241
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
།།།། །།T
mimimmim
C.O.882/11
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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Sinhalese and Tamils, to the religion of their adoption was quickened, rather than weakened, by persecution; and to-day the adherents in Ceylon of the Dutch Reformed Church are almost exclusively drawn from the Burgher population, who are the 'descendants of the former Dutch rulers. With regard to the sturdy character of these people, to the manner in which, during a hundred and thirty years of British rule, they have maintained their identity; and the prominence in various branches of the Public Service and in the learned professions to which many of them have attained, I would invite reference to paragraph 23 of my Confidential despatch of 20th November, 1926.* The presence of the Burghers has introduced an element into the population of the Low Country which has tended to intensify its already heterogeneous character: has helped to exercise upon the Low Country Sinhalese an additional Europeanising influence; and has also kindled their easily aroused envY and jealousy, owing to the prominence to which so many Burghers have attained in every branch of the public life of the Island and in the professions of law and medicine.
The introduction by the Dutch of Roman-Dutch Law has also had marked effects in the Maritime Provinces, and especially with regard to those of its provisions which relate to inheritance. Thus the Low Country Sinhalese are to-day so wedded by custom and tradition to the division of real property into undivided shares that. though the evils attendant upon this system are daily demonstrated in our Courts. any other method of bequeathing property acutely offends the sense of justice and of propriety of the rank and file of the people
The Dutch carried their effective administration of the Low Country of Ceylon into the more low-lying areas of the Kandyan Provinces, such, for instance, as Kegalla and Kurunegalla; but the hill-country still remained, under the Kandyan kings, a stronghold of Sinhalese independence during the whole period of the Dutch occupation of Ceylon. Once again, therefore, the Kandyans escaped the strong Euroneanising influence to which the Low Country Sinhalese were so long subjected.
9. The British assumed the government of Cevlon in 1796, and in the campaign which preceded our effective occupation of the Island the armed forces of the Kandyan king took an active part, aiding us and harassing the Dutch by an invasion of the Low Country. Almost immediately after the capitulation of the Dutch, how- ever, the British Governor of the day inaugurated a series of far from creditable intrigues with some of the Kandvan king's principal officers of state; but, though these proceedings proved wholly abortive, the cruelty and the oppressive rule of the last of the Kandvan kings caused his Chiefs, supported by the bulk of the Kandyan population, to invite the British to assume the government of the country and incidentally to relieve them of the tyrant. This occurred in 1812: but almost imme- diately a formidable rebellion broke out, and it was not until 1815 that Great Britain entered upon the task of administering effectively the whole of the Kandyan country. Up to that time the Low Country Sinhalese had been accustomed to regard the Kandyan hill-country as a foreign land, into which neaceful traders could only enter if they were prepared to incur considerable risks and dangers. The establishment of pax Britannica throughout the Kandyan Provinces, however, speedily led to a formidable in-rush of strangers, the pioneers being, in the beginning, mainly "Moormen "--viz.. Mohammedan traders of Indian origin or descent-though these All these were soon followed by Low Country Sinhalese in ever-increasing numbers. people were infinitely more sophisticated than were the Kandyans, and this has continued to be the case even to the present day for, though educational facilities are now accessible to large numbers of Kandyans, the percentage of wholly illiterate persons is among them far higher than among the Low Country Sinhalese. Inevitably, therefore, the Kandyan has, from the very beginning of the British occupation of his country, been more or less exploited by his more shrewd and more intellectually energetic Sinhalese neighbour from the Low Country; and this fact. to which the Kandyan aristocracy has always been keenly alive, has tended to emphasize the original differences between the two sections of the Sinhalese and has. of course, been very far from exercising any unifying influence.
10 To-day the Kandvan aristocracy, who are the subscribers to the present Memorial, see themselves in danger of being exploited by the Low Country Sinhalese. in alliance with the Tamils, in a new and to them exceedingly perturbing fashion. Caste and caste prejudice and feeling are to-day, in spite of a certain amount of
* C. 23470/26: not printed.
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dexterous camouflage, as quick and as vehement in Ceylon, as they were when I first knew the Island twenty years ago, and in the Kandyan country these things exert a stronger influence and are there more cruel and ruthless in their operation than has None the been the case in the Maritime Provinces for more than half a century. less, it is important to bear in mind the fact that the first movement in favour of political reform, though it was in some measure a percussion from the newly- inaugurated Morley-Minto reforms in British India, largely drew its inspiration in Ceylon from the revolt of the Fisher-caste people against the political domination of the high caste Goyagamas. At the time of the first establishment of a Legislative Council in the Island, and for many decades afterward, public opinion and popular sentiment probably made it imperative that none save a Goyagama of the highest caste should be nominated by the Governor to represent the Sinhalese Low Country interests on that body. This practice was adhered to, however, long after the Fisher-caste people had succeeded, owing to their superior energy and push, in win- ning for themselves very prominent positions in Ceylon, many of them being, during the opening years of the present century, by far the richest Sinhalese in the Island. The protagonists of the agitation for political reform were, at that time, practically all of them Fisher-caste men, with the exception of Armande de Suza-a Ceylon-born Goanese-who, as the very able editor of the Morning Leader, was the strongest voice raised on behalf of the new movement. From first to last, Goyagamas of the highest caste held themselves aloof from the agitation; and even to-day, if certain Kandyan unofficial members of Council be omitted from the reckoning, there is only one Goyagama member of the highest caste among the elected members, and he is a man who has in some degree compromised his position among his caste-mates by marriage with an European.
the When the first instalment of political reforms was granted in 1909, moreover, election of a member to fill the newly instituted "Educated Ceylonese" seat in the enlarged Legislative Council was fought on purely caste lines. The Low Country Sinhalese Govagamas saw clearly that they could not fail to be out-numbered by the educated Fisher-caste folk, and they accordingly resorted to the expedient of enter- ing into an alliance with the Tamil Vellalas, whose caste corresponds to their own. It was thus that the Tamil Vellala. Mr., now Sir Ponnambalam. Ramanathan was returned to the Council; and, in spite of the fact that his claim to rank as a Vellala was disputed by some high-caste Sinhalese Goyagamas, they to a man cast their votes for him. In this instance, it will be noted, the accident of nationality carried no weight with the Sinhalese Goyagamas, as compared with the importance of caste; a high-caste Tamil being preferable in their eyes to a Fisher-caste Sinhalese. It is only by recalling facts of this kind that the part which caste feeling plays in the life of even the most highly educated Sinhalese can be apprehended and appreciated. To-day it is customary for politicians and publicists in Ceylon to pose as being superior to caste feeling and prejudice, and they can point to the fact that the first Vice-President of the Legislative Council-Sir James Peiris-is a man of Fisher- caste, and that he was elected by the unofficial members in preference to Sir Ponnam- balam Ramanathan. The barristers and lawyers of Ceylon, who are drawn from almost all castes, meet daily on friendly and familiar terms in the bar library at Hultsdorf, and lunch together in a fashion that high-caste men would have been disposed to avoid twenty years ago; but in spite of these apparent manifestations of freedom from caste prejudice, the fact remains that if a question of marriage arises between a really igh-caste woman and a man of lower caste, the relatives of the former--the men no less than the women-look upon the suggested union with very much the same horror as that which would he inspired in Americans belonging to old families of the Southern States if it were suggested that one of their women-folk should contract a marriage with a full-blooded negro.
11. Among the Kandvan aristocracy-who are far more conservative than even the highest caste Goyagamas of the Low Country, and who are themselves Goyagamas of the highest caste caste-feeling and caste-prejudice are even stronger than is the case in the Maritime Provinces. Yet very large numbers of Kandyan peasants are members of low castes, and these people are to-day encouraged by Low Country Sinhalese to assert themselves ris-à-vis their high caste Chiefs in fashion which the latter regard as little short of revolutionary. In towns such as Kandy, Gampola. Nualapitiyia, Hatton. Nuwara Eliya and Badulla, all of which are situated in the Kandyan country, the Kandyan residents are hopelessly out-numbered by men of other nationalities, and the fact that at the last elections two Low Country Sinhalese