January 12, 1960, marked a historic moment for the Colombo Municipal Council, as M.H. Mohamed (Mohamed Hanifa Mohamed) became the first Muslim to be elected mayor in its history.
The Colombo Municipal Council was not a new place for the Mohameds. Nor was politics new to the Mohameds. M.H. Mohamed’s grandfather, M.D. Abdul Rahman was a member of the 1876 Legislative Assembly. His grandsons, M.I.M. Hanifa and H.L.M. Shainuddin, were municipal councillors of the Colombo Municipal Council from 1894 to 1900 and from 1900 to 1907. This was during the time of the white man. The Mohamed family fought against the white man’s rule at that time. Because of this, they were strongly left-wing in politics.
Dr. S.A. Wickramasinghe, Peter Keuneman, and Dr. N.M. Perera had close ties with the Mohamed family. Influenced by the family’s leftist political leanings, M.H. Mohamed’s father, N.M.M. Hanifa, joined A.E. Gunasinghe’s Ceylon Workers’ Party. Both Ranasinghe Premadasa and V.A. Sugathadasa began their political journeys within this party, learning under Gunasinghe’s leadership. Later on, UNP leaders Dudley Senanayake and J.R. Jayewardene successfully attracted Premadasa and Sugathadasa to the United National Party.
When the UNP suffered a crushing defeat in the 1956 general election and the elephant was lying on all fours, J.R. fielded V.A. Sugathadasa in the LG election in Colombo. V.A. Sugathadasa won, defeating Prime Minister Bandaranaike, the founder of the 1956 wave, and Minister Philip Gunawardena, who was said to have put the final nail in the UNP coffin.
When Sugathadasa became the mayor, M.H. Mohamed, who had entered leftist politics, was a member of the Colombo Municipal Council. He followed in his family’s footsteps and contested the Colombo Municipal Council for the first time in 1947 as an independent candidate from the Maligawatta division. Like V.A. Sugathadasa, Mohamed was also popular among the people of Colombo. They were most popular among the working class.
Dudley and J.R. advised V.A. Sugathadasa to contest the parliamentary general election, and Dudley and J.R. decided to nominate Mohamed for the post of mayor. Mohamed never lost an election from 1947 to 1965.
For this reason, Dudley and J.R. decided to field Mohamed from the Borella seat in the 1965 general election. At that time, Vivian Gunawardena, known as the left’s firebrand, was in the Borella constituency. UNP candidates were afraid to clash with Vivian. But Mohamed accepted the challenge. Mohamed defeated Vivian in the 1965 general election, stunning the leftists. Dudley did not hesitate to include this young man, who was elected to parliament for the first time, in the cabinet. He was given the post of Minister of Labour, Employment, and Housing. In 1977, J.R. gave him the Ministry of Transport.
D.S. Senanayake had a culture when he founded the UNP. That is, to eliminate caste-religious differences and to make Sinhala-speaking Muslim MPS the frontline leaders of the party. Baqir Marker, A.C.S. Hameed, and M.H. Mohamed were born from that culture. They defended the country and the party as if it were their religion. During 1970-77, when the UNP was in a state of utter defeat and was weak, there were conflicts between the party leader, Dudley, and the opposition leader, J.R. At that time, Mohammed was with Dudley. Hameed was with J.R., but both of them united the party. Before the 1977 general election, J.R. called Hameed to come.
‘I have never heard from anyone like this. Tell me the ministerial post you want; I will give it to you…’
J.R. told Hameed. Hameed requested the foreign ministership. J.R. agreed. At that time, the foreign ministership was a ministerial post reserved for the prime minister. Traditionally, the foreign ministership was kept under the prime minister. But J.R. fulfilled Hameed’s request and promised to give him the foreign ministership.
When Premadasa became president, it was Hameed who was appointed as the peace envoy to negotiate with Prabhakaran and to negotiate peace with the JVP through the Inter-University Student Federation.
When Gamini Dissanayake was assassinated in 1994, when a conflict began between Gamini supporters and Ranil over the party leadership, it was Hameed who devised the method of giving the presidential candidate to Gamini’s wife and the party leadership to Ranil.
In the end, the Hamids, the Mohammeds, and the Bakir Markers hated Ranil because Ranil marginalised them. If there were Muslim leaders like the Mohammeds, this would not have happened to the UNP.
This is probably why the leader of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya, Sajith Premadasa, decided to create a Muslim leader born from the political harmony of Mohammed and Hamid. He is none other than M.H. Mohammed’s grandson, Dr. Ruwais Hanifa. Hanifa is an educated man. An intellectual. He is a renowned doctor in Sri Lanka. A lecturer at the Colombo Medical College. He has held the position of president of the medical association. He has held the position of vice president of the Sri Lanka Professionals Association and is a member of the World Health Organization’s Community Health Policy Framework Committee and was a coordinator of the United Nations during the COVID period. As a doctor, he went to the North during the war, fearlessly, amidst gunfire, to serve the military personnel and Tamils in the North. He was also someone who worked for the Colombo community health service.
He did not enter politics to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps. Mohamed was finally in parliament until 2010. He was a doctor who made his career as a doctor. Exactly 15 years later, he entered politics at the invitation of Sajith. If he is following in the footsteps of his great-grandfather and father, he will not choose the medical profession but politics. Then he would be in parliament in 2010.
Hanifa’s grandfather, Mohamed, is known in Colombo as ‘Sinhala Mohamed.’ As the Minister of Transport, he allowed Buddhist children attending Dhamma schools to travel on buses for free. Mohamed was popular among monks. That is what they call him, ‘Sinhala Mohamed’.
Today is an era in which not only Sinhala Mohammeds but also peace messengers like Hamids are essential for Sri Lanka. Hanifa is entering politics in such an era.
‘Will he win the Colombo mayoral race…?’
It is still too early to say anything about that.
