Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0337/03373.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 18KB | 288 lines

$Unique_ID{COW03373}
$Pretitle{296}
$Title{Sri Lanka
Chapter 1C.   Rise of the Sri Lankan Middle Class}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Peter R. Blood}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{sri
british
lanka
war
government
lankan
new
party
constitution
political}
$Date{1990}
$Log{}
Country:     Sri Lanka
Book:        Sri Lanka, A Country Study
Author:      Peter R. Blood
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1990

Chapter 1C.   Rise of the Sri Lankan Middle Class

     By the nineteenth century, a new society was emerging--a product of East
and West. It was a society with strict rules separating the rulers from the
ruled, and most social association between the British and Sri Lankans was
taboo. The British community was largely a microcosm of English society with
all its class divisions. At the top of the social pyramid were the British
officials of the Ceylon Civil Service. Elaborate social conventions regulated
the conduct of the service's members and served to distinguish them as an
exclusive caste. This situation, however, changed slowly in the latter part of
the nineteenth century and quite rapidly in the next century.

     In Sri Lanka as in India, the British created an educated class to
provide administrative and professional services in the colony. By the late
nineteenth century, most members of this emerging class were associated
directly or indirectly with the government. Increased Sri Lankan participation
in government affairs demanded the creation of a legal profession; the need
for state health services required a corps of medical professionals; and the
spread of education provided an impetus to develop the teaching profession. In
addition, the expansion of commercial plantations created a legion of new
trades and occupations: landowners, planters, transport agents, contractors,
and businessmen. Certain Sinhalese caste groups, such as the fishermen
(Karava) and cinnamon peelers (Salagama), benefited from the emerging new
economic order, to the detriment of the traditional ruling cultivators
(Goyigama).

     The development of a capitalist economy forced the traditional elite--the
chiefs and headmen among the low-country Sinhalese and the Kandyan
aristocracy--to compete with new groups for the favors of the British. These
upwardly mobile, primarily urban, professionals formed a new class that
transcended divisions of race and caste. This class, particularly its
uppermost strata, was steeped in Western culture and ideology. This anglicized
elite generally had conservative political leanings, was loyal to the
government, and resembled the British so much in outlook and social customs
that its members were sometimes called brown sahibs. At the apex of this new
class was a handful of Sri Lankans who had been able to join the exclusive
ranks of the civil service in the nineteenth century. The first Sri Lankan
entered by competitive examination in 1840. At that time, entrance
examinations were held only in London and required an English education, so
only a few members of the native middle class could aspire to such an elitist
career. Consequently, in spite of the liberal policies that Colebrooke and
Cameron recommended, the British held virtually all high posts in the colonial
administration.

Buddhist Revivalism

     Beginning around the middle of the nineteenth century, the Buddhist
clergy attempted to reform the sangha (religious community), particularly as a
reaction against Christian missionary activities. In the 1870s, Buddhist
activists enlisted the help of an American, Colonel Henry Steele Olcott. An
ardent abolitionist in the years leading up to the American Civil War, Olcott
cofounded and later became president of the Theosophical Movement, which was
organized on a worldwide basis to promote goodwill and to champion the rights
of the underprivileged. Shortly after his arrival in Sri Lanka, Olcott
organized a Buddhist campaign against British officials and British
missionaries. His Buddhist Theosophical Society of Ceylon went on to establish
three institutions of higher learning: Ananda College, Mahinda College, and
Dharmaraja College. Olcott's society founded these and some 200 lower schools
to impart Buddhist education with a strong nationalist bias. Olcott and his
society took a special interest in the historical past of the Sinhalese
Buddhist kingdoms on the island and managed to persuade the British governor
to make Vesak, the chief Buddhist festival, a public holiday.

Constitutional Reform

     The rediscovery of old Buddhist texts rekindled a popular interest in Sri
Lanka's ancient civilization. The study of the past became an important aspect
of the new drive for education. Archaeologists began work at Anuradhapura and
at Polonnaruwa, and their finds contributed to the resurgent national pride.
In the 1880s, a Buddhist-inspired temperance movement was also initiated to
fight drunkenness, and the Ceylon Social Reform Society was founded in 1905 to
combat other temptations associated with Westernization. Encouraged by the
free reign of expression that the government extended to these reformists, a
growing number of communal and regional political associations began to press
for constitutional reform in the closing years of the nineteenth century. The
colonial government was petitioned for permission to have Sri Lankan
representation in the Executive Council and expanded regional representation
in the Legislative Council. In response, the colonial government permitted a
modest experiment in 1910, allowing a small electorate of Sri Lankans to send
one of their members to the Legislative Council. Other seats held by Sri
Lankans retained the old practice of communal representation.

World War I

     World War I had only a minimal military impact on Sri Lanka, which
entered the war as part of the British Empire. The closest fighting took place
in the Bay of Bengal, where an Australian warship sank a German cruiser. But
the war had an important influence on the growth of nationalism. The Allies'
wartime propaganda extolled the virtues of freedom and self-determination of
nations, and the message was heard and duly noted by Sri Lankan nationalists.
There was, however, an event, only indirectly related to the war, that served
as the immediate spark for the growth of nationalism. In 1915 communal rioting
broke out between the Sinhalese and Muslims on the west coast. The British
panicked, misconstruing the disturbances as part of an antigovernment
conspiracy; they blamed the majority ethnic group and indiscriminately
arrested many Sinhalese, including D.S. Senanayake--the future first prime
minister of Sri Lanka--who had actually tried to use his influence to curb the
riots. The British put down the unrest with excessive zeal and brutality,
which shocked British and Sri Lankan observers alike. Some sympathetic
accounts of the unrest take into consideration that the judgment of the
governor of the time, Sir Robert Chalmers (1913-16), may have been clouded by
the loss of his two sons on the Western Front in Europe. At any rate, his
actions insured that 1915 was a turning point in the nationalist movement.
From then on, activists mobilized for coordinated action against the British.

     The nationalist movement in India served as a model to nationalists in
Sri Lanka. In 1917 the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League mended
their differences and issued a joint declaration for the "progressive
realization" of responsible government in India. Nationalists in Sri Lanka
learned from their Indian counterparts that they had to become more national
and less partisan in their push for constitutional reform. In 1919 the major
Sinhalese and Tamil political organizations united to form the Ceylon National
Congress. One of the first actions of the congress was to submit a proposal
for a new constitution that would increase local control over the Executive
Council and the budget. These demands were not met, but they led to the
promulgation of a new constitution in 1920.