Bala Thampoe voiced deep concern about shrinking spaces for dissent in Sri Lanka. Photo: Meera Srinivasan.

As general secretary of the Ceylon Mercantile Union (CMU) for the last 65 years Mr. Thampoe was the longest serving office bearer of the union, considered one of the most powerful private sector unions in the island.

Mr. Thampoe spent his early childhood in India, where his father worked for the British administration. As he later returned to Sri Lanka, he trained in Botany to begin a career in academics when he got strongly drawn to the nascent labour movement in the country.

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 the capacity till his last day.

Having played an active role in Sri Lanka’s famous ’Hartal’ of 1953 — an island-wide demonstration led by the LSSP — Mr. Thampoe over the last couple of years voiced deep concern about shrinking spaces for dissent in Sri Lanka. Drawing parallels between the Hartal and a protest in Weliweriya last year, where three persons died after the Sri Lankan army clamped down on residents who took to the streets demanding safe drinking water, he told The Hindu in August 2013: “In this country if you block a highway even for the most elementary reasons, the penalty is death. That is the situation in this country. The penalty is death!”

Colleagues and comrades remember Bala Thampoe as one of the most committed activists in the country’s Trade Union movement. 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.

Meera Srinivasan
COLOMBO, September 1, 2014