WHAT’S THE STORY?

TODAY is the 73rd Independence Day in Sri Lanka, the country formerly known as Ceylon.

The celebrations are scheduled to take place at Independence Square in the capital Colombo, in the presence of the country’s president and prime minister and countless other government officials.

There is a strict number of invitees due to the pandemic.

DID CEYLON WANT INDEPENDENCE?

THIS ancient land renowned for its beauty was fought over by natives and invaders for centuries before it was eventually conquered by Britain in 1815.

Until just after the Second World War, Ceylon was not governed as part of a political union with India, or as part of the British Raj. The coming of Indian independence in 1947, however, meant that Ceylon would have to go its own way. Like India's split between Hindus and Muslims there was a massive cultural divide on the island, between the Sinhalese majority and the Tamil minority.

When the UK Government voted for Ceylon to become an independent dominion within the Commonwealth, there was hope that all the people of Ceylon would embrace a “new” Ceylonese culture and society. The new status took place on February 4, 1948.

WHAT STARTED THE CHANGE?

THE movement for independence had actually started in the early 20th century but it was small scale for many years. Then when independence actually came there were a few issues.

Britannica said: “There were some basic weaknesses in the political structure. The consensus [was] that the government represented embraced only a small fraction of the population. The continued neglect of local culture ... created a gulf that divided the ruling elite from the ruled.”

WHAT ABOUT THE ECONOMY?

THE island’s three main export products were tea, rubber, and coconut and at first they were doing well in world markets, providing some 90% of foreign exchange earnings.

Economic problems, mainly caused by a rapidly increasing population and the free import of consumer goods, soon ate away Ceylon’s basic profitability. Discontent grew massively and quickly and by 1955, the various difficulties of political and economic problems had fomented a new Sinhalese nationalism.

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?

WITH the UK standing idly by, Ceylon fractured. Most experts agree that British action to bolster the economy and reform the country’s political system would have prevented the rise of Sinhalese nationalism.

The Sri Lanka Freedom Party won power in the 1956 elections and immediately set about changing the political and cultural structures, making Sinhalese the sole official language, while providing state support for the majority Buddhist religion and for Sinhalese culture.

SO JUST ANOTHER END OF EMPIRE STORY?

IN the space of 10 years, Ceylon went from being a compliant British dominion to a semi-socialist country that eventually became a full republic in 1972 with the name changed to Sri Lanka.

The years of the civil war with the Tamils followed in the 1980s, and it can be fairly argued that if Britain had done a proper job in transitioning Ceylon to independence, Sri Lanka would’ve been spared much grief later on.