A ringside view of governance – Memoirs of BP Peiris, Ceylon’s first full-time cabinet secretary

by Nihal Jayawickrama

From the best possible vantage point, Bernard Percival Peiris was a witness to the unfolding of history. In 1947, with the entering into force of the new Constitution under which Ceylon achieved self-government, he was instructed by Prime Minister D.S. Senanayake to take charge of the Cabinet Office as its Assistant Secretary.

In 1954, he succeeded the Secretary to the Treasury as the first full-time Secretary to the Cabinet. In the Cabinet Office, he served through the administrations of six Prime Ministers — D.S. Senanayake, Dudley Senanayake, Sir John Kotelawala, S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, W. Dahanayake, and Sirimavo Bandaranaike. For 16 years, he attended every Cabinet meeting, and was privy to the processes that led to every significant political decision of the time.

He was relied upon by successive Prime Ministers with opposing political agendas to draft the Speech from the Throne whenever a new session of Parliament was due to open. He observed their different styles of governance and the political strategies which they employed to outmaneuver their political opponents. He recounts many of these, while debunking some of the more publicized political myths of the time.

No other Sri Lankan served for so long, and so many governments of conflicting political ideologies, in that most sensitive nerve centre, the cutting edge of decision-making. No one is likely to do so in the future since that critical office has now been politicized.

Few are aware that B. P. Peiris was also one of the principal actors in the dramatic events of that period. When the British Government refused to undertake the drafting of a Constitution in the midst of World War II, the 37-year old Assistant Legal Draftsman was chosen by D.S. Senanayake, then Vice-Chairman of the Board of Ministers, to draft the Constitution that would lead to the grant of independence to Ceylon.

He was gazetted as an assistant to the Legal Secretary, confined to his home in Panadura, and warned by Senanayake that if his assignment leaked out in any form or shape he would be “hanged by the neck”. Keeping strictly within the “documents in the case” – the Ministers’ Draft, the Report of the Soulbury Commission, and the White Paper embodying the decisions of the British Government, B.P. Peiris produced the Ceylon (Constitution) Order in Council 1946.

When the draft was completed, he borrowed a typewriter and typed. 52 pages of foolscap, using one finger of each hand to do so. When Legal Secretary Nihill took the draft to Whitehall for vetting, few corrections were made.

The 1946 Constitution which B. P. Peiris drafted was the best that Sri Lanka has yet had. It was the model which the British Government used (with the added value of a Bill of Rights which Sir Ivor Jennings had unwisely persuaded the Ceylonese leaders not to include) when it began dismantling its far-flung colonial empire.

It had no ideological basis, and professed no economic or social objectives. It was only concerned with establishing the essential framework for democratic governance. It did so by creating the principal institutions and defining their powers – a constitutional head of state; a parliament comprising two chambers; a cabinet of ministers headed by a prime minister charged with the general direction and control of government and collectively responsible to parliament; permanent secretaries charged with exercising supervision over the departments of government subject to the general direction and control of the relevant ministers; security of tenure for judges of the Supreme Court; a judicial service commission and a public service commission; the consolidated fund, a contingencies fund, and an auditor-general. It was described by one commentator as having “had entrenched in it all the protective provisions for minorities that the wit of man could devise”.

Under the 1946 Constitution it was possible for both right-wing and left-of-centre political parties to be elected to office, and for them to implement their respective programs unhindered. It was possible for both free market and regulated economies to be practised. The parliamentary executive system of. government it provided was strong enough to withstand a military coup d’etat in 1962 and a youth insurrection in 1971.

It was also flexible enough for a government that had lost its popularity to be removed either by a parliamentary vote of no-confidence or through defeat at a general election. The separation of powers was an inherent feature of that Constitution, and judges exercised the power of judicial review of both legislative and executive action. Under this Constitution, the people of Sri Lanka enjoyed a quarter century of relative tranquility, stable government and, generally, respect for individual rights and freedoms.

B.P. Peiris’ eye-witness account of the governance of Ceylon in the first 16 years of its independent existence is unique and has never been related before. His narrative commences at a time when politicians, civil servants and judges attempted to replicate the best features of British democracy in a colony which was described as “the jewel in the British Crown”.

These were halcyon years when Ceylon had the highest per capita income in Asia. Its sterling reserves were high, and its registered unemployed was low. It had one of the smallest military budgets and one of the most extensive social welfare programs covering free education, a free mid-day meal for schoolchildren, free medical facilities, free milk for expectant mothers and growing children, and subsidized prices for rice and flour.

A long familiarity with the application of English common law concepts, constitutionalism, experience of political and social organization and agitation, a remarkably high standard of literacy, a vibrant middle class, a principled national press, and a spiritual commitment to the dignity and worth of the human person, were characteristics that were strikingly evident at the time. His narrative ends with the first stirrings of ethnic tension and the beginnings of the erosion of professionalism and constitutionalism.

Percy Peiris’ memoirs are also a record of the life and times of a versatile, privileged young man growing up in the early decades of the twentieth century in colonial urban society. From his schooldays at Royal College, Colombo, to life as an undergraduate in London and dinners in the Inns of Court; from a relatively brief encounter among the giants of Hultsdorp to 11 years as a law draftsman giving legal form to the sometimes incoherent thoughts of politicians, his memoirs are an invaluable substantial slice of the social and political history of Ceylon.

This accomplished pianist does not fail to recall the lighter moments of his life, such as the musical club the teenager formed with his brothers and sisters; the controversial sowing and reaping dance which the Cabinet Secretary learned from his daughter and then performed on a table-top in the presence of six hundred old Royalists at the Royal-Thomian match-night stag dinner at a time when he was doubling-up as the Secretary to the Prohibition Commission; and the naughty French song which the newly honoured Officer of the British Empire (OBE) crooned to his Prime Minister Sir John Kotelawala at his “honours” party at home.

B.P. Peries completed writing his memoirs in 1967, four years into his retirement. After his death in 1977, the manuscript remained with his daughter Kamala (Binkie) for the next 28 years, until it was retrieved and read by Professor Laksiri Jayasuriya who immediately recognized its historical and social value and insisted that it be published. The computerized text was edited for typographical errors by Rohan Pethiyagoda, the personalities in the accompanying photographs were identified by Nihal Seneviratne, and the original manuscript has now been reproduced with editorial amendments by Siri Almeida of Sarasavi Publishers.

Percy Peries and I belonged to the same generation, his mother and my father being cousins. But we were separated in age by nearly 30 years, his contemporaries in that era of large families and spacious homes being his mother’s brother D.S. Jayawickrama Q.C., and my mother’s brother T.S. Fernando Q.C.

I consider it a privilege to have been invited, despite this confusing generational gap, to write the preface to this unique and original contribution to knowledge of the social, political, cultural and constitutional history of twentieth century Ceylon.