By Vishwamithra –

“Mislike me not for my complexion, the shadowed livery of the burnished sun.”  ~William Shakespeare – Merchant of Venice

On September 25, 1959, three and a half years years after being elected Prime Minister, Bandaranaike was shot at in his own private residence, ‘Tintegel’, by Talduwe Somarama, a Buddhist Monk. In his own words, Bandaranaike was assassinated by a man in saffron robes; he didn’t utter the words, a Buddhist Monk! The assassin was a member of those who campaigned to propel Bandaranaike to the Prime Minister’s seat. No crueler irony could have been real and freakish.

Mapitigama Buddharakkhita, the chief architect of the conspiracy to kill Bandaranaike died in prison, having been convicted for conspiracy to murder. It was not an end of an era. It was a beginning of a sadder and a more lamentable time yet to reach its own climax later with a thirty-year war between the Sri Lankan security forces against Tamil militants led by Velupillai Prabhakaran, a Tamil militant, born and raised in Valvettithurai, a township located in the northern most corner of the Jaffna peninsula. Whether Tamil youth who fought the Sri Lankan Army, Navy and the Air force deserved to be called terrorists or freedom fighters is another matter altogether.

With the death of Bandaranaike, Wijayananda Dahanayake assumed office as Prime Minister who opted to dissolve parliament and hold fresh elections. The Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) was in total disarray, yet Bandaranaike’s assassination was still fresh in the minds of the voters. Dudley Senanayake the leader of the UNP, having secured a plurality of parliamentary seats, was called by Sir Oliver Goonatilaka, the Governor General, to form a minority government. The UNP government lasted less than one month.

Upon dissolution of parliament, the new elections were scheduled for July and the SLFP led by Bandaranaike’s widow Sirimavo Bandaranaike was swept into power with more than 50% of the total vote. Her Government too failed miserably as she was attempting to run a mixed economy with no experienced men in her Cabinet. However, this was the time Felix Dias Bandaranaike came to limelight. With no experience whatsoever in politics, Felix showed the world that he was one political figure the country had to reckon with.

His repertoire of skills and talents were most vividly exhibited in the swift and efficient fashion he handled the crisis that was caused by the infamous coup d’etat that was planned and plotted by some Army, Navy and Police personnel at the time. Within a matter of few days Felix personally interrogated those who were involved in the coup. The fundamental changes he introduced to Ceylon’s judiciary via Administration of Justice Law in the early 1970s, still stands as one system that changed the very character and its administration in order to bring about swift and fair justice to a legal system that was piling up legal drafts and gathering dust over decades without reaching resolution of the issues that the drafts were intended to resolve.

Yet Felix Dias never reached the pinnacle of power as Prime Minister at the time. It was not clear whether he ever had any ambition to do so either. But the two tenures of office (1960-1964 and 1970-1977) under Sirimavo Bandaranaike were unremarkable, to say the least. The economic hardships that were caused by the mixed economy Sirimavo tried to implement, and sheer inefficiency and lack of competence at every level from Ministry Secretary (barring a mere couple) to the Corporation Chairman had the opposite effect of consumer satisfaction and efficiency of the bureaucracy.

On the sociocultural level, Sirimavo’s government proceeded even further than what SWRD intended to do. Blatant discrimination against Tamils reached boiling points when reverse affirmative action was practiced for the University admission. Bright and hardworking Tamil students in the North were sidetracked under the quota system and standardization scheme she introduced. Most Tamil leaders now maintain that standardization and the quota system are two main causes why the Tamil youth took up arms against the central government of Ceylon.

It is rather impossible to trace the primary cause of such a monumentally radical response Tamil youth displayed in the following years, from early nineteen eighties to the end of the war in 2009. Nevertheless, both those programs were certainly amongst key factors that drove Tamil youth to such a fringe position. Tamil leadership in the North, that was so entrenched in Vellalar-caste-dominated politics, chose Velupillai Prabhakaran, a son of a fisherman caste-land-owner as their leader in the years the Tamil militants were dominating the political landscape in the North and East.

With the killing of Alfred Duraiappah, Mayor of Jaffna, in broad daylight in 1975, Prabhakaran came of age in the passages of violent, militant politics. Prabhakaran never looked back afterwards. Most of Prabhakaran’s biographies claim that it was Prabhakaran himself who did the shooting to kill Jaffna Mayor.

1977 saw the death of traditional left-wing politics. NM Perera, Peter Keuneman, Bernard Soysa, Leslie Goonewardene and the rest of traditional left-wing political leaders lost their seats, some of them were the victims to brand newcomers fielded by the United National Party (UNP), ably led by JR Jayewardene. Another paradigm shift occurred, this time from the country’s flirtation with Socialism to embracing capitalism as an economic path. Even Felix Dias Bandaranaike, who represented the Dompe electorate, considered to be one of the safest seats for the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), lost to the newcomer Sarathchandra Rajakaruna. An unprecedented number of seats, five sixths of the House of Parliament were secured by JR’s UNP.

If the ’56 Revolution was a game-changing election, the ’77 elections were another consequential one which cannot be reversed, forever. The Bandaranaike transformation undoubtedly offered a ‘place in the sun’ for the non-elite classes thereby unleashing a flow of skills, talents and abilities which were totally indigenous, while the ’77 transformation unleashed the market forces by unshackling the hitherto manacled economy; its reverberations are being felt right throughout the country with complimentary effects to some and devastating outcome to many. The forces that were let go reaped the benefits as well as repercussions in disproportionate degrees. What served as more superior purpose of the nation is yet to be dissected, analyzed and penned by historians of a future time.

What the Bandaranaikes, SWRD and Sirimavo, untethered as freedom for the ‘common man’ also unchained the brewing jealousies, hatred and anger against a minority whose main armor was his own education and hard-work. It is true that the Jaffna peninsula had a more lucrative school system than the rest of Ceylon had that day. Close to seventy five percent (75%) of Sinhalese Buddhists live in the non-urban sector in the country. Their rural hamlets hardly had tarred roadways in the nineteen fifties, sixties and seventies. The Missionary Schools that were set up in the nineteenth century in the North served as the launching pad for very bright students to gain university entrance and secure most of the government jobs such as engineers, doctors, accountants and lawyers. The brightest entered the illustrious Civil Service, the so-called ‘deep state’ or widely proclaimed as ‘permanent government’.

The rise of jealousies and anger is natural and almost inviting when one considers the per capita numbers. The anger and adversity that should have been aimed at the leaders who, instead of presenting plans and policies that could have had an altering effect of the existing system and its deficiencies, exploited the issue to flame ethnic violence and receive votes at the next election.

It is quite hard to find out the real source of modern ethno-politics in Sri Lanka. Having been influenced and conditioned in the glory and glamour of King Dutu Gemunu’s war victories against Tamil King Elara, two and half millennia ago, the Sinhala psyche has an inherent prejudice against his Tamil counterpart. Although the average Sinhalese man and woman are well disposed towards Tamils in their fundamental social intercourse, when ethnic biases are sharpened and given undue prominence in the political arena, they assume a basic illogical and unsophisticated character. The natural outcome of this dangerous mindset is a warped behavior culminating in violence, total lack of logic and an unwelcome conduct of ethnic violence. They become easy tools in the hands of the conniving and corrupt politicians of both streams, Sinhalese and Tamil.

One most identifiable source is the granting of Universal Franchise in 1931 thereby making Ceylon almost an unconditioned majoritarian-ruled-government in a democratic framework. Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan, elder brother of Sir Ponnambalam Arunachalam, vehemently opposed when the Britishers were keen on introducing Universal Franchise in the 1930s. Having fallen in love with the condition that the Jaffna-educated Tamil would any day outclass his Sinhalese counterpart, Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan was dreaming of Ceylon governed and ruled by an educated Tamil one day. That day would never come unless there occurs some uncontrollably unforecast stream of events to cascade from the bowels of Sri Lankan heartland in the future. Our country is not yet enlightened for such a noble initiative.

Bandaranaike’s Sinhala Maha Sabha that later bloomed with his ‘Pancha Maha Balavegaya’ led by the Buddhist Monks of the day, his widow’s discriminatory policies against Tamils, all added fuel to this fire, not to disregard JR’s ‘March to Kandy’ in the mid nineteen fifties. However, Ceylon yet had a secular constitution until Sirimavo Bandaranaike altered that by introducing an article making Buddhism  secure an exclusive place. For what purpose it found its way into the constitution, one does not know. I was told by one of my closest mentors who was told by Colvin R de Silva, the Minister of Constitutional Affairs under Sirimavo, that it was introduced at the firm ‘request’ of Sirimavo herself. Such little efforts affect the totality of the whole and what begins as inconsequential, minuscule maters could develop and produce massively dangerous and devastating outcomes.

To be continued…

The writer can be reached at vishwamithra1984@gmail.com