{"id":106935,"date":"2020-09-23T15:37:42","date_gmt":"2020-09-23T22:37:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=106935"},"modified":"2020-09-23T15:37:42","modified_gmt":"2020-09-23T22:37:42","slug":"swrd-bandaranaike-victim-of-sordid-politics-and-unmitigated-avarice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/09\/23\/swrd-bandaranaike-victim-of-sordid-politics-and-unmitigated-avarice\/","title":{"rendered":"SWRD Bandaranaike; Victim of sordid politics and unmitigated avarice"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Raj Gonsalkorale<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Two issues had\nrankled Buddharakkitha. One was the Prime Minister\u2019s refusal to hand over a\nlucrative shipping contract to a company named Colombo Shipping Lines that was co-founded\nby him in the name of his associate HP Jayawardena to import rice from Burma\n(Myanmar) and Thailand. The second was over a sugar manufacturing licence to\nstart a sugar factory \u2013 DBS Jeyaraj 30th<\/sup> September 2019 – <\/em>THE PRIME\nMINISTER IS DEAD! How and Why SWRD Bandaranaike Was Assassinated Sixty Years\nAgo)<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

26th<\/sup>\nSeptember 2020 is the 61st<\/sup> death anniversary of Sri Lanka\u2019s fourth\nPrime Minister SWRD Bandaranaike. A gun and a bullet ended his life, but what\nreally killed him was the unmitigated avarice of a person who was the opposite\nand a disgrace to the message of Buddha. That person was the Chief incumbent of\nthe Kelaniya Temple, a businessman who knew no ethics nor morality, Mapitigama\nBuddharakkitha. It is not befitting to call this person a Buddhist Monk as he\nwas anything but a follower of Buddha or the Buddha Dhamma. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nman who fired the gun and emptied bullets into the Prime Ministers body, Talduwe\nSomarama was not of sound mind and easily brainwashed, and he was, to the\nextent of killing the Prime Minister to save Sinhala Buddhism\u201d, by  Buddharakkitha.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sordid\npolitics and unmitigated avarice has not abated in Sri Lanka, and neither has\nthe misuse of Buddhist robes by persons who are anything but Buddhist. Sri\nLanka has not learnt from that fateful episode on the 25th<\/sup> of\nSeptember 1959 when a wearer of a Buddhist robe emptied bullets into the\ncountry\u2019s Prime Minister who was paying obeisance to that person in Buddhist\nrobes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Politics\nis equally or even more sordid than then when one reads about the mudslinging\ngoing on at the enquiry into the Easter bombings in 2019. It is so when one\nreads about the life and times of the Yahapalanaya government of 2015 and the\ntussle between the then President and Prime Minister of the country.  It is when one hears and reads about the\ncalibre of politicians we have and have had, who have traded the country\u2019s\nprinciples and wealth and dignity for monetary gain. There is plenty more to\nwrite about, but that will require several volumes of books. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buddharakkitha\nwas the driving force behind the Eksath Bhikku Peramuna<\/em> or\nthe United Bhikku Front. He has been described as a virtual kingmaker at that\ntime.  Later, he attributed Bandaranaike’s failure to aggressively pursue\nthe nationalist reforms as the sole motive to assassinate him. But it was\nrevealed that the real motive for the assassination came as a result of the\nPrime Minister’s refusal to award business deals, in particular, a government\ncontract for the construction of a sugar factory and government concessions for\na shipping company he planned to set up. Talduwe Somarama<\/a>, a misguided man\nwearing a robe\u201d so described by the dying Prime Minister himself, fired the\nbullets that ended Bandaranaike\u2019s life on September 26, 1959. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

DBS Jeyaraj\nwriting on the 60th<\/sup> death anniversary of SWRD Bandaranaike (THE PRIME MINISTER IS DEAD! How and Why SWRD\nBandaranaike Was Assassinated Sixty Years Ago), lays bare the poisonous and\nunstable environment in the country in 1959. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\nwrites about the vertical and horizontal tensions\nof the country where on<\/strong> the one hand there was overt inter-ethnic strife on the grounds of\nlanguage while there was on the other hand covert tussles on the basis of class\nand ideology.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He says the ethnic dimension was exaggerated or distorted to divert\nfocus away from or under-emphasise the class dimension. Jeyaraj writes to say Bandaranaike\nhimself had begun acting against his class interests. The nationalization of\nbus transport, Insurance companies and Colombo harbor etc were some of the socialist\nmeasures enacted by the SWRDB government. Since most of the vested interests\naffected by these measures were UNP or pro-UNP it did not matter much to the\nregime. But the Paddy Lands Act pushed through mainly due to efforts of Philip\nGunewardena regarded as the Father of Marxism\u201d in the country had different\nrepercussions. The act provided greater rights and concessions to the long\nsuffering tenant cultivators. There was however a large segment of semi-feudal,\nland-owning classes supportive of the SLFP also. The Paddy Lands act hit these\nsections and there was resentment\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exaggerated ethnic dimension and the aftermath of the class war\nhad resulted in the government\u2019s Parliamentary strength being just 47 out of\n101 by June 11th<\/sup> 1959, and Bandaranaike was in fact leading a\nminority government when he died on 26th<\/sup> September 1959.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The incident on the 25th<\/sup> September may not have been the\nfirst to get rid of the man who was a victim of the class battles and avarice and\nat the same time the one person who was in the way of a total victory by forces\ndriven by rightist ideology and unmitigated avarice. What had happened on\nAugust 25, 1959, when Minister CP De Silva had drunk a glass of milk suspected\nto have contained a vegetable- derived poisonous substance in the boardroom\nwhere the cabinet met, may have been intended for the Prime Minister himself.\nCP De Silva\u2019s condition had proven so critical that he had to be flown to\nLondon for medical treatment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeyaraj writes about the purge of\nleftists and assertion of rightists to shackle SWRD Bandaranaike. The intention\nwas to transform him into a puppet but the aristocratic Oxonian though beleaguered\nwould not give in totally to Buddharakkitha\u2019 s diktat. Irritated by this the\nkingmaker\u201d priest now decided to remove Bandaranaike altogether. The\nflashpoint causing this change of mind was not race, class or ideology. It was\nsordid commerce\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He goes on to note two issues that had rankled\nBuddharakkitha. One was the Prime Minister\u2019s refusal to hand over a lucrative\nshipping contract to a company named Colombo Shipping Lines that was co-founded\nby him in the name of his associate HP Jayawardena to import rice from Burma\n(Myanmar) and Thailand. The second was over a sugar manufacturing licence to\nstart a sugar factory. Buddharakkitha was a very rich businessman and he used\nwhatever means at his disposal to acquire power in order to further his\nbusiness interests. The wealth of the Kelaniya temple gave him the foundation\nto build his business empire. He did not tolerate anyone who stood in his way,\nand even a Prime Minister was not spared. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Had he been a Buddhist, acted as one and lived as\none, heeding the Buddha\u2019s message of love and impermanence, and the\nconsequences of avarice, he wouldn\u2019t have suffered the ignominy of dying as an\ninmate of the Welikada prison in 1967 serving a life sentence for the crime he\nhad committed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is interesting to note Jeyaraj\u2019 s comment about\nthe exaggeration of ethnic issue as a contributor to the tensions that existed\nin the country in 1959. In this context, it is\nopportune on this sad anniversary to note the following. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Firstly, there had never been a question of implementing the so\ncalled Sinhala only policy “in 24 hours” as widely and successfully\nmarketed by opportunists. As Bandaranaike said, nolaw had been needed\nto make English the language of the country, therefore no law was needed to\nchange it. It was to be a limited and a gradual process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secondly, there was clear articulation on a transition period for\npublic servants to acquire a working knowledge of Sinhala, by December 1960,\nbut this specific mention related only to the Supreme Court. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bandaranaike said, in presenting the Bill, “it is our\nintention, as far as possible, to make that change wherever possible but if, in\nthe course of our proceedings in implementation, we find on sufficient grounds\nand data that the changeover just cannot reasonably made during that time, we\nwill not hesitate to come before this House and the country for passing the\nnecessary amendments to the Bill”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thirdly, at the time the bill\nwas passed, there were no specific provisions in it in regard the medium of\ninstruction in schools. Bandaranaike did recognize that the medium of\ninstruction should be the mother tongue of the student, rather than the\nofficial language of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fourthly, the Bill did not\nspecify time frames for a changeover to the official language in other areas\nlike local authorities. In the public service, the\nstated intention was to provide an adequate knowledge of Sinhala to all public\nservants so that, as contemplated, public service should be conducted in the\nofficial language within 10 years, meaning by December 1967. The Reasonable use of the Tamil language in predominantly Tamil\nareas would have required Sinhala public servants working in those areas to\nacquire a working knowledge of Tamil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is well to remember that\nless than 5% of the population of the country were literate in English when\nCeylon gained independence in 1948, and all Courts, Police stations, government\ndepartments carried out their official work in English. An overwhelming\npopulation of Sinhala and Tamil citizens, in excess of 95% of the population, lived\nas foreigners in their own country, unable to enjoy their rights as citizens of\ntheir newly independent country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is in this backdrop that one\nhas to judge the changes that took place after 1956. SWRD Bandaranaike\u2019s\nenemies, both within the Sinhala community and the Tamil community, were those\nfrom the upper class he came from, the English educated brown sahibs who\nprobably were more British than the British. They were his friends until he\ndecided to espouse the cause of the majority in the country, who did not wish\nfor one set of colonialists to be replaced by another. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Raj Gonsalkorale Two issues had rankled Buddharakkitha. One was the Prime Minister\u2019s refusal to hand over a lucrative shipping contract to a company named Colombo Shipping Lines that was co-founded by him in the name of his associate HP Jayawardena to import rice from Burma (Myanmar) and Thailand. The second was over a sugar […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106935\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}