• A leader of Sri Lanka’s revolutionary communist movement

I take pride in writing this appreciation in respect of a leader who was the father of Sri Lanka’s revolutionary communist movement and a leading trade unionist of yesteryear. 

Nagalingam Shanmugathasan was committed to communist concepts, propagating the reality of these concepts via the trade union movement which he formed known as the Ceylon Trade Union Federation (CTUF).  

While being the President of the said union, he fought till the end for the rights of its working members, either negotiating with the employers for their rights or representing them at the Labour Tribunal against unlawful dismissals or non-payment of wages or gratuities that workers were lawfully entitled to.

He also represented the union at the Labour Department in agreements to be reached between employers and workers, as well as during negotiations with employers to be streamlined by the Labour Department.

After leaving my practice in Hatton, when I came to Colombo, I started working with Shan, as he was commonly called, and assisted him in his Labour Tribunal appearances while learning the better part of the labour laws. He was identified as the person responsible for a landmark judgment in the case of United Motors Engineering Workers’ Union vs. Walkers Ltd., where he assisted none other than advocate N. Satyendra, son of the famous Senator S. Nadesan, QC.

The Privy Council delivered a judgment in favour of the union on the argument placed before the council that the Labour Tribunal President did not enjoy judicial powers since he was only performing administrative functions, as he was not appointed by the Judicial Service Commission. 

Comrade Shan, as he was to his party friends, was the only person who could meet, sit with, and talk to none other than Chairman Mao Tse-tung. As recounted by Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka, his father, the well-known journalist Mervyn de Silva, christened Shan ‘Mao Tse-Shan’ because his commitment to a Chinese brand of communism at that time was absolute and remained so until the end of his life.

Now we find the true concept of communism is lost or the party has virtually lost its identity in propagating the true ideals of communism with the birth of splinter unions boasting of communist ideals. I can proudly say that Shan was probably one of the few communists who had conversed with Chairman Mao. Not even Charu Majumdar, the founder leader of India’s Maoist movement best known as the Naxalites, ever met Mao. 

Shan’s 105th birth anniversary was observed at an event organised by the Shanmugathasan Centre for Marxist Studies at the Colombo Tamil Sangam on 6 July 2025. He was born on 20 July 1920. Incidentally, the Communist Party of Ceylon was officially formed on Shan’s birthday in 1943. He passed away on 8 February 1993 in Birmingham, England.

I felt that it would be fit and proper to write this appreciation remembering him as the only committed leader to have acted for the sake of communism with conviction, honesty, and pride till the time of his death. 

I can undoubtedly state that we will never again get a leader with such conviction, commitment, and honesty; someone who did not give up his cry for the dignity of workers in this country and who kept on fighting for their rights without selling himself to the whims and fancies of employers. 

In every situation, there is room for individual freedom, responsibility, and agency. N. Shanmugathasan belonged to a generation of Leftist leaders who took it upon themselves to be agents for change and emancipation.

In the space he occupied, Shan played a unique role as a Tamil, Sri Lankan, and Marxist. Shan, may you rest in peace.