Tailcoats and top hats or Parana coats and dirty sarongs?

By Gamini Weerakoon

(October 25, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) We have surpassed the dream of former British Prime Minister Lloyd George of making Britain a land fit for heroes. We are now having an overflow of them in Lanka and some of these heroes are attempting to make zeros of their fellow heroes and vice versa.

In the contemporary history of this island, in our opinion, there is one indisputable hero, the first Prime Minister D.S. Senanayake. We need not say much about him other than to note that he is one person who could have had below his statue the engraving: ‘I am the king of kings. Look upon my mighty works and despair.’

These were words of English poet Percy Shelly to describe the scene around the statue of Ramses, the Great Pharaoh of the 19th dynasty of ancient Egypt in a desolate desert. The scenario here is much more different. Senanayake never declared that he had regal ambitions nor is the scene as desolate as before the statue of Ramses as described by Shelley.

King of kings

The lush green fields of rice spreading for miles on end in the once malaria infested jungles with massive irrigation reservoirs providing the life giving water to the parched land is now the luxuriant rice bowl of the country — still producing enough food for the people even after 60 years. This is just one of the achievements of Senanayake for which this nation has to be ever grateful. Last week the leaders of the party which he founded commemorated his 125th birthday.

Unfortunately there was a toad croaking at the moon for crumbs to come down.

This sycophant who had been promoted from his job of giving inane cricket commentaries to the higher political realms, apparently considers himself fit enough to take on the mighty man. He has repeated the much hackneyed accusation: Senanayake was a Kalu Sudda (a black attempting to be a white) and the example cited was Senanayake bringing down the Union Jack and hoisting our national flag in top hat and tail coat.

Marxist charges

This criticism had been levelled at Senanayake since the days of independence by his contemporary political opponents, particularly the Marxists. That was political rivalry and could be understood. But why should this Johnny-come-lately into the political firmament get into the act now?

If he could recollect Senanayake sayings while he was alive or listened and read his speeches later on, it would have been obvious to him that this black Sinhala giant with a sandpaper voice of a Sinhala villager, speaking in gamme Sinhala without a trace of a foreign accent simply, could not have been attempting to be a Kalu Sudda like many of our Pandu commentators. He was native to the extent that he refused a knighthood. Although he was appointed a Privy Councillor.

He sported Western attire — white suits, safari suits and for ceremonial occasions conventional English ceremonial attire. The complaint seems to be that he did not wear the ‘national’ unlike the apparent favourite of the Pandu commentator and his ilk. We wonder whether any one could say what the national dress of the country was at that time?

What’s the national dress?

There were remnants of the older generation that still preferred the ‘Redda Assese Mahattaya’ attire ( a sarong worn over the trousers with a tail coat) as seen on the Charles de Soysa statue roundabout near the Town Hall), some wore Western suits of white drill, others shorts and stockings, lower middle class wore shirts with tie and trousers, the working class shirt and sarong, in the villages the working dress was only sarong and farmers the span cloth (amude) while for ceremonies they even sported tweed cloth and coat. Some politicians took to the ‘national dress’ which in the ’50s was called the ‘Wawula suit.’ But it was only confined to some politicians, a few teachers and intellectuals.

So what was the national dresses of Ceylon at that time or even today?

Of course these gentlemen who dropped their trousers and took to the national are patriots as our Pandu commentator implies. They came back after studies from abroad with Oxbridge accents and in national dress. Others came home with Oxbridge accents and white brides. Alas, only the accents and the national dress remained!

The white shirt and banyan (Wawula suit) is accepted as the national with or without a shawl (satakaya) — only the Rajapaksa family sports the kurakkan coloured satakaya (or has it turned a deep red?). The ‘Kapatti Suit’ ( shirt without a collar) and longs too is considered to be national these days but some on both sides of the political divide wear dark lounge suits (wedding suits) looking like the man from the undertakers leading the funeral procession.

Look like peasants?

At the time of independence it appears that the thinking of most Sri Lankans other than leftist radicals was to outdo the British not only in their languages and professions but also in dress and lifestyles. The thinking of the D.S. Senanayake generation would certainly not have been to dress and imitate peasants. Thus, being in top hat and tail coat for ceremonies like English statesmen and aristocracy was an indication that the Ceylonese could match them or even do better — not be half naked natives from the backwoods. Even the Marxists — Bolsheviks, Trotskyites and other varieties stuck to the white drill suit. N.M., Colvin, Pieter, Bernard all wore the white drill suit while a few like Dr. S.A. Wickremasinghe and Leslie Goonewardene got into the ‘national’.

Dress for politics?

Modern day radical sociologists and their ilk may contend that the dress of leaders should reflect the conditions, aspirations, culture and the varied expressions of a multilingual, multi national, multi religious society. All this would have been mumbo-jumbo to Senanayake and his colleagues if they were told about it in those times. Were they to turn up in dirty threadbare sarongs and paraná coat to reflect the prevailing social milieu at the ceremony to mark the freedom gained by Lanka after 443 years of colonial subjugation?

The commentator then plays pandu attempting a pol addi. Having meandered through obviously unfamiliar territory such as sociological evaluation of adoption of indigenous values he makes an attempt to project that D.S. Senanayake lacked patriotism! He demonstrates his erudition too by quoting a few lines of Sir Walter Scott on Patriotism… ‘Breathes there a man with soul so dead………’ Well done Sir, with this schoolboy poetry.

We can well understand this outburst of patriotism at this time where patriots (people who are with the government) are the need of the hour. But shouldn’t great men be spared of such mudslinging? He should also remember the well known quip of Bernard Shaw : Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. The refuge seems to be getting bigger and bigger.

-Sri Lanka Guardian