The Gracious Lady creates history

Saturday, 19 July 2014 01:01 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Fifty-four years ago, on 21 July 1960, Sri Lanka made history. The world’s first woman prime minister was sworn in on this day. At the second general election within five months held on 20 July (the first was on 19 March), the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) being the party with the largest number of seats (75) in the 151-member Parliament, its leader, Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike was invited to form the government after Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake tendered his resignation having served for less than six months. It was the shortest government in the history of this country. It took six more years before Indira Gandhi became India’s first woman prime minster. She was followed by Golda Mier of Israel and several others. In her first message to the nation, Mrs. Bandaranaike summed up why she came forward to lead the SLFP: “By their verdict the people have clearly affirmed their faith in the democratic socialist policies initiated by my late husband. It was far from my mind to achieve any personal glory for myself when I assumed the leadership of the party at the request of its leaders. I knew that if I did not take this step the forces of reaction would once again begin to oppress the masses for whose salvation my husband sacrificed his life.” In addition to being the world’s first woman prime minister, she was also the first person who was not an elected Member of Parliament (MP) to be invited to form the government. She was elected to the Senate, the Upper House (following the Westminster system, under the Soulbury Constitution Sri Lanka then had a bicameral legislature with the House of Representatives as the Lower House and Senate as the Upper House) on 5 August 1960 where she sat until she contested the Attanagalla electorate at the 1965general election which she won and became an elected MP. While much has been written about Mrs. Bandaranaike’s governance during her two tenures (1960-’65 and 1970-’77) as Prime Minister; this is

an attempt to project her personality as seen by persons who knew her and who worked closely with her at an official level. “As a young girl Sirima Ratwatte was an aristocratic Kandyan beauty deliberately nurtured and painfully well brought up in her family of six, two sisters and four brothers,” writes renowned writer D.B. Dhanapala. “There was nothing in her make-up of younger days to mark her off as any one extraordinary, except her deep penetrating eyes. She cut her teeth in the most orthodox manner, came of age at the normal time, became interested in powder and perfume and clothes according to the best textbooks of medical mediocrities on the miracle of girls growing up to womanhood. Even at St. Bridget’s Convent where she studied, she always had poise, beauty, grace and charm and a devastating smile that broke down all defences.” He goes on to describe her wedding: “The bridegroom, dressed in white khaddar national dress woven in his own constituency, arrived in Balangoda shortly before noon, in the company of his father and close relatives, along 33 decorated miles from Ratnapura, and was received under a pandal by representatives of the bride’s family. From there he was taken in procession to the Walauwa, headed by elephants and Kandyan dancers. The ceremony was marked by all the observances of Kandyan aristocracy, the bridegroom going through it all as though to the manner born. ‘Astakas’ were chanted, gifts of cloth, betel-leaves and jewellery were exchanged, and the bride served the groom with ‘kiribath’. “There was applause from the gathering when the bridegroom handed over to the bride his gift of cloth and jewellery, and for a moment as the photographers fired their flashlights, there was a blaze of jewels of many colours, both in the gift and the beautiful ornaments in the headdress of the bride as she bent down to receive the bridegroom’s gift.” Of the later days, Dhanapala wrote that as long as Bandaranaike lived, she was only the embodiment of graciousness, poise and beauty, always in soft focus, providing the necessary rich background for a brilliant politician. “Absurdly simple in habits and dress, unusually unsophisticated in manner, charmingly gracious by nature and astoundingly undaunted in spirit, Mrs. Bandaranaike commands great beauty of person in her shining hours of fame even though she would be a little more spic if she had a little span!” is how he described her after she became prime minister. “She is able to command respect wherever she goes by the sheer force of her personality that vibrates. The result is a natural, quiet, if dynamic, dignity that approaches stateliness.”

Preference for local products

Bradman Weerakoon, Secretary to the Prime Minister in Mrs. Bandaranaike’s first term, observed that her clothes-sense was always impeccable. She was never overdressed for an occasion or overly adorned with finery and trinkets. She had no special hairdresser or adviser on dress, and her lady companion on visits aboard was usually her younger sister, Patricia (Patsy), who was the perfect chaperon and assistant. “The accompaniments – earrings, bracelets, necklaces and so on – to her gracefully draped Kandyan saree, which some felt were too high in her waist, were of highest quality. Brilliant appeared to be her favourite atone. At all times she preferred local Ceylonese products for her saree and jewellery,” he writes in ‘Rendering Unto Caesar’ – his narration of experiences under nine heads of government. Referring to the oft-made criticism of the lack of academic qualifications, parliamentary experience or administrative knowledge, Bradman W. found her personal magnetism to draw the masses, ability to command the loyalty of her ministerial colleagues, and the ability to convince the public that she was a woman of good moral character who would be honest in her public dealings, were formidable enough. Bradman W. remembers the immense credit she gained from a statement she made at the Non-Aligned Summit in 1961 when as the first woman prime minister of the world. She said: “As a woman and mother, I call upon the nations of the world to desist from violence in their dealings with each other.” The phrase was unique as no other world leader up to then could have used it and was carried in headlines across the world, giving her and the country a tremendous boost. Bradman W. considers the Indo-Ceylon Agreement (referred to as the Sirima-Shastri Pact) was undoubtedly the high point during the period of two terms as prime minister. As for foreign relations, she showed great interest in happenings around the world and brought a personal touch into her dealings with world leaders, Bradman W. states. He recalls the evident sadness with which she spoke to him on the morning of President Kennedy’s assassination, feeling a lot for the widow Jacqueline and the two children. Reminiscing the days Mrs. B was in Parliament in ‘Sirimavo’ – The Bandaranaike Museum Committee publication edited by Tissa Jayatilaka – then Secretary-General Sam Wijesinghe states that she possessed ample common sense and high integrity – character traits that stood her in good stead on her elevation to the high office she held. “She was tenacious, purposeful, gritty, had an eye and ear of essentials and possessed steely determination – qualities that sustained her and served the nation well in the next four decades despite the ordeals and reversals she suffered post-1977.” Sam W. adds that she possessed “a quality somewhat rare in a political personality – sincerity, the unique quality to which leaders she came into contact with responded warmly.”

Quiet and determined

Describing her as “quiet, dignified and serious-minded,” M.D.D. Peiris, Secretary to the Prime Minister during her second term (1970-’77), says she also had a fine sense of humour. “The strong personality that she was, Mrs. Bandaranaike, who possessed great self-confidence, could not be hustled nor intimidated. She valued the advice of bright and experienced persons, but ultimately she made the decisions.” Adding that she was not a mere housewife as her political opponents lampooned her, he says that both before and after marriage she held high office in the Lanka Mahila Samithi, the largest women’s organisation in Sri Lanka, with a considerable rural reach. “She was conscientious, punctual and had enormous reserves in stamina,” he states. “She was a humane, hard-working, dedicated and courteous person. She was considerate at all times in her dealings with the public service, specially so to the officials who worked closely with her. She was a forthright and determined person; never, ever intimidated by anyone she dealt with, no matter how formidable the personality. Her officials could argue a point and disagree with her if the need for disagreement arose. Whenever she saw merit in a counter argument, she either conceded the point or adjusted appropriately her thinking.” One time Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar paying tribute to her at the condolence proceedings in Parliament in November 2000, said that by far she was the most distinguished and successful Minister of Foreign Affairs that this country has had. Quoting tenacity and determination as two qualities she possessed, he said that she could get to the heart of a problem very quickly and she was able to pursue the resolution of a problem to its conclusion in a determined manner.

She was sincere

“She had, above all I would say, a rare quality in a public leader, that is, the quality of sincerity. Sincerity is difficult to define. But whet it exists you recognise it. You see it and you respond to it. In the field of foreign affairs she revealed that quality of sincerity to which all the leaders with whom she came into contact responded. At the end of her tenure as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sri Lanka, the rest of the world acknowledged very clearly that Mrs. Bandaranaike was a leader who had that exceptional quality,” he added and detailed a number of her achievements. These included her role in the Sino-Indian border dispute, solving the problem of stateless persons of Indian origin, permitting refuelling facilities for Pakistani planes during the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war, solving the Kachchativu island issue and the setting up of the Indian Ocean Peace Zone. Holding the Non-Alignment Summit in Colombo in 1976 is considered her crowning achievement. Concluding his essay in ‘Sirimavo’ on the foreign policy of Mrs. Bandaranaike, distinguished diplomat Jayantha Dhanapala relates an incident during her visit to China in 1972 which brings out her humane personality very clearly. “At the end of the visit, as normal protocol required, the officials began preparing the customary gifts for people in the Chinese Government associated with the visit. It was late at night in the Sri Lankan delegation’s office room as we gift-wrapped the parcels and pasted the appropriate labels on them. A figure in a dressing gown with her hair let down in a plait slipped in to join us in our collective work: Mrs. Bandaranaike quietly working with her staff. She remained mindful of her housewifely duties and her personal touch in supervising the tying of the bows and the neatness of packaging of us clumsy-fingered men was invaluable. The Opposition Parliamentarians had derided her as a ‘kussiamma’ or ‘a woman of the kitchen’ but here was a graceful blending of the woman and the leader joining her staff on the work floor. She was also often criticised as being ‘radala’ or ‘aristocratic,’ but here she was unostentatiously unmindful of rank or status.’”