Hector Abhayavardhana: Selected Writings

Description

This collection of Hector Abhayavardhana’s selected writings forms as important contribution to the history of the Left Movement and politics in Sri Lanka and India. Hector Abhayavardhana’s life was an eventful one. Born in 1919, he was educated in St.Thomas’ College, and graduated from the University of Ceylon, where he became a Marxist and an active supporter of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (L.S.S.P) in the later 1930s. when the LSSP was proscribed by the British rulers, the leading members of the party, including Dr.N.M.Perera, Dr.Colvin R de Silva, Selina Perera, Leslie Goonewardena, S. Antonypillai, Vvienne Goonewardena, Philip Goonewardena, Kusuma Gunawardena, Bernard Soysa and Hector Abhayavardhana, (disguised as a Christian priest) moved to India. While the majority returned home in 1945, Hector,Selina and Antonypillai remained in India to participate there in political and trade union struggles. Before finally returning to Colombo in 1961, Hector was active in both Trotskyist politics and journalism- becoming well-known in India as the executive editor of Mankind, whose editor was Dr.Rammanohar Lohia, a prominent Indian Socialist. From the 1960s to date, Hector has been at the heart of Left politics in Sri Lanka. He also edited the Nation for many years and was Chairman of the People’s Bank from 1970 to 1975. This volume gives us Hector’s perspective on a wide variety of topics, ranging from Indian and Sri Lankan nationalism and politics to Marxist politics to Marxist polemics and tributes to fellow comrades.