Jane Russell, whose essay is entitled “A Response to Roberts and Dharmawardena re “Facing Polarized Extremes in 1973 Simpleton Mode”
I remember the 1973 Ceylon Studies Seminar. It was held in Colombo in a grand conference centre with more academics present than you could find even by throwing a stone in the environs of Peradeniya and/or Kandy’s riverine or hilltop suburbs.
I remember the very cool lawyer Mark Coorey who chaired several sessions. I recall seeing Kumari Jayawardene move gravely to the lectern. She wore a simple sari and had long unkempt hair, held back in a straggly ponytail. Her contribution was delivered with serious demeanour. Months later, Minette de Silva, the architect, part of whose bungalow in Kandy I was renting, asked me if I knew Kumari. I said I didn’t – but I’d seen her at this conference and admired her sincerity. I described her as being unusually lacking in physical vanity. Minette sighed. “Yes, Kumari has let herself go!” On the contrary, I told her I thought Kumari had set a wonderful example of activist feminism.
Would I describe the organisers of/contributors to the Conference as Simpletons? Certainly not. A Farrago of Fantasists? Perhaps. Maybe there was more than a sprinkling of those who thought Jaffna was far, far away and too hot or dry for anything more than a casual visit to Casuarina beach for a dip and a crab curry or the spiritually brisk challenge of a lengthy pilgrimage via causeway buses and dodgy passenger boats to Nagadipva.
What I most vividly remember is the intervention of ’Comrade’ Nagalingam Shanmuganathan. He railed and ranted a Maoist Truth to Power. I was transfixed. Most of the audience seemed bored, even irritated. They found his speech irrelevant, hyper-polemical, unacademic, unanalytical – and far too long. I immediately thought of my fellow students at Peradeniya. Some Sinhalese students in my all-women hostel, who’d entered from rural Central schools, had been junior recruits to the JVP. Some had brothers and cousins who’d been killed, arrested, imprisoned. Students from Jaffna, who wore oversized church jumble-sale cardigans even on warm days on the campus, had expressed their anxiety about an upcoming revolution in the peninsula. I recognised immediately how Comrade Shan’s message would appeal to such an idealistic, politically naïve group. I decided at once that I must go to Jaffna.
The other contribution that has stayed with me was that of Lakdasa de Mel, the retired Anglican Bishop of Kurunegela. He spoke directly of the racism and discrimination that must only lead to alienation and despair; of promises made by successive Sinhalese governments that had been broken repeatedly; of greed for power and status by some religious groups. His humanity was overt. He had immense prestige and intense intellectual power. He was nearing the end of his life. He had nothing to lose. His voice was prophetic, his presence magnetic. He told it like it was – but in words that proffered an alternative to violence. As an atheistic humanist of many years, I’d never been so struck by an address by a cleric.
The next year, 1974, Lakdasa de Mel’s Anglo-Indian British wife, Joan, set up Sumitrayo, the Sri Lankan equivalent of the UK charity The Samaritans, which offers support to people contemplating suicide. After her husband’s death in 1976, Joan devoted the remainder of her life (she died in 20
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AN EDITORIAL NOTE: Apart from highlighting the names of some speakers, I have refrained from my usual policy of imposing highlights.
For further background of this pertinent piece readers should see (A) the recent debate between Professor Chandre Dharmawardena and myself ………………………………. https://thuppahis.com/2026/09/15/facing-polarized-extremism-in-sri-lanka-in-1973-in-simpleton-mode/#more-101942 ……………………………… and then
(B) get hold of the literature on the momentous conference at the Anglican Church Hall at Buller’s Rd in Colombo [loaned free by Bishop Kenneth Fernando].
