Dr. James T. Rutnam - a scholar and writer

(From a tribute by Basil Perera published in The Ceylon Daily News on June 13, 1975.)

James T. Rutnam is a distinguished scholar of social and political affairs, a man of liberal and progressive views, once an adored schoolmaster and a successful businessman. He is above all a man of integrity with a keen sense of public duty.

Born in Jaffna, he was educated at the Manipay Hindu College and later at St. Joseph's College, Colombo and St. Thomas' College, Mount Lavinia. As a boy he loved reading the Bible and also the works of Ruskin and McCaulay. From this reading, no doubt, did he acquire the lucidity of style and felicity of expression which we have come to associate with all his writings.

James entered the old Ceylon University in Colombo and the Law College. At the latter he became the editor of the Law Students Magazine and also won the Walter Pereira Prize for legal research.

His political career began as early as 1922, when he was only seventeen, making his first public speech from the Tower Hall platform. On that occasion E.T. De Silva, then a rising star in our political firmament, hailed James as 'a young man of high ideals, very popular among contemporaries of his own generation.'

James T. Rutnam was a teacher at Uva College, Badulla and Wesley College, Colombo and served for three years as the Principal of St. Xavier's College, Nuwara Eliya. It was here that he came into a head-on collision with the colonial bureaucracy.

He had formed a trade union at Nuwara Eliya and went to see one Mr. Smith regarding grievances of some transport workers. Smith gave him a patient hearing, but at the end shouted, 'I will give you five minutes to clear out of this place!'

The young Rutnam was flabbergasted by this shocking behaviour. Yet he recovered sufficiently to snap back: 'I will give you three minutes to give me a satisfactory answer.' Getting none, he went out to lead a two month strike of the workers.

By this time Rutnam had become a member of the Young Lanka League led by Victor Corea and A.E. Goonasinghe. That was a radical organization of 'Young Turks' discontented with moderate policies pursued by the nationalist leaders.

The founder members had signed in blood a pledge to work for the liberation of the nation from foreign rule. Rutnam wrote later: "many of us heard for the first time the compelling call for freedom when Goonasinghe's stentorian voice came crackling into our ears."

When S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike made his first public speech here - at the YMCA Forum - soon after his return from Oxford, it was James T. Rutnam who proposed a vote of thanks and hailed him as the hope of Young Lanka.

He became a founder member of the Progressive Nationalist Party that Mr. Bandaranaike formed with the aim of fostering a spirit of true nationalism and widening the base of political agitation, till then, only the monopoly of a few. But when the attempts of the young radicals failed, Mr. Bandaranaike and Mr. Rutnam joined the Ceylon National Congress.

Mr. Rutnam was also associated with the 'Cosmopolitan Crew' formed in 1926. It was this association that organized protest demonstrations against the sale of poppies on November 11th every year. Their movement led to the 'Suriya Mal' campaign and then to the left movement in Sri Lanka.

James T. Rutnam, made a number of unsuccessful bids to enter the supreme legislature. Twice in the state council days, he attempted to beard E.W. Abeygunasekara in his own den at Nuwara Eliya.

Then he contested M.D. Banda when the latter contested the by-election after Mr. Abeygunasekara's resignation, following the findings of a Bribery Commission. He polled 11,093 votes against Mr. Banda's 12,652. The Latter just won. But the former succeeded in unseating him through an election petition.

Mr. Rutnam can claim to be one of the oldest living journalists, having being writing since 1922. He once reminisced about how 'my hand turned to the pen to pour my heart's rage, and this pen has ever since kept moving'. He is probably the only Ceylonese who had a letter published in Mahatma Ghandi's prestigious Young India.

His journalistic writings have been of a varied nature. No one can read his writings without recognising behind them all the hand of a maestro, the art of a master craftsman.

H.D. Jansz classed him among the three best writers of English prose in the island. But even more than his journalistic work, it is in the field of real scholarship that James Rutnam has made his mark and will be remembered by posterity.

An acknowledged authority on the British period of our history. Professor Labrooy once congratulated him for his 'uncanny instinct' as of a sleuth in detecting and for his 'patience and perseverance in your pursuit.'

It is not surprising that three books published recently - H.A.I. Goonetilleke's 'Bibliography of Ceylon', Professor Nadarajah's 'Legal Systems of Ceylon' and Kumari Jayawardena's 'The rise of the Labour Movement of Ceylon', all refer to this man of scholarship and culture.

He has founded the Evelyn Rutnam Institute for Cultural Relations, in memory of his wife, from whose death in 1964 he never fully recovered. They were such a devoted pair.

About her, he wrote 'She came to me to learn, and remained to be my teacher.... she was my constant friend and companion. She guided me and inspired me. She was an exceptional woman.'