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THE HISTORY OF SRI LANKA
The history of Sri Lanka
begins around 30,000 years ago when the island was first inhabited. Chronicles,
including the Mahawansa,
the Dipavamsa,
the Culavamsa
and the Rajaveliya, record events
from the beginnings of the Sinhalesemonarchy in the 6th century BC; through
the arrival of European Colonialists in the 16th century;
and to the disestablishment of the monarchy in 1815. Some
mentions of the country are found in the Ramayana,
the Mahabharata
and the books of Gautama Buddha's teachings. Buddhism
was introduced in the 3rd century BC by ArhathMahinda
(son of the Indian emperor Ashoka the
Great).From the 16th century, some coastal areas of the
country were ruled by the Portuguese,
Dutch
and British.
Sri Lanka was ruled by 181 kings from the Anuradhapura to Kandy periods. After
1815 the entire nation was under British
colonial rule and armed uprisings against the British took place in the 1818 Uva Rebellion
and the 1848 Matale Rebellion. Independence was finally
granted in 1948 but the country remained a Dominion of the British Empire.In 1972 Sri Lanka assumed the status of a
Republic. A constitution was introduced in 1978 which
made the Executive President the head of state. The
Sri Lankan Civil War began in 1983,
including an armed youth uprising in 1987–1989, with
the 25 year-long civil war ending in 2009.
Landing of Vijaya
The Pali chronicles, the Dipavamsa,
Mahavamsa,
Thupavamsa[9]
and the Chulavamsa,
as well as a large collection of stone inscriptions,[10]
the Indian Epigraphical records, the Burmese versions of the chronicles etc.,
provide an exceptional record for the history of Sri Lanka from about the 6th
century BC.The Mahavamsa, written around 400 AD by the monk Nagasena,
using the Deepavamsa, the Attakatha and other written sources available to him,
correlates well with Indian histories of the period. Indeed Emperor Ashoka's reign
is recorded in the Mahavamsa. The Mahavamsa account of the period prior to
Asoka's coronation, 218 years after the Buddha's death, seems to be part
legend. Proper historical records begin with the arrival of Vijaya and his 700 followers. Vijaya was a Vangan (now Bengal, India)
prince, the eldest son of King Sinhabahu ("Man with Lion arms") and
his sister Queen Sinhasivali who had their capital at Singhapura (now Singur in West Bengal,
India). Both these Sinhala leaders were supposedly born of a mythical union
between a lion and a human princess. The Mahavamsa claims that Vijaya landed on
the same day as the death of the Buddha. The story of Vijaya and Kuveni (the
local reigning queen) is reminiscent of Greek legend and may have a common
source in ancient Proto-Indo-European folk tales.According to the Mahavamsa, Vijaya landed on Sri
Lanka near Mahathitha (Manthota or Mannar),
and named on the island of Thambaparni
("copper-colored sand"). This name is attested to in Ptolemy's
map of the ancient world. The Mahavamsa also describes the Buddha visiting Sri
Lanka three times. Firstly, to stop a war between a Naga king and his son in
law who were fighting over a ruby chair. It is said that on his last visit he
left his foot mark on Siripada ("Adam's Peak").Tamirabharani is the old
name for the second longest river in Sri Lanka (known as MalwatuOya in Sinhala and AruviAru
in Tamil). This river was a main supply route connecting the capital, Anuradhapura,
to Mahathitha (now Mannar). The waterway was
used by Greek and Chinese ships travelling the southern Silk Route.Mahathitha was an ancient port linking Sri Lanka
to India and the Persian gulf.The present day Sinhalese are a mixture of the indigenous
people and of other peoples who came to the island from various parts of India.
The Sinhalese recognize the Vijayan Indo-Aryan culture and Buddhism, as
distinct from other groups in neighboring south India.
SRI LANKA - HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL HERITAGE
SRI LANKA'S HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL HERITAGE
covers more than 2,000 years. Known as Lanka--the "resplendent
land"--in the ancient Indian epic Ramayana, the island has numerous other
references that testify to the island's natural beauty and wealth. Islamic
folklore maintains that Adam and Eve were offered refuge on the island as
solace for their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Asian poets, noting the
geographical location of the island and lauding its beauty, called it the
"pearl upon the brow of India." A troubled nation in the 1980s, torn
apart by communal violence, Sri Lanka has more recently been called India's
"fallen tear."Sri Lanka claims a democratic tradition matched by few
other developing countries, and since its independence in 1948, successive
governments have been freely elected. Sri Lanka's citizens enjoy a long life
expectancy, advanced health standards, and one of the highest literacy rates in
the world despite the fact that the country has one of the lowest per capita
incomes.In the years since independence, Sri Lanka has experienced severe
communal clashes between its Buddhist Sinhalese majority-- approximately 74
percent of the population--and the country's largest minority group, the Sri
Lankan Tamils, who are Hindus and comprise nearly 13 percent of the population.
The communal violence that attracted the harsh scrutiny of the international
media in the late 1980s can best be understood in the context of the island's
complex historical development--its ancient and intricate relationship to
India's civilization and its more than four centuries under colonial rule by
European powers.The Sinhalese claim to have been the earliest colonizers of Sri
Lanka, first settling in the dry north-central regions as early as 500 B.C.
Between the third century B.C. and the twelfth century A.D., they developed a
great civilization centered around the cities of Anuradhapura and later
Polonnaruwa, which was noted for its genius in hydraulic engineering--the
construction of water tanks (reservoirs) and irrigation canals, for
example--and its guardianship of Buddhism. State patronage gave Buddhism a
heightened political importance that enabled the religion to escape the fate it
had experienced in India, where it was eventually absorbed by Hinduism.The
history of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, especially its extended period of glory, is
for many Sinhalese a potent symbol that links the past with the present. An
enduring ideology defined by two distinct elements--sinhaladipa (unity of the
island with the Sinhalese) and dhammadipa (island of Buddhism)-- designates the
Sinhalese as custodians of Sri Lankan society. This
theme finds recurrent expression in the historical chronicles composed by Buddish monks over the centuries, from the mythological founding of the Sinhalese "lion" race around 300 B.C. to the capitulation of the Kingdom of Kandy, the last independent Sinhalese polity in the early nineteenth century.The institutions of Buddhist-Sinhalese civilization in Sri Lanka came under attack during the colonial eras of the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British. During these centuries of colonialization, the state encouraged and supported Christianity- -first Roman Catholicism, then Protestantism. Most Sinhalese regard the entire period of European dominance as an unfortunate era, but most historians--Sri Lankan or otherwise--concede that British rule was relatively benign and progressive compared to that of the Dutch and Portuguese. Influenced
by the ascendant philosophy of liberal reformism, the British were determined to anglicize the island, and in 1802, Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon) became Britain's first crown colony. The British gradually permitted native participation in the governmental process; and under the Donoughmore Constitution of 1931 and then the Soulbury Constitution of 1946, the franchise was dramatically extended, preparing the island for independence two years later.Under the statesmanship of Sri Lanka's first post independence leader, Don Stephen (D.S.) Senanayake, the country managed to rise above the bitterly divisive communal and religious
emotions that later complicated the political agenda. Senanayake envisioned his country as a pluralist, multiethnic, secular state, in which minorities would be able to participate fully in government affairs. His vision for his nation soon faltered, however, and communal rivalry and confrontation appeared within the first decade of independence. Sinhalese nationalists aspired to recover the dominance in society they had lost during European rule, while Sri Lankan Tamils wanted to protect their minority community from domination or assimilation by the Sinhalese majority. No compromise was forthcoming, and as early as 1951, Tamil leaders stated that "the Tamil-speaking people in Ceylon constitute a nation distinct from that of the Sinhalese by every fundamental test of nationhood."Sinhalese nationalists did not have to wait long before they found an eloquent champion of their cause. Solomon West Ridgeway Dias (S.W.R.D.) Bandaranaike successfully challenged the nation's Westernized rulers who were alienated from Sinhalese culture; he became prime minister in 1956. A man particularly adept at harnessing Sinhalese communal passions, Bandaranaike vowed to make Sinhala the only language of administration and education and to restore Buddhism to its former glory. The violence unleashed by his policies directly threatened the unity of the nation, and communal riots rocked the country in 1956 and 1958. Bandaranaike became a victim of the passions he unleashed. In 1959 a Buddhist monk who felt that Bandaranaike had not pushed the Buddhist-Sinhalese cause far enough assassinated the Sri Lankan leader. Bandaranaike's widow, Sirimavo Ratwatte Dias (S.R.D.) Bandaranaike,
ardently carried out many of his ideas. In 1960, she became the world's first woman prime minister.Communal tensions continued to rise over the following years. In 1972 the nation became a republic under a new constitution, which was a testimony to the ideology of SirimavoBandaranaike, and Buddhism was accorded special status. These reforms and new laws discriminating against Tamils in university admissions were a symbolic threat the Tamil community felt it could not ignore, and a vicious cycle of violence erupted that has plagued successive governments. Tamil agitation for separation became associated with gruesome and highly visible terrorist acts by extremists, triggering large communal riots in 1977, 1981, and 1983. During these riots, Sinhalese mobs retaliated against isolated and vulnerable Tamil communities. By the mid-1980s, the Tamil militant underground had grown in strength and posed a serious security threat to the government, and its combatants struggled for a Tamil nation--"Tamil Eelam"--by an increasing recourse to terrorism. The fundamental, unresolved problems facing society were surfacing with a previously unseen force. Foreign and domestic observers expressed concern for democratic procedures in a society driven by divisive symbols and divided by ethnic loyalties.
theme finds recurrent expression in the historical chronicles composed by Buddish monks over the centuries, from the mythological founding of the Sinhalese "lion" race around 300 B.C. to the capitulation of the Kingdom of Kandy, the last independent Sinhalese polity in the early nineteenth century.The institutions of Buddhist-Sinhalese civilization in Sri Lanka came under attack during the colonial eras of the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British. During these centuries of colonialization, the state encouraged and supported Christianity- -first Roman Catholicism, then Protestantism. Most Sinhalese regard the entire period of European dominance as an unfortunate era, but most historians--Sri Lankan or otherwise--concede that British rule was relatively benign and progressive compared to that of the Dutch and Portuguese. Influenced
by the ascendant philosophy of liberal reformism, the British were determined to anglicize the island, and in 1802, Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon) became Britain's first crown colony. The British gradually permitted native participation in the governmental process; and under the Donoughmore Constitution of 1931 and then the Soulbury Constitution of 1946, the franchise was dramatically extended, preparing the island for independence two years later.Under the statesmanship of Sri Lanka's first post independence leader, Don Stephen (D.S.) Senanayake, the country managed to rise above the bitterly divisive communal and religious
emotions that later complicated the political agenda. Senanayake envisioned his country as a pluralist, multiethnic, secular state, in which minorities would be able to participate fully in government affairs. His vision for his nation soon faltered, however, and communal rivalry and confrontation appeared within the first decade of independence. Sinhalese nationalists aspired to recover the dominance in society they had lost during European rule, while Sri Lankan Tamils wanted to protect their minority community from domination or assimilation by the Sinhalese majority. No compromise was forthcoming, and as early as 1951, Tamil leaders stated that "the Tamil-speaking people in Ceylon constitute a nation distinct from that of the Sinhalese by every fundamental test of nationhood."Sinhalese nationalists did not have to wait long before they found an eloquent champion of their cause. Solomon West Ridgeway Dias (S.W.R.D.) Bandaranaike successfully challenged the nation's Westernized rulers who were alienated from Sinhalese culture; he became prime minister in 1956. A man particularly adept at harnessing Sinhalese communal passions, Bandaranaike vowed to make Sinhala the only language of administration and education and to restore Buddhism to its former glory. The violence unleashed by his policies directly threatened the unity of the nation, and communal riots rocked the country in 1956 and 1958. Bandaranaike became a victim of the passions he unleashed. In 1959 a Buddhist monk who felt that Bandaranaike had not pushed the Buddhist-Sinhalese cause far enough assassinated the Sri Lankan leader. Bandaranaike's widow, Sirimavo Ratwatte Dias (S.R.D.) Bandaranaike,
ardently carried out many of his ideas. In 1960, she became the world's first woman prime minister.Communal tensions continued to rise over the following years. In 1972 the nation became a republic under a new constitution, which was a testimony to the ideology of SirimavoBandaranaike, and Buddhism was accorded special status. These reforms and new laws discriminating against Tamils in university admissions were a symbolic threat the Tamil community felt it could not ignore, and a vicious cycle of violence erupted that has plagued successive governments. Tamil agitation for separation became associated with gruesome and highly visible terrorist acts by extremists, triggering large communal riots in 1977, 1981, and 1983. During these riots, Sinhalese mobs retaliated against isolated and vulnerable Tamil communities. By the mid-1980s, the Tamil militant underground had grown in strength and posed a serious security threat to the government, and its combatants struggled for a Tamil nation--"Tamil Eelam"--by an increasing recourse to terrorism. The fundamental, unresolved problems facing society were surfacing with a previously unseen force. Foreign and domestic observers expressed concern for democratic procedures in a society driven by divisive symbols and divided by ethnic loyalties.
ORIGINS
Ancient Indian and Sri Lankan myths and
chronicles have been studied intensively and interpreted widely for their
insight into the human settlement and philosophical development of the island.
Confirmation of the island's first colonizers--whether the Sinhalese or Sri
Lankan Tamils--has been elusive, but evidence suggests that Sri Lanka has been,
since earliest times, a multiethnic society. Sri Lankan historian K.M. de Silva
believes that settlement and colonization by Indo-Aryan speakers may have
preceded the arrival of Dravidian settlers by several centuries, but that early
mixing rendered the two ethnic groups almost physically indistinct.
ANCIENT LEGENDS AND CHRONICLES
The first major legendary reference to the island
is found in the great Indian epic, the Ramayana (Sacred Lake of the Deeds of
Rama), thought to have been written around 500 B.C. The Ramayana tells of the
conquest of Lanka in 3000 B.C. by Rama, an incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu.
Rama's quest to save his abducted wife, Sita, from Ravanna, the demon god of
Lanka, and his demon hordes, is, according to some scholars, a poetic account
of the early southward expansion of Brahmanic civilization.
BUDDHIST CHRONICLES
The most valuable source of knowledge for
scholars probing the legends and historical heritage of Sri Lanka is still the
Mahavamsa (Great Genealogy or Dynasty), a chronicle compiled in Pali, the
language of Theravada Buddhism, in the sixth century. Buddhist monks composed
the Mahavamsa, which was an adaptation of an earlier and cruder fourth century
epic, the Dipavamsa (Island Genealogy or Dynasty). The latter account was
compiled to glorify Buddhism and is not a comprehensive narrative of events.
The Mahavamsa, however, relates the rise and fall of successive Buddhist
kingdoms beginning with Vijaya, the legendary colonizer of Sri Lanka and
primogenitor of the Sinhalese migrant group. In the Mahavamsa, Vijaya is
described as having arrived on the island on the day of the Buddha's death
(parinibbana) or, more precisely, his nirvana or nibbana (see Glossary), his
release from the cycle of life and pain. The Mahavamsa also lavishes praise on
the Sinhalese kings who repulsed attacks by Indian Tamils.Vijaya is the central
legendary figure in the Mahavamsa. He was the grandson of an Indian princess
from Vanga in northern India who had been abducted by an amorous lion, Simha,
and son of their incestuous and half-leonine offspring. Along with 700 of his
followers, Vijaya arrived in Lanka and established himself as ruler with the
help of Kuveni, a local demon-worshiping princess. Although Kuveni had betrayed
her own people and had given birth to two of Vijaya's children, she was
banished by the ruler, who then arranged a marriage with a princess from
Madurai in southeastern India. Kuveni's offspring are the folkloric ancestors
of the present day Veddahs, an aboriginal people now living in scattered areas
of eastern Sri Lanka (see Ethnic Groups ,ch. 2). Many scholars believe that the
legend of Vijaya provides a glimpse into the early settlement of the island.
Around the fifth century B.C., the first bands of Sri Lankan colonists are
believed to have come from the coastal areas of northern India. The chronicles
support evidence that the royal progeny of Vijaya often sought wives from the
Pandyan and other Dravidian (Tamil) kingdoms of southern India. The chronicles
also tell of an early and constant migration of artisan and mercantile Tamils
to Sri Lanka.From the fifth century A.D onward, periodic palace intrigues and
religious heresies weakened Buddhist institutions leaving Sinhalese-Buddhist
culture increasingly vulnerable to successive and debilitating Tamil invasions.
A chronicle, a continuation of the Mahavamsa, describes this decline. The main
body of this chronicle, which assumed the less than grandiloquent title
Culavamsa (Lesser Genealogy or Dynasty), was attributed to the thirteenth
century poet-monk, Dhammakitti. The Culavamsa was later expanded by another
monk the following century and, concluded by a third monk in the late
eighteenth century.
THE IMPACT OF BUDDHISM
Buddhism was introduced to Sri Lanka in the third
century B.C. from India, where it had been established by Siddartha Gautama
three centuries earlier (see Buddhism ,ch. 2). The powerful Indian monarch,
Asoka, nurtured the new comprehensive religio-philosophical system in the third
century B.C. Asoka's conversion to Buddhism marks one of the turning points in
religious history because at that time, Buddhism was elevated from a minor sect
to an official religion enjoying all the advantages of royal patronage. Asoka's
empire, which extended over most of India, supported one of the most vigorous
missionary enterprises in history.The Buddhist tradition of chronicling events
has aided the verification of historical figures. One of most important of
these figures was King DevanampiyaTissa (250-c. 207 B.C.). According to the
Mahavamsa, Asoka's son and emissary to Sri Lanka, Mahinda, introduced the
monarch to Buddhism. DevanampiyaTissa became a powerful patron of Buddhism and
established the monastery of Mahavihara, which became the historic center of
Theravada Buddhism in Sri Lanka.Subsequent events also contributed to Sri
Lanka's prestige in the Buddhist world. It was on the island, for example, that
the oral teachings of the Buddha--the Tripitaka--were committed to writing for
the first time.DevanampiyaTissa was said to have received Buddha's right
collarbone and his revered alms bowl from Asoka and to have built the
ThuparamaDagoba, or stupa (Buddhist shrine), to honor these highly revered
relics. Another relic, Buddha's sacred tooth, had arrived in Sri Lanka in the
fourth century A.D.. The possession of the Tooth Relic came to be regarded as
essential for the legitimization of Sinhalese royalty and remained so until its
capture and probable destruction by the Portuguese in 1560. The sacred Tooth
Relic (thought by many to be a substitute) that is venerated in the Temple of
the Tooth in Kandy links legendary Sri Lanka with the modern era. The annual
procession of Perahera held in honor of the sacred Tooth Relic serves as a
powerful unifying force for the Sinhalese in the twentieth century. Asoka's
daughter, Sanghamitta, is recorded as having brought to the island a branch of
the sacred botree under which the Buddha attained enlightenment. According to
legend, the tree that grew from this branch is near the ruins of the ancient
city of Anuradhapura in the north of Sri Lanka. The tree is said to be the
oldest living thing in the world and is an object of great veneration.The
connection between religion, culture, language, and education and their
combined influence on national identity have been an age-old pervasive force
for the Sinhalese Buddhists. DevanampiyaTissa employed Asoka's strategy of
merging the political state with Buddhism, supporting Buddhist institutions
from the state's coffers, and locating temples close to the
royal palace for greater control. With such patronage, Buddhism was positioned to evolve as the highest ethical and philosophical expression of Sinhalese culture and civilization. Buddhism appealed directly to the masses, leading to the growth of a collective Sinhalese cultural consciousness.In contrast to the theological exclusivity of Hindu Brahmanism, the Asokan missionary approach featured preaching and carried the principles of the Buddha directly to the common people. This proselytizing had even greater success in Sri Lanka than it had in India and could be said to be the island's first experiment in mass education.Buddhism also had a great effect on the literary development of the island. The Indo-Aryan dialect spoken by the early Sinhalese was comprehensible to missionaries from India and facilitated early attempts at translating the scriptures. The Sinhalese literati studied Pali, the language of the Buddhist scriptures, thus influencing the development of Sinhala as a literary language.
royal palace for greater control. With such patronage, Buddhism was positioned to evolve as the highest ethical and philosophical expression of Sinhalese culture and civilization. Buddhism appealed directly to the masses, leading to the growth of a collective Sinhalese cultural consciousness.In contrast to the theological exclusivity of Hindu Brahmanism, the Asokan missionary approach featured preaching and carried the principles of the Buddha directly to the common people. This proselytizing had even greater success in Sri Lanka than it had in India and could be said to be the island's first experiment in mass education.Buddhism also had a great effect on the literary development of the island. The Indo-Aryan dialect spoken by the early Sinhalese was comprehensible to missionaries from India and facilitated early attempts at translating the scriptures. The Sinhalese literati studied Pali, the language of the Buddhist scriptures, thus influencing the development of Sinhala as a literary language.
THE CLASSICAL AGE, 200 B.C.-A.D. 1200
EARLY SETTLEMENTS
The first extensive Sinhalese settlements were
along rivers in the dry northern zone of the island. Because early agricultural
activity-- primarily the cultivation of wet rice-- was dependent on unreliable
monsoon rains, the Sinhalese constructed canals, channels, water-storage tanks,
and reservoirs to provide an elaborate irrigation system to counter the risks
posed by periodic drought. Such early attempts at engineering reveal the
brilliant understanding these ancient people had of hydraulic principles and
trigonometry. The discovery of the principle of the valve tower, or valve pit,
for regulating the escape of water is credited to Sinhalese ingenuity more than
2,000 years ago. By the first century A.D, several large-scale irrigation works
had been completed.The mastery of hydraulic engineering and irrigated
agriculture facilitated the concentration of large numbers of people in the
northern dry zone, where early settlements appeared to be under the control of
semi-independent rulers (see Land Use and Settlement Patterns ,ch. 2). In time,
the mechanisms for political control became more refined, and the city-state of
Anuradhapura emerged and attempted to gain sovereignty over the entire island.
The state-sponsored flowering of Buddhist art and architecture and the
construction of complex and extensive hydraulic works exemplify what is known
as Sri Lanka's classical age, which roughly parallels the period between the
rise and fall of Anuradhapura (from ca. 200 B.C. to ca. A.D. 993).The Sinhalese
kingdom at Anuradhapura was in many ways typical of other ancient hydraulic
societies because it lacked a rigid, authoritarian and heavily bureaucratic
structure. Theorists have attributed Anuradhapura's decentralized character to
its feudal basis, which was, however, a feudalism unlike that found in Europe.
The institution of caste formed the basis of social stratification in ancient
Sinhalese society and determined a person's social obligation, and position
within the hierarchy.The caste system in Sri Lanka developed its own
characteristics. Although it shared an occupational role with its Indian
prototype, caste in Sri Lanka developed neither the exclusive Brahmanical
social hierarchy nor, to any significant degree, the concept of defilement by
contact with impure persons or substances that was central to the Indian caste
system. The
claims of the Kshatriya (warrior caste) to royalty were a moderating influence on caste, but more profound was the influence of Buddhism, which lessened the severity of the institution. The monarch theoretically held absolute powers but was nevertheless expected to conform to the rules of dharma, or universal laws governing human existence and conduct (see Religion ,ch. 2).The king was traditionally entitled to land revenue equivalent to one-sixth of the produce in his domain. Furthermore, his subjects owed him a kind of caste-based compulsory labor (rajakariya in Sinhala) as a condition for holding land and were required to provide labor for road construction, irrigation projects, and other public works. During the later colonial
period, the Europeans exploited the institution of rajakariya, which was destined to become an important moral and economic issue in the nineteenth century (see European Encroachment and Dominance, 1500-1948 , this ch.).Social divisions arose over the centuries between those engaged in agriculture and those engaged in nonagricultural occupations. The Govi (cultivators--see Glossary) belonged to the highest Sinhalese caste (Goyigama) and remained so in the late twentieth century. All Sri Lankan heads of state have, since independence, belonged to the Goyigama caste, as do about half of all Sinhalese. The importance of cultivation on the island is also reflected in the caste structure of the Hindu Tamils, among whom the Vellala (cultivator) is the highest caste.
claims of the Kshatriya (warrior caste) to royalty were a moderating influence on caste, but more profound was the influence of Buddhism, which lessened the severity of the institution. The monarch theoretically held absolute powers but was nevertheless expected to conform to the rules of dharma, or universal laws governing human existence and conduct (see Religion ,ch. 2).The king was traditionally entitled to land revenue equivalent to one-sixth of the produce in his domain. Furthermore, his subjects owed him a kind of caste-based compulsory labor (rajakariya in Sinhala) as a condition for holding land and were required to provide labor for road construction, irrigation projects, and other public works. During the later colonial
period, the Europeans exploited the institution of rajakariya, which was destined to become an important moral and economic issue in the nineteenth century (see European Encroachment and Dominance, 1500-1948 , this ch.).Social divisions arose over the centuries between those engaged in agriculture and those engaged in nonagricultural occupations. The Govi (cultivators--see Glossary) belonged to the highest Sinhalese caste (Goyigama) and remained so in the late twentieth century. All Sri Lankan heads of state have, since independence, belonged to the Goyigama caste, as do about half of all Sinhalese. The importance of cultivation on the island is also reflected in the caste structure of the Hindu Tamils, among whom the Vellala (cultivator) is the highest caste.
RISE OF SINHALESE AND TAMIL ETHNIC AWARENESS
Because the Mahavamsa is essentially a chronicle
of the early Sinhalese-Buddhist royalty on the island, it does not provide
information on the island's early ethnic distributions. There is, for instance,
only scant evidence as to when the first Tamil settlements were established.
Tamil literary sources, however, speak of active trading centers in southern
India as early as the third century B.C. and it is probable that these centers
had at least some contact with settlements in northern Sri Lanka. There is some
debate among historians as to whether settlement by Indo-Aryan speakers
preceded settlement by Dravidian-speaking Tamils, but there is no dispute over
the fact that Sri Lanka, from its earliest recorded history, was a multiethnic
society. Evidence suggests that during the early centuries of Sri Lankan
history there was considerable harmony between the Sinhalese and Tamils.The
peace and stability of the island were first significantly affected around 237
B.C. when two adventurers from southern India, Sena and Guttika, usurped the
Sinhalese throne at
Anuradhapura. Their combined twenty-two-year rule marked the first time Sri Lanka was ruled by Tamils. The two were subsequently murdered, and the Sinhalese royal dynasty was restored. In 145 B.C., a Tamil general named Elara, of the Chola dynasty (which ruled much of India from the ninth to twelfth centuries A.D.), took over the throne at Anuradhapura and ruled for forty-four years. A Sinhalese king, Dutthagamani (or Duttugemunu), waged a fifteen-year campaign against the Tamil monarch and finally deposed him.
Anuradhapura. Their combined twenty-two-year rule marked the first time Sri Lanka was ruled by Tamils. The two were subsequently murdered, and the Sinhalese royal dynasty was restored. In 145 B.C., a Tamil general named Elara, of the Chola dynasty (which ruled much of India from the ninth to twelfth centuries A.D.), took over the throne at Anuradhapura and ruled for forty-four years. A Sinhalese king, Dutthagamani (or Duttugemunu), waged a fifteen-year campaign against the Tamil monarch and finally deposed him.
Dutthagamani is the outstanding hero of the
Mahavamsa, and his war against Elara is sometimes depicted in contemporary
accounts as a major racial confrontation between Tamils and Sinhalese. A less
biased and more factual interpretation, according to Sri Lankan historian K.M.
de Silva, must take into consideration the large reserve of support Elara had
among the Sinhalese. Furthermore, another Sri Lankan historian,
SinnappahArasaratnam, argues that the war was a dynastic struggle that was
purely political in nature. As a result of Dutthagamani's victory, Anuradhapura
became the locus of power on the island. Arasaratnam suggests the conflict
recorded in the Mahavamsa marked the beginning of Sinhalese nationalism and
that Dutthagamani's victory is commonly interpreted as a confirmation that the
island was a preserve for the Sinhalese and Buddhism. The historian maintains
that the story is still capable of stirring the religio-communal passions of
the Sinhalese.The Tamil threat to the Sinhalese Buddhist kingdoms had become
very real in the fifth and sixth centuries A.D. Three Hindu empires in southern
India--the Pandya, Pallava, and Chola--
were becoming more assertive. The Sinhalese perception of this threat intensified because in India, Buddhism--vulnerable to pressure and absorption by Hinduism--had already receded. Tamil ethnic and religious consciousness also matured during this period. In terms of culture, language, and religion, the Tamils had identified themselves as Dravidian, Tamil, and Hindu, respectively.Another Sinhalese king praised in the Mahavamsa is Dhatusena (459-77), who, in the fifth century A.D., liberated Anuradhapura from a quarter- century of Pandyan rule. The king was also honored as a generous patron of Buddhism and as a builder of water storage tanks. Dhatusena was killed by his son, Kasyapa (477-95), who is regarded as a great villain in Sri Lankan history. In fear of retribution from his exiled brother, the parricide moved the capital from Anuradhapura to Sigiriya, a fortress and palace perched on a monolithic rock 180 meters high. Although the capital was returned to Anuradhapura after Kasyapa was dethroned, Sigiriya is an architectural and engineering fete displayed in an inaccessible redoubt. The rock fortress eventually fell to Kasyapa's brother, who received help from an army of Indian mercenaries.In the seventh century A.D., Tamil influence became firmly embedded in the island's culture when Sinhalese Prince Manavamma seized the throne with Pallava assistance. The dynasty that Manavamma established was heavily indebted to Pallava patronage and continued for almost three centuries. During this time, Pallava influence extended to architecture and
sculpture, both of which bear noticeable Hindu motifs.By the middle of the ninth century, the Pandyans had risen to a position of ascendancy in southern India, invaded northern Sri Lanka, and sacked Anuradhapura. The Pandyansdemanded an indemnity as a price for their withdrawal. Shortly after the Pandyan departure, however, the Sinhalese invaded Pandya in support of a rival prince, and the Indian city of Madurai was sacked in the process.In the tenth century, the Sinhalese again sent an invading army to India, this time to aid the Pandyan king against the Cholas. The Pandyan king was defeated and fled to Sri Lanka, carrying with him the royal insignia. The Chola, initially under Rajaraja the Great (A.D 985-1018), were impatient to recapture the royal insignia; they sacked Anuradhapura in A.D. 993 and annexed Rajarata--the heartland of the Sinhalese kingdom--to the Chola Empire. King Mahinda V, the last of the Sinhalese monarchs to rule from Anuradhapura, fled to Rohana, where he reigned until 1017, when the Chola took him prisoner. He subsequently died in India in 1029.Under the rule of Rajaraja's son, Rajendra (1018-35), the Chola Empire grew stronger, to the extent that it posed a threat to states as far away as the empire of Sri Vijaya in modern Malaysia and Sumatra in Indonesia. For seventy-five years, Sri Lanka was ruled directly as a Chola province. During this period, Hinduism flourished, and Buddhism received a serious setback. After the destruction of Anuradhapura, the Chola set up their capital farther to the southeast, at Polonnaruwa, a strategically defensible location near the Mahaweli Ganga, a river that offered good protection against potential invaders from the southern Sinhalese kingdom of Ruhunu (see fig. 2). When the Sinhalese kings regained their dominance, they chose not to reestablish themselves at Anuradhapura because Polonnaruwa offered better geographical security from any future invasions from southern India. The area surrounding the new capital already had a well- developed irrigation system and a number of water storage tanks in the vicinity, including the great Minneriya Tank and its feeder canals built by King Mahasena(A.D. 274-301), the last of the Sinhalese monarchs mentioned in the Mahavamsa.
were becoming more assertive. The Sinhalese perception of this threat intensified because in India, Buddhism--vulnerable to pressure and absorption by Hinduism--had already receded. Tamil ethnic and religious consciousness also matured during this period. In terms of culture, language, and religion, the Tamils had identified themselves as Dravidian, Tamil, and Hindu, respectively.Another Sinhalese king praised in the Mahavamsa is Dhatusena (459-77), who, in the fifth century A.D., liberated Anuradhapura from a quarter- century of Pandyan rule. The king was also honored as a generous patron of Buddhism and as a builder of water storage tanks. Dhatusena was killed by his son, Kasyapa (477-95), who is regarded as a great villain in Sri Lankan history. In fear of retribution from his exiled brother, the parricide moved the capital from Anuradhapura to Sigiriya, a fortress and palace perched on a monolithic rock 180 meters high. Although the capital was returned to Anuradhapura after Kasyapa was dethroned, Sigiriya is an architectural and engineering fete displayed in an inaccessible redoubt. The rock fortress eventually fell to Kasyapa's brother, who received help from an army of Indian mercenaries.In the seventh century A.D., Tamil influence became firmly embedded in the island's culture when Sinhalese Prince Manavamma seized the throne with Pallava assistance. The dynasty that Manavamma established was heavily indebted to Pallava patronage and continued for almost three centuries. During this time, Pallava influence extended to architecture and
sculpture, both of which bear noticeable Hindu motifs.By the middle of the ninth century, the Pandyans had risen to a position of ascendancy in southern India, invaded northern Sri Lanka, and sacked Anuradhapura. The Pandyansdemanded an indemnity as a price for their withdrawal. Shortly after the Pandyan departure, however, the Sinhalese invaded Pandya in support of a rival prince, and the Indian city of Madurai was sacked in the process.In the tenth century, the Sinhalese again sent an invading army to India, this time to aid the Pandyan king against the Cholas. The Pandyan king was defeated and fled to Sri Lanka, carrying with him the royal insignia. The Chola, initially under Rajaraja the Great (A.D 985-1018), were impatient to recapture the royal insignia; they sacked Anuradhapura in A.D. 993 and annexed Rajarata--the heartland of the Sinhalese kingdom--to the Chola Empire. King Mahinda V, the last of the Sinhalese monarchs to rule from Anuradhapura, fled to Rohana, where he reigned until 1017, when the Chola took him prisoner. He subsequently died in India in 1029.Under the rule of Rajaraja's son, Rajendra (1018-35), the Chola Empire grew stronger, to the extent that it posed a threat to states as far away as the empire of Sri Vijaya in modern Malaysia and Sumatra in Indonesia. For seventy-five years, Sri Lanka was ruled directly as a Chola province. During this period, Hinduism flourished, and Buddhism received a serious setback. After the destruction of Anuradhapura, the Chola set up their capital farther to the southeast, at Polonnaruwa, a strategically defensible location near the Mahaweli Ganga, a river that offered good protection against potential invaders from the southern Sinhalese kingdom of Ruhunu (see fig. 2). When the Sinhalese kings regained their dominance, they chose not to reestablish themselves at Anuradhapura because Polonnaruwa offered better geographical security from any future invasions from southern India. The area surrounding the new capital already had a well- developed irrigation system and a number of water storage tanks in the vicinity, including the great Minneriya Tank and its feeder canals built by King Mahasena(A.D. 274-301), the last of the Sinhalese monarchs mentioned in the Mahavamsa.
King Vijayabahu I drove the Chola out of Sri
Lanka in A.D. 1070. Considered by many as the author of Sinhalese freedom, the
king recaptured Anuradhapura but ruled from Polonnaruwa, slightly less than 100
kilometers to the southeast. During his forty-year reign, Vijayabahu I (A.D.
1070-1110) concentrated on rebuilding the Buddhist temples and monasteries that
had been neglected during Chola rule. He left no clearly designated successor
to his throne, and a period of instability and civil war followed his rule
until the rise of King Parakramabahu I, known as the Great (A.D.
1153-86).Parakramabahu is the greatest hero of the Culavamsa, and under his
patronage, the city of Polonnaruwa grew to rival Anuradhapura in architectural
diversity and as a repository of Buddhist art. Parakramabahu was a great patron
of Buddhism and a reformer as well. He reorganized the sangha (community of
monks) and healed a longstanding schism between Mahavihara--the Theravada
Buddhist monastery--and Abhayagiri--the Mahayana Buddhist monastery.
Parakramabahu's reign coincided with the last great period of Sinhalese
hydraulic engineering; many remarkable irrigation works were constructed during
his rule, including his crowning achievement, the massive ParakramaSamudra (Sea
of Parakrama or ParakramaTank). Polonnaruwa became one of the magnificent
capitals of the ancient world, and nineteenth-century British historian Sir
Emerson Tenant even estimated that during Parakramabahu's rule, the population
of Polonnaruwa reached 3 million--a figure, however, that is considered to be
too high by twentieth-century historians.Parakramabahu's reign was not only a
time of Buddhist renaissance but also a period of religious expansionism
abroad. Parakramabahu was powerful enough to send a punitive mission against
the Burmese for their mistreatment of a Sri Lankan mission in 1164. The
Sinhalese monarch also meddled extensively in Indian politics and invaded
southern India in several unsuccessful expeditions to aid a Pandyan claimant to
the throne.Although a revered figure in Sinhalese annals, Parakramabahu is
believed to have greatly strained the royal treasury and contributed to the
fall of the Sinhalese kingdom. The post- Parakramabahu history of Polonnaruwa
describes the destruction of the city twenty-nine years after his death and
fifteen rulers later.For the decade following Parakramabahu's death, however, a
period of peace and stability ensued during the reign of King Nissankamalla
(A.D. 1187-97). During Nissankamalla's rule, the Brahmanic legal system came to
regulate the Sinhalese caste system. Henceforth, the highest caste stratum
became identified with the cultivator caste, and land ownership conferred high
status. Occupational caste became hereditary and regulated dietary and marriage
codes. At the bottom of the caste strata was the Chandala, who corresponded
roughly to the Indian untouchable. It was during this brief period that it
became mandatory for the Sinhalese king to be a Buddhist.
DECLINE OF THE SINHALESE KINGDOM, 1200-1500
SINHALESE MIGRATION TO THE SOUTH
After Nissankamalla's death, a series of dynastic
disputes hastened the breakup of the kingdom of Polonnaruwa. Domestic
instability characterized the ensuing period, and incursions by Chola and
Pandyan invaders created greater turbulence, culminating in a devastating
campaign by the Kalinga, an eastern Indian dynasty. When Magha, the Kalinga
king, died in 1255, another period of instability began, marking the beginning
of the abandonment of Polonnaruwa and the Sinhalese migration to the southwest
from the northern dry zone. The next three kings after Magha ruled from rock
fortresses to the west of Polonnaruwa. The last king to rule from Polonnaruwa
was Parakramabahu III (1278- 93). The migration is one of the great
unsolved puzzles of South Asian history and is of considerable interest to academics because of the parallel abandonment of dry-zone civilizations in modern Cambodia, northern Thailand, and Burma.
unsolved puzzles of South Asian history and is of considerable interest to academics because of the parallel abandonment of dry-zone civilizations in modern Cambodia, northern Thailand, and Burma.
A WEAKENED STATE: INVASION, DISEASE, AND
SOCIAL INSTABILITY
The Sinhalese withdrawal from the north is
sometimes attributed to the cumulative effect of invasions from southern India
(a rationale that has been exploited against the Tamils in modern Sinhalese
politics). This interpretation has obvious weaknesses because after each of the
south Indian invasions of the preceding centuries, the Sinhalese returned to
the dry zone from the hills and repaired and revived the ancient irrigation
system. K.M. de Silva suggests that the cumulative effects of repeated
invasions "ate into the vitals of a society already losing its vigour with
age." A civilization based on a dry-zone irrigation complex presupposes a
high degree of organization and a massive labor force to build and maintain the
works. The decline of these public works mirrored the breakdown in the social order.
Another factor that seems to have retarded the resettlement of the dry zone was
the outbreak of malaria in the thirteenth century. The mosquito found ideal
breeding grounds in the abandoned tanks and channels. (Malaria has often
followed the destruction of irrigation works in other parts of Asia.) Indeed,
all attempts at large-scale resettlement of the dry area in Sri Lanka were
thwarted until the introduction of modern pesticides.During the thirteenth
century, the declining Sinhalese kingdom faced threats of invasion from India
and the expanding Tamil kingdom of northern Sri Lanka. Taking advantage of
Sinhalese weakness, the Tamils secured control of the valuable pearl fisheries
around Jaffna Peninsula. During this time, the vast stretches of jungle that
cover north-central Sri Lanka separated the Tamils and the Sinhalese. This
geographical separation had important psychological and cultural implications.
The Tamils in the north developed a more distinct and confident culture, backed
by a resurgent Hinduism that looked to the traditions of southern India for its
inspiration. Conversely, the Sinhalese were increasingly restricted to the
southern and central area of the island and were fearful of the more numerous
Tamils on the Indian mainland. The fact that the Hindu kingdom at Jaffna was
expending most of its military resources resisting the advances of the
expansionist Vijayanagara Empire (1336-1565) in India enhanced the Sinhalese
ability to resist further Tamil encroachments. Some historians maintain that it
was the arrival of the Portuguese in the sixteenth century that prevented the
island from being overrun by south Indians.Foreign rulers took advantage of the
disturbed political state of the Sinhalese kingdom, and in the thirteenth
century Chandrabhanu, a Buddhist king from Malaya, invaded the island twice. He
attempted to seize the two most sacred relics of the Buddha in Sinhalese
custody, the Tooth Relic and the Alms Bowl. In the early fifteenth century, the
Ming dynasty Chinese interceded on behalf of King Parakramabahu VI (1412-67),
an enlightened monarch who repulsed an invasion from the polity of Vijayanagara
in southern India, reunited Sri Lanka, and earned renown as a patron of
Buddhism and the arts. Parakramabahu VI was the last Sinhalese king to rule the
entire island.During this extended period of domestic instability and frequent
foreign invasion, Sinhalese culture experienced fundamental change. Rice
cultivation continued as the mainstay of agriculture but was no longer
dependent on an elaborate irrigation network. In the wet zone, large-scale
administrative cooperation was not as necessary as it had been before. Foreign
trade was of increasing importance to the Sinhalese kings. In particular,
cinnamon--in great demand by Europeans--became a prime export commodity.
Because of the value of cinnamon, the city of Kotte on the west coast (near
modern Colombo) became the nominal capital of the Sinhalese kingdom in the
mid-fifteenth century. Still, the Sinhalese kingdom remained divided into numerous
competing petty principalities.
EUROPEAN ENCROACHMENT AND DOMINANCE, 1500-1948
THE PORTUGUESE
By the late fifteenth century, Portugal, which
had already established its dominance as a maritime power in the Atlantic, was
exploring new waters. In 1497 Vasco da Gama sailed around the Cape of Good Hope
and discovered an ocean route connecting Europe with India, thus inaugurating a
new era of maritime supremacy for Portugal. The Portuguese were consumed by two
objectives in their empire-building efforts: to convert followers of
non-Christian religions to Roman Catholicism and to capture the major share of
the spice trade for the European market. To carry out their goals, the
Portuguese did not seek territorial conquest, which would have been difficult
given their small numbers. Instead, they tried to dominate strategic points
through which trade passed. By virtue of their supremacy on the seas, their
knowledge of firearms, and by what has been called their "desperate
soldiering" on land, the Portuguese gained an influence in South Asia that
was far out of proportion to their numerical strength.At the onset of the
European period in Sri Lanka in the sixteenth century, there were three native
centers of political power: the two Sinhalese kingdoms of Kotte and Kandy and
the Tamil kingdom at Jaffna. Kotte was the principal seat of Sinhalese power,
and it claimed a largely imaginary overlordship not only over Kandy but also
over the entire island. None of the three kingdoms, however, had the strength
to assert itself over the other two and reunify the island.In 1505 Don Lourenço
de Almeida, son of the Portuguese viceroy in India, was sailing off the
southwestern coast of Sri Lanka looking for Moorish ships to attack when stormy
weather forced his fleet to dock at Galle. Word of these strangers who
"eat hunks of white stone and drink blood (presumably wine). . . and have
guns with a noise louder than thunder. . ." spread quickly and reached
King Parakramabahu VIII of Kotte (1484-1508), who offered gifts of cinnamon and
elephants to the Portuguese to take back to their home port at Cochin on the
Malabar Coast of southwestern India. The king also gave the Portuguese
permission to build a residence in Colombo for trade purposes. Within a short
time, however, Portuguese militaristic and monopolistic intentions became
apparent. Their heavily fortified "trading post" at Colombo and open
hostility toward the island's Muslim traders aroused Sinhalese
suspicions.Following the decline of the Chola as a maritime power in the
twelfth century, Muslim trading communities in South Asia claimed a major share
of commerce in the Indian Ocean and developed extensive east-west, as well as
Indo-Sri Lankan, commercial trade routes. As the Portuguese expanded into the
region, this flourishing Muslim trade became an irresistible target for
European interlopers. The sixteenth-century Roman Catholic Church was
intolerant of Islam and encouraged the Portuguese to take over the profitable
shipping trade monopolized by the Moors. In addition, the Portuguese would
later have another strong motive for hostility toward the Moors because the
latter played an important role in the Kandyan economy, one that enabled the
kingdom successfully to resist the Portuguese.The Portuguese soon decided that the
island, which they called Cilao, conveyed a strategic advantage that was
necessary for protecting their coastal establishments in India and increasing
Lisbon's potential for dominating Indian Ocean trade. These incentives proved
irresistible, and, the Portuguese, with only a limited number of personnel,
sought to extend their power over the island. They had not long to wait. Palace
intrigue and then revolution in Kotte threatened the survival of the kingdom.
The Portuguese skillfully exploited these developments. In 1521 Bhuvanekabahu,
the ruler of Kotte, requested Portuguese aid against his brother, Mayadunne,
the more able rival king who had established his independence from the
Portuguese at Sitawake, a domain in the Kotte kingdom. Powerless on his own,
King Bhuvanekabahu became a puppet of the Portuguese. But shortly before his
death in 1551, the king successfully obtained Portuguese recognition of his
grandson, Dharmapala, as his successor. Portugal pledged to protect Dharmapala
from attack in return for privileges, including a continuous payment in
cinnamon and permission to rebuild the fort at Colombo on a grander scale. When
Bhuvanekabahu died, Dharmapala, still a child, was entrusted to the Franciscans
for his education, and, in 1557, he converted to Roman Catholicism. His
conversion broke the centuries-old connection between Buddhism and the state,
and a great majority of Sinhalese immediately disqualified the young monarch
from any claim to the throne. The rival king at Sitawake exploited the issue of
the prince's conversion and accused Dharmapala of being a puppet of a foreign
power.Before long, rival King Mayadunne had annexed much of the Kotte kingdom
and was threatening the security of the capital city itself. The Portuguese
were obliged to defend Dharmapala (and their own credibility) because the ruler
lacked a popular following. They were subsequently forced to abandon Kotte and
retreat to Colombo, taking the despised puppet king with them. Mayadunne and,
later, his son, Rajasinha, besieged Colombo many times. The latter was so
successful that the Portuguese were once even forced to eat the flesh of their
dead to avoid starvation. The Portuguese would probably have lost their holdings in Sri Lanka had they not had maritime superiority and been able to send reinforcements by sea from their base at Goa on the western coast of India.The Kingdom of Sitawake put up the most vigorous opposition to Western imperialism in the island's history. For the seventy- three-year period of its existence, Sitawake (1521-94) rose to become the predominant power on the island, with only the Tamil kingdom at Jaffna and the Portuguese fort at Colombo beyond its control. When Rajasinha died in 1593, no effective successors were left to consolidate his gains, and the kingdom collapsed as quickly as it had arisen.Dharmapala, despised by his countrymen and totally compromised by the Portuguese, was deprived of all his royal duties and became completely manipulated by the Portuguese advisers surrounding him. In 1580 the Franciscans persuaded him to make out a deed donating his dominions to the king of Portugal. When Dharmapala died in 1597, the Portuguese emissary, the captain-general, took formal possession of the kingdom.Portuguese missionaries had also been busily involving themselves in the affairs of the Tamil kingdom at Jaffna, converting almost the entire island of Mannar to Roman Catholicism by 1544. The reaction of Sangily, king of Jaffna, however, was to lead an expedition to Mannar and decapitate the resident priest and about 600 of his congregation. The king of Portugal took this as a personal affront and sent several expeditions against Jaffna. The Portuguese, having disposed of the Tamil king who fled south, installed one of the Tamil princes on the throne, obliging him to pay an annual tribute. In 1619 Lisbon annexed the Kingdom of Jaffna.After the annexation of Jaffna, only the central highland Kingdom of Kandy--the last remnant of Buddhist Sinhalese power-- remained independent of Portuguese control. The kingdom acquired a new significance as custodian of Sinhalese nationalism. The Portuguese attempted the same strategy they had used successfully at Kotte and Jaffna and set up a puppet on the throne. They were able to put a queen on the Kandyan throne and even to have her baptized. But despite considerable Portuguese help, she was not able to retain power. The Portuguese spent the next half century trying in vain to expand their control over the Kingdom of Kandy. In one expedition in 1630, the Kandyans ambushed and massacred the whole Portuguese force, including the captain-general. The Kandyans fomented rebellion and consistently frustrated Portuguese attempts to expand into the interior.
dead to avoid starvation. The Portuguese would probably have lost their holdings in Sri Lanka had they not had maritime superiority and been able to send reinforcements by sea from their base at Goa on the western coast of India.The Kingdom of Sitawake put up the most vigorous opposition to Western imperialism in the island's history. For the seventy- three-year period of its existence, Sitawake (1521-94) rose to become the predominant power on the island, with only the Tamil kingdom at Jaffna and the Portuguese fort at Colombo beyond its control. When Rajasinha died in 1593, no effective successors were left to consolidate his gains, and the kingdom collapsed as quickly as it had arisen.Dharmapala, despised by his countrymen and totally compromised by the Portuguese, was deprived of all his royal duties and became completely manipulated by the Portuguese advisers surrounding him. In 1580 the Franciscans persuaded him to make out a deed donating his dominions to the king of Portugal. When Dharmapala died in 1597, the Portuguese emissary, the captain-general, took formal possession of the kingdom.Portuguese missionaries had also been busily involving themselves in the affairs of the Tamil kingdom at Jaffna, converting almost the entire island of Mannar to Roman Catholicism by 1544. The reaction of Sangily, king of Jaffna, however, was to lead an expedition to Mannar and decapitate the resident priest and about 600 of his congregation. The king of Portugal took this as a personal affront and sent several expeditions against Jaffna. The Portuguese, having disposed of the Tamil king who fled south, installed one of the Tamil princes on the throne, obliging him to pay an annual tribute. In 1619 Lisbon annexed the Kingdom of Jaffna.After the annexation of Jaffna, only the central highland Kingdom of Kandy--the last remnant of Buddhist Sinhalese power-- remained independent of Portuguese control. The kingdom acquired a new significance as custodian of Sinhalese nationalism. The Portuguese attempted the same strategy they had used successfully at Kotte and Jaffna and set up a puppet on the throne. They were able to put a queen on the Kandyan throne and even to have her baptized. But despite considerable Portuguese help, she was not able to retain power. The Portuguese spent the next half century trying in vain to expand their control over the Kingdom of Kandy. In one expedition in 1630, the Kandyans ambushed and massacred the whole Portuguese force, including the captain-general. The Kandyans fomented rebellion and consistently frustrated Portuguese attempts to expand into the interior.
The areas the Portuguese claimed to control in
Sri Lanka were part of what they majestically called the Estado da India and
were governed in name by the viceroy in Goa, who represented the king. But in
actuality, from headquarters in Colombo, the captain-general, a subordinate of
the viceroy, directly ruled Sri Lanka with all the affectations of royalty once
reserved for the Sinhalese kings.The Portuguese did not try to alter the
existing basic structure of native administration. Although Portuguese
governors were put in charge of each province, the customary hierarchy, determined
by caste and land ownership, remained unchanged. Traditional Sinhalese
institutions were maintained and placed at the service of the new rulers.
Portuguese administrators offered land grants to Europeans and Sinhalese in
place of salaries, and the traditional compulsory labor obligation was used for
construction and military purposes.The Portuguese tried vigorously, if not
fanatically, to force religious and, to a lesser extent, educational, change in
Sri Lanka. They discriminated against other religions with a vengeance,
destroyed Buddhist and Hindu temples, and gave the temple lands to Roman
Catholic religious orders. Buddhist monks fled to Kandy, which became a refuge
for people disaffected with colonial rule. One of the most durable legacies of
the Portuguese was the conversion of a large number of Sinhalese and Tamils to
Roman Catholicism. Although small pockets of Nestorian Christianity had existed
in Sri Lanka, the Portuguese were the first to propagate Christianity on a mass
scale.
Sixteenth-century Portuguese Catholicism was
intolerant. But perhaps because it caught Buddhism at its nadir, it
nevertheless became rooted firmly enough on the island to survive the
subsequent persecutions of the Protestant Dutch Reformists. The Roman Catholic
Church was especially effective in fishing communities--both Sinhalese and
Tamil--and contributed to the upward mobility of the castes associated with
this occupation. Portuguese emphasis on proselytization spurred the development
and standardization of educational institutions. In order to convert the
masses, mission schools were opened, with instruction in Portuguese and
Sinhalese or Tamil. Many Sinhalese converts assumed Portuguese names. The rise
of many families influential in the twentieth century dates from this period.
For a while, Portuguese became not only the language of the upper classes of
Sri Lanka but also the lingua franca of prominence in the Asian maritime world.
THE DUTCH
The Dutch became involved in the politics of the
Indian Ocean in the beginning of the seventeenth century. Headquartered at
Batavia in modern Indonesia, the Dutch moved to wrest control of the highly
profitable spice trade from the Portuguese. The Dutch began negotiations with
King Rajasinha II of Kandy in 1638. A treaty assured the king assistance in his
war against the Portuguese in exchange for a monopoly of the island's major
trade goods, particularly cinnamon. Rajasinha also promised to pay the Dutch's
war-related expenses. The Portuguese fiercely resisted the Dutch and the
Kandyans and were expelled only gradually from their strongholds. The Dutch
captured the eastern ports of Trincomalee and Batticaloa in 1639 and restored
them to the Sinhalese. But when the southwestern and western ports of Galle and
Negombo fell in 1640, the Dutch refused to turn them over to the king of Kandy.
The Dutch claimed that Rajasinha had not reimbursed them for their vastly
inflated claims for military expenditures. This pretext allowed the Dutch to
control the island's richest cinnamon lands. The Dutch ultimately presented the
king of Kandy with such a large bill for help against the Portuguese that the
king could never hope to repay it. After extensive fighting, the Portuguese
surrendered Colombo in 1656 and Jaffna, their last stronghold, in 1658.
Superior economic resources and greater naval power enabled the Dutch to
dominate the Indian Ocean. They attacked Portuguese positions throughout South
Asia and in the end allowed their adversaries to keep only their settlement at
Goa.The king of Kandy soon realized that he had replaced one foe with another
and proceeded to incite rebellion in the lowlands where the Dutch held sway. He
even attempted to ally the British in Madras in his struggle to oust the Dutch.
These efforts ended with a serious rebellion against his rule in 1664. The
Dutch profited from this period of instability and extended the territory under
their control. They took over the remaining harbors and completely cordoned off
Kandy, thereby making the highland kingdom landlocked and preventing it from
allying itself with another foreign power (see fig. 2). This strategy, combined
with a concerted Dutch display of force, subdued the Kandyan kings. Henceforth,
Kandy was unable to offer significant resistance except in its internal frontier
regions. The Dutch and the Kingdom of Kandy eventually settled down to an
uneasy modus vivendi, partly because the Dutch became less aggressive. Despite
underlying hostility between Kandy and the Dutch, open warfare between them
occurred only once--in 1762--when the Dutch, exasperated by Kandy's provocation
of riots in the lowlands, launched a punitive expedition. The expedition met
with disaster, but a better-planned second expedition in 1765 forced the
Kandyans to sign a treaty that gave the Dutch sovereignty over the lowlands.
The Dutch, however, maintained their pretension that they administered the
territories under their control as agents of the Kandyan ruler.After taking
political control of the island, the Dutch proceeded to monopolize trade. This
monopoly was at first limited to cinnamon and elephants but later extended to
other goods. Control was vested in the Dutch East India Company, a joint-stock
corporation, which had been established for the purpose of carrying out trade
with the islands of Indonesia but was later called upon to exercise sovereign
responsibilities in many parts of Asia.The Dutch tried with little success to
supplant Roman Catholicism with Protestantism. They rewarded native conversion
to the Dutch Reformed Church with promises of upward mobility, but Catholicism
was too deeply rooted. (In the 1980s, the majority of Sri Lankan Christians
remained Roman Catholics.) The Dutch were far more tolerant of the indigenous
religions than the Portuguese; they prohibited open Buddhist and Hindu
religious observance in urban areas, but did not interfere with these practices
in rural areas. The Dutch banned Roman Catholic practices, however. They
regarded Portuguese power and Catholicism as mutually interdependent and strove
to safeguard against the reemergence of the former by persecuting the latter.
They harassed Catholics and constructed Protestant chapels on confiscated
church property.The Dutch contributed significantly to the evolution of the
judicial, and, to a lesser extent, administrative systems on the island. They
codified indigenous law and customs that did not conflict directly with
Dutch-Roman jurisprudence. The outstanding example was Dutch codification of
the Tamil legal code of Jaffna- -the Thesavalamai. To a small degree, the Dutch
altered the traditional land grant and tenure system, but they usually followed
the Portuguese pattern of minimal interference with indigenous social and
cultural institutions. The provincial governors of the territories of
Jaffnapatam, Colombo, and Trincomalee were Dutch. These rulers also supervised
various local officials, most of whom were the traditional mudaliyar
(headmen).The Dutch, like the Portuguese before them, tried to entice their
fellow countrymen to settle in Sri Lanka, but attempts to lure members of the
upper class, especially women, were not very successful. Lower-ranking military
recruits, however, responded to the incentive of free land, and their marriages
to local women added another group to the island's already small but established
population of Eurasians--the Portuguese Burghers. The Dutch Burghers formed a
separate and privileged ethnic group on the island in the twentieth
century.During the Dutch period, social differences between lowland and
highland Sinhalese hardened, forming two culturally and politically distinct
groups. Western customs and laws increasingly influenced the lowland Sinhalese,
who generally enjoyed a higher standard of living and greater literacy. Despite
their relative economic and political decline, the highland Sinhalese were
nonetheless proud to have retained their political independence from the
Europeans and thus considered themselves superior to the lowland Sinhalese.
THE BRITISH
EARLY CONTACTS
In 1592 an English privateer attacked the Portuguese
off the southwestern port of Galle. This action was England's first recorded
contact with Sri Lanka. A decade later, Ralph Fitch, traveling from India,
became the first known English visitor to Sri Lanka. The English did not record
their first in-depth impressions of the island until the mid-seventeenth
century, when Robert Knox, a sailor, was captured when his ship docked for
repairs near Trincomalee. The Kandyans kept him prisoner between 1660 and 1680.
After his escape, Knox wrote a popular book entitled An Historical Relation of
the Island of Ceylon in which he described his years among his
"decadent" captors.By the mid-eighteenth century, it was apparent
that the Mughal Empire (1526-1757) in India faced imminent collapse, and the major
European powers were positioning themselves to fill the power vacuum in the
subcontinent. Dutch holdings on Sri Lanka were challenged in time by the
British, who had an interest in the excellent harbor at Trincomalee. The
British interest in procuring an all-weather port was whetted when they almost
lost the Indian port of Madras to the French in 1758. The Dutch refused to
grant the British permission to dock ships at Trincomalee (after The
Netherlands's decision to support the French in the American War of Independence),
goading the British into action. After skirmishing with both the Dutch and
French, the British took Trincomalee in 1796 and proceeded to expel the Dutch
from the island.
THE BRITISH REPLACE THE DUTCH
In 1766 the Dutch had forced the Kandyans to sign
a treaty, which the Kandyans later considered so harsh that they immediately
began searching for foreign assistance in expelling their foes. They approached
the British in 1762, 1782, and 1795. The first Kandyan missions failed, but in
1795, British emissaries offered a draft treaty that would extend military aid
in return for control of the seacoast and a monopoly of the cinnamon trade. The
Kandyan king unsuccessfully sought better terms, and the British managed to
oust the Dutch without significant help in 1796.The Kandyans' search for
foreign assistance against the Dutch was a mistake because they simply replaced
a relatively weak master with a powerful one. Britain was emerging as the
unchallenged leader in the new age of the Industrial Revolution, a time of
technological invention, economic innovations, and imperialist expansion. The
nations that had launched the first phase of European imperialism in Asia--the
Portuguese and the Dutch--had already exhausted themselves.While peace
negotiations were under way in Europe in 1796, the British assumed Sri Lanka
would eventually be restored to the Dutch. By 1797 however, London had decided
to retain the island as a British possession. The government compelled the British
East India Company to share in the administration of the island and guaranteed
the company a monopoly of trade, especially the moderately profitable--but no
longer robust--cinnamon trade. The governor of the island was responsible for
law and order, but financial and commercial matters were under the control of
the director of the East India Company. This system of "dual control"
lasted from 1798 to 1802. After the Dutch formally ceded the island to the
British in the 1801 Peace of
Amiens, Sri Lanka became Britain's first crown colony. Following Lord Nelson's naval victory over the French at Trafalgar in 1805, British superiority on the seas was unchallenged and provided new security for the British colonies in Asia.Once the British had established themselves in Sri Lanka, they aggressively expanded their territorial possessions by a combination of annexation and intervention, a policy that paralleled the approach pursued by Lord Wellesley in India in the early nineteenth century. This strategy directly threatened the continued existence of the Kingdom of Kandy. Unrest at the Kandyan court between a ruling dynasty of alien, southern Indian antecedents and powerful, indigenous Sinhalese chieftains provided opportunities for British interference. The intrigue of the king's chief minister precipitated the first Kandyan war (1803). With the minister's knowledge, a British force marched on Kandy, but the force was ill prepared for such an ambitious venture and its leaders were misinformed of the extent of the king's unpopularity. The British expedition was at first successful, but on the return march, it was plagued by disease, and the garrison left behind was decimated. During the next decade, no concerted attempt was made to take Kandy. But in 1815 the British had another opportunity. The king had antagonized local Sinhalese chiefs and further alienated the Sinhalese people by actions against Buddhist monks and temple property. In 1815, the Kandyan rebels invited the British to intervene. The governor quickly responded by sending a well-prepared force to Kandy; the king fled with hardly a shot fired.Kandyan headmen and the British signed a treaty known as the Kandyan Convention in March 1815. The treaty decreed that the Kandyan provinces be brought under British sovereignty and that all the traditional privileges of the chiefs be maintained. The Kingdom of Kandy was also to be governed according to its customary Buddhist laws and institutions but would be under the administration of a British "resident" at Kandy, who would, in all but name, take the place of the monarch.In general, the old system was allowed to continue, but its future was bleak because of the great incongruity between the principles on which the British administration was based and the principles of the Kandyan hierarchy. Because the changes under the treaty tended to diminish the power and influence of the chiefs, the British introduced the new procedures with great caution. The monks, in particular, resented the virtual disappearance of the monarchy, which was their traditional source of support. They also resented the monarchy's replacement by a foreign and impartial government. Troubled by the corresponding decline in their status, the monks began to stir up political and religious discontent among the Kandyans almost immediately following the British annexation. The popular and widespread rebellion that followed was suppressed with great severity. When hostilities ended in 1818, the British issued a proclamation that brought the Kandyan provinces under closer control. British agents usurped the powers and privileges of the chiefs and became the arbitrators of provincial authority. Finally, the British reduced the institutional privileges accorded Buddhism, in effect placing the religion on an equal footing with other religions. With the final British consolidation over Kandy, the country fell under the control of a single power--for the first time since the twelfth-century rule of Parakramabahu I and Nissankamalla.
Amiens, Sri Lanka became Britain's first crown colony. Following Lord Nelson's naval victory over the French at Trafalgar in 1805, British superiority on the seas was unchallenged and provided new security for the British colonies in Asia.Once the British had established themselves in Sri Lanka, they aggressively expanded their territorial possessions by a combination of annexation and intervention, a policy that paralleled the approach pursued by Lord Wellesley in India in the early nineteenth century. This strategy directly threatened the continued existence of the Kingdom of Kandy. Unrest at the Kandyan court between a ruling dynasty of alien, southern Indian antecedents and powerful, indigenous Sinhalese chieftains provided opportunities for British interference. The intrigue of the king's chief minister precipitated the first Kandyan war (1803). With the minister's knowledge, a British force marched on Kandy, but the force was ill prepared for such an ambitious venture and its leaders were misinformed of the extent of the king's unpopularity. The British expedition was at first successful, but on the return march, it was plagued by disease, and the garrison left behind was decimated. During the next decade, no concerted attempt was made to take Kandy. But in 1815 the British had another opportunity. The king had antagonized local Sinhalese chiefs and further alienated the Sinhalese people by actions against Buddhist monks and temple property. In 1815, the Kandyan rebels invited the British to intervene. The governor quickly responded by sending a well-prepared force to Kandy; the king fled with hardly a shot fired.Kandyan headmen and the British signed a treaty known as the Kandyan Convention in March 1815. The treaty decreed that the Kandyan provinces be brought under British sovereignty and that all the traditional privileges of the chiefs be maintained. The Kingdom of Kandy was also to be governed according to its customary Buddhist laws and institutions but would be under the administration of a British "resident" at Kandy, who would, in all but name, take the place of the monarch.In general, the old system was allowed to continue, but its future was bleak because of the great incongruity between the principles on which the British administration was based and the principles of the Kandyan hierarchy. Because the changes under the treaty tended to diminish the power and influence of the chiefs, the British introduced the new procedures with great caution. The monks, in particular, resented the virtual disappearance of the monarchy, which was their traditional source of support. They also resented the monarchy's replacement by a foreign and impartial government. Troubled by the corresponding decline in their status, the monks began to stir up political and religious discontent among the Kandyans almost immediately following the British annexation. The popular and widespread rebellion that followed was suppressed with great severity. When hostilities ended in 1818, the British issued a proclamation that brought the Kandyan provinces under closer control. British agents usurped the powers and privileges of the chiefs and became the arbitrators of provincial authority. Finally, the British reduced the institutional privileges accorded Buddhism, in effect placing the religion on an equal footing with other religions. With the final British consolidation over Kandy, the country fell under the control of a single power--for the first time since the twelfth-century rule of Parakramabahu I and Nissankamalla.
MODERNIZATION AND REFORM
According to Sri Lankan historian Zeylanicus,
each of the three epochs of European rule on the island lasted roughly 150
years, but rather than being assessed separately, these epochs should be
thought of collectively as a "mighty cantilever of time with the Pax
Britannica as the central pillar." Many British institutions have survived
and currently have a direct and lasting influence on cultural and political
events. Historian E.F.C. Ludowyck concurs, stating that whatever the Portuguese
and Dutch did, the British improved upon. He attributed this accomplishment to
British grounding in liberalism, a belief in the emancipation of slaves, the
absence of religious persecution, and conscious attempts to maintain good
relations between the rulers and the ruled.When the British first conquered the
maritime provinces of Sri Lanka, the indigenous population of the island was
estimated at only 800,000. When the British left a century and a half later,
the population had grown to more than 7 million. Over a relatively short
period, the island had developed an economy capable of supporting the
burgeoning population. Roads, railways, schools, hospitals, hydroelectric
projects, and large welloperated agricultural plantations provided the
infrastructure for a viable national economy.In the early years of British
colonization, Sri Lanka was not considered a great economic asset but was
viewed instead almost exclusively in terms of its strategic value. By the
1820s, however, this perception was changing. As governor, Sir Edward Barnes
was responsible for consolidating British military control over the Kandyan
provinces through a program of vigorous road construction. He also began
experimenting with a variety of commercial crops, such as coffee. These
experiments provided the foundation of the plantation system that was launched
a decade later. In administrative matters, the British were initially careful
not to change the existing social order too quickly and were not inclined to
mingle socially. A sharp distinction was made between the rulers and the ruled,
but in time the distinction became less defined. The governor, who held all
executive and legislative power, had an advisory council made up of colonial
officials with top posts filled by members of a civil service recruited in
Britain. The governor was under the director of the Colonial Office in London
but was given whatever discretionary powers he needed to balance the colony's
budget and to make sure that the colony brought in enough revenue to cover its
military and administrative expenses.
By the early 1830s, the British had almost
finished consolidating their position in Sri Lanka and began to take more of an
interest in securing the island's political stability and economic
profitability. A new wave of thought, influenced by the reformist political
ideology articulated by Jeremy Bentham and James Mill, promised to change
fundamentally Britain's relationship to its colonies. Known as utilitarianism,
and later as philosophical radicalism, it promoted the idea of democracy and
individual liberty. This philosophy sponsored the idea of the trusteeship,
i.e., that new territories would be considered trusts and would receive all the
benefits of British liberalism. These philosophical abstractions were put into
practical use with the recommendations of a commission led by W.M.G. Colebrooke
and C.H. Cameron. Their Colebrooke Report (1831-32) was an important document
in the history of the island. G.C. Mendis, considered by many to be the doyen
of modern Sri Lankan history, considers the Colebrooke-Cameron reforms to be
the dividing line between the past and present in Sri Lanka.
THE COLEBROOKE-CAMERON REFORMS
In 1829 the British Colonial Office sent a Royal
Commission of Eastern Inquiry--the Colebrooke-Cameron Commission--to assess the
administration of the island. The legal and economic proposals made by the
commission in 1833 were innovative and radical. The proposed reforms opposed
mercantilism, state monopolies, discriminatory administrative regulations, and,
in general, any interference in the economy. Many of the proposals were adopted
and helped set a pattern of administrative, economic, judicial, and educational
development that continued into the next century.The commission worked to end
the protested administrative division of the country along ethnic and cultural
lines into lowcountry Sinhalese, Kandyan Sinhalese, and Tamil areas. The
commission proposed instead that the country be put under one uniform
administrative system, which was to be divided into five provinces. Colebrooke
believed that in the past, separate administrative systems had encouraged
social and cultural divisions, and that the first step toward the creation of a
modern nation was the administrative unification of the country. Cameron applied
the same principle to the judicial system, which he proposed be unified into
one system and be extended to all classes of people, offering everyone equal
rights in the eyes of the law. His recommendations were adopted and enforced
under the Charter of Justice in 1833.The commissioners also favored the
decentralization of executive power in the government. They stripped away many
of the autocratic powers vested in the governor, replacing his advisory council
with an Executive Council, which included both official and unofficial
nominees. The Executive Council appointed the members of the Legislative
Council, which functioned as a forum for discussion of legislative matters. The
Legislative Council placed special emphasis on Sri Lankan membership, and in
1833 three of the fifteen members were Sri Lankans. The governor nominated them
to represent low-country Sinhalese, Burghers, and Tamils, respectively. The
commissioners also voted to change the exclusively British character of the
administrative services and recommended that the civil service include local
citizens. These proposed constitutional reforms were revolutionary--far more
liberal than the legal
systems of any other European colony.The opening of the Ceylon Civil Service to Sri Lankans required that a new emphasis be placed on English education. In time, the opening contributed to the creation of a Westernized elite, whose members would spearhead the drive for independence in the twentieth century. The Colebrooke-Cameron Commission emphasized the standardization of educational curriculum and advocated the substitution of English for local languages. Local English schools were established, and the missionary schools that had previously taught in the vernacular also adopted English.
systems of any other European colony.The opening of the Ceylon Civil Service to Sri Lankans required that a new emphasis be placed on English education. In time, the opening contributed to the creation of a Westernized elite, whose members would spearhead the drive for independence in the twentieth century. The Colebrooke-Cameron Commission emphasized the standardization of educational curriculum and advocated the substitution of English for local languages. Local English schools were established, and the missionary schools that had previously taught in the vernacular also adopted English.
ECONOMIC INNOVATIONS
The Colebrooke-Cameron reforms had an immediate
impact on the economic development of the island. Many features of the economic
structure the reforms helped put into place still exist. The commission
advocated a laissez-faire economy. To encourage free trade, the government
monopolies over cinnamon cultivation and trade were abolished. Traditional
institutions, such as land tenure by accommodessan (the granting of land for
cultivation, as opposed to its outright sale), was abolished, as was the rajakariya
system. Rajakariya was opposed not only on moral grounds but also because it
slowed the growth of private enterprise, impeded the creation of a land market,
and interfered with the free movement of labor.In the mid-1830s, the British
began to experiment with a variety of plantation crops in Sri Lanka, using many
of the technological innovations developed earlier from their experience in
Jamaica. Within fifteen years, one of these crops, coffee, became so successful
that it transformed the island's economy from reliance upon subsistence crops
to plantation agriculture. The first coffee plantation was opened in the
Kandyan hill region in 1827, but it was not until the mid-1830s that a number
of favorable factors combined to make the widespread cultivation of the crop a
highly profitable enterprise. Governor Edward Barnes (1824-31) foresaw the
possibilities of coffee cultivation and introduced various incentives for its
cultivation, particularly the lifting of coffee export duties and exemption
from the land produce tax. When slavery was abolished in the West Indies and
coffee production there declined, Sri Lankan coffee exports soared, filling the
gap in the world market. The problem of limited availability of land for coffee
estates was solved when the British government sold lands that it had acquired
from the Kandyan kings.The coffee plantation system faced a serious labor
shortage. Among the Sinhalese, a peasant cultivator of paddy land held a much
higher status than a landless laborer. In addition, the low wages paid to hired
workers failed to attract the Kandyan peasant, and the peak season for
harvesting plantation coffee usually coincided with the peasant's own harvest.
Moreover, population pressure and underemployment were not acute until the
twentieth century. To compensate for this scarcity of native workers, an
inexpensive and almost inexhaustible supply of labor was found among the Tamils
in southern India. They were recruited for the coffee-harvesting season and
migrated to and from Sri Lanka, often amid great hardships. The immigration of
these Indian Tamils began as a trickle in the 1830s and became a regular flow a
decade later, when the government of India removed all restrictions on the
migration of labor to Sri Lanka.British civilian and military officials
resident in Kandy provided initial capital for coffee cultivation, provoking
contemporary observations in the 1840s that they behaved more like coffee
planters than government employees. This private capitalization led to serious
abuses, however, culminating in an 1840 ordinance that made it virtually
impossible for a Kandyan peasant
to prove that his land was not truly crown land and thus subject to expropriation and resale to coffee interests. In this period, more than 80,000 hectares of Kandyan land were appropriated and sold as crown lands.Between 1830 and 1850, coffee held the preeminent place in the economy and became a catalyst for the island's modernization. The greater availability of capital and the increase in export trade brought the rudiments of capitalist organization to the country. The Ceylon Bank opened in 1841 to finance the rapid expansion of coffee plantations. Since the main center of coffee production was in the Kandyan provinces, the expansion of coffee and the network of roads and railroads ended the isolation of the old Kandyan kingdom. The coffee plantation system had served as the economic foundation for the unification of the island while reinforcing the administrative and judicial reforms of the Colebrooke-Cameron Commission.The plantation system dominated the economy in Sri Lanka to such an extent that one observer described the government as an "appendage of the estates (plantations)." Worldwide depression in 1846 temporarily checked the rapid development of the plantation system. Falling coffee prices caused financial disruption, aggravating the friction that had been developing between the static traditional feudal economy and modernized commercial agriculture. In order to make up for lost revenue, the government imposed a series of new taxes on firearms, dogs, shops, boats, carriages, and bullock carts. All of these taxes affected Sinhalese farmers. Other measures that further alienated the Kandyans included a land tax and a road ordinance in 1848 that reintroduced a form of rajakariya by requiring six days' free labor on roads or the payment of a cash equivalent. But the measure that most antagonized the Kandyans (especially those associated with the Buddhist sangha) was the alienation of temple lands for coffee plantations.British troops so severely repressed a rebellion that broke out among the Kandyans in 1848 that the House of Commons in London commissioned an investigation to look into the matter. The governor and his chief secretary were subsequently dismissed, and all new taxes, except the road ordinance, were repealed. The government adopted a new policy toward Buddhism after the rebellion, recognizing the importance of Buddhist monks as leaders of Kandyan public opinion.The plantation era transformed the island's economy. This was most evident in the growth of the export sector at the expense of the traditional agricultural sector. The colonial
predilection for growing commercial instead of subsistence crops later was considered by Sri Lankan nationalists to be one of the unfortunate legacies of European domination. Late nineteenth- century official documents that recorded famines and chronic rural poverty support the nationalists' argument. Other issues, notably the British policy of selling state land to planters for conversion into plantations, are equally controversial, even though some members of the indigenous population participated in all stages of plantation agriculture. Sri Lankans, for example, controlled over one-third of the area under coffee cultivation and most of the land in coconut production. They also owned significant interests in rubber.In 1869 a devastating leaf disease--hemleiavastratrix struck the coffee plantations and spread quickly throughout the plantation district, destroying the coffee industry within fifteen years. Planters desperately searched for a substitute crop. One crop that showed promise was chinchona (quinine). After an initial appearance of success, however, the market price of the crop fell and never fully recovered. Cinnamon, which had suffered a setback in the beginning of the century, was revived at this time, but only to become an important minor crop.Among all of the crops experimented with during the decline of coffee, only tea showed any real promise of success. A decline in the demand for Chinese tea in Britain opened up possibilities for Indian tea, especially the fine variety indigenous to Assam. Climatic conditions for the cultivation of tea were excellent in Sri Lanka, especially in the hill country. By the end of the century, tea production on the island had risen enormously. Because of the inelasticity of the market, however, British outlets soon became saturated. Attempts to develop other markets, especially in the United States, were largely unsuccessful, and a glut emerged after World War II.The tea estates needed a completely different type of labor force than had been required during the coffee era. Tea was harvested throughout the year and required a permanent labor force. Waves of Indian Tamil immigrants settled on the estates and eventually became a large and permanent underclass that endured abominable working conditions and squalid housing. The census of 1911 recorded the number of Indian laborers in Sri Lanka at about 500,000--about 12 percent of the island's total population. In the 1980s, the Indian Tamils made up almost 6 percent of the island's population (see Population ,ch. 2.)The Tamil laborers emigrated to Sri Lanka from India not as individuals but as part of family units or groups of interrelated families. Thus, they tended to maintain their native cultural patterns on the estates where they settled. Although the Indian Tamils spoke the same language as the Sri Lankan Tamils, were Hindus, and traced their cultural origins to southern India, they considered themselves to be culturally distinct from the Sri Lankan Tamils. Their distinctiveness as a group and their cultural differences from the Sinhalese and the Sri Lankan Tamils were recognized in the constitutional reforms of 1924, when two members of the Indian Tamil community were nominated to the Legislative Council.As the nineteenth century drew to a close, experimentation in crop diversification, on a moderate level in the years before the collapse of the coffee market, became of greater importance. Responding to international market trends, planters attempted to diversify the crops they produced to insulate their revenues from world price fluctuations. Not all their experiments were successful. The first sugar plantation was established in 1837, but sugar cultivation was not well-suited to the island and has never been very successful. Cocoa was also tried for a time and has continued as one of the lesser exports. Rubber, which was introduced in 1837, became a major export during the slump in the tea export market in the 1900s. The rubber export trade exceeded that of tea during World War I. But after suffering severe losses during the depression of the 1930s, rubber exports never again regained their preeminent position.
to prove that his land was not truly crown land and thus subject to expropriation and resale to coffee interests. In this period, more than 80,000 hectares of Kandyan land were appropriated and sold as crown lands.Between 1830 and 1850, coffee held the preeminent place in the economy and became a catalyst for the island's modernization. The greater availability of capital and the increase in export trade brought the rudiments of capitalist organization to the country. The Ceylon Bank opened in 1841 to finance the rapid expansion of coffee plantations. Since the main center of coffee production was in the Kandyan provinces, the expansion of coffee and the network of roads and railroads ended the isolation of the old Kandyan kingdom. The coffee plantation system had served as the economic foundation for the unification of the island while reinforcing the administrative and judicial reforms of the Colebrooke-Cameron Commission.The plantation system dominated the economy in Sri Lanka to such an extent that one observer described the government as an "appendage of the estates (plantations)." Worldwide depression in 1846 temporarily checked the rapid development of the plantation system. Falling coffee prices caused financial disruption, aggravating the friction that had been developing between the static traditional feudal economy and modernized commercial agriculture. In order to make up for lost revenue, the government imposed a series of new taxes on firearms, dogs, shops, boats, carriages, and bullock carts. All of these taxes affected Sinhalese farmers. Other measures that further alienated the Kandyans included a land tax and a road ordinance in 1848 that reintroduced a form of rajakariya by requiring six days' free labor on roads or the payment of a cash equivalent. But the measure that most antagonized the Kandyans (especially those associated with the Buddhist sangha) was the alienation of temple lands for coffee plantations.British troops so severely repressed a rebellion that broke out among the Kandyans in 1848 that the House of Commons in London commissioned an investigation to look into the matter. The governor and his chief secretary were subsequently dismissed, and all new taxes, except the road ordinance, were repealed. The government adopted a new policy toward Buddhism after the rebellion, recognizing the importance of Buddhist monks as leaders of Kandyan public opinion.The plantation era transformed the island's economy. This was most evident in the growth of the export sector at the expense of the traditional agricultural sector. The colonial
predilection for growing commercial instead of subsistence crops later was considered by Sri Lankan nationalists to be one of the unfortunate legacies of European domination. Late nineteenth- century official documents that recorded famines and chronic rural poverty support the nationalists' argument. Other issues, notably the British policy of selling state land to planters for conversion into plantations, are equally controversial, even though some members of the indigenous population participated in all stages of plantation agriculture. Sri Lankans, for example, controlled over one-third of the area under coffee cultivation and most of the land in coconut production. They also owned significant interests in rubber.In 1869 a devastating leaf disease--hemleiavastratrix struck the coffee plantations and spread quickly throughout the plantation district, destroying the coffee industry within fifteen years. Planters desperately searched for a substitute crop. One crop that showed promise was chinchona (quinine). After an initial appearance of success, however, the market price of the crop fell and never fully recovered. Cinnamon, which had suffered a setback in the beginning of the century, was revived at this time, but only to become an important minor crop.Among all of the crops experimented with during the decline of coffee, only tea showed any real promise of success. A decline in the demand for Chinese tea in Britain opened up possibilities for Indian tea, especially the fine variety indigenous to Assam. Climatic conditions for the cultivation of tea were excellent in Sri Lanka, especially in the hill country. By the end of the century, tea production on the island had risen enormously. Because of the inelasticity of the market, however, British outlets soon became saturated. Attempts to develop other markets, especially in the United States, were largely unsuccessful, and a glut emerged after World War II.The tea estates needed a completely different type of labor force than had been required during the coffee era. Tea was harvested throughout the year and required a permanent labor force. Waves of Indian Tamil immigrants settled on the estates and eventually became a large and permanent underclass that endured abominable working conditions and squalid housing. The census of 1911 recorded the number of Indian laborers in Sri Lanka at about 500,000--about 12 percent of the island's total population. In the 1980s, the Indian Tamils made up almost 6 percent of the island's population (see Population ,ch. 2.)The Tamil laborers emigrated to Sri Lanka from India not as individuals but as part of family units or groups of interrelated families. Thus, they tended to maintain their native cultural patterns on the estates where they settled. Although the Indian Tamils spoke the same language as the Sri Lankan Tamils, were Hindus, and traced their cultural origins to southern India, they considered themselves to be culturally distinct from the Sri Lankan Tamils. Their distinctiveness as a group and their cultural differences from the Sinhalese and the Sri Lankan Tamils were recognized in the constitutional reforms of 1924, when two members of the Indian Tamil community were nominated to the Legislative Council.As the nineteenth century drew to a close, experimentation in crop diversification, on a moderate level in the years before the collapse of the coffee market, became of greater importance. Responding to international market trends, planters attempted to diversify the crops they produced to insulate their revenues from world price fluctuations. Not all their experiments were successful. The first sugar plantation was established in 1837, but sugar cultivation was not well-suited to the island and has never been very successful. Cocoa was also tried for a time and has continued as one of the lesser exports. Rubber, which was introduced in 1837, became a major export during the slump in the tea export market in the 1900s. The rubber export trade exceeded that of tea during World War I. But after suffering severe losses during the depression of the 1930s, rubber exports never again regained their preeminent position.
RISE OF THE SRI LANKAN MIDDLE CLASS
By the nineteenth century, a new society was
emerging--a product of East and West. It was a society with strict rules
separating the rulers from the ruled, and most social association between the
British and Sri Lankans was taboo. The British community was largely a
microcosm of English society with all its class divisions. At the top of the
social pyramid were the British officials of the Ceylon Civil Service.
Elaborate social conventions regulated the conduct of the service's members and
served to distinguish them as an exclusive caste. This situation, however,
changed slowly in the latter part of the nineteenth century and quite rapidly
in the next century.In Sri Lanka as in India, the British created an educated
class to provide administrative and professional services in the colony. By the
late nineteenth century, most members of this
emerging class were associated directly or indirectly with the government. Increased Sri Lankan participation in government affairs demanded the creation of a legal profession; the need for state health services required a corps of medical professionals; and the spread of education provided an impetus to develop the teaching profession. In addition, the expansion of commercial plantations created a legion of new trades and occupations: landowners, planters, transport agents, contractors, and businessmen. Certain Sinhalese caste groups, such as the fishermen (Karava) and cinnamon peelers (Salagama), benefited from the emerging new economic order, to the detriment of the traditional ruling cultivators (Goyigama).The development of a capitalist economy forced the traditional elite--the chiefs and headmen among the low-country Sinhalese and the Kandyan aristocracy--to compete with new groups for the favors of the British. These upwardly mobile, primarily urban, professionals formed a new class that transcended divisions of race and caste. This class, particularly its uppermost strata, was steeped in Western culture and ideology. Thisanglicized elite generally had conservative political leanings, was loyal to the government, and resembled the British so much in outlook and social customs that its members were sometimes called brown sahibs. At the apex of this new class was a handful of Sri Lankans who had been able to join the exclusive ranks of the civil service in the nineteenth century. The first Sri Lankan entered by competitive examination in 1840. At that time, entrance examinations were held only in London and required an English education, so only a few members of the native middle class could aspire to such an elitist career. Consequently, in spite of the liberal policies that Colebrooke and Cameron recommended, the British held virtually all high posts in the colonial administration.
emerging class were associated directly or indirectly with the government. Increased Sri Lankan participation in government affairs demanded the creation of a legal profession; the need for state health services required a corps of medical professionals; and the spread of education provided an impetus to develop the teaching profession. In addition, the expansion of commercial plantations created a legion of new trades and occupations: landowners, planters, transport agents, contractors, and businessmen. Certain Sinhalese caste groups, such as the fishermen (Karava) and cinnamon peelers (Salagama), benefited from the emerging new economic order, to the detriment of the traditional ruling cultivators (Goyigama).The development of a capitalist economy forced the traditional elite--the chiefs and headmen among the low-country Sinhalese and the Kandyan aristocracy--to compete with new groups for the favors of the British. These upwardly mobile, primarily urban, professionals formed a new class that transcended divisions of race and caste. This class, particularly its uppermost strata, was steeped in Western culture and ideology. Thisanglicized elite generally had conservative political leanings, was loyal to the government, and resembled the British so much in outlook and social customs that its members were sometimes called brown sahibs. At the apex of this new class was a handful of Sri Lankans who had been able to join the exclusive ranks of the civil service in the nineteenth century. The first Sri Lankan entered by competitive examination in 1840. At that time, entrance examinations were held only in London and required an English education, so only a few members of the native middle class could aspire to such an elitist career. Consequently, in spite of the liberal policies that Colebrooke and Cameron recommended, the British held virtually all high posts in the colonial administration.
BUDDHIST REVIVALISM
Beginning around the middle of the nineteenth
century, the Buddhist clergy attempted to reform the sangha (religious
community), particularly as a reaction against Christian missionary activities.
In the 1870s, Buddhist activists enlisted the help of an American, Colonel
Henry Steele Olcott. An ardent abolitionist in the years leading up to the
American Civil War, Olcott cofounded and later became president of the
Theosophical Movement, which was organized on a worldwide basis to promote
goodwill and to champion the rights of the underprivileged. Shortly after his
arrival in Sri Lanka, Olcott organized a Buddhist campaign against British
officials and British missionaries. His Buddhist Theosophical Society of Ceylon
went on to establish three institutions of higher learning: Ananda College,
Mahinda College, and Dharmaraja College. Olcott's society founded these and
some 200 lower schools to impart Buddhist education with a strong nationalist
bias. Olcott and his society took a special interest in the historical past of
the Sinhalese Buddhist kingdoms on the island and managed to persuade the
British governor to make Vesak, the chief Buddhist festival, a public
holiday.
CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM
The rediscovery of old Buddhist texts rekindled a
popular interest in Sri Lanka's ancient civilization. The study of the past
became an important aspect of the new drive for education. Archaeologists began
work at Anuradhapura and at Polonnaruwa, and their finds contributed to the
resurgent national pride. In the 1880s, a Buddhist-inspired temperance movement
was also initiated to fight drunkenness, and the Ceylon Social Reform Society
was founded in 1905 to combat other temptations associated with Westernization.
Encouraged by the free reign of expression that the government extended to
these reformists, a growing number of communal and regional political
associations began to press for constitutional reform in the closing years of
the nineteenth century. The colonial government was petitioned for permission
to have Sri Lankan representation in the Executive Council and expanded
regional representation in the Legislative Council. In response, the colonial
government permitted a modest experiment in 1910, allowing a small electorate
of Sri Lankans to send one of their members to the Legislative Council. Other
seats held by Sri Lankans retained the old practice of communal
representation.
WORLD WAR I
World War I had only a minimal military impact on
Sri Lanka, which entered the war as part of the British Empire. The closest
fighting took place in the Bay of Bengal, where an Australian warship sank a
German cruiser. But the war had an important influence on the growth of
nationalism. The Allies' wartime propaganda extolled the virtues of freedom and
self-determination of nations, and the message was heard and duly noted by Sri
Lankan nationalists. There was, however, an event, only indirectly related to
the war, that served as the immediate spark for the growth of nationalism. In
1915 communal rioting broke out between the Sinhalese and Muslims on the west
coast. The British panicked, misconstruing the disturbances as part of an
antigovernment conspiracy; they blamed the majority ethnic group and
indiscriminately arrested many Sinhalese, including D.S. Senanayake--the future
first prime minister of Sri Lanka--who had actually tried to use his influence
to curb the riots. The British put down the unrest with excessive zeal and
brutality, which shocked British and Sri Lankan observers alike. Some
sympathetic accounts of the unrest take into consideration that the judgment of
the governor of the time, Sir Robert Chalmers (1913-16), may have been
clouded by the loss of his two sons on the Western Front in Europe. At any rate, his actions insured that 1915 was a turning point in the nationalist movement. From then on, activists mobilized for coordinated action against the British.The nationalist movement in India served as a model to nationalists in Sri Lanka. In 1917 the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League mended their differences and issued a joint declaration for the "progressive realization" of responsible government in India. Nationalists in Sri Lanka learned from their Indian counterparts that they had to become more national and less partisan in their push for constitutional reform. In 1919 the major Sinhalese and Tamil political organizations united to form the Ceylon National Congress. One of the first actions of the congress was to submit a proposal for a new constitution that would increase local control over the Executive Council and the budget. These demands were not met, but they led to the promulgation of a new constitution in 1920. Amendments to the constitution in 1924 increased Sri Lankan representation. Although the nationalists' demand for representation in the Executive Council was not granted, the Legislative Council was expanded to include a majority of elected Sri Lankan unofficial members, bringing the island closer to representative government. Yet the franchise remained restrictive and included only about 4 percent of the island's population.
clouded by the loss of his two sons on the Western Front in Europe. At any rate, his actions insured that 1915 was a turning point in the nationalist movement. From then on, activists mobilized for coordinated action against the British.The nationalist movement in India served as a model to nationalists in Sri Lanka. In 1917 the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League mended their differences and issued a joint declaration for the "progressive realization" of responsible government in India. Nationalists in Sri Lanka learned from their Indian counterparts that they had to become more national and less partisan in their push for constitutional reform. In 1919 the major Sinhalese and Tamil political organizations united to form the Ceylon National Congress. One of the first actions of the congress was to submit a proposal for a new constitution that would increase local control over the Executive Council and the budget. These demands were not met, but they led to the promulgation of a new constitution in 1920. Amendments to the constitution in 1924 increased Sri Lankan representation. Although the nationalists' demand for representation in the Executive Council was not granted, the Legislative Council was expanded to include a majority of elected Sri Lankan unofficial members, bringing the island closer to representative government. Yet the franchise remained restrictive and included only about 4 percent of the island's population.
THE DONOUGHMORE COMMISSION
In 1927 a royal commission under the Earl of
Donoughmore visited Sri Lanka to ascertain why representative government as
chartered by the 1924 constitution had not succeeded and to suggest
constitutional changes necessary for the island's eventual self-rule. The
commission declared that the constitution had authorized a government
characterized by the "divorce of power from responsibility," which at
times seemed "rather like holy matrimony at its worst." The 1924
constitution, considered by the commission to be "an unqualified
failure," failed to provide a strong, credible executive body of representatives.
To remedy these shortcomings, the commission proposed universal adult franchise
and an experimental system of government to be run by executive committees. The
resulting Donoughmore Constitution, promulgated in 1931 to accommodate these
new proposals in government, was a unique document that provided Sri Lankans
with training for self-government. The document, however, reserved the highest
level of responsibility for the British governor, whose assent was necessary
for all legislation. The legislative branch of the government--the State
Council-- functioned in both an executive and legislative capacity. Seven
committees performed executive duties. Each committee consisted of designated
members of the State Council and was chaired by an elected Sri Lankan, who was
addressed as minister. Three British officers of ministerial rank, along with
the seven Sri Lankan ministers, formed a board of ministers. The British
ministers collectively handled responsibility for defense, external affairs,
finance, and judicial matters.The Donoughmore Constitution ushered in a period
of experimentation in participatory democracy but contemporary political
scientists have criticized it for not having provided an atmosphere conducive
to the growth of a healthy party system. The system of executive committees did
not lead to the development of national political parties. Instead, a number of
splinter political groups evolved around influential personalities who usually
followed a vision too limited or an agenda too communally partisan to have an impact
on national politics.Among the Sinhalese, a form of nationalism arose that
sought once again to restore Buddhism to its former glory. The Great Council of
the Sinhalese (Sinhala MahaSabha), which was founded by S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike
in 1937, was the strongest proponent of this resurgent ideology. Other groups
followed suit, also organizing on communal grounds. These groups included the
Burgher Political Association in 1938, the Ceylon Indian Congress in 1939, and
the All Ceylon Tamil Congress in 1944.
GROWTH OF LEFTIST PARTIES
During the Donoughmore period of political
experimentation, several leftist parties were formed. Unlike most other Sri
Lankan parties, these leftist parties were noncommunal in membership.
Working-class activism, especially trade unionism, became an important
political factor during the sustained economic slump between the world wars.
The first important leftist party was the Labour Party, founded in 1931 by A.E.
Goonesimha. Three Marxistoriented parties--the Ceylon Equal Society Party
(Lanka SamaSamaja Party--LSSP), the Bolshevik-Leninist Party, and the Communist
Party of Sri Lanka (CPSL)--represented the far left. All three were divided on
both ideological and personal grounds. The Soviet Union's expulsion of Leon
Trotsky from the Communist Party after Lenin's death in 1924 and Stalin's
subsequent decision to enter World War II on the Allied side exacerbated these
differences, dividing the Communists into Trotskyites and Stalinists. The LSSP,
formed in 1935 and the oldest of the Sri Lankan Marxist parties, took a stance
independent of the Soviet Union, becoming affiliated with the Trotskyite Fourth
International, which was a rival of the Comintern. Most LSSP leaders were
arrested during World War II for their opposition to what they considered to be
an "imperial war." Although in more recent years, the LSSP has been
considered a politically spent force, gaining, for example less than 1 percent
of the vote in the 1982 presidential elections, it has nevertheless been touted
as the world's only successful Trotskyite party.The CPSL, which began as a
Stalinist faction of the LSSP that was later expelled, formed its own party in
1943, remaining faithful to the dictates of the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union. The Bolshevik-Leninist Party was formed in 1945 as another breakaway
group of the LSSP. The leftist parties represented the numerically small urban
working class. Partly because these parties operated through the medium of
trade unionism, they lacked the wider mass appeal needed at the national level
to provide an effective extraparliamentary challenge to the central government.
Nonetheless, because the leftists occasionally formed temporary political
coalitions before national elections, they posed more than just a mere "parliamentary
nuisance factor."
WORLD WAR II AND THE TRANSITION TO
INDEPENDENCE
When Singapore fell to the Japanese in February
1942, Sri Lanka became a central base for British operations in Southeast Asia,
and the port at Trincomalee recaptured its historically strategic importance.
Because Sri Lanka was an indispensable strategic bastion for the British Royal
Navy, it was an irresistible military target for the Japanese. For a time, it
seemed that Japan planned a sweeping westward offensive across the Indian Ocean
to take Sri Lanka, sever the Allies' lifeline to Persian Gulf oil, and link up
with the Axis powers in Egypt. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, mastermind of the raid
on Pearl Harbor, ordered Vice Admiral ChuichiNagumo to command a large armada
to seek and destroy the British Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean. The two
nations' fleets played a game of hide-and-seek, but never met. Some military
historians assert that if they had met, the smaller British fleet would have
met with disaster. The British instead fought several desperate air battles
over Colombo and Trincomalee and lost about thirty-six aircraft and several
ships.Yamamoto's grand strategy failed to isolate and destroy any major units
of the British fleet. But if the Japanese had persisted with their offensive,
the island, with its limited British naval defenses, probably would have
fallen. The Japanese carrier force, however, suffered such high aircraft losses
over Sri Lanka--more than 100 warplanes--that it returned to Japan for
refitting rather than press the attack. By returning to Japan, the force lost
its opportunity for unchallenged supremacy of the Indian Ocean. The focus of
the war in this theater then shifted away from the island.On the whole, Sri
Lanka benefited from its role in World War II. The plantation sector was busy
meeting the urgent demands of the Allies for essential products, especially
rubber, enabling the country to save a surplus in hard currency. Because Sri
Lanka was the seat of the Southeast Asia Command, a broad infrastructure of
health services and modern amenities
was built to accommodate the large number of troops posted into all parts of the country. The inherited infrastructure improved the standard of living in postwar, independent Sri Lanka.Unlike India, where nationalists demanded a guarantee of independence as recompense for their support in the war effort, Sri Lanka committed itself wholeheartedly to the Allied war effort. Although the island was put under military jurisdiction during the war, the British and the Sri Lankans maintained cooperative relations. Sri Lankan pressure for political reform continued during the war, however, and increased as the Japanese threat receded and the war neared its end. The British eventually promised full participatory government after the war.In July 1944, Lord Soulbury was appointed head of a commission charged with the task of examining a new constitutional draft that the Sri Lankan ministers had proposed. The commission made recommendations that led to a new constitution. As the end of the war approached, the constitution was amended to incorporate a provision giving Sri Lanka dominion status.British constitutional principles served as a model for the Soulbury Constitution of independent Sri Lanka, which combined a parliamentary system with a bicameral legislature. Members of the first House of Representatives were directly elected by popular vote. Members of the Senate, or upper house, were elected partly by members of the House and partly by the governor general, who was primarily a figurehead. The British monarch appointed the governor general on the advice of the most powerful person in the Sri Lankan government--the prime minister.
was built to accommodate the large number of troops posted into all parts of the country. The inherited infrastructure improved the standard of living in postwar, independent Sri Lanka.Unlike India, where nationalists demanded a guarantee of independence as recompense for their support in the war effort, Sri Lanka committed itself wholeheartedly to the Allied war effort. Although the island was put under military jurisdiction during the war, the British and the Sri Lankans maintained cooperative relations. Sri Lankan pressure for political reform continued during the war, however, and increased as the Japanese threat receded and the war neared its end. The British eventually promised full participatory government after the war.In July 1944, Lord Soulbury was appointed head of a commission charged with the task of examining a new constitutional draft that the Sri Lankan ministers had proposed. The commission made recommendations that led to a new constitution. As the end of the war approached, the constitution was amended to incorporate a provision giving Sri Lanka dominion status.British constitutional principles served as a model for the Soulbury Constitution of independent Sri Lanka, which combined a parliamentary system with a bicameral legislature. Members of the first House of Representatives were directly elected by popular vote. Members of the Senate, or upper house, were elected partly by members of the House and partly by the governor general, who was primarily a figurehead. The British monarch appointed the governor general on the advice of the most powerful person in the Sri Lankan government--the prime minister.
INDEPENDENCE
The British negotiated the island's dominion
status with the leader of the State Council, D.S. Senanayake, during World War
II. Senanayake was also minister of agriculture and vice chairman of the Board
of Ministers. The negotiations ended with the Ceylon Independence Act of 1947,
which formalized the transfer of power. Senanayake was the founder and leader
of the United National Party (UNP), a partnership of many disparate groups
formed during the Donoughmore period, including the Ceylon National Congress,
the Sinhala MahaSabha, and the Muslim League. The UNP easily won the 1947
elections, challenged only by a collection of small, primarily leftist parties.
On February 4, 1948, when the new constitution went into effect (making Sri
Lanka a dominion), the UNP embarked on a ten-year period of rule.
DIVISIONS IN THE BODY POLITIC
The prospects for an economically robust, fully
participatory, and manageable democracy looked good during the first years of
independence. In contrast to India, which had gained independence a year
earlier, there was no massive violence and little social unrest. In Sri Lanka
there was also a good measure of governmental continuity. Still, important
unresolved ethnic problems soon had to be addressed. The most immediate of
these problems was the "Indian question," which concerned the political
status of Tamil immigrants who worked on the highland tea plantations. The
Soulbury Commission had left this sensitive question to be resolved by the
incoming government.After independence, debate about the status of the Indian
Tamils continued. But three pieces of legislation--the Ceylon Citizenship Act
of 1948; the Indian and Pakistani Residents Act No. 3 of 1948, and the Ceylon
Parliamentary Elections Amendment Act No. 48 of 1949--all but disenfranchised
this minority group. The Ceylon Indian Congress vigorously but unsuccessfully
opposed the legislation. The acrimonious debate over the laws of 1948 and 1949
revealed serious fissures in the body politic. There was a cleavage along
ethnic lines between the Sinhalese and the Tamils, and also a widening rift
between Sri Lankan Tamils and Indian Tamils.In 1949 a faction of the Ceylon
Tamil Congress (the major Tamil party in Sri Lanka at the time) broke away to
form the (Tamil) Federal Party under the leadership of S.J.V. Chelvanayakam.
The creation of the Federal Party was a momentous postindependence development
because it set the agenda for Tamil exclusivity in Sri Lankan politics. Soon
after its founding, the
Federal Party replaced the more conciliatory Tamil Congress as the major party among Sri Lankan Tamils and advocated an aggressive stance vis-à-vis the Sinhalese.
Federal Party replaced the more conciliatory Tamil Congress as the major party among Sri Lankan Tamils and advocated an aggressive stance vis-à-vis the Sinhalese.
UNITED NATIONAL PARTY "MAJORITY"
RULE, 1948-56
The largest political party in independent Sri
Lanka, the United National Party (UNP), emerged as an umbrella party from the
colonial era. It was similar in some respects to the Indian National Congress.
Like its Indian counterpart, the UNP represented a union of a number of groups
espousing different personalities and ideologies. Known later as the
"uncle-nephew party" because of the kinship ties among the party's
top leadership, the UNP served as the standard-bearer of conservative forces.
In late 1947, when the party won the country's first general election, the UNP
attempted to establish an anticommunist, intercommunal parliamentary form of
government. Prominent nationalists, such as D.S. Senanayake and S.W.R.D.
Bandaranaike (the country's first and fourth prime ministers, respectively),
led the UNP. The party's internal differences gradually worsened, however. The
first and most serious break came in July 1951, when Bandaranaike's
left-of-center bloc seceded to form the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), the
first major non-Marxist political movement to oppose the UNP.Despite the
benevolent guidance of Senanayake, the UNP could not defuse the nascent dissension
between the Sinhalese and the Tamils. Some of Senanayake's policies,
particularly his awarding of land grants to Sinhalese settlers for the
resettlement of the northern dry zone, precipitated renewed competition between
the two ethnic groups.When Senanayake died in a horseback-riding accident in
March 1952, not only the UNP, but also the entire nation suffered from the loss
of the only man who could pose as a credible symbol for the country's unity. In
the election that was held immediately after Senanayake's death, the UNP, led
by his son Dudley, and the SLFP, led by Bandaranaike, vied for Sinhalese votes,
while the Tamil Congress and Federal Party competed for the Tamil vote. The UNP
won the election, and the SLFP emerged as major opposition party. The SLFP
managed to win only nine out of forty-eight seats in Parliament. The Tamil
Congress, having supported the UNP, lost much of its following to the Federal
Party, which continued to advocate an autonomous homeland within a Sri Lankan
federation. Ethnic tensions, although mounting, remained manageable.After D. S.
Senanayake's death, the nation's economic problems became apparent. The terms
of world trade were turning against Sri Lanka. The population was growing
faster than production in most sectors. A World Bank (see Glossary) study
completed in 1952 noted that social and welfare services were consuming 35
percent of the budget. The report recommended that the government rice
subsidy--which accounted for the major portion of the expenditure--be reduced.
Prime Minister Senanayake followed the advice, but the move proved to be his
political undoing. A massive, sometimes violent civil disobedience movement was
launched to protest the reduction of the rice subsidy and provoked the
resignation of Senanayake. In October 1953, his cousin, Sir John Kotelawala,
became prime minister and remained in office until the UNP defeat in the 1956
election.
The UNP government under Kotelawala disagreed
with India's interpretation of political solidarity in the developing world.
This divergence became painfully clear to India at the Colombo Conference of
1954 and the Bandung Conference in Indonesia in 1955. Kotelawala's strident
condemnation of communism, as well as the more fashionable condemnation of
Western imperialism, especially irritated India's Prime Minister Jawaharlal
Nehru. Kotelawala was also anxious to have Ceylon join the Southeast Asia
Treaty Organization (SEATO), but he encountered strong domestic opposition to
the plan. The Soviet Union was especially sensitive to what it considered the
government's pro-Western attitude and repeatedly vetoed Sri Lanka's application
to join the United Nations (UN). Sri Lanka was finally admitted in 1955 as part
of an East-West agreement.The UNP continued a defense agreement with the
British that spared Sri Lanka the cost of maintaining a large military
establishment. National defense consumed less than 4 percent of the government
budget in the postindependence years, and hence the military was not in a
position to interfere with politics.
EMERGENCE OF THE SRI LANKA FREEDOM PARTY
Following its defeat in 1952, the SLFP marshaled
its forces in preparation for the next national election. The 1956 election was
destined to become a turning point in the modern history of Sri Lanka and is
seen by many observers as a social revolution resulting in the eclipse of the
Westernized elite. S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike campaigned as the "defender of a
besieged Sinhalese culture" and demanded radical changes in the system.
Bandaranaike came from a family of Westernized Sinhalese and was educated at
Oxford, but early in his political career, he rejected many of the Western
elements of his background and embraced the Buddhist faith and adopted native
garb (regarded at the time as an affectation among members of his class).
Bandaranaike brought to the election a deep knowledge of the passions that
communal politics could provoke. His Sinhala MahaSabha, founded in 1937 as a
movement within the Ceylon National Congress, was the only wing of the congress
at that time that sought to infuse a Sinhala consciousness into Sri Lankan
nationalism. The Sinhala MahaSabha formed the backbone of Bandaranaike's SLFP
and helped spread his 1956 election warning that Buddhism was in danger.
Accusations of a "conspiracy" between the UNP and the Roman Catholic
Church helped raise emotions feverishly. As one commentator put it,
"Bandaranaike built up a popular following based on the Sinhalese dislike
of Christian influence, essentially stoking the fires of communal and religious
bigotry."Bandaranaike and his supporters used the UNP's pro-Western stance
as a potent propaganda weapon against the party. He claimed that the
independence granted in 1948 was "fake"
and that real independence could only be attained by severing all links with the Commonwealth of Nations. In economic matters, Bandaranaike planned to nationalize plantations, banks, and insurance companies. He advocated the control over trade and industry vested in Sinhalese hands. With such a radical platform, Bandaranaike managed to unite many disparate groups into his People's United Front (MahajanaEksathPeramuna--MEP), a political coalition under the leadership of his SLFP formed to defeat the UNP. In addition, he was able to forge a no-contest pact with two Marxist parties, the LSSP and the CPSL.
and that real independence could only be attained by severing all links with the Commonwealth of Nations. In economic matters, Bandaranaike planned to nationalize plantations, banks, and insurance companies. He advocated the control over trade and industry vested in Sinhalese hands. With such a radical platform, Bandaranaike managed to unite many disparate groups into his People's United Front (MahajanaEksathPeramuna--MEP), a political coalition under the leadership of his SLFP formed to defeat the UNP. In addition, he was able to forge a no-contest pact with two Marxist parties, the LSSP and the CPSL.
The central and most explosive issue of the 1956
election was a linguistic one. After independence, it was commonly accepted
that Sinhala and Tamil would replace English as the language of administration,
but Bandaranaike announced that only Sinhala would be given official status if
his coalition won the election. Bandaranaike introduced a dangerous
emotionalism into the election with his "Sinhala only" platform,
which labeled both Tamil and English as cultural imports.The 2,500th
anniversary of the death of the Buddha (which also marked the legendary landing
of Vijaya and his followers on the island) coincided with the 1956 election,
electrifying the political atmosphere. The UNP was susceptible to the emotional
power of these issues. In what was later seen as a shameless last-minute
reversal, the party also espoused the "Sinhala only" program. This
political about-face came too late to help the UNP, for the party lost the election,
winning only eight seats in parliament. The People's United Front won the
majority share of fifty-one seats.
TAMIL POLITICS
Some political commentators hold that it was in
the wake of the 1956 elections that two completely separate and basically
hostile political systems emerged in Sri Lanka: one for the Sinhalese and
another for the Tamils. The trend toward Tamil exclusivity, however, despite
periods of accommodation with Sinhalese political parties, had begun developing
before independence. The first political organization to be formed specifically
to protect the welfare of an ethnic minority was the All Ceylon Tamil Congress
(ACTC), which G.G. Ponnambalamfounded in 1944. The Tamil Congress attempted to
secure adequate constitutional safeguards before the country attained its
independence. These attempts reflected Tamil anxieties that British domination
would simply give way to domination by the Sinhalese majority.After
independence, a dissident Tamil group in the ACTC emerged under the leadership
of S.J.V. Chelvanayakam. The new group disagreed with Ponnambalam's policy of
collaboration with the intercommunal, but Sinhalese-dominated, UNP. In 1949 the
dissidents broke away from the ACTC and formed the rival Federal Party, which
proposed establishing an
autonomous Tamil linguistic state within a federal union of Sri Lanka. The Federal Party regarded this alternative as the only practical way to preserve Tamil identity.In 1956 the Federal Party emerged as the dominant Tamil political group as a result of its convincing victory over the conservative Tamil Congress. The Federal Party had a distinct advantage because the Tamil Congress had suffered considerably from the stigma of its association with the UNP (which had abandoned its policy of making both Sinhala and Tamil
national languages in an attempt to obtain the support of the numerically greater Sinhalese vote).The Federal Party continued to consolidate its strength and became an important player in national politics. In 1965 the party became a component of the UNP-led coalition government by committing its bloc of parliamentary seats to the UNP, which at that time needed the Federal Party's support to form a stable parliamentary majority. In 1968 however, the Federal Party withdrew from the UNP government because its leaders were convinced that the party could no longer derive any tangible benefits from further association with the UNP. In 1970 the Federal Party campaigned independently, unlike the Tamil Congress, whose leaders called on the Tamils to join a united front with the Sinhalese.
autonomous Tamil linguistic state within a federal union of Sri Lanka. The Federal Party regarded this alternative as the only practical way to preserve Tamil identity.In 1956 the Federal Party emerged as the dominant Tamil political group as a result of its convincing victory over the conservative Tamil Congress. The Federal Party had a distinct advantage because the Tamil Congress had suffered considerably from the stigma of its association with the UNP (which had abandoned its policy of making both Sinhala and Tamil
national languages in an attempt to obtain the support of the numerically greater Sinhalese vote).The Federal Party continued to consolidate its strength and became an important player in national politics. In 1965 the party became a component of the UNP-led coalition government by committing its bloc of parliamentary seats to the UNP, which at that time needed the Federal Party's support to form a stable parliamentary majority. In 1968 however, the Federal Party withdrew from the UNP government because its leaders were convinced that the party could no longer derive any tangible benefits from further association with the UNP. In 1970 the Federal Party campaigned independently, unlike the Tamil Congress, whose leaders called on the Tamils to join a united front with the Sinhalese.
SRI LANKA FREEDOM PARTY RULE, 1956-65
LEGISLATION AND COMMUNAL AGITATION
Some of the first actions taken by the new SLFP
government reflected a disturbing insensitivity to minority concerns. Shortly
after its victory, the new government presented parliament with the Official
Language Act, which declared Sinhala the one official language. The act was
passed and immediately caused a reaction among Tamils, who perceived their
language, culture, and economic position to be under attack.The passage of the
Official Language Act precipitated a current of antagonism between the Tamils
and the Sinhalese. The Sri Lankan Tamils, represented by the Federal Party,
launched a satyagraha (nonviolent protest) that resulted in a pact between
S.V.R.D. Bandaranaike and S.J.V. Chelvanayakam. The agreement provided a wide
measure of Tamil autonomy in Northern and Eastern provinces. It also provided
for the use of the Tamil language in administrative matters. The
BandaranaikeChelvanayakam Pact also promised that "early
consideration" would be extended to Indian "plantation" Tamils
on the question of Sri Lankan citizenship. But the pact was not carried out
because of a peaceful protest by Buddhist clergy, who, with support from the
UNP, denounced the pact as a "betrayal of Sinhalese-Buddhist
people."In May 1958, a rumor that a Tamil had killed a Sinhalese sparked
off nationwide communal riots. Hundreds of people, mostly Tamils, died. This
disturbance was the first major episode of communal violence on the island
since independence. The riots left a deep psychological scar between the two
major ethnic groups. The government declared a state of emergency and forcibly
relocated more than 25,000 Tamil refugees from Sinhalese areas to Tamil areas in
the north.
POPULIST ECONOMIC POLICIES
The Bandaranaike government actively expanded the
public sector and broadened domestic welfare programs, including pension plans,
medical care, nutrition programs, and food and fuel subsidies. This social
agenda threatened to drain the nation's treasury. Other popular but
economically unfeasible schemes promoted by the Bandaranaike government
included restrictions on foreign investment, the nationalization of critical
industries, and land reform measures that nationalized plantations and
redistributed land to peasants.When a Buddhist extremist assassinated
Bandaranaike in September 1959, the nation faced a period of grave instability.
The institution of parliamentary multiparty politics proved strong enough to endure,
however, and orderly, constitutional actions resolved the leadership
succession. The office of prime minister passed to the minister of education,
Wijeyananda Dahanayake, who pledged to carry on the socialist policies of his
predecessor. But policy differences and personality clashes within the ruling
circle forced the new leader to dissolve Parliament in December 1959. The
short-lived Dahanayake government, unable to hold Bandaranaike's coalition
government together, was defeated by the UNP in the March 1960 general
elections. The UNP won 33 percent of the seats in the lower house, giving the party a plurality but not a majority.
elections. The UNP won 33 percent of the seats in the lower house, giving the party a plurality but not a majority.
UNITED NATIONAL PARTY INTERLUDE
The new prime minister, Dudley Senanayake,
honored his election pledge to avoid compromise with the leftist parties and
formed an all-UNP government with support from minor right-of- center parties.
His overall parliamentary majority, however, was below the minimum seats
required to defeat an opposition motion of no-confidence in the UNP cabinet.
Less than a month after its formation, the UNP government fell. A new election
was scheduled for July 1960.
RETURN OF THE SRI LANKA FREEDOM PARTY
The UNP fell because it lacked the support of any
other major party in Parliament. The leftists tried to bring it down, and the
Tamils withheld their support because the UNP had earlier hedged on the issue
of the use of the Tamil language. Most important, the UNP had earned the
reputation among Sinhalese voters of being a party inimical to Sinhalese nationalism.Meanwhile
the SLFP had grown stronger because of its unwavering support for making
Sinhala the only official language. The SLFP found in the former prime
minister's widow, Sirimavo Ratwatte Dias (S.R.D.) Bandaranaike, a candidate who
was more capable of arousing Sinhalese emotions than Dahanayake had been in the
March elections.In the July 1960 general election, Bandaranaike was profiled as
a woman who had nobly agreed to carry on the mandate of her assassinated
husband. She received the support of many of the same small parties on the
right and left that had temporarily joined together to form the People's United
Front coalition (which had brought her husband victory in 1956). She won the
election with an absolute majority in Parliament and became Sri Lanka's
seventh, and the world's first woman, prime minister. The new government was in
many ways the torchbearer for the ideas of S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, but under his
widow's direction, the SLFP carried out these ideas with such zeal and force
that SinhaleseTamil relations sharply deteriorated. One of Sirimavo
Bandaranaike's first official actions was to enforce the policy of Sinhala as
the only officially recognized language of government. Her aggressive
enforcement of this policy sparked immediate Tamil resistance, which resulted
in civil disobedience in restive Northern and Eastern provinces. Bandaranaike
reacted by declaring a state of emergency and curtailing Tamil political
activity.Bandaranaike also antagonized other significant minority groups,
particularly the Christians. In response to a recommendation by an unofficial
Buddhist commission, her government took over the management of state-assisted
denominational schools. The move deprived many Christian missionary schools of
support. Roman Catholic activists spearheaded demonstrations, which forced the
government to reconsider some of its measures. Still, relations between the
prime minister and the Christian denominations remained unstable.Bandaranaike
moved vigorously early in her administration to nationalize significant sectors
of the economy, targeting industries that were under foreign control. The 1961
creation of the State Petroleum Corporation adversely affected the major
petroleum companies--Shell, Esso, and Caltex. The new corporation was
guaranteed 25 percent of the country's total petroleum business. Under
Bandaranaike's instruction, state corporations began to import oil from new
sources, effectively altering for the first time the pattern of trade that had
been followed since British rule. Sri Lanka signed oil import agreements with
the Soviet Union, Romania, Egypt, and other countries not traditionally
involved in Sri Lankan trade. The government also put important sectors of the
local economy, particularly the insurance industry, under state control. Most
alarming to Bandaranaike's conservative opponents, however, were her repeated
unsuccessful attempts to nationalize the largest newspaper syndicate and
establish a press council to monitor the news media.In foreign relations, Bandaranaike
was faithful to her late husband's policy of "dynamic neutralism,"
which aimed to steer a nonaligned diplomatic stance between the superpowers.
Sri
Lanka exercised its new foreign policy in 1962 by organizing a conference of neutralist nations to mediate an end to the SinoIndian border war of 1962. Although the conference failed to end the war, it highlighted Sri Lanka's new role as a peacebroker and enhanced its international status.The UNP opposition was apprehensive of Bandaranaike's leftward drift and was especially concerned about the SLFP alliance with the Trotskyite LSSP in 1964. The UNP approached the March 1965 election as a senior partner in a broad front of "democratic forces" dedicated to fight the "totalitarianism of the left." It enjoyed significant support from the Federal Party (representing Sri Lankan Tamils) and the Ceylon Workers' Congress (representing Indian Tamils).
Lanka exercised its new foreign policy in 1962 by organizing a conference of neutralist nations to mediate an end to the SinoIndian border war of 1962. Although the conference failed to end the war, it highlighted Sri Lanka's new role as a peacebroker and enhanced its international status.The UNP opposition was apprehensive of Bandaranaike's leftward drift and was especially concerned about the SLFP alliance with the Trotskyite LSSP in 1964. The UNP approached the March 1965 election as a senior partner in a broad front of "democratic forces" dedicated to fight the "totalitarianism of the left." It enjoyed significant support from the Federal Party (representing Sri Lankan Tamils) and the Ceylon Workers' Congress (representing Indian Tamils).
THE UNITED NATIONAL PARTY REGAINS POWER,
1965-70
The UNP "national government" emerged
victorious in the March 1965 elections, capturing more than 39 percent of
parliamentary seats, compared to SLFP's 30.2 percent. One of the first actions
of the new government, led by Senanayake, was to declare that the nation's
economy was virtually bankrupt. Senanayake also announced his intention to
improve relations with the United States. (In 1963 the United States had
suspended aid to Sri Lanka because of Bandaranaike's nationalization of foreign
oil concerns.)
The government tried to develop a mixed economy
with an emphasis on the private sector. Between 1965 and 1970, private sector
investment was double that of the public sector, thereby reversing the trend
set in the previous administration. Despite the UNP's emphasis on the private
sector, the economy generally failed to show a major improvement. This failure
was partly caused by a nearly 50 percent increase in the cost of rice imports
after a worldwide shortage in 1965 and a concurrent steep decline in the price of
Sri Lanka's export commodities. In 1966 the UNP government was forced to
declare a state of emergency to ward off food riots. Senanayake reduced the
subsidized weekly rice ration by half. The reduction remained in effect
throughout the remainder of the "national government" period and
contributed greatly to UNP's defeat in the 1970 general elections.The UNP paid
more attention to Buddhist sensitivities than it had in the past, and in an
effort to widen the party's popularity, it replaced the Christian sabbath with
the Buddhist poya full-moon holiday. This action satisfied Buddhist activists
but alienated the small but powerful Roman Catholic lobby. The UNP also tried
to earn favor with the Tamils by enacting the Tamil Regulations in 1966, which
were designed to make Tamil a language officially "parallel" to
Sinhala in Tamilspeaking regions. Sinhalese activists immediately expressed
hostility toward the Tamil Regulations. Civil violence ensued, and the
government was forced to proclaim a state of emergency that lasted for most of
the year.
UNITED FRONT RULE AND EMERGING VIOLENCE,
1970-77
In order to prepare for the 1970 general
election, Sirimavo Bandaranaike formed a coalition in 1968 with the LSSP and
CPSL to oppose the UNP. The new three-party United Front (Samagi Peramuna)
announced that it would work toward a "people's government" under the
leadership of Bandaranaike and that it would follow a so-called Common
Programme, which promised radical structural changes, including land reform,
increased rice subsidies, and nationalization of local and foreign banks.The
United Front resurrected communal emotionalism as a timely and potent campaign
weapon. It attacked the UNP for its alliance with the two main Tamil political
groups, the Federal Party and the Ceylon Workers' Congress. At the same time,
the United Front also announced that it would adopt a new constitution to make
Sri Lanka a republic and that it would restore "Buddhism to its rightful
place." The United Front won 118 of the 135 seats it contested, with the
SLFP, the biggestsingle party, winning 90 seats, the LSSP 19, seats and the
CPSL 6 seats. The UNP won a meager seventeen seats.The United Front government
moved quickly to implement key features of its Common Programme. The philosophy
of the coalition government was seen most transparently from its
foreign and economic policies. The United Front issued declarations that it followed a nonaligned path; opposed imperialism, colonialism, and racism; and supported national liberation movements. The government quickly extended diplomatic relations to the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (then North Vietnam), the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam. It also pledged to suspend recognition of Israel. In economic matters, the United Front vowed to put private enterprise in a subsidiary role.Prime Minister Bandaranaike tolerated the radical left at first and then lost control of it. Sensing mounting unrest, the government declared a state of emergency in March 1971. In April, the People's Liberation Front (JanathaVimukthiPeramuna--JVP), a Maoist and primarily rural Sinhalese youth movement claiming a membership of more than 10,000, began a "blitzkrieg" operation to take over the government "within 24 hours." The JVP followed a program--known as the Five Lectures--that included an agenda to deal with "Indian expansionism," the island's unstable economic situation, and the inability of the traditionalist leftist leadership to assert power or attract widespread support (an allusion to the LSSP and the CPSL). The JVP
threatened to take power by extraparliamentary means. Fierce fighting erupted in the north-central, south-central, and southern rural districts of the island, causing an official estimate of 1,200 dead. Unofficial tallies of the number of dead were much higher. The JVP came perilously close to overthrowing the government but the military finally suppressed the movement and imprisoned JVP's top leadership and about 16,000 suspected insurgents.In May 1972, the United Front followed through on its 1970 campaign promise to promulgate a new constitution to make Sri Lanka a republic. Under the new constitution, the legislative,
executive, and judicial branches of government were vested in the National State Assembly. Many important and vocal sectors of society opposed this concentration of power. The 1972 constitution disturbed the UNP, which feared an authoritarian government might emerge because of the new document. The UNP was especially alarmed that a Trotskyite, Dr. Colvin de Silva (Bandaranaike's minister of constitutional affairs), had drafted the constitution.The distinct lack of protection for the rights of minorities in the new constitution dismayed many sectors of the population. The Tamils were especially disturbed because the 1972 constitution contained no elements of federalism. Instead, a newly conferred status for Buddhism replaced the provisions for minorities provided by Article 29 in the 1948 constitution. The constitution also sanctioned measures that discriminated against Tamil youth in university admissions. Tamil youth were particularly irked by the "standardization" policy that Bandaranaike's government introduced in 1973. The policy made university admissions criteria lower for Sinhalese than for Tamils. The Tamil community--the Federal Party, the Tamil Congress, and other Tamil organizations--reacted collectively against the new atmosphere the new constitution produced, and in May 1972, they founded the Tamil United Front (which became the Tamil United Liberation Front--TULF--in 1976).By the mid-1970s, the antagonism between the right and left was destroying the United Front coalition. The growing political influence of the right wing led by Sirimavo Bandaranaike's son, Anura, precipitated the expulsion of the LSSP from the United Front in September 1975. The withdrawal of the CPSL in 1977 further weakened the coalition.
foreign and economic policies. The United Front issued declarations that it followed a nonaligned path; opposed imperialism, colonialism, and racism; and supported national liberation movements. The government quickly extended diplomatic relations to the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (then North Vietnam), the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam. It also pledged to suspend recognition of Israel. In economic matters, the United Front vowed to put private enterprise in a subsidiary role.Prime Minister Bandaranaike tolerated the radical left at first and then lost control of it. Sensing mounting unrest, the government declared a state of emergency in March 1971. In April, the People's Liberation Front (JanathaVimukthiPeramuna--JVP), a Maoist and primarily rural Sinhalese youth movement claiming a membership of more than 10,000, began a "blitzkrieg" operation to take over the government "within 24 hours." The JVP followed a program--known as the Five Lectures--that included an agenda to deal with "Indian expansionism," the island's unstable economic situation, and the inability of the traditionalist leftist leadership to assert power or attract widespread support (an allusion to the LSSP and the CPSL). The JVP
threatened to take power by extraparliamentary means. Fierce fighting erupted in the north-central, south-central, and southern rural districts of the island, causing an official estimate of 1,200 dead. Unofficial tallies of the number of dead were much higher. The JVP came perilously close to overthrowing the government but the military finally suppressed the movement and imprisoned JVP's top leadership and about 16,000 suspected insurgents.In May 1972, the United Front followed through on its 1970 campaign promise to promulgate a new constitution to make Sri Lanka a republic. Under the new constitution, the legislative,
executive, and judicial branches of government were vested in the National State Assembly. Many important and vocal sectors of society opposed this concentration of power. The 1972 constitution disturbed the UNP, which feared an authoritarian government might emerge because of the new document. The UNP was especially alarmed that a Trotskyite, Dr. Colvin de Silva (Bandaranaike's minister of constitutional affairs), had drafted the constitution.The distinct lack of protection for the rights of minorities in the new constitution dismayed many sectors of the population. The Tamils were especially disturbed because the 1972 constitution contained no elements of federalism. Instead, a newly conferred status for Buddhism replaced the provisions for minorities provided by Article 29 in the 1948 constitution. The constitution also sanctioned measures that discriminated against Tamil youth in university admissions. Tamil youth were particularly irked by the "standardization" policy that Bandaranaike's government introduced in 1973. The policy made university admissions criteria lower for Sinhalese than for Tamils. The Tamil community--the Federal Party, the Tamil Congress, and other Tamil organizations--reacted collectively against the new atmosphere the new constitution produced, and in May 1972, they founded the Tamil United Front (which became the Tamil United Liberation Front--TULF--in 1976).By the mid-1970s, the antagonism between the right and left was destroying the United Front coalition. The growing political influence of the right wing led by Sirimavo Bandaranaike's son, Anura, precipitated the expulsion of the LSSP from the United Front in September 1975. The withdrawal of the CPSL in 1977 further weakened the coalition.
THE UNITED NATIONAL PARTY RETURNS TO POWER
After Dudley Senanayake died in 1973, a struggle
for the leadership of the UNP ensued between his nephew, RukmanSenanayake, and
Junius Richard (J.R.) Jayewardene, a more distant relative. Jayewardene had
been involved in politics for years, having been elected to the State Council,
the parliament's colonial predecessor, as early as 1943. A leader of the UNP
since independence, Jayewardene had deferred to the Senanayake family. But in
1970, when the UNP suffered a resounding defeat to the United Front, Jayewardene
became more assertive. His party manifesto--The UNP in Opposition,
1970--contended that the majority of Sri Lankans perceived the party as the
party of the "haves, the affluent, and the employers." He also
contended that the people had come to perceive the SLFP as the party of the
"have nots, the needy, and the unemployed." Jayewardene moved
forcefully to refurbish UNP's image and announced that the party would
inaugurate an era of a just and righteous (dharmishta) society. After becoming
president of the party, Jayewardene began to restructure the UNP and make the
party more attractive, especially to young people. By the time of the general
election of 1977, Jayewardene had developed an extensive grass roots party
organization.
ELECTION OF 1977 AND MORE VIOLENCE
After molding the UNP around his personality and
having successfully built up the party's infrastructure, Jayewardene easily
became prime minister. The UNP won an unprecedented landslide victory in the
1977 elections, winning 140 of 168 seats. The SLFP was reduced to eight seats.
The Sri Lankan Tamils, however, gave little support to Jayewardene or any other
non-Tamil politician. The Sri Lankan Tamils entered the parliamentary election
fray under the banner of TULF, which had elevated its earlier demand for
regional self-rule to a demand for an independent state, or Eelam (see
Glossary). TULF became the largest opposition party in Parliament and captured
all fourteen seats in the heavily Tamil Northern Province and four
east coast seats. TULF won in every constituency with a Tamil majority on the island, except one. In Jaffna District, TULF candidates won all eleven seats, although forty-seven other candidates contested the seats. TULF originally included the largest Indian (plantation) Tamil political organization, the Ceylon Workers' Congress, but after the 1977 election, the leader of the Ceylon Workers' Congress accepted a cabinet post in the UNP government. The Sri Lankan Tamil demand for Tamil Eelam had never been of central concern to the Indian Tamils, who lived mostly outside the territory being claimed for the Tamil state.The opportunities for peace that the 1977 UNP electoral victory provided were soon lost. Just before the 1977 elections, Chelvanayakam, the charismatic leader of TULF, died, leaving the party without strong leadership. A Tamil separatist underground (which had split into six or more rival and sometimes violently hostile groups that were divided by ideology, caste, and personal antagonisms) was filling the vacuum left by the weakened TULF and was gaining the allegiance of an increasing number of disenchanted Tamil youths. These groups were known collectively as the Tamil Tigers. The strongest of these separatists were the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), founded in 1972 by VelupillaiPrabhakaran. The LTTE was responsible for some of the earliest and most gruesome acts of Tamil terrorism (see the Tamil Insurgency ,ch. 5). The LTTE first gained notoriety by its 1975 assassination of the mayor of Jaffna, a supporter of the SLFP. During the 1977 elections, many Tamil youths began to engage in extraparliamentary and sometimes violent measures in their bid for a mandate for a separate state. These measures precipitated a Sinhalese backlash. An apparently false rumor that Sinhalese policemen had died at the hands of Tamil terrorists, combined with other rumors of alleged anti-Sinhalese statements made by Tamil politicians, sparked brutal communal rioting that engulfed the island within two weeks of the new government's inauguration. The rioting marked the first major outbreak of communal violence in the nineteen years since the riots of 1958. Casualties were many, especially among Tamils, both the Sri Lankan Tamils of Jaffna and the Indian Tamil plantation workers. The Tamil Refugee Rehabilitation Organization estimated the death toll at 300.
east coast seats. TULF won in every constituency with a Tamil majority on the island, except one. In Jaffna District, TULF candidates won all eleven seats, although forty-seven other candidates contested the seats. TULF originally included the largest Indian (plantation) Tamil political organization, the Ceylon Workers' Congress, but after the 1977 election, the leader of the Ceylon Workers' Congress accepted a cabinet post in the UNP government. The Sri Lankan Tamil demand for Tamil Eelam had never been of central concern to the Indian Tamils, who lived mostly outside the territory being claimed for the Tamil state.The opportunities for peace that the 1977 UNP electoral victory provided were soon lost. Just before the 1977 elections, Chelvanayakam, the charismatic leader of TULF, died, leaving the party without strong leadership. A Tamil separatist underground (which had split into six or more rival and sometimes violently hostile groups that were divided by ideology, caste, and personal antagonisms) was filling the vacuum left by the weakened TULF and was gaining the allegiance of an increasing number of disenchanted Tamil youths. These groups were known collectively as the Tamil Tigers. The strongest of these separatists were the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), founded in 1972 by VelupillaiPrabhakaran. The LTTE was responsible for some of the earliest and most gruesome acts of Tamil terrorism (see the Tamil Insurgency ,ch. 5). The LTTE first gained notoriety by its 1975 assassination of the mayor of Jaffna, a supporter of the SLFP. During the 1977 elections, many Tamil youths began to engage in extraparliamentary and sometimes violent measures in their bid for a mandate for a separate state. These measures precipitated a Sinhalese backlash. An apparently false rumor that Sinhalese policemen had died at the hands of Tamil terrorists, combined with other rumors of alleged anti-Sinhalese statements made by Tamil politicians, sparked brutal communal rioting that engulfed the island within two weeks of the new government's inauguration. The rioting marked the first major outbreak of communal violence in the nineteen years since the riots of 1958. Casualties were many, especially among Tamils, both the Sri Lankan Tamils of Jaffna and the Indian Tamil plantation workers. The Tamil Refugee Rehabilitation Organization estimated the death toll at 300.
CONSTITUTION OF 1978
After coming to power, Jayewardene directed the
rewriting of the constitution. The document that was produced, the new
Constitution of 1978, drastically altered the nature of governance in Sri
Lanka. It replaced the previous Westminsterstyle , parliamentary government
with a new presidential system modeled after France, with a powerful chief
executive. The president was to be elected by direct suffrage for a six-year
term and was empowered to appoint, with parliamentary approval, the prime
minister and to preside over cabinet meetings. Jayewardene became the first
president under the new Constitution and assumed direct control of the
government machinery and party.The new regime ushered in an era that did not
auger well for the SLFP. Jayewardene's UNP government accused former prime
minister Bandaranaike of abusing her power while in office from 1970 to 1977.
In October 1980, Bandaranaike's privilege to engage in politics was removed for
a period of seven years, and the SLFP was forced to seek a new leader. After a
long and divisive battle, the party chose her son, Anura. Anura Bandaranaike
was soon thrust into the role of the keeper of his father's legacy, but he
inherited a political party torn apart by factionalism and reduced to a minimal
role in the Parliament.The 1978 Constitution included substantial concessions
to Tamil sensitivities. Although TULF did not participate in framing the
Constitution, it continued to sit in Parliament in the hope of negotiating a
settlement to the Tamil problem. TULF also agreed to Jayewardene's proposal of
an all-party conference to resolve the island's ethnic problems. Jayewardene's
UNP offered other concessions in a bid to secure peace. Sinhala remained the
official language and the language of administration throughout Sri Lanka, but
Tamil was given a new "national language" status. Tamil was to be
used in a number of administrative and educational circumstances. Jayewardene
also eliminated a major Tamil grievance by abrogating the
"standardization" policy of the United Front government, which had
made university admission criteria for Tamils more difficult. In addition, he
offered many top-level positions, including that of minister of justice, to
Tamil civil servants.While TULF, in conjunction with the UNP, pressed for the
allparty conference, the Tamil Tigers escalated their terrorist attacks, which
provoked Sinhalese backlash against Tamils and generally precluded any successful
accommodation. In reaction to the assassination of a Jaffna police inspector,
the Jayewardene government declared an emergency and dispatched troops, who
were given an unrealistic six months to eradicate the terrorist threat.
The government passed the Prevention of Terrorism
(Temporary Provisions) Act in 1979. The act was enacted as a temporary measure,
but it later became permanent legislation. The International Commission of
Jurists, Amnesty International, and other human rights organizations condemned
the act as being incompatible with democratic traditions. Despite the act, the
number of terrorist acts increased. Guerrillas began to hit targets of high
symbolic value such as post offices and police outposts, provoking government
counterattacks. As an increasing number of civilians were caught in the
fighting, Tamil support widened for the "boys," as the guerrillas
began to be called. Other large, well-armed groups began to compete with LTTE.
The better-known included the People's Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam,
Tamil Eelam Liberation Army, and the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization. Each
of these groups had forces measured in the hundreds if not thousands. The
government claimed that many of the terrorists were operating from training camps
in India's Tamil Nadu State. The Indian government repeatedly denied this
claim. With the level of violence mounting, the possibility of negotiation
became increasingly distant.
THE RIOTS OF 1981
In June 1981, local elections were held in the
north to elect members of the newly established district development councils.
TULF had decided to participate and work in the councils. In doing so, TULF
continued to work toward autonomy for the Tamil areas. Extremists within the
separatist movement, however, adamantly opposed working within the existing
political framework. They viewed participation in the elections as compromising
the objective of a separate state. Shortly before the elections, the leading
candidate of the UNP was assassinated as he left a political rally. The
sporadic communal violence that persisted over the following three months
foreshadowed the devastating communal riots of 1983. When elections were held a
few days later, concomitant charges of voting irregularities and mishandling of
ballots created the nation's first election scandal since the introduction of
universal suffrage fifty years earlier.
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1982
TULF decided to boycott the 1982 presidential
elections, partly in reaction to the harsh Prevention of Terrorism Act and
partly in response to pressures exerted by Tamil extremists. Only 46 percent of
the voters in Jaffna District turned out. In Sinhalese districts, 85 percent of
voters turned out. Increasing violence by Tamil youths in the north and east of
the island accompanied the call for a Tamil Eelam. The rising level of violence
in 1983 led the government to pass a sixth amendment to the Constitution, which
specifically banned talk of separatism. All sixteen TULF members of parliament
were expelled for refusing to recite a loyalty oath, thus removing a critical
channel for mediation.
THE RIOTS OF JULY 1983
In July 1983, the most savage communal riots in
Sri Lanka's history erupted. Conservative government estimates put the death
toll at 400-- mostly Tamils. At least 150,000 Tamil fled the island. The riots
began in retaliation for an ambush of an army patrol in the north that left
thirteen Sinhalese soldiers dead. The army was reputed to have killed sixty
Tamil civilians in Jaffna, but most of the violence occurred in Colombo, where
Sinhalese mobs looked for Tamil shops to destroy. More than any previous ethnic
riot on the island, the 1983 riots were marked by their highly organized mob
violence. Sinhalese rioters in Colombo used voter lists containing home
addresses to make precise attacks on the Tamil community. From Colombo, the
anti-Tamil violence fanned out to the entire island. The psychological effects
of this violence on Sri Lanka's complex and divided society were still being
assessed in the late 1980s. Nevertheless, in the aftermath of the communal
rioting, a selfevident truth was that the island's history, and the complexity
of its society, had a portentous message for the present: Sinhalese and Tamil
Sri Lankans were fated by history and geography to coexist in close proximity.
This coexistence could be discordant or amicable, and examples of both could be
drawn from Sri Lanka's history. It was a message, however, whose meaning was forgotten as the ethnic communities were drawn increasingly into a vortex of rancor and violence that made the restoration of harmony a persistently elusive goal for the Sri Lankan government.
drawn from Sri Lanka's history. It was a message, however, whose meaning was forgotten as the ethnic communities were drawn increasingly into a vortex of rancor and violence that made the restoration of harmony a persistently elusive goal for the Sri Lankan government.
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