Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike (8 January 1899 – 26 September 1959), also known as "The Silver Bell of Asia" (ආසියාවේ රිදී සීනුව), was a Ceylonese statesman who served as the fourth Prime Minister of the Dominion of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), from 1956 until his assassination in 1959. The founder of the left-wing and Sinhalese nationalist Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), he was elected the fourth Prime Minister of Ceylon after creating a powerful coalition called the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna and contesting on the lines of Sinhalese nationalism and democratic socialism. He achieved a landslide victory over the ruling United National Party in the general elections in 1956.
His tenure saw some of the first left wing reforms instituted by the Freedom Party in Sri Lanka such as the nationalizing bus services and introducing legislation to prohibit caste based discrimination. Bandaranaike further consolidated Sri Lanka's newly gained independence by formally abrogating the 1947 United Kingdom–Ceylon Defence Agreement and establishing diplomatic missions with a number of communist states. He implemented a new language policy, the Sinhala Only Act, making Sinhala the sole official language of the country, creating much controversy.
On 25 September 1959, Bandaranaike was shot at his town house in Colombo and died of his wounds the day after. A Buddhist monk named Ven Talduwe Somarama was arrested, convicted and hanged for the murder of Bandaranaike. Minister of Education and the acting leader of the house, Wijeyananda Dahanayake was appointed caretaker prime minister by the Governor General and was confirmed by Parliament.
Bandaranaike's widow Sirimavo Bandaranaike led the Freedom Party to gain a majority in parliament and was elected the first female prime minister in the world. She expanded on her husband's left-wing reforms in her first two terms as prime minister from 1960 to 1965 and from 1970 to 1977. In 1994, Bandaranaike's daughter Chandrika Kumaratunga headed a coalition led by the Freedom Party to be elected prime minister and thereafter president serving from 1994 to 2005. Sirimavo Bandaranaike returned to office for a third term as prime minister in 1994, serving until her retirement in 2000. Their son, Anura Bandaranaike, served as Speaker of the Parliament of Sri Lanka from 2000 to 2001.
Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike was born in Colombo, Ceylon, to the wealthy Sinhalese Anglican Christian Bandaranaike family, which had become one of the more elite native families under the British administration. His father was Sir Solomon Dias Bandaranaike, the Maha Mudaliyar of Ceylon at the time, while his mother, Daisy Ezline Obeyesekere, was a daughter of Sir Solomon Christoffel Obeyesekere, a member of the Legislative Council of Ceylon. Sir Solomon named his only son after Sir Joseph West Ridgeway, the Governor of Ceylon at the time, who was his godfather. He had two sisters, Alexandra Camelia, and Anna Florentina. Sir Forester Obeysekera was his maternal uncle.
He was tutored at his home, Horagolla Walauwa, by Henry Young, an English tutor from Nuwaraeliya, and thereafter by A. C. Radford, a Cambridge graduate. The young Bandaranaike had a difficult childhood with his father and tutors, who imposed their ideals on him. With the outbreak of the Great War, Radford returned to Britain and young Bandaranaike attended St Thomas' College, Mutwal, where he boarded with the warden, Rev. Arthur William Stone. He found Rev. Stone less imposing his ideals on him and encouraging of forming his own opinion. At St Thomas' College, Bandaranaike played tennis and took part in debating. He passed his Senior Cambridge examinations with distinctions in English, Latin, Greek and French, and gained the second Order of Merit in the British Empire that year. Delayed by the Great War, he entered Christ Church, Oxford, where he read philosophy, politics and economics, and graduated with honours in 1923. At Oxford, he was President of the Majlis Society; his contemporaries at Oxford included Anthony Eden. A keen debater and orator, took an active role in the Oxford Union, where he was elected junior treasurer. He contested the presidency of the Oxford Union, and came third to Lord Scrymgeour. In 1924, he became a barrister and was called to the bar at the Inner Temple; on his return to Ceylon, he took oaths as an Advocate of the Supreme Court of Ceylon.
After his return from Britain, Bandaranaike became active in local politics. He got elected as the Chairman of the Nittambuwa Village Committee in his family seat. He became Secretary of the Ceylon National Congress (CNC) in 1926, and in December the same year was elected from the Maradana Ward to the Colombo Municipal Council, defeating the trade unionist A. E. Goonesinha.
Following the implementation of the Donoughmore Constitution, the State Council of Ceylon was established as the first legislature in the island with its members elected through universal suffrage. Bandaranaike contended and was elected unopposed from Veyangoda at the 1931 election to the first State Council and was elected to the executive committee for local administration, chaired by Charles Batuwantudawe. He stated in the council that the committee system introduced in the new constitution was satisfactory at the time.
Minister of Local Administration
In 1936, he was re-elected unopposed from Veyangoda in the 1936 election to the second State Council. In its first meeting, he was elected as Minister of Local Administration. As Minister, he was chairmen of the executive committee on local administration, of which he had been a member in the previous term and was a member of the Board of Ministers.
In order to promote Sinhalese culture and community interests, Bandaranaike founded the Sinhala Maha Sabha in 1936. He introduced the Free Lanka Bill in the State Council in 1945 In 1947, when Leader of the House, D. S. Senanayake presented the Soulbury Constitution to the State Council, Bandaranaike seconded the motion stating that he does so as the Sinhala Maha Sabha was the largest party in the State Council.
With Ceylon heading for self-rule under dominion status, D.S. Senanayake invited Bandaranaike to combine his Sinhala Maha Sabha with other smaller parties into the United National Party (UNP) which Senanayake was forming to contest for the 1947 election under the new Soulbury Constitution. Bandaranaike accepted the invitation, formally dissolving the Sinhala Maha Sabha and merging with the UNP.
First Cabinet Minister of Health and Local Government
He contested for the newly formed House of Representatives in the 1947 election from the UNP from Attanagalla, winning with a good majority. In September 1947, D.S. Senanayake appointed him to his cabinet as the first Minister of Health and Local Government of Ceylon and he was elected as the Leader of the House. Effectively this made Bandaranaike the most senior member of the cabinet, after the Prime Minister. In fact, Senanayake had Sir Oliver Goonetilleke discuss with Bandaranaike as leader of the Sinhala Maha Sabha, the draft agreements for independence; which Bandaranaike received with mixed feelings. However, he did not object and the agreements signed with the Britain government making way for Ceylon to gain self-rule. As leader of the house, he delivered the address of thanks at the ceremonial opening of parliament on 4 February 1948, which marked Ceylon's independence from Britain.
During the next few years, he supported legislation proposed by the government as leader of the house. This included the Ceylon Citizenship Act No. 18 of 1948 and the Indian and Pakistani Residents (Citizenship) Act No.3 of 1949 which deprived citizenship to Indian Tamils. He initiated several projects for the improvement of health as minister of health, including the expansion of hospitals and uplifting ayurveda medicine. He attended the Third World Health Assembly in Geneva in May 1950 as Chief delegate of Ceylon. However, he found himself at odds with Senanayake administration on policy. By 1951, it also appeared that Senanayake did not intend to make an early retirement that would have allowed Bandaranaike to succeed him as prime minister.