If the JVP had introduced an English class among their five classes…
S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike was known as the ‘Silver Bell of Asia’. He was a talented speaker at the Oxford Union in England, delivering speeches with great eloquence. Upon completing his education at Oxford and returning to Sri Lanka to enter politics, he found himself among other politicians who had also studied at prestigious institutions such as Oxford, Cambridge, and Harvard, and who could speak English just as fluently. Bandaranaike was not a particularly prominent figure among them. He realised that to become the leader of the country, he had to take a different, more difficult path.
Rather than joining the National Association of elite politicians, Bandaranaike formed the Sinhala Maha Sabha as a vehicle to gain power and leadership by alternative means. He once shared this story with Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew.
‘How did you form a new party and seize power so quickly?’ Lee Kuan Yew asked.
‘I took up what people already carried subconsciously—race, religion, and caste—and inflamed it,’ Bandaranaike replied.
That, according to Lee Kuan Yew, was how he answered.
This is precisely what Bandaranaike did. While D.S. Senanayake and other elite politicians believed that although the people of Sri Lanka were Sinhala and Tamil speakers, everyone should still learn English, Bandaranaike took a different stance. He claimed Sri Lanka belonged to the Sinhalese nation, and that Sinhala should be the sole official language.
With that, he fostered resentment against the English-speaking elite who advocated for learning English. Sinhala-speaking doctors were set against English-speaking doctors. Workers were pitted against business owners. Labourers were set against English-speaking administrative officials. Farmers who did not know a word of English were turned against it. All of these groups came to oppose the English-speaking, Western-dressed upper class, and used the 1956 election as a Shramadana (a collective effort) to drive out the elite class. The nationalists called this the ‘collapse of the Brahmin caste’.
Until that point, Sri Lanka had progressed largely thanks to Tamil scholars from Colombo and Jaffna who were educated in English and had entered the administrative service. When Sinhala was made the sole official language, many of these scholars left the country and found employment in Singapore and Malaysia. Those countries benefited from Bandaranaike’s Sinhala Only Act.
At the same time Bandaranaike was dismantling the so-called Brahmin caste, a boy from the slums of Kehelwatte was finding his own way into politics. His name was Ranasinghe Premadasa. He had launched a social service initiative called Sucharitha Vyapaaraya, which was doing commendable work. He did not speak English fluently. But unlike others influenced by Bandaranaike’s politics, he did not grow to hate the English-speaking elite. Instead, he decided to learn English, realising it was necessary to communicate and compete with the elite.
‘When we passed Sucharitha back then, we could hear Premadasa banging on a cane table, teaching English to the children in the slums. He learned English by teaching it,’ said the monk of the Kehelwatte temple at the time.
When Premadasa became Minister of Local Government, he could manage the English language. By the time he was Prime Minister, he was fluent. He employed Tamil administrative officers fluent in English in his ministry and worked in English. He understood early on that English was essential to becoming an MP, a minister, a Prime Minister, and even a President in Sri Lanka.
In contrast, Bandaranaike, who was educated in English, returned to Sri Lanka, learned Sinhala, and became Prime Minister by promoting the idea that English was unnecessary to become an MP, Prime Minister, President, or hold a position in the administrative service.
Bandaranaike rose to power by fostering resentment against English. Premadasa rose to power by working hard to learn English. While Bandaranaike’s heir studied at the University of London, reading Shakespeare and brandishing swords in English debates in Parliament, Premadasa—who had learned English by teaching it in the slums—stood side by side with him, debating in fluent English.
That’s what the so-called collapse of the Brahmin caste truly represents. It wasn’t Bandaranaike who shattered it—it was Premadasa.
Recently, a professor described the JVP’s 2024 election success as a collapse of the Brahmin caste. But the JVP did what Bandaranaike did in 1956: they sowed hatred. Bandaranaike used race and language; the JVP used disdain for traditional politics. They mocked Ranil speaking English with foreign dignitaries. They ridiculed Sajith Premadasa’s polished, Oxford-and-Cambridge English. They even laughed at Sajith asking schoolchildren whether they knew Japanese—yet learning Japanese is just as important as learning English, especially for Sri Lankans seeking jobs in Japan.
Dr Gunadasa Amarasekara once said the JVP were the children of ’56. But looking at how Minister Sunil Handunnetti spoke at the World Economic Forum, it’s not the Brahmin caste that collapsed in 1956 or 2024—it’s the country. If Premadasa, a poor boy with no university education, understood that English was essential for leadership, it is a tragedy that the JVP, who have aspired to rule since 1971, have yet to grasp this.
If the JVP had included English among their five classes—making it six—they might never have come to power. Why? Because their members, having learned English, would likely have gone on to secure high-level jobs in companies, or left the country altogether.
