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rivals, the coast Moors. This brings one to the second point. Trade rivalry has been sedulously utilized by mischief-makers and extensive endeavours made for months to excite the passions of the people against the Moors. This has been done by printed pamphlets and by speakers at meetings of Samagamas. At one place I was informed that a "Welandama Samagama" had been formed a few months before the riots for the purpose of ousting the Moors and securing all the trade for the Sinhalese. In places a peaceful eviction of the Moorman was attempted; in one instance the Tambi states that he was made an offer of a small sum for his stock-in- trade, which was to be handed over to the Samagama. Upon his refusing his boutique was the next day broken into and looted. In other places the Moorman simply disappeared and a Sinhalese was found in possession of his stock-in-trade. We may shrewdly suspect that a considerable portion of the loot found its way eventually into Sinhalese traders' boutiques, where, mixed up with their own stock,' it was practically impossible to identify.
40. It is certain that the Samagamas played an important part in preparing the country for a rising of this kind. There is evidence that meetings had been held at which seditious or inflammatory speeches had been made, though evidence sufficiently reliable to bring the agitators to justice is difficult to obtain. The Sama- gama of Hanwella is an instance in point. The two most active members of this society have since received life sentences for participation in the attack on the Hanwella mosque, and the society seems to have been a focus of sedition in that part of the country. It may here be noted that Buddhists and even Government school- masters were often active members in these societies, and many of them were also the leaders or instigators of the local riots. This does not promise well for the loyalty of the rising generation entrusted to their carel
41. Some of the stories and arguments used by such agitators to inflame the people may be noted. The people were told that British rule has been in existence for a century and was now about to cease, and there was a prophecy that a Sinhalese king would ascend the throne. Another version was that the British had taken a Such lease of the country for a hundred years and the term had now expired! stories had acquired a considerable circulation. It is not surprising, therefore, that the leaders of the mobs in many places told the people that the British Government Therefore they was no more, but a Buddhist Government was to be established. might drive out the Moors and loot their property with impunity. In many places a flag was carried by the armed mob, and in one place witnesses stated that it was hoisted on to a tres amidst the acclamations of the people. In another case it was borne by a man on an elephant. The large crowd which advanced upon the Moor quarter of Colombo on the 1st, evening, and which was dispersed by the bullets of my party of Punjabis, had a large flag at its head, and I saw a whole roll of such flags in a Sinhalese motor-car in Colombo the same day, doubtless ready for distri- bution in the district.
42. The mischief-makers in the Samagamas appear to have directed their efforts towards inflaming the people against foreigners, specially the coast Moora. The latter were charged with all sorts of excesses and crimes against the Sinhalese; the people were urged not to trade with them, but to drive them out of the country.
48. There seems to have been a widespread idea afloat at the time of the dis- turbances that the Government either could not or would not punish the offenders. At one There are indications that this idea also was spread by mischief-makers. place on the main road to Avisawella a motor was seen to stop in front of a Sinhalese boutique, and a Sinhalese in European dress told the people that they Similar might loot the Moor boutiques and there would be no cases afterwards. words were heard in other places from the leaders of the mobs.
44 The religious feeling of the Buddhists against the Moors roused by the Gampola judgment were no doubt very largely used to incite the outbreak, and, as has been pointed out, it was by means of false stories of Moors attacking pansalas that the whole countryside was raised on the 2nd of June.
45. A number of widely diverse elements which entered into the disturbances have now been noted. To propound a definite theory as to the origin of the rising is no easy matter: One or two theories suggested may, however, be discussed. The one put forward for his own purposes by Dr. Rodrigo, of Bambalapitiya, need not be taken at all seriously. He would have us believe that the disturbances were due How he mainly, if not solely, to the inefficiency and corruption of the police! explains, under his theory, the fact that whole villages turned out under arms, or
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every Moorish boutique was looted in places remote from any police station, I do not understand. That a large section of the Sinhalese portion of the Police Force was practically useless for the suppression of the disorders, that many Sinhalese police officers connived at, or even participated in, the looting must, unfortunately, be admitted; but this is merely one side of the lamentable circumstance referred to in paragraph 7 above. To hold that the police had anything to do with originating the riot is too ludicrous a theory to discuss seriously.
46.
If Dr. Rodrigo's meaning is that the Sinhalese people broke out because they knew that the police would largely sympathize with their unlawful action and take no steps to prevent or punish looting, there is just a grain of truth in it. There is no doubt that the disturbances, especially in Colombo, were aggravated by the apathy or treachery of a part of the Sinhalese Police Force.
47. Another theory is that the outbreak was the result, so to speak, of spon taneous combustion-that the Sinhalese had a variety of grievances against the Moore, and when the match was once put to the powder in Kandy the rioting spread quite naturally all over the country. Except in so far as rioting generally is in its nature infectious this theory will not account for a fraction of the phenomena of the late outbreak. In many places the bulk of the villagers had no grievance whatever against the coast Moors, who were a most useful community to them, and whose temporary disappearance they now have cause to regret. Certainly there was no ill-feeling sufficient to account for a spontaneous outburst of frightfulness such as we have witnessed.
48. The idea that it was simply an outbreak of the criminal element in the population is still farther from the truth. One of the most extraordinary features of the whole disturbances has been the numbers of Sinhalese hitherto considered as most law-abiding and respectable citizens who took an active part-vidane arach- chies, registrars, schoolmasters, landed proprietors of wealth and influence. The criminal classes certainly took a leading part, but they were deliberately let loose by a more influential section of the population.
49. Though one cannot pretend to propound any definite theory which will altogether account for the late regrettable occurrences, one or two points may be touched on-and at the outset one may remark that some of the theories put forward by Sinhalese, who ought to know much more than we do about the origin of these Amongst these we riots, appear to me specially designed to evade the real issue.
may include the theory of Dr. Rodrigo.
50. The points I would like to note are as follows:-First, the outbreak was essentially a Sinhalese outbreak, and, whatever attempts may be made to confuse the issues, the responsibility should be pinned on to the Sinhalese people. Much has been made of the participation of other communities in looting and other crimes, but the reply to this is that when the Sinhalese had everywhere set the example of setting all law and order at defiance it was only to be expected that the criminal sections of other communities, even Moors in a few cases, should join in. This does not in any way relieve the Sinhalese, as a people, of their responsibility, and, to my mind, furnishes no prima facie ground for putting the burden of paying an indem- nity upon any other community than the Sinhalese."
51. How far the leaven of seditious propaganda has permeated the mass of the Not even in the worst districts, how- Sinhalese people is a difficult matter to gauge.
ever, would the bulk of the villagers appear to be actively disaffected or disloyal That they have proved themselves extraordinarily inflammable cannot be denied, and this peculiarity I believe to have been exploited to the utmost by a comparatively small body of seditionists.
52. Third, there is no doubt to my mind that an outbreak of this kind, either at the time it actually occurred or at a later date, had been premeditated, and the ground for it carefully prepared by the mischief-makers.
53.
Fourth, there appears little doubt that the object of these persons was political. Whether they had any definite programme for future development, and, if so, what it was, are questions upon which it would be hazardous to speculate. That their immediate object at the time of the riots was to create as great a dis- turbance as possible and temporarily to paralyse the Government appears certain. Had their efforts been more successful than they were we might easily have seen further and more dangerous developments. At any rate it is fairly certain that the declaration of martial law, the shooting down of the rioters, and the scouring of the country by mobile parties of the military, came as a most unpleasant surprise to the organizers of mischief, who quickly recognised that the game was up.