How Jaffna welcomed Dudley

From The Ceylon Daily News/Asian Tribune

Janaka Perera

Former Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake passed away 42 years ago on April 13, the day prior to the Sinhala-Tamil New Year Day. Whatever the mistakes he may have made, he was one of the very few national leaders who did not use his position to amass personal wealth or abuse power.

This article is however not so much about his political career but events relating to his historic Jaffna visit as Prime Minister in 1967 – the first such official visit by a Sri Lankan head of state, reflecting the communal harmony that prevailed at the time.

Under his administration numerous goodwill visits were exchanged between the North and the South seemingly restoring the Sinhala-Tamil amity that existed prior to 1955.

The then Government Agent Jaffna Vernon Abeysekera and Superintendent of Police Ramachandra Sunderalingam were in charge of the arrangements for the visit. But they ran into protocol problems over the planned reception at the Palaly airport to welcome the Prime Minister.

In 1966, the Federal Party which since 1956 had observed Independence Day February 4 as day of mourning in the North celebrated the event by hoisting the national flag for the first time in 10 years during the Dudley Senanayake government. A notable event during the Prime Minister’s Jaffna visit was the politicians - who were covertly sowing the seeds of separatism - vying with each other to welcome him.

The struggle was between G.G. Ponnambalam’s Tamil Congress and S.J.V. Chelvanayakam’s Federal Party as to who should garland the Prime Minister on arrival at the Palaly Airport.

Ponnambalam who was Jaffna MP insisted he should first garland Senanayake as he stepped on Jaffna soil. Chelvanayakam took up the position that since Palaly Airport came under the Kankesanturai electorate it is he who was entitled to garland the Prime Minister first. The rivalry was so tense that GA Abeysekera and SP Sunderalingam discussed the protocol dispute with the Prime Minister’s office in Colombo, seeking approval for Town Council Chairman Myliddy (since the airport comes under the TC’s jurisdiction) to garland the Prime Minister first, followed by Chelvanayakam. The approval was granted much to the disappointment of TC leader Ponnambalam.

The fact that thousands lined up the road Palaly to Jaffna was testimony to his popularity as the Prime Minister having formed the ‘National Government’. The occasion was laying the foundation for the Jaffna New Market under Local Government Minister M. Thiruchelvam who accompanied the Prime Minister along with Junior Minister Ranasinghe Premadasa.

This was the period when the Federal Party and the Tamil Congress were fully backing the Dudley Senanayake government – which the UNP called a National Government and the SLFP-led Opposition branded a seven-party coalition (hath havula). The crowd at Palaly Airport was the largest ever to assemble at any time before and after 1967 to welcome a Sri Lankan head of state or any politician from the South. Everyone was whispering asking what had happened to Ponnambalam. Around 9 a.m. the Air Force plane carrying the Prime Minister landed at the airport.

A big surprise awaited the crowd. First to alight from the aircraft was Ponnambalam! He had convinced the Prime Minister to get a seat for him in the plane.

This was a typical Ponnambalam trick, having failed in his first request to garland Senanayake. As the Prime Minister approached the reception line with many waiting to garland him, Thiruchelvam and Premadasa, it was a Herculean task for the police to control the surging crowd trying to get a glimpse of the Prime Minister. SP Sunderalingam had seven police inspectors and a motorcycle escort in front of the Prime Minister’s vehicle, which was also carrying Minister Thiruchelvam and Junior Minister Premadasa. The SP followed the Prime Minister's car in a ‘Minimoke’ and a motorcade of about 50 cars. Thousands lined along the route of the motorcade from the airport to Jaffna town. There were 13 pandals enroute.

It took hours for the motorcade to reach Jaffna Town from Palaly. According to Sunderalingam, Federal Party MPs Amirthalingam, Dharmalingam, Dr. E.M.V. Naganathan and others accorded a welcome to the Prime Minister at the entrance to each electorate. In the end they were running short of garlands.

One group however was totally opposed to the Prime Minister’s visit. It was N. Shanmugathasan’s Ceylon Communist Party (Peking Wing). He openly told party members to throw rotten eggs and hoist Black Flags enroute.

But the police were tipped off on this. And as Shan’s men were getting black flags stitched to spring a surprise on the motorcade, Sunderalingam told his officers to seal the building the previous night with the tailors inside! They were freed only after the Prime Minister left Jaffna.

During the return journey on a suggestion Premadasa made to the Prime Minister, it was Ponnambalam’s and Dr. Naganathan’s turn to accompany Dudley Senanayake back to Palaly.

On the Maviddipuram Temple entry issue in 1968, the Prime Minister stood firmly by Sunderalingam’s police action to deal with the caste dispute there. His namesake C. Suntheralingam MP obstructed the police. The SP took up the non-discriminatory position that all Harijans (so-called low castes) had the right to enter the temple. The friction led to clashes between some members of the ‘high castes’ (Vellalas) and the Harijans.

When the then Inspector General of Police Aleric Abeygunawardene told Senanayake what was happening, the Prime Minister had responded by saying: "Let the Sunderalingams fight it out.”

The press reported the news under the headline 'Battle of the Suns rages in the North.' The temple dispute was later resolved through negotiations between Sinhala and Tamil officials — Vernon Abeysekera, Sundaralingam and Stanley Senanayake, then head of a special task force to combat illegal immigration.However this was only a symbolic success since the discriminatory practices in caste-based Hindu Temples in Jaffna villages continued. Eventually this issue was to play a role in the Tamil militancy and separatism which came to the surface in less than a decade with Jaffna Mayor Alfred Duraiappah’s assassination in 1975.