J. R. Jayewardene

The first Cabinet of Ministers of Ceylon

Jayewardene was attracted to national politics in his student years and developed strong nationalist views. He converted from Anglicanism to Buddhism and adopted the national dress as his formal attire.[11][6][12][13]

Jayewardene did not practice law for long. In 1943 he gave up his legal career to become an activist in the Ceylon National Congress (CNC), which provided the organizational platform for Ceylon's nationalist movement (the island was officially renamed Sri Lanka in 1972).[14] He became its Joint Secretary in 1939 and in 1940 he was elected to the Colombo Municipal Council from the New Bazaar Ward. He was elected to the colonial legislature, the State Council in 1943 by winning the Kelaniya by-election. His victory is credited to his use of an anti-Christian campaign against his opponent, the nationalist E.W.Perera.[15] During World War II, Jayewardene, along with other nationalists, contacted the Japanese and discussed a rebellion to drive the British from the island. In 1944, Jayewardene moved a motion in the State Council that Sinhala alone should replace English as the official language.[16]

After joining the United National Party on its formation in 1946 as a founder member, he was reelected from the Kelaniya electorate in the 1st parliamentary election and was appointed by D. S. Senanayake as the Minister of Finance in the island's first Cabinet in 1947. Initiating post-independence reforms, he was instrumental in the establishment of the Central Bank of Ceylon under the guidance of the American economist John Exter. In 1951 Jayewardene was a member of the committee to select a National Anthem for Sri Lanka headed by Sir Edwin Wijeyeratne. The following year he was elected as the President of the Board of Control for Cricket in Ceylon. He played a major role in re-admitting[17] Japan to the world community at the San Francisco Conference. Jayewardene struggled to balance the budget, faced with mounting government expenditures, particularly for rice subsidies. He was re-elected in 1952 parliamentary election and remained as finance minister.

His 1953 proposal to cut the subsidies on which many poor people depended on for survival provoked fierce opposition and the 1953 Hartal campaign, and had to be called off. Following the resignation of Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake after the 1953 Hartal, the new Prime Minister Sir John Kotelawala appointed Jayewardene as Minister of Agriculture and Food and Leader of the House.

Prime Minister Sir John Kotelawala called for early elections in 1956 with confidence that the United National Party would win the election. The 1956 parliamentary election saw the United National Party suffering a crushing defeat at the hands of the socialist and nationalist coalition led by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party headed by S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike. Jayewardene himself lost his parliamentary seat in Kelaniya to R. G. Senanayake, who had contested both his own constituency Dambadeniya and Jayewardene's constituency of Kelaniya with the objective of defeating the latter after he had forced Senanayake out of the party.

Having lost his seat in parliament, Jayewardene pushed the party to accommodate nationalism and endorse the Sinhala Only Act, which was bitterly opposed by the island's minorities. When Bandaranaike came to an agreement with S.J.V. Chelvanayagam in 1957, to solve the outstanding problems of the minorities, Jayawardene led a "March on Kandy" against it, but was stopped at Imbulgoda S. D. Bandaranayake.[15] The U.N.P.'s official organ the Siyarata subsequently ran several anti-Tamil articles, including a poem,containing an exhortation to kill Tamils in almost every line.[18] Throughout the 1960s Jayewardene clashed over this issue with party leader Dudley Senanayake. Jayewardene felt the UNP should be willing to play the ethnic card, even if it meant losing the support of ethnic minorities.

Jayewardene became the Vice President and Chief Organizer of the United National Party, which achieved a narrow win in the March 1960 parliamentary election, forming a government under Dudley Senanayake. Jayewardene having been elected to parliament once again from the Kelaniya electorate was appointed Minister of State and Tourism. The government lasted only three months and lost the July 1960 parliamentary election to the a new coalition lead by Bandaranayake's widow. Jayewardene remained in parliament having been elected from the Colombo South electorate.

The United National Party won the next election in 1965. Jayewardene was reelected from the Colombo South electorate uncontested and was reappointed as Minister of State and Tourism. No government had given serious thought to the development of the tourism industry as an economically viable venture until the United National Party came to power in 1965 and the subject came under the purview of J. R. Jayewardene as the Minister of State. Jayewardene saw tourism as a great industry capable of earning foreign exchange, providing avenues of mass employment, and creating a workforce which commanded high employment potential globally. He was determined to place this industry on a solid foundation, providing it a 'conceptional base and institutional support.' This was necessary to bring dynamism and cohesiveness into an industry, shunned by leaders in the past, ignored by investors who were inhibited by the lack of incentive to invest in projects which were uncertain of a satisfactory return. Jayewardene considered it essential for the government to give that assurance and with this objective in view he tabled the Ceylon Tourist Board Act No 10 of 1966 followed by Ceylon Hotels Corporation Act No 14 of 1966. At present the tourism industry in Sri Lanka is major foreign exchange earner with tourist resorts in almost all cities and an annual turnover of over 500,000 tourists are enjoying the tropical climes and beautiful beaches.[19][20]

J. R. Jayewardene in the 1970's.

In the general election of 1970 the UNP suffered a major defeat, when the SLFP and its newly formed coalition of leftist parties won almost 2/3 of the parliamentary seats. Once again elected to parliament J. R. Jayewardene took over as opposition leader and de facto leader of the UNP due to the ill health of Dudley Senanayake. After Senanayake's death in 1973, Jayewardene succeeded him as UNP leader. He gave the SLFP government his fullest support during the 1971 JVP Insurrection (even though his son was arrested by the police without charges) and in 1972 when the new constitution was enacted proclaiming Ceylon a republic. However he opposed the government in many moves, which he saw as short sighted and damaging for the country's economy in the long run. These included the adaptation of the closed economy and nationalization of many private business and lands. In 1976 he resigned from his seat in parliament in protest, when the government used its large majority in parliament to extend the duration of the government by two more years at the end of its six-year term without holding a general election or a referendum requesting public approval.

Sri Lanka 1977 Cabinet Ministers

Tapping into growing anger with the SLFP government, Jayewardene led the UNP to a crushing victory in the 1977 election. The UNP won a staggering five-sixths of the seats in parliament—a total that was magnified by the first-past-the-post system, and one of the most lopsided victories ever recorded for a democratic election. Having been elected to parliament from the Colombo West Electoral District, Jayewardene became Prime Minister and formed a new governement.

Presidential Standard of Junius Richard Jayewardene

Shortly thereafter, he amended the constitution of 1972 to make the presidency an executive post. The provisions of the amendment automatically made the incumbent prime minister—himself—president, and he was sworn in as president on 4 February 1978. He passed a new constitution on 31 August 1978 which came into operation on 7 September of the same year, which granted the president sweeping—and according to some critics, almost dictatorial—powers. He moved the legislative capital from Colombo to Sri Jayawardanapura Kotte.

Civil war

Jayewardene presents a baby elephant to American President Ronald Reagan and the American people, 1984

Jayewardene said in Daily Telegraph, 11 July 1983," Really if I starve the Tamils out, the Sinhala people will be happy."[22][23][24][25]

At first, the war went badly for the government, and the LTTE ended up in possession of Jaffna and most of the northern province. The army counterattacked with an offensive that threatened to retake the city, at the cost of many civilian casualties. Jayewardene had to halt the offensive after pressure from India pushed for a negotiated solution to the conflict. Jayewardene and Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi finally concluded the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord, which provided for devolution of powers to Tamil dominated regions, an Indian peacekeeping force in the north, and the demobilization of the LTTE.

The LTTE rejected the accord, as it fell short of even an autonomous state. The provincial councils suggested by India did not have powers to control revenue, policing, or government-sponsored Sinhala settlements in Tamil provinces. Sinhala nationalists were outraged by both the devolution and the presence of foreign troops on Sri Lankan soil. An attempt was made on Jayewardene's life in 1987 as a result of his signing of the accord. Young, deprived Sinhalese soon rose in a revolt, organized by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) which was eventually put down by the government.

Jayewardene retired from politics in 1989 after his second term as president at the age of 82;[26] his successor Ranasinghe Premadasa was formally inaugurated on 2 January 1989. He did not re-enter politics during his retirement even after the assassination of Premadasa in 1993.

President J. R. Jayewardene & Diyawadana Nilame Dr. Nissanka Wijeyeratne with Raja (elephant)

On the economic front, Jayewardene's legacy was decisive. For thirty years after independence, Sri Lanka had struggled in vain with slow growth and high unemployment. Since Jayewardene's reforms, the island has maintained healthy growth despite the civil war.

On the ethnic question, Jayewardene's legacy is bitterly divisive. When he took office, ethnic tensions were present but the country as a whole was at peace. By the end of his tenure, Sri Lanka was facing not one but two civil wars, both featuring unprecedented levels of violence and brutality.

Though Jayewardene indeed did not take measures to stop the attack on Tamils, he was not opposed to them personally, only politically. One of his most esteemed friends was a supreme court judge of Tamil ethnicity, a member of an elite family and raised in Colombo, but who was strongly linked to his Jaffna Tamil heritage. This is but one close Tamil friend of the president's, and it is quite clear that he was not a racist but rather a man who knew how to exploit racism to win the majority.[27][28]

Highly respected in Japan for his call for peace and reconciliation with post-war Japan at the Peace Conference in San Francisco in 1951, a statue of Jayewardene was erected at the Kamakura Temple in the Kanagawa Prefecture in Japan in his honor.[29]

• De Silva, K. M., & Wriggins, W. H. (1988), J.R. Jayewardene of Sri Lanka: a political biography, University of Hawaii Press ISBN 0-8248-1183-6
• Jayewardene, J. R. (1988), My quest for peace: a collection of speeches on international affairs, OCLC 20515117
• Dissanayaka, T. D. S. A. (1977), J.R. Jayewardene of Sri Lanka: the inside story of how the Prime Minister led the UNP to victory in 1977, Swastika Press OCLC 4497112

• Jayewardene cabinet
• Braemar, Colombo
• Vaijantha
• List of political families in Sri Lanka
• 1987 grenade attack in the Sri Lankan Parliament

• The JAYEWARDENE Ancestry
• The WIJEWARDENA Ancestry
• The Statesman Misunderstood
• Humble son of a humble President
• Website of the Parliament of Sri Lanka
• Official Website of United National Party (UNP)
• J.R. Jayewardene Centre
• 95th Birth Anniversary
• Remembering the most dominant Lankan political figure. by Padma Edirisinghe
• J.R. Jayewardene by Ananda Kannangara
• President JRJ and the Export Processing Zone By K. Godage
• Methek Kathawa Divaina
• Methek Kathawa Divaina