{"id":113341,"date":"2021-04-07T16:28:39","date_gmt":"2021-04-07T23:28:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=113341"},"modified":"2021-04-07T16:28:39","modified_gmt":"2021-04-07T23:28:39","slug":"the-general-election-of-1956-part-5c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/04\/07\/the-general-election-of-1956-part-5c\/","title":{"rendered":"THE GENERAL ELECTION OF 1956 Part 5C"},"content":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Garvin Karunaratne\nobserved that it was one thing to make hair raising speeches, another thing to\nbe an efficient minister in a government. Philip was very efficient as a\nMinister, he said.  I worked in his ministry throughout the\nMEP  government period and I can say that\nthe forceful ideas that he uttered in his fiery speeches at last got channeled\ninto action. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Ananda Meegama agreed. He pointed out that revolutionaries\ndo not normally do well in office. Philip was different. He did well as a\nMinister. His ministry did the work of about twenty ministries of today, said\nGarvin.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Philip was one of\nthe ablest minister seen in independent Sri Lanka, said Ananda Meegama.   He showed a disciplined attitude towards\nwork. This was rare. It was not normally seen in a minister.  Very\nfew other ministers can match up to Philip. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philip\nimpressed everyone by his performance as Minister. His clarity of thinking, his\nimmersion and absorption in the intricate details of legislation, his dynamism\nin formulating and implementing programmes inspired all around him, continued\nMeegama.   News of his ability and dedication soon spread\nto the periphery and he was able to inspire the normally slumbering creaking bureaucratic\nmachinery to rise to the task, concluded Meegama. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

BP Pieris of\nthe Ceylon Civil Service,   who had\nworked with many Ministers, made special mention of Philip. BP Pieris said Philip was the only minister who came for\ncabinet meetings fully prepared. He would bring with him Sessional Papers, Administration reports\nand other official documents.  He\ncame prepared on papers submitted by others as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philip Gunawardena\nas minister had a very firm and close grasp of what was going on not only in\nhis own ministry but in the government as a whole, said Sarath Amunugama. He\nhad a lot of detailed information on matters outside his ministerial portfolio.\nIn a speech he made on 28 September 1960, more than a year after he had left\noffice, he related what went wrong with Kantalai sugar factory and the   Gal\nOya factory. .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 His breadth of knowledge was without parallel\namong Sri Lanka politicians, agreed Meegama.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In State\nCouncil, Philip spoke on agriculture, industries, irrigation, land settlement\nand colonization. He was able to pronounce a progressive point of view on all\nthese. He spoke with a thorough understanding of the subject, said Wiswa\nWarnapala. Whenever he spoke, he never failed to make\na useful contribution to the discussion said Meegama. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To a social scientist, an endearing feature of many of Philip\u2019s\nspeeches is the copious use of statistics to establish a point, said Sarath\nAmunugama. Witness for example his speeches on the Insurance Corporation Bill\n(9 December 1960), the Petroleum Corporation Bill \u2013 where the statistics extend\nto the global oil industry (21 April 1961), the Agricultural Products\n(Guaranteed Prices) and Control of Hulling and Milling Bill (9 May 1961) and\nthe Tea Research (Amendment) Bill (7 June 1961). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The student of politics who reads these will not find    rambling speeches, petty slogans and cheap\ninvective. He will find political, economic and social analysis supported by a\nwealth of facts, coming from a highly intelligent, well-read and acutely\nobservant master of trade. The language and the style will be well-crafted and never\ndull, continued Amunugama. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philip took his Parliamentary business seriously. To him, Parliament\nwas quite a different from the public political platform. His Parliamentary\nrole was not that a slogan peddling rabble rouser. It was serious business. It\nrequired research and preparation. Opposite points of view had to be countered\nwith solid facts and logical argument and not just by trying to shout down your\nopponent. Therefore, reading his speeches is an educational experience, whether\nyou finally agree with his point of view or not. In either case your horizon of\nknowledge would have expanded concluded Amunugama. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philip was certainly the master of the spoken word, the telling\nphrase and the almost poetic style, said Amunugama. Philip was the master of\nepigram, satire and invective both in and out of Parliament. He never minced\nhis words \u2013 for praise or abuse. A spade was a spade. I have no doubt he would\nhave been, even better, the master of the written word as well.  In the\ncut and thrust of debate Philip was equally effective and witty in Sinhala as\nwell said Amunugama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 In State Council Philip, was a passionate\nimpetuous, fiery figure, creating great excitement but also very erudite and a\ngreat debater, said Meegama. So much so that even thirty years later when it\nwas known that Philip was scheduled to speak the Parliament would fill up with\nmembers.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philip was\nequally effective on the popular front. My father held the contract to supply\nthe public address system for LSSP meetings and often I had to go along with\nthe equipment, said Garvin Karunaratne. I have listened to Philip, NM and Colvin\na few hundred times. They were very factual and could convince anyone with ease\nthat the downtrodden masses must have their day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The workers\nunion at Tripoli Market, Colombo, where Garvin worked had invited him for a\nmeeting, a pin drop silence could be heard when Philip took the floor. After a\nfew quiet sentences   he started roaring\nlike a lion and we felt the entire stage with all of us, shaking. The poetic\nwords he used, the force with which each word was pronounced, the forceful move\nof his forearm, the stern look on his face with his disheveled, the manner he\ndashed his fist on the table, all activate the audience. Many times I have seen his spectacles dashed\non the table, never have I seen it break, continued Garvin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Philip we\nhad the most fiery speaker that one could ever imagine. NM, Colvin and SA Wickremasinghe\nwere forceful speakers but they did not have the pungent force of Philip. Each\nword was uttered with venomous force which took possession of those who listened\nconcluded Garvin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philip was\nvery popular with the general public. Meegama had campaigned with him in 1963.       Travelling with him to many parts of the\ncountry off the main roads and well into the interior on by ways, Meegama\nnoticed that no sooner Philip got down from the car, people recognized him,\nwhether they were villagers in the depth of Sammanthurai and the Wewagama pattu\nin the Ampara district or farmers in Yatinuwara, or the Magama pattu, for he\nwas a famous figure. People gathered round him and looked at him with awe and\nadmiration.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once Philip was\nlate for a meeting at Medawachchiya and arrived there at midnight to find that\na small group of people including an aged farmer were waiting patiently to see\nthe legendary figure. Such was his charisma and the confidence, loyalty and\nlove he aroused in people, recalled Meegama. \n (continued)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS Garvin Karunaratne observed that it was one thing to make hair raising speeches, another thing to be an efficient minister in a government. Philip was very efficient as a Minister, he said.  I worked in his ministry throughout the MEP  government period and I can say that the forceful ideas that he uttered […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kamalika-pieris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113341","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=113341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113341\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}