Caroline Anthony Pillai:
The Lioness of Boralugoda
Charles Werley Erim
On July 6, 2009, Caroline Anthony Pillai, the last living link to the
early socialist movement in Sri Lanka passed away at the age of 102. She
was a pioneer in many ways. Drawn into politics by her fiery elder
brothers, Philip and Robert Gunawardena, she participated in the nascent
Ceylonese Nationalist Movement of the early 30s and helped launched the
Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) in 1935.
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Caroline
Anthony Pillai |
Dona Caroline Rupasinghe Gunawardena was born on October 8, 1908, in
rural Boralugoda in the Avissawella District. Her father, Don Jakolis
Rupasinghe Gunawardena, was a prosperous landowner who served the
British colonial government as the village ralahamy (headman) and vidane
arachchi (local police officer). The local folk deferentially called him
“Boralugoda Ralahamy.”
In 1915 commercial rivalry between Sinhalese Buddhist and Muslim
merchants flared into communal violence. The British Governor imposed
martial law and rounded up suspected nationalists, including Caroline’s
father, who was accused of giving dynamite to rioters, sentenced to
death and jailed for seven months until he was released for lack of
evidence.
The ordeal turned the Gunawardenas into resolute nationalists.
Boralugoda Ralahamy pulled his sons out of the Prince of Wales College
and put them in Ananda, the Theosophist-Buddhist school for boys.
Caroline and her sisters were sent to Musaeus College, the sister school
for girls. After passing out of Musaeus, Caroline returned to Boralugoda
and started teaching at the Siddhartha Vidyalaya.
Prelude to Party
In the late ‘twenties Caroline and her brothers, Harry and Robert,
became active in nationalist youth groups which were demanding
democratic reforms with the ultimate goal of complete independence.
When the British announced that a State Council would be convened in
1931, Harry Gunawardena decided to contest the Avissawella constituency.
Caroline campaigned for her brother. Though Harry lost, Caroline found
her calling. From that point on, she dedicated her life to winning
freedom for Ceylon and India and social justice for all.
In late 1932 her brother Philip returned to Ceylon after a ten-year
sojourn in the USA and England, where he had been an active member of
the British Communist Party until he was expelled for supporting Trotsky
against Stalin. Upon this return home, he converted Caroline and Robert
to his revolutionary ideology. This was the nucleus of the revolutionary
movement in Ceylon.
Caroline participated in the annual Suriya Mal campaigns, which were
a form of protest against the official observation of Remembrance Day.
When an epidemic of malaria broke out in 1933-34, the Suriya Mal
activists fanned out into the stricken villages to dispense food and
medicine. Caroline played an important role. The Gunawardena’s set up a
dispensary in their house in Boralugoda. Caroline worked closely with
her classmate from Musaeus, Selina Perera (Peiris), who joined the group
around the Gunawardenas.
The LSSP
In 1935 Caroline joined the LSSP that boldly called for an “equal
society” (sama samaja) cleansed of all racial, caste, class and gender
discrimination.
Caroline became a respected party leader in her own right. In 1937
the party selected Caroline to be part of the LSSP delegation to the
Faizpur session of the Indian National Congress. Caroline was a role
model to the younger women in the party, especially Vivienne
Goonetilleke and Kusumasiri Amarasinghe, who later married Leslie
Goonewardene and Philip Gunawardena, respectively.
Romance, marriage and strikes
In 1937-38 a number of talented Tamil youth joined the LSSP,
including S.C.C. Anthony Pillai, who went by the nickname “Tony”.
In 1939 Caroline and Tony married in a simple ceremony.
The Second World War had just started in Europe. Following the
Trotskyist line, the LSSP vociferously opposed the “imperialist war”.
Unwilling to tolerate the Trotskist troublemakers any longer, the
colonial government arrested four LSSP leaders, including the two State
Councillors, seized the party press and banned party activities. Despite
the tightening vice of repression, Tony and Caroline pressed ahead with
their work. In 1940-41 they led strikes by bus workers, harbour workers
and granary workers.
The exodus to India
In April, 1942 the LSSP underground workers carried out a perfectly
planned rescue of their leaders from jail. The jailbreak brought renewed
repression. Meanwhile, in India, Gandhi was threatening to summon a mass
movement to force the British to “quit India”.
The LSSP had already helped to organize a skeletal Trotskyist
organization there - the Bolshevik Leninist Party of India (BLPI).
Unable to do much in Ceylon, the LSSP leaders decided to escape to India
and help their BLPI comrades intervene in the impending mass struggle.
In July, 1942 about to dozen Ceylonese Trotskyists secretly crossed over
to India in fishing boats. While most headed for Bombay, Tony went to
Madurai.
An anxious Caroline stayed behind with the two children. A month
later the Quit India Movement erupted. The BLPI, new to the scene, threw
its meager resources into the fight. In Madurai, Tony and the handful of
local BLPI members printed leaflets in support of the movement.
After the Quit India Movement subsided, Tony sent a message to
Caroline asking her to join him in Madras. The family was at last
reunited.
Return to Ceylon
In July 1943, the police raided the BLPI hideout in Bombay where
Philip and Kusuma Gunawardena and another half dozen young comrades were
staying. The other Ceylonese fugitives in Bombay escaped and fled to
Madras, where they took refuge with Caroline and Tony in a large,
two-storied house in Venus Colony in Teynampet. With the police hot on
their trail, Caroline and Tony decided that it was best for her to take
the children back to Ceylon.
After his releaze from Alipuram, Tony returned home to Ceylon. But he
and Caroline had little time to settle back into the political life of
their country.
The BLPI in Madras sent word that their work in the Buckingham and
Carnatic Mills during the war had paid off. The president of the Madras
Labour Union, the oldest and largest union in India, representing the
mill workers, was willing to pass the mantle of leadership to Tony. That
was an opportunity that couldn’t be declined. And so Tony, Caroline and
the children went back to Madras.
On June 6, 1946 Tony was elected president of the Madras Labour
Union. The very next day an incident in the mills precipitated a strike.
Caroline and her BLPI comrades plunged into strike support activities.
After 48 days the union won its key demands. In early 1947 the situation
in the B&C Mills heated up again.
The union leaders started collecting strike funds, organized a
network of neighbourhood committees and recruited 1,000 volunteers to
form a workers defense guard. Anticipating that Tony would be arrested
once the strike began, the union formed a secret strike committee in
which Caroline was to play a leading role.
Before dawn on March 10 the police arrested Tony. The secret
committee called a mass meeting that evening. At the meeting, according
to one eyewitness, “Mrs. Caroline Anthony Pillai’s speech at the height
of her emotions infused in the workers a new sense of dutifulness and
her speech showed them a new path”. (K. Appanraj, Anja Nenjan: Thoyizh
Sangha Medai S.C.C. Antoni Pillai Vazhkai Varalaru, Chennai, 1995) She
said there would be no negotiations until Tony and the other leaders
were released.
The next day not a single one of the more than 14,000 workers entered
the B&C Mills. Afraid that the workers would march to the jail where
Tony was held, the Government transferred him to a remote jail in
Andhra, where he was placed in solitary confinement.
On March 28 more than 40,000 strikers and their families turned out
for a union rally. Caroline, the main speaker, called for a one-day
hartal in Madras in support of the strike. More than 100,000 honoured
the hartal. The mood was militant. Workers erected road blocks. The
Government deployed troops in a massive show of force.
One night, when Caroline and Selina Perera set out for a clandestine
meeting of the strike committee in Perambur, they noticed two men
following them to the bus stop. Certain that they were CID men, Caroline
came up with a plan. When the bus arrived, Caroline told the driver that
two men were pursuing them with evil intentions. Caroline stood at the
front door of the bus, Selina at the back. As the two policemen tried to
board, they kicked them as hard as they could and the bus sped away.
The next morning, the Malabar Special Police came to Caroline’s place
and put her under house arrest. That didn’t deter Caroline. She wrote
notes, pinned them to the inside of her eldest son’s trousers, and sent
him to rendezvous with the union leaders in Perambur. When the
Government banned all rallies and demonstrations, Caroline and her
comrades devised other ingenious tactics. On one occasion, about 500
strikers infiltrated into the central railway station in little groups
and then closed ranks and marched out in a procession shouting slogans,
taking the police by surprise.
On June 9 the Government illegalised the union, seized its funds,
locked its headquarters and arrested 49 BLPI members. The Madras Labour
Union had no choice but to end the strike. Even then nearly 3,000
workers stayed away from the mills in protest.
Though the strike was defeated, Caroline and Tony had earned the
admiration and support of the working class in Madras. In 1947 Tony was
elected president of the Madras Port Trust Employees’ Union and the
following year he and two other Trotskyist officers of the Madras Labour
Union were elected to the Madras Municipal Council.
The “Woman Behind the Man”
Caroline Anthony Pillai was a link to a bygone era in politics. She
forsook a comfortable future to fight for the freedom of her country and
the uplift of the working classes. She dedicated her life to the
revolutionary vanguard. She never flinched in the face of danger and
adversity. She inspired and mentored others. She loathed lies and
hypocrisy.
Let us honour Caroline Anthony Pillai - the fearless little girl who
ran under elephants and became “the lioness of Boralugoda”.
The writer is the author of Tomorrow is Ours: The Trotskyist Movement
in India and Ceylon, 1935-48, published by the Social Scientists
Association. Email: [email protected]
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