Was controlling local administration SWRD's long term strategy?

A few days ago, while walking through the Bandaranaike Museum at the BMICH, I paused before a modest but telling artifact: a briefcase labelled “Minister of Local Government,” once belonging to the late S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike.

- BY AVISHKA MARIO SENEWIRATNE

Bandaranaike, the orator

Among the many ceremonial objects and political relics displayed there, it seemed almost ordinary. Yet it lingered in the mind.

That briefcase was not merely an office accessory. It represented a portfolio he held for over a decade, a position that brought him into close contact with the rural heart of Ceylon. Standing there, one could not help but wonder whether Local Administration was simply another ministerial appointment, or whether it formed part of a longer and more deliberate political design.

S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike first rose to island-wide prominence when he entered the First State Council of Ceylon in 1931 as Member for Veyangoda, elected unopposed. A famous photograph published in The Ceylon Daily News showed him in national dress beside his father, Sir Solomon Dias Bandaranaike, clad in Edwardian style, standing at the foot of the State Council building. It was not admiration but ridicule. From the beginning, he stood between two worlds.

According to James Manor in Expedient Utopian, during his first term Bandaranaike “hankered impatiently” after ministerial office. He served on the subcommittee on Local Government led by Minister Charles Batuwantudawe, who, as reported by the press at the time, was considered ineffective, with allegations of corruption raised against him.