In the Great Tradition of Martyrs

Leader of the Lanka Samasamaja Party, and Minister of Finance
speech made in the Constituent Assembly- 19th July,1970

I appreciate the great honour placed on me of seconding this Motion pregnant with so much historical significance for our country. Today is the culmination of a long series of struggles, of trials and tribulations that our country has gone though over the years. Let us not forget that we have not reached this day ambling along smoothly from one election result to another.

We are in the great tradition of the Gongalagoda Banda, Keppetipola, Puran Appu, Ven. Kudapola, Ven. Wariyapola Sumangala Thero and the other innumerable martyrs, small and big, who have sacrificed their lives for the cause of our liberty and independence. It is the cumulative effect of these sacrifices that we are witnessing today.

There are innumerable people who have contributed in various ways at various times in various measures. It would take me a long time to re-capitulate all these doughty men and women of the past, who in diverse ways have made this day possible. We cannot, however, fail to remember a few individuals of the more recent past. I refer in particular to Anagarika Dharmapala, Mr. E.W.Perera, Mr. F.R. Senanayake, Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan, Sir Ponnambalam Arunchalam, Sir D.B.Jayatilake, Dr. W.A.de Silva, Mr. D.D.Pedris, Dr. C.W.W.Kannagara, and Mr. George E. de Silva. These personalities and many other humble people have played their part in gradually creating the climate for this great change. I must not fail to mention great poets like Ven. Mahinda of Tibet, Ananda Rajakaruna, G. H. Perera, P.B. Alwis Perera who have fired the imagination of every peasant in his home and kept the fire of liberty kindled and alive.

“Some of these who have gone before us may not have consciously motivated their actions with the single and exclusive desire of shaking off the shackles that bound us, but the net result of their endeavours has been a steady flow into the tiny rivulets spread over a century and a half that have now swelled into a mighty river that would brook no opposition in its relentless urge towards the ocean of national freedom and socialism. It would be churlish for me to appraise or evaluate the quality of such contribution; each in his own way and according to his own right has helped to break the confines that tramelled us. Each has helped to deepen and widen the scope of the area of our liberties. Some have been more successful than others. Some have had a bigger impact on the course of history than others, but all have added their bits, however small, to make this mighty movement whose noble fulfillment we were partaking in today. To those of us of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party, this is a signal occasion for pride and gratification. My colleagues in the Cabinet and my fellow Members in the august Assembly will forgive me for this personal note.

Little did we, as students in London meeting in dingy digs dream, when we inaugurated a movement that blossomed later to be the Lanka Sama Samaja Party, that we would within our lifetime be the proud participants of this historic day. We affirmed as our first principle on that distant day in 1930 in the achievement of full national independence. It is the fulfillment of this affirmation that gives us unending pride and pleasure. Thus, we can rightfully claim that we were the first organized political party in this country to demand and struggle for complete national independence while the Ceylon National Congress was still talking of the reform of the Constitution. It is not without significance that beginning with the Suriya Mal Movement every trade union that fell within our orbit carried as its prime objective the attainment of national Independence.

The workers and peasants of this county understood and felt the need for Independence because they realized that their economic freedom was inextricably bound up with the overthrow of Imperialism. The planter Raj was an empire in itself. One could not improve the lot of the up-country worker without the overthrow of this planter Raj.

In this anti-imperialist struggle that went on, the Bracegirdle episode occupied a not insignificant place. It was left to an Englishman to expose the hypocritical pretensions of British justice and the fragile basis of their might and power. The hundreds and thousands of people who clamoured for the overthrow of the British Raj during those hectic days no doubt left their indelible mark in the hearts and minds of our people.

The Hartal heroes of August 12, 1953 who sacrificed their lives ostensibly for cheap rice, we must remember with gratitude. The spirit of independence that animated their sacrifice brought fruitful results in the overthrow of reaction in 1956. It prepared the way for the victory of Mr. Bandaranaike’s assumption of office with a tremendous upsurge, the like of which we had not witnessed prior to that date, a tremendous upsurge of national regeneration.

Mr. S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike has a special place in our thoughts today. He inaugurated the flow of events that has led us directly to this historic day. In a literal sense, he is the progenitor of this Constitution which it will be our endeavour to produce in the coming day. The magnificent speech he delivered in 1948 when Dominion Status was conferred on Ceylon still reverberates in our memories. From the beginning, he was only too conscious of the frailties of the existing constitutional set up. Not merely did he remove the remaining vestiges of the Imperialist nexus at Katunayake and Trincomalee, but he commenced the fashioning of a new Constitution that would accord with our history, our culture, our social traditions and our socialist aspirations. I had the privilege of being closely  associated with him in that great endeavour which had a cruel fate when designing individuals brought an untimely termination of his high endeavour. Today we are fulfilling one of his most cherished ambitions for Ceylon.

This Constituent Assembly is over 20 years overdue. Most countries that became free after the last great war punctuated their new independence by fashioning their own Constitution. Without any intention to hurt anyone’s feeling. I may be pardoned for saying that Ceylon was unique in our subservience to a document imposed on us by a foreign Government. We are today making good our past lapses.

To the best of my knowledge, since free democratic Constitutions came to be drawn up, a Constituent Assembly drawing its mandate from the people direct has been the instrument for fashioning a Constitution acceptable to the people. We are today following the great tradition that has been set up by all people throughout the world who have wished to live as independent sovereign people freely associated in terms of liberty, equality and fraternity. We have had over 40 years of experience of limited political freedom but with a full franchise. We have in some ways utilised the valued portions of that experience. We would have to discard some of the institutions associated with the recent period of our history. We would have to modify others and also construct new institutions. No people can build an entirely new Constitution. All of us are circumscribed by our own past, of social habits and inclinations. In a multiracial society such as ours, with different religions and different cultures, we have to fashion instruments of lasting amity and foster an atmosphere that will nourish the common bonds of national unity.

If I remember right, this was also the political thinking of the late Prime Minister, Mr. S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike. It is our good fortune that leading this great adventure is the wife of the late Prime Minister. She is the one most profoundly aware of his political thinking. Intimately connected as she was with his thought and ideals, she can guide us along the lines that he wished us to take. Her tolerance, her kindness and her understanding have helped us to forge a front and cement our common endeavour to build for our people a country in which all of us can live as self-respecting citizens in peace, harmony and prosperity. This is a magnificent task. I am sure we will enjoy the goodwill, the confidence and the co-operation of every person in this country in this great endeavour.

I have great pleasure in seconding the Resolution moved by the Hon. Prime Minister.

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