Lure of govt. service

In the Southern Province, comprising the districts of Hambantota, Galle Land Matara, where NU grew up and had his education, the economic opportunities and prospects for social advancement for educated youth were limited.

- KUMARI JAYAWARDENA AND JENNIFER MORAGODA

Underdevelopment and the Ruhuna Diaspora

Many young people, such as NU, were obliged to leave their natal villages for employment outside; and the list of distinguished Sri Lankans who were originally from modest origins in Southern villages is impressive. They were usually the sons of cultivators or minor government employees.

Contributing to this situation was the prevailing character of the economy, which provides the background for understanding the path of NU's career and his flight from the South.

A glance at the economy will reveal the nature of the problem. In the Hambantota district, which was thinly populated and resourcepoor, the economy continued to remain undeveloped, and incapable of meeting employment and income needs. Several factors, which account for the undeveloped state of the economy of the Southern Province, were researched and reported on in the late 1930s and early 1940s by B.B. Das Gupta, Professor of Economics of the University of Ceylon. The report revealed low productivity, chronically so in paddy, where the smallness of holdings discouraged improvements. Family incomes included the earnings of large numbers of women who found employment in spinning coir, or making rope, but their earnings were described as a 'dole' rather than an income. In many cases, productive assets were held by absentee interests who found that, to "live on the village it was not necessary to live in the village." Das Gupta also reported that "people desert the village, settle in towns and manage their properties as absentee owners."