These are words that clearly express the aims and ideals that inspired the first editorial of COMMUNITY, published in April 1954, and the character of its creator, C. R. Hensman, an extraordinary Sri Lankan who passed away in London on July 9 this year after a life dedicated to the social and political uplift of this island through unremitting effort and example. As author, editor, teacher and friend, above all as an individual committed to the transformation of society and the ending of class and/or any other kind of oppression and exploitation, he encouraged many in an emerging generation of Sri Lankan thinkers, writers and activists.

Charles Richard Jeevaratnam Hensman was born on March 17, 1923 in Nallur in the north of Sri Lanka (Ceylon as it was then). His mother, Louise, a nurse, was an important influence in his life, as were his cousins in Malaya and Singapore, where he spent much of his boyhood. He returned to Sri Lanka as a young man, and became involved in the socialist movement. Throughout his life, he remained a committed Christian, active in Anglican and ecumenical circles in Sri Lanka and the UK. His personal life was lit by a deep sense of spirituality: he was that rare phenomenon, a Christian who appreciated what was best in Buddhism and other philosophies and faiths, and the books he wrote in later life largely focused on theological themes, including Agenda for the Poor, New Beginnings and The Remaking of Humanity.

Following their marriage in 1947, and with the collaboration of his wife Pauline Swan (herself an inspirational and talented teacher who was, like her husband, a graduate of the University of Ceylon and a contemporary of Regi Siriwardena, Basil Mendis, and the poet Patrick Fernando), Dick Hensman wrote and published the first of many books, A Better Way to English, which promoted a more creative approach to the writing, study and teaching of English than had previously been the case. His love of literature overflowed from his teaching into the presentation of poetry programmes for Radio Ceylon in which he involved those among his students and his wife’s who shared that interest. At the same time, his interest in current affairs inspired a second weekly radio programme, "Behind the News", while his liking for film and drama led him to establish the Shakespeare Society, an amateur group that brought together such actors and ‘theatre people’ as Lucien de Zoysa, Rowan de Costa, Sheila Van Langenberg, Johann Leembruggen, Winston Serasinghe, Neville Weereratne, Arthur Van Langenberg and Osmund Jayaratne on the local stage. Among the Hensmans’ students at St Thomas’s College and Bishop’s College who attended play-readings of a Little Theatre Group they organized were Arthur Sinnathamby, Kasi Choksy, Sidat Sri Nandalochana, Shelagh Jansen, Yasmine Dias Bandaranaike, Sundararaja ("Chummy") Sinnathamby, Wester Modder, Haig Karunaratne and Mohan Wijesinghe.

Dick Hensman’s lively sense of humour and love of life, shared by his wife, made them very attractive to students, to whom their home in Mount Lavinia was always open. It is not surprising that many young people regarded their lessons, and later, their conversations with ‘the Hensmans’ as high points in their adolescent lives, nor that the personalities of both these outstanding teachers have been recalled with gratitude and celebrated in the writings of students whose careers they pointed in new directions.

Supporting themselves and their young children by means of their teaching in two Colombo colleges, Dick and Pauline Hensman created the Community Institute in the early 1950s. This initiative, far ahead of its times and the distinguished fore-runner of both Marga and the International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES), promoted study and discussion on the direction of post-independence Ceylon, and published several issues of the journal COMMUNITY, predecessor of The Thatched Patio, Polity, and many others. His founding of COMMUNITY and the Community Institute are early and very important achievements because they revealed his vision, not only for Ceylon (as it was then) but also for the world, his values as regards what society should be, and the role that individuals can play in building society or community on the right foundations. He preached no overt ideological message or political agenda: his integrity as editor and founder was evident in all the issues that the journal produced, and the activities in which the Institute engaged itself and promoted.

At this early stage Dick Hensman was the journal’s only editor: there was no editorial board. Vol.3 No.1, which came out in April 1958, was probably the last in the first series, as the Hensman family moved to Britain following the anti-Tamil riots of 1958, which had damaged their efforts to build a community of shared values in a Mount Lavinia seaside suburb. While in Britain, Pauline continued to teach while Dick worked for a while as a producer for the BBC World Service, and continued to read, research and write.

("His name was a household word in the London of the 1950s and 1960s," writes Joseph Nathan, editor of the London magazine Confluence.) Inspired in his thinking by the Chinese revolution, Dick moved away from literary matters to write China: Yellow Peril? Red Hope? (published by the SCM Press in 1968) and Sun Yat-sen (SCM Press 1971). From Gandhi to Guevara: The Polemics of Revolt (Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 1969) is a collection of Third World writings edited and introduced by him, that has been used widely by both scholars and activists. His next book Rich against Poor: The Reality of Aid (Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 1971), helped make the case ? now widely if not universally accepted ? that underdevelopment is not an unfortunate accident of history or the result of innate backwardness in certain cultures or peoples, but rather an active process which impoverished some while enriching others at their expense. He was meticulous in gathering and analysing data, but he wrote for an audience wider than that of academe, expressing in everything that came from his pen his strong belief that food, healthcare and education should be accessible to all, and not only to a privileged few.

For a while Dick coordinated a Tricontinental Liberation Institute, but, preferring the independence of being a freelance writer, he returned with his family a few years later to the island, where he continued to work for a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society in which Sinhalese, Tamils and smaller minorities, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Christians and others could live and work together despite the separatist tendencies of politicians. COMMUNITY was re-established and a second series of publications begun.

This second series started with Vol. IV No. 1 in 1962. Titled "The Role of the Western-Educated Elite", it was presented as the first issue of an independent bi-monthly published by The Community Institute, with Dick Hensman as editor, assisted and advised by an editorial board consisting of: Hector Abhayavardhana, Robert Silva, Pauline Hensman, and Professors K. N. Jayatilleke, Ralph Pieris, E. R. Sarathchandra and A. J. Wilson.Shelagh Goonewardene (then Anghie) acted as editorial assistant. This issue presented an editorial that was titled "Independent and Non-Partisan", the whole being an edited record of a discussion that had been held at the Institute, one of many seminars and discussions held during this period that brought together some of the country’s leading intellectuals, administrators, public servants and thinkers.

The second series of COMMUNITY produced eight ground-breaking issues, each valuable in itself. No.5 ("Ceylonese Writing: Some Perspectives") carried articles on stages in the development of Ceylonese creative writing, on classical poetry, 19th century writing, Martin Wickremasinghe, Gunadasa Amarasekera, and the Ceylon Tamil Novel. No.6. ("Ceylonese Writing: Some Perspectives. Vol.2) presented essays on Achievements and Problems in the Sinhala Drama, Tamil Writing, Ilankeeran, and – for the first time – examples of original writing in English that included two poems by Patrick Fernando. K.S. Sivakumaran, a writer who regards himself ‘basically, as a writer and critic in Thamil’, considers it an honour to have had his views on Ilankeeran edited and published in ‘a journal meant for intellectuals at that time’.

"I cannot forget it," he writes, "because it enabled me to write fearlessly in English."

The situation in Sri Lanka was worsening, unfortunately, as an increasingly authoritarian government sought to impose its rule. After the `riots’ of 1983, Dick Hensman wrote Sri Lanka: The Holocaust and After (published in 1984 by Marram Books), under the pseudonym L Piyadasa. An updated version, Sri Lanka: the Unfinished Quest for Peace, came out in 1987.

Although he was deeply committed to justice for all, which led him to oppose patriarchy, the marginalisation of children, homophobia and other ideologies and practices which he regarded as life-denying, no account of C.R. Hensman would be complete that omitted notice of his life as a family man. Warm and affectionate by nature, and a generous, hospitable friend, he personally cared for Pauline as she became increasingly frail. His children (Rohini, Jim and Savi) and his grandchildren (Shaku, Murad, Marianne, Chandra and Ravi), their spouses and partners Jairus, Beth, Vijayatara, Ammar, Leena, Paul and Simon, and his great-grandchildren Amlan and Zinedine, were all extremely important to him. He had a deep interest in people, and a firm belief in human capability. Nimal Dissanayake, a neighbour’s son who became like a son to him, and lives in Colombo with his wife and children, will be commemorating him there together with other relatives and friends.

This memorial tribute, based on biographical material provided by his daughters Rohini and Savitri Hensman, draws on the memories of persons who knew C.R. Hensman as teacher, mentor, colleague and friend. Even so, it conveys only a small part of his personality and achievement. His kindness touched and sometimes transformed many lives outside the immediate family circle, including those of the present writers. Others who were informed and inspired by him will continue aspects of his work, but he was unique, and will be much missed.

Yasmine Gooneratne, Shelagh Goonewardene