SLFP Mudalalis

by Sarath Amunugama

While his supporters were fitted into convenient positions on State boards, Minister R S Perera was more interested in his own nascent business interests. He set up a factory in Kelaniya to make rubber slippers. Then he set up a factory to manufacture ‘mantles’ for Kitson lamps. Since we got on well he would invite me to his spacious office to observe his experiments in firing up the gauze mantles which gave a blinding light for the Kitson lamp. He confided in me that he himself had to conduct the experiment because if anybody else discovered the formula he would take it to another investor. A sudden visitor to his office would have found the Minister and his Director of Information huddled behind a table trying to ignite a Kitsons lamp – a task which was not included in the gazette notification which detailed our respective responsibilities. Apart from his pseudo cientific experiments RS soon began to leak Cabinet secrets to SLFP Mudalalis. By this time the SLFP, and particularly Mrs. B, had nurtured a group of native entrepreneurs who using state patronage had built up lucrative businesses. They were personally loyal to the Prime Minister and a few of her like minded ministers including Maitripala Senanayake, Illangaratne and Kalugalle. Those ministers were quite willing to instruct the State Banking system and the State Trading bodies to favour these Mudalalis. ‘These lucky businessmen included J P A Piyadasa, Dasa, McCallum, Ratnapura Gem merchants, Douglas Perera and a host of other smaller fry including R S Perera, who were solidly behind the SLFP. They were now alarmed that NM was dead set on dismantling their privileges. They also succeeded in getting the ear of Felix who was willing to ally himself with anyone in order to establish himself as the intellectual leader of the SLFP government. After every Cabinet meeting on Wednesday morning RS would come back to his office and telephone his Mudalali friends about the latest outrage proposed by the Finance Minister Some of them would then come over to personally inspect RS’s copy of the offending Cabinet paper. Then they would lobby their friends to get the proposals rescinded. NM and Bernard made proposals to clean up the Banking system. Any attempt to change the structure of the People’s Bank was strongly opposed by the Mudalalis. It was the People’s Bank under its General Manager Solomons that had provided easy credit to fuel the acquisitions and investments of the Mudalalis. The LSSP had appointed Hector Abeywardene as the Chairman and he was not hobnobbing with the businessmen as his predecessors had done. In fact NM’s tinkering with the Banks based on an outdated philosophy did more harm than good.

The economy was on a downward spiral and following the shibboleths of the Marxists, NM was replacing entrepreneurship with State enterprises with neither the managerial capacity nor the enterprising spirit to be a success. He was dismantling a system which could deliver the goods and replacing it with the dead hand of the state because of an out of date doctrine. No wonder Felix and the modernists of the SUP were aghast at the blundering attitudes of `golden brains’ NM. They called him a ‘Gadol Modaya’ instead. I can recoil one occasion when we were summoned by NM to discuss publicity for his programmes. I suggested that his numerous corporations be asked to publicise their work with newspaper advertisements. NM was horrified at this idea and said that he did not want the Corporations to spend money oil propaganda. Since he was also not willing, to spend money from the Budget for publicity the case for the Government went by default. He had no time for modern publicity and was content to leave that to his party machine which was nearly extinct. This was a silly attitude when the JVP was throwing the book at the leftist leaders and creating a huge wave of hatred towards them. I had a great friend in Sarath Nawana, a dynamic LSSPer who came back from UK with the 1970 victory. He wanted to modernize the propaganda effort of the party. He became the editor of the ‘Janadina’ the LSSP paper and rival to “Aththa” which itself was becoming more critical of the Government. The leftist ministers of the Government were constantly in fear of being pulled up by the PM at Cabinet meetings for the criticisms levelled in their party newspapers. Nawana was continually warned by NAM who however resisted requests from other leaders to fire him. Sira of “Aththa” was also being warned regularly though Pieter and Sarath Muttetuwegama defended him. I had to constantly interact with these two irascible journalists particularly since my Minister RS was their favourite target. By this time RS and his Mudalali friends had become bitter enemies of NM. They were constantly bad mouthing him and complaining to the PM while at the same time Kumar Rupasinghe was poaching leftist cadres.

N M Perera

NM had been my ‘Beau Ideal’ when I was in the University. With a double doctorate in Political theory at the LSE under Harold Laski he was a scholar and writer of the first rank. His analysis of the annual budget was the best reasoned speech in Parliament. After speaking in Parliament he would come to Peradeniya to repeat his analysis and we would listen spellbound by the clarity and originality of his exposition. Whenever NM spoke at Peradeniya the Arts theatre was jam packed with both staff and students hanging on to his every word. NM was always elegantly, though simply, dressed in white trousers and bush shirt with a weatherbeaten watch on his right wrist. I noticed that the dial of the wristwatch was turned s and NM would from time to time dramatically look at the time, perhaps a habit picked up in Parliament where time is rationed. He loved fancy shoes and sandals. Later when I would meet him at Colvin’s house, where he would sit patiently to pick up his colleague for a high class social visit, I noticed his brightly polished shoes which would have been the envy of a ballroom dancer. In fact NM was a great ball room dancer and ladies would compete to take a turn with him. All this was of course hidden from his half starved worker supporters who imagined that their leader was living on ,half rations.

As the Secretary of the University Economics society, which was a LSSP front, I would visit NM in his Borella house to fix dates for his and other party bigwigs visits to the Campus for lectures. His front office was full of books and newspapers which could certainly have done with some dusting. There was a large portrait of Trotsky indifferently hung up. In the middle of the room there was a large table with a mountain of files on either side. He guffawed when I told him about our requirements. ‘You people are with us only till you pass the CCS exam’ he said. ‘Only Batty and Shanmugaraja continued with us’. I assured him that this time it would be different. Little did I know at that time that he was prophetic. Any way he consulted his diary and gave me some was prop he tic. Any way he consulted dates and a couple of dog eared books for me to read. Vivienne Goonewardene came from inside the house and seeing that I was famished after the long train journey from Peradeniya, invited me to have breakfast. NM waded into the stringhoppers and I marvelled at his appetite. He had a broad chest which was barely contained by a sleeveless banian. He wore a checked sarong and had a pair of cheap wooden clogs on his feet. His wooden clogs were the stuff of legend. Apparently after their celebrated jail break on the eve of the Japanese air attack on Colombo during the second world war, NM held up the getaway by going back to his cell to retrieve his cheap wooden clogs much to the fury of Robert Gunawardene who had coordinated the operation ‘Yathura’. Significantly the LSSP selected the key as their party symbol for the election. NM was well known for his frugality and thrift. Sarath Nawana told me how he refused to loosen the purse strings for expenses for his party paper. While having breakfast he cut short our discussion about politics and was planning a Buriyani dinner expedition to a Muslim friend’s house. He asked Vivienne, who by this time was living with him, to ring up Leslie and invite him also for Buriyani. Many years later I had to interact with him almost daily during the JVP insurrection which I will describe later. After he was defeated in 1977, and was out of Parliamentary politics which had been his life’s vocation, I visited him in his Cotta road residence which he occupied after selling his Borella property. There were not many visitors then but his faithful Sena Gunasekera and long standing driver looked after him. I remember NM affectionately talking to his dog which curled under his table and was licking his toes. I was the Secretary to the Media ministry when NM died in hospital. My Minister Ananda Tissa de Alwis and I rushed there and coordinated the final ceremonies with JRJ’s concurrence. Though he was out of Power we ensured that NM got what was in effect a state funeral. have a vivid mememory of his old comrades led by Colvin whoa walked all the way behind the cortege and were sprawled on sports ground totally exhausted and oblivious to the official ceremonies that had begun and were being broadcast island wide.

Liepzig

With the success of the ULF, embassies of the socialist bloc became more active in Colombo. The PM made several highly successful visits to China ina and the USSR. She was so popular as the first woman PM that the Bandaranaike name became synonymous with Sri Lanka in foreign countries. With her trade mark Kandyan saree, flashing smile and inborn courtesy she made a brilliant ambassador for her country and global leaders vied to be photographed with her. In the Information Department we were inundated with requests for interviews which she handled with great aplomb. It was her and the country’s finest hour. Whenever Somasara and I wanted to meet her we would go early in the morning to Temple Trees and she would greet us graciously and quickly decide on the issues on which we needed guidance. Her officials in the Defence ministry – Ratnavale and Ridgeway Tillekeratne – had been my bosses in Ratnapura and were constantly in attendance at Temple Trees and we could all chat with her easily because of the Ratnapura connection.

She followed her husband in only using Temple Trees for official engagements and lived in her own house at Rosmead Place. Her house was well kept but did not have any of the garish furniture that has become so commonplace in politician’s houses today. The telephone was fixed to a bracket on the wall and Mrs. B would take calls in the sitting room for everybody to hear. After her state visits she would be received ceremonially by the cabinet on the airport tarmac. These festivities were orchestrated by T B Illangaratne. I was drafted into this ceremony because I had to bring my younger daughter Varuni and her friend Lekha Ratwatte, daughter of Mackie, to the tarmac to present bouquets of flowers to the returning PM. This was a nerve racing task for me as the two mischievous children would run around and had to be dragged back just in time to greet Mrs. B who unfailingly kissed them after receiving the welcoming flowers.

This is an excerpt from Sarath Amunugama’s three-volume autobiogbraphy, the first of which is now in print.