By Dr Garvin Karunaratne

As far back as 1937,Hon Philip Gunawardena mooted a Kelani Valley Development Scheme. It was in the days of our State Council- he made a special motion at the State Council meeting on 16/11/1937 , mooting the Kelani River Flood Management system  to save agricultural lands from severe floods. It was an attempt to harness the waters of the Kelani River for development. As usual it fell on deaf years and the people keep suffering.

In countries like the USA the Army has a Unit to attend to such tasks. It was the US Army that did build the bunds that save New Orleans from the North Atlantic Seas waters. In my travels I have seen the US Army at work, maintaining the bunds. It is upto our Army to undertake this task during times of peace.

It was unfortunate for Sri Lanka that Hon Philip Gunawardena was the Minister of Agriculture and Lands for only four years. However even within that four years he has done wonders- he has actually done what no other leader has achieved to date. He paved the path for the development of his Motherland even after he left.

I am happy to have worked for him in the Department for Development of Agricultural Marketing and later in the Department of Agrarian Services, a major department which he himself created brick by brick, in a very special manner that will continue to contribute to the people of his Motherland whom he loved, even if he was not there.

The Department for Development of Agricultural Marketing had been established by Prime Minister DS Senanayake earlier. I served as an Assistant Commissioner in that Department when Hon Philip Gunawardena was elected. I have listened to the forceful speeches he made on election platforms. His speeches really mesmerized the listeners. He was never verbose, as far as I know it was never a speech that was planned or written earlier. When he got on to the stage there was a hallowed silence. He commenced detailing his programme and gradually was bold to speak out forcefully. The audience listened raptured- the audience was actually captured by him.

His greatness was to accept what earlier leaders had done, provided what was done earlier was developmental. That was the Department for Development of Agricultural Marketing where I worked. He put his shoulder to the wheel. When he came in the shops were full of IXL Jam and Fruit Juice from Australia. The Department had just established the Cannery. It was under his leadership that Sri Lanka achieved self sufficiency in all fruit products within some three years. I was in charge of implementing the Vegetable and Fruit Marketing Programme in 1957and was in charge of supplying produce to the Cannery. A colleague of mine Oswald Tillekeratne was in charge of the Cannery and within the three years 1956 to 1958 Sri Lanka stepped up the production of jam and fruit juice for the country to become self sufficient. Eight percent of the pineapple products were exported. All this was achieved under the leadership of Hon Philip.

He came up with the Paddy Lands Act, which provided security of tenure to tenant cultivators. In addition, the Act established for the first time a farmer’s organization- the Cultivation Committees fully democratic- elected by the farmers to plan and develop paddy cultivation, the staple crop..

In order to implement the Paddy Lands Act and attend to furthering paddy cultivation he created a Department overnight. What was very special was that no officer was recruited anew. He appointed a veteran administrator MS Perera as the Commissioner and hand picked administrators who had acquitted well in other departments. Further the appointees were all selected for their leftist leanings. His development programme was a socialist programme and everyone selected had socialist leanings- they were all workers for whom work came first in priority. . So the Paddy Lands Act got off to a grand start.

Further for the first time there was an organization belonging to the people- a cultivation committee that was run by farmers elected by the people for the administration of paddy lands.

Hitherto there were cooperatives for various purposes. Philip Gunawardena came up with the concept of a Multipurpose Cooperative and a Union of Cooperatives at the Divisional level. This strengthened the cooperatives as the Union of Cooperatives was strong and had the finances to help the individual cooperatives.

The Paddy lands Act was commenced in the Hambantota District and gradually implemented in other districts. It was done in a masterly manner, holding publicity meetings to explain the Act to the farmers and solicit their enthusiasm , electing the Cultivation Committees and getting down to draft a programme planning paddy cultivation, the provision of inputs like fertilizer, detailing how fertilizer had to be used, the purchase of paddy at a premium price through cooperatives etc. This was the first time when the farmers worked together in cultivation and their enthusiasm was evoken. I introduced the Paddy Lands Act in the Matara District.

The nineteenth of May 1959 was a sad day for all of us workers. That was the day Hon. Philip Gunawardena was removed as Minister. However during the four years he was Minister he had brought in many changes that transformed the peasantry. He had done something that no other leader had achieved uptodate, according to my knowledge- anywhere in the world. After leaving the SLAS I have lived 49 years in four countries, have toured many countries- and I cannot find any politician who has equalled that record.

We all mourned his departure, but we were men of steel to continue the task he left for his Motherland. We continued with a greater force. Though the new Minister did not have socialist leanings he could not officially stop us working on the programmes that Hon Philip had commenced. Owners were prosecuted for evicting cultivators, I worked in the Kegalla District and later in 1963 introduced the Paddy Lands Act to the Anuradhapura District, established cultivation committees and got down to a major programme of paddy cultivation- cultivation committees becoming active with meetings planning work, developing tanks- some cultivation committees were even given the contracts to hire D4 and D8 earth movers and build up the tanks. . We continued unabated.

When Mr Dudley Senanayake was elected the Prime Minister in 1965, he continued the paddy production programme that the cultivation committees had done and I am of the opinion that the grand success of reaching selfsufficiency in paddy production by 1970 was possible because of the cultivation committees established under the Paddy Lands Act of Hon Philip Gunawardena. The planning of paddy cultivation- introducing the use of high yielding varieties of paddy, the use of fertilizer in the appropriate manner- all ordained by the organization done by the cultivation committees. In 1967 to 68 I worked in the Kegalla District as the Additional Government Agent and one of my tasks was to accompany the Hon Prime Minister every Saturday and Sunday, when he came to his electorate and met the cultivation committees and rural development societies and actively participated in many functions connected to paddy cultivation. The success of achieving self sufficiency in paddy cultivation would not have been possible without the organizations brought about by the Paddy Lands Act of Hon Philip Gunawardena.

Hon Philip Gunawardena was a legend. He left his imprint on the sands of time .

Working under him was a pleasure. Once I had punished one of his party followers who had done something wrong and I fined a labourer a day’s pay. I was transferred out of Ratnapura for that and at that time I was worried. However I was moved to be in charge of the Vegetable and Fruit Purchasing Scheme for the entire island based at Tripoli Market and found that he had totally forgotten that incident. It was a pleasure to work for him. He had developed a gestapo system of communication, where he had informants every where, and incidents were reported to him, even before the immediate officer in charge came to know. This did really happen in Tripoli Market and later, when I worked in Anuradhapura in the Agrarian Services Department. That was before mobile phones had come. Perhaps this communication network kept him informed and he knew who worked and who failed.

Today, the Paddy Lands Act and its cultivation committees are no more- there is no proper organization for paddy cultivation. The cooperatives are weak. The agricultural extension system where the cultivation committees organized paddy production is dead. This is mostly felt in the maintenance of irrigation tanks, which due to the lack of an organized body is actually in ruins. This is where we have to seek inspiration from Hon Philip Gunawardena. Tread on the path he left. Yet, he alone showeth us the way out of the economic meltdown of today.

I feel priviledged to have worked for Hon Minister Philip Gunawardena.

Garvin Karunaratne former G.A Matara, Additional Government Agent 1967-1968 and Assistant Commissioner  for Agrarian Services & Agricultural Marketing.(1955-65)

22/12/2022