Doreen Young Wickremasinghe - Political Career

Political Career

In 1933 she wrote an article, The Battle of the Flowers which appeared in the Ceylon Daily News and exposed the absurdity of forcing Sri Lankan schoolchildren to purchase poppies to help British veterans at the expense of their own, which caused her to be vilified by her compatriots. This was the beginning of the involvement of the South Colombo Youth League in the revival of Suriya-Mal Movement on a new anti-imperialist and anti-war basis. The movement, which both opposed school pupils' compulsory participation in Poppy Day, and offered yellow Suriya (Portia tree) flowers for sale as an alternative, posing the question, 'whose need is more dire, the ex-servicemen in England or the poor of this country?'

Doreen was elected first President of the Suriya Mal Movement at a meeting held at the residence of Wilmot Perera in Horana. Terence de Zilva and Robin Ratnam were elected Joint Secretaries, and Roy de Mel, Treasurer. Yearly until the Second World War, young men and women sold Suriya flowers on the streets on Armistice Day in competition with the Poppy sellers. The purchasers of the Suriya Mal were generally from the poorer sections of society and the funds collected were not large - part the Proceeds were used to educate a girl from the depressed Rodi caste. But the movement provided a rallying point for the anti-imperialist minded youth of the time. An attempt was made by the British colonial authorities to curb the movement's effectiveness through the 'Street Collection Regulation Ordinance'.

After many more years of the couple's campaigning, Dr Wickremasinghe was jailed for sedition in 1939.

In 1947, the LSSP and CPC formed the Eksath Kantha Peramuna (United Women's Front) in which Wickremasinghe took a leading role.

In 1952 she was elected to Parliament as Communist Party of Ceylon (CPC) member for the Akuressa seat, beating C. Wijesinghe of the United National Party. In 1998 the Sri Lankan government conferred on her the title of Deshamanya, a prestigious national honour.