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Colvin Stories
One day, soon after the trade union of Wellawatta Spinning and Weaving Mills, which broke the back of A. E. Goonesinghe’s trade union, was formed, Colvin was travelling in a bus. At the time his face was not well-known and he was merely a name. He found himself sandwiched between two rough looking men. “Ah bung…” said one of them speaking across Colvin. “Who is this Colvin R. De Silva and where does he live?” “I don’t know bung,” replied the other and went on to describe with lurid, blood curdling detail, the horrible things they would do to Colvin, if ever they found him! They happened to be very loyal to Goonesinghe.
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The shooting of Govindan, a worker of the Wewassa Estate, set off a wave of strikes all over the hill country estates. The small police party that went to the estate to restore law and order were manhandled by the workers who later released them on the ground that both parties were wage-slaves. Later in the day, the enraged police were back, heavily reinforced and armed to the teeth and 208 estate workers were rounded up and arrested, Colvin appeared for all of them at the Badulla Courts and got them released on personal bail.
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Colvin went to jail for the sake of the workers of his country and for the country’s freedom from the foreign yoke. He also made tremendous sacrifices, professionally and physically, for the cause he believed in. While in India, evading re-arrest, Colvin, then Govindan, grew a moustache. One day Bernard Soysa was ordered to contact him, at a specific spot in Madras and Bernard was looking all over for him when he heard Colvin’s famous drawl and found Colvin next to him sporting a walrus moustache. “Colvin!” Bernard had said, “I don’t mind a leader who looks like Karl Marx but not one looking like Groucho Marx.”
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One day, Colvin said that when he was barely two years old his mother died. A few years later, his father married Colvin’s mother’s younger sister. “Those detestable words ‘step mother’ were never used in our home. And, had she lived, I wonder what form my political career would have taken. She loved us very much and wouldn’t bear to see any of us suffer the most minor injury, discomfort or face the slightest danger. Also, had she seen me dragged off to jail and the awful conditions there, and known when I escaped from jail, went underground and was carrying my life in my hands, she might very well have entreated me to give up politics!”
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At the 1947 general elections, Colvin contested the Wellawatte-Galkissa seat from his Bolshevik Leninist Party of India (BLPI) of whose local faction, he was leader. In the course of canvassing, he went to an imposing Walawwa of a Gate Mudaliyar and knocked at the door. The laird himself opened the door. “Yes” he barked. Introducing himself, Colvin solicited his vote. “I’ll be damned if I vote for you!” “My dear sir, can I please canvass your wife’s and daughter’s votes?” So in soft measured tones he explained the policies of his party, with the mother and the daughter asking intelligent and penetrating questions from him, like the party’s attitude to Buddhism. All this time, the Gate Mudaliyar was seated in an armchair, within hearing distance, puffing a cigar. Tea was served and the candidate rose to leave. The Mudaliyar accompanied him to the gate and said, “I am going to vote for you.” Colvin bowed and said “Thank you sir!”
During one of those bouts for the Wellawatta-Galkissa seat in Parliament, between Colvin and S. de S. Jayasinghe, S. de S., speaking at one of his election meetings, said confidently “Nonawaruni! Mahathwaruni! I am winning this election, for my name begins with ‘Jaya’, Jaya for victory!” Speaking at one of his meetings a few days later, Colvin said “Come election day, I shall be the winner, for my name ends with ‘Win’, Col-Win!”
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During the 1947 General Elections, a large number of independent candidates contested, whom Colvin labelled ‘three-headed donkeys’. Colvin was once asked what the best election poster he had ever seen was. He had said that it was the poster Dr. A.P. de Zoysa had published against his rival E.A. Cooray for the Colombo South seat in 1936. His one liner was ‘Eeye Cooray Ada Zoysa’ (punning on Cooray’s initials E.A.).
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Once Manori de Silva presided over an election meeting in Galle. She announced the next speaker thus, “Meelangata mage piyawana Colvin sahodaraya katha karanawa etha: (The next speaker is my father, Comrade Colvin). This reminds me of a Communist MP from the South, who once addressed his father “sahodara piyathumani” (Comrade father).
The Sathasivam case had an impact on Colvin’s political fortunes, when some women voted against him, for defending the cricketer Sathasivam who was accused of murdering his wife.
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It must be quite a record that a father-in-law, Colvin (Agalawatta), and his two sons-in-law, Sarath Muttetuwegama (Kalawana) and Weerasinghe de Silva (Balapitiya), were sitting together in the same Parliament, along with Colvin’s brother-in-law K. C. de Silva (Katana) in 1970.
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One day Colvin was making a speech in the House, when a fledgling MP kept on interrupting him. At last, his patience exhausted Colvin paused, gazed at the young MP in a most thoughtful manner, and said in that devastating drawl of his, “You know Mr. Speaker, in our village a creature with one ‘Molliya’ (hump) is called a buffalo. But I do not know what to call one with many ‘Molliyas’. The heckler was Stanley Molligoda, then MP for Nivitigala.
During the 1977 General election, JR was keen to have two of his friends, Colvin and N.M. in Parliament. So, he fielded two weak candidates for Agalawatta and Yatiyantota electorates. But the two UNP candidates rode on the tidal wave and both were elected with convincing majorities. One day Dr. Arnolis de Silva, father of Colvin, went to meet the Registrar of the Land Registry, Galle, to find that he was on leave. He visited the Registrar again and told him that he came there on Wednesday too. “Yes!” the Registrar said, “I took leave to go to court to watch the famous advocate Dr. Colin R. de Silva defend an accused in a murder case. And, what an experience it was!” The doctor smiled and said “I am Colvin’s father.” The Registrar was delighted to hear it.
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One day Colvin argued an appeal in a case of profiteering in sugar, and for some inexplicable reason, he kept using the term ‘red sugar’ when ‘brown sugar’ was the more popular one.
When he continued to use this term, the Supreme Court Judge, who hailed from Colvin’s own village, commented drily “Dr. Silva, there is too much red in this court.” And gazing pointedly at the Judge’s red robe, Colvin cracked back: “Yes my lord, and that’s the colour that gives much grace and dignity to your lordship.”
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Colvin was defending an accused in a murder trial and had addressed the court for three consecutive days. As he concluded his address on the third day, Colvin said, “My lord, I hope to finish my address tomorrow.” “You are hoping, Dr. Silva” said the presiding judge E.H.T. Gunasekera, “I am praying.”
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Colvin had a flair for Johnsonian English of learned length and thunderous in sound. He would use the word ‘pagination’ for a page in a book or the word ‘testification’ for the evidence of a witness. One day Colvin was making submissions in a case at the Nuwara-Eliya magistrate’s court, defending some estate workers of Agarapathana who were indicted, when the trial judge who was an Englishman found it difficult to understand him. So the judge politely told him to use simpler language. “Your honour! I am speaking in your mother tongue and not mine.” “That is so, but please use simple language. Colvin then proceeded to use simpler language but in long sentences, when a red-faced judge postponed the case and adjourned court. At the next trial date, Colvin used simpler language and won the case.
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I. W. Panditha who was a leading lawyer in Galle, was once the private secretary of P.H. William Silva, the first MP for the Ambalangoda-Balapitiya seat in 1947. At the elections held that year, several persons, including Panditha, were charged with damaging the motorcar of a rival candidate. And they were all found guilty in the magistrate’s court. They appealed against the verdict and Colvin, a comrade-in-arms of the BLPI and also a fellow MP of William Silva, was retained to appear in the appellate court. On the morning of the date of appeal William Silva and Panditha went to Colvin’s house. He was getting ready to go to court. He asked them whether they had had their breakfast, but did not discuss any matter pertaining to the case. Colvin got the conviction of the accused quashed in the appellate court, as not all persons mentioned in the complaint to the police had been charged in the magistrate’s court.
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In another case, Colvin admitted that his clients sold sprats at the price stated in the plaint, but certainly not ‘sparts’, whatever it may be, as referred to in the Gazette notification.
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Colvin once said that H.V. Perera K.C. was one of the best lawyers he had known. One day he had been at the Law Library when H.V. had come up to him and said “Colvin! I have just been having a very heated argument with (mentioning the name of a leading member of the Bar at the time) over the interpretation of a certain law. And he said, ‘H.V., your view may be correct, but so is mine!’ Surely Colvin, there are not several correct views of the law? There is only one correct view, and that is the view that fits into the general fabric of the law!” Colvin then could not but think of a more brilliant definition than that of what the law is all about? And that it is the genius of H.V. Perera, that gives him the ability to express the most profound thoughts with utmost clarity.
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Here are some more H.V. stories. H.V. was one of the most brilliant students to pass through the portals of Royal College, and at the London Inter Arts Exam he won a scholarship to Cambridge. H.V.’s father was a surveyor, who had done a lot of survey work for Sir Solomon Dias Bandaranaike. Meeting him one day, H.V.’s father had told Sir Solomon this good news. “Cambridge? Your son is going to Cambridge? I say Perera don’t be damned silly, ask your son to do what he can over here in Ceylon. Oxford and Cambridge are for the Bandaranaikes and the Obeysekeras!” said an arrogant Sir Solomon.
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As mentioned above H.V.’s father was a surveyor. One day, when in court, he saw some of his father’s surveyor friends. He then walked up to them and asked why they were in court. They had then said that they were there on a charge of contempt of court over some court commissioned surveys. After getting the facts of the case, H.V. appeared for them and got them out. H.V. once appeared before Justices Garvin and Akbar and had come to the appellate court fully prepared for a case which, if taken up, would last a few days. However, this case was allowed to stand down and another case of his was taken up. It was a case which he had not studied. Undaunted, he then summarised the plaint to the Bench and read the defendant’s answer and the issues involved. When one of the judges asked him what the trial judge held on issue 4, he proceeded to read the entire judgement, saying that it would be best to do so. Thereafter, he put his brief aside and argued a matter of law and won his case.