DS Senanayake, the all time great: “If he did not live, Ceylon would have been very different”

(Excerpted from Selected Journalism by HAJ Hulugalle)

One morning in March 1952, Don Stephen Senanayake, Ceylon’s first Prime Minister, fell off the horse he was riding on the Galle Face Green in Colombo and died 33 hours later. He was in his 68th year and was probably the victim of a stroke which made him lose control of the horse. He was found laid out on the turf with his face downwards and bleeding from his nose. The nation mourned the man who had led it to independence and had made the parched lands of the Island bloom.

Those who knew Mr. Senanayake or only saw him, will recall his burly figure, infectious smile and unfailing kindness. A generation born since his death has now reached adult status. Only a few of his age group are still around. Forty eight years have elapsed since he entered upon a political career as the elected Member for Negombo in the Legislative Council. A fresh look at his life and work, 21 years after his death (when this article was written) can shed useful light on many of the problems with which the country is beset today.

The years in which Mr. Senanayake was the acknowledged national leader are important not only for his achievements in gaining independence after centuries of Colonial rule and in introducing a new dimension to agricultural development. They mark a shift in values affecting the structure of our society. Under the impact of adult franchise and free education, which came when he was Prime Minister, the outlook and expectations of the common people changed significantly and irretrievably.

He may not have spelt all this out in his own thinking. He was born in the Victorian age when, in the Colonies at any rate, the people’s wishes counted for little. Although he lived in the town, Mr. Senanayake’s heart was in the country. Political reform had no meaning for him other than as a means of providing the rural folk of the country with a new and more abundant life. He had his misgivings about foisting an inferior type of free education that took no account of the needs and conditions of the country. Nevertheless, the effect of the two changes referred to is being now felt at every level of the social and political life of the people of Ceylon.

Mr. Senanayake took up politics seriously after the riots of 1915 when several Buddhist leaders, like himself and his two brothers who were in no way connected with the disturbances, were incarcerated. The conviction was then forced on him that, until the Ceylonese became fully responsible for the Government, there was no way of preventing such abuses of power and of solving the political and economic problems of the country.

In the earlier stages of the campaign for freedom he was more a camp-follower than a pace-setter. But after he became a Member of the Legislative Council in 1924, he knew what he wanted for Ceylon and was determined to get it. After he succeeded Sir Baron Jayatilaka as Leader of the State Council, in the early stages of the last war, he had the reins in his hands. Six years of agitation and negotiation produced the desired result, namely, political independence for Sri Lanka as a member of the Commonwealth.

He grasped firmly the substance of independence, leaving it to those who came after him to do better if they could. The smug comment is sometimes heard that Ceylon gained her independence too easily. Other countries in the Colonial Empire did not get it without bloodshed, civil war and non-co-operation. Mr. Senanayake’s tactics ruled out such measures. His own warm personality helped, and confidence begat confidence. On appropriate occasions he could act on the principle that “the gentler gamester is the soonest winner.”

Summing up Mr. Senanayake’s achievement, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, said: “We of this generation, wherever we may live, have passed through this great period of transition and have seen the face of Asia change in this process. The change continues. Leading personalities in different countries become the symbols of this period of transition and thus become in some ways agents of historic destiny. In Ceylon, Don Stephen Senanayake was such a personality, who impressed himself not only in Ceylon, but on a wider sphere. He should be remembered as a person who helped about the transition to freedom and then to consolidate the freedom that had come.”

After the dusty and sometimes bitter conflicts over communal representation in the legislature had ended, Mr. Senanayake led a united people to the goal of independence. He was able to persuade the State Council, with the exception of two members who represented Indian interests and a Sinhalese ‘independent’, to accept the Soulbury Constitution which, as Sir Ivor Jennings has pointed out, was largely his Constitution.

“The belief that the Soulbury Commission produced the Constitution,” wrote Sir Ivor, “is due partly to the fact that people doubted whether Mr. Senanayake had the capacity to produce a Constitution. After all he had never passed the Matriculation. This is, however, seriously to underrate Mr. Senanayake’s intellectual capacity. Naturally he relied heavily on his advisers; any Minister who does not is bound to fail. What is more, he left insignificant detail to his advisers. Nevertheless, he had an excellent grasp of fundamental principles, and he quickly seized the essence of any problem that might become controversial.

“If after explanation he began, “As a matter of fact” or “Actually,” his advisers at once knew that something was wrong. If they were unable to convince him, they were told in the nicest possible way that they had better get away and think again. Mr. Senanayake could not have foreseen the full impact of the forces he helped to release. Those who advised him, and he himself, had an almost mystical faith in the British parliamentary system which, as we know, functions best with a homogeneous population.

“He envisaged a united people entering upon a heritage that had eluded them too long. Though he succeeded in winning over the leaders of the minorities to his way of thinking, he did not perhaps pay sufficient attention to the fears and emotions of those they represented, which fact in due course gave momentum to the formation of the Federal Party by a section of the Ceylon Tamils.

“He believed that, given a fair field and the rules of the game, the industry and inherent ability of the Tamils and other minorities would see them through in any competition. He was careful to do nothing to widen the gaps or emphasize the differences, as the following incidents demonstrate. One day a leading Buddhist layman and two influential prelates called on him. He welcomed them with his usual courtesy and listened patiently to what they had to say to him. They asked that Sinhalese should at once be made the country’s official language and Buddhism the State religion.

“He thanked them and with good grace told them that he could not consider their request until the more urgent problem of food, shelter and employment had been resolved. On another occasion a deputation of backbenchers of his party represented to him that the new industries like cement, chemicals and paper were located in the Northern and Eastern Provinces in which the Sinhalese were in a small minority. He replied that it was his responsibility to attend to the needs of all sections of the community and a united nation could be built up only by the majority being generous to the minorities.

“He was indeed the friend of all communities. Mr. S. J. V. Chelvanayagam, the leader of the Federal Party, in a tribute to Mr. Senanayake, said that “it was the personal qualities of the man that helped him to achieve so much success in the very high office that he filled in the affairs of this country. Differences of opinion did not in any way diminish my respect or regard for Mr. Senanayake. I admired the love he had for his people. He had a shining faith in their future greatness and, according to his lights, he worked for its achievement untiringly and consistently. Many a time I had wished that in the ranks to which I belonged there were to be found one like Mr. Senanayake, so consistently loyal and so full of hope and ultimate success.”

It would take a longer article than this to do justice to Mr. Senanayake’s achievements in agricultural development. He was Minister of Agriculture for the 14 years of the two State Councils. During those years he transformed the pattern of peasant agriculture. He built or restored large and small tanks, which feed several 100,000 acres, set up colonization schemes, established new towns, started research stations, promoted rural credit and co-operative marketing, encouraged extension work and sent trained men into the field to help the peasant farmer to improve his crops by the adoption of scientific methods.

As one of his colleagues in this work, Dr. R. L. Brohier has written, “he saw the necessity for improving the quality of crops, for growing a wide range of varieties to ensure balanced dietary intake, and the need for inculcating animal husbandry. He also visualized that there must be Government financial assistance for the colonist to set himself up, technical guidance and a system of easy and orderly marketing.”

Mr. Senanayake was justly proud of the progress made in agricultural development during the years when he bore the main responsibility for its direction and accomplishment. But he saw many years of work ahead. He did not talk about his achievements but rather loved to show what had been done and how it was done. On one occasion when he was needled by a Marxist critic in Parliament for spending too much on his irrigation schemes, he was compelled to say, more in sorrow than in anger, “During the

period of my Ministry, that is 14 years, I have had tanks built and natural sources tapped which will make it possible with a little development to have at least another million acres to cultivate when we have the manpower.”

He was of course a convinced anti-Marxist and did not agree that human nature could be changed by changing institutions. When in December 1947, Dr. Colvin R. de Silva, had lectured him in Parliament on how the country’s agriculture should be developed, Mr. Senanayake, who had spent more years as a practical agriculturist than the life span of his critic, rejoined:

“My good friend the Member for Wellawatte-Galkissa, for whom I have the greatest admiration, is so much above his associates in intellect and all those things, that he is under the impression that there is nothing in this world that he does not know. I have a great admiration for his ability, but I wish to tell him that he does not know everything in this world. There are more things in heaven and earth than enter into his philosophy. He spoke of agriculture. That reminded me of a story that I had heard sometime ago.”

Mr. Senanayake then proceeded to relate the story. There was a farmer in the village who was suddenly afflicted by a gripe. Suffering agonies he shouted to his young son to run to the doctor and get him some medicine. The boy went to a house which had a board with the name of “Dr. So and So” on it. Meeting the doctor, the boy told him about his father’s illness and the suffering he was

undergoing. The doctor replied, “Well, I am only a veterinary surgeon, I would give a horse a pound of Epsom Salts in a bucket of water. I suggest that you give your father half that and I think it would settle his stomach ache. The next day the veterinary surgeon saw the youth and asked him how his father was faring. The boy replied, “Oh, you are a wonderful doctor. You know, even after his death he purged three times.”

“So, I would tell my veterinary friend,” added Mr. Senanayake, “that of human beings and human problems, he knows nothing. He may be a great man and a well-read person who knows a lot about Russia. But, although I do not compare myself with him, I can assure him that I know more about soil and cultivation than he knows and will ever know.”

He was a formidable debater, relying more on his experience of human nature and a native shrewdness than on dialectical prowess. The best tribute to him in this capacity was paid by Dr. N. M. Perera whose specialty is parliamentary institutions. “In a sense,” said Dr. Perera, “he filled the Council by his very presence. I have never known a man more devoted to his duty or more consistent in his attendance. He followed every debate closely. He never missed a good point, however humble the quarter from which it emanated. This was a remarkable performance for one so overburdened with the innumerable cares of office. His astuteness and shrewdness as a parliamentarian – I use the words in no

disrespectful sense – were almost uncanny.

“When one recollects his early life, this is indeed a remarkable achievement. He was quick to sense and grasp a situation while others were hesitant and groping. Others may have been more learned, but he was more knowledgeable. As a debater he was the equal of the best in the land. He may not have indulged in sonorous language, his phraseology may not have been elegant, his diction may have been imperfect, but his quick-wittedness was remarkable. Quick to pounce upon his opponent’s weak points, he knew the art of getting at the heart of a debate…. He had a remarkable capacity to understand all the things that went on in his Government. There was no Department that he did not know intimately.”

Mr. Senanayake had no difficulty in meeting people, whatever their station in life, at a human level. No townsman or villager, who went to him with a personal problem was turned away from the little downstairs room at Temple Trees where he relaxed. If the visitor had been waiting for him, he would ask Carolis, his faithful man servant and companion, to fetch him a drink, usually of orange juice, white he, himself went in to divest himself of his office clothes. The Prime Minister would sometimes cool himself by pouring water on his head, the noise of which could be heard, and he would then emerge dressed in a sarong and a singlet.

Sir John Kotalawala made a just comment when he said, “No man was too small for his attention if he had the time, and somehow he would find the time. No man who went to him can ever forget the sincerity with which he promised to look into his grievance.” When Mr. Senanayake died, an

Indian labourer on a tea estate went to his European master and said, “Aiyo, periyah manushan, mickam nalla manushan” – “Oh, he was a great man and a good man.”

He never missed the opportunity to get closer to the people – speaking to them about their crops, their children and their livestock – when he visited the colonization and village expansion schemes, which he frequently did. Relaxing in a resthouse in the evening he would chat with and inspire the young officials who accompanied him. There was never any lack of communication between him and those who worked with him and those for whose benefit they both worked.

In what I have written above, I have spoken of Mr. Senanayake as the man who led his country to freedom in what was then described by a London newspaper as “the most untroubled country in Asia,” as the pioneer of land development, builder of tanks, as parliamentarian and administrator. What impact did he make on the world outside Ceylon? On receiving the news of his death, Mr. Winston Churchill said, “The Commonwealth is the poorer without him and the wise counsel he always gave.” Mr. Attlee, the Labour Prime Minister, during whose term of office Ceylon became an independent nation said, “He was a man of great personal charm. Ceylon was extremely lucky to have had such a man to inaugurate a new era of full equality in the Commonwealth.” Sir Robert Menzies, the Prime Minister of Australia said, “D. S. Senanayake was a man of enormous breadth of vision and of singular personal attraction. He pursued his objectives – and he had a wonderful capacity for defining them precisely – with sincerity and forcefulness, yet always with a due regard for the rights and feelings of others.”

Mr. Senanayake had indeed won respect and admiration not only among his own people but far beyond these shores and he held an honoured place among the leaders of the nations. “History,” wrote Lord Soulbury, “is the impact of the individual man of mark upon his contemporaries. In short, it is the great men who make history: D. S. Senanayake was a great man and if he had not lived Ceylon would have been very different.’

(From D.S. Senanayake’s Place in the History of His Country, 1972)