By Vishwamithra –

“The Past: Our cradle, not our prison; there is danger as well as appeal in its glamour. The past is for inspiration, not imitation, for continuation, not repetition.” ~ Israel Zangwill

Ceylonese in the nineteen forties were an exuberant people; the very few at the very top echelons of its elite, her local leaders, except a handful, though strongly aligned to the British way of doing things, more in personal and private conduct than in the administrative discipline and measurable management of intricate government business, were single-minded and energetic in their drive towards their own personal goals. But a handful who, albeit their overseas education along Marxian thinking, were busy working out unworkable political theories and uncontrolled political rhetoric. Amongst them were also some members of the then elite of society who had the privilege of being born to landowning and professional-class parents who also enjoyed the luxuries and sweetness of power. Some of these were genuinely committed to the wider cause of the masses, both rural and urban.

Their commitment to the fundamental mission of the country, however, was along the western capitalist genre and they were not apologetic about their allegiance to that school of thought. Their parent generation, as was most vividly and deeply described by Kumari Jayawardene in her ‘Nobodies to Somebodies’ hailed from the ‘renter’ class who had accumulated money from the government-controlled liquor taverns and then reinvested that money in other assets such as paddy land, rubber or tea and/or coffee estates etc. The Senanayakes, Kotelawalas and the Bandaranaikes hailed from this elite whose allegiance to the British Governor was total and unbroken till then. JR Jayewardene’s father was EW Jayewardene who ended up as a Justice in the Supreme Court while SWRD Bandaranaike’s father was the ‘Maha Mudaliyar’ of Ceylon at the time. Nevertheless, all these men who occupied the higher strata of the government ladder were the cream of the then elite of society. They were educated at Royal College or St. Thomas’ or the first-class schools in Jaffna and did their higher studies in the Oxbridge portmanteau in England. The exceptions were DS Senanayake and JR Jayewardene.

They all had their own personal goals; their lifestyles were molded on lines of the then prevalent trends and comforts and the very obnoxious attitudes some of them possessed rendered as a salient feature of a government which was totally divorced from the sentiments of the rural masses of all communities, Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim. Elitism as a social ailment had taken deep root already. Moreover, the unfortunate capture of the country’s collective mindset is evidenced in the defeat of CWW Kannangara’ at the first Parliamentary elections held in 1947. He was defeated by Wilmot Perera who advocated against the ‘free education’ system introduced by Kannangara in 1943 in the State Council. Such ironies in Ceylon’s Parliamentary and later in Presidential elections were many and the stigma that the average voter had to carry with himself was unavoidable.

Man as an integral part of the human community has sometimes failed to inspire who was around him; his contribution to the collective has not been measured in real terms and it was most evident in the successive elections held in Sri Lanka. An unquestioning loyalty towards those who held power was the main cause of this most consequential behavior of the average Sri Lankan. Centuries being spent as a subject people under a King or Queen may have had its lasting effects on him and the subordination of the goal and purpose of the majority was always sacrificed for a short personal gain. Lack of education, blind faith in religious fundamentalism promoted by the Buddhist monks, Hindu Temple Pusaris or Christian and Catholic Church Priests and Muslim Mosque Mullas have all taken toll of a very susceptible psyche of a weak people.

In other words, organized religion as a way of life, instead of opening the eyes and awakening of an oppressed nation, had contributed to a slow but certain decay of scientific and intellectual curiosity and wise decision-making processes. We cannot question the patriotism of those who pursued politics at the time. Yet, their modus operandi has always been subject to sharp and harsh scrutiny. Higher education was the exclusive privilege of the elite and consequentially they were the Caesars and Alexanders who engaged in politics. The rest of the country was literally in darkness. The average Appuhamy, Natarajah and Mohamed were completely oblivious of the the nuanced aspects of change that were reaching the shores. They were deliberately kept in that limbo by the British Raj, but why that status quo was further buttressed and persevered with by the local elite was to the great distress of any meaningful progress of the country. A nation that had been subjugated by the rough boots of colonial powers for nearly half a millennium had to endure the deceitfully soft suppression of the local elite-powers for another eight decades.             

In Parliamentary elections held in 1947, the United National Party (UNP), led by D S Senanayake, secured forty two (42) seats of a total of ninety five (95) contested- a mere plurality. The so-called ‘Father of the Nation’ was not given a mandate by the Ceylonese electorate. The following presents a clear picture of how each party performed at the first Parliamentary elections in Ceylon:

In addition to those who were elected as representatives of various political parties, twenty one (21) Independents were also elected, making the total ninety five (95). The Independents secured close to five hundred and fifty thousand (550,000) or twenty nine percent (29%) of the total polled, making it, taken as one block of voters, second only to the winning UNP.

Those who had the rare privilege of entering into the then State Council had limited ambitions. Their principal motive was not making money. Enriching themselves at the expense of the voting masses was far remote from their minds. The same mindset might have continued when Ceylon entered into the Parliamentary style of government. Financial corruption was not even in the vocabulary at the initial stages of governance machinery.

However, with the Marxist fellowmen on the other side of the isle, Parliament witnessed some of the most noteworthy speeches, very inspiring debates and even-handed conduct on the part of all members of Parliament at the time. A classic case of British decorum and admissible ethical behavior of all men and women who shared the House of Parliament amidst many challenging and confrontational circumstances were visible.

Ceylon was granted Universal Franchise in 1931. In fact, Ceylon was the first of British colonies to receive such privileged status. Democratic elections became the sole methodology of electing or selecting the political powers. Had the British not introduced Universal Franchise, how else Ceylon could have progressed towards a recognizable nation in the Commonwealth community is anybody’s guess.

The indigenous population was in a crawling stage. Having been delivered from the cradle to an extended period of crawling by the British Raj, Ceylon had to undergo political change without the attendant development features of a progressive economy. Totally dependent on tea, rubber and coconut exports, as our main foreign exchange earner, any spearheading into novel ways of enlarging our local economy was not in the sphere of realistic macro planning at the highest level. Import of rice and its equitable distribution among all citizenry was prioritized and everything else became secondary. Change of governments became solely reliant on exaggerated election pledges and their reaching an ultimate state of being unfulfilled.

While the Marxists led by Dr NM Perera, Colvin R de Silva and Philip Gunawardena engaged in urban-based politicking with Trade Unions as their primary target of the electorate, carried on a campaign on political theories and doctrines that were dominating in the times. At the time, most of the leftist leaders were overseas-educated. Their ideological commitment to Marxian thinking went way over the heads of the average man and woman in the country. Yet they presented a rosy picture of leftist Utopia making the voter believe that the existing ‘whole’ cake could be cut into pieces and distributed amongst the population in equal pieces. That is how the voting citizenry beheld and understood the Marxist principles and policies backed by mesmerizing arguments.

On the other hand, the other side of the elite led by the UNP and the SLFP sought to enlarge the size of the cake and distribute it only among the elite and the moneyed class. No credible politician advocated nor promulgated an equilibrium between these two clashing schools of thought. SWRD and later his widow Sirimavo Bandaranaike attempted at it and both failed miserably. That is how the common man saw the issues and that is precisely how they read it. Theoretical analysis and  deep insight into the workings of Marxism-Leninism or Marxism-Maoism was never presented for the edification of the average Appuhamy, Natarajah or Mohamed.

In order to convince an intelligent electorate, it is fundamental to ascertain facts and figures, study them most profoundly and craft a general political message without indulging in deceit and deliberate hoodwinking. Most political thinkers and leaders on the right of the political spectrum purposely kept away from educating the masses on these philosophical lines. They either did not realize the value of such an education or they willingly practiced blatant political malpractice. What turned out in 2022 as a bankrupt economy is the sum total of these initial shortcomings or diabolical unprofessionalism on the part of all politicians who governed our country after Independence.

One can understand if all these malignant symptoms of a nascent state were not present in the wake of  Independence. Racial riots, Hartal, personality cults and sheer thuggery at the highest levels of the administration were not the real disease. They were all symptoms of a much more acute ailment.  The real source and its first flow of visible signs may not have been visible in the nineteen fifties; but with the dawn of the so-called ‘common man’s era’ and the brutal after-effects of the policies that were enacted in its wake, point to a completely new direction. The journey’s trajectory is warped and the nuanced features of political debauchery and cultural degeneracy were manifesting themselves more frequently, not on the horizon, but in our very midst.

*To be continued…

*The writer can be reached at vishwamithra1984@gmail