Politics
By the 1930s Ceylon was increasingly self-governing in internal matters, and Goonetilleke rose through the administration. With the coming of World War II and the likelihood that Ceylon would face military threat from Japan, Goonetilleke was placed at the head of a new Civil Defence Department as Civil Defence Commissioner in the War Cabinet of Ceylon, a move that proved to be justified when air raids on Colombo and other cities began in the spring of 1942. Sir Ivor Jennings, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ceylon, served as Goonetilleke's deputy, and the two worked closely with D. S. Senanayake, the minister of Agriculture and Lands. Those three, the brains trust of the Ceylon government in their time, were nicknamed "the Breakdown Gang" as they began to talk about much besides civil defence, including the steps that might be taken to move Ceylon to complete independence after the War. Eventually they were the leaders who brought the project to fruition, with independence for Ceylon on 4 February 1948, when Senanayake became Prime Minister.
In 1947 when the first cabinet of ministers was formed with Senanayake as Prime Minister, Sir Oliver, who had been appointed to the Senate of Ceylon after resigning from the public service, became the Minister of Home Affairs and Rural Development. He later resigned and was appointed the first High Commissioner of the United Kingdom. On his return to Ceylon he became the Leader of the Senate and the Minister of Food and Agriculture.
Read more about this topic: Oliver Ernest Goonetilleke
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“Our family talked a lot at table, and only two subjects were taboo: politics and personal troubles. The first was sternly avoided because Father ran a nonpartisan daily in a small town, with some success, and did not wish to express his own opinions in public, even when in private.”
—M.F.K. Fisher (1908–1992)
“Beware the politically obsessed. They are often bright and interesting, but they have something missing in their natures; there is a hole, an empty place, and they use politics to fill it up. It leaves them somehow misshapen.”
—Peggy Noonan (b. 1950)
“Our democracy, our culture, our whole way of life is a spectacular triumph of the blah. Why not have a political convention without politics to nominate a leader who’s out in front of nobody?... Maybe our national mindlessness is the very thing that keeps us from turning into one of those smelly European countries full of pseudo-reds and crypto-fascists and greens who dress like forest elves.”
—P.J. (Patrick Jake)