DS Senanayake the first Prime Minister was highly respected both by the people and the British under whom the country was for one and a half centuries for his love of the country and her people and for his honesty to a fault. He was the supreme example for the famous Sinhala saying that a farmer after the mud is washed off is fit to be king.
DS Senanayake was called the Father of the Nation for his role in the Independence struggle. SWRD Bandaranaike, Sir John Kotelawala and JR Jayewardene, who were behind him in the negotiations with the British, became leaders of the country later.
DS Senanayake was best known for renovating ancient irrigation works in the Dry Zone and for well-known colonisation schemes in Rajarata. His crowning achievement was the construction of the Gal Oya Reservoir.
Paddy cultivation
Rajarata was opened up for human settlement and cultivation by him since the time of the Sinhala kings. Land for not only mainly paddy cultivation but also for the cultivation of subsidiary crops was distributed to people from all other parts of the country giving a boost to even coconut cultivation. His son Dudley became Prime Minister after his death.
Sir John Kotelawala, who can be called the Father of Hydro Electricity, his honesty also being beyond question, became Prime Minister thereafter continuing his work as Minister of Transport and Works one of his major works being the New Kelani Bridge built by the Gammon India Company of France. He also began the rubberising of roads with a rubber-tar-metal mixture costing Rs. 100,000 a mile, the first 25-mile stretch to be rubberised being the Kandy road from Colombo to Nittambuwa.
Sir John Kotelawala, during his tenure as Minister of Transport and Works, conducted three surveys on public passenger transport, the Sansoni Survey, the Rutnam Survey and the Jayaratne Perera Survey from 1949 to 1955, all of which recommended the nationalisation of the then-existing bus companies.
Industrial development
He also commenced the dieselisation of the railway by getting down the General Electric Brush Bagnall locomotives to coincide with the first visit of Queen Elizabeth II which took place during his tenure as Prime Minister.
GG Ponnambalam as Minister of Industries of the United National Party Government set up the Cement Factory at Kankesanthurai and that of Galle laying the foundation for industrial development.
CWW Kannangara as Minister of Education founding Central Colleges provided free education from Lower Kindergarten to university.
All Central Colleges, with board and lodging facilities for Fifth Standard scholars and above, provided an all-round education including sports.
SWRD Bandaranaike took the decision to make Sinhala the Official Language, on a proposal first made by JR Jayewardene in the State Council in 1942. When the BBC asked Bandaranaike as to why he took such a decision giving rise to much controversy his curt reply was that he made the language of over seventy per cent of his people the Official Language.
Language policy
The Official Language Bill was passed in Parliament no one voting against it. It was a boon to the parents of children who did not have the means to educate them in the English medium. Such children receive their higher education in Sinhala and become engineers, doctors and other professionals, to this day.
President JR Jayewardene introduced the open economy as a solution to the economic problems that beset the country consequent to the closed economy during the period from 1970 to 1977 when the people faced difficulties in obtaining food and other essential goods. Quite coincidently then World Bank President Robert McNamara said at exactly this time that it is not possible get starving people to work.
President JR Jayewardene not only provided dhal the most scarce food item but everything else as well. When W Dahanayake protested lifting the ban on importing sarees from India he, in good humour, asked the confirmed bachelor whether he knows how happy a wife will be to get a new saree.
Unconstitutional falsehood
President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s proposal made some time ago that the whole Parliament must form the Government as all parties accept the open economy still holds good.
In such a context it is preposterous for the likes of Tamil National Alliance’s MA Sumanthiran to demand elections to no end uttering the unconstitutional falsehood that President Ranil Wickremesinghe has no people’s mandate when in fact he was elected by a majority vote in Parliament and even recently a Bill being passed by 122 Members of Parliament.
It is best at this juncture to pool together the expertise available in Parliament, to give of their best to the country, to form a Parliament Government.
Chandra Edirisuriya