Junius Richard Jayewardene (Sinhala: ජුනියස් රිචඩ් ජයවර්ධන; Tamil: ஜூனியஸ் ரிச்சட் ஜயவர்தனா; 17 September 1906 – 1 November 1996), also known by his initials JR, was a Sri Lankan lawyer, who served as prime minister of Sri Lanka from 1977 to 1978 and as president of Sri Lanka from 1978 to 1989. He was a leader of the nationalist movement in Ceylon and served in a variety of cabinet positions in the decades following independence. A longtime member of the United National Party, he led the party to a landslide victory in the 1977 parliamentary elections and served as prime minister for half a year before becoming the country's first executive president under an amended constitution.
Jayawardene remains a divisive figure in Sri Lankan history. While the open economic system he introduced in 1978 brought the country out of the economic turmoil it was facing as the result of the preceding government's closed economic policies, Jayawardene's social policies, including his response to the Black July riots of 1983, have been accused of heightening ethnic tensions in the country and contributing to the beginnings of the Sri Lankan civil war, which lasted from 1983 to 2009.
Born in Colombo to the prominent Jayewardene family with a strong association with the legal profession, Jayewardene was the eldest of twelve children, of Hon. Justice Eugene Wilfred Jayewardene KC, a prominent lawyer and Agnes Helen Don Philip Wijewardena daughter of Muhandiram Tudugalage Don Philip Wijewardena a wealthy timber merchant. He was known as Dickie within his family. His younger brothers included Hector Wilfred Jayewardene, QC and Rolly Jayewardene, FRCP. His uncles were the Colonel Theodore Jayewardene, Justice Valentine Jayewardene and the media baron D. R. Wijewardena. Raised by an English nanny,
Jayewardene gained admission to Royal College, Colombo for his secondary education. There he excelled in sports, played for the college cricket team, debuting in the Royal–Thomian series in 1925; captained the rugby team in 1924 at the annual "Royal–Trinity Encounter" (which later became known as the Bradby Shield Encounter); he was the vice-captain of the football team in 1924; and was a member of the boxing team winning sports colours. He was a Senior Cadet; Captain, Debating Team; editor of the college magazine; first Secretary of the Royal College Social Services League in 1921 and the head prefect in 1925. In later life, he served as president, Board of Control for Cricket in Sri Lanka; President, Singhalese Sports Club; and Secretary, Royal College Union.
Following the family tradition, Jayewardene entered the University College, Colombo in 1926, pursuing the Advocate's course, reading English, Latin, Logic and Economics for two years, after which he entered Ceylon Law College in 1928. He formed the College Union based on that of the Oxford Union with the assistance of S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike who had recently returned to Ceylon. At the Ceylon Law College, he won the Hector Jayewardene Gold Medal and the Walter Pereira Prize in 1929. During this time he worked as his father's private secretary, while later served as a Puisne Justice of Supreme Court of Ceylon and in July 1929, he joined three others in forming a dining club they called The Honorable Society of Pushcannons, which was later renamed as the Priya Sangamaya. In 1931, he passed his advocates exams, starting his legal practice in the unofficial bar.
On 28 February 1935, Jayewardene married the heiress Elina Bandara Rupasinghe, only daughter of Nancy Margaret Suriyabandara and Gilbert Leonard Rupasinghe, a notary public turned successful businessman. Their only child Ravindra "Ravi" Vimal Jayewardene was born the year after. Having originally settled at Jayewardene's parents house, Vaijantha, the Jayewardenes moved to their own house Braemar in 1938, where they remained the rest of their lives, when not holidaying at their holiday home in Mirissa.
Jayewardene was attracted to national politics in his student years and developed strong nationalist views. He converted from Anglicanism to Buddhism and adopted the national dress as his formal attire.
Jayewardene did not practice law for long. In 1943 he gave up his full-time legal practice to become an activist in the Ceylon National Congress (CNC), which provided the organizational platform for Ceylon's nationalist movement (the island was officially renamed Sri Lanka in 1972). He became its Joint Secretary with Dudley Senanayake in 1939 and 1940 he was elected to the Colombo Municipal Council from the New Bazaar Ward.
He was elected to the colonial legislature, the State Council in 1943 by winning the Kelaniya by-election following the resignation of incumbent D. B. Jayatilaka. His victory is credited to his use of an anti-Christian campaign against his opponent the nationalist E. W. Perera. During World War II, Jayewardene, along with other nationalists, contacted the Japanese and discussed a rebellion to drive the British from the island. In 1944, Jayewardene moved a motion in the State Council that Sinhala alone should replace English as the official language.
First finance minister of Ceylon
After joining the United National Party on its formation in 1946 as a founder member, he was reelected from the Kelaniya electorate in the 1st parliamentary election and was appointed by D. S. Senanayake as the Minister of Finance in the island's first Cabinet in 1947. Initiating post-independence reforms, he was instrumental in the establishment of the Central Bank of Ceylon under the guidance of the American economist John Exter. In 1951 Jayewardene was a member of the committee to select a National Anthem for Sri Lanka headed by Sir Edwin Wijeyeratne. The following year he was elected as the President of the Board of Control for Cricket in Ceylon. He played a major role in re-admitting Japan to the world community at the San Francisco Conference. Jayewardene struggled to balance the budget, faced with mounting government expenditures, particularly for rice subsidies. He was re-elected in 1952 parliamentary election and remained as finance minister.
Minister of agriculture and food
His 1953 proposal to cut the subsidies on which many poor people depended for survival provoked fierce opposition and the 1953 Hartal campaign and had to be called off. Following the resignation of Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake after the 1953 Hartal, the new Prime Minister Sir John Kotelawala appointed Jayewardene as minister of agriculture and food and leader of the house.
Prime Minister Sir John Kotelawala called for early elections in 1956 with confidence that the United National Party would win the election. The 1956 parliamentary election saw the United National Party suffering a crushing defeat at the hands of the socialist and nationalist coalition led by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party headed by S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike. Jayewardene himself lost his parliamentary seat in Kelaniya to R. G. Senanayake, who had contested both his constituency Dambadeniya and Jayewardene's constituency of Kelaniya to defeat the latter after he had forced Senanayake out of the party.
Having lost his seat in parliament, Jayewardene pushed the party to accommodate nationalism and endorse the Sinhala Only Act, which was bitterly opposed by the island's minorities. When Bandaranaike agreed with S. J. V. Chelvanayakam in 1957, to solve the outstanding problems of the minorities, Jayawardene led a "March on Kandy" against it, but was stopped at Imbulgoda S. D. Bandaranayake. The U.N.P.'s official organ the Siyarata subsequently ran several anti-Tamil articles, including a poem, containing an exhortation to kill Tamils in almost every line.
Throughout the 1960s Jayewardene clashed over this issue with party leader Dudley Senanayake. Jayewardene felt the UNP should be willing to play the ethnic card, even if it meant losing the support of ethnic minorities.
Jayewardene became the vice-president and chief organizer of the United National Party, which achieved a narrow win in the March 1960 parliamentary election, forming a government under Dudley Senanayake.