DA Rajapaksa (1905-1967) was a Sri Lankan politician and freedom fighter. He is known to be the father of two Sri Lankan presidents, Mahinda Rajapaksa and Gotabaya Rajapaksa. He died on November 7, 1967 after a long illness.
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Wiki/Biography
Don Alvin Rajapaksa was born on Sunday 30 March 1905 (aged 62 at time of death) at Medamulana Valawa, Beliata, Hambantota District, British Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). After completing his early education at Mankadavu School in Weerakatiya, DA Rajapaksa joined Richmond College in Galle where he completed his higher education. While continuing his studies, DA Rajapaksa helped his father in the coconut farm and paddy fields.
family
DA Rajapaksa was born into a Catholic family of Malak origin.
parents and siblings
His father, Don David Rajapaksa, was a Vidane Arachchi, an influential post conferred on a man during the colonial era in Ihala Valikada Korale in Ceylon. His mother, Donna Guimara Ratnayake Weerakon, belonged to an elite family of Upper Beligal. He had three siblings named Don Mathew Rajapaksa, Don Coronel Rajapaksa and Donna Carolina Bandara Rajapaksa (deceased). Don Coronel Rajapaksa was a coroner (judicial official). Don Mathew Rajapaksa was a politician who died in 1945.
wife and children
His wife’s name is Dandina Samarasinghe Dissanayake (deceased).
Photo of DA Rajapaksa and Dandina Rajapaksa
The couple has 6 sons named Chamal Rajapaksa, Mahinda Rajapaksa, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Basil Rajapaksa, Dudley Rajapaksa and Chandra Tudor Rajapaksa and three daughters Gandini Rajapaksa, Jayanthi Rajapaksa and Preeti Rajapaksa. Chamal Rajapaksa is a Sri Lankan politician. Mahinda Rajapaksa was the Prime Minister and President of Sri Lanka. Gotabaya Rajapaksa was the President of Sri Lanka. Basil Rajapaksa was the Finance Minister of Sri Lanka. Dudley Rajapaksa is Vice President of QA/RA/Technical Services at Berlin Heart GmbH. Chandra Tudor Rajapaksa died in July 2022. Gandhiji Rajapaksa passed away on 8 May 2017. Jayanthi Rajapaksa is a former Member of Parliament and former Deputy Minister of Water and Sanitation. Preeti Rajapaksa was a teacher.
Photo of Chamal Rajapaksa (centre) with Gotabaya Rajapaksa (right) and Mahinda Rajapaksa (left)
A photo of Basil Rajapaksa with Mahinda Rajapaksa (centre) and Gotabaya Rajapaksa (right)
Photo by Dudley Rajapaksa
Photo by Chandra Tudor Rajapaksa
religion
DA Rajapaksa was a Catholic; However, the Rajapaksa family later changed their religion to Buddhism for political reasons.
Freedom fighter
DA Rajapaksa and his elder brother DM Rajapaksa participated in several anti-British campaigns. DA Rajapaksa along with his brother participated in the Suriya-Mal Movement which started on 11 November 1933.
Career
politics
DA Rajapaksa’s association with politics began when he assisted his elder brother Don Mathew Rajapaksa in his extensive campaign for the 1936 State Council election in Hambantota, which Don Mathew won. After Don Mathew died of a heart attack in 1945, the people of Hambantota demanded that DA Rajapaksa take over as his elder brother in the State Council, after which Rajapaksa contested the 1945 Sri Lankan by-elections against the electorate of Hambantota and emerged victorious. According to reports, DA Rajapaksa won the state council seat unopposed as he did not contest the election out of respect for Hambantota electorate Don Mathew Rajapaksa. After joining the State Council on August 8, 1945, DA Rajapaksa became a member of the Executive Committee on Agriculture and Lands. In 1947, he contested and won the Ceylon Parliamentary elections from the Beliata electorate (made after the division of the Hambantota electorate into the Beliata and Tismaharama electorates) as the United National Party (UNP) candidate with 8,022 votes. On 12 July 1951, DA Rajapaksa and SWRD Bandaranaike left the UNP and founded the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) on 2 September 1951. During the 1952 Ceylon parliamentary elections, the SLFP managed to win only nine seats, out of which DA Rajapaks took the seat. In the 1952 parliamentary elections, DA Rajapaksa contested from the Beliata constituency and won by 17,382 votes. In 1956, he contested the Ceylon general election and won the election by 15,335 votes from the Beliatha electorate, after which he was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Lands and Land Development. Later, DA Rajapaksa was offered the position of Deputy Minister of Trade and Commerce, which he declined in favor of his nephew, Lakshman Rajapaksa; However, DA Rajapaksa had to take up the post of Deputy Minister of Lands, Irrigation and Agriculture after the people of Hambantota, led by a lawyer named Wickramasuriya, protested against his decision not to appoint him as a minister in the government. As the Deputy Minister of Land, Irrigation and Agriculture, D.A. Rajapaksa worked to eliminate the problem of peasants who left the land after Sri Lanka’s independence from Britain in 1948. 99 years and middle-income peasants were given 4–20.2 hectares (10–50 acres) of land on lease for 99 years. His policies led to increased rice and coconut productivity in Sri Lanka. As Deputy Minister, he supported the implementation of the Paddy Act which made the Act successful. He subsequently implemented policies aimed at increasing the productivity of citrus fruits in underdeveloped parts of Sri Lanka. In 1959, DA Rajapaksa was appointed Minister of Agriculture and Lands by the then Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, Vijayananda Dahanayake. However, he resigned two weeks later due to Dahanayake’s sacking of ministers. In the March 1960 parliamentary elections in Sri Lanka, DA Rajapaksa was defeated by DP Atapattu of the United National Party (UNP); However, re-elections were held in July 1960, following the collapse of the UNP-led Sri Lankan government. In the election, DA Rajapaksa emerged victorious from Beliata constituency with 20,871 votes. In July 1960, DA Rajapaksa was offered a cabinet appointment when Sirimavo Bandaranaike, wife of SWRD Bandaranaike, became Prime Minister of Sri Lanka; However, the offer was rejected by DA Rajapaksa who told him that he would prefer to live in his residence rather than the official residence at ‘Mumtaz Mahal’. On November 6, 1962, DA Rajapaksa was appointed as the Deputy Chairman of the Committees after the death of AMA Adhikari. In January 1964, he became the Deputy Speaker of the Parliament of Sri Lanka, succeeding Hugh Fernando. He remained the Deputy Speaker of Parliament until he was defeated by the UNP candidate DP Atapattu in the Beliatha constituency in the 1965 Sri Lankan general election.
After losing the 1965 elections
After DA Rajapaksa lost the general election in 1965, he not only lost his seat in the Sri Lankan Parliament but also lost the money he had earned. According to some sources, DA Rajapaksa was forced to sell his car and rent agricultural land to meet his family’s daily needs.
death
DA Rajapaksa died on 7 November 1967 after a long battle with illness. According to reports, after he sold his car, DA Rajapaksa could not be taken to the hospital in time and by the time the car was arranged, his condition had deteriorated. He breathed his last in a hospital in Sri Lanka.
Facts/Trivia
- He is also called Budhyagama Podi Ralaham and the brave son of Ruhuna.
- While studying at Richmond College, DA Rajapaksa was not only the captain of the school’s football team, but was also the vice-captain of the school’s cricket team.
- Before Don Mathew Rajapaksa died in 1945, he gave his personal belongings to DA Rajapaksa which included 18 cents and a fountain pen.
- On 19 February 1961, for the Sinhala newspaper Silumina, DA Rajapaksa wrote an article titled Katata Rahata Kurakkan, in which he spoke about his family, kurakan (a form of millet) and folk poems.
- After winning the election in July 1960, DA Rajapaksa was offered a bribe of 50,000 rupees to leave the SLFP to bring down the coalition government in Parliament, but he refused to accept the bribe despite his poor financial condition.
- On 6 November 2014, Mahinda Rajapaksa inaugurated the DA Rajapaksa Memorial Museum; However, in May 2022, during the economic crisis in Sri Lanka, angry protesters not only destroyed the memorial, but also destroyed the ancestral home of the Rajapaksa.
Damaged statue of DA Rajapaksa
Categories: Sports
Source: dienchau2.edu.vn
