It was around the end of 1956. “Bandaranaike set off a bomb in our heads…” Sirimavo said.
He came home early that day. I sensed that he was worried. He told me to put aside my household chores and come upstairs to discuss an important matter with him. Normally, that was not something I was accustomed to.
“There is a strong rumour that Sir John is going to dissolve Parliament. He probably thinks he needs a mandate to implement his programme for another five years. He is completely wrong. But that is not the issue. We are not ready to start our fight. With what weapons will I fight? How will I win? Where will I get the funds? What resources do I have?
“You know how much I paid for my father’s estate after his death. How much did I spend on the 1952 elections? We have land. But how can we make money from it instantly? We do not have wealthy businessmen or moneylenders. All the people who help me are poor. If I make them candidates, how will they find the money for the election?”
I understood what he was saying, but I had no answers. I simply listened. I did not have a solution in mind for his question. Suddenly, he came up with one himself.
“We have to mortgage this house,” he said. I was shocked and surprised.
“This house…?” I asked in confusion.
My parents had taught me that the most unfortunate thing in the world is debt. That was why I could not agree to his proposal.
“How can you even think of such a thing? Your father gave you this house. What will happen to our children? Do you want them to inherit debt? Do you want them to inherit property?” I told him.
“How can I earn money…?” he said helplessly.
“This is not an easy decision. I will save the house by paying instalments over 25 years…” he said with determination.
I eventually agreed. So our Rosmead house was mortgaged to the Bank of Ceylon for two hundred thousand rupees.
This story is recorded in Sirimavo, a book by Maureen Seneviratne, published in 1975.
In fact, after Bandaranaike was assassinated, the Rosmead mortgage payments were stopped. Following her defeat in the 1965 general election, Prime Minister Sirimavo had no home in Colombo. The bank foreclosed on the Rosmead house, and her children—Sunethra, Chandrika, and Anura—had to travel from Horagolla Walawwa to attend school in Colombo.
In 1965, Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake allowed her to continue living in Temple Trees on humanitarian grounds. But she declined his generosity and returned to Horagolla. She told Maureen, who wrote Sirimavo in 1975, that she was still paying off the Rosmead mortgage.
While paying the Rosmead Walawwa loan instalments, she introduced the Land Reform Act of 1970–77 and transferred thousands of acres of her land to the state. Eventually, her parents’ estate, the Balangoda Ratwatta Walawwa, was reduced to a small plot of land that also passed into government hands.
Not only Bandaranaike and her husband, but also Sri Lanka’s first Prime Minister, D.S. Senanayake, entered politics by selling their land. They lost their plantation companies, and eventually his son Dudley, who later became Prime Minister, acquired Woodlands Walawwa and Bothale Walawwa in Borella.
Woodlands Walawwa, which once extended all the way to Borella Junction, was gradually sold off until only a small plot of land remained. At the time of his death, Dudley had just Rs. 234 in his bank account.
In 1953, Sir John Kotelawala, who succeeded Dudley as Prime Minister, donated his property—Kandawala Walawwa and its estate—for a defence university, after the then Army Commander, G.E.D. Perera, pointed out the lack of such an institution in Sri Lanka.
Sir John immediately decided to donate his Walawwa and estate. The deed was signed on 11 July 1979. He opposed the idea of the university being named after him, but after his death it was renamed the Kotelawala Defence Academy.
J.R. Jayewardene, who became Prime Minister and later President after D.S., Dudley, Sir John, Bandaranaike and Sirimavo, had already sold his family’s mansion, Vaijanta, to the Chinese Embassy long before his premiership. Later, when the embassy relocated to Bauddhaloka Mawatha, the house was returned to J.R.
He donated it to the government to house valuable artefacts, books and documents from his presidency. It became known as the J.R. Jayewardene Centre.
He also transferred ownership of the Birmar house, which had belonged to his wife and where they had lived after leaving Vaijanta. It first went to the Income Tax Department, then to the National Institute of Basic Studies, and later to the Department of Archaeology. Eventually, it too was absorbed into the Jayewardene Centre. Neither Vaijanta nor Birmar passed to his son, Ravi Jayewardene. He donated these valuable properties to the public. To this day, I have not heard of Jayewardene’s grandchildren objecting.
D.S., Dudley, Sir John, Bandaranaike, Sirimavo and J.R. are considered the elites of Sri Lanka. JVP theorists argue that the 76-year rule of these elites was a curse on the country. The non-elite JVP claims to have ended this dominance by overthrowing elite rule. Today, as the asset declarations of these so-called “non-elite” JVP MPs and ministers circulate on social media, it is worth recalling how the elite leaders once donated their properties to the public.
