By Kassapa Ellepola
This piece of writing is for the remembrance of ‘Saddhatissa Wadigamangawa’ whose 11th death anniversary falls on the 14th of December 2011.
‘Saddhatissa Wadigamangawa’ as known by many, was an eminent politician from Sri Lanka. He was a member of the National State Assembly in the latter part of the 1970’s, a Trade Union leader and an activist, teacher and also an author. He was born in 1928 and passed away in the year 2000, completing 72 valuable years of service to the country and its people.
He was born on the 4th of February, 1928 in Kuliyapitiya, Twenty years before Sri Lanka achieved independence. He received his primary and secondary education from St. Paul’s College Kandy and from St. Anne’s College, Kurunegala. The political career of Saddhatissa Wadigamangawa was well influenced by his primary and secondary education as well as from his family background; Wadigamangawa’s being a renowned Family in the North Western Province. After the completion of his studies, he joined the profession of teaching and was appointed as an English Teacher at the Saranath Vidyalaya, Kuliyapitiya in 1952. He also taught at the Methodist College in Bandarawela.
He was married to Padma Ilankoon from Pilessa, Kurunegala and was father to six children.
He was influenced by the attempt of the world’s Communist movement to achieve global democracy and decided to join the Sri Lanka Communist Party with the aspiration of serving the people and his country. He was involved in the establishment of a branch of the Sri Lanka Communist Party in Kuliyapitiya in 1952. As a result of his leadership abilities, he was soon appointed as the Divisional Secretary of the Communist Party in the Kurunegala District and later on as a Central Committee member, who led many promising struggles to win people’s rights.
He was also a prominent figure in the Trade Union sector. He has held the positions of Kuliyapitiya Branch Chairman of the ‘Sri Lanka National Teacher’s Union’ (SLNTU), as the Divisional Chairman of the SLNTU of the Kurunegala District and he was also a Central Committee member of the SLNTU. His service as the District representative of the Kurunegala ‘Teacher Transfer Panel’ and as the Kurunegala district representative of the Education Service Cooperative Union is always reminisced by the teachers and educationists in the Kurunegala District. He committed himself in solving problems of teachers and addressed issues in the teaching profession throughout his career.
His services are also recognized by a lot of dance and music artists in the Kurunegala District and also by Sathkoralaya Literary Union where he has been a committee member. He is been recognized by many as an individual to have had shown his abilities in a various amount of fields. He was also fighting for the rights of the farmer community where he was the first ever elected General Secretary of the ‘Lanka Jathika Govi Peramuna’ led by Dr. S.A. Wickramasinghe.
As he was recognized as a prominent leader of the Communist Party who led the party and its members against the United National Party (UNP), he was expelled from his teaching career in 1965. He was reappointed as a teacher in 1970 after the ‘United Front’ acquired power.
He also did an eminent service as a community leader to the people in the Kurunegala and Puttalam Districts, to refurbish Economic and Cultural Development in urban and rural areas.
He left the ‘Communist Party’ and joined the ‘Sri Lanka Freedom Party’ (SLFP) led by Sirimavo Bandaranaike and contested the General Election in 1977. Saddhatissa Wadigamangawa was nominated as the representative of the Anamaduwa electorate from the SLFP. He got the opportunity to enter the Sri Lankan National State Assembly in 1977. He was a member of the National State Assembly from July 1977 to February 1980. When all democratic and left wing political parties were washed off in the 1977 election by the United National Party (UNP) where they had a 5/6 power over the opposition, Wadigamangawa still managed to be selected to the National State Assembly. He was one of only eight to be elected to parliament from the SLFP in the election which is considered a landmark of Sri Lankan political history. This election result showed that the people in Anamaduwa were in great favor of Saddhatissa Wadigamangawa.
However, he lost in the 1980 By-election; it was only from a narrow margin of 1787 votes. The ruling UNP appointed Ashoka Wadigamangawa, a close relative of Saddhatissa Wadigamangawa as the UNP candidate. But political analysts say that the very well established UNP government who had a stronghold of 5/6 in the National State Assembly from the previous 1977 election, put all its collective effort including money, manpower, ministers including President J.R. Jayawardena himself was positioned in Anamaduwa for campaigning to win the electorate from Saddhatissa Wadigamangawa, which they succeeded but only from a narrow margin.
Saddhatissa Wadigamangawa is considered a very close friend of Late Minister Anura Bandaranaike and also J.R.P. Sooriyapperuma. He is talked about with great respect among people in different levels of the Sri Lankan Society and was regarded as a charismatic person by many politicians from different parties.
He has represented the country in many delegations that toured to other countries. He led the Sri Lankan Communist Party delegation to the Soviet Union in 1967 and also led a group of the SLFP members who went to Cuba for the World Youth Conference. He was also a member of the team which visited Venezuela in 1980 for Inter Parliament Society Conferences.
He joined the Democratic United National Front (DUNF) in the early 1990’s. The party was headed by promising politicians such as late Lalith Athulathmudali and late Gamini Dissanayake. He contested the 1993 North Western Provincial Council election from the DUNF where he won and then was appointed to the post of Chairman of the North Western Provincial Council which he held till 1999 where again he managed to perform lot of services to the people in the North Western Province.
The latter part of his life was spent leisurely with the books he loved. Saddhatissa Wadigamangawa was a great admirer and follower of music, drama and dance, cinema as he himself acted in few movies and many other cultures. He was also extremely knowledgeable about them. His close friends say that when he got himself involved in any art, he gave it a new dimension and a great sense of value. In the final few months of his life he translated ‘Zorba the Greek’ a great novel by the Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis. He was also into composing poems and song lyrics.
He succumbed due to a tumor in December 14, 2000 and his funeral was held in Anamaduwa, amidst a huge gathering of admirers who has received his service and has benefitted from him.
A very close friend of Saddhatissa Wadigamangawa, W.A. Abeysinghe a renowned author and a poet in the country, in a letter of remembrance of Saddhatissa Wadigamangawa on his funeral day, quoted a few lines from the drama ‘Julius Caesar’ by the great poet William Shakespeare which he believed that would be best to describe Wadigamangawa. The dialogue of Mark Anthony says,
May he attain the blissful ‘Nibbana’.
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