THE UNSUNG ARCHITECT OF CEYLON'S FREEDOM

Death Anniversary of F. R. Senanayake today

- By K.K.S. Perera

In the pantheon of Sri Lanka’s independence heroes, one name lingers in the shadows of his more celebrated younger brother. Yet Frederick Richard Senanayake’s (FR) story reveals a man who chose principle over prominence, whose strategic vision helped forge the path to freedom.

October 20 marked an extraordinary coincidence in the Don Spater Senanayake household. Born on that date in 1882 to Mudaliyar Senanayake, a wealthy graphite magnate, F.R. shared his birthday with his younger brother D.S., born exactly two years later. While D.S. would become independent Ceylon’s first Prime Minister, it was F.R. who first blazed the trail of nationalist resistance that made that achievement possible.

Their family connections read like a blueprint of Ceylon’s political destiny. Elder brother D.C. joined them in their campaigns, while sister Maria Frances married into the Bandaranaike family, linking the Senanayakes to yet another future Prime Minister.

Weapon of temperance

After qualifying as a barrister at Cambridge, F.R. returned home not to build a legal career, but to challenge an empire. In 1912, he launched his most audacious crusade: the temperance movement against the colonial arrack renting system.

The British design was brutally simple.

They auctioned liquor licences to tavern owners, filling government coffers while devastating communities through calculated alcoholism. Villages that once centered around temples now faced an epidemic of addiction, deliberately fostered by colonial policy. F.R. and his brothers transformed temperance into a national awakening. Their rallies drew thousands, their message resonating with educated youth who recognised this assault on their culture. What appeared to be a public health campaign was, in essence, an act of rebellion, and the British knew it.