But before the deluge overtook him, Sir John became instrumental for queering the pitch of the controversy that had arisen over the language issue. Apparently overwhelmed by the welcome accorded to him on one of the islands off Jaffna, where he was adorned with a crown, Sir John promised parity of status for Sinhalese and Tamil. The result was a violent reaction from the Sinhalese in the South. Stupefied by the storm he had created, Sir John tried to appease Sinhalese sentiment by holding the Kelaniya sessions of the UNP where the party switched to the decision that the official language of Ceylon shall be Sinhala only.
The patent insincerety of the volte face was too obvious to deceive any one. While it lost the UNP all its Tamil support, this decision did not deceive the Sinhalese. It was no wonder that S. W. R. D. Bandaranayake countered with the slogan that he would introduce Sinhalese only as the state language within twenty-four hours. Thus, during the election of April 1956, the question at issue between the two main Sinhalese parties was not whether Sinhala Only would be the state language, but who could be trusted to implement it. In this contest, Sir John was bound to lose. He represented to the Sinhalese everything that was anti-national and pro-western in their life. Besides, in Bandaranaike he had an opponent, who was a clever orator and able agitator.
But it would be wrong to suggest that the language issue was the only issue that affected the 1956 election results. No doubt, this issue cast its long shadow over the whole election. But there were other issues. The loose united front that Bandaranaike had rigged up around his SLFP, and which now was called the Mahajana Eksath Perumuna (MEP) had as one of its constituents an organisation of young and radical Buddhist priests, called the Eksath Bhikku Perumuna. Its members went all out and used the influence of the Sangha over the people, particularly in the rural areas, to turn the scale in favour of the M. E. P. Never before or after in recent times had the Buddhist priesthood played such a decisive role in Ceylon’s politics. One of the key figures in this organisation of priests, Buddharakitta, was later to be found guilty and jailed (he died in jail) for being an accomplice in the assassination of Bandaranaike.
If Bandaranaike had learned from the mistakes of the UNP and trimmed his sails to suit the popular wind, he also walked away with some of the radical slogans which had been popularised by the left movement. Even the extremely radical demand for the nationalisation of foreign plantations found a place in the MEP election programme. Of course, it was never implemented. Immediately on coming to power, Bandaranayake virtually renounced this demand by announcing that it had been postponed for ten years. Perhaps the slogan was never meant to be implemented. But the point is that this demand never reappeared in any subsequent election programme – not even in the Common Programme, which was drafted by the SLFP in consultation with the LSSP and the Keuneman revisionist clique!
Bandaranaike further emphasised his shift to the left by including in his united front a splinter group from the’ LSSP, which was led by Philip Gunawardena, one of the founder members of the LSSP. He also came to no-contest agreements with the LSSP and the CP. The result was that, for the first time, the UNP was faced with a near-united Opposition, and ended in complete rout. From their former position of 54 seats in Parliament, it was reduced to 8 seats. The MEP won 51 seats and polled 40.7% of the vote. It was a landslide victory.
It has been claimed by some that the 1956 MEP victory was a sort of peaceful peoples’ revolution. The claim is not merely an exaggeration. It is false. There was definitely a shift of power from the comprador bourgeoisie to the national bourgeoisie, from the western oriented, English speaking, pro-imperialist minded sections of the bourgeoisie. But there was no revolution in the sense that the class structure of society was disturbed. Nor did the 1956 election victory in any way affect the stranglehold of foreign imperialism on the economy of the country. The same exploitation continued as formerly.
It is correct that several radical measures were carried out during the MEP regime. The bus service and the Port of Colombo were nationalised. The Paddy Lands Bill, a mild agrarian reform law, was passed ; British bases were evacuated from Trincomalee and Katunayake. Workers were given greater freedom to strike. The Employees Provident Fund Bill became law. The Sinhala language and the Buddhist religion received greater attention. Diplomatic relations were established for the first time with socialist countries. In foreign policy, Ceylon began to play what has been described as a non-alligned role. This meant that we did not always line up automatically with the imperialists as of old. But all these still do not add up to revolution–peaceful or otherwise. In fact, what Bandaranaike did was to contain behind what he called his middle way policies the potentially dangerous anti - UNP current, to blunt its revolutionary edge and to divert it into the harmless channel of bourgeois parliamentary democracy. May be his greatest influence was on the leadership of the left movement. The desire to emulate the 1956 election victory of the MEP robbed the leadership of the LSSP and the CP of whatever revolutionary pretences they might have had, and converted them into faithful worshippers at the shrine of bourgeois parliamentary democracy. The further taming of the one-time revolutionaries was to be left to Bandaranaike’s widow.
Looked at from this perspective, the claim of some commentators that Bandaranaike helped to avert violent revolution is not exaggerated.
But the best proof that the election victory of 1956 did not solve any economic problem was that the MEP and its supporters had to rouse communal and language feelings among the Sinhalese to maintain their support. During the MEP regime occurred the worst communal holocaust that Ceylon has ever experienced. Since this event deserves a detailed study, it is just as well, at this point, to study the communal problem as it arose at this time.
The rejection of communal representation or any form of special representation for minorities by the Donoughmore and Soulbury Commissions had left the minorities in a permanent state of minority in the legislative bodies of the country. The formation of the All-Sinhala Board of Ministers in 1936, the passage of the Citizenship Acts, which discriminated heavily against the Tamil plantation workers of Indian origin, and deprived them of citizenship and the right to vote; as well as the unimaginative and almost irresponsible attitude of the leadership of the Tamil minority on national issues (e.g. opposition to the evacuation of the British bases, flying black flags on national day) had contributed to further communal bitterness.
The communal cancer that was festering inside suddenly came out into the open in 1955, in the form of the language controversy. From the time of the reforms resolution moved in the Second State Council by Bandaranaike and even earlier, all political parties had accepted that both Sinhala and Tamil (called the swabhasha) would replace English as the official language. Suddenly in 1955, the agitation broke out among the Sinhalese that Sinhala only should be the State language.
Straight away, one peculiar feature of this agitation must be noted. In most countries, the communal problem takes the form of an agitation by a minority to safeguard its linguistic or other rights from being trampled under foot by a majority. But in Ceylon it was the majority that spear-headed an agitation to safeguard its language against what it feared was encroachment by the language of the minority. The peculiar reasons, which made the Sinhalese majority behave and act as if it was a minority must be studied and appreciated, if we are to arrive anywhere near an understanding of this complicated problem.
The reasons that make the Sinhalese behave like a minority in the land where they are actually a majority are many. The first is the memory of the ancient Tamil invasions from South India. The Sinhalese are never allowed to forget this. What schoolboy has not read of the epic battle between Duttu Gemunu and Elara? Every time one goes to view the ruins at Anuradhapura or Polonnaruwa, he is reminded that all these ancient glories of Sinhalese civilisations were brought to destruction by successive Tamil invasions.
Secondly, the British imperialists brought over nearly a million Tamil workers from South India during the last century to work in their plantations and dumped them in the midst of Kandyan territory. Thereby, they created the Ceylon-Indian problem, another cause for communal bickering.
Thirdly, the increased educational facilities made available to the Tamils in the North as a result of missionary activity and the imperialist policy of divide and rule resulted in Tamils obtaining a higher percentage of jobs in government service and in the professions than their population figures warranted. When–after the 1929-31 world economic crisis–unemployment became a serious problem among the Sinhalese middle class, and they started to turn towards service under government for employment, they found the Tamils already entrenched there.
Here, it must be pointed out that economic issues were at the bottom of the language crisis. Before 1956, knowledge of the English language had been the passport to service under the government. As a result, the Tamil was able to compete on equal or even better terms with the Sinhalese. Compelled by the pressure of unemployment, the Sinhalese wanted Sinhala Only to be the official language–thus giving them the best chances for service under the government. As in a non-industrialised country like Ceylon, government is not only the biggest single employer, but government service is the most gainful occupation, the battle of the languages was in reality a battle for government jobs for the respective middle classes. That is also the reason why no solution other than an economic one can ever bring lasting results.
Fourthly, Tamil happens to be a language spoken by over 40 million people across the Palk Straits. This leads to fear of cultural aggression from India.
Fifthly, Tamil also happens to be an older and more developed language than Sinhalese. Hence, a feeling of inferiority among the Sinhalese.
Without an appreciation of these historical realities, it is impossible to understand the development of the language question in Ceylon. After the MEP victory, Bandaranaike made one serious attempt to settle the language question through negotiations with the FP leader, Chelvanayagam. The result of these negotiations was the famous Bandarjnaike-Chelvanayagam Pact. It accepted certain safeguards for the Tamil language in the northern and eastern parts of Ceylon under the general context of the acceptance of Sinhala as the official language for the whole of Ceylon. It also reached certain compromises on the vexed question of colonisation in the Tamil areas.
It is necessary to make some reference here to the relationship between the communal problem and colonisation. When after the 1935 Land Commission report, D. S. Senanayake started his colonisation schemes, most of these were located in what is called the Dry Zone. In the beginning, most of these were in the North Central Province. But some were started in the Northern and Eastern provinces, which have been claimed by the Tamils as their traditional homelands. Of course, the whole island once belonged to the Sinhalese. But if we take the last four centuries or so, the claim of the Tamils to have inhabited the Northern and Eastern provinces is not far fetched.
Anyway, the Tamil leaders opposed the colonisation of Tamil areas by Sinhalese colonists. This is where the land question encroached upon the communal question. This raises the question as to whether the Tamils have developed into a nation and are) therefore, entitled to call a portion of Ceylon theirs. The question as to whether the Ceylon Tamils have as yet developed into a nation must be answered in the negative, because they do not possess one of the major attributes mentioned by Stalin in his famous definition of the conditions that should be fulfilled by a people before they could be recognised as a nation. They do not share a common economy.
The Tamils inhabit some of the most barren and uneconomic parts of Ceylon. There is neither a mountain nor a river in the northern part of Ceylon. As a result, Tamils have had to emigrate to Malaya or go south in search of jobs. The fact that they spoke the same language as the labourers imported by the British to work in their plantations enabled many of them to find jobs as supervisors and clerks in these plantations. For the rest, they joined the government service in large numbers. Many families boast of at least one employee under the government.
This, then is the contradiction in which the Tamils find themselves. They live in one part of Ceylon, and earn most of their living from another. The demand for some measure of autonomy for the Tamils would have been irresistable, if the Tamils could also restrict themselves to an area. It would also have been more realisable. Similarly, the opposition to Sinhalese colonists on Tamil lands would have been valid if the Tamils could give up their right to ownership to land and the right to employment in any part of Ceylon. The situation has changed slightly since as a result of the ban on import of subsidiary foodstuffs due to lack of foreign exchange. The industrious Jaffna farmer seized this opportunity to grow these crops and there is the definite sign of the emergence of a rich peasant class.
Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that the ulterior motive behind colonising Tamil areas with Sinhalese was to eventually transform a Tamil majority province into a Sinhalese majority province. D. S. Senanayake was a shrewd Sinhalese leader. He never openly professed communalism. But he steadfastly worked towards the goal of Sinhalising [the Tamil areas. This cat was let out of the bag by one of D. S. S’s colleagues, V. Ratnayake, in a speech made after the death of D. S. Senanayake.
The Bandaranaike-Chelvanayagam Pact was possibly the best compromise possible under the circumstances. But it was not given a chance. The UNP tried to fish in troubled waters, and organised a march to Kandy to mobilise opposition to the Pact. Bandaranaike probably rose to his greatest height as a statesman in his defence of the Pact. His famous–probably his best – speech made at the Bogambara grounds, Kandy, will always be remembered as embodying all that was best in him. But the chauvinistic elements in his camp also rebelled. Instead of coming to his help, the leaders of the Federal Party chose this very moment to launch the silly anti-Sri campaign. The Pact was torn up. The Anti-Sri campaign of the Federal Party was countered by the tar brush campaign led by the Sinhala “warrior” K. M. P. Rajaratna in the south, in the course of which Tamil words on public places were all obliterated by a liberal application of tar.
Tension mounted on both sides, till it led to the worst communal blood bath in Ceylon’s history. It is an event, about which every right thinking Ceylonese should hang down his head in shame. It will remain a permanent blot on our country’s history. Over night, men turned into beasts, and descended to the level that they could pour petrol over and set fire to people with whom they had no quarrel, except that they spoke a different tongue.
The immediate cause for this dreadful outbreak must be shouldered by the extremist leaders of the Federal Party, who started the anti-Sri campaign, the fanatical communalists among the Sinhalese, who let loose the tar brush campaign, and the helpless indecisiveness displayed by the Bandaranaike government, as the movement spread. Only a declaration of a state of emergency brought the situation under control. The fact that the Tamils stranded in the south had to be taken to the north by ship represented the lowest ebb to which communal relations between the Sinhalese and the Tamils had fallen in recent times.
The riots were also a reflection of the political bankruptcy of the Federal Party, whose leaders were detained during the early days of the emergency. It was powerless to look after the interests of the Tamils, it claimed to represent. But it continued its sterile course–preaching communalism in the north, estranging even progressive Sinhalese opinion by opposing every radical measure brought forward by the two Bandaranaike governments, e.g. the Paddy Lands Bill, the Schools Take Over, etc., and living in the hope that they would be able to act as arbiters between the two rival groups of Sinhalese politicians, and thus strike an opportunistic bargain for the Tamils. It was simply an attempt to trade the rights of the Tamils at the table of one or the other of the two Sinhalese parties. Such an opportunity did arise for the Federal Party in 1965. But of this later.
Probably spurred by the realisation that the passage of the Sinhala Only Bill had irrevocably estranged Tamil support from the MEP government (the Tamils in Sinhalese areas had, for the most part, supported the MEP against the UNP in the 1956 elections), Bandaranaike piloted through parliament a bill to provide for the Reasonable Use of Tamil. It has remained a virtual dead letter. No regulations were framed under it. When a subsequent UNP government tried to do so, it ran into violent opposition from the SLFP. Anyway, it did not succeed in satisfying the Tamils.
It remains to be pointed out that the LSSP and the CP were the only national parties with a predominantly Sinhalese membership and following to stick out for parity of status for Sinhala and Tamil during this period. But this did not last long. Under the twin pressures of parliamentary opportunism and communalism, they fell into line with the SLFP thinking on this issue.
It is futile today to argue the merits and de-merits of the Sinhala Only proposal. But a progressive should measure the correctness or justness of any proposal only by one criterion: Does it unite or disrupt anti-imperialist forces? By this standard, the proposal to make Sinhala Only the State language must be judged to be retrograde. It definitely widened a secondary contradiction (that between the Sinhalese and the Tamils) and pushed to the background the main contradiction (that between imperialism and both the Sinhalese and Tamil peoples). It made a foe of a friend, and gave comfort to the enemy. It also was the main cause of the racial riots of 1958.
Mr. Bandaranaike’s MEP was, at its best only a marriage of convenience between forces holding divergent views, but united under the personality of Bandaranaike, and by their common opposition to the UNP. But the stress of keeping forces with such divergent views together proved too much. The split came in early 1959 over the issue of an Agricultural Cooperative Bank and that of raising the guaranteed price of paddy. Philip Gunawardena and his colleague William Silva parted company from the MEP. At the Kurunegaia session of the SLFP that took place at this time, Bandaranaike was forced to make his first anti-communist speech.
The parting of ways with the radical elements of his cabinet had left Bandaranaike a prisoner of the reactionary sections–some of whose representatives successfully plotted his assassination on the 25th of September, 1959. As he bent low to pay his respects to a Buddhist monk, who was seated on his verandah, the monk whipped out a pistol from out of his robes, and emptied it into the frail figure of the Prime Minister. It was the eve of the day on which the Prime Minister was to have left for the UNO. On the next day, the Prime Minister succumbed to his injuries.
The circumstances of his death, and the courage with which he met it, as well as the spirit of forgiveness, which he displayed to his assailant, have built a halo around his name. An attempt was even made to deify him. Under such circumstances, no sober appraisal of his place in Ceylon politics has been made. A legend has sprung up about the so-called Bandaranaike policies he is alleged to have followed. But if any one is pinned down to explain what is meant by the Bandaranaike policies, no satisfactory answer is forthcoming. Perhaps the vagueness of the concept permits each one to interpret it in his own way and do as he likes all the while claiming to be a devout follower of the Bandaranaike policies – which is what is happening now.
But even if one tries to discern any recognisable element in the policies followed by Bandaranaike, one might say that he thought that he was a sort of bridge between two worlds – one that was not yet dead, and the other not yet born. That was why he was fond of referring to Ceylon’s present phase as an age of transition. He tried to outline what he called a Middle Way, by which he meant the avoidance of the extremes of both Capitalism and Communism. This was, of course, an illogical and unscientific concept. The choice for Ceylon was not between Capitalism and Communism. Anyway, there is no middle way between the two. The choice for Ceylon was between the slavery of neocolonialism and genuine national independence. Bandaranaike could not see this. When he died, the chains of neo-colonialism were rivetted on Ceylon even more firmly than when he took power. The exploitation to which the mass of the people was subjected remained just as severe. Not a single economic problem had been solved. The concept of a middle way is really an attempt to prettify the continuance of the status quo, and an explanation for postponing radical change.
In the realm of foreign affairs, at least, Bandaranaike’s policy of non-alignment meant that Ceylon moved away from her position of being a camp follower of the imperialist powers. But non-alignment was not a dynamic policy. For the most part, it meant making the best of both worlds, and playing one side against the other. Still, it paid dividends up to a point. Beyond that, all countries have to choose sides. Some of the most vociferously non-aligned countries, like India, have today ended up among the most aligned countries. In any case, Bandaranaike’s non-aligned policies won Ceylon more friends in the international field than ever before.
It took nearly a year for a successor to Bandaranaike to emerge, and for the establishment of political stability of some sort. When Bandaranaike died, the obvious political choice was the leader of the House, C. P. de Silva. But he belonged to the wrong caste. Luckily for feudalism in Ceylon, C. P. de Silva was ill and receiving treatment in London at the time of his leader’s death. The cabinet chose W. Dahanayake to fill the Prime Ministerial vacancy. It was an extremely foolish choice, and nobody has explained how that choice was made. Mercifully, it did not last for long. Dahanayake sacked nearly half his cabinet, and appointed his nominees. But before he could be challenged in Parliament, he ordered dissolution and fresh elections. He formed a new party to contest the elections. Every candidate from this party, including Dahanayake, lost the election – most of them losing their deposits.
The March I960 elections did not produce any decisive results. No party obtained an absolute majority in parliament. But the UNP emerged the single biggest party in Parliament with the SLFP in second place. The left parties fared badly. Each of the three left parties fought the election separately and lost badly. This election will be remembered as the one in which both N. M. Perera and Philip Gunawardena made futile bids to become Prime Minister, with the support of only their respective parties. Worse sectarianism and divorce from reality cannot be imagined. It is now difficult to believe that the LSSP fought this election with the slogan ”Make N. M. Prime Minister”.
Dudley Senanayake tried to form a UNP government, but was defeated on the first vote of non-confidence. The Federal Party, on this occasion, refused to go along with the UNP. New elections were ordered for July I960. More common sense and reality prevailed among the anti-UNP forces for this election. Mrs. Bandaranaike had by now accepted the leadership of the SLFP. Having eaten humble pie, the LSSP was willing for a non-contest pact with the SLFP, although it was still not ready to talk to the CP, which had in both March and July advocated a common anti-UNP united front.
These non-contest agreements between the SLFP, LSSP and the CP resulted in a clear victory of the anti-UNP forces. But, quite unexpectedly, the SLFP won sufficient seats (75) to form a government of its own, without the aid of the left parties. This was a great disappointment, in particular to the LSSP, which had hoped that a situation would materialise, where its support would be necessary for the SLFP to form a government. The new government was, therefore, a pure SLFP government (but backed by the left parties)–a second Bandaranaike government, but this time under the Premiership of Mrs. Bandaranaike. She herself had not contested a seat. Conventions were all set aside, and she was found a seat in the Senate. Thus, she became the world’s first woman Prime Minister.
But Mrs. Bandaranaike was to find the going tough. Her first period of Premiership proved to be a turbulent one. It was to be remembered for the heightened economic crisis, the Federal Party’s Satyagraha movement, the attempted coup by top military and police officers, the rise and fall of the United Left Front and the Joint Committee of Trade Unions, the formation of the Coalition government, the signing of the Srimavo-Shastri Pact, further splits in the left movement, and the fall of the government over the controversial Press Bill.
Very early in the tenure of the new government, its Finance Minister, Felix Dias Bandaranaike, was forced to attempt to find a way out of the economic crisis with a proposal to do away with a part of the rice subsidy. But he was forced to retreat on this issue by the government’s parliamentary party, and he resigned his portfolio in keeping with the conventions of bourgeois parliamentary democracy. The fact that the SLFP government had to change its Finance Minister five times during as many years is a pointer to the extreme nature of the economic crisis which had overtaken Ceylon. No one could find a solution. The ultimate solution (which was no solution) was a political one, to which we will refer later.
Finding that their support among the Tamil people was being eroded as a result of the defeat they suffered over the language issue and their impotence during the communal riots, the leadership of the Federal Party had to do something dramatic to recapture the peoples’ imagination and retain their support. They decided to organise a satyagraha movement in Jaffna. As was to be expected, the response was big. The Federal Party managed to whip up a lot of support end continuous batches of satyagrahis successfully barricaded the Kachcheri gates. The success of the movement turned the heads of the Federal Party leaders, and they resorted to measures, which savoured of rebellion and an attempt to set up a separate state. They started issuing their own stamps.
The government decided to act, and ordered its troops to break up the satyagrahis. This they did without opposition. The Federal Party had made no plans for such a contingency, and the movement collapsed. Again, the reason why the Tamils, despite overwhelming unity among themselves, could not resort to something even remotely resembling the rebellion in Northern Ireland is to be found in the fact that economic interests of too many Tamils are to be found in the south of Ceylon.
1962 was also to see the attempted coup by top ranking police and military officers. Involved in this coup were the Captain of the Ceylon Volunteer Force, the Commander of the Navy, the Deputy Inspector General of Police, and several other high ranking police officers, Civil Servants, and prominent businessmen. If they had political associates, they were never ferretted out. The coup was well planned, and failed only because one police officer (the present Inspector General of Police, Stanley Senanayake) got cold feet, and blurted out the conspiracy to his wife, who told it to her father, P. de S. Kularatne, and through him the news went to the I.G.P. It was just in the nick of time.
One or two of the conspirators committed suicide. The rest were tried and found guilty, and sentenced by the Supreme Court, but were released on a point of law by the Privy Council. The attempted coup and the big names involved proved a big sensation. It was the first time a coup had been attempted in Ceylon. On certain suspicions arising out of the investigations into the attempted coup, the government forced the resignation of the Governor-General, Sir Oliver Goonatiieke. Theoretically, he was the Queen’s representative, and her permission was necessary before he was sacked. Delicate negotiations procured the permission, but on certain conditions. It was a humiliating end to one who had been the behind-the-scene advisor to every Prime Minister, and who had been dubbed by some as Our Evil Genius (O.E.G.). William Gopallawa, a relative of Mrs. Bandaranaike, succeeded him. The coup also resulted in a wave of sympathy for the government, as all the conspirators were well known reactionaries, who had no popular support or sympathy.
The economic crisis began to deteriorate. Strikes became frequent. Some of the longest strikes in history–the Port strike, the Banks strike, the Wellawatte Mills strike –took place in this period. The government announced a policy of wage freeze, and followed a policy of “sitting out” strikes and of using the army to break strikes in essential services. This produced serious rethinking in trade union circles. In the first half of 1963, the Ceylon Trade Union Federation proposed that, since isolated strike actions of the working class were all ending without success, the entire trade union movement in both the public and the private sector should unite behind a common set of demands for united trade union action. The C.T.U.F. also convened the first conference of all the major trade union centres at its office in April, 1963. Thus, was born the Joint Committee of Trade Unions, which formulated the famous twenty one demands on behalf of the entire trade union movement. This represented the highest water mark of trade union unity ever achieved in Ceylon. Private sector employees and public sector employees, clerical employees and non-clerical grades, plantation workers and urban workers, teachers and technicians–all were brought into a single common front for the first time. The first all-island conference of the JCTU was held at the Ceylinco Hotel in September, 1963.
Simultaneously, a movement had begun for the unification of the left movement. Except for the first four years of its existence, the curse of the left movement had been its dis-unity. The LSSP had split and re-split. The formation of the CP. was the result of one split and that of the Philip Gunawardena splinter group the result of another. The doctrinaire differences that divided these parties were hardly understood by the people, who naturally desired to see all the left forces united, so that they could effectively fight reaction and bring about the much hoped-for end of exploitation.
Soon after Philip Gunawardena split from the LSSP in 1951, his party entered into a united front agreement with the CP, which was called the CP-LSSP United Front. It was at this time that the LSSP, led by N. M. Perera, was dubbed the Nava (new) LSSP. The CP-LSSP United Front carried on an extensive campaign for left unity which had the result of creating another split in the LSSP. In protest against the opposition of the leadership of the NLSSP to left unity, an influential section, which included T. B. Subasinghe, William Silva, Stanley Tillekeratne split away from the NLSSP. This group joined Philip Gunawardena’s party at first. But, within a year, all except a few like Subasinghe and William Silva joined the CP. On the eve of the 1956 elections, Philip Gunawardena broke off from the CP-LSSP United Front, to join Bandaranaike and his MEP.
Now, in 1963, the movement for left unity gained momentum, particularly in view of the poor performance of the SLFP, and the threat of extreme reaction staging a come-back. By May Day 1963, sufficient progress had been made so that the three left parties called for a united May Day Rally. The enthusiasm of the ordinary people for left unity can be gauged from the gigantic demonstration and rally that took place on that day. Ceylon had never seen anything like that ever before, or ever since. Not only did unprecedented thousands march in the demonstration, but thousands more thronged the route, lining it several deep and occupying every vantage point, to watch this unique spectacle which to many was the realisation of their deeply cherished hopes. The Galle Face Green teemed with humanity. In comparison, the rival rallies held by the SLFP and the UNP faded into insignificance. Such scenes had only been seen in socialist countries on occasions like the May Day parades or National Day celebrations. The potentialities represented by that magnificent mobilisation of the left forces on that May Day of 1963 must be kept in mind to fully assess the depth of the treachery that was enacted in the next year by the formation of the coalition government. For, even as the three leaders drove in a jeep at the head of the May Day procession, they had other ideas as to what use they were going to put this trust that the people had bestowed on them.
The formal agreement bringing the United Left Front into being was signed on Hartal Commemoration Day, August 12, 1963, with a ceremony at Independence Square. But the spirit of that year’s May Day could not be re-created. Doubts had already begun to arise about the sincerity of the leaders. Here were three parties, who had been feuding against each other–and how!–for the best part of a quarter of a century. Suddenly, the leaders announce that they had agreed to unite their forces. But there was no statement of self–criticism of who was wrong earlier, or where the mistakes lay. In other words, the people were not taken into confidence about the reasons for so many years of left disunity. It was difficult to escape the conclusion that the hastily concluded agreement for unity was an opportunistic one for winning as many seats as possible in parliament; and that it was devoid of principle.
That this estimate is correct was borne out by the fact that the ULF did not last even a year.
The year 1963 also saw the polarisation of the forces representing Marxism-Leninism on the one hand and modern revisionism on the other hand, inside the CP. As has been pointed out earlier, the leadership of the CP had, by and large, been always revisionist under the ideological influence of the Communist Parties of Great Britain and India. Here, it must be pointed out that, contrary to popular belief, the Ceylon CP. had no contact with the Soviet CP. till after 1956. The reason for this was the fact, that the CP. in Ceylon was formed after the dissolution of the Third Communist International. The first contact was made at the 8th Congress of the Chinese CP. held in 1956, when the delegates of the Ceylon CP. met the delegates of the Soviet CP., who had also come to attend the Chinese Party’s Congress.
But after Khrushchov usurped power by means of a palace revolution and embarked on the treacherous course of modern revisionism, abandoning the revolutionary principles of Marxism-Leninism, he sought to bring all communist parties into the revisionist orbit. From the 21st Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Ceylon CP. received regular invitations for all congresses of the Soviet Party. Pieter Keuneman, General Secretary of the CP., returned from the 22nd Congress in 1962 with an “order” to have a resolution supporting the counter-revolutionary theses of the 20th and 22nd Congress of the Soviet Party railroaded through the central committee of the C. P. He had, at that Congress, already obeyed the Soviet baton and, without any authority from the central committee, attacked Albania for defying Khrushchov and his revisionism.
But Keuneman found his task tough going. It must be mentioned here that the Ceylon C. P. had never officially discussed the 20th Congress of the Soviet Party, where Khrushchov made his secret attack on Stalin. The reason for this was that, inasmuch as the Party had been born with the name of Stalin on its lips, as it were, in the course of the struggle with Trotskyism, the whole party was intensely pro-Stalin. The leadership knew this, and did not dare to risk a discussion. But it could not be postponed any more.
By this time, the difference between the Marxist-Leninist line of the Communist Party of China, and the modern revisionist line of the Soviet Party, had come out into the open. The discussion inside the central committee of the Ceylon CP. reflected this difference in lines within the international communist movement. The majority took the path of modern revisionism, and started a witch hunt against the Marxist-Leninists. The latter convened the 7th Congress of the Party, which had been unconstitutionally postponed repeatedly by the leadership, and reformed themselves as the Marxist-Leninist Ceylon Communist Party, and declared their allegiance to Marxism-Leninism- Mao Tsetung Thought. An early trial of strength between the two factions took place at the 13th Congress of the Ceylon Trade Union Federation, the biggest mass organisation under the leadership of the CP, in December, 1963. The modern revisionists were decisively defeated and the leadership of the C.T.U.F. preserved in Marxist-Leninist hands.
The year 1964 faced the government with mounting economic problems. The rising tide of discontent among the working class was reflected in the twin growth of the ULF and the JCTU. Mrs. Bandaranaike was alarmed, On March 21, 1964, when the JCTU held a mammoth Galle Face Rally in support of its 21 demands, Mrs. Bandaranaike cancelled her appointment to address a meeting outside Colombo, and stayed inside Temple Trees, because she had received reports of lorry loads of workers coming from all parts to the rally.
She decided to act quickly. Open repression was out of the question. She decided on the well known tactics of taking the enemy’s fortress from within. She indicated her willingness to hold talks with the leaders of the LSSP. Even before the beckoning finger of Mrs. Bandaranaike had ceased to move, both N. M. Perera and Philip Gunawardena collided inside Temple Trees through different doors, while poor Keuneman was left at the gate, begging for admission. The ULF was at an end–destroyed by the very men who had set it up only months before. It was a shrewd tactical move by Mrs. Bandaranaike. At one stroke, she obtained the submission of the left leaders, which had eluded her husband. Men who had refused to be lieutenants to her more able husband now lay practically prostrate at her feet. The working class and left movement had been sadly betrayed. N. M. Perera and two of his party colleagues were rewarded with Ministerial jobs, and the coalition government came into existence. One is reminded of Lenin’s famous definition of a coalition government as a joint cabinet of the bourgeoisie with the renegades from socialism. He must have had Ceylon of 1964 in mind, when he made that statement.
One result of the decision of the LSSP to join a Coalition Government with the SLFP was another split in the party. A faction led by Samarakkody, Merryl Fernando and Bala Tampoe broke away to form the LSSP (R)-’ R’ standing for revolutionary. This group split in turn, Samarakkody left it to form an LSSP with the (R) in front of it. Both groups are still quarrelling as to who are the genuine Trotskyists.
With an election round the corner, Mrs. Bandaranaike went to India to hold negotiations on the Ceylon-Indian problem. The Sfrimavo-Sastri Pact was signed. Ceylon agreed to give citizenship to 303,000 people of Indian origin. India agreed to take back 545,030. The fate of the balance was to be decided later. The acceptance of these figures by Ceylon was itself a tacit admission that the earlier laws had been unjust. But the major drawback of this Pact was that it said not a word as to what would happen if these figures were not reached on a voluntary basis. Supposing 545,000 did not apply for Indian citizenship? Was force to be used? The question was left beautifully vague. Although the Pact figured as a major point at subsequent elections, not much has been done up till now (1971) to implement it in any measure.
The major controversy during the lifetime of the coalition government was that over the Press Bill. To understand this question, it is essential to have an understanding of the set-up of the newspapers in Ceylon. Because of the high standard of literacy in Ceylon caused by free education from 1945, newspapers played an important role in influencing men’s minds. The predominant position in the newspaper field at that time was held by the Associated Newspapers of Ceylon or Lake House, as it was called. It ran several daily newspapers in all three languages. It had been founded by D. R. Wijeyawardena, a colleague and friend of D. S. Senanayake. He had bought up existing newspapers to make his group a virtual monopoly. The only (opposition was provided by the Times of Ceylon, which was originally British owned, and by the Tamil daily, Virakesari.
D.R. Wijeyawardena is often praised as a reforms leader and for his contribution to the movement for independence which he supported through his newspapers. But if he is to be judged by his efforts in the newspaper field, he must be credited with having established the greatest lie factory in Ceylon, and the biggest bastion of reaction. Lake House epitomised everything reactionary in Ceylon. It opposed every single progressive measure brought forward by any government. The report of a recent Royal Commission on its corrupt activities in deliberately contravening Exchange Control regulations and accumulating nearly two million rupees in the private accounts of the three of its directors in foreign banks (although after Wijeyawardena’s death) should form the best epitaph over its grave, when it is laid to rest soon, as everyone hopes.
It fought the left movement from the beginning and was not choosey in the weapons it used – calumny, insinuations, half truths, downright lies, etc. Nothing was too bad if it could be used to beat the left. Bandaranaike, too, had to triumph over its complete opposition. Being a good orator, Bandaranayake turned to the State radio, and used it against the bourgeois press. But his successors were incapable of this, They decided to curb Lake House. Already a public cry had risen for the take-over of Lake House. The coalition government now introduced a bill to nationalise Lake House. This is where it erred. It should have used its powers (if necessary, declared an emergenc ) to take over Lake House and talked afterwards. The mistake proved fatal.
Lake House moved its heavy guns into battle. The report of the Royal Commission details the steps taken by Lake House to meet this threat to its existence. Several lakhs of rupees were voted out and left to be spent at the absolute discretion of one or two directors. The allegation was later made in Parliament that those M. P.s, who crossed over to the opposition to vote against the government on December 4th, 1964, had been bribed by Lake House. The Royal Commission went into this question and declared that they had received no evidence to substantiate the allegation. But at the same time, it stated that the Directors of Lake House had no valid explanation about how large sums of money entrusted to them during this period were spent. We are left to draw our own conclusions.
The campaign against Lake House was one of the biggest to be seen in Ceylon. But Lake House triumphed over the weak tactics of the government. The “Golden brains” of the LSSP bung led the formulation and passage of the Press Bill through Parliament. Parliament was prorogued for the sole purpose of debating another bill for taking over Lake House. On the day of the voting on the Throne Speech of December 4th, 1964, a switch over of sufficient numbers of M.P.s from the SLFP to the Opposition was organised to enable the government to be defeated by one vote. The two M. Ps. of the LSSP(R), Samarakkoddy and Merryl Fernando, voted with the UNP and the rest of the reactionaries, and thus paved the way for the return of the UNP in 1965.
It must, however, be pointed out that during the period of the first government under the Prime Ministership of Mrs. Bandaranaike, several progressive measures were adopted. The more important ones were the Schools Take Over, the nationalisation of the Bank of Ceylon and Insurance, and the take over of all the foreign oil companies. A dispute arose over the amount of compensation to the latter, and the US Government suspended its aid programme. The government finally agreed to pay a sum acceptable to the Americans. It must also be pointed out that it was during the period of this government that the first batch of US Peace Personnel came to Ceylon.
The 1965 elections proved indecisive, but the UNP came back as the biggest single group. The Federal Party was wooed by both sides, because its support could have enabled either party to form the government. Although subsequently violently critical of the UNP’s alliance with the Federal Party, there can be no doubt about the fact that the SLFP tried its hardest to reach an agreement with the Federal Party, and was willing to go to its utmost in this connection. But, on the basis of a secret pact between Dudley Senanayake and Chelvanayagam, which has been admitted, but never published, the UNP formed a so-called National Government, which included Philip Gunawardene and W. Dahanayake. The UNP also roped in wealthy plantation owner Thondaman, who was also ironically enough, the leader of the biggest trade union of plantation workers. It was the interests of his class, and not that of the plantation workers of Indian origin, and possible advice from the Indian High Commission in Ceylon that decided Thondaman’s volte face to lick the very foot that had kicked the plantation workers of Indian origin in 1948.
The rejected coalition parties responded with one of the loudest communal campaigns ever let loose, during the course of which derogatory remarks about the eating habits of the Tamils abounded. This was the time of the “Masala Vadai” line! The LSSP and the Keuneman revisionist clique were not to be outdone by the SLFP in their crude communal campaign.
On the 8th of January, 1966, when Dudley Senanayake tried to get through regulations to be framed under the Reasonable Use of Tamil Bill, the Opposition called a communal strike and demonstration, which led to the shooting and killing of a Buddhist monk, and the declaration of a state of emergency. Thousands of mis-led workers who had participated in that day’s strike were victimised by the government and the State Corporations. The Federal Party was to find that its opportunism was not to pay after all. At the instance of the Federal Party, Dudley Senanayake introduced a District Councils Bill, to afford some degree of autonomy to the districts. The coalition parties succeeded in rousing such an uproar in the country, also among the UNP ranks, that Dudley had to drop the Bill. Soon after, the Federal Party representative in the Cabinet resigned, and the illusion of a national government collapsed.
For the rest, the period of the 1965 government of Dudley Senanayake was noted for the still further worsening of the economic crisis. Following the devaluation of the Pound Sterling, and at the bidding of the World Bank, the rupee was devalued by 20%. Because the World Bank was not satisfied with the rate of devaluation, a further devaluation in the form of Foreign Exchange Entitlement Certificates Scheme was imposed. The rice ration was halved, but the first measure was given free. The cost of living sky-rocketted, and unemployment mounted. General strikes took place in the private sector and the public sector in 1967 and 1968 respectively. The only solution of the government to the mounting economic ills of Ceylon was to borrow extensively from imperialist agencies, like the World Bank. It borrowed more heavily than any other government. Thereby, it tightened still further the chains that bound Ceylon to foreign imperialism.
Politically, the SLFP, the LSSP and the Keuneman revisionist clique formed a United Front on the basis of a Common Programme, which was much weaker than the original 1956 MEP election manifesto of Mr. S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike.
This period also saw the bringing out into the open of the social oppression undergone by the depressed and untouchable castes in Jaffna. Under the leadership of the Mass Movement for the Eradiction of Untouchability and the Caste System, these underpriviledged people joined issue with their oppressors over the question of temple entry. The government sided with the caste Hindus, and let loose repression against the so-called depressed castes. Only the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party openly supported these so-called depressed castes and gave them leadership. The latter fought bravely and several lives were sacrificed. But the issue has not been completely settled. But, at least, this movement exposed the existence of such an inhuman system, and also the hypocrisy of the Federal Party, which called for equal rights with the Sinhalese, but were unwilling to treat members, who speak their own language, as equals, because they belonged to a lower caste.
The 1970 general election turned itself into a direct confrontation between the United Front and the UNP. The Marxist-Leninist Communist Party alone warned against placing faith in the fraud of bourgeois parliamentary democracy, and called upon the people to have nothing to do with the elections. Although, at this time, relatively few people heeded this call, before a year had passed most people were to admit the correctness of that analysis. Although the United Front Government was returned to power with an overwhelming mandate of over a two-thirds majority in parliament, it stood as if paralysed and unable to solve any of the fundamental problems of the people. On the contrary, the cost of living kept soaring still higher, and unemployment became worse.
The very vastness of its parliamentary majority contained within it the seeds of its own destruction. By giving it such an overwhelming mandate, the people had given notice that they would accept no excuses. Disillusionment with the government was not long in coming. Having promised the very moon itself, the new government was beginning to go on the same rails as the UNP before it. Having vociferously criticised the UNP for its subservience to the World Bank, the new Finance Minister, Trotskyite Dr. N. M. Perera’s first act was to go to it on a begging mission. Before a year was out, the government was fulfilling all the conditions laid down by the World Bank, and passing the burdens of the economic crisis on to the shoulders of the masses. The explosion did not take long to come.