Older readers may remember, at every Sunday fair (pola) and bus stand five to eight decades ago, folk poets, or Kavikola-karayas, sold fascinating folk ballads composed on noteworthy events, scandals, salacious details of murders and illicit romances, which never made it to the columns of the newspapers. These poems always began with the invariable first line, “Sakala Sirin Piri Siri Lankave…,” loosely translated, “Cornucopia for all Senses.” Mostly, the poet himself would recite and sell these ballads for 10 or 15 cents each, A3 size sheet. ‘Kelepattara,’ a slight variation, refers to a scurrilous document that is abusive, vituperative, and derogatory towards an individual or a group of people, often found pasted on walls near public places.
Scurrilous Documents and Kavikola of the old times had vanished from our soil over the past few decades. However, the politicos will never allow those age old cultural habits to die naturally. They come forward to revive them occasionally; and today, it is abundantly practiced through social media.
Prime Minister D. S. Senanayake was 67 years old in February 1952, and his health was deteriorating and had to be hospitalised. Out of hospital, and on the morning of March 20th, he was taking a ride on Galle Face Green with IGP Richard Aluvihare when he suffered a stroke, lost control, and fell off his horse. The first Prime Minister of independent Ceylon, passed away on March 22, 1952.
Shortly after D. S. Senanayake’s death, second-in-command Sir John Kotelawala was ‘knocked out’ by a ‘conspiracy’ within the UNP, and his son, Dudley Senanayake was set to be sworn in as the new Prime Minister. John Kotelawala, next in command, staked his claim and was already preparing to address the nation as the new Prime Minister. The bombshell dropped by Governor General Lord Soulbury created uproar within the governing circles. G-G’s decision shocked everyone. Desperate, Sir John made several frantic moves to influence Dudley not to accept the position, but the pressure from family and senior colleagues, especially J. R. Jayewardene, was too strong. [Perhaps, Jayewardene, knowing Dudley’s weaknesses, believed that Dudley would soon fall out of favor, making way for him to succeed.]
The second succession battle within the party was waged in 1952, a year after the first between DS and Bandaranaike, related in detail last week. For a couple of days, a secret supremacy struggle ensued, with supporters operating on instructions from Kotelawala and Senanayake. Only Oliver Goonetilleke backed Kotelawala in the Cabinet.
Dudley was sworn in Prime Minister: he dissolved parliament, leading to the party’s victory in the General Elections.
A couple of months later, while Sir John was on an official visit to Canada. An anonymous kele-pattara titled, ‘Premier Stakes’ was distributed among print media by an unknown party. The mainstream newspapers ignored the scandalous document containing derogatory and defamatory remarks of a few of top leaders, including the 41-year-old Dudley. Adding to the chaos, it was leaked out when the LSSP’s “Tribune”, an English tabloid, edited by Theja Gunawardene, printed the full script in parts. Sir John being a member of Dudley’s new Cabinet avoided participating in the storm.
Dudley loyalists pushed for action against Sir John Kotelawala, the next in line, [playboy type] for the throne after the exit of Bandaranaike in the previous year. They suspected that Sir John was responsible. They lacked significant evidence as proof, though. The new young PM was halfheartedly obliged to remove his cousin and onetime pal from the Cabinet. A letter explaining the circumstances was handed over through Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner in Ottawa to Kotelawala, who true to himself, crushed the document in the presence of the HC and retorted, “I say, tell your Prime Minister that his charge sheet found the place it merits” and threw it into the waste bin. It was subsequently revealed that Sir John got the scandalous document titled “Premier Stakes” ghostwritten by a famous scribe, and was distributed by his secretary.
Upon his return, Kotelawala told Dudley he was not responsible for the ‘Premier Stakes’. Consequently, the resignation was withdrawn, and Kotelawala continued as a Cabinet Minister of Transport and Works. However, a year later, Dudley, a soft-hearted man, found himself unable to handle the accusations of “murderer” over the security forces’ fire that killed nine ferocious protesters during the Hartal. The Hartal, the ‘first Aragalaya,’ staged violently on August 12, 1953, was organized by Marxist parties in response to the scrapping of subsidized rice rations. Thoroughly depressed, Dudley retired from politics. Subsequently, the controversial Sir John Kotelawala took oaths as the third Prime Minister.
Sir John, who retired after losing to Bandaranaike in 1956, had been eyeing the position of Governor-General, he returned to the island in 1965, when Dudley, back in politics, became PM for the fourth time. However, Dudley did not oblige, effectively driving the final nail in the coffin of their relationship. It was no secret that the Kotelawelas and Jayewardenes harbored longstanding grievances against the Senanayakes.
This antagonism between the three families, which formed the upper strata of the UNP and the island’s politics for over five decades, can be traced back to Mudaliyar D. C. G. Attygalle’s three daughters and his enormous fortune of over 10,000 acres of plantations and graphite. Each daughter was given in marriage with dowries consisting of thousands of acres and a share in mines. Dudley’s uncle F. R. Senanayake married the third sister, while eldest, Alice married John Kotelawala Sr. (Sir John’s father); and Lena married J R Jayewardene’s uncle T. G. Jayewardene. The reason why UNP was often referred to as the Uncle Nephew Party, or in Sinhalese, ‘Unge Nedeyange Pakshaya’.
Kotelawala [Snr.] initially managed the enormous Attygalle fortune after the old man’s death. However, Francis, the only male sibling, no sooner he left school, antagonized Kotelawala by taking over the management of the family holdings. The mysterious assassination of young Attygalle, Kotelawala’s brother-in-law, prompted the Senanayakes and Jayewardenes to seek justice for his murder. Their efforts led to the accusation of their oldest in-law, John Kotelawala Sr., a former policeman, for allegedly orchestrating the crime. After one of the accomplices confessed in court, John committed suicide in jail.
The inter-marriages between the Kotelawelas, Senanayakes, and Jayewardenes further complicated their political and personal relations, creating a lasting legacy of conflict and intrigue.
Beginning of Nepotism in Politics — The medical team treating DSS, warned his family that he only had a few months to live. His close circle, including G-G Lord Soulbury, decided to circuitously query about his successor. G-G volunteered and skillfully raised the topic while speaking to DS in his hospital bed, who was prompt in his response, saying, “Lionel (Sir John) cannot win elections; Dudley of course can, but he is my son, so I do not wish to talk anymore.” Dudley, the youngest member in the Cabinet was 41.
There is an apparent coincidence in the strategies adopted by father John Kotelawala Sr. and son Sir John. The senior Kotelawala was in Japan on a business tour when his bête noire and brother-in-law Francis Attygalle was shot by an unknown gunman. Similarly, the son, Sir John, was on an official visit to Canada when the scandalous document, ‘Premiere Stakes’ was released.
