Language and National Identity: The Sinhalese and Others over the Centuries (original) (raw)

Abstract

The collective identity of Sinhala-speakers over four centuries dating from the 1590s is analyzed with due attention to the structural form of (a) the Kingdom of Kandy and (b) the British colonial regime that took control of the whole island by 1815/18. The analysis dwells on the modes of oral, visual-iconic and written forms of cultural transmission that pre-dated print technology, while drawing attention to the relative uniformity of the Sinhala language in both geographical and temporal scale. A semantic pattern of political alliances based on the opposition of inside to outside which works contextually like a nestling Chinese-box is one dimension of this linguistic order. This supported the tendency of Sinhalese representations to adopt an associational logic which merged past enemies (the wicked Tamils) with contemporary enemies (the Portuguese, the English) during the liberation struggles of the Kandyan state and its militia in the pre-1818 period. Such tendencies and the continuation of disparaging epithets coined during the period of Portuguese imperial intrusion into the vocabulary of the twentieth century must inform any theoretical efforts to distinguish the collective consciousness of the Sinhalese after the substantial transformations initiated under the British from that which is expressed so powerfully in the war poems of the pre-British period.

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References (94)

  1. Press, 1982), pp.18-34; and Lorna S. Dewaraja, The Kandyan Kingdom of Ceylon, 1707-1782, 2nd rev. edn (Colombo: Lake House Investments, 1988), pp. 55-57.
  2. Those identified as 'Kaffir' in the writings of the British and others were also described as 'Blacks', while the Sinhala term was Ka -beri or Kappiri.
  3. The lineage de Lanerolle is known to be descended from a French ambassador detained by the Kandyan court, while fragmentary references of Portuguese in the King of Kandy's service can be found in Donald Ferguson, The Earliest Dutch Visits to Ceylon (Delhi: Asian Educational Services, 1998 reprint). For scattered data on the Malays and Kaffirs fighting for the Kings of Kandy, see Tennakoon Vimalananda, Sri Wickrema, Brownrigg and Ehelepola (Colombo: Gunasena, 1984). Several of the English sailors who were captured with Robert Knox in the mid-seventeenth century took wives and became absorbed into the population.
  4. R.A.L.H. Gunawardana, 'The People of the Lion: Sinhala Identity and Ideology in History and Historiography', in J. Spencer (ed.), Sri Lanka. History and the Roots of Conflict (London: Routledge), p.64.
  5. The Pu -ja -valiya of year 1266 (Colombo: Buddhist Cultural Centre, 1997) puts a sharper anti- Tamil twist upon the Dutugämunu-Ela -ra story. For an explicit assault on the Saivites in textual form, see the relevant part of a palm-leaf document that was written down in 1762 (R.F. Young and G.S.B. Senanayaka, The Carpenter-heretic: A Collection of Buddhist Stories about Christianity from 18th Century Sri Lanka (Colombo: Karunaratne and Sons, 1999).
  6. See items in fn. 2 above as well as John C. Holt, Buddha in the Crown (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991) and S.J. Tambiah, Buddhism Betrayed? Religion, Politics and Violence in Sri Lanka (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), pp.139, 158-70.
  7. Paraphrase of personal communication from Sirima Kiribamune (email, 9 February 2001). Also see H.C. Ray (ed.) History of Ceylon Vol. I for the University of Ceylon (Colombo: Ceylon University Press), pp.394-95, 579-85; A. Kulasuriya, 'Sinhala Writing and the Transmission of Texts in Pre-modern Times', Sri Lanka Journal of the Humanities, Vol.16 (1990), pp.174-89; and C.H.B. Reynolds, An Anthology of Sinhalese Literature up to 1815, (London: Allen and Unwin, 1970).
  8. Personal communications from Sandagomi Coperahewa (1999) and K.B.A. Edmund (5 August 1998), supported by my notes on conversations with Ranjini Obeyesekere and J.B. Dissanayake in 1992.
  9. Points 6 to 9 are derived from conversations with K.B.A. Edmund, A TissaKumara, Sandadas and Sandagomi Coperahewa, Srinath Ganewatte, Sirima Kiribamune, D.P.M. Weerakkody, P.B. Meegaskumbura and K.N.O Dharmadasa. Also see C.E. Godakumbura, Sinhalese Literature (Colombo: 1955), pp.8, 155, 211, 243 and 327; and Ranjini Obeyesekere, 'A Survey of the Sinhala Literary Tradition', in Tissa Fernando and R.N. Kearney (eds), Modern Sri Lanka: A Society in Transition (Maxwell School, Syracuse University, 1979), pp.265-85.
  10. See Michael Roberts, Sinhala-ness and Sinhala Nationalism (Colombo: Marga Institute, A History of Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka: Recollection, Reinterpretation and Reconciliation, No.4, 2001), pp.5-7 for an elaboration of this argument.
  11. Piyadasa Sirisena, Maha Viyavula [The Great Chaos or Calamity] (Colombo: Gunasena, 1982, [orig., 1916]), p.118; Apata Vecca De -[What happened to Us!] (Colombo: Gunasena, 1954), pp.9ff and Sucarita -darsaya (Colombo: Gunasena, 1958), pp.126 and 130. Sirisena was a protégé of Dharmapala and was a journalist and editor of Sinhala newspapers at various points in time. He was also active in the temperance campaign of the 1910s and participated in the work of the Ceylon National Congress. He formed a Sinhala Party in the early 1930s.
  12. From the H.M. Somaratna edition (Kandy, 1968). This is verse 405 in the Paul E. Pieris edition of the same collection, which, however, is entitled 'Parangi Hatane -'. I provide Pieris's translation alongside one supplied by Ananda Wakkumbura.
  13. Henry Yule and A.C. Burnell (eds), Hobson-Jobson: A Glosssary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive (Delhi: Rupa, 1994 [orig. 1886]), pp.933-34 and R.G. Anthonisz, The Dutch in Ceylon, Vol I (Colombo: C.A.C. Press, 1929), p.87.
  14. Michael Roberts, Ismeth Raheen and Percy Colin-Thome, People Inbetween: Vol.1. The Burghers and the Middle Class in the Transformations within Sri Lanka, 1790s-1960s (Ratmalana: Sarvodaya, 1989), pp.17-18.
  15. Revd. Benjamin Clough, Clough's Sinhala English Dictionary, repr. 2nd new and enlarged edn. (Madras: Asian Educational Services, 1999, [orig. edn. 1892 and first edn. 1830]).
  16. G. Obeyesekere, 'Buddhism, Nationhood, and Cultural Identity: a Question of Fundamentals', in M.E. Marty and R.S. Appleby (eds), Fundamentalisms Comprehended (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), p.243; and Pra -yo -gika Sinhala Sabdha Ko -shaya [Practical Sinhala Dictionary] Vol.I (Colombo: Ministry of Cultural Affairs, 1982), pp.719-20 for ja -tiya, ja -tiya and related words.
  17. Pra -yo -gika Sinhala Sabdha Ko -shaya, Vol. II (Colombo: Ministry of Cultural Affairs, 1984), p.4829.
  18. B. Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1983), p.22. This formulation is reminiscent of Karl Deutsch's emphasis on 'the underlying population' (in effect the uneducated backward masses or those not subject to intensive communication) when Deutsch presented his theory of social mobilization in nationalist movements in Europe (Karl W. Deutsch, Nationalism and Social Communication: an Inquiry into the Foundations of Nationality (MA: MIT Press, 1966). For my previous criticisms of Deutsch and Anderson, see Michael Roberts, 'Meanderings in the Pathways of Collective Identity and Nationalism', in Michael Roberts (ed.), Collective Identities, Nationalisms and Protest in Modern Sri Lanka (Colombo: Marga Publications, 1979), pp.23-27 and Roberts, 'Beyond Anderson: Reconstructing and Deconstructing Sinhala Nationalist Discourse', Modern Asian Studies, Vol.30 (1996), pp.690-98.
  19. Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1880 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp.52, 93.
  20. Adrian Hastings, The Construction of Nationhood (London: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
  21. The Ka -beri are depicted as having 'hair like a burned white-ants hill, eyes like inflamed boils, mouths like the sore left by a boil that has burst, breath of horrible stench, and slobbering tongues' (Hugh Nevill, Sinhala verse (kavi), Vol. 2 (Colombo: Govt. Press, 1954), p.206.
  22. The Govigama were not only the highest caste in ritual status, but also may have made up about half the Sinhala-speaking population. The chiefs and headmen were mostly drawn from the Govigama and it became a state-regulated practice in the Kandyan Kingdom for ordination into the monkhood to be restricted to the Govigama.
  23. This argument is elaborated in Michael Roberts, Sinhala Consciousness in the Kandyan Period, 1590s-1818: The Sinhalese and Others (Colombo: Vijitha Yapa Associates, 2003, in press), chs. 3-5 on the foundations provided by a number of secondary works on the Kingdom of Kandy.
  24. S. Arasaratnam, 'Dutch Sovereignty in Ceylon: A Historical Survey of Its Problem', Ceylon Journal of Historical and Social Studies Vol.1 (1958), pp.117, 112; and T.B.H. Abeyasinghe, 'Princes and Merchants: Relations between the kings of Kandy and the Dutch East India Company in Sri Lanka, 1688-1740', Journal of the Sri Lanka National Archives, Vol.2 (1984), pp.40, 57.
  25. This point is developed in Roberts, Sinhala Consciousness, ch. 4.
  26. '[Ra -jasinha] to the Captain Major ... in Caliture (sic)', 15 January 1653, in Donald Ferguson, 'Raja Sinha II and the Dutch', Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Ceylon Branch, Vol XVIII (1904), p.214. Also see pp.195, 227. Note that these letters were in Portuguese and that the Western word for Lanka, namely, 'Ceilao', was used throughout.
  27. '[Ra -jasinha] to Commandeur of Negombo', 1 June 1646, in ibid., p.194, with emphasis mine. Also see Paul E. Pieris, Tri Sinhala: The Last Phase, 1796-1815 (Delhi: Navrang, 1995 reprint [orig. edn. 1939]), p.5.
  28. This phrase was used by a Sinhala headman in the 1830s (Roberts et al., People Inbetween, p.143), but is also expressed in rather similar vocabulary in Ähäle -pola to D'Oyly, 27 November 1811, enc. in Wilson to Liverpool, 26 February 1812 in Colonial Office 54/42, pp.47-51.
  29. Abeyasinghe (1984), p.40 and Paul E Pieris, Ceylon and the Hollanders, 1658-1796 (New Delhi: Navrang, 1995 reprint [orig. edn. 1918]), p.23.
  30. Pusvälla] to D'Oyly, 29 July 1812 in CO 54/44 as reprinted in Vimalananda (1984), p.78.
  31. Abeyasinghe, 1984, pp.39 and 40.
  32. T.B.H. Abeyasinghe, 'Embassies as Instruments of Diplomacy from Sri Lanka in the First Half of the 18th Century', Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Sri Lanka Branch n. s., Vol. 30 (1985/6), p.13; and Abeyasinghe (1984), p.49.
  33. Abeyasinghe,1984, p.49.
  34. Whether the Dutch comprehended this theory in full is uncertain, but it is the interpretation of the ruling classes in the Kingdom of Kandy and the headmen of the Low Country that counts. This thesis is more fully elaborated in Roberts, Sinhala Consciousness (2003), chs. 4-6. Critical material for this argument can be found in Abeyasinghe, 1984;
  35. Abeyasinghe,1985/6; and James S. Duncan, The City as Text: The Politics of Landscape Interpretation in the Kandyan Kingdom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
  36. Quotation from the Mädapitiya Sannasa in John C. Holt, The Religious Works of Kîrti Srî (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), p.35.
  37. Tambiah, Buddhism Betrayed?, 1992, pp.173-6.
  38. P. Dolapihilla, 1956 'Sinhalese Music and Minstrelsy', in Ralph Pieris (ed.), Traditional Sinhalese Culture: A Symposium (Peradeniya: Ceylon University Conference on Traditional Cultures, 1956), pp.41, 43.
  39. Ronald Inden, Imagining India (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), p.232.
  40. Paul E. Pieris, 'Parangi Hatane -' [War with the Portuguese] in his Ribeiro's History of Ceila -o (Colombo: Colombo Apothecaries Co., 1909), v.136 (that is, Rajasiha Hatana [Râjasinha's War] 1968, v.128). Also see T. S. Hemakumar (ed.), Parangi Hatana [War with the Portuguese] (Colombo: 1964), verses 12, 22 and 28; Sı -ta -vaka Hatana [The Sı -ta -vaka War], ed. by Rohini Paranavitana (Colombo: Ministry of Cultural Affairs, 1999), v.742. This striking metaphoric contrast goes back to the Buddhist literary traditions of the first millennium AD and is associated with the context of religious conflict in the Indian subcontinent where Buddhist advocates depicted Siva as a firefly in comparison with the Buddha and the light of his Dhamma (personal communication from P.B. Meegaskumbura).
  41. Or a number of synonyms: 'apa samindu' and 'apa maha nirapa -la.' See Rajasiha Hatana (1968), verses 109-10, 113, 125 and 208-9; Parangi Hatana, v.92; Albert de Silva (ed.), Kirimätiya -we -Mätidun's Maha Hatana [The Great War] (Sri Lank: Vidyasagara Printers, 1896), verses 98, 106, 140 and 15; and Ingrı -si Hatana [The War with the English] (Matugama: Viyasiri Press, 1951), verses 26, 94, 116, 119, 174, 213 and 236.
  42. P.B. Meegaskumbura, A. TissaKumara, Rohini Paranavitana, D.S. Mayadunne, D.P.M. Weerakkody, Ananda Wakkumbura and Srinath Ganewatte.
  43. 'Me lak puraya ek se -sat sevanak karamin' (Rajasiha Hatana, 1968, v.225).
  44. Albert de Silva (ed.), v.109. The composer of this poem was Kirimätiya -we -Mätidun.
  45. Verse 223 in Pieris, 'Parangi Hatane -' (1909), which is the same as verse 214 of Rajasiha Hatana. Also see Rajasiha Hatana (1968), verses 31, 220, 404, 416.
  46. For additional evidence, see G. Obeyesekere (1995) and the letters sent by the Kandyan court to the British governor, dated 27 November 1811 and 8 February 1812 (Michael Roberts, 'The Collective Consciousness of the Sinhalese during the Kandyan Era: Manichean Demonisation, Associational Logic', Asian Ethnicity, Vol.3 (2002), pp.42-3) where a word or phrase that is translated as 'sovereignty' has been used. The Sinhala versions of these letters, unfortunately, are not available.
  47. Adrian Hastings, clearly, would have no hesitation in extending the term to this context (if he was still alive). See Hastings, 1997.
  48. This was conventionally emphasized in the school textbooks of the mid-twentieth century, but has been rather underplayed in the modernist 'post-Orientalist' literature produced in recent times. For convenient summaries of these developments, see G.C. Mendis, Ceylon under the British (Colombo: Colombo Apothecaries' Co., 1944), pp.35-43; and Ananda Wickremeratne,'The Development of Transportation in Ceylon, c.1800-1947', in K.M. de Silva (ed.), History of Ceylon, Volume 3 (Colombo: Colombo Apothecaries Co. for the University of Ceylon Press Board, 1973), pp.303-16.
  49. In English expressions the term 'Muslim' did not come into use until about the 1930s. The description used was 'Mohammedan'. But this term was used interchangeably with 'Moor' (a term also used in the censuses under the category 'race' or 'nationality'). Thus, 'Mohammedan Moor' is my coinage to mark the difference between this group and the Malays who were also 'Mohammedan', but differentiated as Ja -in the Sinhala language whereas the Mohammedan Moors were known as 'Yon' (though they could also be called Marakkala, a term that could embrace the Ja -).
  50. On the derivation of lansi and other relevant details, see Roberts et al., (1989).
  51. For a brief elaboration, see M. Roberts, Sinhala-ness (2001) 9 and M. Roberts, 'For Humanity: For the Sinhalese. Dharmapala as Crusading Bosat', Journal of Asian Studies Vol.56 (1997), p.1011.
  52. Henry Candidus (pseud.) 'A Desultory Conversation between Two Young Aristocratic Ceylonese', in M. Roberts (ed.), Sri Lanka. Collective Identities Revisited, Vol II (Colombo: Marga Institute, 1998 [orig. in 1853]), pp.1-28 and Roberts et al., People Inbetween (1989), chs. 4, 5, 8 and 9.
  53. Roberts et al.,1989, ch. 7.
  54. The literature on this subject is large. See A. Wickremeratne, 'Religion, Nationalism and Social Change in Ceylon, 1865-1885', Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, GB and Ireland, Vol.56, (1969), pp.123-50; Kitsiri Malalgoda, 'The Buddhist-Christian Confrontation in Ceylon', Social Compass, Vol. 20 (1973), pp.171-200; John D. Rogers, Crime, Justice and Society in Ceylon (London: Curzon Press, 1987), pp.176-202; G. Obeyesekere, 'The Vicissitudes of the Sinhala-Buddhist Identity through Time and Change', in M. Roberts (ed.), Collective Identities, Nationalisms and Protest in Modern Sri Lanka (Colombo: Marga, 1979), pp.279-314;
  55. R.F. Young, and G.P.V. Somaratna, Vain Debates. The Buddhist- Christian Controversies of Nineteenth-century Ceylon (Vienna: Sammlung de Nobili Redaktion, 1996) and S. Amunugama, 'Anagarika Dharmapala (1864-1933) and the Transformation of Sinhala Buddhist Social Organization in a Colonial Setting', Social Science Information, Vol.24 (1985), pp.697-730 among a larger body of publications.
  56. M. Roberts, Exploring Confrontation: Sri Lanka: Politics, Culture and History (Reading: Harwood, 1994), p.158.
  57. See M. Roberts, 'Noise as Cultural Struggle: Tom-Tom Beating, the British and Communal Disturbances in Sri Lanka, 1880s-1930s,' in Veena Das (ed.), Mirrors of Violence (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp.240-85 and Roberts, 1994, ch.7 as well as Rogers, 1987, pp.176-202.
  58. Wickremeratne (1969);
  59. Roberts (1994), pp.199-201; Roberts, 'Teaching Lessons, Removing Evil: Strands of Moral Puritanism in Sinhala Nationalist Practice', South Asia special issue, Vol.19 (1996), pp.206-17. Though Wickremeratne's evidence dates from the 1880s and mine from the 1900s and 1910s in particular, fragmentary data in P.V.J. Jayasekera, 'Social and Political Change in Ceylon, 1900-1919' (University of London: unpub. Ph.D dissertation in History, 1970); as well as the series entitled Sinhala Puvat Pat Itiha -saya [History of Sinhala Newspapers], reveal traces of this current of thought from the 1860s. Also see Malalgoda (1973). Needless to say, the readings of tradition were usually selective. Indeed, they were quite bourgeois and western in some ways (Sarath Amunugama, 'Ideology and Class Interest in One of Piyadasa Sirisena's Novels: The New Image of the "Sinhala Buddhist" Nationalist', in M. Roberts (ed.), Sri Lanka. Collective Identities Revisited, Vol.I (Colombo: Marga Institute, 1997), pp.335-53 and G. Obeyesekere (1979), pp.279-314. The activists, however, did not see their choices in this light.
  60. M. Roberts, 'The Political Antecedents of the Revivalist Elite within the MEP Coalition of 1956', in C.R. de Silva and Sirima Kiribamune (eds), K.W. Goonewardena Felicitation Volume (Peradeniya University, 1989).
  61. Roberts,1997, pp.1108 -10.
  62. See M. Roberts, 'Stimulants and Ingredients in the Awakening of Latter-day Nationalisms', in M. Roberts (ed.) Collective Identities, Nationalisms and Protest in Modern Sri Lanka (Colombo: Marga Publications, 1979), pp.214-42; and Roberts, Élites, Nationalisms, and the Nationalist Movement in British Ceylon, as one part of M. Roberts (ed.), Documents of the Ceylon National Congress and Nationalist Politics in Ceylon, 1929-1940, Vol. I (Colombo: Department of National Archives, 1977), pp.cxiii-clxvi. Also see K.M. de Silva, A History of Sri Lanka (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1981) chs.27-33 for a summary review of the constitutional reform movement.
  63. Roberts, 1997, p.1009, especially references in note 6. 'Kocci' refers to Malaya -lam-speakers from the Kerala coast where Cochin was the largest port. 'Hamba' was (and is) a pejorative describing the Mohammedan Moor migrants from India. It could be extended to encompass all Mohammedans (Muslims).
  64. Roberts et al., 1989, ch.1.
  65. See the 'CCP's Resolutions and Memoranda and the CNC, October-November 1944', being Item 124 in M. Roberts (ed.), Documents of the Ceylon National Congress and Nationalist Politics in Ceylon, 1929-1950, Vol.III (Colombo: Dept of National Archives, 1977), pp.2574-91.
  66. The Second World War actually prevented a further step in the reduction of British control in 1939-40. Again, because they wanted to settle the problem of India first, in 1945/6 the British authorities in Whitehall were not ready to accede to D.S. Senanayake's request to go beyond the Soulbury Report. For details on the 'transfer of power', see K.M. de Silva (1981) chs.31-32.
  67. See V.K. Jayawardena, 'The Origins of the Left Movement in Sri Lanka', Modern Ceylon Studies, Vol.2 (1971), pp.195-221; Roberts, 1977, pp.cxxxvii-cxliv; G.J. Lerski, The Origins of Trotskyism in Ceylon (Stanford: Hoover Institution Publications, 1968);
  68. Leslie Goonewardene, A Short History of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (Colombo: LSSP, 1960);
  69. and Y.R. Amarasinghe, Revolutionary Idealism and Parliamentary Politics: A Study of Trotskyism in Sri Lanka (Colombo: Social Scientists' Association, 2000).
  70. See Devanesan Nesiah, Tamil Nationalism (Colombo: Marga Institute, A History of Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka: Recollection, Reinterpretation and Reconciliation, 2001), Pamphlet No. 6; Jane Russell, Communal Politics under the Donoughmore Constitution, 1931-1947 (Dehiwala: Tisara Prakasakayo, 1982); and K.M. de Silva, 1981, pp.427-9 for some aspects.
  71. This has not been satisfactorily filled by the material in A.J. Wilson, Sri Lankan Tamil Nationalism: Its Origins and Development in the 19th and 20th Centuries (London: Hurst, 2000). For a review, see Roberts, 'Narrating Tamil Nationalisms: Subjectivities and Issues', accepted for publication by South Asia, n.d.).
  72. M. Roberts, 'Hobgoblins, Low-Country Sinhalese Plotters or Local Elite Chauvinists? Directions and Patterns in the 1915 Communal Riots', Sri Lanka Journal of the Social Sciences, Vol.4 (1981), pp.83-126 and Roberts, 1994, chs. 7 and 8; V.K. Jayawardena, 'Economic and Political Factors in the 1915 Riots', Journal of Asian Studies Vol.39 (1970), pp.223-33; Rogers (1987), pp.189-202 and Rogers, 'Cultural Nationalism and Social Reform: The 1904 Temperance Movement in Sri Lanka', Indian Economic and Social History Review Vol.26 (1989), pp.319-41 and A.P. Kannangara, 'The Riots of 1915 in Sri Lanka: a Study of the Roots of Communal Violence', Past and Present, No.102, pp.130-65.
  73. See Roberts, 1977; and Roberts, 'Political Antecedents', 1989, pp.185-220 for some material. I have also been informed by my interviews conducted with politicians and civil servants of that era during an extensive oral history project in the late 1960s.
  74. Roberts, 1977, pp.clxii-vi.
  75. See W.H. Wriggins, Ceylon. Dilemmas of a New Nation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960);
  76. Mervyn de Silva, '1956: the Cultural Revolution that shook the Left', Ceylon Observer, Magazine Edition, 16 May 1967; R.N. Kearney, Communalism and language in the politics of Ceylon (Durham: Duke University Press, 1967);
  77. and James Manor, The Expedient Utopian: Bandaranaike and Ceylon (Cambridge University Press, 1989). For a summary view, see K.M. de Silva, History, 1981, pp.36-7 and A.J. Wilson, 'Politics and Political Development since 1948', in K.M. de Silva (ed.) Sri Lanka: A Survey (London: C Hurst, 1977), p.286.
  78. In Philip Gunawardena's usage it also embraced his former colleague in the LSSP, Doric de Souza, who was of Goan ancestry and was thus quintessentially tuppahi. He had an intense dislike for de Souza for reasons that Marxists of his generation find inexplicable.
  79. SLFP = Sri Lanka Freedom Party; MEP = Mahajana Eksat Peramuna.
  80. S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike (ed.), The Hand-book of the Ceylon National Congress, 1919-1928
  81. I would broadly distinguish four variants in chronological terms: c.1965-71, late- 1970s-mid-1980s, 1987-1990 and the mid-1990s onwards.
  82. M. Roberts, 1996), pp.217-20. Note Kumari Jayawardena's verdict on the JVP movement of 1971: they 'had a fairly strong element of Sinhala chauvinism' (Ethnic and Class Conflicts in Sri Lanka, Colombo: Centre for Social Analysis, 1986, p.115). There is a large secondary literature on the JVP embracing the work of Obeyesekere, Jiggins, Phadnis, Goonetilelke, Jupp, Keerawella, Moore, Gunaratne, Chandraprema, Peiris, Jani de Silva, and Tisaranee Gunasekera among others. I have not been able to study these writings thoroughly in depth, so my comments are distinctly preliminary and based partly on conversations with friends and personal knowledge of their activities in 1970/71 and the late 1980s.The picture of the JVP as 'chauvinist' has since been endorsed by Ananda Wakkumbura on the basis of his personal engagements with the JVP in the late 1960s and 1970s from a hostile position based on an offshoot of the Trotskyist Marxist traditions in Sri Lanka (email memo, July 2002). Wakkumbura referred me to a booklet by Keerthi Balasuriya entitled Janata -Vimukti Peramune -panti swabha -vaya saha de -shapa -lanaya [The Class Nature and Politics of the JVP] published by the Revolutionary Communist League (Colombo, 1970, with 2nd edn in 1989). Remarkably, with considerable prescience, this analysis not only depicted the JVP of that stage as a 'party of the Sinhala petty bourgeoisie', but also (a) predicted that they would indulge in an uprising and (b) argued that 'their Sinhala chauvinism contain[ed] the potential to evolve into [a] fascist party: which in fact it did in its third phase' (Wakkumbura's words).
  83. This argument is more fully developed in Roberts, 1978; and Roberts, 2001.
  84. A. Guruge (ed.), Anagarika Dharmapala, Return to Righteousness (Colombo: Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs, 1965), pp 501-18, quotations from pp. 501, 511 and 516. The editor notes that this article was printed in Calcutta in 1922, but I have a feeling that this essay was presented sometime earlier in the 1900s, possibly as a lecture.
  85. Gunadasa Amarasekera, 'The Turn of the Screw and Indian Intentions', Island, 28 June 2000 and 'The Rape of Nationhood', Island, 19 July 2000.
  86. I am informed here by the old work by Hans Kohn, The Hapsburg Empire (New Jersey: Van Nostrand and Co, 1961), p.27.
  87. One illustration comes from Lanka: General Hay Macdowall, a Scot, switched from 'English' to 'British' without thought when writing to the Governor as he sat in 1803 at Kandy as occupying commander during the 'war with the English' or Ingrı -si Hatana as the Sinhalese called it (T. Vimalananda, The British Intrigue in the Kingdom of Ceylon, Colombo: Gunasena, 1973, p.222).
  88. Images of these ruins provided by painters, especially Andrew Nicholls, and captured through the emerging art form of photography captivated the élite classes of Europe and British Ceylon (conversations with Ismeth Raheem). Also see Ismeth Raheem and Percy Colin-Thome, Images of British Ceylon (Singapore: Times Editions, 2000). Note, too, the writings and adventures of Samuel Baker and the despatches to the Governor of Ceylon sent by Lord Carnarvon in his capacity as Secretary of State for the Colonies in the mid-1860s.
  89. See Roberts, 2001; and Michael Roberts, 'Primordialist Strands in Contemporary Sinhala Nationalism in Sri Lanka: Urumaya as Ur' (Colombo: Marga Institute, A History of Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka: Recollection, Reinterpretation and Reconciliation, 2002), as well as the information on Walpola Rahula Thera in H.L. Seneviratne, The Work of Kings (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999). Also see the articles on S.L. Gunasekera and the Sihala Urumaya in the Sunday Island, 17 September 2000 and Island, 7 October 2000; those by the novelist, Gunadasa Amarasekera, in the Island, 28 June 2000 and the Island, 19 July 2000; the series by V.K. Wickramasinghe in the Island, 28 April 2000 et seq.; and the 'Open Letter' published by 'Twenty Six Professionals' in 1995 (Sunday Island, 18 June 1995). Among the articulate voices/activists presenting a hardline position during the last decade, the following are examples of those who can be placed in these generations: Nalin de Silva, Gamini Iriyagolle, Kamalika Pieris, Gamini Jayasuriya, S.W. Walpita, the late Chula de Silva, Susantha Goonetilleke, A.V. de S. Indraratne, H.N.S. Karunatilleke, B. Hewavitarne and Justice R.S. Wanasundera.
  90. My grasp of the meaning attached to lakväsiyo is based on opinions conveyed independently by the late Charles Abeyesekera and K.B.A. Edmund.
  91. The term dana (or danan) is used in both the Sı -ta -vaka Hatana (verses 38, 339 and 547, for example) and the Labugama Lankananda Thera (ed.), the Manda -rampura Puvata, 2nd edn. (Colombo: Dept of Cultural Affairs, 1996), verses 75, 87, 90, 92 and 180).
  92. Sı -ta -vaka Hatana, verses 48, 103 and 507. In verse 507, significantly, the reference is to Sinhala sen. References to Sinhala senaga occur in verses 478 and 1108 for instance. While senaga usually signifies 'troops', in some contexts within the war poems it refers to 'people' (information from Srinath Ganewatte). Since the troops in the Kandyan period were a peoples' militia, the overlap is understandable.
  93. This phrase appears in the Vaduga Hatana or Ähäle -pola Varnana -va coined in 1816/17 (K.N.O. Dharmadasa, 'The People of the Lion': Ethnic Identity, Ideology and Historical Revisionism in Contemporary Sri Lanka', Ethnic Studies Report Vol.10 (1992), p.47).
  94. This phrase is used in a letter dated 18 September 1810 from D'Oyly to Pilima Talauvve at the Kandyan court (Historical Manuscripts Commission, Ceylon, Bulletin No.2, 1937, p.14). Siddharta Thera renders it as 'Sinhala people'.