The British Heritage
1815, a treaty formally concluded deposing the last king of Sinhala, Sri Wickrama
Rajasimha, and vesting his dominions in
the British Crown.
MARSHALL writes of the Sinhala attitude of this event
“they did not leave their ordinary occupation even to look at the troops which were
assembled in review order in the great
square before the Audience Hall. Apparently, they regarded the transfer of the Government
from an Oriental to a European
Dynasty with perfect unconcern”.
“The Kandyans used to inquire when the English meant to leave the Maritime Provinces.
‘You have deposed the king’ said
one ‘and nothing more is required. You may leave us now’.”
An insight to the above is gained from the Chulawamsa, which treats the Portuguese as
‘merchants of Colombo’, Dutch as
‘guardians of the coast’ , and the English as ‘Mercenaries to depose a
tyrant Waduga King’. To Majority Sinhala the Thri
Sinhale could be ruled and, could only be ruled by a Sinhala Buddhist King.
When it became clear, in 1817, not only had the English no intention of leaving but, they
were also not keeping to the
conditions of the above treaty which states specifically that:
? National Religion should be maintained and protected
? Justice impartially administrated to the people
? The chiefs guaranteed in their ancient privileges and powers
the uprisings of the people began of which, Wellasse and Matale take prominence.
Taken aback by the force of the uprisings and in order to quell the independent spirit of
the Sinhala, carnage of the militant
deemed nowhere near enough, the English deployed armies, laid waste villages and temples,
set fire to fields, slaughtered
cattle and generally ravaged the Hill Country. This too not being felt sufficient, a fresh
convention was signed in 1818, which
was aimed at destroying the socio-economic structure of the people, with a view to clamp
down on the indomitable spirit of
the Kandian.
“He (Raja Simha) hath no forts or castles, but nature hath supplied the want of them.
For his whole Country standing upon
such high hills, and these so difficult to pass, is all an impregnable Fort” –
So writes Robert Knox in his Historical relations of
Ceylon.
1820 found the English still not easy, still not wholly confident that the Sinhala had
been finally suppressed. Since 1815, it
had been known that total dominance of the Hill Country could only be achieved by
surmounting this fortress. Sir Edward
Barnes, then Governor, applied all the resources of the Government to carry an excellent
military road to the hart of the
Capital.
This road took ten years to build not being completed till 1831.
Well before completion of the road, Sir Edward, amply clear sighted, aware this kind of
expenditure without remuneration
would bring down the wrath of an Empire on his head,
“formed the first upland coffee plantation in about 1825, on his own estate at
Ganaroowa, adjoining the Gardens of
Peradeniya” – CEYLON by James Emerson Tennent. “ In 1827, nearly four
thousand acres of mountain forests were felled
and planted and in an incredibly short time the sale of crown lands exceeded forty
thousand acres per annum” –James
Emerson Tennent.
Colebrook came out to Ceylon in 1829, and Cameron in 1830. The former to look in to the
administration and finances of
the Island and the latter to deal with the judicial and legal affairs. Jointly, their
commissions effected sweeping reforms. These
nullified the Sinhala land rights and privileges of monks and Sinhala chiefs. This in turn
provided the British planter with ample
land. Thus the destruction of the socio-economic structure of the
Island, which had proved successful for over two thousand five hundred years was complete.
What the English did not anticipate was the abhorrence of the self-respecting sinhala, to
work for a people who took over a
country by treaty, nullified their land rights to make them impecunious, who violated and
defiled their homes and places of
worship and against whom they took up arms in defence. The atrocities in the minds of the
Sinhala were too recent to be
overcome. This barrier however was easily surmounted by importing labour from India. Now
the estates could be run with
much profit to the Empire. It also had the added benefit of a huge settlement of a
different race and religion to be deployed
against the Sinhala as and when necessary.
An impartial Historian and an American Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Professor
W. Howard Wriggins writes in his book CEYLON Dilemmas of a New Nation, of the Estate Tamil
Labour, “These estate
workers of Indian origin - like the unabsorbed Chinese in South Asia – pose special
problems.” “Many have retained close
contact with their Indian relatives and make periodic journeys home to India to obtain
wives of the proper caste and
community, to pay proper respect to their elder relatives, and to keep in direct touch
with their extensive families there. If
they can, they send back considerable accumulated sums of rupee remittances.”
The Indian National Congress, which came to being during India’s fight for
Independence, made this trade in labour illegal.
Even so the trade waxed and flourished.
Dawn of the twentieth century found the Kandiyans land-less, destitute and unable to eke
out a living except by working on
the Plantations. The strategy of the English was to grant special privileges to the
minority gropes. This had a two fold
purpose.
* It kept the groups a part.
* It fostered the resentment of the people against the new comers.
The Sinhala were finally reduced to work as labour on the land they once owned, sance the
above privileges – ie. free rice,
free housing, free medical care, compulsory education, free fire wood, subsidised tea and
ensured work. The English
appointed a special work force from amongst the Immigrant Tamils, giving them added
benefits to secure and propagate their
strategy.
These Tamil traders, fostering the wants of the English, grew from strength to strength,
within the estate economy, to become
a land owning elite. The Tamil labour spread from the Hill country to Sabaragamuva and
central Uva, their culture,
traditions, religion, language, marriage rites, and lifestyle essentially South Indian,
considering their Mother-Land India. This
reason prompted the statement of K.P.S. Mennon, Officer for the British in the Government
of India, in 1933, to not let the
Tamil labour have a vote in the Lankan Provincial Council elections.
However in 1928, The Donoughmore Constitution had given all Tamil immgrants resident in
Sri Lanka, for a short a time as
six months, voting rights. Nowhere in the world did people have this kind of privilage
except in the British fostered plantations
of Sri Lanka.
14th of February, 1948 the indelible image in the minds of the Sinhala as the dawn on
Independence. At this time the Hill
Country was home to about 12,50,000 Indian Tamils. This figure, almost double the number
of Ceylon Tamils (those who
can legitimately trace their ancestry to about 500 years prior to Independence) does not
include them. Neither does it include
about 1,40,000 citizens who gained citizenship under the Indian and Pakistan Citizenship
Act nor the enormous amount of
illegal immigrants.
Sri Lanka gained Independence from the British. They also gained the heritage of an acute
minority problem which has
grown out of all proportion today.