Sri Lanka Independence Struggle
Encyclopedia
The Sri Lankan independence movement was a peaceful political movement which aimed at achieving independence & self rule for Ceylon from the British Empire
. It was initiated around the turn of the 20th century lead mostly by the educated middle class and ultimately was successful when February 4, 1948 Ceylon was granted independence as the Dominion of Ceylon. Dominion
status within the British Commonwealth was retained for the next 24 years until May 22, 1972 when it became a republic
and was renamed the Republic of Sri Lanka.
was dominant in Asia after the Battle of Assaye
; following the Battle of Waterloo
the British Empire became the world superpower. Its appearance of omnipotence was only briefly dented by setbacks in India
, Afghanistan
and South Africa
. It was virtually unchallenged until 1914.
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 England'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 bloodily defeated. In 1815, the British fomented a revolt by the Kandyan 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 occupiers. An attempt at rebellion sparked again briefly in 1830. The Kandyan peasantry were stripped of their lands by the Wastelands 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 revolution 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.'
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 were not employed on the plantations: The Kandyan villagers refused to abandon their traditional subsistence holdings and become wage-workers in the nightmarish conditions that prevailed on these new estates, despite all the pressure exerted by the colonial state. The British therefore had to draw on its reserve army of labour in India
, to man its lucrative new outpost to the south. An infamous system of contract labour was established, which transported hundreds of thousands of Tamil
'coolies' from southern India into Sri Lanka for the coffee estates. These Tamils labourers died in tens of thousands both on the journey itself as well as on the 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.
s 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.
The British attempt at giving a Protestant Christian education to the young men of the commercial classes backfired, as they transformed the Buddhism practised in Sri Lanka into something resembling the non-conformist Protestant model. A series of debates against clergymen of the established Anglican church was organised, culminating in the defeat of the latter by modern logical argument. The Buddhist revival was aided by the Theosophists, led by American Col. Henry Steele 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 thoughtstream.
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 beginnings of a pan-Sinhalese identity. It appealed in particular to small businessmen and yeomen, who now began to take centre stage against the 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 ganged up against the populists led by Dharmapala and removed him 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 (now Chennai
) and sailed unimpeded down the East coast of Sri Lanka. 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 panic, the authorities jailed a Boer wildlife official, HH Engelbrecht, after accusing him falsely of having supplied meat to the cruiser. http://padayatra.org/yala.htm The British rebuff at Gallipoli
, fighting Asian Turks
, also dented the British white-supremacist sentiment.
In 1915 commercial-ethnic rivalry erupted into a riot in the Colombo against the Muslims, with Christians participating as much as Buddhists. The British 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. E. W. Perera
, a lawyer from Kotte
, braved mine and submarine-infested seas (as well as the Police) to carry a secret Memorial in the soles of his shoes to the Secretary of State for the Colonies
, pleading for the repeal of martial law
and describing the atrocities committed by the Police led by Dowbiggin.http://www.rootsweb.com/~lkawgw/dss2.html The bitterness among the Sinhalese against the British authorities was considerable.
Hundreds of Ceylonese arrested by the British
colonial government during the Riots of 1915. Those who where faced imprisonment without charges included prominent figures of the independence movement F.R. Senanayake, D.S. Senanayake, Anagarika Dharmapala
, Dr CA Hewavitarne
, Captain Henry Pedris
, D.C. Senanayake, Baron Jayatilaka, Edwin Wijeyeratne
, WA de Silva, Arthur V Dias, John Silva, Piyadasa Sirisena and AE Goonesinghe.
In 1919 the Ceylon National Congress (CNC) was founded to agitate for greater autonomy. It did not seek independence, however, representing the compradore 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 Colvin R de Silva, who was radicalised by Dharmapala's words.
See also: Riots in Sri Lanka#1915 riots
, seeking freedom and justice for the people of Sri Lanka. The first moves came not from Dharmapala's ethnic group, but from the Tamil youth of Jaffna. 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 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. http://www.icescolombo.org/events/Conf/stn2004/conf_papers/paper04.htm
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.marxists.org/history/etol/document/srilanka/ch01.htmhttp://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 Sinhala, Kamkaruwa (The Worker).
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 help 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 exposed the absurdity 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 first president of the Suriya Mal movement at a meeting held at the residence of Wilmot Perera in Horana. Terence de Zilva and Robin Ratnam were elected Joint Secretaries, and Roy de Mel Treasurer.
, which was aggravated by the shortage of rice, and which reduced resistance to the disease. They helped fight the epidemic by making pills of 'Marmite
' yeast extract. Philip Gunawardena
and N.M. Perera came to be known as Avissawelle Pilippuwa (Philip from Avissawella) & Parippuwa Mahathaya ('Mr. Dhal') because of the lentils he distributed as dry rations to the people affected in those days.
As Sybil reminisced in Forward: The Progressive Weekly many years later: 'Work in connection with malaria relief was an eye-opener to many of these people who were just getting to know the peasant masses. The poverty was incredible, the overcrowding even more so, fifteen, twenty or more people crammed into tiny huts, dying like flies. This was what colonial exploitation meant: worse than the worst that prevailed in England when Marx and Engels analyzed the conditions of the working classes. This was what had to be fought.' http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/srilanka/ch01.htm#fw44
(LSSP), which grew out of the Youth Leagues in 1935, was the first party to demand independence.http://www.priu.gov.lk/news_update/features/20020104edmund_samarakkody.htm The first manifesto of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party declared that its aims were the achievement of complete national independence, the nationalisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the abolition of inequalities arising from differences of race, caste
, creed
or sex
.
Its deputies in the State Council
after the 1936 general election, N.M. Perera, Colvin.R.de.Silva and Philip Gunawardena
, were aided in this struggle by not quite so radical members like Don Alwin Rajapaksa of Ruhuna and Natesa Iyer of the Indian Tamils. Others who supported them from time to time were George E. de Silva of Kandy, B.H. Aluwihare of Matale, D.P. Jayasuriya of Gampaha, A. Ratnayake of Dumbara and Susanta de Fonseka, the Deputy Speaker. They also demanded the replacement of English
as the official language by Sinhala and Tamil
. In November 1936, a motions that 'in the Municipal and Police Courts of the Island the proceedings should be in the vernacular
' and that 'entries in police stations should be recorded in the language in which they are originally stated' were passed by the State Council and referred to the Legal Secretary, but nothing was done about these matters and English continued to be the language of rule until 1956.
Fraternal relations were established between the LSSP and the Congress Socialist Party
(CSP) of India and an LSSP delegation attended the Faizpur Sessions of the Indian National Congress
in 1936. In April 1937 Kamaladevi Chattopadyaya, a leader of the CSP addressed a large number of meetings in various parts of the country on a national tour organised by the LSSP. This helped to establish the indivisibility of the fights for freedom of Sri Lanka and India. In Jaffna, where Kamaladevi also spoke, the left movement found consistent and loyal supporters from among one-time members of the JYC.
, the president of the LSSP, Dr Colvin R. de Silva, introduced Mark Anthony Bracegirdle
, a British/Australian former planter saying: 'This is the first time a white comrade has ever attended a party meeting held at a street corner.' He made his first public speech in Sri Lanka, warning that the capitalists were trying to split the workers of Sri Lanka and put one against the other. He took an active part in organising a public meeting called by the LSSP on Galle Face Green
in Colombo on 10 January 1937 to celebrate Sir Herbert Dowbiggin's departure from the island and to protest against the atrocities during his tenure as Inspector General of Police. In March, he was co-opted to serve on the executive committee.
He was employed by Natesa Iyer, Member of the State Council
for the Hatton
constituency, to 'organise an Estate Labour Federation in Nawalapitiya or Hatton, with an idea that he may be a proper candidate to be the future Secretary of the Labour Federation.' http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/srilanka/ch03.htm
On 3 April, at a meeting at Nawalapitiya attended by two thousand estate workers, at which Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya spoke, Dr N.M. Perera said: 'Comrades, I have an announcement to make. You know we have a white comrade (applause) .... He has generously consented to address you. I call upon Comrade Bracegirdle to address you.' Bracegirdle rose to speak amid tumultuous applause and shouts of 'Samy, Samy' (master, master).
The authorities were on hand to note his speech:
'the most noteworthy feature of this meeting ... was the presence of Bracegirdle and his attack on the planters. He claimed unrivalled knowledge of the misdeeds of the planters and promised scandalous exposures. His delivery, facial appearance, his posture were all very threatening ... Every sentence was punctuated with cries of samy, samy from the labourers. Labourers were heard to remark that Mr Bracegirdle has correctly said that they should not allow planters to break labour laws and they must in future not take things lying down.' (T. Perera, The Bracegirdle Saga: 60 Years After, 'What Next', No 5 1997.)http://www.revolutionary-history.co.uk/otherdox/Whatnext/Bracegir.html
The British planters were angry that their prestige was being harmed by a fellow white man. They prevailed upon the British Colonial Governor Sir Reginald Stubbs to deport him. Bracegirdle was served with the order of deportation on 22 April and given 48 hours to leave on the SS Mooltan, on which a passage had been booked for him by the Government.
The LSSP with Bracegirdle's assent decided that the order should be defied. Bracegirdle went into hiding and the Colonial Government began an unsuccessful man-hunt. LSSP started a campaign to defend him. At that year's May Day
rally at Price Park, placards declaring 'We want Bracegirdle – Deport Stubbs' were displayed, and a resolution was passed condemning Stubbs, demanding his removal and the withdrawal of the deportation order.
On 5 May, in the State Council, NM Perera and Philip Gunawardena
moved a vote of censure on the Governor for having ordered the deportation of Bracegirdle without the advice of the acting Home Minister. Even the Board of Ministers had started feeling the heat of public opinion and the vote was passed by 34 votes to 7.
On the same day there was a 50,000-strong rally at Galle Face Green
, which was presided over by Colvin R de Silva and addressed by Dr N.M. Perera, Philip Gunawardena, Leslie Goonewardena, A.E.Goonesinha, George E. de Silva, D.M. Rajapakse, Siripala Samarakkody, Vernon Gunasekera, Handy Perimbanayagam, Mrs K. Natesa Iyer and S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike
. Bracegirdle made a dramatic appearance on the platform at this rally, but the police were powerless to arrest him.
However, the police managed to arrest him a couple of days later at the Hulftsdorp residence of Vernon Gunasekera, the Secretary of the LSSP. However, the necessary legal preparations had been made. A writ
of habeas corpus
was served and the case was called before a bench of three Supreme Court judges presided over by Chief Justice Sir Sidney Abrahams
. The brilliant H.V. Perera, the county's leading civil lawyer, volunteered his services free on behalf of Bracegirdle; he was made a Queens Counsel (QC) on the day that Bracegirdle appeared in court. On May 18 order was made that he could not be deported for exercising his right to free speech, and Bracegirdle was a free man.
origin were interned as 'enemy aliens' whereas Italian
and German Roman Catholic priests were not.
Two members of the Governing Party, Junius Richard Jayawardene and Dudley Senanayake
, held discussions with the Japan
ese with a view to collaboration to oust the British.
In the Central Province the strike wave reached its zenith in the Mool Oya Estate strike, which was led by Samasamajists including Veluchamy, Secretary of the Estate Workers Union. In this strike, on 19 January 1940, the worker Govindan
was shot and killed by the police. As a result of agitation both within the State Council and outside, the Government was compelled to appoint a Commission of Inquiry. Colvin R. de Silva appeared for the widow of Govindan and exposed the combined role of the police and employers in the white plantation raj.
After Mool Oya, the strike wave spread southward towards Uva, and the strikes became more prolonged and the workers began more and more to seek the militant leadership of the Sama samajists. In Uva, Samasamajists including Willie Jayatilleke, Edmund Samarakkody and V. Sittampalam were in the leadership. The plantation-raj got the Badulla Magistrate to issue a ban on meetings. N.M. Perera broke the ban and addressed a large meeting in Badulla on 12 May, and the police were powerless to act. At Wewessa Estate the workers set up an elected council and the Superintendent agreed to act in consultation with the Workers' Council. An armed police party that went to restore 'law and order' was disarmed by the workers.
The strike wave at last was beaten back by a wave of terror by the police, aided by floods which cut Uva off from the rest of the country for over a week. But the colonial authorities were finding that the independence struggle was getting too powerful.
and Colvin R. de Silva were arrested on 18 June 1940 and Edmund Samarakkody
on 19 June. The LSSP press was raided and sealed. Regulations were promulgated which made open party work practically impossible.
However, the experience gained in hiding Bracegirdle now paid off. The cover organisation of the LSSP, of which Doric de Souza and Reggie Senanayake were in charge, had been active for some months. Detention orders had been issued on Leslie Goonewardene but he evaded arrest and went underground. The LSSP was involved in a strike wave which commenced in May 1941 affecting the workers of the Colombo Harbour, Granaries, Wellawatta Mills, Gas Company, Colombo Municipality and the Fort Mt-Lavinia bus route.
With Japan
's entry into the war, and especially after the fall of Singapore
, Sri Lanka became a front-line British base against the Japanese. On 5 April 1942, The Japanese Navy
bombed Colombo. Such was the degree of anti-British feeling that, although the Japanese aircraft were visible to everybody on the south-west coast, nobody informed the RAF
in Colombo, so complete surprise was achieved.
That evening, in the confusion following the attack, the LSSP leaders were able to escape, with the help of one of their guards. Several of them fled to India, where they participated in the struggle there, underscoring what had been established before the war, that India's and Sri Lanka's freedom struggles were interlinked. However, a sizeable contingent remained, led by Robert Gunawardena, Philip's brother. In 1942 and 1944 the LSSP gave leadership to several other strikes and in the process was able to capture the leadership of Government workers’ unions in Colombo.
Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser
Repulse
, punctured forever the myth of British invincibility. Whatever remained was ripped to tatters by the sinking of the aircraft carrier
Hermes
and the cruisers Cornwall
and Dorsetshire
off Sri Lanka in early April 1942; accompanied at the same time by the virtually unopposed bombing of the island and bombardment of Madras (Chennai). Such was the panic amongst the British in Sri Lanka that a large turtle which came ashore was reported by an Australian unit as a number of Japanese ambhibious vehicles. Anti-British sentiment increased accordingly and hopes ran high of liberation by the Japanese.
The Ceylon Garrison Artillery on Horsburgh Island in the Cocos Islands mutinied on the night of 8/9 May, intending to hand the islands over to the Japanese. The mutiny took place partly because of the agitation by the LSSP. The mutiny was suppressed and three of the mutineers were the only British Commonwealth troops to be executed for mutiny during the Second World War. http://www.awm.gov.au/journal/j34/cocosmutiny.htm Gratien Fernando
, the leader of the mutiny, was defiant to the end, confident of his place in the annals of history as a fighter for freedom.
No Sri Lankan combat regiment was deployed by the British in a combat situation after the Cocos Islands Mutiny. The defences of Sri Lanka were beefed up to three British army divisions
because the island was strategically important, holding almost all the British Empire's resources of rubber. Rationing was instituted so that Sri Lankans were comparatively better fed than their Indian neighbours, in order to prevent disaffection among the natives.
and Malaysia formed the 'Lanka Regiment' of the Indian National Army
, directly under Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. A plan was made to transport them to Sri Lanka by submarine, to begin the liberation struggle, but this was abortive.
The Hikari Kikan
, the Japanese liaison office for South Asia, recruited Sri Lankans, Indians and other south Asians domiciled in Malaya and Singapore for spying missions against the Allies. Four of them were to be landed by submarine
at Kirinda
, on the south coast of Sri Lanka, to operate a secret radio transmitter to report on South East Asia Command
activities. However, they were dropped in error on the Tamil Nadu
coast, where they were caught and executed. http://www.lankalibrary.com/geo/japan3.htm
, the Civil Defence Commissioner complained that the British commander of Ceylon, Admiral Sir Geoffrey Layton
called him a 'black bastard'; this was merely an expression of continuing white-supremacism. However, it was grist to the mill for an increasingly angry middle class that this was the attitude of their rulers who had been bested in Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore and Burma by Asians.
The CNC agreed to accept the Communists, who had been expelled by the Trotskyists in the Sama Samaja Party but who now supported the war effort. At its 25th annual conference, the CNC resolved to demand 'a complete freedom after war'. The leader of the house and Minister of Agriculture and Lands Don Stephen Senanayake
left the CNC on the issue of independence, disagreeing with the revised aim of 'the achieving of freedom'.http://www.atimes.com/ind-pak/CJ13Df01.html.
In November 1944, Susanta de Fonseka, the State Council member for Panadura, moved a motion in the State Council calling for a dominion-type constitution for a Free Lanka. Subsequently, the "Free Lanka Bill" was introduced in the State Council, on 19 January 1945.
At annual session of the Ceylon National Congress was held on 27–28 January 1945 its president, George E. de Silva, said, "Today we stand pledged to strive for freedom. Nothing less than that can be accepted."
The Congress resolved, "Whereas the decision of the State Council 'to frame a Constitution of the Dominion type for a Free Lanka', falls short of the full national right for freedom, nevertheless, this Congress instructs its members in the State Council to support the Bill providing 'a new constitution for a Free Lanka' as an advance in our struggle for freedom..."
A second reading of the Free Lanka Bill was moved and passed without division on in February. The Bill brought up for a third reading, with amendment, on 22 March. G A Wille, a British nominated member, moved that ‘The Bill be read the third time six months hence’, which was defeated by 40 to 7.
The repression during the war years had kept unrest under control but, with the relaxation of wartime restrictions, there was an eruption of popular anger. From September onwards, there was a wave of strikes in Colombo, on the tramways and in the harbour. In November the LSSP-led All Ceylon United Motor Workers' Union
launched an island-wide bus strike, which was successful in spite of the arrest of N.M. Perera, Philip Gunawardena and other leaders.
The All-Ceylon Peasant Congress took action on the compulsory collection of rice by the government at 8 rupees per bushel
. In some areas the farmers refused to give their rice to the Government and hundreds were charged in the courts. In 1946 the Congress organised a march on the State Council, which compelled the Ministers to drop the system of compulsory collection.
In October 1946 a strike of Government workers, including those in the railway, extended to the Harbour, the Gas Company, and became a General Strike
. The authorities at first refused to negotiate, but finally the Acting Governor agreed to meet a deputation of the Government Workers’ Trade Union Federation. The adviser to the deputation, N.M. Perera was arrested by the police, but the workers refused to come to a settlement in his absence. In the end Perera was released and a settlement was reached.
However, some of the promises made by the Acting Governor were not honoured, and a second General Strike broke out in May–June 1947. The Ceylon Defence Force was recalled from leave in order to aid the police in crushing this upsurge. V. Kandasamy of the Government Clerical Service Union
was shot dead at Dematagoda
, on the way to Kolonnawa
after a strike meeting at Hyde Park, Colombo, when the police repeatedly fired on the crowd. The repression was successful in breaking the strike. However, the writing was on the wall for the British authorities: if they did not go soon, they would be forced out. The Bombay Mutiny and other signs of unrest in the armed forces of India had already caused the British to start their retreat from that country. Soon their position in Sri Lanka, too would be untenable.
(UNP) in 1946 http://countrystudies.us/sri-lanka/68.htm, when a new constitution was agreed on. At the elections of 1947, the UNP won a minority of the seats in Parliament, but cobbled together a coalition with the Sinhala Maha Sabha
of SWRD Banadaranaike
and the Tamil Congress of G.G. Ponnambalam. It was to this government that the British prepared to hand over power, while preserving as much of a whip hand as possible.
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
. It was initiated around the turn of the 20th century lead mostly by the educated middle class and ultimately was successful when February 4, 1948 Ceylon was granted independence as the Dominion of Ceylon. Dominion
Dominion
A dominion, often Dominion, refers to one of a group of autonomous polities that were nominally under British sovereignty, constituting the British Empire and British Commonwealth, beginning in the latter part of the 19th century. They have included Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland,...
status within the British Commonwealth was retained for the next 24 years until May 22, 1972 when it became a republic
Republic
A republic is a form of government in which the people, or some significant portion of them, have supreme control over the government and where offices of state are elected or chosen by elected people. In modern times, a common simplified definition of a republic is a government where the head of...
and was renamed the Republic of Sri Lanka.
British colonial rule
The British RajBritish Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
was dominant in Asia after the Battle of Assaye
Battle of Assaye
The Battle of Assaye was a major battle of the Second Anglo-Maratha War fought between the Maratha Confederacy and the British East India Company...
; following the Battle of Waterloo
Battle of Waterloo
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands...
the British Empire became the world superpower. Its appearance of omnipotence was only briefly dented by setbacks in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
and South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
. It was virtually unchallenged until 1914.
The formation of the Batavian Republic
Batavian Republic
The Batavian Republic was the successor of the Republic of the United Netherlands. It was proclaimed on January 19, 1795, and ended on June 5, 1806, with the accession of Louis Bonaparte to the throne of the Kingdom of Holland....
in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
as an ally and of the French Directory
French Directory
The Directory was a body of five Directors that held executive power in France following the Convention and preceding the Consulate...
, led to a British attack on Ceylon in 1795 as part of England'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
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
.
Once the Dutch had been evicted, their sovereignty ceded by the Treaty of Amiens
Treaty of Amiens
The Treaty of Amiens temporarily ended hostilities between the French Republic and the United Kingdom during the French Revolutionary Wars. It was signed in the city of Amiens on 25 March 1802 , by Joseph Bonaparte and the Marquess Cornwallis as a "Definitive Treaty of Peace"...
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
Kandian Wars
The Kandyan Wars refers generally to the period of warfare between the British colonial forces and the Kingdom of Kandy, on the island of what is now present day Sri Lanka, between 1796 and 1818...
were bloodily defeated. In 1815, the British fomented a revolt by the Kandyan 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
Uva Rebellion
The Great Rebellion of 1817-1818, also known as the 1818 Uva-Wellassa Uprising, , or simply the Uva Rebellion was the third Kandyan War with the British, in what is now Sri Lanka...
, when the same aristocracy rose against British rule in a rebellion in which their villagers participated. They were defeated by the occupiers. An attempt at rebellion sparked again briefly in 1830. The Kandyan peasantry were stripped of their lands by the Wastelands Ordinance
Wastelands Ordinance
The Cultivation of Wastelands Ordinance, also known as a Wastelands Ordinance, is an ordinance that presumes that, in a given area, there exists the problem referred to as a tragedy of the commons...
, a modern enclosure movement and reduced to penury.
In 1848 the abortive Matale Rebellion
Matale Rebellion
The Matale Rebellion, also known as the Rebellion of 1848 took place in Ceylon against the British colonial government under Governor Lord Torrington, 7th Viscount Torrington. It marked a transition from the classic feudal form of anti-colonial revolt to modern independence struggles...
, led by Hennedige Francisco Fernando (Puran Appu
Puran Appu
Weerahennadige Francisco Fernando alias Puran Appu is one of the notable personalities in Sri Lanka's history. He was born on November 1812 in the coastal town of Moratuwa. He left Moratuwa at the age of 13 and stayed in Ratnapura with his uncle, who was the first Sinhalese proctor, and moved to...
) and Gongalegoda Banda
Gongalegoda Banda
Wansapurna Dewage David alias Gongale Goda Banda was the leader of the 1848 Rebellion, pretender to the throne of Kandy and a National Hero of Sri Lanka.-Early life:...
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
Uva Rebellion
The Great Rebellion of 1817-1818, also known as the 1818 Uva-Wellassa Uprising, , or simply the Uva Rebellion was the third Kandyan War with the British, in what is now Sri Lanka...
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
Levellers
The Levellers were a political movement during the English Civil Wars which emphasised popular sovereignty, extended suffrage, equality before the law, and religious tolerance, all of which were expressed in the manifesto "Agreement of the People". They came to prominence at the end of the First...
in England's revolution and mechanics
Mechanics
Mechanics is the branch of physics concerned with the behavior of physical bodies when subjected to forces or displacements, and the subsequent effects of the bodies on their environment....
such as Paul Revere
Paul Revere
Paul Revere was an American silversmith and a patriot in the American Revolution. He is most famous for alerting Colonial militia of approaching British forces before the battles of Lexington and Concord, as dramatized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, Paul Revere's Ride...
and Tom Paine who were at the heart of the American revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
. However, in the words of Colvin R. de Silva
Colvin R. de Silva
Colvin R. de Silva was a former Cabinet Minister of Plantation Industries and Constitutional Affairs, prominent member of parliament, Trotskyist leader and lawyer in Sri Lanka. He was one of the founders of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party – the first Marxist party in Sri Lanka.-Personal...
, '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
In the 1830s, coffeeCoffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
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 were not employed on the plantations: The Kandyan villagers refused to abandon their traditional subsistence holdings and become wage-workers in the nightmarish conditions that prevailed on these new estates, despite all the pressure exerted by the colonial state. The British therefore had to draw on its reserve army of labour in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, to man its lucrative new outpost to the south. An infamous system of contract labour was established, which transported hundreds of thousands of Tamil
Tamil people
Tamil people , also called Tamils or Tamilians, are an ethnic group native to Tamil Nadu, India and the north-eastern region of Sri Lanka. Historic and post 15th century emigrant communities are also found across the world, notably Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius, South Africa, Australia, Canada,...
'coolies' from southern India into Sri Lanka for the coffee estates. These Tamils labourers died in tens of thousands both on the journey itself as well as on the 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 shop-keeping and the alcohol and wood-work industries. These entrepreneurs were from many casteCaste
Caste is an elaborate and complex social system that combines elements of endogamy, occupation, culture, social class, tribal affiliation and political power. It should not be confused with race or social class, e.g. members of different castes in one society may belong to the same race, as in India...
s and they strongly resented the historically unprecedented and unbuddhistic practice of 'caste discrimination' adopted by the Siam Nikaya
Siam Nikaya
The Siam Nikaya is a monastic order within Sri Lanka, founded by Upali Thera and located predominantly around the city of Kandy. It is so named because it originated within Thailand...
in 1764, just 10 years after it had been established by a Thai monk. Around 1800 they organised the Amarapura Nikaya
Amarapura Nikaya
The Amarapura Nikaya is a Sri Lankan monastic fraternity founded in 1800. It is named after the city of Amarapura, Myanmar , the former capital of the Burmese kingdom...
, which became hegemonic in the low-country by the mid-19th century.
The British attempt at giving a Protestant Christian education to the young men of the commercial classes backfired, as they transformed the Buddhism practised in Sri Lanka into something resembling the non-conformist Protestant model. A series of debates against clergymen of the established Anglican church was organised, culminating in the defeat of the latter by modern logical argument. The Buddhist revival was aided by the Theosophists, led by American Col. Henry Steele Olcott, who helped establish Buddhist schools such as Ananda College
Ananda College
Ananda College , Colombo which is considered as the leading National school in Sri Lanka, was established on November 1, 1886, by the Buddhist Theosophical Society led by Colonel Henry Steel Olcott...
, Colombo
Colombo
Colombo is the largest city of Sri Lanka. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, the capital of Sri Lanka. Colombo is often referred to as the capital of the country, since Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte is a satellite city of Colombo...
, Dharmaraja College, Kandy
Dharmaraja College, Kandy
Dharmaraja College , founded in 1887 is a premier Boys' School in Kandy, Sri Lanka. It is a Buddhist school with around 175 teaching staff and around 4,500 students. The school has many renowned figures in its alumni including William Gopallawa, A. E...
, Maliyadeva College
Maliyadeva College
Maliyadeva College, Kurunegala, is a government school established in 1888, by the Buddhist Theosophical Society led by Colonel Henry Steel Olcott. It is one of Sri Lanka's oldest schools and considered by many to be a leading Buddhist school in Sri Lanka.It is a National School and controlled by...
, Kurunegala
Kurunegala
Kurunegala , is the capital of the North Western Province, Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka and the Kurunegala District. Kurunegala was also an ancient royal capital for 50 years, from the end of the 13th century to the start of the 13th century. The town itself is a busy commercial and a transport hub...
, Mahinda College
Mahinda College
Mahinda College is a Buddhist boys' school in Galle, Sri Lanka. It is a national school, which provides primary and secondary education. The school was established on March 1, 1892 by the Buddhist Theosophical Society led by Colonel Henry Steel Olcott...
, Galle
Galle
Galle is a city situated on the southwestern tip of Sri Lanka, 119 km from Colombo. Galle is the capital city of Southern Province of Sri Lanka and it lies in Galle District....
and Musaeus College
Musaeus College
Musaeus College is a private girls' school in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and was named for Mrs Marie Musaeus Higgins , its Principal from 1895 to 1926. Musaeus College is now a leading academic institution with more 4,000 girls from ages 3 to 18, and is managed by a board of trustees...
, Colombo
Colombo
Colombo is the largest city of Sri Lanka. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, the capital of Sri Lanka. Colombo is often referred to as the capital of the country, since Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte is a satellite city of Colombo...
; at the same time injecting more modern secular western ideas into the 'Protestant' Buddhist thoughtstream.
Dharmapala, 1915 and the Ceylon National Congress
Revivalists such as Anagarika DharmapalaAnagarika Dharmapala
Anagarika Dharmapala was a leading figure of Buddhism in the twentieth century. He was one of the founding contributors of Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalism and Protestant Buddhism...
started linking 'Protestant' Buddhism to Sinhalese-ness, creating a Sinhala-Buddhist consciousness, linked to the temperance movement
Temperance movement
A temperance movement is a social movement urging reduced use of alcoholic beverages. Temperance movements may criticize excessive alcohol use, promote complete abstinence , or pressure the government to enact anti-alcohol legislation or complete prohibition of alcohol.-Temperance movement by...
. This cut across the old barriers of caste, and was the beginnings of a pan-Sinhalese identity. It appealed in particular to small businessmen and yeomen, who now began to take centre stage against the anglicised class of new elites
Sri Lankan Mudaliyars
Mudali was a colonial title & office in Sri Lanka. The Portuguese colonials created the Mudaliyar class in the 17th century by enlisting natives of different castes form the coastal areas, who were most likely to serve the Portuguese masters with utmost loyalty. The Dutch continued the practice of...
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 ganged up against the populists led by Dharmapala and removed him 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
Penang
Penang is a state in Malaysia and the name of its constituent island, located on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia by the Strait of Malacca. It is bordered by Kedah in the north and east, and Perak in the south. Penang is the second smallest Malaysian state in area after Perlis, and the...
in Malaya
British Malaya
British Malaya loosely described a set of states on the Malay Peninsula and the Island of Singapore that were brought under British control between the 18th and the 20th centuries...
, sinking a Russian cruiser
Cruiser
A cruiser is a type of warship. The term has been in use for several hundreds of years, and has had different meanings throughout this period...
, bombarded Madras (now Chennai
Chennai
Chennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...
) and sailed unimpeded down the East coast of Sri Lanka. Such was its impact that, in Sri Lanka to this day, 'Emden' is the bogeyman
Bogeyman
A bogeyman is an amorphous imaginary being used by adults to frighten children into compliant behaviour...
that mothers scare their children with, and the term is still used to refer to a particularly obnoxious person. In panic, the authorities jailed a Boer wildlife official, HH Engelbrecht, after accusing him falsely of having supplied meat to the cruiser. http://padayatra.org/yala.htm The British rebuff at Gallipoli
Gallipoli
The Gallipoli peninsula is located in Turkish Thrace , the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles straits to the east. Gallipoli derives its name from the Greek "Καλλίπολις" , meaning "Beautiful City"...
, fighting Asian Turks
Turkic peoples
The Turkic peoples are peoples residing in northern, central and western Asia, southern Siberia and northwestern China and parts of eastern Europe. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds...
, also dented the British white-supremacist sentiment.
In 1915 commercial-ethnic rivalry erupted into a riot in the Colombo against the Muslims, with Christians participating as much as Buddhists. The British 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
Henry Pedris
Captain Duenuge Edward Henry Pedris CTG was a militia officer and a prominent socialite in colonial Ceylon who was executed by British officials for alleged incitement of racial riots in 1915, which were proven false...
, a militia commander, was shot for mutiny. Inspector General of Police Herbert Dowbiggin
Herbert Dowbiggin
Sir Herbert Layard Dowbiggin, C.M.G. was the British colonial Inspector General of Police of British Ceylon from 1913 to 1937, the longest tenure of office of an Inspector General of Police . He was called the 'Father of Colonial Police'.-Antecedents:Dowbiggin was the sixth child of Rev....
became notorious for his methods. E. W. Perera
E. W. Perera
Edward Walter Perera was a Ceylonese barrister, politician and freedom fighter. He was known as the 'Lion of Kotte' and was a prominent figure in the Sri Lankan independence movement and a Senator....
, a lawyer from Kotte
Kotte
Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte , also known as Sri Jayawardenapura or Kotte කෝට්ටේ, is the administrative capital of Sri Lanka. It is located beyond the eastern suburbs of the commercial capital Colombo and is often called New Capital Territory...
, braved mine and submarine-infested seas (as well as the Police) to carry a secret Memorial in the soles of his shoes to the Secretary of State for the Colonies
Secretary of State for the Colonies
The Secretary of State for the Colonies or Colonial Secretary was the British Cabinet minister in charge of managing the United Kingdom's various colonial dependencies....
, pleading for the repeal of martial law
Martial law
Martial law is the imposition of military rule by military authorities over designated regions on an emergency basis— only temporary—when the civilian government or civilian authorities fail to function effectively , when there are extensive riots and protests, or when the disobedience of the law...
and describing the atrocities committed by the Police led by Dowbiggin.http://www.rootsweb.com/~lkawgw/dss2.html The bitterness among the Sinhalese against the British authorities was considerable.
Hundreds of Ceylonese arrested by the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
colonial government during the Riots of 1915. Those who where faced imprisonment without charges included prominent figures of the independence movement F.R. Senanayake, D.S. Senanayake, Anagarika Dharmapala
Anagarika Dharmapala
Anagarika Dharmapala was a leading figure of Buddhism in the twentieth century. He was one of the founding contributors of Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalism and Protestant Buddhism...
, Dr CA Hewavitarne
Charles Alwis Hewavitharana
Charles Alwis Hewavitharana, FRCS, LRCP was a Ceylonese physician who played a significant role in Sir Lanka's Sri Lankan independence movement...
, Captain Henry Pedris
Henry Pedris
Captain Duenuge Edward Henry Pedris CTG was a militia officer and a prominent socialite in colonial Ceylon who was executed by British officials for alleged incitement of racial riots in 1915, which were proven false...
, D.C. Senanayake, Baron Jayatilaka, Edwin Wijeyeratne
Edwin Wijeyeratne
Sir Edwin Aloysius Perera Wijeyeratne, KBE was a Sri Lankan politician, diplomat, and one of the founding members of United National Party. He was a Senator and Cabinet Minister of Home Affairs and Rural Development in the government of DS Senanayake...
, WA de Silva, Arthur V Dias, John Silva, Piyadasa Sirisena and AE Goonesinghe.
In 1919 the Ceylon National Congress (CNC) was founded to agitate for greater autonomy. It did not seek independence, however, representing the compradore elite which opposed Dharmapala. This same elite vigorously opposed the grant of Universal Suffrage
Universal suffrage
Universal suffrage consists of the extension of the right to vote to adult citizens as a whole, though it may also mean extending said right to minors and non-citizens...
by the Donoughmore constitutional commission
Donoughmore Commission
The Donoughmore Commission was responsible for the creation of the Donoughmore Constitution in effect between 1931–47 in Ceylon...
.
Dharmapala was hounded out of the country by a press campaign by the Lake House
Lake House
Lake House is an Elizabethan country house dating from 1578, in Wilsford-cum-Lake in Wiltshire, England. It is a Grade I listed building. The gardens are Grade II listed in the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest....
group of the press baron D.R. Wijewardena. His mantle fell on the next generation, epitomised by Colvin R de Silva, who was radicalised by Dharmapala's words.
See also: Riots in Sri Lanka#1915 riots
The Youth Leagues and the struggle for independence
The young people who stepped into the shoes of Dharmapala organised themselves into Youth LeaguesYouth Leagues
The Youth Leagues were societies of young people, mainly intellectuals, who wanted independence for Sri Lanka.The first of these organisations was the Jaffna Students’ Congress, founded in 1924 and renamed the Jaffna Youth Congress in 1926...
, seeking freedom and justice for the people of Sri Lanka. The first moves came not from Dharmapala's ethnic group, but from the Tamil youth of Jaffna. In 1924 The Jaffna Students’ Congress, later renamed the Jaffna Youth Congress
Jaffna Youth Congress
The Jaffna Youth Congress, was the first of Sri Lanka's Youth Leagues. It was influenced by the Indian Independence Movement, was secular and committed to Poorana Swaraj , national unity and the eradication of inequalities imposed by caste....
(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
Caste
Caste is an elaborate and complex social system that combines elements of endogamy, occupation, culture, social class, tribal affiliation and political power. It should not be confused with race or social class, e.g. members of different castes in one society may belong to the same race, as in India...
. In 1927, the JYC invited 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. http://www.icescolombo.org/events/Conf/stn2004/conf_papers/paper04.htm
In the 1930s the Youth Leagues
Youth Leagues
The Youth Leagues were societies of young people, mainly intellectuals, who wanted independence for Sri Lanka.The first of these organisations was the Jaffna Students’ Congress, founded in 1924 and renamed the Jaffna Youth Congress in 1926...
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
Dominion
A dominion, often Dominion, refers to one of a group of autonomous polities that were nominally under British sovereignty, constituting the British Empire and British Commonwealth, beginning in the latter part of the 19th century. They have included Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland,...
status. They were forced to withdraw their 'Ministers' Memorandum' after a vigorous campaign by the Youth Leagues.http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/srilanka/ch01.htmhttp://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 Sinhala, Kamkaruwa (The Worker).
Suriya-Mal movement
In protest against the proceeds of poppyPoppy
A poppy is one of a group of a flowering plants in the poppy family, many of which are grown in gardens for their colorful flowers. Poppies are sometimes used for symbolic reasons, such as in remembrance of soldiers who have died during wartime....
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
Portia tree
Thespesia populnea, commonly known as the Portia Tree , is species of flowering plant in the mallow family, Malvaceae. It is a small tree or arborescent shrub that has a pantropical distribution, found on coasts around the world. However, the Portia Tree is probably native only to the Old World,...
) flowers on this day, the proceeds of which were devoted to help needy Ceylonese ex-servicemen.
In 1933 a British teacher Doreen Young Wickremasinghe
Doreen Young Wickremasinghe
Doreen Wickremasinghe was a British leftist who became a prominent Communist politician in Sri Lanka and a Member of Parliament . She was one of the handful of European Radicals in Sri Lanka....
, wrote an article, The Battle of the Flowers which appeared in the Ceylon Daily News and exposed the absurdity 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
Suriya-Mal Movement
The Suriya-Mal Movement was formed in British ruled Ceylon to sell Suriya flowers on Poppy Day for the benefit of Sri Lankan ex-servicemen. The movement became anti-imperialist in character...
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 first president of the Suriya Mal movement at a meeting held at the residence of Wilmot Perera in Horana. Terence de Zilva and Robin Ratnam were elected Joint Secretaries, and Roy de Mel Treasurer.
Malaria epidemic and floods
There had been a drought in 1934 which caused a shortage of rice, estimated at 3 million bushels. From October on there were floods, followed by a malaria epidemic in 1934–35, during which 1,000,000 people were affected and at least 125,000 died. The Suriya-Mal Movement was honed by volunteer work among the poor during the malaria epidemic and the floods. The volunteers found that there was widespread malnutritionMalnutrition
Malnutrition is the condition that results from taking an unbalanced diet in which certain nutrients are lacking, in excess , or in the wrong proportions....
, which was aggravated by the shortage of rice, and which reduced resistance to the disease. They helped fight the epidemic by making pills of 'Marmite
Marmite
Marmite is the name given to two similar food spreads: the original British version, first produced in the United Kingdom and later South Africa, and a version produced in New Zealand...
' yeast extract. Philip Gunawardena
Philip Gunawardena
Don Philip Rupasinghe Gunawardena introduced Trotskyism to Sri Lanka, where he is a national hero, known as 'the Father of Socialism' and as 'the Lion of Boralugoda'.-Early life & education:...
and N.M. Perera came to be known as Avissawelle Pilippuwa (Philip from Avissawella) & Parippuwa Mahathaya ('Mr. Dhal') because of the lentils he distributed as dry rations to the people affected in those days.
As Sybil reminisced in Forward: The Progressive Weekly many years later: 'Work in connection with malaria relief was an eye-opener to many of these people who were just getting to know the peasant masses. The poverty was incredible, the overcrowding even more so, fifteen, twenty or more people crammed into tiny huts, dying like flies. This was what colonial exploitation meant: worse than the worst that prevailed in England when Marx and Engels analyzed the conditions of the working classes. This was what had to be fought.' http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/srilanka/ch01.htm#fw44
The Lanka Sama Samaja Party is formed
The Marxist Lanka Sama Samaja PartyLanka Sama Samaja Party
The Lanka Sama Samaja Party is a Trotskyist political party in Sri Lanka....
(LSSP), which grew out of the Youth Leagues in 1935, was the first party to demand independence.http://www.priu.gov.lk/news_update/features/20020104edmund_samarakkody.htm The first manifesto of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party declared that its aims were the achievement of complete national independence, the nationalisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the abolition of inequalities arising from differences of race, caste
Caste
Caste is an elaborate and complex social system that combines elements of endogamy, occupation, culture, social class, tribal affiliation and political power. It should not be confused with race or social class, e.g. members of different castes in one society may belong to the same race, as in India...
, creed
Creed
A creed is a statement of belief—usually a statement of faith that describes the beliefs shared by a religious community—and is often recited as part of a religious service. When the statement of faith is longer and polemical, as well as didactic, it is not called a creed but a Confession of faith...
or sex
Sex
In biology, sex is a process of combining and mixing genetic traits, often resulting in the specialization of organisms into a male or female variety . Sexual reproduction involves combining specialized cells to form offspring that inherit traits from both parents...
.
Its deputies in the State Council
State Council of Ceylon
The State Council of Ceylon was the unicameral legislature for Ceylon , established in 1931 by the Donoughmore Constitution. The State Council gave universal adult franchise to the people of the colony for the first time...
after the 1936 general election, N.M. Perera, Colvin.R.de.Silva and Philip Gunawardena
Philip Gunawardena
Don Philip Rupasinghe Gunawardena introduced Trotskyism to Sri Lanka, where he is a national hero, known as 'the Father of Socialism' and as 'the Lion of Boralugoda'.-Early life & education:...
, were aided in this struggle by not quite so radical members like Don Alwin Rajapaksa of Ruhuna and Natesa Iyer of the Indian Tamils. Others who supported them from time to time were George E. de Silva of Kandy, B.H. Aluwihare of Matale, D.P. Jayasuriya of Gampaha, A. Ratnayake of Dumbara and Susanta de Fonseka, the Deputy Speaker. They also demanded the replacement of English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
as the official language by Sinhala and Tamil
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
. In November 1936, a motions that 'in the Municipal and Police Courts of the Island the proceedings should be in the vernacular
Vernacular
A vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is not native to the population, such as a national language or lingua franca.- Etymology :The term is not a recent one...
' and that 'entries in police stations should be recorded in the language in which they are originally stated' were passed by the State Council and referred to the Legal Secretary, but nothing was done about these matters and English continued to be the language of rule until 1956.
Fraternal relations were established between the LSSP and the Congress Socialist Party
Congress Socialist Party
The Congress Socialist Party was founded in 1934 as a socialist caucus within the Indian National Congress. Its members rejected what they saw as the anti-rational mysticism of Mohandas Gandhi as well as the sectarian attitude of the Communist Party of India towards the Congress Party...
(CSP) of India and an LSSP delegation attended the Faizpur Sessions of the Indian National Congress
Indian National Congress
The Indian National Congress is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Bharatiya Janata Party. It is the largest and one of the oldest democratic political parties in the world. The party's modern liberal platform is largely considered center-left in the Indian...
in 1936. In April 1937 Kamaladevi Chattopadyaya, a leader of the CSP addressed a large number of meetings in various parts of the country on a national tour organised by the LSSP. This helped to establish the indivisibility of the fights for freedom of Sri Lanka and India. In Jaffna, where Kamaladevi also spoke, the left movement found consistent and loyal supporters from among one-time members of the JYC.
Bracegirdle
On 28 November 1936, at a meeting in ColomboColombo
Colombo is the largest city of Sri Lanka. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, the capital of Sri Lanka. Colombo is often referred to as the capital of the country, since Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte is a satellite city of Colombo...
, the president of the LSSP, Dr Colvin R. de Silva, introduced Mark Anthony Bracegirdle
Mark Anthony Bracegirdle
Mark Anthony Lyster Bracegirdle , was an Anglo-Australian Marxist revolutionary, who played a key role in Sri Lanka's independence struggle. He was one of the handful of European Radicals in Sri Lanka...
, a British/Australian former planter saying: 'This is the first time a white comrade has ever attended a party meeting held at a street corner.' He made his first public speech in Sri Lanka, warning that the capitalists were trying to split the workers of Sri Lanka and put one against the other. He took an active part in organising a public meeting called by the LSSP on Galle Face Green
Galle Face Green
The Galle Face is a promenade which stretches for half kilometre along the coast in the heart of financial and business district of Colombo, Sri Lanka...
in Colombo on 10 January 1937 to celebrate Sir Herbert Dowbiggin's departure from the island and to protest against the atrocities during his tenure as Inspector General of Police. In March, he was co-opted to serve on the executive committee.
He was employed by Natesa Iyer, Member of the State Council
State Council of Ceylon
The State Council of Ceylon was the unicameral legislature for Ceylon , established in 1931 by the Donoughmore Constitution. The State Council gave universal adult franchise to the people of the colony for the first time...
for the Hatton
Hatton, Sri Lanka
Hatton , is a small town in Nuwara Eliya District of Central Province, Sri Lanka. It is known for its Ceylon tea plantations and industry. Hatton, which is locally administered by Hatton-Dickoya Urban Council, had 14,255 in population according to the census carried out in 2001. The town is...
constituency, to 'organise an Estate Labour Federation in Nawalapitiya or Hatton, with an idea that he may be a proper candidate to be the future Secretary of the Labour Federation.' http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/srilanka/ch03.htm
On 3 April, at a meeting at Nawalapitiya attended by two thousand estate workers, at which Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya spoke, Dr N.M. Perera said: 'Comrades, I have an announcement to make. You know we have a white comrade (applause) .... He has generously consented to address you. I call upon Comrade Bracegirdle to address you.' Bracegirdle rose to speak amid tumultuous applause and shouts of 'Samy, Samy' (master, master).
The authorities were on hand to note his speech:
'the most noteworthy feature of this meeting ... was the presence of Bracegirdle and his attack on the planters. He claimed unrivalled knowledge of the misdeeds of the planters and promised scandalous exposures. His delivery, facial appearance, his posture were all very threatening ... Every sentence was punctuated with cries of samy, samy from the labourers. Labourers were heard to remark that Mr Bracegirdle has correctly said that they should not allow planters to break labour laws and they must in future not take things lying down.' (T. Perera, The Bracegirdle Saga: 60 Years After, 'What Next', No 5 1997.)http://www.revolutionary-history.co.uk/otherdox/Whatnext/Bracegir.html
The British planters were angry that their prestige was being harmed by a fellow white man. They prevailed upon the British Colonial Governor Sir Reginald Stubbs to deport him. Bracegirdle was served with the order of deportation on 22 April and given 48 hours to leave on the SS Mooltan, on which a passage had been booked for him by the Government.
The LSSP with Bracegirdle's assent decided that the order should be defied. Bracegirdle went into hiding and the Colonial Government began an unsuccessful man-hunt. LSSP started a campaign to defend him. At that year's May Day
May Day
May Day on May 1 is an ancient northern hemisphere spring festival and usually a public holiday; it is also a traditional spring holiday in many cultures....
rally at Price Park, placards declaring 'We want Bracegirdle – Deport Stubbs' were displayed, and a resolution was passed condemning Stubbs, demanding his removal and the withdrawal of the deportation order.
On 5 May, in the State Council, NM Perera and Philip Gunawardena
Philip Gunawardena
Don Philip Rupasinghe Gunawardena introduced Trotskyism to Sri Lanka, where he is a national hero, known as 'the Father of Socialism' and as 'the Lion of Boralugoda'.-Early life & education:...
moved a vote of censure on the Governor for having ordered the deportation of Bracegirdle without the advice of the acting Home Minister. Even the Board of Ministers had started feeling the heat of public opinion and the vote was passed by 34 votes to 7.
On the same day there was a 50,000-strong rally at Galle Face Green
Galle Face Green
The Galle Face is a promenade which stretches for half kilometre along the coast in the heart of financial and business district of Colombo, Sri Lanka...
, which was presided over by Colvin R de Silva and addressed by Dr N.M. Perera, Philip Gunawardena, Leslie Goonewardena, A.E.Goonesinha, George E. de Silva, D.M. Rajapakse, Siripala Samarakkody, Vernon Gunasekera, Handy Perimbanayagam, Mrs K. Natesa Iyer and S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike
Solomon Bandaranaike
Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike (Sinhala:සොලමන් වෙස්ට් රිජ්වේ ඩයස් බන්ඩාරනායක)(Tamil:சாலமன் வெஸ்ட் ரிச்சர்ட் டயஸ் பண்டாரநாயக்கா)Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike (Sinhala:සොලමන් වෙස්ට් රිජ්වේ ඩයස් බන්ඩාරනායක)(Tamil:சாலமன் வெஸ்ட் ரிச்சர்ட் டயஸ்...
. Bracegirdle made a dramatic appearance on the platform at this rally, but the police were powerless to arrest him.
However, the police managed to arrest him a couple of days later at the Hulftsdorp residence of Vernon Gunasekera, the Secretary of the LSSP. However, the necessary legal preparations had been made. A writ
Writ
In common law, a writ is a formal written order issued by a body with administrative or judicial jurisdiction; in modern usage, this body is generally a court...
of habeas corpus
Habeas corpus
is a writ, or legal action, through which a prisoner can be released from unlawful detention. The remedy can be sought by the prisoner or by another person coming to his aid. Habeas corpus originated in the English legal system, but it is now available in many nations...
was served and the case was called before a bench of three Supreme Court judges presided over by Chief Justice Sir Sidney Abrahams
Sidney Abrahams
Sir Sidney Solomon Abrahams , nicknamed Solly, was a British Olympic athlete and Chief Justice of Ceylon . He was the older brother of famed Olympian Harold Abrahams....
. The brilliant H.V. Perera, the county's leading civil lawyer, volunteered his services free on behalf of Bracegirdle; he was made a Queens Counsel (QC) on the day that Bracegirdle appeared in court. On May 18 order was made that he could not be deported for exercising his right to free speech, and Bracegirdle was a free man.
Second World War
After the outbreak of the Second World War, the independence agitators turned to opposition to the Ministers' support for the British war effort. The Ministers brought motions gifting the Sri Lankan taxpayers' money to the British war machine, which were opposed by the pro-freedom members of the state council. There was considerable opposition to the war in Sri Lanka, particularly among the workers and the nationalists, many of the latter of whom hoped for a German victory. Among Buddhists, there was disgust that Buddhist monks of GermanGermany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
origin were interned as 'enemy aliens' whereas Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and German Roman Catholic priests were not.
Two members of the Governing Party, Junius Richard Jayawardene and Dudley Senanayake
Dudley Senanayake
Dudley Shelton Senanayake was a Ceylonese politician, who became the second Prime Minister of Ceylon and went on to become prime minister on 2 more times during the 1950s and 1960s.-Early life:Dudley was born on 19 June, 1911 as the eldest son to Molly Dunuwila and Don Stephen Senanayake, who...
, held discussions with the Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese with a view to collaboration to oust the British.
Estate strike wave
Starting in November 1939 and during the first half of 1940 there was a wave of spontaneous strikes in the British-owned plantations, basically aimed at winning the right of organisation. There were two main plantation unions, Iyer's Ceylon Indian Congress and the All-Ceylon Estate Workers Union (later the Lanka Estate Workers Union, LEWU) led by the Samasamajists.In the Central Province the strike wave reached its zenith in the Mool Oya Estate strike, which was led by Samasamajists including Veluchamy, Secretary of the Estate Workers Union. In this strike, on 19 January 1940, the worker Govindan
Govindan
Govindan was an Indian politician and former Member of the Legislative Assembly of Tamil Nadu. He was elected to the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly as an Indian National Congress candidate from Paramakudi constituency in 1952 election.- References :...
was shot and killed by the police. As a result of agitation both within the State Council and outside, the Government was compelled to appoint a Commission of Inquiry. Colvin R. de Silva appeared for the widow of Govindan and exposed the combined role of the police and employers in the white plantation raj.
After Mool Oya, the strike wave spread southward towards Uva, and the strikes became more prolonged and the workers began more and more to seek the militant leadership of the Sama samajists. In Uva, Samasamajists including Willie Jayatilleke, Edmund Samarakkody and V. Sittampalam were in the leadership. The plantation-raj got the Badulla Magistrate to issue a ban on meetings. N.M. Perera broke the ban and addressed a large meeting in Badulla on 12 May, and the police were powerless to act. At Wewessa Estate the workers set up an elected council and the Superintendent agreed to act in consultation with the Workers' Council. An armed police party that went to restore 'law and order' was disarmed by the workers.
The strike wave at last was beaten back by a wave of terror by the police, aided by floods which cut Uva off from the rest of the country for over a week. But the colonial authorities were finding that the independence struggle was getting too powerful.
Underground struggle
After Dunkirk, the British colonial authorities reacted in panic (as revealed in secret files released many decades later) and N.M. Perera, Philip GunawardenaPhilip Gunawardena
Don Philip Rupasinghe Gunawardena introduced Trotskyism to Sri Lanka, where he is a national hero, known as 'the Father of Socialism' and as 'the Lion of Boralugoda'.-Early life & education:...
and Colvin R. de Silva were arrested on 18 June 1940 and Edmund Samarakkody
Edmund Samarakkody
Edmund Samarakkody was a leading Trotskyist in Sri Lanka and at one time a member of that country's parliament. He was a leader of the Fourth International's section, the LSSP, and a supporter of the establishment of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International in 1963...
on 19 June. The LSSP press was raided and sealed. Regulations were promulgated which made open party work practically impossible.
However, the experience gained in hiding Bracegirdle now paid off. The cover organisation of the LSSP, of which Doric de Souza and Reggie Senanayake were in charge, had been active for some months. Detention orders had been issued on Leslie Goonewardene but he evaded arrest and went underground. The LSSP was involved in a strike wave which commenced in May 1941 affecting the workers of the Colombo Harbour, Granaries, Wellawatta Mills, Gas Company, Colombo Municipality and the Fort Mt-Lavinia bus route.
With Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
's entry into the war, and especially after the fall of Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
, Sri Lanka became a front-line British base against the Japanese. On 5 April 1942, The Japanese Navy
Imperial Japanese Navy
The Imperial Japanese Navy was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1869 until 1947, when it was dissolved following Japan's constitutional renunciation of the use of force as a means of settling international disputes...
bombed Colombo. Such was the degree of anti-British feeling that, although the Japanese aircraft were visible to everybody on the south-west coast, nobody informed the RAF
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
in Colombo, so complete surprise was achieved.
That evening, in the confusion following the attack, the LSSP leaders were able to escape, with the help of one of their guards. Several of them fled to India, where they participated in the struggle there, underscoring what had been established before the war, that India's and Sri Lanka's freedom struggles were interlinked. However, a sizeable contingent remained, led by Robert Gunawardena, Philip's brother. In 1942 and 1944 the LSSP gave leadership to several other strikes and in the process was able to capture the leadership of Government workers’ unions in Colombo.
Cocos Islands mutiny
The fall of Singapore and the subsequent sinking of the battleshipBattleship
A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of heavy caliber guns. Battleships were larger, better armed and armored than cruisers and destroyers. As the largest armed ships in a fleet, battleships were used to attain command of the sea and represented the apex of a...
Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser
Battlecruiser
Battlecruisers were large capital ships built in the first half of the 20th century. They were developed in the first decade of the century as the successor to the armoured cruiser, but their evolution was more closely linked to that of the dreadnought battleship...
Repulse
HMS Repulse (1916)
HMS Repulse was a Renown-class battlecruiser of the Royal Navy built during the First World War. She was originally laid down as an improved version of the s. Her construction was suspended on the outbreak of war on the grounds she would not be ready in a timely manner...
, punctured forever the myth of British invincibility. Whatever remained was ripped to tatters by the sinking of the aircraft carrier
Aircraft carrier
An aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a naval force to project air power worldwide without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations...
Hermes
HMS Hermes (95)
HMS Hermes was an aircraft carrier built for the Royal Navy. The ship was begun during World War I and finished after the war ended. She was the world's first ship to be designed and built as an aircraft carrier, although the Imperial Japanese Navy's was the first to be commissioned...
and the cruisers Cornwall
HMS Cornwall (56)
HMS Cornwall was a County class heavy cruiser of the Kent subclass built for the Royal Navy in the mid-1920s. She was built at Devonport Dockyard .-History:...
and Dorsetshire
HMS Dorsetshire (40)
HMS Dorsetshire was a heavy cruiser of the County class of the Royal Navy, named after the English county . She was launched on 29 January 1929 at Portsmouth Dockyard, UK. During the Second World War, she was last commanded by Captain Augustus Agar V.C....
off Sri Lanka in early April 1942; accompanied at the same time by the virtually unopposed bombing of the island and bombardment of Madras (Chennai). Such was the panic amongst the British in Sri Lanka that a large turtle which came ashore was reported by an Australian unit as a number of Japanese ambhibious vehicles. Anti-British sentiment increased accordingly and hopes ran high of liberation by the Japanese.
The Ceylon Garrison Artillery on Horsburgh Island in the Cocos Islands mutinied on the night of 8/9 May, intending to hand the islands over to the Japanese. The mutiny took place partly because of the agitation by the LSSP. The mutiny was suppressed and three of the mutineers were the only British Commonwealth troops to be executed for mutiny during the Second World War. http://www.awm.gov.au/journal/j34/cocosmutiny.htm Gratien Fernando
Gratien Fernando
Bombardier Gratien Fernando CGA was the leader of the Cocos Islands Mutiny, an agitator for the freedom of Sri Lanka from the British....
, the leader of the mutiny, was defiant to the end, confident of his place in the annals of history as a fighter for freedom.
No Sri Lankan combat regiment was deployed by the British in a combat situation after the Cocos Islands Mutiny. The defences of Sri Lanka were beefed up to three British army divisions
Division (military)
A division is a large military unit or formation usually consisting of between 10,000 and 20,000 soldiers. In most armies, a division is composed of several regiments or brigades, and in turn several divisions typically make up a corps...
because the island was strategically important, holding almost all the British Empire's resources of rubber. Rationing was instituted so that Sri Lankans were comparatively better fed than their Indian neighbours, in order to prevent disaffection among the natives.
Lanka Regiment and Hikari Kikan
Sri Lankans in SingaporeSingapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
and Malaysia formed the 'Lanka Regiment' of the Indian National Army
Indian National Army
The Indian National Army or Azad Hind Fauj was an armed force formed by Indian nationalists in 1942 in Southeast Asia during World War II. The aim of the army was to overthrow the British Raj in colonial India, with Japanese assistance...
, directly under Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. A plan was made to transport them to Sri Lanka by submarine, to begin the liberation struggle, but this was abortive.
The Hikari Kikan
Hikari Kikan
The Hikari Kikan was the Japanese liaison office responsible for Japanese relations with the Azad Hind Government that replaced the I Kikan. It was initially headed by Colonel Bin Yamamoto, later replaced by Major-General Saburo Isoda....
, the Japanese liaison office for South Asia, recruited Sri Lankans, Indians and other south Asians domiciled in Malaya and Singapore for spying missions against the Allies. Four of them were to be landed by submarine
Submarine
A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...
at Kirinda
Kirinda
Kirinda is a village in Sri Lanka. It is located within Central Province.-External links:*...
, on the south coast of Sri Lanka, to operate a secret radio transmitter to report on South East Asia Command
South East Asia Command
South East Asia Command was the body set up to be in overall charge of Allied operations in the South-East Asian Theatre during World War II.-Background:...
activities. However, they were dropped in error on the Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...
coast, where they were caught and executed. http://www.lankalibrary.com/geo/japan3.htm
Free Lanka Bill
Public disgust at British colonial rule continued to grow. Among the elite there was irritation at the colour-bar practised by the leading clubs. Sir Oliver Ernest GoonetillekeOliver Ernest Goonetilleke
Sir Oliver Goonetilleke , GCMG, KCVO, KBE was an important figure in the gradual independence of Ceylon from Britain, and became the third Governor-General of Ceylon...
, the Civil Defence Commissioner complained that the British commander of Ceylon, Admiral Sir Geoffrey Layton
Geoffrey Layton
Admiral Sir Geoffrey Layton GBE, KCB, KCMG, DSO , was a British Royal Navy officer.-Early life and career:...
called him a 'black bastard'; this was merely an expression of continuing white-supremacism. However, it was grist to the mill for an increasingly angry middle class that this was the attitude of their rulers who had been bested in Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore and Burma by Asians.
The CNC agreed to accept the Communists, who had been expelled by the Trotskyists in the Sama Samaja Party but who now supported the war effort. At its 25th annual conference, the CNC resolved to demand 'a complete freedom after war'. The leader of the house and Minister of Agriculture and Lands Don Stephen Senanayake
Don Stephen Senanayake
Don Stephen Senanayake was an independence activist who served as the first Prime Minister of Ceylon from 1947 to 1952.-Early life:...
left the CNC on the issue of independence, disagreeing with the revised aim of 'the achieving of freedom'.http://www.atimes.com/ind-pak/CJ13Df01.html.
In November 1944, Susanta de Fonseka, the State Council member for Panadura, moved a motion in the State Council calling for a dominion-type constitution for a Free Lanka. Subsequently, the "Free Lanka Bill" was introduced in the State Council, on 19 January 1945.
At annual session of the Ceylon National Congress was held on 27–28 January 1945 its president, George E. de Silva, said, "Today we stand pledged to strive for freedom. Nothing less than that can be accepted."
The Congress resolved, "Whereas the decision of the State Council 'to frame a Constitution of the Dominion type for a Free Lanka', falls short of the full national right for freedom, nevertheless, this Congress instructs its members in the State Council to support the Bill providing 'a new constitution for a Free Lanka' as an advance in our struggle for freedom..."
A second reading of the Free Lanka Bill was moved and passed without division on in February. The Bill brought up for a third reading, with amendment, on 22 March. G A Wille, a British nominated member, moved that ‘The Bill be read the third time six months hence’, which was defeated by 40 to 7.
Post-war unrest
With the conclusion of the war against Germany, public pressure for the release of the detenus increased. On 30 May 1945 A.P. Jayasuriya moved a resolution in the State Council that the detained independence agitators be released unconditionally. This was passed, opposed only by two British nominated members. However, the detenus were only released on 24 June , after a two-day hunger strike. The released prisoners were hailed as heroes and given receptions throughout the country. The Left had emerged stronger than before the war, having earned tremendous prestige.The repression during the war years had kept unrest under control but, with the relaxation of wartime restrictions, there was an eruption of popular anger. From September onwards, there was a wave of strikes in Colombo, on the tramways and in the harbour. In November the LSSP-led All Ceylon United Motor Workers' Union
All Ceylon United Motor Workers' Union
The All Ceylon United Motor Workers Union is a trade union which organises workers in the passenger bus sector in Sri Lanka. It is affiliated to the Ceylon Federation of Labour .-History:...
launched an island-wide bus strike, which was successful in spite of the arrest of N.M. Perera, Philip Gunawardena and other leaders.
The All-Ceylon Peasant Congress took action on the compulsory collection of rice by the government at 8 rupees per bushel
Bushel
A bushel is an imperial and U.S. customary unit of dry volume, equivalent in each of these systems to 4 pecks or 8 gallons. It is used for volumes of dry commodities , most often in agriculture...
. In some areas the farmers refused to give their rice to the Government and hundreds were charged in the courts. In 1946 the Congress organised a march on the State Council, which compelled the Ministers to drop the system of compulsory collection.
In October 1946 a strike of Government workers, including those in the railway, extended to the Harbour, the Gas Company, and became a General Strike
General strike
A general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region, or country. While a general strike can be for political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants...
. The authorities at first refused to negotiate, but finally the Acting Governor agreed to meet a deputation of the Government Workers’ Trade Union Federation. The adviser to the deputation, N.M. Perera was arrested by the police, but the workers refused to come to a settlement in his absence. In the end Perera was released and a settlement was reached.
However, some of the promises made by the Acting Governor were not honoured, and a second General Strike broke out in May–June 1947. The Ceylon Defence Force was recalled from leave in order to aid the police in crushing this upsurge. V. Kandasamy of the Government Clerical Service Union
GCSU Sri Lanka
The Government Clerical Service Union is a trade union of clerical workers who work in the public sector in Sri Lanka. This was formed in the 1920s when Sri Lanka was under British colonial rule...
was shot dead at Dematagoda
Dematagoda
Dematagoda is a suburb in Colombo, Sri Lanka represented by divisional code 9 . It is surrounded by Borella, Maradana and Kolonnawa. The Baseline Road passes through the Dematagoda.-Schools:* Anurudhdha Balika Maha Vidyalaya* Sevalee Vidyalaya...
, on the way to Kolonnawa
Kolonnawa
Kolonnawa is a town in Colombo District in the Western Province of Sri Lanka. The town has a clock tower.-References:...
after a strike meeting at Hyde Park, Colombo, when the police repeatedly fired on the crowd. The repression was successful in breaking the strike. However, the writing was on the wall for the British authorities: if they did not go soon, they would be forced out. The Bombay Mutiny and other signs of unrest in the armed forces of India had already caused the British to start their retreat from that country. Soon their position in Sri Lanka, too would be untenable.
General Election 1947
D.S. Senanayake formed the United National PartyUnited National Party
The United National Party, often referred to as the UNP ), , is a political party in Sri Lanka. It currently is the main opposition party in Sri Lanka and is headed by Ranil Wickremesinghe...
(UNP) in 1946 http://countrystudies.us/sri-lanka/68.htm, when a new constitution was agreed on. At the elections of 1947, the UNP won a minority of the seats in Parliament, but cobbled together a coalition with the Sinhala Maha Sabha
Sinhala Maha Sabha
The Sinhala Maha Sabha was a political party in Sri Lanka founded by Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike in 1934-35, in order to promote Sinhalese culture and community interests. Backing the United National Party from 1946, it left the UNP with Bandaranaike in 1951 to form the Sri Lanka...
of SWRD Banadaranaike
Solomon Bandaranaike
Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike (Sinhala:සොලමන් වෙස්ට් රිජ්වේ ඩයස් බන්ඩාරනායක)(Tamil:சாலமன் வெஸ்ட் ரிச்சர்ட் டயஸ் பண்டாரநாயக்கா)Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike (Sinhala:සොලමන් වෙස්ට් රිජ්වේ ඩයස් බන්ඩාරනායක)(Tamil:சாலமன் வெஸ்ட் ரிச்சர்ட் டயஸ்...
and the Tamil Congress of G.G. Ponnambalam. It was to this government that the British prepared to hand over power, while preserving as much of a whip hand as possible.
See also
- National Heroes of Sri LankaNational Heroes of Sri LankaNational Heroes of Sri Lanka are those who are considered to have played a major role in the Sri Lankan independence struggle from British Colonial rule...
- Sri Lankan independence activistSri Lankan independence activistSri Lankan independence activists are those who are considered to have played a major role in the Sri Lankan independence movement from British Colonial rule during the 20th century.-List of National Heroes:*Don Stephen Senanayake...
- Independence Commemoration Hall (Sri Lanka)Independence Commemoration Hall (Sri Lanka)Independence Memorial Hall is a national monument in Sri Lanka built for commemoration of the independence of Sri Lanka from the British rule with the establishment of Dominion of Ceylon on February 4, 1948. It is located at the Independence Square in the Cinnamon Gardens, Colombo...
- H. E. de R. WetherallHarry Edward de Robillard WetherallLieutenant General Sir Harry Edward de Robillard Wetherall KBE CB DSO MC was an officer in the British Army during World War I and World War II.-Military career:Wetherall was commissioned into the Gloucestershire Regiment in 1909....