Review of N. U. Jayawardena Biography - to mark his 7th death anniversary, which fell on 25th March 2009

NU, with characteristic visage of serious intent, striding purposefully along the ramparts of Galle Fort

Kumari Jayawardena and Jennifer Moragoda have provided Sri Lankans with a sumptuously produced biography of N. U. Jayawardena's first fifty years (born 1908). NU, as I shall refer to him in typical Sri Lankan style, was born into a lower middle class Durava, family. His story embodies one of the outstanding processes of the British colonial period: social mobility through educational channels, seconded by an arranged marriage which consolidates this rise with landed property and higher status links.

Unlike some biographical tales, the authors do not attempt to hide NU's caste origins. In pre-capitalist days the Durava were almost wholly confined to the low-country districts and "typically associated" with toddy tapping, even though they engaged in other occupations as well. This linkage meant that they were relatively low in the caste-ranking system. The British colonial period and the transformations effected by the new imperial rulers led to the expansion of capitalism and the growth of an indigenous class of capitalists (namely a bourgeoisie) who overlapped with the strata identified in local idiom as "middle class," namely, a status group with a particular Westernised life-style and a good command of English.

The emerging new indigenous bourgeoisie secured their wealth and status through entrepreneurial ventures in trade and contracting, some manufacturing (eg. graphite, coopering) and the cultivation of export crops (coconut, coffee, tea, citronella, cinnamon, tea and rubber). Families from the Karava, Salagama and Durava castes were prominent in these fields and were able to challenge the social status of the ritually-dominant Govigama caste on the strength of these foundations.

The Karava were at the cutting edge of this political struggle in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries so that Ceylonese lore has direct references to the "Kara-Goi" contest. Several of the prominent Karava in this period had made their wealth in the arrack trade, a field that depended on the supply of raw material from the toddy-tappers, many of whom were Durava. It is a paradox, therefore, that there were relatively few Durava arrack renters. NU's social mobility in the twentieth century via the educational channel of advance must be placed within such a backdrop. Arrack had some stigma attached to it in a Buddhist milieu. Indeed, new generations among some Karava and Govigama families who had made their wealth (or parts thereof) in the arrack trade jettisoned this line of accumulation and even became notable advocates of temperance.

Such pathways were also intertwined with highly significant processes of internal migration in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries which brought various social strata from the outlying regions to the primate city of Colombo. People from the Southern Province were at the heart of this movement to Colombo and elsewhere, whether as labourers, white collar workers or traders, and NU's career was one pole in this scaffolding. This process in its turn was one pillar in the development of Colombo as a hegemonic centre in Sri Lanka - until recent times when the Eelam movement and then the nourishment of Hambantota District by the Rajapakse government have generated countervailing processes in different ways.

NU's diligence, studiousness and intelligence combined to advance his career. As a boy he attended to his books and homework on train and at railway station during long journeys to school. In later life he "surrounded himself with books" (p. 128). He entered the work force at the age of 16 as a teacher and then a clerk. His capacities were quickly recognised and he rose quickly in government service, while also securing a B.Sc. (Econ.) degree via correspondence course. These interests secured him a government scholarship to the London School of Economics (LSE) in 1938 (pp. 77-95).

He was one of the key administrators involved in state intervention in production and trade under British direction during the exigencies of the Second World War. As such he worked closely with O. E. Goonetilleke. Subsequently, in the immediate post-war era and Sri Lanka's infant days as independent state the American Federal Reserve banker, John Exter, and NU were key figures in the steps leading to the constitution of the Central Bank, the bankers' bank and a pillar supporting sovereign power. These roles, we are told, had a touch of irony: both Exter and NU were sceptical of Keynesian economics (pp. 137-38) and leaned towards the minimisation of state interference. But the critical point is that NU was one of the few local officials "who grasped the theoretical dimensions of the role of a central bank" (p. 135), and who in the words of Exter, had "an unrivalled understanding of the operations of the Ceylon economy."

In overview, therefore, the book must be commended as a story that goes beyond biographical bouquets to reveal a great deal about the history of Sri Lanka in the first half of the twentieth century to generations of readers who will only have the flimsiest of information on the period.

There are gaps to be sure. One cannot discover anything about the currents of Sinhala nationalism associated with such figures as M. C. F. Perera, Piyadasa Sirisena and Anagarika Dharmapala, the activities of the Ceylon National Congress, the emergence of the Left movement from the 1930s or the political currents among the Tamils and Muslims of the middle class. Nevertheless, this book can serve as a partial introduction to the island's history.

Particularly significant in this regard is the attention devoted to a neglected dimension in our history: the war years 1939-45. The Second World War is kind of interregnum that had tremendous political and economic repercussions, an impact that has not been fully charted as yet in fact. Let me illustrate. Just before the war the Governor, Andrew Caldecott, acceded to nationalist demands and recommended alterations in the Donoughmore Constitution, notably the abolition of the Executive Committee system. The outbreak of war put a stop to this line of progress in the devolution of colonial power.

However, the war also enabled the astute Ceylonese leadership to enter into fruitful cooperation with the British. The apparent contrast with the Indian nationalist leadership should be evaluated by taking note of the geo-political difference in clout: namely, by attending to the enormous difference in people-power in the two countries on the one hand and the power exercised by the British Navy in an island situation as distinct from continental India.

The war effort also brought the administrative and bargaining skills of Oliver Goonetilleke, a kattaya if ever there was one, to the fore. A little sideline can be deployed to demonstrate his ramified influence as Civil Defence Commissioner. Folklore indicates that OEG assisted the influential Saravanamuttu family in their effort to transform some swampland in Wanathamulla into what we came to know as the "Colombo Oval," the home of the Tamil Union C & AC. This was a cricket stadium that was up to the best international standards of that day. In the immediate post-war years it hosted numerous foreign cricket teams, from Bradman's Invincibles on "whistle-stop" in 1948 to Indian, Pakistani and West Indian teams playing unofficial tests. The first official test, against England from 17-22 February 1982, took place within its 'sacred' precincts.

Again, Oliver Goonetilleke's links with high-ranking Britons and the backroom work of Sir Ivor Jennings were of central importance in the steps towards independence in the 1940s marshalled by D. S. Senanayake. How better to address the imperial Brits than through the machinations of a constitutional Brit, namely, Jennings!

Supporting OEG as a key financial advisor, one had an astute mind in N. U. Jayawardena, a mind that also had a passion for work. As outlined above, the creation of a Central Bank was one facet of Sri Lanka's efforts to shore up its economic strength. It may not have removed the island's colonial legacy of capitalist dependency, but, arguably, it reduced the measure of dependency.

This book is not an ordinary biography relating to an extraordinary man. It is a biography beyond the ordinary. As such, it is in step with its subject.

I assert this partly because of the aesthetic manner it has been composed, but in larger part, it deserves bouquets because of its content, both pictorial and in word. The biographical tale is richly contextualised. By way of illustration let me note that (a) the initial attention to NU's birthplace, Hambantota, is filled out with maps and references to the work of Leonard Woolf who 'ruled' the district as AGA at precisely that point of time; and that (b) NU's sojourn at LSE is prefaced by references to the role of the Fabian Socialists, Sydney and Beatrice Webb, in establishing an university that catered to the ordinary classes within Britain.

Pictorial images, maps and etchings cartoons embellish each context. NU's footsteps are animated by this vivification and elaboration of place, route and circle of persons around him at each major stage of his journey. As with the generality of biographies, family pictures are a requisite part of the embellishment; but, in this case, there is also a plethora of illustrations from a remarkable range of sources. This rich pictorial imagery of context is deepened by a historical analysis in the course of biographical tale. The presentation avoids intellectual pretension and sticks to lucid prose oriented to a general public. The analysis is based on a solid foundation of reading. It is possible to point to omissions, such as Henry Oliver's Economic Opinion and Policy (1957) and S. B. D. De Silva's The Political Economy of Underdevelopment (1982), but such notes amount to quibbles that neglect the difficulty of encompassing all the texts pertinent to such a long span of years.

At the personal level I was overjoyed by the choice of frontispiece, a picture of NU, with characteristic visage of serious intent, striding purposefully along the ramparts of Galle Fort. The ramparts were my beat. And, like NU, I was an Aloysian and proud to be one.

Indeed, our paths crossed at St. Aloysius. NU Jayawardena, then Governor of the Central Bank, was the Guest of Honour at a prize giving one year in the early 1950s and as a wee lad I was among those in the hall. Little did I know then that some ten years or so later my academic path would cross trails with NU's eldest son, Lal Jayawardena: as I struggled with my historical researches into Sri Lanka's nineteenth century agrarian history, I found that Lal's recent dissertation covered facets within this field. Ever generous, Lal assisted me in several ways. Ever alive - like his father - to intellectual endeavour, Lal continued to debate these issues and share findings with me in the years that followed - from late 1965/early '66 in London and then in Colombo from 1966 to the early 1970s. By the late 1960s my interests in elite formation and nationalist currents in Sri Lanka took me closer to the research interests of Lal's wife, Kumari. My sentiments in this review, clearly, are swayed by such circumstances. But I trust that I have said enough in this review to whet reader-appetite and to suggest that this work is a truly unusual biography about an intelligent and industrious man from deviyange rata, God's own country, the southern lands of island Lanka.