Hector Abhayavardhana - Early Life

Early Life

Abhayavardhana was born in Kandy where his maternal grandfather was an Anglican vicar - at a time when the Church of England was the established church. His father was a government servant and a pillar of the establishment.

Abhayavardhana was educated at St Thomas' College, Mt. Lavinia. His upbringing, being anglicised in culture and religion, was typical of the colonial middle-class and hence remote from the mass of Sinhala-speaking Buddhist people. He and his fellow matriculation student were once posed the question 'Would you have been better off under your own king?' by their teacher, in response to which he began to ponder upon nationalism and British colonial rule.

At fifteen he renounced Christianity and became an atheist. In 1936 he joined University College, Colombo where he read liberal arts and came under the influence of E.F.C. Ludowyk and Doric de Souza, who had Marxist sympathies. He went on to complete his colonial education at the Colombo Law College.

Abhayavardhana's first exposure to radical politics was the Bracegirdle incident, in which the Colonial Government sought to deport an Australian labour activist. He attended a mass meeting at Galle Face Green on 5 May 1937 at Bracegirdle made a dramatic appearance and a stirring speech before being whisked away into hiding. At the time, his father was the Chief Clerk in the office of Governor Reginald Stubbs, who sought the deportation and against whom this meeting was directed.

He organised the Mount Lavinia Debating Society, which invited such speakers as Dr. Colvin R. de Silva and J. R. Jayewardene.