Abstract
Sri Lanka is an island which was essentially peopled by migrants and conquerors who came from the sea. All the names of the island which are known today, from Taprobane to Ceylon, were given by these visitors. The people who were later called Sinhalese, Tamils, Indians, Muslims, Moors, Europeans, Malays, or Chinese all came at a historical period when the main religions were already constituted, urbanization was in process and writing had been invented. This extra-territorial origin explains perhaps the past need to regularly rename the island and the modern need to assert belonging through myths and legends.
Possessed of great natural wealth and endowed by the traditions of all Eastern races with fabulous treasures, Ceylon was bound to be the prey of the invader.
(E.B. Denham, 1911)
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Notes
S.U. Deranyagala, ‘Prehistoric Research in Sri Lanka 1885–1980’, in T. Guna-wardena, L. Prematilleka and R. Silva (eds), P.E.P. Deryanagala Commemoration Volume (Colombo: Lake House, 1980) pp. 152–207.
S. Jayaweera, ‘Education’, in T. Fernando and R. Kearney (eds), Modern Sri Lanka (Colombo, 1983–84) pp. 132–4
J.E. Jayasuriya, Educational Policies and Progress during British Rule in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) (Colombo, 1976).
Nira Wickramasinghe, Ethnic Politics in Colonial Sri Lanka (New Delhi: Vikas, 1995) pp. 33–4.
Scholarship on nationalism has often oversimplified the process of formation of ideology by presenting the Dharmapala stream as a hegemonic one. See K. Jayawardena, ‘Aspects of Class and Ethnic Consciousness in Sri Lanka’, Lanka Guardian, 6:5 (1 July 1983).
Bruce Kapferer, Legends of People, Myths of State (Washington, DC and London: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1988) for an analysis of the Vijayan myth as the central myth to explain communal conflicts in Sri Lanka.
Cited in K.N.O. Dharmadasa, The Growth of Sinhalese Nationalism in Sri Lanka (Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1992) p. 120.
Roland Barthes, Mythologies (Paris: Edition du Seuil, 1957).
CM. Fernando, ‘History of Ceylon’, in Arnold Wright (ed.), Twentieth Century Impressions of Ceylon. Its History, People, Commerce, Industries and Resources (London, 1907) p. 13.
For an interesting assessment of the Buddhist Chronicles as a dominant site of symbolic production see Steven Kemper, The Presence of the Past. Chronicles, Politics and Culture in Sinhala Life (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 1991).
Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993) p. 23.
Ananda Guruge (ed.), Anagarika Dharmapala Return to Righteousness (Colombo, 1965) p. 479.
R.A.L.H. Gunawardena, ‘The People of the Lion: The Sinhala Identity and Ideology in History and Historiography’, Sri Lanka Journal of Humanities, 5:1 and 2 (1979) pp. 30–1.
E. Tennent, Ceylon (reprint, Dehiwela: Tisara Press, 1977) pp. 287–300.
E.B. Denham, Report of the Census of Ceylon for 1911 (Colombo, 1911) p. 196.
Michael Roberts, Caste Conflict and Elite Formation. The Rise of a Karava Elite in Sri Lanka, 1500–1931 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982) pp. 18–19.
This process of assimilation is a fascinating area which needs to be further documented. R.A.L.H. Gunawardene, in his ‘People of the Lion. The Sinhala Identity and Ideology in History and Historiography’, Sri Lanka Journal of Humanities, 5:1 & 2 (1979)
G. Obeysekere in ‘The Vicissitudes of the Sinhala Buddhist Identity Through Time and Change’ in M. Roberts (ed.), Collective Identities Revisited, Vol. I (Colombo: Marga, 1996) have offered the beginning of a reflection on this issue.
Michael Roberts, Exploring Confrontation. Sri Lanka: Politics, Culture and History (Chur, Switzerland: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1994) pp. 183–212.
R.N. Kearney et al., ‘The 1915 Riots in Ceylon. A Symposium’, Journal of Asian Studies, 29:2 (1970) pp. 219–66.
For an interpretation taking into account the caste dimension of the riots see A.P. Kannangara, ‘The Riots of 1915 in Sri Lanka: A Study in the Roots of Communal Violence’, Past and Present, 102 (1984), pp. 130–65.
Sudipta Kaviraj, ‘The Imaginary Institution of India’, in Partha Chatterjee and Gyanendra Pandey (eds), Subaltern Studies VII (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992) pp. 1–39.
R.A. Ariyaratne, ‘Communal Conflict in Ceylon Politics and the Advances towards Self-Government’ (PhD thesis, Cambridge University, 1973).
S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike (ed.), The Handbook of the Ceylon National Congress 1919–1928 (Colombo, 1928), p. 9.
P. Devaraj, ‘Indian Tamils of Sri Lanka: Identity Stabilisation and Inter-Ethnic Interaction’ in Ethnicity and Social Change in Sri Lanka (Colombo: SSA, 1979) p. 146.
Cited in Peter van der Veer, Religious Nationalism: Hindus and Muslims in India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994) p. 31.
See for instance, K. Jayawardena, Ethnic and Class Conflict in Sri Lanka (Colombo: Centre for Social Analysis, 1986).
C. Kondapi, Indian Overseas 1838–1949 (New Delhi, 1951) pp. 361–2.
W.A. Weerasooriya, The Nattukottai Chettiar Merchant Bankers in Ceylon (Dehi-wela, 1973).
Cited in Y.R. Amerasinghe, ‘Trotskyism in Ceylon: A Study of the Development and Political Role of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party 1935–1964’ (PhD thesis, London University, 1974) p. 129.
‘A Policy and Programme for the CNC adopted on 28 September 1935’ in M. Roberts (ed.), Documents of the Ceylon National Congress and Nationalist Politics in Ceylon 1929–1950, Vol. III (Colombo, 1977) p. 1757.
Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments. Colonial and Postcolonial Histories (New Delhi: OUP, 1995) p. 154.
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Wickramasinghe, N. (2001). Migration, Migrant Communities and Otherness in Twentieth-Century Sinhala Nationalism in Sri Lanka (up to Independence). In: Bates, C. (eds) Community, Empire and Migration. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780333977293_6
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