provision in subsection (e ) above. As a Governor of Muslim community, he would not have the moral right to criticize a man who enjoys sex with a 12 year old wife. But Prime Minister Wickremesinghe who is a Buddhist and is bound by subsections (a) to (d) and that part of  (e ) without the 12 year of age exemption – has the duty to reject such enjoyment as immoral.

Likewise,  business practices in countries driven by democracy and therefore the natural consent of the minority being taken as ‘right’, would vary from those in Muslim countries were the rulers are highly subjective and the ruled quietly accept such top-down Administration.

An International Airline where customers are also owners to the extent they complete their experience satisfactorily, ought not to have a practicing Muslim who accepts Child-Marriages in his community as the representative of majority shareholders who are non-Muslims. Such contradictions in judgments automatically block the passage of natural trade – especially in Democracy where the Customer is taken as right.  

The parallel of the above conflict is also identified in naming a member of the Common fleet ‘King Vijaya’ whose conduct was strongly influenced by his genes which included that of Lion family:

Wikipedia

(1)  On 28 March 1980, Air Lanka signed a purchase agreement for two brand new Lockheed L1011-500 Tristars, the most advanced wide-body aircraft in the world at that time. The first Lockheed L1011-500 (4R-ULA) was accepted on 26 August 1982, at Palmdale, California. It was flown to Amsterdam as UL flight 566P. On 28 August 4R-ULA "City Of Colombo" left for its inaugural flight from Amsterdam to Colombo as UL566. It reached Colombo on 29 August. This was followed by second Lockheed L1011-500, 4R-ULB, "City Of Jayawardanapura". On 8 June 1984 the airline received its first Boeing 747-200B "King Vijaya" and the second joined later. The aircraft were used on flights to Europe and a few flights to southeast Asia.

Mahavamsa version of Prince Viyaja’s origin:

(2)  In this version, Vijaya's grandmother is a princess, whose ancestry is traced to the Vanga and Kalinga kingdoms (present-day Bengal and Odisha). She bears two children with Sinha ("lion"), who keeps them in captivity in a forest. After the princess and her two children escape from the captivity, her son Sinhabahu kills Sinha. Prince Vijaya is the son of the lion-killer Sinhabahu, who is the founder of a new kingdom called Sinhapura. Vijaya becomes the prince-regent of Sinhapura, but is exiled with 700 of his followers to Lanka, because of his evil deeds. The Mahavamsa version of the legend contains a contradiction: it states that during an earlier visit to Lanka, the Buddha expelled all the Yakkhas (Yakshas) of Lanka to another island called Giridipa. However, it later states that Vijaya encountered Yakkhas when he landed in Lanka, and a Yakkhini (female Yakkha) named Kuveni became his queen. Kuveni helps Vijaya destroy the Yakkha city of Sirisavatthu, and has two children with him. However, Vijaya has to marry a Kshatriya princess to be a legitimate ruler. Therefore, he marries the daughter of a Pandu king, who also sends other women as brides for Vijaya's followers. Kuveni and her two children leave for the Yakkha city of Lankapura, where she is killed by the Yakkhas for betraying them. Vijaya dies without an heir. Panduvasudeva, the son of his twin brother Sumitta, arrives from India, and takes charge of Vijaya's kingdom. The community established by Vijaya gives rise to the Sinhalese race

According to the above a Governor of the National Carrier who believes in Prince Vijaya Legend would NOT consider sexual pleasures outside marriage to be wrong. Mr. Weliamuna with a legal mind failed to draw the line of Separation of Powers

As we think so we become !