Anil Moonesinghe - LSSP Days

LSSP Days

His parents summoned Anil back to Colombo urgently in 1952. He was called to the Bar and practised law all over the island. He and Jeanne joined the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) and worked in the Lanka Estate Workers' Union (LEWU), which organised labourers on the tea and rubber plantations. At the time the British were still very powerful on the island, in spite of Ceylon having obtained a form of independence in 1948. The British planters prevailed upon the government to deport Jeanne, but she went into hiding and the LSSP fought successfully to prevent the deportation.

In 1954 the LEWU sent him to the Mohomediya Estate in Agalawatte, in the Pasdun Korale (county) to organise a strike there. He was so successful that the Agalawatte Local of the LSSP asked for him to be sent as the Party's parliamentary candidate for the constituency. At the time, the seat was held by the United National Party (UNP) with a comfortable majority (the plantation workers, who were a large minority of the electorate, were disenfranchised by the UNP Government in 1949). In 1956 he won the election for this seat in Parliament representing Agalawatte for 11 years. He worked hard for his constituency, building roads and schools through self-help and worked for the welfare of the poorest sections, particularly for the neglected so-called lower castes.

He also successfully contested the working-class Dematagoda Ward of the Colombo Municipal Council, but found that working in Agalawatte took up too much time for him to devote any to his ward work.

Together with Jeanne, he joined Sri Lanka's first co-operative housing scheme, the Gothatuwa Building Society, founded by Herbert Keuneman, Seneka Bibile, 'Bonnie' Fernando and other members of the radical intelligentsia. This led to the foundation of the Welikadawatte housing estate, which attained some fame as an island of intellectual creativity.

He was elected to the Central Committee of the LSSP and then onto its Political Bureau (Politburo), a position he never lost until he left the party. In 1956 he spoke in Parliament condemning the Soviet invasion of Hungary. In 1960, Yugoslavia opened an Embassy in Colombo, and he advised the new ambassador unofficially on how to operate in Sri Lanka.

In 1963 he went to Yugoslavia for an Inter-Parliamentary Union conference. There he had an opportunity to view at close hand the operation of the Workers' Councils. He was deeply impressed by the level of open debate that he found at these councils, and this experience was to aid him in later years.