100th Birth Anniversary of Veteran trade unionist Bala Thampoe !

As a young Left activist, Mr. Thampoe joined the Trotskyist faction of the Leftist, then underground Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) in 1941. He became a full-time party worker after he lost his job at a Sri Lankan university following a thundering public speech he made. Soon after, he joined the CMU in 1948 as its general secretary and served in that capacity till his last day.

Bala was born on 23 May 1922 to a prominent family in Jaffna. He was educated at the Royal College, Colombo, and gained a BSc degree from the University of Ceylon in 1943 and the University of London in 1944. Later he studied law at the Colombo Law College and became a very professional lawyer, practicing criminal law.

Colleagues and comrades remember Bala Thampoe as one of the most committed activists in the country’s Trade Union movement. late Linus Jayatilleke, president of the United Federation of Labour, said Mr. Thampoe was a leader of the working class who always stood by his principles. “And that is how he had the guts to survive,” he said.

Observing that all trade unionists had tremendous respect for ‘comrade Bala” despite divergent views at times, Mr. Jayatilleke said Mr. Thampoe was an uncompromising trade union leader who opposed the LSSP joining the ruling coalition in the 1960s.

Mr. Thampoe held the position until his very last, and was critical of the parliamentary Left, which is currently aligned to the Mahinda Rajapaksa-led ruling coalition.

Voicing his views of parliamentary politics he said in his clipped accent: “The parliament has evolved as the political complement to the capitalist economic system and capitalist rule,” in an earlier interview to The Hindu.

Rather fit and active until his very end, Mr. Thampoe would drive his Volkswagen Beetle every morning to get to his sea-facing office located off Colombo’s busy Galle Road. “There is a lot that has to be done,” he would often say.