Senaka Weeraratna
In the 1520s Machiavelli wrote: “When it is absolutely a question of the safety of one’s country, there must be no consideration of just or unjust, of merciful or cruel, of praiseworthy or disgraceful; instead, setting aside every scruple, one must follow to the utmost any plan that will save her life and keep her liberty.”
Under British colonial rule, the governed in various parts of the world were subjected to a wide range of deprivations and extreme hardships, which in today’s context would tantamount to gross violation of Human Rights such as crimes against humanity, genocide, mass murder, mass famines, torture, rape and abuse of women, forcible religious conversion, transatlantic slave trade, confinement in concentration camps for long periods and brutal suppression of freedom struggles. Sri Lanka was no exception.
Evidence reveals even the use of germ warfare as part of colonial combat operations. When colonial rulers found themselves in desperate situations confronted with freedom struggles of the colonized, the usual “civilized” rules of warfare often were thrown out of the window. The British Colonial Governments had resorted to deliberately spreading smallpox among unsuspecting populations e.g. offering blankets infected with small pox to the Indians besieging Fort Pitt in Ohio, USA (1763), spreading small pox among Australian Aborgines in Sydney (1789), and poisoning Indians having invited them to a party in Virginia (1623).
In 1930, the American historian and philosopher Will Durant wrote that Britain’s ‘conscious and deliberate bleeding of India… [was the] greatest crime in all history’. He was not the only one to denounce the rapacity and cruelty of British rule, and his assessment was not exaggerated. Almost thirty-five million Indians died because of acts of commission and omission by the British-in famines, epidemics, communal riots and wholesale slaughter like the reprisal killings after the 1857 War of Independence and the Amritsar massacre of 1919. Besides the deaths of Indians, British rule impoverished India in a manner that beggars belief. When the East India Company took control of the country, in the chaos that ensued after the collapse of the Mughal empire, India’s share of world GDP was 23 percent. When the British left it was just above 3 per cent.
Shashi Tharoor says in ‘The Era of Darkness – the British Empire in India’ (2016) ‘The reality is that we were one of the richest countries in the world when the British came in but when they left us, we were one of the poorest.”
Given the thinking of the western colonial mind in administering colonies worldwide and employing the stratagem of ‘Hit first, hit hard, and hit everywhere’ during that point in time, in retrospect therefore the strategies of wholesale destruction used to quell popular uprisings in British occupied Ceylon is not all that surprising.
There is a huge void in the information flow today among the current generation in respect to colonial crimes in British occupied Ceylon (1796 – 1948). This paper attempts to fill at least a part of that void.
It will examine the deployment of genocidal warfare including a scorched earth policy and mass murder of innocent civilians during the freedom struggles of 1818 and 1848. It will adduce evidence recorded in official inquiries of use of Lidice type operations’ in crushing the Matale rebellion (1848). These were the first two major wars for independence from British colonial domination. In addition this paper will examine whether the colonial rulers were engaged in a deliberate policy of retardation of development of the Kandyan Provinces especially in Uva, where there was great loss of life following the total destruction of irrigation works and the decimation of cattle that combined to impoverish the people and depopulate the area.
British injustice was felt mostly in the enactment of waste land laws. Kandyan peasants were made landless. They were reduced to a landless state by the takeover of their lands for the plantation industry (initially coffee, then tea) under a series of waste land laws commencing with the Crown Lands (Encroachments) Ordinance, No. 12 of 1840.
Kandyan chena which traditionally had no documentary proof of ownership was taken over for plantation agriculture. This is demonstrated by the names of estates with older names ending with hena or chena crop names. This affected the food security of the people. Evidence of starvation sometimes resulting in death is revealed in the writings of authors such as Le Merseur. The British systematically transferred the wealth of the Kandyan region into their own coffers.
An accountability process for these colonial crimes is warranted through an apology, catharsis and adequate reparations. An Apology must be particularly directed to the descendants of the Sinhala Buddhist Kandyans who were singled out victims of colonial brutalities. These are the descendants of a highly oppressed group of people who were also deprived of their inheritance by the colonial rulers planting thousands of indentured Indian labour in their lands without their consent. 19th century British official documents reveal how the freedom struggles against British colonial rule were suppressed in a most brutal, genocidal manner in one of the darkest pages of European colonial history.
Introduction
“Colonialism is not a thinking machine nor a body endowed with reasoning faculties. It is violence in its natural state. It will only yield when confronted with greater violence”
(Frantz Fanon: The Wretched of the Earth (1961) p 48
Footnote: In this ground breaking book Fanon provides a psychiatric and psychologic analysis of the dehumanizing effects of colonization upon the individual and the nation, and examines the broader social, cultural, and political implications of creating a social movement for the decolonization of both the individual and the people).
There were two major wars for independence from British colonial domination. The first uprising took place in 1818 in Uva – Wellassa and the second uprising took place in Matale (1848). Both insurrections were brutally crushed. Millewa Adikarange Durand Appuhamy ( Rebels, Outlaws and Enemies to the British (Colombo: Gunasena, 1990), comments as follows in respect to the crushing of the Kandyan Sinhala uprising in 1818 :
This brute force was employed in Kandy to reduce the inhabitants to savages and to dehumanize them. Everything was done to wipe out their traditions, customs, culture and religion. Mind you, the Kandyans were promised that this would not happen, and that their customs and traditions would be maintained (cl. 4, 8 of the Convention). However, Kandyan villages and farms were burnt down. Their paddy-fields were scorched. Their cattle slaughtered and their fruit bearing trees were simply chopped down. Starved and ill, they were finished off with the gun as if they were stray dogs in a stranger’s land. British civilians then flocked in to take over their lands, clear the virgin forests, and convert them to cash crops for the benefit solely of the settlers and their financiers in Britain. To the Kandyans, the most concrete and the foremost in value was land. This land not only gave them their daily bread but also their dignity. It was to preserve this land that they fought off successfully three western imperial nations, Britain included. Now having ceded their country to trickery, they remained helpless against the planters who insolently trampled over their lands and their rights to their lands”.
The crushing of the uprising in Matale in 1848 is described in a nutshell in a remarkable critical article ‘English in Ceylon’ published in USA in 1851 (The United States Magazine and Democratic Review. Print: Vol. XXVIII, No. CLV, – 1851 May). It is as follows:
The history of Lord Torrington’s administration in Ceylon affords an epitome of English rule, wherever throughout the world, by force, or fraud, or violence, she has succeeded in planting her guilty flag. The horrors perpetrated during 1848 in the island-gem of the East, are the counterpart of those of which, from time to time, during a period of seven centuries, the green isle of the West has been the victim”.
This Conference is a timely reminder of these colonial misdeeds on the occasion of the 200th death anniversary of one of Sri Lanka’s greatest patriots Veera Keppetipola, who was unlawfully executed on November 26, 1818 by the colonial rulers for leading one of the last stands of the Kandyan Sinhalese against foreign occupation of this land. The dead cannot be brought to life. But their legacy can be remembered and honoured. This Conference provides a wonderful opportunity to express our gratitude to those who have laid down their lives for the cause of freedom from the tyranny of colonial rule, and also call for accountability for colonial crimes committed during the freedom struggles of our forbears.
British Colonial Policies
British rule over the entirety of the country began in 1815 when the Kingdom of Kandy fell into their hands through a process of diabolical planning and character assassination that led to the overthrow of the last ruler of the Kandyan Kingdom, King Sri Vikrama Rajasinha. The deposing of the King ended over 2300 years of Sinhalese monarchy rule on the island. The British occupation of the island lasted until 1948 when the country achieved National Independence.
It cannot be excluded from postulating that British rule in Ceylon was also influenced by developments in neighbouring India. The British Raj employed two military strategies in India to increase its hold on the country, namely, Policy of Ring Fence (1765-1813) and Policy of Subsidiary Alliance.
The policy of Ring Fence was a form of defense of neighbouring frontiers with a view to safeguarding one’s own territory at the expense of the neighbouring state. It was reflected in Governor Warren Hastings’ wars against the Marathas and Mysore, and it was aimed at creating buffer zones to defend the British East India Company’s frontiers. The main danger was from the Marathas and Afghans (the Company undertook to organise Avvadh’s defence to safeguard Bengal’s security).
British Governor – General Wellesley’s policy of Subsidiary Alliance was an extension of Ring Fence—which sought to reduce Indian Princely states to a position of dependence on British Government in India. Major powers such as Hyderabad, Awadh and the Marathas accepted subsidiary alliance. Thus, British supremacy was established.
Fredrick North, the first British Governor of Ceylon (1798 – 1805), tried to emulate Governor – General Wellesley’s policy of Subsidiary Alliance in India, and asked Adigar Pilimatalavve to urge King Sri Vikrama Rajasinha to agree to have a British Regiment to be placed in Kandy on the basis of a Treaty where the Kandyan Kingdom would become subordinate to the British colonial administration. King Sri Vikrama Rajasinha rejected that proposal. He was in no mood to be dependent on the British as he saw no advantage for himself in such a relationship.
All three western colonial powers namely the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British that governed Sri Lanka in varying degrees during the period 1505 – 1948, had as the cornerstone of their imperial policy the conversion of the Sinhala Buddhists and the Tamil Hindus into Christianity. This enterprise had the blessings of the highest strata of people of the imperial countries including the Crown, the State and the Church. The avowed political objective in converting the colonized was to transfer their allegiance from the local sovereign to the foreign sovereign, and alienate the converted from identification with their traditional religion, culture, language and sense of self-determination. This diabolical plan invariably required the use of manipulative methods of conversion e.g. force, fraud and allurement, and the repression of indigenous religions i.e. Buddhism and Hinduism, by both overt and covert means.
In fact, Governor Robert Browning in a letter dated Nov. 5, 1816 to Earl Bathurst (Secretary of State) says that it was his intention to establish a Seminary in Kandy, and adds that as a first step towards spreading Christianity in Kandy I have reason to believe that this Nilame (Ekniliagodde Nilame) would have no objection to have his son and nephew brought up in the Christian religion, but I dare not in this early stage of our Government, venture the éclat which such an event would infallibly produce”.
An English Writer Gary Brecher, author of the book War Nerd” has written a long article on British crimes in Sri Lanka to a web site called Exiled on Line” under the title When Pigs Fly-and Scold: Brits Lecturing Sri Lanka”.
He accuses the British establishment of destroying the Sinhalese people completely. Completely and deliberately, sadistically. Stole their land, humiliated and massacred their government, made it Imperial policy to erase every shred of self-respect the Sinhalese had left. He says You can talk about the Nazis all day long, but nothing they did was as gross as what you find out when you actually look into the history of British-Sinhalese relations. If you can even call them relations”; I guess a murder-rape is a relation, sort of ” .
Making a comparison between Nazi and British atrocities he says that the British were great masters at grabbing some paradise island in the tropics, then using the British Royal Navy to wall it off separating the island from the rest of the world, and crushing the local tribe without any qualms of conscience. If the locals put up a resistance, the Brits would take measures to starve them to death, shoot them down, infect them with smallpox or get them addicted to opium (as in China) –whatever they had to do to gang-rape the locals so bad that they the victims would thereby lose the will to resist.
Brecher points out that the Nazis governed for only one decade but the Brits were able to quietly carry out their extermination programs for three hundred years, and to this day they have no remorse nor have any guilty feeling about it.
He further says that by all accounts, the Sinhala / Kandyans were harmless people, who didn’t need or want much from the outside world. All they asked was for people to leave them alone up on their big rocky highlands to indulge in their Buddhist way of life. Unfortunately that wasn’t British policy. It irked the red coats that Kandy still had a king, an army, all this impudent baggage that went with independence. The British decided to break the Sinhalese completely and crush the whole society” .
By this time, i.e. the early 1800s, the Brits had perfected their techniques in little experiments all over the world. Those Clockwork Orange shrinks were amateurs compared to the Imperial Civil Service. The British Empire knew dozens of ways of undermining and suppressing native kingdoms.
Brecher writing further says that destroying Buddhism was a big part of Brit policy. The Buddhist routine, the temples, begging monks, long boring prayers–it was the glue that kept Kandy together. So the Brits decided to destroy it. They even said so, in private memos to each other. They weren’t shy in those days. Here’s the Brit governor in 1807: Reliance on Buddhism must be destroyed. Make sure all [village] chiefs are Christian.”
The British developed ingenious ways of grabbing other people’s lands under various pretexts. For example, the British began invading Australia in 1788, on the footing that it was terra nullis: a land with no owners.
European powers like Spain and Portugal depended on bloody conquest and massacres in colonial expansion, especially in South America. Britain was not far behind, given what the British did to Australian Aborgines in Tasmania and mainland Australia. The British were the masters of the game of ‘ Divide and Rule’. The ethnic and religious tensions in Sri Lanka are very much a legacy of colonial rule. If the target country had many ethnic groups or tribes like in India, North America, Fiji, Malaysia, or Sri Lanka, the British first looked for any potential allies that have distinctive differences from other groups, particularly the majority. Then the British undermine the authority of the majority by promoting unfairly selected members of a minority community with a view to creating tension and conflict between various groups. The appointment of Haji Marikar (Muslim) as the Muhandiram to be in charge of roadways in Wellassa is a case in point. This appointment was resented by the Sinhalese as it undermined the authority of Dissawa Mellewa. This was the spark that led to the 1818 uprising.
British intrigue in Kandy under the directions of successive Governors, namely, North, Maitland and Brownrigg was also intended to achieve British supremacy in Ceylon as in India, by subduing the Kingdom of Kandy through a vicious campaign of propaganda and character assassination directed against the ruler of the Kandyan Kingdom, King Sri Vikrama Rajasinha. He was demonized. He was accused of being a tyrant. Killer of women and children (of persons who had committed treason). A common punishment for treason in most countries including imperial Britain. A drunkard. And as he was of Indian origin the British discredited his Malabar ancestry as a ploy to alienate him from his Adigars, his chiefs and rejected his right to the throne.
In fairness it must be said that as a young King, Sri Vikrama Rajasinha was popular among the people of his Kingdom. He took charge of the administration which was fair and efficient. He displayed aesthetic sensibility regularly listening to music and commissioned the Royal Architect and Master Craftsman, Devendra Mulachari to design and build the Paththripuwa (1802) and the Kandy Lake (1807), among other novel creations. The King supervised the artists who enlarged and decorated the Kandy City.
Infringements of the Kandyan Convention
The failure to honour the solemn promises and undertakings by the British as enshrined in the Kandyan Convention (1815) led to increasing dissatisfaction among the Kandyan Chiefs. The Kandyan Kingdom was ceded (not conquered) to the British without any conditions or undertakings on the part of the Kandyan Chiefs. However as time passed by the Kandyan Sinhalese saw a planned effort being set in motion to dismantle the Kandyan Kingdom, and deceive a trusting people.
One of the most important Articles of the Kandyan Convention was Article 5. The British gave an unconditional warranty that Buddhism would remain inviolable (Article 5). Governor Brownrigg had later admitted that he gave this assurance purely to gain the support of the Buddhist monks without whose backing the Convention would have fallen through. But the British evangelists who had by this time entered the country sponsored by various Churches in England were strongly opposed to this provision. They had no right to interfere being not a party to the Treaty. Nevertheless they denigrated Buddhism as idolatry and dismissed its rituals and practices as tantamount to heathenism. They lobbied the British Govt. to remove this Article or dishonor it in violation of the Convention, and they seemingly relied on the advice proffered by Sade to the imperialist in De Juliette “take their god from the people that you wish to subjugate, then demoralize it; so long as they worship no other god than you, and has no other morals than your morals, you will always be their master” (Juliette is a novel written by the Marquis de Sade and published in 1797 – 1801) p324.
Governor Brownrigg failed to honour the promise that he had made to Ehelepola Maha Nilame that he would facilitate an arrangement to make Ehelepola succeed to the vacant throne of the Kandyan Kingdom after the overthrow of the last King, Sri Wikrama Rajasinha. The Governor also began to violate the terms of the Kandyan Convention particularly in regard to protection of Buddhism, at the instance of the Christian Church and foreign missionaries.
The British presence in Kandy was day by day becoming unpopular and troublesome to the Sinhala people. A favourite saying among the people directed at the British occupation was ‘ You have now deposed the King and nothing more is required – please leave to enable us to manage our lives according to our values and culture ’. They were desperately seeking to restore their way of life which had the royal patronage in their cultural and religious activities, and they found themselves alienated in a system of governance where the Ruler was a King living thousands of miles away in England and had no direct contact with either the people or their local Chiefs.
