Leading Indian socialist pays tribute to Philip Gunawardena

It was his meeting with four stalwarts of Ceylon's anti-imperialist movement in 1942 that marked the turning point in the life of Dr.Vinayak Purohit when he was a 15-year-old. Today, at the age of 80, Dr. Purohit recalls with enthusiasm and clarity, his induction into the world of socialism that helped shape him into the independent-thinking individual that he became in later years as well as make him a fervent member of India's freedom movement.

The Ceylonese he had the good fortune to meet and become close friends with were Dr. N.M.Perera, Colvin R.De Silva, Philip Gunawardena and Edmund Samarkkody who had fled to India to escape persecution at the hands of the British rulers the same year after breaking free from prison in Kandy. In India the men joined the Bolshevik- Leninist Party of India, Ceylon and Burma (BLPI), the forerunner to the Socialist Party (SP) of India, where they continued with their anti-imperialist work and joined the Indian freedom movement of which Dr. Purohit too became a member. That chance meeting resulted in a lifetime of friendship between the men.

Dr. Purohit was in Colombo recently as guest speaker at the 35th commemoration of Philip Gunawardena whom he referred to as one of his three fathers, the other two being his biological father and Ram Manohar Lohia, the Indian freedom fighter and socialist political leader. "Paying tribute to my ideological senior is a great pleasure and privilege for me. I took my first steps holding my father's hand but my first steps in socialism were taken with the guidance of Philip Gunawardena and others," he said. Along with young Purohit's introduction to socialist ideology, he credits the men with imparting to him some the other niceties of life.

He discarded most of his earlier notions and became an atheist when he donned the mantle of socialism." One can't be a genuine socialist by following religions. That is why I like Buddhism which does not believe in a God ," Dr.Purohit said.

In his eventful life, Dr.Purohit has been jailed thrice, suffered a compound fracture of the skull due to a blow with a police baton and been an ardent trade unionist serving as the General Secretary of the Bombay Press Employees Union from 1948-1952. He has also been a visiting lecturer at several leading education institutions in India and abroad and is a keen writer. He has finished two chapters of his autobiography where he has made reference to his friends from Ceylon and is now in the process of writing the third, each dealing with the different periods of his life.

Dr. Purohit is a great lover of Sri Lanka. "I am half Indian and half Sri Lankan. This is my land as well and I want the best for this land," he says.

His dream for the future of South Asia is a confederation of socialist states where there will be no social inequality and the region can realise its full potential." The exploitation of man by man must cease and there needs to be a just social order," he says. "It will not happen in my life time. It may not happen in the lifetime of Philip's (Gunawardena) sons but it will happen in the life time of Philip's grandchildren," he says with genuine belief.