The Road to Independence
Growing Nationalism
The dawning of the 20th century was an important time for the grass-
roots Sri Lankan nationalist movement. Towards the end of the 19th
century, Buddhist and Hindu campaigns were established with the dual
aim of making the faiths more contemporary in the wake of European
colonialism, and defending traditional Sri Lankan culture against the
impact of Christian missionaries. The logical progression was for these
groups to demand greater Sri Lankan participation in government, and
by 1910 they had secured the minor concession of allowing Sri Lankans
to elect one lonely member to the Legislative Council.
By 1919 the nationalist mission was formalised as the Ceylon National
Congress. The Sinhalese-nationalist activist Anagarika Dharmapala was
forced to leave the country, and the mantle for further change was taken
up by a variety of youth leagues, some Sinhalese and some Tamil. In
1927 Mahatma Gandhi visited Tamil youth activists in Jaffna, providing
further momentum to the cause.
Further reform came in 1924, when a revision to the constitution al-
lowed for representative government, and again in 1931, when a new
constitution finally included the island’s leaders in the parliamentary
decision-making process and granted universal suffrage. Under the con-
stitution no one ethnic community could dominate the political process,
and a series of checks and balances ensured all areas of the government
were overseen by a committee drawn from all ethnic groups. However,
both Sinhalese and Tamil political leaders failed to thoroughly support
the country’s pre-independence constitution, foreshadowing the prob-
lems that were to characterise the next eight decades.
From Ceylon to Sri Lanka
Following India’s independence in 1947, Ceylon (as Sri Lanka was then
called) became fully independent on 4 February 1948. Despite featur-
ing members from all of the island’s ethnic groups, the ruling United
National Party (UNP) really only represented the interests of an Eng-
lish-speaking elite. The UNP’s decision to try to deny the ‘Plantation
Tamils’ citizenship and repatriate them to India was indicative of a
rising tide of Sinhalese nationalism.
In 1956 this divide increased when the Sri Lankan Freedom Party
(SLFP) came to power with an agenda based on socialism, Sinhalese na-
tionalism and government support for Buddhism. One of the first tasks
of SLFP leader SWRD Bandaranaike was to fulfil a campaign promise
to make Sinhala the country’s sole official language. Under the British,
Sir James
Emerson
Tennent’s
affable nature
shines through
in his honest
and descriptive
writing about
19th-century
Sri Lanka, now
serialised at http://www.
lankaweb.com/
news/features/
ceylon.html.Not an easy read
but an impor-
tant one, When
Memory Dies, by
A Sivanandan,
is a tale of the
ethnic crisis and
its impact on one
family over three
generations.1832
Sweeping changes in
property laws open the
door to British settlers.
English becomes
the official language,
state monopolies are
abolished and capital
flows in, funding coffee
plantations.1843–59
u nable to persuade
the Sinhalese to labour
on plantations, the
British bring in almost
one million Tamil
labourers from South
India. Today ‘plantation
Tamils’ are 4% of the
population.1870s
The coffee industry
drives the development
of roads, ports and
railways, but leaf blight
decimates the coffee
industry and planta-
tions are converted to
growing tea or rubber.Late-19th
century
The Arwi language, a
combination of Tamil
and Arabic that evolved
among Sri Lankan
Moors, is at its peak,
with the publication
of several important
religious works.HistoryT
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