GENTLEMAN politician from Ruhuna - From a LSSP perspective

Senior Minister Prof. Tissa Vitarana

D. A. Rajapaksa
Former Cabinet Minister of Agriculture and Land Member of Parliament for Beliatta
Former Deputy Speaker of the Parliament
Born: November 5, 1905
Died: November 7, 1967 (aged 62)
Political party: Sri Lanka Freedom Party
Children: Chamal, Jayanthi, Mahinda, Chandra, Gotabhaya, Basil, Dudley, Preethi, Gandani
Occupation: Politician

It is with great pleasure that I have accepted the invitation of the D A Rajapaksa Commemoration Committee to write this article to mark his 45th death anniversary. The nationalist trail that started with D M Rajapaksa, during the period of oppressive British rule, was nurtured and given direction during the period of transition to independence by D A Rajapaksa, and it has now assumed massive proportions, like the Southern Expressway, under the leadership of Mahinda Rajapaksa, with the potential to decisively influence the destiny of Sri Lanka itself. I shall endeavour to evaluate the significance to our country of this kurakkan nationalist trail, highlighting the role of D A Rajapaksa.

The saga of the kurakkan trail begins in the hamlet of Medamulana in Giruwapattuva of the Hambantota District, in the deep South of Sri Lanka (then Ceylon), at the height of British colonial rule. At that time national development was based on the plantation economy, and being largely outside that, the Hambantota district was among the most neglected parts of the country. As a result the people there suffered, perhaps more than elsewhere, under the boot of the callous British rulers and their feudal agents, as was well described by Leonard Woolf in his novel ‘Village in the Jungle’.

It was this suffering, particularly of the poor peasant farmers who resorted to growing kurakkan in the jungle chenas, that moved D M followed by D A to turn to politics wearing the kurakkan satakaya. The wearing of the kurakkan satakaya today by the next generation is just not a tradition, but reflects the feeling that their children, Mahinda in particular, have for the villagers of the region, and elsewhere, and finds expression in their politics.

Nationalism - Not surprisingly D M and D A, followed by their children, took to the nationalist anti-imperialist trail that was directed against British rule and its consequences, on behalf of the village poor. The early introduction of universal adult franchise to Sri Lanka in 1931, the first recipient of this privilege among the colonies of the British Commonwealth, facilitated the path of the nationalist revolution in Sri Lanka, while also helping to prolong and distort it, as well as the social revolution that it generated. As Dr. N M Perera so aptly stated in his 1971 address to the Ceylon Association for the Advancement of Science, “The strangest thing in our recent history is the failure of most people to realize that we are going through the throes of a revolutionary process. How correct Trotsky was when he stated that those who mouth the word ‘revolution’ loudest are often the very people who will not see it when the revolution comes.”

National revolution

No doubt with the JVP in mind, N M went on to add “We are so accustomed to talk of a revolution as a blood-letting process in which shaggy and unkempt frustrated young men and women yearn to wallow, that we have become oblivious to the true meaning of the scientific concept of revolution. A revolution is transference of power from one class to another. It may be accomplished in the shortest possible time but it also can go on for years (my emphasis)”. NM goes on to say “Truly, therefore, Ceylon began its national revolution in 1947.

The imprimatur of the seal may have been put on in February 1948, but the process is still going on. Trotsky has been vindicated and we are seeing the slow process of the permanent revolution working. It is not a smooth flow. We have ups and downs. The capitalist class tried its best to stem the tide in March 1960, and once again in 1965 to 1970. But the inexorable laws of history keep marching on.”

Thus both D M Rajapaksa and D A Rajapaksa played a significant role in the national revolution of Ceylon, the transfer of power from the British capitalist class to the capitalist class of Ceylon. Sam Wijesinghe, in his D A Rajapaksa Memorial Oration, deals with the political events that led to the grant of the franchise and the creation of the State Council under the Donoughmore Constitution. In the process he makes an extremely important observation. D M had witnessed at first hand the efforts being made by Sir Ponnambalam Arunachalam, a Hindu intellectual of the highest caliber drawn from the capitalist class, to form the Ceylon National Congress. Sam adds “Then he (referring to D M) said that it was sad the way our people let him (Sir P A) down, in not giving him a place in the Reformed Legislative Council of 1920. That was the beginning of our present ethnic troubles, he (D M) thought.”(my emphasis). How prophetic are those words, because the reluctance to share power with the Tamils is at the root of our ethnic troubles even today.

This would suggest that it was anti-Tamil sentiment that operated even among the capitalist or bourgeois intellectuals accounting for their subsequent failure as a class. But in reality the failure of the local capitalist class and the bourgeois intellectuals to effectively take over the leadership of the country after 1948, leading to the 1956 defeat, stems from the fact that the propertied class was content to play the role of a junior partner and maintain the state and economy inherited from the British without change, continuing to neglect the village. The privileged status of the urban-centred English educated and westernized middle class was maintained and their continued subservience to imperialist interests, lifestyle and values alienated them from the mass of the people. Most of all, the failure to lead a national liberation struggle prior to 1948 that could have united all the people, Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim etc., against British imperialism, isolated the Ceylon capitalist class from the masses and weakened it.

The democratization of the state - through the franchise permitted the rural masses to exert pressure on the British rulers and their capitalist agents. First D M, who entered the 2nd State Council in 1936, and after his sudden death in 1945, D A who succeeded him, used their positions in the State Council to voice the needs of the villagers of the Ruhuna and champion their cause against the feudal aristocracy and the landholding class. Their efforts complemented that of the Suriyamal Movement and the LSSP, led by the Marxist intellectuals Dr. N M Perera, Philip Gunewardena and Dr. S A Wickremasinghe elsewhere in the country.

This helped open the door eventually, not for the truly non-sectarian national liberation that the LSSP-led working class strove to achieve, but for the sectarian nationalism of the Pancha Maha Balavegaya led by the Sinhala Buddhist intellectuals to sweep into power in 1956. This is both the triumph as well as the tragedy of Sri Lanka. On the positive side it started a process of social revolution in Sri Lanka, with the potential to usher in a socialist revolution (SLFP/LSSP/CP Coalition Government of 1970), but unfortunately on the negative side the sectarian national revolution excluded the racial and religious minorities. Ultimately low level Tamil nationalism, after the Sinhala only Act and anti-Tamil pogroms, culminating with that of Black July, erupted into armed conflict.

Sri Lankan identity

The fact that the British favoured the Tamil elite, as part of its divide and rule policy, should not blind us to the rights of Tamils as a people. Just as much as Buddhism was suppressed, so was Hinduism and Islam. Just as Rev. Migettuwatte Gunananda and Anagarika Dharmapala led the Buddhist revival, Arumugam Navalar and Sidhi Lebbe led the Hindu and Islam revivals.

Church reforms have taken place to serve the Christian poor. The majority community should not make its own the dominant culture by force. It will automatically happen if the minorities receive their rights and their goodwill is won. We must build a truly Sri Lankan identity as one nation.

In contrast, India was more fortunate from the point of view of forging national unity. The Indian capitalist class was more powerful and also strongly anti-imperialist. It led a mass struggle for national liberation uniting the diverse masses of the whole of India under a common leadership.

The British sowed the seeds of separation by promoting the formation of a separate Pakistan, and predicted that within ten years there would be a process of Balkanisation that would cause India to break up into a mass of individual states. But the capitalist intellectuals led by Nehru acted in a sensible statesman-like manner, by effective devolution in a quasi-federal framework. Today India is firmly united as one strong nation.

Cultural identity

One example would suffice to bring out the wisdom and the self confidence of the Indian leadership. When the separatist Dravida Munethra Kazhagam (DMK) included in its Constitution a demand for a separate Tamil country called Tamil Nadu to be established, which included the North and East of Sri Lanka, Nehru redefined boundaries and brought together the various Tamil speaking regions in South India to form one Tamil speaking state and gave it the very name suggested by the DMK, ‘Tamil Nadu’.

With the achievement of Tamil cultural identity as one semi-autonomous economic unit, they did not want to lose the benefits, like access to markets and jobs, that being a part of India ensured. DMK leader Annathurai himself moved that the separatist clause be deleted from its Constitution, and the DMK committed itself to remaining a part of India. We have much to learn from the Indian experience.

Non-sectarian Nationalism - In the context of Sri Lanka there are many factors that have contributed to the sectarian nature of the national liberation movement that paved the way for the independence of Sri Lanka, but without establishing a true nation state. In the absence of a national liberation struggle led by the capitalist class, the working class together with de-classed Marxist intellectuals of the LSSP strove to fashion a national liberation struggle that would unite all ethnic groups. They linked with the Jaffna Youth Congress led by Handy Perinbanayagam through the anti-imperialist Suriyamal Movement.

Unlike the local capitalist class who targeted limited reforms, they demanded total national independence, with national unity, secularism and overcoming of all caste barriers. The LSSP leaders N M Perera and Philip Gunewardena demanded in the State Council that Sinhala and Tamil be used for official work in government institutions, like police stations and the courts. The LSSP built up a strong trade union movement which included the critical plantation sector and carried out militant trade union struggles. All progressive sections of society rallied behind the LSSP. This included Buddhist priests of the calibre of Ven. Siri Sivali and Ven.Walpola Rahula from the Vidyalankara Pirivena and Ven. Udakandawela Saranankara and Kotagama Vachissara and Sinhala poets, writers and artistes like Munidasa Kumaratunge, Raphael Tennekoon, P B Alwis Perera, Sri Chandraratne Manawasinghe, Martin Wickremasinghe and Amaradeva.

But these efforts were aborted by the onset of the 2nd World War in 1939. Because the LSSP continued its struggle the party was proscribed and made illegal by the British rulers. The party leaders were imprisoned and political activity forced underground. The leaders who broke jail escaped to India, joined the Quit India struggle led by Gandhi and Nehru and thereby linked the independence struggle of the two countries.

The British rulers supported by the local capitalist class used every possible means to discredit and hamper the revolutionary path of the LSSP. The media that they controlled made the LSSP out to be anti-religious and particularly anti-Buddhist. Most of the LSSP leaders such as N M, Philip, Bernard, Robert, Karalasingham, Doric de Souza and Hector Abhayawardena who were jailed in India were brought back to Ceylon and charged in 1944 and sentenced to rigorous imprisonment, before their release with the end of the war in 1945.

Left movement

In 1931, D M Rajapaksa played a role in the first election of a Marxist, Dr. S A Wickremasinghe, to the supreme legislature of our country, thereby sowing the seeds, at a time when individuals and not parties mattered, of the future worker peasant alliance led by the middle class intellectuals that played a major role in the social revolution that followed 1956. D M Rajapaksa after his own election to the State Council in 1936 had a close association with the Left movement and its leaders, particularly Dr. S A Wickremasinghe, and became the unchallenged leader of the rural masses of Hambantota and came to be known as the ‘Lion of Ruhuna’. His sudden death in 1945 was a sad loss to the people of Ruhuna, and to the Left.

D A Rajapaksa was elected uncontested to the State Council in the July, 1945 by-election to succeed his brother and he continued to serve the people of Hambantota with even greater dedication. Having been a farmer and cattle owner, he was intimately aware of the problems of the peasants, in particular their need for land and water. Being included in the Committee for Agriculture and Land in the State Council enabled him to tackle the landless problem of the peasantry in the Giruvapattuva by giving them five acre plots on 99 year lease. Middle income earners were given 10 to 50 acres and this greatly boosted paddy and coconut cultivation. He was also associated with the establishment of several irrigation schemes.

By winning the Beliatte seat at the 1947 Election to Parliament on the UNP ticket under the Soulbury Constitution D A Rajapaksa was involved in the national revolution, through the gaining of Independence from Britain in 1948. By 1951 he saw that the UNP was not a party that served the peasant or the village, and he was the sole MP to cross over to the Opposition with S W R D Bandaranaike, becoming with him a founder member of the SLFP. He thereafter won Beliatte at the 1952 General Election for the SLFP. Along with the SLFP he supported the historic Hartal of 1953 which saw the first mass struggle of the people led by the LSSP against the UNP government. Nine LSSP activists were shot dead by the Police. The UNP Cabinet met in the safety of a British Warship, Dudley Senanayake resigned and was succeeded by the tough John Kotelawela as Prime Minister. The Hartal convinced the people that the UNP could be defeated. The SLFP-led MEP, which had a no-contest pact with the LSSP, won the 1956 General Elections, creating history. D A Rajapaksa, by winning Beliatte, was once again a part of history.

Difficult times

In the words of Dr. N M Perera, “Mr. S W R D Bandaranaike took over the reins of power. In doing so , he realized that he was the conscious instrument of transition to the age of the common man…… 1956 took the national revolution which began in 1947 with the abdication of colonial power towards the social revolution that we are still working out” (in 1971). Very fittingly D A Rajapaksa was appointed Minister of Agriculture and Lands in 1959. After the July 1960 Elections he was elected Deputy Speaker.

The process of social change suffered a setback when the UNP led by Dudley Senanayake won the 1965 Elections. D A lost his parliamentary seat. He not only lost political power but also most of his wealth and the family went through difficult times. It is said that “he sold his vehicle, leased his coconut lands and went through enormous hardships to sustain his family.

When he fell seriously ill in November 1967, there wasn’t a vehicle nearby to take him to hospital. When transport was arranged belatedly his heart condition had worsened. After admission to hospital, he died on November 7, 1967”.

He would have been happy that Mahinda Rajapaksa has taken forward his progressive political legacy, in the 1970-77 Coalition Government in a socialist direction, and once again since 1994 to the present, with ups and downs, but generally in a progressive anti-neoliberal direction.

But both the national revolution and the social revolution remain to be completed, and we must strive to become a developed economy under his leadership while the global capitalist crisis continues to deepen.

We are indeed living with hope, but in difficult and challenging times.