{"id":106525,"date":"2020-09-11T16:47:57","date_gmt":"2020-09-11T23:47:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=106525"},"modified":"2020-09-11T16:47:57","modified_gmt":"2020-09-11T23:47:57","slug":"book-review-colonialism-in-sri-lanka-plantation-economy-1833-1867-author-dr-asoka-bandarage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/09\/11\/book-review-colonialism-in-sri-lanka-plantation-economy-1833-1867-author-dr-asoka-bandarage\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review :-Colonialism in Sri Lanka; Plantation Economy 1833 \u2013 1867 \u2013 Author Dr. Asoka Bandarage"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Palitha Senanayake<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

A read through the scholarly work of Dr.\nAsoka Bandarage, or more appropriately the study of that voluminous material,\nposit the question whether such extensive dialectics is necessary, at this\nstage, on the evolution of an economy of a small country that has suffered\nunder colonialism for over three centuries. \nThe relevance of the study however, dawns in the last chapter of the\ntext which deals with neo colonialism that bedevils almost all these ex\ncolonies in the present era, as if bequeathed by their colonial history.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 There is a school of thought, in the current\nera that upholds these expeditions of colonial rule in to this  country, as the best thing that ever happened,\nin the economic and social spheres of this country. The proponents of this\nschool of thought are, at pains to delineate the benefits accrued to post-\ncolonial Ceylon due to colonialism, and particularly British colonial rule that\nwas the most eventful.  Plantation\neconomy is held out as the foremost among these favors of colonial rule\nfollowed by the Democratic system of governance and the English language.  The last two items, though beyond the scope\nof this study, however warrants some indulgence for the need to be consistent\nand wholesome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks to the plantation economy the\nCeylonese lost their subsistence economy and became dependent on external trade\npushing the country in to the capitalist economic orbit; the onset of\nglobalization.  Thanks to democracy the\naverage Sri Lankan, after 400 years of colonialism, is not acclimatized to\nbeing their own master. And thanks to English language the country is today\ndivided on linguistic lines and well over 90% of the country\u2019s people are made\nto live and die with an inferiority complex for not knowing English.  On the face of things, these alleged\nbenefits, being Omni present in the Sri Lanka society today gives the\nimpression that their absence would be fatal, unless a comprehensive and\nscholarly study of this nature, with reference to such research material and a surfeit\nof scholars, exposes the true nature of such benefits vis a vis the pre- colonial\nsystems they replaced. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most intriguing part however, is how\nthe colonial administration attempted to help plantation to find labor for\nplantation through tax reforms.  Land and\ngrain taxes imposed on indigenous farmers were designed to render paddy\ncultivation non- sustainable driving the peasants to be plantation labor.  However, when that strategy failed they\nlooked towards India where there was a seasoned labor force in substantial\nnumbers, whose subsistence again rested on the encouragement they received from\ntheir colonial rulers for agriculture. \nThus the colonial administrations of the two countries contrive to help\nthe Plantation Raj making emigration to Ceylon the sole source of survival for\nthe Indian peasants. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Having arranged it that way the plantation Raj\nin Ceylon then places the Indian migratory labor under a  \u2018debt bondage\u2019 with barely subsistence wages\nto make sure that they attend work every day. \nThey deploy the Kangani system through which they exploits the helpless\nIndians through their own brethren in an alien country where alternative\nrecourse is not available. The Debt bondage works through a cash advance system\nthat advances money at the point of recruitment drawing the nonplussed worker\nin to a debt trap that he could not redeem even by a life time of menial\nslavery.   Thus the Sinhala peasant, who\nis accustomed to view this Indian labor as a lackey of the plantation Raj,\ncould now appreciate the vicious slavery cycle, this helpless Indian Tamil who\neked out a living in a 10\u2019 X 8\u2019 \u2018lined room\u2019 with his entire family, has been\nsubjected to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end the study draws a parallel\nbetween the colonialism of the world powers then, and the power rivalry of the\nsuper powers in the contemporary world, subjecting again the small states like\nSri Lankato be pawns in their chess boards. \nSri Lanka has been offered funds and technology for its economic\ndevelopment on a bipartisan agreement by imperialist forces.  This strategic power alignment is specially\nsought at crucial time in world politics where the super powers have entered in\nto intense rivalry with focus on Asia. Incidentally, it is also a time when Sri\nLanka as a country has been subjected to a resolution of human rights violation\nbefore the UNHRC sessions by the same imperialist forces.  This alleged violation of the Sri Lankan\nforces is in respect of Tamil civilians who were deployed as a Human shield by\nthe terrorist organization that held the country to ransom for 34 years in the\npost olonial period. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 The\nirony of this situation is that the imperialists now appear to be much moved by\nthe plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka; many years after subjecting them to\nconditions of slavery to enable them to accumulate capital through the\nplantation industry.  The position of neo\ncolonialism is much more precarious than colonialism, for there is now a set of\nleaders in these ex-colonies  who are\nmade to think in the colonial perspective trusting these powers for their\nfacile concerns and offers.  If the\nSinhalese think that these ex colonials desire to develop Sri Lanka for the\nbenefit of the Sri Lankans they should realize that there is no such thing as\n\u2019a free lunch\u2019, particularly from such calculating world powers. On the other\nhand if the Tamils in Sri Lanka consider these imperialist forces to be their\nfriends at this juncture ; they should ask themselves the question, \u2018why pick\non us after creating so much misery around the world to maintain their power\nand to ensure their national security?\u2019 What is so special about the Sri Lankan\nTamils who are much better off than their Indian counterparts, except that the\nimperialist could destabilize Sri Lanka by instigating the Tamils and India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, it is a situation of, In the\n19th<\/sup> century, the colonialist \u2018civilized\u2019 us, the Tamils and\nSinhalese, for their benefit, and now after 4 centuries they are inducting us\nin to \u2018Human rights\u2019 , for their benefit again.\u201d<\/em><\/strong> Therefore those who do\nnot study the lessons of history stand vulnerable in being subject to the same\nhistorical misadventures, again and again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Palitha Senanayake A read through the scholarly work of Dr. Asoka Bandarage, or more appropriately the study of that voluminous material, posit the question whether such extensive dialectics is necessary, at this stage, on the evolution of an economy of a small country that has suffered under colonialism for over three centuries.  The relevance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106525\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}