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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference -
C.O. 882/10
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC
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the conflagration. The constant disputes from year to year as to those processions, culminating in the recent Gampola case, incensed the villagers and inflamed baser passions. Religious fervour among the vast majority of Eastern peoples is yet one of the three guiding elemental instincts in life.
2. Social.-In one aspect the rising was not dissimilar to those Jewish pogroms not uncommon in Europe in the Middle Ages, and not unknown to certain European countries to-day. In another aspect it resembled those social upheavals of old, the Anakope,' in that, to a great degree, the villagers destroyed all account books and all records of debts. The Moors are the Jews of Ceylon. They are mostly engaged in trade. They have in many places eaten into the villagers' lands. Many of the Sinhalese have been encumbered by promissory notes and other bonds granted to Moorish traders. Again, the Moors are a people who live by their wits rather than by their hands, and, though I do not doubt that they are as necessary to our social economy as the Jews are to Europe, there must be, while human nature is as it is, an antipathy to this type of man.
- rumour.
3. Rumour.--Next in order of merit, or rather of infamy, I should place All kinds of wild and whirling rumours were circulated around the country, the most common being that the Maligawa was about to be attacked by Moors. In some places where a number of Moor refugees took harbour in the house of a prominent resident the rumour was that they were collecting to attack the Sinhalese. 4. Racial. In most of our European countries the different peoples which at one time formed the populations have coalesced by intermarriage. In these coun- tries, where fusion has not been effected. riots like those in Ceylon have inevitably sprung up. This racial and social antipathy has been aggravated by the fact that the coast Moormen only came here for trade and went back to India when they had made a fortune. In my districts many of the Ceylon Moor hamlets were not plun- dered. In the heat of the riot, however, no hard and fast distinction was drawn between Ceylon Moor and coast Moor.
5. Rowdyism. To those who participated in the riots owing to religious fervour, or for social causes, must be added the inevitable number of rowdies who rioted for the sake of rapine and rioting. I do not think this was a very big per- centage in the Kandyan rural districts. In many places bonfires were lighted. The loot was publicly burned. This seems to show that many, at all events, of the villagers did not loot for the sake of pure loot. They looted as a kind of protest against some real or imaginary grievance.
6. Proselytism-Amongst contributory causes I would place the persistent proselytism of Buddhist girls by Mohammedans, and their adoption with a view to proselytism or concubinage.
7. The War. I am inclined to believe that the present state of affairs in Europe had some influence on the upheaval. The villagers have seen wild war pictures in cheap prints. They have read accounts of the fighting in their vernacular press. Such information permeating to the brain of a man whose whole vision of life is fenced in by the four boundaries of the village cannot be without some great influence.
I do not class the political source as an independent head. It is intertwined with the religions, the social, and the racial.
Buddhism is the ancient and historic religion of Ceylon. With any large move- ment in favour of Buddhism political motives must almost of necessity be joined. The same may be said of the racial and the social. The Moors are a business people, and can easily outdistance the unsophisticated Kandyan in trade; and the Kandyan is the man who is sprung from the soil of Ceylon.
In my opinion, among ninety-eight per cent. of the people there was no sedition in the true sense, a concerted movement to undermine British rule, or to expel the Moors with that end in view. In my district, though much damage was done to property, not a single Moor was injured, not a single Moor woman was violated. The total casualties were one Sinhalese slightly injured. For that reason I recommended that my cases should be committed to the Supreme Court and should not be tried by court martial. A few firebrands may have used the religious fervour of the people to further political propaganda, but the people in mass were sound.
I cannot find any evidence of low-country people coming to the districts afore- mentioned, nor can I find evidence of complicity between the Kandyan and low- country Sinhalese.
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Doubtless some of the principals in Kandy may have communicated with those in Colombo and elsewhere, but I cannot find any evidence of a prearranged con- spiracy, as affecting the mass of the people, between Kandyan and low-country Sinhalese.
As regards local rioting, the minor headmen, many of whom kept in the back- ground, acquiesced in the rioting. Some took an active part. A notable exception was M. S. Pinto, police officer, Kadugannawa, who, alone, and at considerable risk, endeavoured to force back the tide of rioters. He has given me very valuable assistance in inquiries subsequent to the riots.
I have no definite evidence that any of the chiefs was privy to the design. Some must have known the storm was brewing.
The local registrar, notary, schoolmaster, whenever such was a Buddhist, was almost invariably found to be working behind the scenes, and working the puppets-- in this case the unfortunate villagers, who have already paid dearly by imprisonment, fines, and by the levying of the indemnity. It is unnecessary for me to repeat that I speak with particular reference to the pattus in which I am acting as Special Commissioner.
No rioter was shot in these pattus. No Moorman was injured. One Sinhalese man was slightly injured.
I append a list of the damage as assessed by me.
15th July, 1915.
37093
Tumpane Harrispattuwa Yatinuwara Uda Nuwara
Kadugannawa Town
JAMES DEVANE,
Special Commissioner under martial law.
List.
Rs. Cts. 2,160.19
7,400.99 146,255.99
2,700.00
Total
158,517.17
127,590.99
No. 35.
THE GOVERNOR to THE SECRETARY OF STATE.
(Received 12th August, 1915.)
(Confidential.) (Extract.)
SIR,
The Queen's House, Colombo, Ceylon, 22nd July, 1915.
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3. At the date when your despatch* under reply was posted the Buddhist riots were in full swing, and I enclose, for your information, a copy of a report, dated the 8th July, from the Inspector-General of Police, giving his views, which have my general concurrence, of the connexion between these riots and the societies which had a temperance origin. Nothing, I know well, could have been further from the intentions of the United Committee or others than to pave the way for the disorders from which the Island is now suffering; but the unintended connexion seems to me clear to-day.
I have. &c.,
ROBERT CHALMERS,
* 28564, not printed.
Governor, &c.