The great escape

On 7 April 1942, four political prisoners escaped from Bogambara Prison

Ask modern Sri Lankans what 5 April signifies for them, and most will answer “the JVP uprising in 1971.” Not surprising, since the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna celebrates this event each year.

However, 5 April has greater significance for Sri Lankans than this. In 1956, the general election began on this day, resulting in the overthrow of the UNP regime of 1947, which had continued the colonialist policies of the British Empire. The new government began to put in place a new political, social and economic order, one more suited to a nation throwing off its colonial past.

Which takes us back to 1942. Sri Lanka remained a part of the British Empire, the mightiest ever seen hitherto. The country’s wealth flowed into the coffers of England, while its citizens remained immiserated, third-class citizens in their own country. But a change approached, from the East. On 8 December 1941, the Japanese invaded British Malaya. On 15 February, the myth of British invincibility lay broken as Singapore fell. My late father told me that the British in Sri Lanka went around “like whipped dogs”.

On 5 April, carrier-borne aeroplanes of the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked Colombo, causing severe damage to British military installations. The effects of the attack were electric. The British panicked, expecting further air raids (which happened) and an invasion (which did not). The British Eastern Fleet pulled back to East Africa. The population of Colombo decamped overnight. Chaos reigned. Two days later, on the night of 7 April, four socialist political prisoners escaped from Bogambara Prison.

The story of their escape really begins in 1927, when Philip Gunawardena, a young student in the USA, joined the League against Imperialism. In 1929-31 he served on the executive council of the League, which had as its avowed aim the liberation of the colonies, which included Sri Lanka.  He gathered around him a body of Sri Lankan students overseas, who shared his perspective. This political stance saw its first domestic expression at the Youth Congress in 1931, at which a resolution called for “downright unadulterated independence”.

As the students overseas returned, they joined their co-thinkers in the Youth League movement. In 1933 they established the Suriya-Mal Movement, led by an Englishwoman, Doreen Young. The following year they went to work among the victims of the Malaria epidemic, which affected a million people. They made a name for themselves by distributing quinine for malaria and Marmite for malnutrition.

In 1935 they went on to form the Lanka Sama Samaja Party, a socialist organisation with the primary aim of independence from the British Raj. The following year Philip Gunawardena and N.M. Perera gained election to the State Council, where they raised vital issues, such as the use of Sinhala and Tamil, and free education.

LSSP agitation among workers, particularly among plantation workers, rang alarm bells in the offices of the occupation power. This rose to a crescendo when Mark Bracegirdle, an Anglo-Australian planter, joined the party. Governor Stubbs’ failed attempt to deport him caused a furore which, in effect, kick-started the independence movement.

With the collapse of France in the Second World War, the British began clamping down on dissent, especially as LSSP-led strikes broke out all over Nuwara Eliya and Uva. In mid-June 1940 the government arrested Philip Gunawardena, N. M. Perera, Colvin R. de Silva, and Edmund Samarakkody.

The Police failed to capture Leslie Goonewardena: experience gained (principally by Philip’s brother Robert Gunawardena) in hiding Bracegirdle helped the LSSP to work under the noses of the authorities. Although the Party press was sealed, the party organ, the Samasamajaya continued to appear, along with leaflets in Tamil and English. The party even organised a secret conference, which adopted a new programme and constitution.

Meanwhile, the detained Party leaders at Bogambara did not waste their time. N.M. used his time to work on The Case for Free Education (a basal document in the struggle for an equitable education system), while Philip worked on the concept agricultural reform (which formed the kernel of the Paddy Lands Act, which he introduced to Parliament in 1958).

They won over Solomon, one of their jailors, and with his help they managed to leave the prison on several occasions. Now, the party planned to get them out for good. Solomon got an imprint of the key on a bar of soap and Philip’s wife Kusuma, who visited the prisoners, took it out with her. She gave it to Robert, who cut the key.

Robert had the task of guiding them once they escaped. According to Regi Siriwardena, the escape on 7 April 1942 was fairly straightforward, with Solomon simply opening their cells and leading them out. Robert escorted them to several cars which were parked outside, and they made off as fast as possible. The Party hid them in several safe houses.

Regi Siriwardena reported that Doric de Souza had set him up in one of these, two weeks before the prison break, to provide cover. Colvin and Solomon arrived on the night of 8 April. Regi served as a courier between Colvin and Philip. He also had a hand in the editorial of the Samasamajaya, and Solomon later would edit the Party’s Tamil organ, the Samadharmam.

The escape infuriated the colonial authorities, who suppressed the LSSP completely. British imperial prestige, already at an all-time low following the fall of Singapore and the Japanese raid on Sri Lanka, fell even further. A month later, on 8 May, Sri Lankan troops belonging to the Ceylon Garrison Artillery stationed in the Cocos Island mutinied. The mutiny was suppressed, but its leader, Gratien Fernando (whom the LSSP’s anti-imperialist agitation had affected) went to his execution unrepentant. Thereafter, anti-colonial agitation referred to the Cocos Islands Mutiny as resistance to British colonial rule grew.

About three months after the prison break, many of the leaders escaped to India, where they took part in the Indian struggle for independence. Their contribution to India’s independence was disproportionate to their numbers. Most of the leaders were arrested before the end of the war, and were deported to Sri Lanka.

Some stayed on: S.C.C. Anthonypillai (who married Philip’s sister Caroline) led a major trade union in Tamil Nadu. Hector Abhayavardana went on to become general secretary of the Socialist Party of India, returning to Sri Lanka and the LSSP in 1959. N.M.’s wife Selina Perera remained an activist in Kolkata. Over a half-century later, the Indian Government honoured three of the surviving LSSP cadres who had taken part in the struggle – Vivienne Goonewardena, Bernard Soysa and Hector Abhayavardana.

The LSSP continued its underground agitation in Sri Lanka. It participated in the fight for free education and successfully raised anti-imperialist feeling in the country. In 1943 the Ceylon National Congress voted in support of Independence. Eventually the State Council passed the “Free Lanka Bill”.

The proscription on the Party ended after the war, and in 1946 the Party led a strike wave. This enabled D.S. Senanayake, Oliver Ernest Goonetilleka and other “moderates” to raise the bogie of communism and persuade the British to grant Sri Lanka dominion status.

The escape of the detenus from Bogamabara on 7 April 1942 thus had a profound effect on the British Raj in both India and Sri Lanka. However, this important event  is rarely, if ever commemorated.

Vinod Moonesinghe