Mohammed Abdul Bakeer Markar (12 May 1917 – 10 September 1997) was an eminent Sri Lankan politician and civil servant. He was the Speaker of the Parliament of Sri Lanka and the Governor of the Southern Province. M.A Bakeer Markar caught the imagination of a nation beyond a statesman as a humanist and an ambassador of goodwill.
His home electorate of Beruwala has been a melting pot of ethnic diversity and a downright image of a collective Sri Lanka. In 1960 Bakeer Markar contested for the general election on the United National Party ticket and and won the Beruwala seat, becoming the first Member of Parliament to represent Beruwala.
“Though I belonged to the minority community, I was able to enter the national and international arena only because I was able to go forward with the majority community,” were words spoken by Bakeer Makar himself as an advocate of national unity. In his efforts to unite the Muslim youth with the Sinhalese, Bakeer Makar earned the affectionate nickname Sinhala Bakeer . In his address to Parliament on the Appropriation Bill on August 24 1965 congratulating the then Finance Minister U.B. Wanninayake, he said: “I should like to do it in a more unorthodox way because I think the man to be congratulated is the Prime Minister, for he chose as Minister of Finance, a person who is Ceylonese in every sense of the word.” Again, speaking on the special allowance to plantation workers on October 6, 1965, he spoke on behalf of the estate workers, referring to them: “If we are Ceylonese, they are Ceylonese; if the Sinhalese are Ceylonese, they are Ceylonese; if the Muslims are Ceylonese, in the same way, the estate Tamils are Ceylonese.”
Sri Lanka was known as Ceylon until 1972 and Sri Lankans were then called Ceylonese
His victory at the General Elections of 1977 was a turning point in his political career. In an electorate with just 8% of Muslims then, Bakeer Markar won with a majority of 27,000 votes which was an index to his popularity among the majority. On August 4, 1977, Bakeer Markar was elected the Deputy Speaker. Following year, he was elected to the high office of Speaker unanimously chosen by both the Government and the Opposition. He was the last Speaker of the old Parliament at Galle Face and the first Speaker of the new Parliament in Sri Jayewardenepura.
On his elevation to the position of Speaker, Bakeer Markar stood by the great traditions and decorum of the Speaker’s Office. The Office of the Speaker was made significant. The mace was not any more mere symbolic, but it was made the due symbol of authority. The Speaker’s traditional robe was reintroduced and dignity was restored in the Speaker’s office.
Speaker Bakeer Markar saw to it that the annual audit of the parliamentary administration was brought under the direct supervision of the Auditor General, making parliamentary affairs and administration transparent. As the Speaker, he also maintained an excellent rapport with the diplomatic community. A man of justice, he assured that equal opportunities were given to all Members of Parliament in terms of their overseas tours of duties.
During his five-year office as the Speaker (1978 to 1983) Bakeer Markar also served as the Chairman of the Petition Committee of the Parliament which entertained public grievances through MPs. Bakeer Markar derived a lot of self-satisfaction by finding solutions to public grievances, so much so, he continued to hold this post even after he resigned from the Speaker’s post.
Beyond politics, Bakeer Markar was also an ambassador of goodwill for Sri Lanka. He established close connections with the Iraqi Government. Through this connection, he built an entire village named after Saddam Hussien in Eravur, in the East. He was the founder President of the Iraq-Sri Lanka Friendship Association and remained in that position until his demise.
In the early 1970s, when the plane carrying the returning Indonesian Haj Pilgrims crashed in Sri Lanka, it was Bakeer Markar, then as Speaker of the Parliament of Sri Lanka, rushed to the scene of the incident and took personal interest to have the bodies of the pilgrims dispatched to Indonesia. As a token of appreciation, the President of Indonesia personally invited him to visit his country. The Indonesian Haj Memorial Building at Katunayake was also initiated by him.
Bakeer Markar took great interest in social empowerment. He was the founder President of the All Ceylon Union of Muslim League Youth Fronts and the Vice President of the All Ceylon Muslim League. He was also the Chairman of the Beruwala, Maradana Mosque Jamaath until his demise. He also took great pains to renovate Sri Lanka’s first mosque- Masjid Al Abrar in his hometown of Beruwala. In this exercise, he was conscious of retaining the original architectural splendour of the mosque.
“And your Lord has decreed that you not worship except Him, and to parents, good treatment. Whether one or both of them reach old age [while] with you, say not to them [so much as], ‘uff,’ and do not repel them but speak to them a noble word.”
Surah Al-Isra, Verse 23