Word: ceylon
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Harking to his astrologer, Solomon West Ridgeway Diaz Bandaranaike selected high noon as the most auspicious hour to be sworn in as Ceylon's new Prime Minister. Before setting out in his ten-year-old Plymouth for the Georgian mansion of Governor-General Sir Oliver Goonetilleke in downtown Colombo, he faced the sun, to bring success to his venture. That afternoon at exactly eight minutes past 4, another auspicious hour, his new Cabinet of 12 scrambled for their cars and joined Bandaranaike at the mansion for a mass swearing-in ceremony. The Cabinet, at the Prime Minister...
...upset victory over Sir John Kotelawala (TIME. April 16) was apt to prove much more than a change of clothes. Sir John's pro-Western government, it now seemed clear, had been defeated mainly by domestic issues, e.g., a rise in rice prices, failure to please Ceylon's militant Buddhist majority. But domestic issues were all but forgotten as the new government, with strong left-wing and neutralist ties, sounded its first keynotes...
...Bandung conference of Afro-Asian nations last year, Ceylon's Prime Minister Sir John Kotelawala earned the free world's gratitude by angrily and eloquently insisting that any denunciations of colonialism should include a denunciation of the one real imperialism in the world today-Communist Russia's. India's Nehru, who had hoped to introduce his friend, Communist China's Chou Enlai, to his fellow Asians in a benevolent atmosphere, was outraged (TIME, May 2). What gave Sir John's words added weight was that he was himself a neutrlalist, opposed to SEATO though...
...been in power for 25 years, held a comfortable 54 seats in the 95-member Parliament. Chief opposition to his United National Party was an unlikely coalition called the People's United Front, comprised of such uneasy partners as a Buddhist party, a Trotskyite group and the supernationalist Ceylon Freedom Party. The coalition demanded the nationalization of all tea and rubber plantations still in British hands, and the ejection of British forces from the new Commonwealth nation of Ceylon. (The naval base at Trincomalee and the air base at Negombo are the last remaining British bases between the Middle...
Budding Buddhists. Sir John, himself a wealthy planter, always sought his political support chiefly among the middle class. For their votes, his opposition concentrated on the poor, the country villagers, the discontented. Soon the campaign turned into a contest in Buddhism. There are 5,500,000 Buddhists among Ceylon's 8,000,000 population, and each side strove to outdo the other in pledges of devotion to Buddha. Campaign cars careened through Ceylon's palms and rice fields loaded with saffron-robed monks, and each side accused the other of employing fake monks...