He led a stoic life working 16 hours a day, as Jawaharlal Nehru did, starting the day’s work getting up at 4 am, taking a walk at Galle Face Green at 7 am, after a bath and breakfast meeting Publicity Division staff at his residence at 9 am, thereafter working from home, having his lunch and taking a nap, working at the Ministry from 4 pm, having his dinner at home and working at home until 1 am the following day.
Ronnie de Mel was 98 years, ten months, and 16 days old when he died on February 27, and 13 years, eight months, and eight days older than me. He was the only child of Roget de Mel and Gladys Mendis, and he treated me like his younger brother. He had no sons but only three daughters, so he had a filial affection for me.
In 1986, when I was the Head of the Translation Division at the Head Office of the Department of Inland Revenue at Sir Chittampalam A. Gardiner Mawatha, Colombo 2, my colleague Dhawala Richard, who frequented the house of Finance and Planning Minister Ronnie de Mel as a French language tutor to his wife, Mallika de Mel, who was also his Private Secretary, told me one day that the de Mels were looking for someone to do the English press work at their Ministry’s Publicity Division and to go and see them.
One evening, I went to his 5, Charles Drive, Colombo 3 house, and he asked me about my background. I told him about my university life of having been, from 1959 to 1963, the first President of the Inter-University Students Federation (IUSF) consisting of students’ unions of my political mentor Philip Gunawardena’s Mahajana Eksath Peramuna, Lanka Sama Samaja Party, and Ceylon Communist Party.
Career open to talent
Minister Ronnie de Mel said that I had to have a flair for political writing and that he would tell the Commissioner-General of Inland Revenue to release me. He very significantly added that I could work for him for one month, and he would tell me whether I was good or not; if I was good, I could stay with him, and if not, I could return to Inland Revenue, indicative of his abiding adherence to the principle of ‘careers open to talent’. That was his calibre!
My main task was to report his speeches in English at public meetings in Sinhala. It took only one week for me to realise that I was doing well after reporting the speech he made at Hettimulla, Kegalla. Exactly at the end of one month, he said that I was good and to stay with him! He was a hard taskmaster and never tolerated anyone not doing their duty. He was a workaholic, and he never took vacations here or abroad. When he left the country on official business, there was more work for the Ministry Publicity Division as he faxed information around the clock.
He gave jobs to the physically handicapped, and one such man, he gave a deaf person employment as the night watcher at the Community Hall at Bulathsinhala, and a differently abled young man and a young woman appointed as Tax Officers at Inland Revenue ended up entering matrimony. He even had such a girl as a domestic.
Roland Joseph Godfrey de Mel was born on April 11, 1925 and attended the ‘school by the sea’. The London Matriculation Examination results did not have his name, making him sleep curled up in bed. The following day, his results came, and he passed with distinction and was the first in Asia in mathematics!
He entered the University of Ceylon, topping the list at the University Preliminary Examination, and graduated with a First Class in History, English, Latin, and Greek.
Thereafter, he came first at the Ceylon Civil Service Examination and held many positions before he resigned in 1964 to enter politics.
Socialist ideas
He took pride in saying he was the Assistant Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture when Minister Philip Gunawardena passed the Paddy Lands Act. He was equally proud to say how happy he was about willingly handing over vast acres of his paddy lands to tenant farmers. Politics was in his blood, and having been the President of the University Students’ Union, he inculcated socialist ideas. So much so, getting onto the public stage, he used to say that he had always been on the side of the downtrodden. He was so down to earth that he did not want anyone to serve him.
As Minister of Finance and Planning, he reinstated all those in institutions coming under his Ministry whose service was suspended for taking part in the July 1980 Strike. So, it was not the fault of President J.R. Jayewardene that workers suffered having been thrown out of employment. He introduced a bonus scheme at Inland Revenue, with all employees getting one month’s salary every six months, the more efficient two months’ salary, and the brilliant three months’ salary. He was one of those Ministers, other than Philip Gunawardena, who could not be taken for a ride by officials, despite some politicians doing so, as his wife and his professor’s son told me. Once, at a routine meeting held at the Ministry Board Room, he asked officials for some statistics, and after being answered, he produced them, saying, “Here is the latest.”
On the day before he resigned, I was the only official to go with him to the last meeting he addressed, held at a Buddhist temple on the Bulathsinhala-Matugama border. I wrote his Sinhala speech in English as he spoke, and he asked me to come to the Geekiyana Kanda Bungalow, also inquiring whether I had a vehicle. I told him a lie because there was only the Volkswagen Microbus designed to carry TV equipment, which I had squeezed into travelling to the venue.
Young at heart
He read what I had written, adding more that he wanted to mention in his speech. Having entertained me with tea, he asked me, “Mr Edirisuriya, actually, from where are you?” I said, “As far as I know, I am from Gampaha, and there are a few families in other parts of the country”. He said, “That cannot be, you would have started from Tangalle”. Going through genealogical information, I found him to be correct. He asked me to come with the speech to his Colombo residence the following day. “Now get back slowly,” he said because it was the height of the JVP insurgency.
On January 18, 1988, when he announced his resignation at the Ministry Board Room, Asia Week’s Marilyn Odchimar asked him, “Mister Minister, how old are you?” and he answered, “I am 62, but I have never felt 30,” making her blush.
He was one, other than Dr W. Dahanayake, who identified the curses, like eating, drinking, and smoking, as found in Dickensian England, which was imbibed in us by the British early in life. That was the secret of his longevity.
He led a stoic life working 16 hours a day, as Jawaharlal Nehru did, starting the day’s work getting up at 4 am, taking a walk at Galle Face Green at 7 am, after a bath and breakfast meeting Publicity Division staff at his residence at 9 am, thereafter working from home, having his lunch and taking a nap, working at the Ministry from 4 pm, having his dinner at home and working at home until 1 am the following day.
He made full use of his time all his long life. When I met him after he resigned and said I was studying for the First-in-Laws, he said, “You are doing that even. I am doing nothing.” Later, when he went to England because of threats to his life, I asked Dr Indrajit Coomaraswamy, who had also resigned and joined the Commonwealth Office in London, came back on holiday, “How is the Minister doing in London?” he said, “He is doing very well negotiating loans for all other countries!”
Minister of Finance and Planning Ronnie de Mel was not a ritual Buddhist but one by conviction like many others such as Minister Sir Edwin Wijeyeratne, Prime Minister SWRD Bandaranaike, Presidents JR Jayewardene and Ranil Wickremesinghe.
May he attain the Supreme Bliss of Nibbana!
Chandra Edirisuriya