Saluting a great comrade and the LSSP in its heyday

Lakshman Kandanearatchi breathed his last in the United Kingdom recently, but the memories that he left behind amongst his friends and family will certainly live forever.

As a schoolboy at Vidyakara Vidyalaya – Maharagama, he was introduced to left politics through K.M.P. Rajaratne and Stanley Tillekeratne who were teachers in Vidyalankara at the time. Lakshman, who was “Lucky” to his friends and family joined the Lanka Sama Samaja Party – Pannipitiya Youth League in 1954 when the late Sirisena, the then Chairman of the Maharagama Town Council was the LSSP organiser for the area. “Lucky” however remained an LSSPer dedicated to its original policies until he breathed his last.

I was a Youth Leaguer myself, but came to know “Lucky” well in 1966 when I joined the State Engineering Corporation (SEC) where he was the President of the Ceylon Mercantile Union (CMU) branch. I was quickly drawn in as a ‘core’ committee member and my writing skills were extensively used to promote LSSP ideals and SEC’s CMU membership demands.

With “Lucky” at the helm, the CMU branch at SEC grew from strength to strength. When the SLFP and UNP Trade Unions were attempting to infiltrate and create their own presence within SEC employees Lakshman did not panic, instead strengthened the CMU branch by presenting what was termed the 10 demands in 1968 to Dr. A.N.S.Kulasinghe, Chairman of SEC at the time. He was instrumental in ‘composing’ the 10 demands which included the rights of both white and blue collar workers at SEC thereby reducing the impact of any breakaways from the SEC to other Unions.

At CMU meetings Lakshman, being a dedicated LSSPer would not see eye-to-eye with that Trade Union ‘war horse’ Bala Tampoe. “Lucky” along with his friend Comrade Rasideen were always at loggerheads with Bala. But this was all taken in good spirit. Come 1969 – (March 1969) to be exact, the SEC – Branch of the CMU decided to call its members out on strike on their 10 demands against the formidable Dr. Kulasingha. After one month of the strike Philip Gunawardena, Minister in charge of Industries granted the 10 demands as reasonable and instructed SEC to yield.

Lakshman having achieved what he wanted for the membership then relinquished his position as President and proposed my name to that position which was unanimously accepted by the membership. Comrade Kandanearatchi was also one of those who crossed swords with Dr. Colvin R de Silva at the Hikkaduwa meeting when the LSSP changed course to support Mrs. Bandaranaike and according to people like Vivienne and Kandanearatchi, lost popular support for a complete decline thereafter.

When I left Sri Lanka to the UK in 1974, the advice that “Lucky” gave me was that to the best of his knowledge there was no LSSP branch in the UK and could I therefore find a way of creating a branch? In July 1979 “Lucky” himself came over to the UK and found employment with UNESCO – UK office for a brief period thereafter he worked for the Islington Council where he identified himself with Labour Party Politics. The present leader of the Labour Party, who is MP for Islington was a close friend who often visited “Lucky” in his residence in Islington.

In fact Lucky’s house was more or less a LSSP branch office, where Bernard Soysa, Vivienne Gunawardena and Athauda Seneviratne and of course Chandrika Bandaranaike were frequent visitors. In fact it was at Lucky’s place that Chandrika was influenced to come and replace her aging mother at the time.

There is much more that I can write about you my friend but that will certainly not be enough to pacify your daughter Apsara who looked upto you with pride and wife Maya to whom you are irreplaceable. Wherever you are my friend “from earth to earth, dust to dust or ashes to ashes” you can certainly rest in peace with the belief that there are as yet some of us who believe in original Samasamajism as you believed in despite it having been polluted by placatory politics. Dr. M.Haris Deen