Sri Lanka's Movement For Independence

The Sri Lankan independence movement was a peaceful political movement which was aimed at achieving independence and self-rule for the country of Sri Lanka, then British Ceylon, from the British Empire. The switch of powers was generally known as peaceful transfer of power from the British administration to Ceylon representatives, a phrase that implies considerable continuity with a colonial era that lasted 400 years. It was initiated around the turn of the 20th century and led mostly by the educated middle class. It succeeded when, on 4 February 1948, Ceylon was granted independence as the Dominion of Ceylon. Dominion status within the British Commonwealth was retained for the next 24 years until 22 May 1972 when it became a republic and was renamed the Republic of Sri Lanka.

British colonial rule

The British Raj was dominant in Asia after the Battle of Assaye; following the Battle of Waterloo, the British Empire became more influential. Its prestige was only briefly dented by setbacks in India, Afghanistan and South Africa. It was virtually unchallenged until 1914. The British were very powerful during their rule in Sri Lanka and left more of a lasting impact than any other power.

The formation of the Batavian Republic in the Netherlands as an ally and of the French Directory, led to a British attack on Ceylon in 1795 as part of Britain's war against the French Republic. The Kandyan Kingdom collaborated with the British expeditionary forces against the Dutch, as it had with the Dutch against the Portuguese.

Once the Dutch had been evicted, their sovereignty ceded by the Treaty of Amiens and subsequent revolts in the low-country suppressed, the British began planning to capture the Kandyan Kingdom. The 1803 and 1804 invasions of the Kandyan provinces in the 1st Kandyan War were defeated by the Kandyan Sinhalese forces. In 1815, the British fomented a revolt by the Kandyan Sinhalese aristocracy against the last Kandyan monarch and marched into uplands to depose him in the 2nd Kandyan War.

The struggle against the colonial power began in 1817 with the Uva Rebellion when the same aristocracy rose against British rule in a rebellion in which their villagers participated. They were defeated by the British. An attempt at rebellion sparked again briefly in 1830. The Kandy and Sinhalese peasantry were stripped of their lands by the Crown Lands (Encroachments) Ordinance No. 12 of 1840 (sometimes called the Crown Lands Ordinance or the Waste Lands Ordinance), a modern enclosure movement and reduced to penury.

In 1848 the abortive Matale Rebellion, led by Hennedige Francisco Fernando ( Puran Appu) and Gongalegoda Banda was the first transitional step towards abandoning the feudal form of revolt, being fundamentally a peasant revolt. The masses were without the leadership of their native King (deposed in 1815) or their chiefs (either crushed after the Uva Rebellion or collaborating with the colonial power). The leadership passed for the first time in the Kandyan provinces into the hands of ordinary people, non-aristocrats. The leaders were yeomen-artisans, resembling the Levellers in England's Civil War period and mechanics such as Paul Revere and Tom Paine who were at the heart of the American Revolution. However, in the words of Colvin R. de Silva, 'it had leaders but no leadership. The old feudalists were crushed and powerless. No new class capable of leading the struggle and heading it towards power had yet arisen.'

Plantation economy

Agriculture was the main source of revenue for the country and foreign exchanges. The land in Sri Lanka is very important because it has led to many different wars among different countries. In the 1830s, coffee was introduced into Sri Lanka, a crop which flourishes in high altitudes, and grown on the land taken from the peasants. The principal impetus to this development of capitalist production in Sri Lanka was the decline in coffee production in the West Indies, following the abolition of slavery there.

However, the dispossessed peasantry was not employed on the plantations: The Kandyan Sinhalese villagers refused to abandon their traditional subsistence holdings and become wage-workers in the harsh conditions that prevailed on these new estates, despite the pressure exerted by the colonial government. The British therefore had to draw on its reserve army of labour in India, to man the plantations in its lucrative new colony to the south. Through the Indian indenture system, hundreds of thousands of Tamil " coolies" from southern India were transported into Sri Lanka to work on European-owned cash crop plantations.

The coffee economy collapsed in the 1870s when coffee blight ravaged the plantations, but the economic system it had created survived intact into the era of its successor, tea, which was introduced on a wide scale from 1880 onwards. Tea was more capital-intensive and needed a higher volume of initial investment to be processed so that individual estate-owners were now supplanted by large English consolidated companies based either in London ('sterling firms') or Colombo ('rupee firms'). Monoculture was thus increasingly capped by monopoly within the plantation economy. The pattern thus created in the 19th century remained in existence down to 1972. The only significant modification to the colonial economy was the addition of a rubber sector in the mid-country areas.

The Buddhist resurgence and the 1915 riot

A new body of urban capitalists was growing in the low country, around transport, shop-keeping, distillery, plantation, and wood-work industries. These entrepreneurs were from many castes and they strongly resented the historically unprecedented and unbuddhistic practice of 'caste discrimination' adopted by the Siam Nikaya in 1764, just 10 years after it had been established by a Thai monk. Around 1800 they organised the Amarapura Nikaya, which became hegemonic in the low-country by the mid-19th century.

Buddhism was enforced by kings and priests because they belonged to the Brahmin caste which allowed them to have the power to push what religion they wanted to practice. Buddhism practiced among higher castes (Brahmins) was further enforced by kings/ priest power, and their power increased and carried into the newly settled land. Since the higher caste individuals and those in power were enforcing Buddhism, it eventually became the established religion among the Sihlanese communities. It became very popular among all castes and practiced all over and in different land (areas). There was a practice that was known as Asoka in the Sihlanese kingdom and it is thought that Buddhism has many aspects that stemmed from Asoka. Similar to Asoka (Practice among the Sinhalese) "Such establishment of Buddhism in a country was evidently a departure in the history of that religion and seems to have been an innovation of Asoka".

The British attempt at giving a Protestant Christian education to the young men of the commercial classes backfired, as they transformed the Buddhism practiced in Sri Lanka into something resembling the non-conformist Protestant model. A series of debates against clergymen of the Methodist and the Anglican church was organised, culminating in the 'defeat' of the latter at Panadura by modern logical argument. The Buddhist revival was aided by the Theosophists, led by American Col. Henry Steel Olcott, who helped establish Buddhist schools such as Ananda College, Colombo; Dharmaraja College, Kandy; Maliyadeva College, Kurunegala; Mahinda College, Galle; and Musaeus College, Colombo; at the same time injecting more modern secular western ideas into the 'Protestant' Buddhist thought-stream.

Dharmapala, 1915 and the Ceylon National Congress

Sinhala Buddhist Revivalists such as Anagarika Dharmapala started linking 'Protestant' Buddhism to Sinhalese-ness, creating a ''Sinhala-Buddhist'' consciousness, linked to the temperance movement. This cut across the old barriers of caste and was the beginning of a pan-Sinhala Buddhist identity. It appealed in particular to small businessmen and yeomen, who now began to take centre stage against the Mudaliyars, an anglicised class of new elites created by the British rulers. The collaborationist compradore elements of the elite, led by S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, F.R. Senanayake and D.S. Senanayake succeeded the populists led by Dharmapala from the leadership of the temperance movement.

A jolt was given to the British aura of invincibility by the German cruiser , which attacked the seaport of Penang in Malaya, sinking a Russian cruiser, bombarded Madras and sailed unimpeded down the eastern coast of British Ceylon. Such was its impact that, in Sri Lanka to this day, 'Emden' is the bogeyman that mothers scare their children with, and the term is still used to refer to a particularly obnoxious person. In a panic, the colonial authorities jailed a Boer wildlife official, H. H. Engelbrecht, after accusing him falsely of having supplied meat to the cruiser. Another jolt to the aura of British invincibility was their defeat in the Gallipoli campaign in 1915.K. M. de Silva, University of Ceylon History of Ceylon, p. 225

In 1915 commercial-ethnic rivalry erupted into a riot in the Colombo against the Muslims, with Christians participating as much as Buddhists. The British colonial authorities reacted heavy-handedly, as the riot was also directed against them. Dharmapala had his legs broken and was confined to Jaffna; his brother died there. Captain D. E. Henry Pedris, a militia commander was shot for mutiny. Inspector-General of Police Herbert Dowbiggin became notorious for his methods. Hundreds of Sinhalese Buddhists were arrested by the British colonial government during the Riots of 1915. Those imprisoned without charges included future leaders of the independence movement; F.R. Senanayake, D. S. Senanayake, Anagarika Dharmapala, Dr C A Hewavitarne, Arthur V Dias, H. M. Amarasuriya, Dr. W. A. de Silva, Baron Jayatilaka, Edwin Wijeyeratne, A. E. Goonesinghe, John Silva, Piyadasa Sirisena and others.An illustrious son of Sabaragamuwa
''Daily News'', retrieved on 20 October 2007.

Sir James Peiris initiated and drafted a secret memorandum with the support of Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan and E. W. Perera braved mine and submarine-infested seas (as well as the Police) to carry it in the soles of his shoes to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, pleading for the repeal of martial law and describing the actions committed by the Police led by Dowbiggin during the riots. The British government ordered the release of the leaders who were in detention. Several high officials were transferred. A new Governor, Sir John Anderson was sent to replace Sir Robert Chalmers with instructions to inquire and report to His Majesty's Government. Newspapers such as ''The Ceylon Morning Leader'' played a vital role to mold public opinion.The History of Newspapers in Ceylon
(rootsweb) Retrieved 23 December 2014

In 1919 the Ceylon National Congress (CNC) was founded to agitate for greater autonomy. It did not seek independence, however, representing the comprador elite which opposed Dharmapala. This same elite vigorously opposed the grant of universal suffrage by the Donoughmore Constitutional Commission.

Dharmapala was hounded out of the country by a press campaign by the Lake House group of the press baron D. R. Wijewardena. His mantle fell on the next generation, epitomised by the likes of Walisinghe Harischandra, Gunapala Malalasekera, and L.H. Mettananda, who were radicalised by Dharmapala's words.

The Youth Leagues and the struggle for independence

The young people who stepped into the shoes of Dharmapala organised themselves into Youth Leagues, seeking independence and justice for Sri Lanka. The first moves came from the Young Lanka League led by A. E. Gunasinha, C. H. Z. Fernando, EAP Wijerathne and AP Thambayah. In 1924 The Jaffna Students’ Congress, later renamed the Jaffna Youth Congress (JYC) was founded. Influenced by the Indian Independence movement, it was secular and committed to Poorana Swaraj (Complete Self-Rule), national unity, and the eradication of inequalities imposed by caste. In 1927, the JYC invited the Indian independence movement leader Gandhi to visit Jaffna. The JYC led a successful boycott of the first State Council elections in Jaffna in 1931, arguing that the Donoughmore reforms did not concede enough self-government


In the 1930s the Youth Leagues were formed in the South, around a core of intellectuals who had returned from education in Britain, influenced by leftist ideals. The Ministers of the CNC petitioned the colonial government to increase their powers, instead of demanding independence, or even dominion status. They were forced to withdraw their 'Ministers' Memorandum' after a vigorous campaign by the Youth Leagues

http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/History/Lssp.html]

The South Colombo Youth League became involved in a strike at the Wellawatte Spinning and weaving mills. It published an irregular journal in Sinhalese language, Sinhala, ''Kamkaruwa'' (The Worker).

Suriya-Mal movement

In protest against the proceeds of poppy sales on Armistice Day (11 November) being used for the benefit of the British ex-servicemen to the detriment of Sri Lankan ex-servicemen, one of the latter, Aelian Perera, had started a rival sale of ''Suriya'' ( Portia tree) flowers on this day, the proceeds of which were devoted to helping needy Ceylonese ex-servicemen.

In 1933 a British teacher Doreen Young Wickremasinghe, wrote an article, ''The Battle of the Flowers'' which appeared in the ''Ceylon Daily News'' and criticised the practice of forcing Sri Lankan schoolchildren to purchase poppies to help British veterans at the expense of their own, which caused her to be vilified by her compatriots.

The South Colombo Youth League now got involved in the Suriya-Mal Movement and revived it on a new anti-imperialist and anti-war basis. Yearly until the Second World War, young men and women sold Suriya flowers on the streets on Armistice Day in competition with the Poppy sellers. The purchasers of the Suriya Mal were generally from the poorer sections of society and the funds collected were not large. But the movement provided a rallying point for the anti-imperialist minded youth of the time. An attempt was made by the British colonial authorities to curb the movement's effectiveness through the 'Street Collection Regulation Ordinance'.

Doreen Young was elected the first president of the Suriya Mal movement at a meeting held at the residence of Wilmot Perera

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