Of Cables and Strings
D. R. Wijewardene and the Donoughmore Commission Report
Most Sri Lankans know Martin Wickramasinghe as a pioneer of modern Sinhala literature. A less known fact about him is that he was an editor of both the Silumina and Dinamina (a Sinhala daily). When the newspaper tycoon D.R. Wijewardene passed away in 1950, Martin Wickramasinghe, wrote a tribute in the Silumina, a Sinhala Sunday paper. Wickramasinghe heralds Wijewardene as a patriot who transformed “a feeble force into a mighty one.” He is of course referring to the meteoric rise of Wijewardene’s newspaper group, the Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd., more commonly known as Lake House.
Other than the aforementioned Sinhala papers, Wijewardena established the Ceylon Daily News, the Observer, the Sunday Observer, Thinakaran, and the Sunday Thinakaran. With seven newspapers in all three languages, Lake House was the trendsetting newspaper group in pre-independence Ceylon known for its journalistic excellence and depth of knowledge, so much so that the Silumina would come to be known as the ‘10 cent university’.
While recounting Wijewardene’s workaholic tendencies and pursuit of excellence, Wickramasinghe tells the story of how the Donoughmore Commission’s report was published in the Daily News before it was released in Ceylon. The report was due to be released simultaneously in Britain and Ceylon but due to the time difference, it meant that the report would actually be released in Ceylon a day after its British debut. For Wijewardene, such a delay was unacceptable.
He ordered Lake House’s London office to get a copy of the report when it was released in Britain and cable the entire report to Ceylon. The cables of course would be coming to the telegraph office and would in turn need to be transported to the newspaper office where each page had to be sub-edited, set up and proofs passed.
Wijewardene deployed a fleet of cars that rushed back and forth from the two offices each with a single page of the report that was then given to a group of sub-editors and then the compositors. Wijewardene stayed in the office throughout the whole process which took till dawn.
The Donoughmore Commission’s report appeared in full in the Daily News the next morning much to the astonishment of the government which released the report in Ceylon later that same day.
In a letter to Wijewardene dated 1st March 1928, one of the four members of the Commission, Geoffrey Butler, notes that while ‘no one [would] be wholly pleased’ that the report includes ‘safeguards and promotes those features and aims which you and I agreed were essential.’¹ Wijewardene wrote back stating that he was anxious that the report should have good press and was confident that the report ‘cannot fail to have a good reception in Ceylon.’ Butler wrote back in May 1928 commending the ‘wonderfully good tone’ set by Daily News articles on the report. In a subsequent letter, Wijewardene would praise the boldness of many recommendations and add that he hoped that Butler would be made Governor of Ceylon so that the reforms would be implemented in the ‘same spirit’ they were formulated.² Butler wrote back a lengthy reply stating, among other things, his vision for Ceylonese democracy:
“After all a Constitution is so much more than a mere document. It is a piece of history and demonstration of ideas. I felt that Ceylon was at a turning point in history. It is unquestionably the most politically advanced of the Colonies; by a series of circumstances it has the power of absorbing Western ideas and in the process making them seem ‘sui generis’ and not merely bastard…Ceylon may succeed in producing government suited to the Orient and of the Orient, but taking what is best from Orient and Occident alike.” ³
Unfortunately, Butler did not live to see the implementation of the proposed reforms as he died in May of 1929.
The report was the basis of the Ceylonese constitution adopted in 1931 and remained in place till it was usurped by yet another British Commission led by Lord Soulbury. The Donoughmore Constitution was one of mixed reforms. On the one hand, it provided universal adult suffrage making Sri Lanka the first Asian country where women could vote. However, this reform came with strings attached as a residence qualification for suffrage made certain that migrant Tamil labourers could not vote. Communal representation was replaced with territorial representation which led to Tamil politicians boycotting the first election held under the new constitution. There was however transfer of some power over internal policy by establishing the Ceylon State Council, the predecessor of the Sri Lankan Parliament.
In the Parliamentary reading of the Ceylon Independence Bill in 1947, Colonial Secretary, Arthur Creech Jones would describe the report as ‘an experiment in adult suffrage and in responsible democracy,…[that] contributed much to the political maturity and drive for effective democracy of the people of Ceylon.’ ⁴ Wijewardene and his small army of sub-editors, drivers, and other newspaper workers didn’t have the benefit of hindsight to know how the Donoughmore Constitution Report would affect Sri Lanka’s history. But the urgency Wijewardene displayed in getting the report into the hands of the masses tells us that he knew that this was a watershed in Sri Lanka’s history that its citizens needed to be a part of.
A translation of Martin Wickramasinghe's tribute appears in H. A. J. Hulugalle’s “The Life and Times of D.R. Wijewardene.” The article was first published in the Silumina of 18th June 1950 on the passing away of D. R. Wijewardene on 13th June 1950. It was also printed in the Daily News on 13th June 1990.
- Hulugalle, H., 1992. The Life And Times Of D.R. Wijewardene. Colombo: Lake House Investments Ltd., p.181.
- ibid. p. 183.
- ibid. pp. 183–184.
- https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1947/nov/21/ceylon-independence-bill
