by Rajan Philips

“You may not be interested in the world order-but it is interested in you,” opines The Economist in its latest lead editorial, entitled “Dealing with the Don.” It is about America’s new Godfather, aka Don Corleone, aka Donald Trump, and the blitzkrieg beginning of his second presidential term that is causing, what the editorial calls, “the rupture of the post-1945 order.” It may be that the post 1945 order has run its course and needs a radical overhaul. But not for the reasons that seem to be motivating President Trump, and certainly not for whatever endgame he has in his mercurial mind. More than anything, in his second term Trump is presiding over America’s implosion into chaos and its spillover onto the world at large. It is super power devolving into super chaos.

Whether or not the world order is interested in Sri Lanka, the island country is in a fortuitously good place while other countries and polities are caught up in one way or another in the global waves emanating from the American vortex. Being small as island countries go, to recall Bishop Lakshaman Wickremesinghe’s felicitous phrase, has its benefits. There was a time, in the 1970s, when Ernst Friedrich Schumacher visited Sri Lanka touting his new, and over time very popular, book, “Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered,” which included a chapter on “Buddhist Economics;” the island’s socialist intellectuals quietly laughed at him.

But the concept – small is beautiful – struck a chord in more ways and places than one. It strikes for Sri Lanka now quite meaningfully as people in bigger countries are struggling to make sense of Trump and to avoid being hit by debris from his erratic executive orders. Sri Lanka has had its ordeals – too severe and too many of them, in fact, for its size and endowments. Yet after a tumultuous overthrow of a government that had gone awry, the people have helped themselves to a new government that for all its innocence in governance is a perfect fit for a small country caught in the topsy turvy world of Donald Trump. For all its shortcomings, the NPP government has shown a remarkable restraint in the rhetoric of foreign policy, a temptation that almost none of its predecessors were able to resist. It is wise to be non-aligned without the rhetoric of non-alignment.

It could also be argued that there is nothing remarkable about showing restraint to Trump, because every government in the world is showing not merely restraint but are even faking deference to avoid the pain of whiplash Trump tariffs. It does not matter whether you are neighbours like Canada and Mexico, or if you are separated by oceans, like China and India. Europe is picked on with disdain. Africa is irrelevant and the Middle East could be managed with the Israeli military doing Washington’s bidding. Only Russia is spared, with inexplicable deference shown to Vladimir Putin. Only China has simply said that it is ready for any war, trade or any other, that Trump might be fancying.

White House or Fight House

The first leader of any other country not to fake deference to Trump and not fail to call out his Vice President, the insufferable JD Vance, is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. He paid the price for it by being bundled out of the White House last Friday. Taking turns to insult and humiliate their Ukrainian guest, the American President and Vice President accused Zelensky of being disrespectful and ungrateful to their country while also accusing him of showing a preference for the Biden Admisnistration. Contentious meetings using colourful language do take place between word leaders and their teams, but they are always behind closed doors and spicy details come out years later in retirement memoirs for historical amusement. What happened in Washington last Friday was unprecedented; but, true to form, Trump called it “good for TV” – the be-all and end-all of his persona.

As usual, Trump’s Republican loyalists have been praising their fearless leader and his VP for standing up for their country, as if America needs some standing up to the beleaguered leader of a battered country. Trump’s main pique against Zelensky was the latter’s first refusal to sign a ransom agreement bartering away in perpetuity Ukraine’s critical minerals for half a billion dollars without any assurance for Ukraine’s security. A modified agreement was then drafted and Zelinsky flew to Washington for its signing last Friday. But things went off script as Zelensky chose to speak his mind. A return visit is now being planned for next week, with Zelensky going to Washington accompanied by French President Macron and British Prime Minister Starmer to show respect to the Don.

The Economist sees a new hierarchy in a new world order that are in the making. Number one, apparently, is America. The second tier below belongs to countries with resource endowments and unaccountable leaders – Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia. And the third rung goes to the old West of Europe and erstwhile American allies and longstanding neighbours like Canada. The unmentioned are the rest even though India looms from the shadows, too populous to ignore.

Sri Lanka can stay where it is unseen and hopefully untouched by reciprocal tariffs. And the opposition can make noise for the recall of the current Ambassador from Colombo to Washington. That will eventually happen but not due to any local political noises. The UNHRC like all of UN might be in a quandary. But the Council is going through the motions in Geneva and the government is playing its part. The real answer to the proceedings in Geneva could and should come out of genuine changes at home. A systematic and retroactive crack down to eradicate the country’s criminal infrastructure, and nationally inspired political change whether it comes through Clean Sri Lanka or a New Constitution, or both.

Trump’s Achilles Heels

There is also a new hierarchy in the making within America, and that could ultimately prove to be the Achilles heel of the Trump presidency. The world can only watch and wait. At the top are President Trump and First Buddy Musk. The hegemon and the henchman. There are cracks yet between the two, but few checks are emerging. After weeks of nonstop savaging of the US institutions of government and foreign aid by Elon Musk and his handful of laptop storm troopers going by the name of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), there are signs of slowdown and rethinking. Not surprisingly.

Achieving efficiency in government is always a necessary and laudable goal. President Clinton eliminated about 400,000 jobs during his presidency, but that took several months of effort and selectivity spearheaded by Vice President Al Gore. Not some buddy like Musk. Musk’s method is to be random and reckless, and that has created chaos and the need to recall retrenched employees in essential services. A second reason for the slowdown is growing judicial restiveness towards Musk’s operations.

In a small but not insignificant setback to the Administration, the Supreme Cout by a 5-4 majority sided with a Federal District Judge who had ordered the Trump Administration to lift the funding freeze on USAID operations that Trump had imposed on his very first day in office. The judge’s order was for the government to pay for projects and contractors whose work had been completed, and payment approved, before Trump assumed office.

The constitutional question as to whether Trump has the authority to override laws and disband institutions like the USAID, just on an executive whim, is still being battled in lower federal courts. The Trump team’s expectation is to let the cases go to the Supreme Court and ultimately get a favourable verdict from highest court with its 6-3 conservative majority.

The setback this week was on an appeal that Trump rushed to have the Supreme Court stop the lower court order to make payment for completed work some of which involved humanitarian relief operations. Delayed payments and non-payment to subcontractors has been Trump’s modus operandi in his real estate business. Musk did that with employees at Twitter before he turned it into X. They were extending their method to government’s contractual payments.

The case drew attention with Oxfam that gets no money from USAID, joining other agency plaintiffs against the government cuts. A remarkable nugget about the case is the District Judge who ordered the government to pay for completed work. His name is Amir Ali, a 40 year old Arab-Canadian-American. Born in Kingston, Canada, he completed a degree in Software Engineering at the University of Waterloo, and went on to do Law at Harvard. He made a quick name as a civil rights and constitutional lawyer, winning over half dozen cases he argued before the Supreme Court, and winning over even conservative judges.

Obviously, Ali and other judges who are ruling against Trump have got their detractors and their share of threats. That reportedly includes a reportedly racist taunt by Musk that Ali should be doing software engineering instead of helping non-existent NGOs receiving government payments. That is America. There is room for Amir Ali just as there is room for Elon Musk. Who prevails depends on the day of the week. Literally, for as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, when asked by a reporter about his handling his battles with Trump over tariffs, “It’s Thursday!”

Tariffs are another area where Trump is mercurially insistent but is being forced to reverse course from one day to another. He arbitrarily imposed a flat 25% tariffs on all imports from Canada and Mexico, in addition to further taxes on steel and aluminum imports. All in clear violation of the free trade agreement between the three countries, which Trump renegotiated and signed on during his first term.

Prime Minister Trudeau called Trump’s tariffs a trade war that is aimed to cripple the Canadian economy and ultimately achieve the annexation of Canada as the 51st state of America. Trump has been obsessively musing about annexing Canada ever since he started his second term, in addition to his musings over Gaza, Greenland and the Panama Canal. But the annexation talk has riled up Canadians across the political spectrum and at every social level.

The federal and provincial governments in Canada are all on board for retaliatory tariffs against American goods until Trump removes the tariff threat altogether. And the Canadian public is gung ho about boycotting American goods and ceasing travel to America as tourists. The Trump Administration may not have quite expected the Canadian backlash, which comes on top of market turbulence and investor panic within America. The upshot has been almost daily announcement of tariffs and their withdrawals the next day – with a face saving pause until a future date.

There is no one actually in support of tariffs, in America or anywhere, except Trump himself. His cabinet of lackeys have no backbone to tell him what they really think about the idea, and so they are left to soften the blow by securing postponements from the Don. April 2 is the next date to watch for universally reciprocal tariffs that Trump has so far threatened to impose against all countries. Sri Lanka will have to be watchful, but there is still too much time left for Trump to change his mind multiple times. There is no point on betting on what he is going to do next. It is better to enjoy being small and not caught in the crossfire.

(Excerpted from Rendering Unto Caesar, by Bradman Weerakoon)

In April 1971, there occurred the JVP insurrection which assumed significant proportions in the Ampara district. Rohana Wijeweera, the leader of the JVP at the time, had been arrested in Ampara, at the bus-stand a few months earlier and was in remand in far-away Jaffna. However, the cells he had initiated in the district schools, specially those with selected teachers and some of the best of the senior students continued to thrive — in Ampara those following science subjects were very active specially in the predominantly Sinhala areas.

On the night of April 4, 1971, the police station at Uhana — five miles away from where we lived — was attacked by a band of JVP militants. Shooting and grenade throwing had continued on both sides for or about two hours and some policemen suffered injuries. One JVP cadre had been killed and the police had seen others who were injured being carried away by the raiding party. As soon as the news was conveyed to me at daybreak, I motored up to Uhana and had my first sight of a dead militant.

He was a strong, strapping lad of about 20 years, dressed in a dark blue uniform. His body was still lying on the lawn of the police station grounds awaiting the post mortem. It had not been moved, and the weapon – a .303 rifle was lying by his side. His Che Guvera blue cap had fallen off and blood from the bullet hole in his forehead stained his face. I would never forget my first sight of the encounter of young militant against the state.

The police reacted very effectively in raiding the JVP hideouts in the jungles and I saw a group of captured students and a science teacher at the Maha Vidyalaya in Ampara being brought into the kachcheri cowering in the police jeep. The ‘boys’ had been camping out in the forest for a few days and appeared very dispirited and downcast having been badly assaulted.

Down towards the bottom of the district on the Moneragala border, a local JVP leader had set himself up as ‘Siyambalanduwa Castro’. His forte was the hijacking of government lorries laden with produce from the Eastern province bound for Badulla. Bags of rice and coconuts from Akkaraipattu were the main items of his brigandry. Soon, I had one of the cooperative department lorry drivers producing to me an official-looking receipt duly signed and sealed by ‘Castro’ which declared that the JVP had taken the twenty bags of rice being carried in lorry number such and such. It stated that the bags had been requisitioned at a time of emergency and acute food shortage for distribution to the poor. The driver should not be held responsible for any loss.

I gave the benefit of doubt to the lorry driver and absolved him from causing any loss to the state. I kept Castro’s receipt with me for a while as a memento of those stirring days of the beginning of the movement for the liberation of the poor of Uva.

The counter-action against the JVP uprising was intensive for the first month or so. Then in the month of May, there came an amnesty in which many thousands of young men and women surrendered. They were incarcerated, several, for quite some time. Many stories were later circulated about the number of young persons killed and the methods used by the military and the police in extracting information. My office and home became a place where anxious parents came to relate their tales of woe.

One morning, I was awakened by the sounds of heavy sobbing outside my gate. It was Jayawickrema of Uhana, whose house was a few yards away from the police station that had been attacked. He said his young son, Mihira, aged 23 had been taken in for questioning by the police and had been assaulted throughout the night. Jayawickrema had gone to the station and spoken to Weerasena, the OIC, who he knew well, but the OIC had denied that Mihira was taken in.

Later Jayawickrema found out that his son and three other boys had been taken away in a van to Batticaloa. I had the story inquired into and found that young Jayawickrema had indeed been taken in, beaten up badly and taken to the Batticaloa Hospital. On the way he had succumbed to his severe injuries. He had thereafter, been cremated in the Batticaloa cemetery. Old Jayawickrema was completely devastated and consoling him proved exceedingly difficult. He remained a constant friend until he passed away a few years ago.

Other stories also began to come from the colonies about police brutality. One that was particularly haunting was that of a group of youngsters from the 26 Colony shot in the presence of others as an example of what would be the fate of those who rebelled against the state. One of the mothers, whom we also began to know quite well, lost her mind on the death of her two sons and spent most of her time thereafter around the Buddangala Arannya where we used to meet her.

Once those who had surrendered came in, I was asked to find accommodation for about a thousand of them in Ampara. The only available site I had was the Malwatte Farm which was five miles away on the road to Samanthurai. I had earlier denuded the farm of all its goats and poultry, having to cater to the insatiable demands of the police for meat, when supplies stopped coming in from outside.

I sought authority from no one for my actions in dealing with an emergency but was certain I could adequately explain this to the government audit, if ever that were to arise. I remembered that Sir Oliver Goonetillake, when he was the Civil Defence Commissioner in war time, had done all manner of similar things and had had apparently 999 audit queries against him. I thought that if he could get away with it and yet go on to become governor-general, what had I to worry about?

We turned Malwatte Farm into a really effective rehabilitation center. Of course, the camp was heavily guarded and encircled with barbed wire and sentry points and looked like something out of an album of a prison camp in World War 11. But I was determined to make the inmates feel that they were to be rehabilitated and not imprisoned. I got them gifts of sports equipment and books from the local Rotary Club and some reconditioned two-wheel tractors from the department of agriculture which, along with the farm equipment, the boys began to use for their work on the farm. I used to drop by as often as I could to chat with them along with Esala, my 10-year-old son who became quite a favourite with the `boys’ since he was, as they said, the GA’s son and not the ASP’S son.

One day the camp inmates approached me and inquired if they could have a monk to visit them preferably on a Poya Day as some of them wanted to observe ‘sil’. This, I thought was such a good idea, that I prevailed upon the Nayake Priest of the Ampara Temple to come along with me to the camp and give a sermon to the inmates. It was a wonderful occasion when on that full moon night of Poson, the camp took on a most peaceful appearance and the boys used their bed sheets sewn together as ‘pavada’ which they laid for the priest to walk on to the platform from which he delivered a very appropriate sermon.

The atmosphere and the faces of the devout young men were indescribable. During that whole year there was only one case of a break out, when one night, a group of four boys had tunneled their way under the barbed wire fence and got away under the noses of the sentries.

Ampara Gets a CO

After the initial shock of the attack on the Uhana police station had been withstood and the police had mobilized their own defences however inadequately, the government imposed a coordinating officer for the district. He was a young Lieutenant Commander, Fernando, of the Navy who wanted to make a big impression. He migrated to Australia soon after his Ampara assignment. The coordinating officer had his own methods of imposing his leadership over me.

He set himself up at the Kondawattuwan Circuit Bungalow and had it ringed round by several concentric circles of armed sentries. It was very impressive. Consequently, it was quite an effort even to pay a call on him. I was received with great formality and courtesy but made to undergo quite an ordeal entering his fortress. My official driver, poor Weerasekera, was made to halt the car at least a 100 yards away from the entrance and wa1k.30 paces with his hands raised high above his head. It was only on his completely satisfying the sentries that he was indeed the driver of the GA that we were able to proceed inside. All this after informing them of my time of arrival in advance!

My own defence tactics were much more primitive. All I had were my faithful kachcheri staff officers: Piyadasa Liyanaarachi, U G Jayasinghe, Lakshman Perera, S B Niyangoda, A P Dainis, and the late Ananda Herath. They were duly mobilized and served with distinction as my personal bodyguards and doing night duty protecting the residency, smartly dressed in multi-coloured sarong and short-sleeved banian.

Damayanthi was persuaded to accommodate them, some on beds and some on camp cots, and feed us all for about three weeks at the residency. They provided great companionship and some much-needed good humour during a time of danger. Padmaseela de Silva — one of the braver ones — volunteered to act as the outdoor watchman choosing as a look-out point the hood of the balcony, which was, as he himself made out, both safe and from where he could not be seen. Everything went well for a couple of nights until Dainis going out for a ‘call of nature’ early one morning heard sounds of loud snoring. He discovered it came from Padmaseela, fast asleep and with his ancient 12 bore shot-gun, recently borrowed from the kachcheri, lying snugly by his side.

(Excerpted from Memories of 33 year in Parliament by Nihal Seneviratne)

I have had over 30 years service in Parliament, but I was not regarded as a public servant, because the Constitution exempts the Secretary General and his staff from being average public servants. In that sense I had a safeguard because I knew if I were to be removed from office, neither the President, nor the Prime Minister, could remove me because the Constitution safeguarded my position. It is only by a Resolution of Parliament that I could be removed from office, a privilege also given to the Elections Commissioner, Auditor General and a select few.

In my 30 years service there have been numerous instances where I’ve held opposing views to those of Members of Parliament (MPs). As far as the public were concerned, they had no opportunity to speak to me at all, except may be on the phone. I would always take a call. But with 225 MPs holding different political views and variations, there were many instances where I had to deal with them, but I have always prided myself as a person who doesn’t lose his temper.

Whenever an MP came to my room, the first thing I would do was to ask him or her to take a seat and then listen very carefully to their point of view and then I give my point of view which was more or less an official viewpoint either on matters relating to parliamentary procedures, the administration of the House, matters connected to the MP’s hostel or the administration of General’s House (MPs holiday home) in Nuwara-Eliya. The administration of these places came under us. One thing I learnt as a parliamentary officer is to expect the unexpected but there are events catching you by surprise even if you have been on the job for years.

Unexpected visitor of Christmas day

On Christmas day 1984 I was relaxing at home. Parliament was in recess after the year end Budget had concluded and there was a gap of two weeks or so for sittings to commence in the New Year. But my day of rest and relaxation turned out to be rather memorable when I had an unexpected visitor, none other than Industries Minister Cyril Mathew of the JRJ government. There were rumours of him falling from grace with the all-powerful executive President who was known to have with him the undated letters of resignation of all his MPs.

I was taken aback to see him, accompanied by a lawyer, at my door. He believed that President Jayewardene had sent his undated letter of resignation to Parliament and insisted that I give him a letter saying that he had requested me not to accept his letter of resignation if it was ever sent to me. I politely invited him in and asked him to have a piece of Christmas cake and to come to my office and we could discuss the matter the next day. He refused my request and said, “I am not leaving your house until you give me a letter saying you have accepted my letter asking you to disregard this letter of resignation.”

It was a holiday and there was no way for me to consult the Attorney General or anyone else for advice and he was refusing to leave the house, so I had to give a letter saying I acknowledge the letter that was given by him. Subsequently he was removed from his ministerial portfolio, and I had to allocate him a back bench seat in the Chamber. I felt uneasy to do this, but I had no choice.

Meal for an MP at 2 a.m.

One day I had a call from Sravasti, the MP’s Hostel which was also administered by Parliament, at 2 a.m. An MP had come at the time and was demanding dinner and they had rung me to ask what they should do. I told the staff to provide the MP with a meal that they could prepare at that time. A few days later the MP in question came to see me. He said that he had been served a meal prepared with canned fish and had been charged Rs. 75 which was the cost for the whole tin when all he had eaten was a piece or two. I had to politely tell him that if the can had been opened to prepare a meal for him, he would have to pay for the full tin. The MP left my room, though not very happy.

MP wanted his wife and son to stay with him at Sravasti

Similarly, an MP who was staying in the hostel one day approached me and told me that he wanted to have his wife and son staying with him at Sravasti. I explained to him that this was not possible as Sravasti was strictly for MPs only. ‘The MP insisted saying he was from the Central Province, and he needed a place in Colombo from where his son could go to school. However, I had to be firm and explain to him that the rules did not permit families to stay in the hostel.

Dr. Colvin agrees to disagree

There was another occasion when Dr Colvin R. de Silva came to my room and said “Seneviratne, I know you have advised the Speaker about a ruling that he has given but we disagree with it.” I can’t remember the actual incident, but then I explained to him that these are the conventions, the procedures, that we followed and we had studied the pros and cons very carefully, before advising the Speaker. He understood my point of view and ended the matter by saying, “Seneviratne, I don’t quite agree but the ruling has been given and we accept it.” That was the gentleman Dr. Colvin R de Silva was.

MPs who make irregular requests

Then there was a Tamil MP from Nuwara-Eliya who had gone to see President D.B.Wijetunga and wanted a telephone connection to an annex of a house which was five miles away from his residence. The President himself rang me and asked me to see if the connection could be given but I told him that as the place he wanted the new telephone connection was some distance away from his residence, they would need to install a new telephone line, and this is not permissible as the MP did not live there.

The rule is that if you’re living in a house and if you want the telephone there I could authorize it but in this case the request was to fix the phone five miles away from where he lived. The MP met me explaining that he had met President D.B. Wijetunga about the matter. I told him that I had explained to the President the regulation regarding this. He accepted it and I said I regretted I could not help him. Disappointed, he left my office.

Then there was one MP who came to me after he got to know I was buying six buses for the Parliament staff. He told me we should buy some of the buses from his company. I flatly refused. I explained to him that an expert committee of engineers conversant with buses was appointed by me and I would only act on their decision. I told him if I reported him to the Speaker that he is having such a transaction as an MP, he could lose his seat.

Similarly, there was a day when I stayed overnight in my room in parliament because of threats I received warning me not to come to parliament. Thinking there could me a move to prevent me from getting to Parliament the next morning which was a crucial day, and my presence was imperative for the functioning of the House, I remained in the building overnight.

Thankfully, one thing I never did during my years of service was lose my temper. At times you are made to feel that you are subservient to the MPs in the sense they are elected representatives. Once they come to Parliament they feel that they are all powerful and they can have their own way. So up to a point we try to accommodate them, but we cannot break the rules. I maintained this position throughout my tenure of Parliamentary service.

Mock session of the House

One of the most extraordinary scenes witnessed in the chamber of the old House of Representatives by the sea was the staging of a mock session of Parliament and the summoning of the Police on duty to remove a Member of the House. On April 6, 1955, Speaker Sir Albert Peiris suspended the sittings of the House and left the chamber ordering the sergeant-at-arms to have MP Somaweera Chandrasiri (Kesbewa) removed from the chamber.

At this stage, Dr. W Dahanayake (Galle) proposed that Mr. Edmund Samarakkody (Dehiowita) take the Chair. Mr. D.B.R. Gunawardane (Kotte) seconded the motion. Mr. Samarakkody then took the Chair and called upon Mr. Chandrasiri, who earlier had been suspended, to continue his speech. Mr. Chandrasiri started to speak. This mock session of parliament continued until the sergeant-at-arms entered the chamber accompanied by the police and removed Mr. Chandrasiri.

Arising from the motion of the Members, the Attorney General made an application to the Supreme Court under Section 25 of Parliament (Powers and Privileges) Act that Mr. Dahanayake and Mr. Samarakkody be called upon to show cause why they should not be punished for offenses of breach of privileges of Parliament. The case was eventually heard before Justice H.N.G. Fernando who held: “Assuming an intention on the part of the respondents to be disgraceful, their conduct being included within the scope of Section 3 and 4 of the Act, cannot be questioned or impeached in proceedings taken in this court under Section 23 of the Act. The jurisdiction to take cognizance of such conduct was exclusively vested in the House of Representatives. The respondents are accordingly discharged from the notice served on them.”

Drama within the chamber

The Parliament Chamber has been the scene of many dramatic events as when steel-helmeted, baton-wielding policemen entered the chamber on the night of 12 February ,1959, on the orders of Mr. Speaker and physically carried out Dr. N.M. Perera, the Leader of the Opposition and 11 other Members of Parliament. This was one of the stormiest episodes in the history of the Ceylon Parliament. The removal of Dr. Perera and the other Members was the sequel to their defiance of the Speaker’s ruling that he accepted a closure motion on a debate on the Public Security (Amendment) Bill.

When Dr. N.M. Perera was to be removed, the other Members of the LSSP threw a cordon around him and tried to prevent the police from carrying Dr. Perera. After the Police had broken through the cordon and lifted Dr. Perera to be carried him, the LSSP Members clung on to him singing the Internationale, the left-wing anthem. While Dr. Perera was being carried, bedlam broke out in the galleries and they had to be promptly cleared.

Mr. Robert Gunawardene, after he was named, stood on his chair, and addressed the House. Later, he mounted the desk and continued to speak. At this stage, the Police entered the Chamber to remove Mr. Gunawardene. While he was being carried out, he shouted, “do not squeeze”, “do not squeeze” which prompted the Prime Minister, Mr. S.WR.D. Bandaranaike to say, “gently, gently.” That day, except for Mrs. Vivienne Goonawardene who, if I recall correctly, tied her sari pota firmly to her seat, every other Member of the LSSP was bodily removed from the Chamber.

Religious observances which were never associated with the work of Parliament once became the subject of a breach of privilege. Rev. Henpitagedera Gnanaseeha Thero, in the course of a sermon delivered after the alms-giving in memory of Mr. S.WR.D. Bandaranaike in the Parliament building on 26 September, 1962, said demons and evil spirits (yakkas, prethas and kumbandas) who had taken possession of some of our Parliamentarians have now left them in view of this dana and pinkama.

The next day, Mr. Dahanayake drew the attention of Speaker R.S. Pelpola to the sermon as reported in the “Ceylon Daily News”. He said that the sermon was a gross breach of privilege of the House and asked the Speaker to take suitable action. At the next meeting of the House held on November 6, Mr. Speaker read a letter he had received from the venerable monk expressing his regret and said that in view of the readiness with which the monk had expressed his sincere regret, it would suit the dignity of the House to accept the apology.

On 22 November, 1962, when Mr. K.M.P. Rajaratna (Welimada) defied the Chair and Mr. Speaker named him and asked him to leave the Chamber, he refused to comply. The speaker ordered the sergeant-at-arms to remove Mr. Rajaratna and suspended the sittings. The police were summoned into the chamber. For more than two hours, the guardians of the law grappled with the lawmakers who were out to prevent Mr. Rajaratna from being carried out. In this confusion, Mr. Lakshman Rajapaksa (Hambantota) removed the Mace from the Table and walked away. The Sergeant-at-Arms however took the Mace from Mr. Rajapaksa and placed it on the Table. Finally, when the police broke through the cordon and carried Mr. Rajaratna out of the House, the Members with the public in the galleries joining, began to sing, “He is a jolly good fellow”.

Some witty sayings of parliamentarians

Reretably, the witty sayings I have heard of and experienced in my tenure have been few, especially during my latter years. We hear several of these in the British House of Commons, many attributed to Winston Churchill. But I feel I should try and recollect a few for the future in our own land.

Immediately coming into mind is a sharp remark by Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake. He made a wisecrack on his close friend Maithripala Senanayake, Member of Medawachchiya. It was very well known at that time that he was courting a well known young Tamil lady journalist he later married. This lady had even visited my room in Parliament looking for Maithripala. Mr. Senanayake’s comment was as follows: “I appreciate the Member for Medawachchiya and his habits. He firmly believes in Sinhala only by day and the reasonable use of Tamil at night.” The House burst into spontaneous laughter.

Yet another I recall and believe is attributed to Edmund Samarakkody, Member for Ruwanwella. Being very perturbed at the conduct of fellow Members in the House he remarked in the chamber, “Hon. Speaker, I wish to say that half of this Assembly are idiots.” There was a big uproar and a Member stood up and complained to the Chair that he was insulting the Members of the august Assembly and deanded that he withdraw that statement. Mr. Samarakkody promptly got up and addressing the Chair said, “Hon. Speaker I withdraw that remark in deference to my colleagues. Half the Members of this Assembly are not idiots” Indeed a sharp and witty reply.

Another which comes to mind is the sharp comeback from my dear friend Sarath Muttetuwegama, Member for Kalawana. He was seated patiently in the chamber one day listening to Mr. Attanayake, Deputy Minister of Education at that time who continued to harangue Mr. Muttetuwegama saying “Hon. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Kalawana, if he ever speaks in this chamber, only talks of Marx, Marx and Marx. Isn’t he capable of talking about someone else?” Sarath Muttetuwegama was soon on his feet saying, “Hon Speaker, I do not know for what reason the president gave him this portfolio of education. To the Hon. Member, Karl Marx, Groucho Marx, and the marks given by a teacher in the class all mean the same thing. So please sit down and be silent.” Sheepishly Mr. Attanayake sank in his seat amidst a lot of laughter amongst the Members.

There was much speculation and mischievous gossip about the relationship between the two UNP leaders of the time viz. Dudley Senananayake and J.R. Jayewardene and a possible split between them. Stanley Tilakaratne, short in stature was an inveterate heckler and he queried Dudley Senanayake about a possible split. Dudley Senanayake was on his feet and retorted sharply, “As for splits the Hon. Member for Kotte has an advantage over me he sees them at eye level.”

Bernard Aluvihare the erudite lawyer from Matale crossed over from the SLFP to join the UNP before the 1956 Elections which the SLFP won with a substantial majority. Pieter Keuneman known for his sharp wit commented: “Rats normally jump out of a sinking ship, but this is the first rat jumping into one.”