Dinesh Gunewardene speaks to Roshan Peiris

Remembering a father

Last week family friends and political colleagues commemorated the ninety eighth birthday of one of Sri Lanka's leading left politicians, who in fact carried the renowned name, ''Founder of the strongest Trotskyite movement in the world''.

Dinesh Gunewardene soon reaching 50 years shared with The Sunday Times his reminiscences and an intellectual insight of his father Philip.

Dinesh said both his father and his brother Robert were known as the Boralugoda Lions coming from Boralugoda, Kosgama because these two people stood up and fought against the mighty British and their local lackeys as well.

"My father was a legend in his lifetime.People flocked to him and my uncle Robert and Leslie Goonewardene, N.M. Perera, Dr. S.A. Wickreme-singhe and other Left oriented people, since they stood up boldly not only to the British Raj but also faced upto feudal landlordism and much thuggery that went with it.

"My father led a highly disciplined life and he had a more than average commitment to work. Be it a ministerial post he held or as a party member or Member of Parliament his commitment was total. Even when he went on a pilgrimage."

But this man who fought for the rights of the underdog was not allowed by the government in 1972 to go to India for the treatment of a heart ailment. He died on March 25,1972.

Dinesh's voice broke with grief as he said: ''It really saddened my father, who had given over fifty years of his life to serve the country when he was deprived to go for treatment."

Dinesh recalled his last conversation with his father before he left for the United States to study Business Administration.

Dinesh said: "The most memorable thing he told me was that he had served to educate three generations of Sri Lankans with honesty, sacrifice and dedication which he asked them to emulate. In that last talk we had he firmly told me: "Son, don't ever expect anything from the people you serve not even simple gratitude. But that should not deter you from serving the people."

In a lighter mood Dinesh grinned as he related a few anecdotes. "My father used to dab some strong-smelling local oil on his head given to him by his friend Hettigoda, the well-known veda mahattaya and father of the present boss of Siddhalepa. The oil exposed a scar on his head which intrigued me and I asked him how he got it. He smiled at me and said it is a "souvenir of a beating I got from thugs at a meeting in Colombo. But later the very thugs came and apologised to Leslie Goonewardene and me and totally took control of the meeting from the organisers, and took our side by attacking the colonial rulers."

Dinesh shyly acknowledged that his parents married for love. "They were a devoted couple. A relative of my mother's told her that she(Kusuma) would marry a man who would sooner or later go to jail. My mother repeated it to my father, who had laughed and said, 'I am going to jail - not for robbing anyone - but for fighting our British rulers who were robbing our country of its wealth."

"To my mother all this was inspiring since she herself was a revolutionary and took part in the then famous Suriya Mal Movement and attended classes on Left politics."

Philip could sometimes be autocratic and challenging especially when it came to preserving the values he believed in.

"But at home he never lost his temper with us or with our mother. He was a gentle person and a voracious reader,'' Dinesh recalls.

Dinesh regrets that his father's health did not permit him to write his autobiography which he so wanted to. Philip once crossed the Pyrennees mountains in the Spanish border with France carrying a message from the French revolutionaries to their Spanish comrades fighting fascism. He spoke Spanish fluently having studied it in the United States. He also worked with the colourful Mexican revolutionary Vas Gonzales.

When he was in London Philip went to Hyde Park Corner every Sunday with the former Prime Minister of Mauritius Ram Goolam, Jomo Kenyata and Krishna Menon. They were often heckled and some tried physical violence as well. "But my father and Jomo were quite equal to meeting them'' Dinesh said. "My father's experience in the Left Movement extended to the United States, Europe and India. That is one of the reasons that I am sad he could not write all this in his autobiography.

"I cherish his memory a great deal," he said adding that he became the leader of the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna, largely due to the coaching and guidance of his father.

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