Sunday Times 2
Ranasinghe Premadasa: The people’s president
It is indeed a pleasure for me to write a few lines on the 97th birth anniversary of former President Ranasinghe Premadasa who stayed with his people and party through thick and thin. The writer had the good fortune of meeting former President Premadasa long before he had reached the highest position as Sri Lanka’s executive President.
My father, the late E.P. De Silva (EP), former editor of the Daily Mirror and the Times, had been a longtime friend of the ever-smiling President who had a warm heart for loyal people always. Mr Premadasa was a close friend of our family just as Dr. N. M. Perera, Peter Keuneman and several other political activists were.
My father, a well-informed political reporter before he became the editor also knew leftist leaders and trade unionists such as Alavi Moulana and Bala Thampo. As a result, of these connections, President Premadasa consulted my father frequently. He knew the power of talented journalists and made good use of them to the advantage of the country.
Gam Udawa or village reawakeing: A key component of President Premadasa's policies
In the old days, when my father was alive, the phone at our home at Rawathawaththa in Moratuwa would start ringing from 5 am. Often the first caller was Mr. Premadasa. This continued while he was an opposition MP, deputy minister, minister and Prime Minister.
My father was clued in to the political gossip of the day. His political friends or “contacts”, as he used to call them, (because they were sources of dependable information with value) would phone him to trade political information and, sometimes, indulge in political gossip.
Mr. Premadasa began his political career in 1950 as a Labour Party member of the Colombo Municipal Council. Soon he became the deputy mayor. In 1956, he joined the United National Party led by Dudley Senanayake. After four years, he was elected as a Member of Parliament from Colombo Central.
In late 1960, he was appointed as Deputy Minister of Local Government, Housing and Constructions and in 1968 the minister. In 1977, when J.R. Jayewardene became the first executive President of Sri Lanka, Mr Premadasa was appointed as Prime Minister.
Mr Premadasa worked tirelessly to alleviate poverty in Sri Lanka. Among his major initiatives were the Janasaviya poverty alleviation programme, the 200 Garment Factory programme and the Gam Udawa programme to build model villages with clean water, decent roads, schools, and health centers.
President Premadasa not only monitored the progress of development programmes but evaluated them by sending his staff to visit the sites and receiving progress reports. Once the reports were received, he would check them against the statistics maintained by the ministries. This enabled him to track which officials worked tirelessly to achieve results and to take action against those who bluffed.
President Premadasa cared for common people and reached out to them at every possibility, uplifting their living environments.
He never forgot that he grew up amongst the poorer folk and had been a part of their wants and woes.
When my eldest sister passed away on January 2, 1973 early morning, we brought it to the notice of my father while he was in a phone conversation with Mr. Premadasa. He kept the phone without telling anything. But within no time, Mr. Premadasa arrived at my place to console us and later in the evening visited us again with his wife who is a kind-hearted simple lady. We still remember their visits and appreciate them.
In the same manner, they paid their last respects to my father as well when he died. President Premadasa was such a grateful person that he never forgot us. Whenever he visited the Badulla District, he never forgot to visit me.
He visited me when I was the assistant superintendent at Downside Estate, Welimada and when I was the superintendent at Shawlands Estate, Lunugala.
It is said that when he died, the country lost a dynamic leader, a stern disciplinarian and a result oriented visionary who spearheaded the economic development of the country by taking small-scale industries to the villages and providing employment to rural youth, with a view to eliminating poverty, especially in the rural sector.
If Premadasa Premadasa had served the two full terms of his presidency, Sri Lanka would have been like Singapore today.
(The writer is a senior planter, agricultural advisor and
freelance journalist.)