Features
POWER POLITICS
CHAPTER 14
(Excerpted from N.U. JAYAWARDENA The first five decades)
Politics and Kinship
NU, who was an outsider in caste and class terms, had succeeded inreaching one of the highest positions in the country during a turbulent chapter of Sri Lankan politics. However, he would become unwittingly embroiled in the internecine rivalries within the United National Party (UNP) and face a crisis which would completely alter the course of his life. The central focus of his life was his work, and he remained somewhat oblivious to the pitfalls of political infighting.
His fate, however, was to be linked to a chain of political events that took place in the 1950s, beginning with the death of Sri Lanka’s first Prime Minister, D.S. Senanayake, and eventually culminating in the overwhelming defeat of the UNP and the landslide victory of the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (MEP) coalition headed by S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike in 1956.
The UNP had dominated the political scene from 1947, when they won 42 seats in the first General Election of independent Sri Lanka. The key personalities of the UNP at that time were D.S. Senanayake, his son Dudley, R.G. Senanayake, J.R. Jayewardene, John (Lionel) Kotelawala, Oliver Goonetilleke, and S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike. The latter left the UNP and crossed over to the Opposition in order to build up a political base in 1951, when it became apparent to him that D.S. Senanayake was grooming his family member John Kotelawala as his successor.
(According to Wriggins: “it was generally understood that Mr. Bandaranaike, as leader of the second largest component of the U.N.P., would succeed D.S. Senanayake who was expected to step down from the party leadership… But Mr. Senanayake did not step down. It became clear as time went on that Mr. Senanayake was not sure that his post should be reserved for Mr. Bandaranaike. On the contrary, it became evident that he was grooming his nephew Major John Kotelawala, for the post instead. These maneuvers were explicable as part of a long-standing family competition between the Senanayake and Bandaranaike family clans.” (Wriggins, 1960, p.110)
In this early phase of post-independence party politics, the leadership of the UNP devolved largely around kinship, so much so that it was jokingly referred to as the “Uncle-Nephew Party.”( According to Wriggins, “a wag has said it was neither ‘united’ nor ‘national’ nor a ‘party’, but rather a precarious association of Sinhalese relations” (Wriggins, 1960, p.106).
Working with Uncles and Nephews
D.S. Senanayake, Dudley Senanayake, John (Lionel) Kotelawala and J.R. Jayewardene – who would each in turn become prime minister – were all part of an extended family linked by blood or marriage to three sisters, the Attygalle heiresses, who were daughters of Mudaliyar D.C.G. Attygalle (1834-1901) and Petronella Abeykoon. Attygalle was a self-made man whose wealth derived from graphite mines, land and liquor renting; and his daughters received substantial dowries, which included graphite mines and large extents of land. The eldest daughter Alice married John Kotelawala (Sr.), a police inspector. Their eldest son was John Lionel Kotelawala.
The second daughter Lena married J.R. Jayewardene’s father’s brother, Col. T.G. Jayewardene. The youngest Ellen married D.S. Senanayake’s brother, F.R. Senanayake, a leading member of the Ceylon National Congress who died young; their son was R.G. Senanayake. The Attygalle marriage ‘cartel’ included other influential families such as the Wijewardenes and Coreas. J.R. Jayewardene’s mother’s brother was D.R. Wijewardene, owner of the Lake House newspaper group; John Kotelawala (Jr.)’s “right-hand man,” Esmond Wickremasinghe, married D.R. Wijewardene’s daughter (their son is Ranil Wickremesinghe). (Kotelawala Jr.’s nephew, Gamani Corea has drawn
an analogy between the three sisters and the wellknown Soong sisters – Ching-ling, Mei-ling and Ai-ling – who married three key figures of modern China: Sun Yat-sen, founder of the Chinese Republic; Chiang Kai-shek, the Guomindang (Kuomintang) leader; and H.H. Kung, chief financier and one-time finance minister of the Guomindang government.)
Tussle for Leadership
In March 1952, Prime Minister D.S. Senanayake died, after a fall
from his horse on Galle Face Green. (4. D.S. Senanayake had suffered a massive stroke while riding, which had caused the fall; it was not a riding accident, as was generally believed by the public (de Silva & Wriggins, 1988, p.255). Senanayake, as senior leader of the party and Prime Minister, had held the party together while he was alive. But with his sudden demise, the crucial issue of succession arose and the tussle for the premiership among the leading contenders began in earnest. J.L. Fernando, a well-known political commentator of the time, party insider and confidant to both D.S. Senanayake and Kotelawala, wrote that he: knew that there was conflict festering within the government party while D.S. Senanayake’s body lay in state at Temple Trees. In numbers there were more behind the demand that Dudley Senanayake should succeed his father in office. On the other hand I was personally aware that several government party men had given assurances to Sir John that they would support his claims. (Fernando, 1963, p.43)
The appointment of D.S. Senanayake’s successor rested with the Governor-General, Lord Soulbury, who was out of the island. Sir Alan Rose, who was the acting Governor-General, informed the Cabinet Ministers that Lord Soulbury had stipulated that if anything happened to the Prime Minister in his absence, D.S.’s son Dudley Senanayake should form the government.( See de Silva & Wriggins, pp.250-54; Jeffries p.111; and Kotelawala, pp.77-80.)
There were many behind-the-scene discussions. Although the majority of the party supported Dudley for Prime Minister, Kotelawala, who had expected to be appointed as the successor, refused to accept this reality. He tried to prevail upon Lord Soulbury not to follow D.S.’s wishes, arguing that he himself, as Leader of the House of Representatives, should be the one summoned to form a government. In an angry letter addressed to Soulbury, which he reproduced in his memoirs, Kotelawala tellingly wrote:
That this obvious step was taken [not calling on Kotelawala to form the government] would appear to be due to some oral suggestion, which you had personally made before your departure on leave to the officer administering the government, in the course of which you appear to have informed him about certain indications which the late Prime Minister had given you about the question of his successor. The result is that a great campaign of political mischief has been set afoot during the past few days, which is likely to have grave repercussions not merely on the U.N.P., but on the entire country for which the blame will have to be placed in the appropriate quarters. (J.L. Fernando recounts how Esmond Wickremesinghe (Managing Director of the Editorial Section of Lake House) had called him “in a very agitated voice” to inform him that reports from the Intelligence Branch of the Police revealed that Kotelawala was “amassing his plumbago miners from the Kahatagaha Mines to march to Ratmalana aerodrome to stage a demonstration on the Governor-General’s arrival.”)
(Kotelawala, 1956, p.80, emphasis added)
In the end, Soulbury asked Dudley Senanayake to form the government. Kotelawala was furious and felt betrayed by his political colleagues. As he later wrote: “I decided to give up public life altogether and drive myself into the wilderness,” and “would even leave my country and not return to it for many years” (Kotelawala, 1956, p.81).
According to the journalist J.L. Fernando, cabinet meetings became a “nightmare” for Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake, as Kotelawala, “still a bitter man, sulked” and kept a “tight lip,” and was “even reported to be seated with averted face.” Moreover, R.G. Senanayake was “constantly embarrassing” his relation Dudley, by his “relentless political antagonisms towards J.R. Jayewardene” (Fernando, 1963, pp.53-54).
The Premier Stakes
During this time, a document entitled Premier Stakes came into private circulation, later appearing in serialized form in a weekly newssheet called Trine. Although published anonymously, Premier Stakes was widely accepted as being written by Kotelawala. ( . J.L. Fernando mentions that Kotelawala had given him a copy of the document autographed “To Egg Hopper” (which JL explains was Kotelawala’s code name for him); and how after the incident blew over, Fernando had ripped out the section of the document with the inscription and handed it to Kotelawala, to destroy “the only irrefutable evidence of the authorship of a document which had caused so much public excitement.
” He further relates how he later discovered that, “Sir John had visited Sir Oliver… and shown his old friend the scrap of paper he got from me and then tore it into shreds” (Fernando, 1963, p.61). The document was full of allegations, disparaging remarks, and accusations of betrayal against leading UNP members and Governor-General Lord Soulbury. According to Jeffries (1969, p.112), this pamphlet “aroused a political sensation and caused the Prime Minister to demand [Kotelawala’s] resignation from the cabinet.”
During the Premier Stakes episode, Kotelawala, still full of anger and resentment, left the country, stopping in New York on his way to a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association conference in Ottawa While in New York, he received a telegram from the Prime Minister demanding his letter of resignation, which led him to return to Sri Lanka (Kotelawala, 1956, p.84). Oliver Goonetilleke managed to iron out matters by arranging a reconciliation between Dudley and Kotelawala and working out a “face-saving compromise” (Fernando, 1963, p.59). Acting as an intermediary in various episodes of the drama, J.L. Fernando noted that:
My conviction, the result of my close contact with D.S. Senanayake and his men, that the proverb that blood is thicker than water [was] true in regard to the final outcome of their personal quarrels. (ibid, p.60) (Fernando, whom his superiors at Lake House had used as an emissary to intercede with Kotelawala (and it appears at times as a pawn), in several instances throughout the crisis, had not been happy about the meddling of the newspaper group, which at times appeared to instigate problems between Kotelawala and Dudley.
He recorded in his memoirs that, at the successful resolution of the event, he had written a note to Esmond Wickremesinghe (Managing Director of the editorial section of Lake House) summing up his feelings on the matter: Whether in family matters or in State matters those who by taking sides promote enmities among friends and relatives run grave risks. That to my mind is the moral of ‘L’affaire Kotelawala.’ In this particular affair peace between two friends and relatives meant peace and stability in our country for which Lake House must strive unless Lake House wishes to be destroyed (Fernando, 1963, p.62). His prediction did become true years later, when
Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s government nationalized Lake House in 1973.)
Although Kotelawala resumed his earlier position in the cabinet, his “resentment continued to simmer” (Jeffries, 1969, p.112). According to Wriggins, Kotelawala “did not appear to give wholehearted backing to the difficult decisions [Senanayake] had to make,” while “the supporters of the prime minister did not trust [Kotelawala’s] known ambitions, nor did they consider his political judgment entirely sound” (Wriggins, 1960, p.111).
Exchange Control Regulations
The incident that led to the event which was to cause much grief to NU and his family, occurred in the backdrop of these heightened tensions and emotions within the UNP as mentioned above.
By Kumari Jayawardena and Jennifer Moragoda ✍️
Politics in Sri Lanka are not merely the politics of democracy,
they arealso the politics of family.
(de Silva & Wriggins, 1994, p.3, writing about the 1950s)
(To be continued)
by Jehan Perera
The NPP government is going after powerful figures from the past and present who have engaged in corruption, fraud and criminal activity in a way that no previous government in Sri Lanka has done. Former ministers, politicians and senior state officials are among those facing investigations and legal proceedings. The government has placed before Parliament a document listing 50 cases involving corruption, fraud and other crimes. These include not only financial offences but also cases relating to the Easter Sunday attacks, the killings of Lasantha Wickrematunge and Wasim Thajudeen, the disappearance of Prageeth Ekneligoda and attacks on journalists Keith Noyahr and Upali Tennakoon.
The significance of this effort is that it can demonstrate that nobody is above the law, regardless of political connections or social standing, which will help restore public confidence in institutions that have long been distrusted. It could also recover public resources, improve the investment climate and strengthen the foundations for a more prosperous and just Sri Lanka. When criticised for focusing on the past and not the present, the government position is that these investigations were initiated under earlier governments, particularly between 2015 and 2019, and that it is now allowing investigators to proceed to deal with the backlog without political interference.
But there is an aspect of the government’s approach that is less justifiable. While pursuing past wrongdoing by powerful individuals, it is also advancing a triumvirate of draft laws that could give the state sweeping powers over citizens, organisations and dissent in the present and future. The draft Prevention of Terrorism legislation, the Prevention of Organised Crimes Bill and the NGO Registration and Supervision Bill raise serious questions about the over-centralisation of power. Each of these laws strengthens the powers of the state while weakening the rights and safeguards that protect people from their misuse and thus questions the basic rights of people in democracy where ‘the power of the people is vested in the government’. This is a recipe for future misrule rather than the rule of law. As the well-known saying goes, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Proposed Laws
The real test of system change, for which the government obtained an overwhelming mandate, requires not only a government willing to hold others accountable, but one prepared to subject itself to the same principles of legality, transparency and restraint. The three proposed laws that are particularly important in this regard are the Protection of the State from Terrorism Bill, the Prevention of Organised Crimes Bill and the NGO Registration and Supervision Bill. Each of these draft laws has been presented as serving a legitimate purpose. Preventing terrorism, combating organised crime and ensuring that NGOs do not facilitate money laundering or terrorist financing are proper responsibilities of the state. Sri Lanka has international obligations in these areas, and no responsible government can disregard them. However, the existence of a legitimate objective does not justify every means adopted to achieve it.
The proposed Protection of the State from Terrorism Bill illustrates the problem. Although its definition of terrorism draws on a model developed by a former United Nations Special Rapporteur, the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka has warned that the definition of terrorism extends beyond the model and could bring legitimate political protest, trade union action and civil disobedience within the scope of counter-terrorism legislation. Its concerns also include prolonged detention, inadequate judicial oversight and restrictions on access to legal counsel. These are objections that go to the heart of the relationship between the citizen and the state. The government cannot credibly promise to protect democratic freedoms while creating powers that could be used to restrict them. It is necessary for the government to reassess the draft through transparent consultation and revise provisions that could criminalise legitimate dissent.
The Prevention of Organised Crimes Bill raises similar concerns. It is presented as giving effect to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised Crime, which Sri Lanka ratified in 2006. The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) has argued that the convention does not require many of the bill’s provisions. The proposed law extends to a broad range of offences, permits detention orders lasting up to a year, makes confessions to police admissible for purposes of legal evidence, and introduces extensive surveillance powers. A law intended to dismantle criminal networks should not create a parallel system of exceptional powers that could be applied far beyond organised crime. Nor should safeguards developed through years of experience with abuses under the Prevention of Terrorism Act be weakened through legislation bearing a different name. The government should review whether or not existing laws could be used effectively to control these crimes or whether each exceptional power is necessary.
Civil Society
The proposed NGO Registration and Supervision Bill presents another test of the government’s intentions. The government may reasonably seek transparency in the finances of organisations receiving public or foreign funds, including measures to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing. It seeks to justify its overreach on the grounds of meeting the internationally mandated requirements of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) for the Asia-Pacific region. But these objectives do not justify placing civil society and NGOs under excessive administrative control when even the FATF ranks them as low to medium risks. The draft bill would require registration and renewal, impose extensive obligations on organisations and empower authorities to suspend or deregister them on broadly framed grounds. It is important to redraft provisions that confer excessive discretion over registration, renewal, suspension and deregistration of NGOs.
Among the concerns raised by United Nations human rights special rapporteurs with regard to the draft NGO law are provisions requiring organisations to align with government policies and restrictions that could affect advocacy, dissent and freedom of association. The implications extend well beyond organisations that engage directly with the government. Community groups, human rights organisations, independent researchers and organisations working on reconciliation or accountability could find their activities constrained by uncertainty over how these provisions might be interpreted. Organisations that criticise government policies are not thereby working against the country. Their freedom to do so is part of what distinguishes a democracy from a system in which the government determines which opinions and activities are acceptable.
The government has generated considerable public goodwill through its pursuit of corruption and criminality. It should not assume that this goodwill gives it an unlimited mandate to strengthen the coercive powers of the state. The NPP knows from its own history that governments can treat dissent as a threat and use the machinery of the state against their opponents. There is still time to correct the drafts through transparent public consultation, narrow definitions of offences, meaningful judicial control over detention and surveillance, and effective remedies against arbitrary decisions. A government that pursues corruption while weakening safeguards against state abuse risks undermining its own achievements. Besides bringing to light the abuse of power by previous governments, the NPP government needs to build a system in which no future government can abuse power in the belief they can get away with it.
By Ramya Kumar
According to the Quality Assurance Council (QAC) of the University Grants Commission (UGC), quality assurance (QA) refers to “the means (i.e. the policies, attitudes, actions, procedures, etc.), by which an institution can guarantee with confidence and certainty, that the standards and quality of its educational provision are being maintained and enhanced”.
An expansive structure has been in place since 2005 to govern and implement QA processes within the state university system. The QAC is the focal point at the UGC that implements external reviews of state universities and institutes. Each university has its own Centre for Quality Assurance (CQA) tasked with performing QA in line with QAC directives. Faculties, in turn, have Internal Quality Assurance Cells (IQAC) performing their own QA; they are answerable to the CQA.
The big question is whether this all-encompassing top-down QA system, that in many ways undermines the internal dynamics of university governance, actually supports universities to enhance the quality of education. This article highlights some concerns.
Top-down check-box activities
The QAC conducts external reviews of universities and degree programmes. A review team appointed by the UGC (who may or may not have experience in the institution/programme in question) examines the self-evaluation report submitted by the said institution/programme. The team then conducts a site visit to verify the claims made in the university’s self-evaluation report, clarify issues identified during the desk review, and examine how QA procedures operate in practice. The team holds meetings with the university administration, members of the Council and Senate, Deans, Heads of Departments, academic and non-academic staff, students, and others. Following the visit, a draft report is submitted to the relevant institution/programme for comment before final publication. The reviewed institution/programme then prepares and publishes an action plan addressing the recommendations, with subsequent monitoring of progress.
There are some worthy QA initiatives under implementation, such as improving facilities for students with disabilities and strengthening mechanisms to address sexual- and gender-based violence. However, for the most part, QA activities have little to do with improving the quality of education. They are mostly preoccupied with monitoring faculty and department websites, digital transformation, student feedback, subject evaluation, course evaluation, peer evaluation, and, more recently, staff appraisal. These activities, which consume an inordinate amount of time—so precious at understaffed universities—have become check-box activities completed to generate evidence for the next review. Below is an excerpt of a conversation between two academics (1 and 2) that conveys how QA plays out at universities (reproduced with permission).
1: … .it’s like social media you know, like posting things on Facebook or twitter or Instagram. When people do a lot of social media, everything they do, they do thinking, “okay I’m going to post it in this way… this I have to put on my Instagram.” QA is a little like that… everything is considered in light of, “ah we can use this for the review, as evidence… for example very recently we were encouraged to have all the things that we do in our department in the faculty newsletter so then they can put in the review. Every little thing has to be noted down….
2: And with pictures and all…
1: At the very least it has to be written so that you have written evidence .. you can’t be doing something for the sake of doing something or because it is good for the department … and sometimes people tell me “oh yea that’s a good idea we can fit that under this x, y section of the review..”
2: Yea, and nobody really thinks about the actual outcome… whether it’s actually helping anyone..
1: I also find that a lot of the words that we used in different ways have now been co-opted to the QA discourse ..including quality.. I can’t actually say what I want as an “outcome”, for example, that the outcome of this workshop is that my students “think about” … then I am told “ah but no that’s not one of the Bloom’s taxonomy words, “think about”.…
2: And the worst part is these medical and agriculture people, these types of people go around spreading it like some kind of gospel!
1: Yea, this cookie cutter way of doing things, they think is the height of innovativeness or creativity, when actually it is so mundane … for me the most awful thing about it is like some fungus of mundanity has taken over through QA reviews.
2: yea, when you say QA, my mind closes off immediately and I stop listening…
Auditing everything but power
QA leaves out crucial aspects of university governance. For instance, there is no review or assessment of the “quality” of university administrations under Criterion 1 or the integrity of procedures governing the promotion of academic staff under Criterion 6 of the institutional reviews.
The majority in the Council—the university’s executive and governing body, which is responsible for selecting the Vice-Chancellor (VC)—are appointed in ad hoc fashion. Apart from the Ex-Officio members in the Council (VC, Deans, etc.), and the two members elected by the Senate, the remainder are appointed by the UGC with no formal consultation or vetting procedure. The VC appointment process described in UGC Circular No. 03/2023 exemplifies how an ostensibly technical process can become entangled in political sycophancy. The Registrar invites applications for the position of VC through advertisement. Applicants must submit a curriculum vitae, a statement of vision for the university and supporting documents. The University Council appoints a three-member Search Committee of senior academics to encourage “eminent persons” to apply, while the UGC appoints a former VC from another university to “observe” the selection process.
A Special Meeting of the University Council is convened. Candidates are interviewed and must make a presentation to the Council Members, followed by questions. Each Council member “gives marks” for seven prescribed criteria: strategic focus (20%), effective leadership (20%), holistic thinking/conceptual skills (10%), academic and research excellence (15%), personal integrity (10%), professional communication (10%) and managerial competence (15%). Marks are averaged, and the Council recommends three candidates to the UGC in rank order. The UGC-appointed observer separately submits a confidential report on the selection process.
This procedure is expected to guarantee quality, but does it? Applications are submitted to the Council Members, who have been appointed on questionable bases, and who are expected to review the applications and give scores, based on objective assessments. But, in reality, most Council Members are manipulated by VC candidates, who often have personal ties with them. The UGC-appointed observer usually has no genuine interest in the outcome. And there is no way for anyone to actually question the Council’s decision once it is made. Although the highest-ranked candidate may ultimately be appointed, the selection remains a political decision made by the President, who retains the discretion to appoint any one of the three.
External reviews also do not look into the promotions of academic staff, except to scrutinise whether there are policies and procedures in place to govern promotion. Academic staff may apply for promotion to Professor once they satisfy the prescribed eligibility requirements, which typically include the period of service, academic qualifications, research and publication achievements, teaching experience, and contributions to the university and wider community. Applications are evaluated against specified criteria, with research output and academic contributions assessed through documentary evidence and expert evaluation. Under the UGC’s scheme for Professors, two experts from outside the applicant’s institution assess specified aspects of research and knowledge dissemination. Again, beneath this technical process, which is externally evaluated, lies a problematic points-based scheme that can be manipulated and abused with impunity.
Rethinking university QA
Like the VC election process and the schemes of promotion for academic staff, QA reviews are open to manipulation. Before a review, there is a chaotic rush to complete evidence gathering and reporting. Academics leave all other work aside, including at times their teaching, to focus on completing documentation and preparing reports. The standardised criteria in the review manuals and scoring sheets often do not reflect differences in disciplines and institutional contexts. But this does not really matter because any serious problems experienced by institutions or programmes are hastily brushed under the carpet to conceal any evidence that could taint the review. The goal is to obtain an A or at least a B grade at whatever cost.
QA may result in positive change if it moves beyond top-down check-box activities towards internally designed and owned processes encompassing all aspects of university governance, led by departments and faculties, and supported by adequate resources. The current QA system needs to be dismantled and replaced by procedures that are accountable, not to the UGC, but to our students and the communities we serve.
(Ramya Kumar is attached to the Department of Community and Family Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Jaffna)
. Kuppi is a politics and pedagogy happening on the margins of the lecture hall that parodies, subverts, and simultaneously reaffirms social hierarchies.
Yes, Down Memory Lane, the beloved Sing-Along concert series that first struck a chord, way back in 1997, returns for its landmark 20th edition this Saturday, 17th October, at the beautiful Bolgoda Grand Resort, Moratuwa town centre.
Having celebrated its glorious 25th anniversary with the show in 2023, this milestone 20th concert promises to be even more special.
The organisers, the ever-popular Moratuwa Arts Forum, are pulling out all the stops to present yet another unforgettable evening, brimming with camaraderie, fellowship, and pure nostalgia.
Get ready for two-and-a-half hours of non-stop singing as veteran vocalists, from the Moratuwa Arts Forum, will take the stage to lead and inspire the happy audience to sing, sing and sing to their hearts’ content.
The repertoire? Absolutely magical, according to the organisers.
Veteran Arun Dias Bandaranaike: Will handle the evening’s proceedings / Priya Peiris: Event Conceptor
Around 40 golden oldies — from timeless English vintage evergreens and hits from the 50s to the 90s, to toe-tapping calypsos, soulful American plantation melodies, rousing cowboy and Dixieland favourites, aa well as cherished Sinhala standards. All to be sung with much gusto!
This year’s dedicated organising committee comprises Brian Coorey (Chairman), Priya Peiris (Event Conceptor), Hiran Fernando, Suranga Fernando, Viranjan Perera, Hemka Fernando and Neelesh Silva. Guidance and support comes from Moratuwa Arts Forum President Sarana Guneratne and Secretary Chandani Silva.
Adding his signature charm to the evening, as Master of Ceremonies, will be the veteran Arun Dias Bandaranaike.
Don’t miss this landmark celebration of music and memories!
For further details, contact Hiran Fernando on 0772636446 or WhatsApp 0783636446.
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