While in the early nineteenth century classifying colonial populations was sometimes nothing more than an academic exercise, the civilizing impulses of later liberal imperialism give it an added feature: natives would be included in the government of the colonies. This new entitlement led certain groups, very limited in numbers, from within the native people to construct political identities for themselves and voice demands from the state based on their new status. They claimed to represent the 'people' of th eir' community. Unfortunately history has left little trace of the way people perceived their 'representatives' and of other modes of representation that non-elite groups pursued during the early twentieth century.
Political representation was bestowed on persons the British acknowledged as leaders of their community. The census was the basis for determining 'race'-based representation in the colonial state and political representation was first distributed equally to selected 'racial’ groups, in 1833 a Legislative Council composed of British and natives (Ceylonese members) was established. In the selection of the natives the Governor had recourse to what he termed 'racial representation', nominating one Low-Country Sinhalese J.P. Panditaratne, one Burgher J.G. Hillebrandt and one Tamil A. Coomaraswamy. It is likely that this scheme of representation stemmed directly from an interpretation of Ceylonese society as plural and composed of fixed racial groups rather than from some Machiavellian plan to divide and thus rule more efficiently. 'At the time the present Council was established there was no doubt good grounds for the adoption of the racial system and the country was not advanced enough for representative government', said James Peiris, sharing the point of view of the colonial rulers.
During the seventy years that followed, the only change made in the constitution of the Council was the addition of two unofficial members to represent the Kandyan Sinhalese and Muslim communities. In 1889 the Council consisted of a Low Country Sinhalese, a Kandiyan Sinhalese, a Tamil, a Burgher, a Moor/Muslim and three Europeans.
At the beginning of the twentieth century when colonialism experienced its first cracks, with the various ethnic groups-Sinhalese, Tamils, Indians, Muslims and Burghers, Malays and Europeans---forming associations of a political nature, the British encouraged them to jockey for power.
British policies on representation can be described as haphazard and experimental, but in at least one instance this perception must be nuanced. More than any other governor, Sir William Manning was a spontaneous initiator of policy. He was appointed on 1 May 1918 at a time when constitutional progress in India had highlighted the efficacy of organized action. His predecessor, Governor McCallum (1907-13), had translated his deep mistrust of the English-educated elite into a scheme of indirect rule through consultative assemblies of native headmen. There is ample evidence that Manning knowingly participated in drawing new boundaries between groups while helping to forge minority political identities from the Kandyan Sinhalese and the Ceylon Tamils. His policy was directed at creating enduring divisions within the elite while organizing the estrangement of minorities from the Ceylon National Congress, the only elite political association that attempt to draw its membership from all communities. The Ceylon National Congress, formed in 1919, attracted a wide support in the initial stages, but owing to the political conservatism of its leadership had a limited impact in the decade that followed, it would also become ineffective because of divisions within the elite.
Why Governor Manning felt that crippling the Congress was worth so much effort remains obscure. He perhaps felt that the CNC would represent a danger if it acquired national status, and if it succeeded in convincing the Colonial Office that it spoke for all communities even though the political game was restricted to a chosen few. However, there was no real risk of the CNC obtaining a Gandhian type of following, owing to the dominance of the conservatives in its fold. A more radical organization called the Young Lanka League, formed in 1915, had affiliated to the CNC and assumed the role of a radical pressure group. In 1921, at its height, it could count only 124 members.
In the case of the Kandyans, Manning was in fact motivated, apart from a desire to use Kandyan dissent as a counterpoise to the reform movement dominated by Low-Country Sinhalese men, by true sympathy with the Kandyan high caste aristocracy (Radalas), who in his view crystallized the sense of collective grievance and political deprivation experienced by the Kandyan peasants. The grievances of the Kandyan peasants were in fact quite different from those of the Radalas; they suffered from indebtedness and had lost land to speculators during the rubber boom. Acquiring new land was difficult, while those who had land had to deal with the problem of the small size and fragmentation of their holdings. The evidence of J.C. Ratnayake, late chief clerk of the Badulla Kachcheri and owner of paddy lands, before a commission studying the feasibility of setting up agricultural banks is telling: he stated that the usual interest rate at which the cultivator borrowed seed paddy was 50 per cent. Buffaloes had to be hired, and for their maintenance during cultivation, cultivators usually borrowed paddy at the same rate. Between the peasants and the radalas there were ties of dependence and paternalism. Writing about her childhood in Ratnapura, Sirimavo Ratwatte expressed quite innocently her understanding of the relations that prevailed then between her family of Kandyan radalas and the common people.
We cared about the villagers just as they did about us. They were interested in our welfare as much as we were in theirs. It was the feeling we had for each other that was important. We were all *people of the place' to put it idiomatically and it made us kin.
This was still in the view of the elite a time when were one lived mattered more than what language one spoke or what religion one practiced. For the privileged Kandyans, Kandyans were clearly distinguishable from their Low Country counterparts by their manner of dress and deportment, their names, and the dialect of sinhala they spoke.
For social groups outside this circle, being Kandyan assumed other meanings. In the 1920s there were a number of sangamayaas, associations of Kandyans who belonged to the so called 'depressed classes' among the Kandyans. Among them were the Sri Lanka Sinhala Jathika Sangamaya, the Udarata Jathika Sangamaya that represented the Batgam Duraya community, and the larger Madhyama Lanka Majana Sangamaya that claimed to have a membership of 6,400 and to represent over 75 percent of the Kandyan community. The sangamayas articulated economic and social grievances based on a condemnation of the privileged Kandyans, ratemahatmayas and headmen who abused their powers to extract forced services from the people and discriminate against them in the administration of the area. Often depressed class members were excluded by headmen from posts in the administration even if equally qualified. When appearing before the Donoughmore Commission in 1927 the Sri Lanka Sinhala Jatika Sangamaya, representing non-Goyigama Kandyans, clearly demarcated its members from the privileged Kandyans who put forward a case for a federal state, by supporting the Congress, then largely a Low Country Sinhalese organization. Yielding to the demands of the Kandyan National Assembly was described tantamount to 'entrusting the lamb to the wolves'. While they had a general distrust of headmen and radalas they did not perceive all Low Country Sinhalese as interlopers or enemies, although conflicts often arose over the sale of land or money-lending.
The Kandyan region was regarded by, provincial agents and the British in general as the epitome of tradition, and they often displayed a patriarchal and protective attitude towards the Kandyans. The Kandyan Sinhalese were registered separately from the Low Country Sinhalese for the first time in the 1901 census, forming from then on the second largest community. Inhabitants of the interior of the island--the Central, Uva, Sabaragamuwa and North-Central Provinces--were included. In 1921 the Kandyans numbered 1,089,097, thus accounting for 24.2 per cent of the total population. Statistics show that they were less literate than the Low Country Sinhalese, and led lives based mainly on the village and ownership of land, largely untouched by the commercial developments that had followed the British exploitation of tea and rubber estates. The inroads made by British capital had, however, created the need for a subordinate entrepreneurship. Low Country Sinhalese had filled the void. In the nineteenth century the antagonism between government agents and these Low Country Sinhalese traders. laborers and arrack renters who had settled in the Kandyan province following the plantation boom was widespread. There were many who interpreted the history of the plantation era as a conflict between high caste Kandyans and Low Country interlopers, and sustained the impression that Kandyans differed fundamentally from Low Country Sinhalese. Governor Manning's vision of Ceylonese society was consistent with these ideas.
It is a paradox that in many parts of the British Empire, the very men who conquered lands in the name of modem civilization valued the 'native aristocracy' far more than the upwardly mobile Western-educated sections of the local population. Ranger has shown how Europeans in colonial Africa thought of customary practices with respect and valued age-old prescriptive fights. They did not fail to compare the sort of title an African chief held with the gentlemanliness they laid claim to themselves. In Palestine a basic element in the British perception of the Arab majority was that Palestinians were degenerate Levantines of mixed race and questionable character as opposed to the 'authentic' Arab of the desert Bedouin, a gentleman by birth. The Brahmin in India was considered the 'natural' leader of the Hindus as in Richard West-macott's 1830 statue of Warren Hastings shown accompanied by two Indians---one a tall, classically proportioned Brahmin with a shaven head and topknot, and the other a seated munshi or scribe, bearded and turbaned: the latter represented the Muslims and the former the Hindus. Thus the authentic Hindu was the Brahmin just as the authentic Sinhalese was the high caste Kandyan, guardian of the admirable qualities of tradition. British respect went to what was regarded as the 'real native not the hybrid, university trained mule'.
But just as in India, where the English-educated people declared themselves committed to the common good and to progress, insisting that they and not the 'traditional' aristocratic notables represented the larger public, so in Sri Lanka the westernized elite, mainly from the Low Country, tried to show they were more worthy of trust than the “feudal' Kandyan chieftain. This trust was to be painstakingly gained by the Ceylon National Congress which spearheaded the struggle for independence from the second decade of the twentieth century onwards. When Ceylon gained independence in 1948 it was clear that the British had been forced to trust the men whom they had despised a few decades earlier.
The evolution of the colonial rulers attitude towards the Kandyans offers a parallel to their attitude towards the nationalist movement dominated by Low-Country Sinhalese. As one lost ground the other gained. As independence became a possibility, colonial rule shifted its support to the modernizing forces in society. The turning point was the sittings of the Donoughmore Commission in 1927, where the federal scheme of the Kandyans was rejected.
Thus, when Kandyan leaders began to echo the voice of the provincial agents and appropriate their arguments to press more political power, Governor Manning lent them unconditional support. The crux of the discord between Kandyans and Low Country Sinhalese was the discrepancy, real or perceived, in the distribution both of de jure power resources-~that is, the power resources which accrued to each individual by virtue of his or her citizenship in the state, in particular the right and ability to petition the government and organize political action –and of de facto power resources such as education and wealth. The more articulate members of the Kandyan community translated this sense of deprivation into an appeal for remedial political action, Manning's task was easy. It consisted in canalizing Kandyan fears and discontent, and presenting their case in a supportive manner to the Colonial Office. These were the fears and grievances of the upper rungs of Kandyan society. The peasantry had little chance to forward its claims, which were surely not for education and wealth but for land, food or labor.
Different arguments have been put forward as to whether, with the growth of the plantation system, the subsistence village ecology was affected to the point that landless villagers were compelled to seek employment on estates. Colonial policy did in many cases result in landlessness. As early as 1869 the Assistant Agent at Kegalle spoke of 'a surplus population, a population which cannot derive subsistence from its labor'. Following the paddy tax, evictions had occurred in Badulla and Nuwera Eliya and the peasants who lost their paddy fields were nearest the subsistence level, In the Kegalle district village land was sold to estates and a landless class of laborers was in the making.
Kandyan leaders dearly did feel threatened by the Colombo reform leaders. The 'Ceylonese' nationalism that the latter articulated was perceived as the announcement of political domination by the Low Country Sinhalese and the extinction of Kandyan culture and tradition. J.N.O. Attygalle used harsh words against the 'Ceylonese Britishers' whom he denounced en bloc as 'nouveaux riches', professional politicians or adventurers, upstarts who were 'averse to be called by their racial names Sinhalese and Tamils which provoked inquiries from outsiders as to the places assigned to them socially by long usage and custom'. What Attygalle suggested was that the Sinhalese who preferred to assume a Ceylonese identity, rather than a Low Country Sinhalese identity, belonged to lower castes and did so in order to dilute ‘traditional’ Sinhala caste hierarchies. In the Kandyan view it was inconceivable that the CNC should arrogate to itself the right to speak for the whole country.
In 1920 there was considerable agitation for a substantial increase in the number of unofficial members in the Ceylon Legislative Council. Congress pressed for territorial election and in the abolition of communal representation and sent a reform deputation to meet Viscount Milner, the Secretary of State for the Colonies. The Kandyan ranks were divided. Dr T. B. Kobbekaduwa, a prominent Kandyan, addressed a message to his community just before his departure to England, in which he stressed the need for a relationship based on trust if there were to be ethnic harmony in Ceylon: 'Scorn the idea that a general electorate does threaten us with extermination or the domination of us by others'. Immediately prompted by Manning, a segment of the Kandyan elite sent a rival deputation composed of three lawyers of Radala status, J.A. Halangoda, G.E. Madawala and T.B. Moonemalle to London in June 1920. They pressed for the ratio of seats which the Kandyan Association formed in 1917--had deemed necessary to ensure their distinctiveness in a reformed Legislative Council, that is, five seats out of thirteen. Manning, on his side, urged the Colonial Office to recognize the Kandyans as a minority community that needed to be represented in the reformed Council by members elected on a franchise confined to Kandyans.
However, convincing the Colonial Office and the House of Commons that the Kandyans formed an oppressed minority that could only be protected by extending the communal principle to them presented some difficulty, In the Commons the Under-Secretary of State was a solitary voice in favor of communal representation. He was strongly attacked by Col. J.C. Wedgwood of the Labor Party who believed that ‘consolidation of communal representation under representative government was a method used to divide and rule'. Finally, unable to withstand Manning's unremitting pressure, Milner yielded to Kandyan demands. The Kandyans were allowed to elect their representatives through communal electorates and Manning gloated over the paucity of concessions made to the Congress delegation.
The 1920 reforms were based on the 'balance of power' theory advocated and practiced by Manning. Arunachalam, who had led the Congress delegation, had nursed hopes for something comparable to the Montagu-Chelmsford forms in India: he had strong reason to be disappointed. Representation had been arranged so that, in the words of the Secretary of Stat, 'every community shall be represented and while there is a substantial non official majority, no single community can impose its will on other communities if the latter are supported by official members.’ For the Kandyan community the reforms meant the addition of only one more representative. The victory, if largely symbolic, was of importance. From this point onwards the Kandyan political leadership had two options: siding with the Low Country Sinhalese or assuming a minority identity, since Manning had succeeded in making their stand as a minority acceptable to those in control.
The Ceylon Tamil and Kandyan cases presented some similarities; However the main difference was that the Ceylon Tamils' political leadership had until the beginning of the 1920s always insisted that they were a majority community on the same footing as the Low Country Sinhalese and the Kandyans. This 'majority complex' had been at the heart of all their political stands. In the early twentieth century, at a time when leading Tamils were members of the CNC, the Yalpana Thamilar Cankam (Jaffna Tamil Association) based in Jaffna was the main organisation (formed in 1905) voicing the social and political aspirations of the Tamils. Its President was a teacher James Hensman, and its membership included persons of all religions and castes, although many of its office bearers were Christian. Unlike other associations such as the Saiva Paripalana Sabhai or Hindhu Maha Sabhai--formed for religious, cultural and linguistic reasons, inspired by the Indian National Congress and the South Indian Dravidian Movement--the Jaffna Association was explicitly political in its aims and constantly agitated for Tamils to gain more political power. The first two decades of the twentieth century witnessed the growth o f organizations involved in social and economic issues such as the Aikkiya Nanaya Cankam (Cooperative Finance Society) or the Batticaloa Union formed in 1920, which fuelled the more official Jaffna association and nurtured a socially aware and active group of people in the region.
The rift between the Sinhalese and the Tamil leadership began after the elections to the reformed Legislative Council in early 1921, which returned thirteen Sinhalese to territorial constituencies as against three Tamils, From then onwards influential Tamils began to campaign for the restoration of the Tamil-Sinhalese ratio of representation that existed prior to the reforms. In 1921 the Tamil Mahajana Sabhai had been established, with the purpose of voicing the claims of the Tamils as a minority community. Most Ceylon Tamils, including Sir Ponnambalam Arunachalam, withdrew from Congress; while a mere handful of Colombo and Kandy based professionals remained. This was the beginning of a phase of collaboration with the imperial power. On 1 April 1922 a memorandum setting, out the views of the minorities on constitutional reform and drafting a scheme of constituencies and representation on an ethnic basis was sent to the Colonial Office. If this joint memorandum was mainly the work of Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan, Manning endorsed his views by describing it as a model memorandum, and paid a great tribute to him for having succeeded in bringing the minorities together. The Congress memorandum, which had been simultaneously presented to the Secretary of State, was accompanied by merciless criticisms on the part of Manning: 'The Congress,' he noted, ‘is undisguisedly out for Sinhalese domination over all communities and it may now be said to be almost purely a Sinhalese organization. It is unmistakably clear that the minority representatives do not admit that their interests are in no way different from those of the general electorate.
Viscount Milner and H. Cowell were perceptive enough to raise doubts about 'Tamil demands: ‘The demands of the Tamils in this joint memorandum are somewhat excessive... It would be a doubtful measure to agree to communal representation for the Tamils who are a numerous and progressive class.' However, when the 1923 reforms were announced, it was apparent that Manning's views had once again prevailed. They were in many ways a bequest from the governor to the Tamils: the Ceylon Tamils who formed no more than 11 percent of the population were given eight seats, whereas 16 seats were allotted to the Sinhalese who formed 67 per cent of the population. The provision for special representation of Kandyans was done away with and the Kandyans were included in the general territorial electorate. The scheme was typical of the system of checks and balances advocated by the Governor as the only means of safeguarding the rights of the minorities. The corollary to the 'divide and rule' principle was balance of power between groups.
However, Governor Manning's role in the construction of a Tamil political community must be read in the context of the changes that were taking place in the self-perception of the Tamil leadership of the period. When Ponnambalam Arunachalam reluctantly moved away from his ideals of Gladstonian liberalism to join his brother Ramanathan's camp it was a phase of national politics that came to an end. Only little is known of the way these political choices were reflected in the minds of the commonon people in Jaffna. After 1922 MahaJana Sabhais, Tamil speaking local organizations that were overwhelmingly Vellala organizations, each led by a minor civil servant, a village headman or a teacher, were started in many of the larger villages throughout the peninsula, such as Manipay; Chunnakam, Navaly, Mallakam, Uduvil, Vaddukodai and Point Pedro. There were also village committees whose jurisdiction covered essentially village affairs such as small works, schools, tanks,
roads and drainage. There were forty village committees in the Northern Province in 1927. In 1924 an All Ceylon Village Committees Association had been formed, but the Northern Province had its own Association, the North Ceylon Village Committee. This organization lobbied the colonial government about colonization schemes, provision of irrigation and causeways, credit for tobacco and paddy farmers, and solicited aid for village workers. The Committee's demands were closely related to the needs of the common people in the Northern Province, farmers and workers. Its politics developed alongside that of the elite Tamils whose demands for more representation were purely of a constitutional nature. The North Ceylon Workmen's Union that had been formed on behalf of the 50,000 persons involved in the toddy industry in the Northern Province made the point, a few years later, that the people they represented were not represented by the members of the Legislative Council.
Those who were privileged enough to exert a political choice through the vote---as in the 1924 elections to the Legislative Council when 4-5 per cent of the population were given the right to vote---were surely doing so within the constraints of the communal boundaries agreed upon by colonial rulers. The divisions created by colonialism did not change their 'being', but rather caused them to adopt a specific political position. But people did not always follow the rules: in 1924 only three Kandyans were elected for seven Kandyan seats to the Legislative Council Kandyans on this occasion preferred voting for Low Country Sinhalese members of the Ceylon National Congress rather than for their 'traditional leaders'.
The census must thus be conceived as an instrument more for establishing new categories for political pursuits and entitlements than for making them a social reality. While political representation was shaped through the construction of political communities, social representation was also 'designed' by colonial edicts and rules in the ceremonial sphere.
By Dr. Nira Wickramasinghe
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