‘ Freedom Struggles of Sri Lanka – Lessons Learnt and the Way Forward’ edited by Professor C.M. Madduma Bandara et al.
Posted on January 16th, 2023
Senaka Weeraratna
I would like to draw your kind attention to the latest study on this subject. The Book is titled ‘ Freedom Struggles of Sri Lanka – Lessons Learnt and the Way Forward’ edited by Professor C.M. Madduma Bandara.
I am attaching the Table of Contents of the Book together with the Foreword of Dr. Palitha Kohona.
I have obtained these documents from Professor C.M. Madduma Bandara.
This scholarly volume is available at S.Godage Bookshop, Maradana. It is priced at Rs. 6000.
The contents and the theme of this Book are highly relevant and topical as we are approaching the 75th anniversary of Sri Lanka’s independence soon i.e. February 04, 2023.
Given its relevance to any discussion on British colonial rule, it deserves to be Book Reviewed in a leading newspaper(s).
I have also contributed an article to this book entitled ‘ Colonial Crimes in British Occupied Ceylon during the Freedom Struggles (1796 – 1948)”. It is in Chapter 08 (pages 85 – 113).
see also
Colonial crimes in British-occupied Ceylon during the freedom struggles (1796 – 1948)
Abstract
” There is a huge void in the information flow today among the current generation with respect to colonial crimes in British-occupied Ceylon (1796 – 1948). This paper attempts to fill at least a part of that void.
It (This Chapter ) will examine the deployment of genocidal warfare including a scorched earth policy and mass murder of innocent civilians during the freedom struggles of 1818 and 1848. It will adduce evidence recorded in official inquiries of the use of Lidice-type operations’ in crushing the Matale rebellion (1848). These were the first two major wars for independence from British colonial domination. In addition, this paper will examine whether the colonial rulers were engaged in a deliberate policy of retardation of development of the Kandyan Provinces, especially in Uva, where there was a great loss of life following the total destruction of irrigation works and the decimation of cattle that combined to impoverish the people and depopulate the area.
British injustice was felt mostly in the enactment of wasteland laws. Kandyan peasants were made landless. They were reduced to a landless state by the takeover of their lands for the plantation industry (initially coffee, then tea) under a series of wasteland laws commencing with the Crown Lands (Encroachments) Ordinance, No. 12 of 1840.
Kandyan chena which traditionally had no documentary proof of ownership was taken over for plantation agriculture. This is demonstrated by the names of estates with older names ending with hena or chena crop names. This affected the food security of the people. Evidence of starvation sometimes resulting in death is revealed in the writings of authors such as Le Merseur. The British systematically transferred the wealth of the Kandyan region into their own coffers.
An accountability process for these colonial crimes is warranted through an apology, catharsis and adequate reparations. An Apology must be particularly directed to the descendants of the Sinhala Buddhist Kandyans who have been singled out as victims of colonial brutalities. These are the descendants of a highly oppressed group of people who were also deprived of their inheritance by the colonial rulers planting thousands of indentured Indian labour in their lands without their consent. 19th-century British official documents reveal how the freedom struggles against British colonial rule were suppressed in a most brutal, genocidal manner in one of the darkest pages of European colonial history.”
see also
British Parliament must also discuss payment of reparations for colonial crimes committed in Ceylon
Holocaust of elephants by the British Raj in Sri Lanka
British Colonial War Crimes: Unpunished, Unaccounted, and awaiting Apology
http://www.srilankaguardian.org/2012/11/british-colonial-war-crimes-unpunished.html
Please visit the above links and read the material if you are able to spare your valuable time.
Senaka Weeraratna