Douglas Devananda - Early Life

Early Life

Kathiravelu Devananda was born on 10 November 1957. His father was Subramaniam Kathiravelu, an employee of Ceylon Petroleum Corporation and his mother was Maheswary, a teacher at Jaffna Central College. He has three brothers and a sister. Maheswary died when Devananda was six-years old.

Devananda studied at Jaffna Central College before moving to Colombo in 1974. He lived with his paternal uncle K. C. Nythiananda at 17 Frances Road in Colombo 6 and studied at Colombo Hindu College.

As a teenager, Devananda was influenced by the political work of his father, a member of the Sri Lanka Communist Party and his uncle, a leading trade unionist. Feeling discriminated by certain government policies, he wanted to be engaged in the emerging Tamil liberation movement. Thus he joined the Eelam Liberation Organization (ELO) and later became a founder-member of the Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students (EROS). He took on the nom de guerre Douglas.

Following his victory in the 1977 election, President J.R. Jayawardene appointed Nithyananda as the chairman of the newly formed Palmyrah Development Board and Devananda functioned as his personal assistant.