Editorial

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Mrs. Bandaranaike entered politics under exceptional circumstances. Mr. S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike was the first of many victims of political assassinations in Sri Lanka.The lady who rode to high public office on the wave of popular sympathy was soon to ride on the crest of worldwide acclaim and popularity.

Being still in her 40's and the only woman head of Government at the time, the pretty and lady-like Mrs. Bandaranaike in saree was to woo the world from New York to Beijing; Belgrade to Cairo and Jakarta.

And yet , because of her friendship with the Non-Aligned world, Sri Lanka was deprived of foreign aid and investment from the industrialised West. The economy was starved and people going abroad were given a measly 3.10 sterling only.

She nevertheless put "Ceylon" as we were then known on the world map and from 1960 to the mid 70's this country was only known to the outside world as a Paradise on earth from where the finest teas and Mrs. Bandaranaike came. But that is the nostalgic past 

Sri Lanka is no longer a paradise on earth, no longer a place from where the finest teas come, and now Mrs. Bandaranaike is no longer in our midst. 

Mrs. Bandaranaike's performance at home did not have the success she had in international relations. She is credited along with her chief factotum Mr. Felix R. D. Bandaranaike -without whom she would never have reigned nor ruled-for having effectively handled the 1962 coup d'etat and the 1971 JVP insurgency. But her management of the administration and the economy left much to be desired.

To a large extent she seemed to be a captive of the Marxists, Trotskyites and Communists of the time when centralised State control was the fashion of the times. She appeared to be often dictated to by such forces and it proved her undoing at the 1977 elections when she got a thorough beating. She however remained the figure around whom forces opposed to dictatorial trends in the post-1977 period could rally round. Her own children left her politically for brief periods, only to return under her wings.

Through an eventful four decades of public life, Mrs. Bandaranaike remained an illustrious personage whom Sri Lankans could have been proud to call one of their own. 

It was only two months ago with an election coming up that she had to step down as Prime Minister. The turning point had come. The party her husband founded by mortgaging their house "Tintekel" at Rosmead place - the party she so valiantly protected for 30 years - is no longer what it was. 

Suffice to say it was transformed to a party of the modern age - equipped to meet the challenges of today's politics. Its frontliners speak for themselves. 

Mrs. Bandaranaike showed us that it is not only the flush of victory, but the graciousness in defeat that endears a leader to the hearts of the people. While she would have been happy and proud of her daughter's victory it would have been tempered by the way some of the party leaders contested last Tuesday's elections especially in their constituencies. This would surely not have been endorsed by the lady whom the Nation buried yesterday with full military honours, gun salute, the presence of foreign dignitaries and a stream of tears of ordinary people.

And today we move on to a new era.

The Political Column

Editorial/ Opinion Contents