N.U. Jayawardena

The First Five Decades

The duo of Kumari Jayawardena and Jennifer Moragoda has co-authored a novel work, N.U. Jayawardena - The First Five decades which depicts the character of a remarkable personality who linked up two eras of Sri Lanka. This book signifies two aspects. Firstly the biography of N.U. Jayawardena. Secondly it illustrates the history of an era.

Nelia Perera in her preface highlights the significance of the historical aspect of the book. According to her, this biography not confined to the sentimental matters of the family.

Dynamic

It goes to the extent of encouraging any dynamic and ambitious one through Jayawardena’s characteristics of unrelenting determination, intelligence as well as dynamism. It was through these characteristics that Jayawardena had been successful to overcome the numerous obstacles for a better education prevailed in his rural background. This book also makes an opportunity for our younger generation to have an acquaintance on various interesting incidents of our social, cultural, educational, economic and political history that they may have not hitherto had an opportunity to hear of.

The authors may have intended by illustrating social background which relates to each and every milestone of his life to highlight the impact that the evolution of his character had from it.

Expertise

This book also includes an analysis of the social metamorphoses which took place during the first half of the 20th century where the country was under colonial rule. While some of the citizens did not tolerate colonial rule since they were thoroughly confident in traditional values, the rest of them stepped forward through English education and modern social developments. Young N.U. was a combination of these two social streams. The compatibility seen between contemporary social requirements and the subjects in which young N.U. carried out his studies seems phenomenal. The expertise in the areas of Economics, Banking and Taxes secured by this scholar has been greatly helpful in creating a new administrative structure. He had foreseen the requirements of the country and had successfully planned his education accordingly. His ability in taking prompt and correct decisions was conspicuous in his career.

The Central Bank among other things is being treated as a monument to the sovereignty of a country. The post of Governor or Deputy Governor of such an esteemed institution is virtually an excellent and rare achievement of a person. The process of establishing the Central Bank of Sri Lanka was started under the then Finance Minister J.R. Jayewardene in 1949.

Achievements

N.U. was fortunate to have the opportunity of working very closely with John Exter, a specialist who came from America for this task.

The experience N.U. gained through the positions held by him so far in various Government Departments such as Controller of Economics and Trade Affairs as well as Controller of Foreign Exchange, was greatly helpful for him at this point. Exter has highly appreciated N.U.’s contribution to this project.

The citation of Exter’s statement is one of the important documents that this book contains. Being the successor of Exter, N.U. became the Central Bank Governor in July 1953 at the age of 45. The authors of the biography describe this moment as the culmination of N.U.’s long dedication and determination.

Influence

The authors have precisely described how the combination between N.U.’s life and the country’s historical events has been conducive to the changes occurred in his career. While some of those events helped his progress, there were some that caused his downfall too. During 50s there were a chain of political changes in Sri Lanka. In 1951, S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike resigned from the Government led by D.S. Senanayake and established the Sri Lanka Freedom Party.

In 1952, D.S. Senanayake expired and the conflict between Dudley Senanayake and Sir John Kotelawala emerged for premiership. Ultimately Dudley Senanayake was appointed Prime Minister but subsequently Sir John Kotelawala took up the reins when Senanayake resigned after confusion broke out in the country. In 1956, Bandaranaike came into power defeating Sir John.

The authors have been able to present these events attractively in their book. Sir John Kotelawala once sought permission from the Central Bank to transfer a substantial amount of money to England for purchasing a block of land. N.U. Jayawardena being the Central Bank Governor turned down this request and informed Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake and Finance Minister J.R. Jayewardene that permission cannot be granted for the transaction which violates exchange control rules of the time. It was this refusal that subsequently rose against him.

Although N.U. was ousted from the public sector as an ultimate consequence of these events, he came to a position within the commercial sector which no Sri Lankan had up to then been able to hold.

N.U. made an appeal to Governor General Sir Oliver Goonetileka and sought redress for injustice made against him by removing from the post of Central Bank Governor. Consequently, the Attorney General admitted that N.U. had an unblemished record of service and he was freed from all charges.

Diverse roles

In 1957, this stalwart in private sector, was appointed to the Senate by then Prime Minister. S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike.

He played an active as well as a conspicuous role in the Senate. This scholar who pioneered a number of areas such as banking, shares, shipping and tourism was known as a talented writer as well, until his demise on April 24, 2002.

This book includes a number of photographs too, in relation to the aforesaid historical events.

The author’s attempt to place before the readers an extensive as well as comprehensive description on the subjects such as social, political and economic atmosphere, trade union movement, colonial administration and political leadership, can be considered as successful. It is evident that they have carried out an extensive survey to secure information needed for this task.

N.U. Jayawardena - The First Five Decades is not a mere a story of a remarkable national personality but a story of this country as well. It has been stated that the proceeds from the sale of this book published by the N.U. Jayawardena Welfare Trust, are expected to be used in establishing a scholarship fund for deserving children.