{"id":112832,"date":"2021-03-19T16:06:54","date_gmt":"2021-03-19T23:06:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=112832"},"modified":"2021-03-19T16:06:54","modified_gmt":"2021-03-19T23:06:54","slug":"kandyan-convention-of-1815-a-convention-violated-and-dishonoured-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/03\/19\/kandyan-convention-of-1815-a-convention-violated-and-dishonoured-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Kandyan Convention of 1815 \u2013 A Convention violated and dishonoured"},"content":{"rendered":"

Senaka Weeraratna<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

(This is an edited version of a paper read out at a Public Seminar\non the \u2018 Kandyan Convention of 1815\u2019 held at the University of Peradeniya, Arts\nTheatre, on March 09, 2019)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nhttps:\/\/www.spur.asn.au\/2019\/03\/18\/kandyan-convention-of-1815-a-convention-violated-and-dishonoured\/\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Kandyan Convention of 1815 (\u2018Ingrisy \u2013 Sinhale Givisuma\u2019) must\nbe examined in the context of British colonial policy seeking British supremacy\nall over the world. The British developed ingenious ways of grabbing other\npeople\u2019s lands under various pretexts. The Kandyan Convention is a classic\nexample of this ploy. In India, under its policy of Subsidiary Alliance the British\nused Treaties to make Indian States subordinate to British Colonial\nadministration. The British agenda under the Kandyan Convention, whatever the\nwording in the provisions was not very different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Kingdom of Kandy was never conquered. It was ceded to the\nBritish retaining several provisions favourable to the Kandyan Sinhalese.\nArticles 4, 5, 6 and 7 of the Kandyan Convention were meant to protect the\nKandyan Sinhalese and allow them to govern the Kingdom as they did under their\ndeposed King Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe. Nevertheless, once the British had\nobtained full control of the land they began to interpret the provisions in an\ninsincere self \u2013 serving manner that was highly prejudicial to the interests of\nthe Kandyans, who had foolishly trusted the British.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evidence of Viscount Torrington<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was clearly explained\nby Viscount Torrington who was the Governor of Ceylon from 1847 \u2013\n1850 <\/strong>in his evidence before the Select Committee of the British\nParliament (1848 \u2013 1850). He said Sir R. Brownrigg acted too hastily in making\nthat treaty\u2026 The treaty was understood in different senses by the two parties.\nThe chiefs thought they would still continue to govern the country, and that we\nwere simply to have the regality of the territory. We, on the other hand, when\nwe undertook all the duties pertaining to the King of the Kandyans, never\nintended that the chiefs should govern the country at all; but on the contrary,\nwe considered it essential to appoint our own administrators. I believe that\nthis misunderstanding was the original cause of the rebellion in 1818, as well\nas of all the disturbances which have broken out since\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Torrington further says The Kandyans have ever, in fact, been\ndissatisfied with our rule. They have seen their power, their position, their religion\ndeclining. They have ever looked for an opportunity of freeing themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Juliette \u2013 novel\nby Marquis de Sade<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The biggest casualty was the\nstatus accorded to Buddhism in Article 5 of the Convention. Despite agreeing to\nthe inviolability of Buddhism being the national religion, missionaries who had\nby then entered the country with diabolical plans lobbied the British Govt. to\nremove this Article or dishonor it in violation of the Convention, and they\nseemingly relied on the advice proffered by Sade to the imperialist in De\nJuliette take their god from the people that you wish to subjugate, then\ndemoralize it; so long as they worship no other god than you, and has no other\nmorals than your morals, you will always be their master\u201d (Juliette<\/strong><\/em> was a novel written by\nthe Marquis de Sade and published in 1797 \u2013 1801) p324.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gary Brecher\u2019s views<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

An English Writer Gary Brecher, author of the book War Nerd\u201d has\nwritten a long article on British crimes in Sri Lanka to a website called\n Exiled on Line\u201d under the title When Pigs Fly-and Scold: Brits Lecturing\nSri Lanka\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He says that destroying Buddhism was a big part of Brit policy.\nThe Buddhist routine, the temples, begging monks, long boring prayers\u2013it was\nthe glue that kept Kandy together. So the Brits decided to destroy it. They\neven said so, in private memos to each other. They weren\u2019t shy in those days.\nHere\u2019s the Brit governor in 1807: Reliance on Buddhism must be destroyed. Make\nsure all [village] chiefs are Christian\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Governor Robert Browning in a letter dated Nov. 5, 1816 to Earl\nBathurst (Secretary of State) says that it was his intention to establish a\nSeminary in Kandy, and adds that as a first step towards spreading Christianity\nin Kandy I have reason to believe that this Nilame (Eknaligoda Nilame) would\nhave no objection to have his son and nephew brought up in the Christian\nreligion, but I dare not in this early stage of our Government, venture the\n\u00e9clat which such an event would infallibly produce\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gary Brecher, in a scathing attack, accuses the British\nestablishment of destroying the Sinhalese people completely. Completely and\ndeliberately, sadistically. Stole their land, humiliated and massacred their\ngovernment, made it Imperial policy to erase every shred of self-respect the\nSinhalese had left.  He says You can talk about the Nazis all day long,\nbut nothing they did was as gross as what you find out when you actually look\ninto the history of British-Sinhalese relations. If you can even call them\nrelations\u201d; I guess a murder-rape is a relation, sort of \u201d .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making a comparison between Nazi and British atrocities he says\nthat the British were great masters at grabbing some paradise island in the\ntropics, then using the British Royal Navy to wall it off separating the island\nfrom the rest of the world, and crushing the local tribe without any qualms of\nconscience. If the locals put up a resistance, the Brits would take measures to\nstarve them to death, shoot them down, infect them with smallpox or get them\naddicted to opium (as in China) \u2013whatever they had to do to gang-rape the\nlocals so bad that they the victims would thereby lose the will to resist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brecher further points out that the Nazis governed for only one\ndecade but the Brits were able to quietly carry out their extermination\nprograms for three hundred years, and to this day they have no remorse nor have\nany guilty feelings about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He further says that by all accounts, the Sinhala \/ Kandyans were\nharmless people, who didn\u2019t need or want much from the outside world. All they\nasked was for people to leave them alone up on their big rocky highlands to\nindulge in their Buddhist way of life. Unfortunately that wasn\u2019t British\npolicy. It irked the red coats that Kandy still had a king, an army, all this\nimpudent baggage that went with independence. The British decided to break the\nSinhalese completely and crush the whole society\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By this time, i.e. the early 1800s, the Brits had perfected their\ntechniques in little experiments all over the world. Those Clockwork Orange\nshrinks were amateurs compared to the Imperial Civil Service. The British\nEmpire knew dozens of ways of undermining and suppressing native kingdoms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Masters of \u2018Divide and Rule\u2019\npolicy <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

European powers like Spain and Portugal depended on bloody\nconquest and massacres in colonial expansion, especially in South America.\nBritain was not far behind, given what the British did to Australian Aborigines\nin Tasmania and mainland Australia. The British were the masters of the game of\n\u2018 Divide and Rule\u2019. The ethnic and religious tensions in the post \u2013\nindependence period of Sri Lanka  are very much a legacy of colonial rule.\nIf the target country had many ethnic groups or tribes like in India, North\nAmerica, Fiji, Malaysia, or Sri Lanka, the British first looked for any\npotential allies that have distinctive differences from other groups,\nparticularly the majority. Then the British undermine the authority of the\nmajority by promoting unfairly selected members of a minority community with a\nview to creating tension and conflict between various groups. The appointment\nof Haji Marikar (Muslim) as the Muhandiram to be in charge of roadways in Wellassa\nis a case in point. This appointment was resented by the Sinhalese as it\nundermined the authority of Dissawa Mellewa. This was the spark that led to the\n1818 uprising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

British intrigue in Kandy under the directions of successive\nGovernors, namely, North, Maitland and Brownrigg was also intended to achieve\nBritish supremacy in Ceylon as in India, by subduing the Kingdom of Kandy\nthrough a vicious campaign of propaganda and character assassination directed\nagainst the ruler of the Kandyan Kingdom, King Sri Vikrama Rajasinha. He was\ndemonized. He was accused of being a tyrant. Killer of women and children (of\npersons who had committed treason). A common punishment for treason in most\ncountries including imperial Britain.  A drunkard. And as he was of Indian\norigin the British discredited his Malabar ancestry as a ploy to alienate him\nfrom his Adigars, his chiefs and rejected his right to the throne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fairness it must be said that as a young King, Sri Vikrama\nRajasinha was popular among the people of his Kingdom. He took charge of the\nadministration which was fair and efficient. He displayed aesthetic sensibility\nregularly listening to music and commissioned the Royal Architect and Master\nCraftsman, Devendra Mulachari to design and build the Paththirippuwa (1802) and\nthe Kandy Lake (1807), among other novel creations. The King supervised the\nartists who enlarged and decorated the Kandy City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, the West preaches human rights, demands accountability and\nupholding of universally accepted standards on human rights. The British Govt.\npoints accusing fingers at Sri Lanka in Geneva on fabricated evidence. \nYet, a detailed scrutiny of colonial rule in British occupied Ceylon (1796 \u2013\n1948) reveals a sad saga of human rights violation of a gross kind such as tyranny,\nplunder, divide and rule, and a vicious policy of violence and discrimination\ndirected mainly against Kandyan Sinhala Buddhists and confiscation of their\nprecious inherited lands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rectification of Historical\nInjustices is a prime duty of any self \u2013 respecting nation. Independence is\nnever complete without meting out Justice to those who were wronged by an\nunjust colonial system.  21st<\/sup> century international\nlegal doctrines need to be availed of by modern day Sri Lanka to present a case\nfor compensation from the current British Government for genocide and mass\nmurder of people of Uva \u2013 Wellassa, among other crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka must consider joining former colonies of the British\nEmpire such as in the Caribbean, Africa and Asia to strengthen the quest for\nadequate compensation from Britain. A preliminary International Conference\nbetween affected countries to map out a common strategy for claiming\ncompensation is worthy of consideration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Australian High Court Ruling on\nCompensation to Aborigines <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently the Australian Aborigines won a landmark case in the High\nCourt of Australia. It was a groundbreaking case that can pave the way for\nbillions of dollars in compensation claims for colonial land loss, as well as\nloss of spiritual connection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The High Court of\nAustralia ruled in favor of the Ngaliwurru and Nungali groups from\nthe Northern Territory in the biggest \u2018native title\u2019 ruling on indigenous\nrights to traditional land and water in decades. It said that the Northern\nTerritory government was to pay $2.53mn in damages to the Ngaliwurru and\nNungali groups for an earlier federal court ruling which found the NT\ngovernment had extinguished\u201d<\/em> the\nnative title rights of Aborigines when the Govt. had built infrastructure on\ntheir land in the 80s and 90s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around $1.3 million of the\ndamages was awarded for spiritual or cultural harm.  Though the court gave\nan award calculated mainly on the basis of economic  loss, it is the court\nruling on spiritual loss that makes this case interesting not only for Aborigines\nbut also for people in other former British colonies. It is also the first time\nthat the Australian High Court has set out the principles\nfor compensation by taking into consideration <\/em>the monetary\nvalue of the removal of land rights, including economic loss and loss of\nspiritual connection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As much as the land of the Australian Aborigines were unjustly\ncompulsorily acquired by Governments, the Kandyan Sinhalese people were\nlikewise dispossessed of their native lands by the British colonial rulers\nunder unjust waste lands laws, and in a manner not dissimilar to what the white\nsettlers did to the Aborigines in Australia, native people of North and South\nAmerica, and Africa. This judgment is also relevant to Sri Lanka in\nanother sense i.e. to claim compensation from the colonial rulers for the great\nharm they caused to the practice and sustenance of the national religion of the\ncountry, namely Buddhism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the Western countries that champion human rights in the\nmodern era, are the very same countries that had in the past systematically\nviolated the human rights of the subject people in European colonies in Asia\nand Africa, and are now shamelessly evasive when it comes to accountability for\nthe crimes committed by colonial rulers in European colonies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Proposals for future action<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1)      Conduct of Re \u2013 Trials to\nexonerate national heroes convicted of treason by British \u2018Kangaroo\u2019 Courts<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2)      Establishment of a National\nMuseum to preserve the historical memory of the darkest chapter of Sri Lanka\u2019s\nhistory i.e. colonial period from 1505 \u2013 1948<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3)      Production of a Film documentary\nentitled \u2018British Crimes in Ceylon (Sri Lanka)(1796 \u2013 1948) \u2013 the case for\nAccountability and Reparation\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4)      Seek compensation separately for\ndestruction of the livelihood of the Kandyan Sinhala peasantry under rapacious\nWaste Land laws<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5)      Seek compensation for\nextermination of over 10, 000 elephants in the hill country b the British Raj<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6)      Prepare a list of items\n(artifacts) which belong to Sri Lanka but taken away unlawfully by the British\nand are kept in various British Museums and other institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7)      Re- print the Report of the\nKandyan Peasantry Commission<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8)       Re- print books related to\nBritish Colonial Crimes in Ceylon like \u2018Revolt in the Temple\u2019 by D.C.\nWijewardena and \u2018Colonialism in Sri Lanka: The Political Economy of the Kandyan\nHighlands, 1833-1886\u2019 by Asoka Bandarage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senaka Weeraratna<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Courtesy: SPUR <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senaka Weeraratna (This is an edited version of a paper read out at a Public Seminar on the \u2018 Kandyan Convention of 1815\u2019 held at the University of Peradeniya, Arts Theatre, on March 09, 2019) The Kandyan Convention of 1815 (\u2018Ingrisy \u2013 Sinhale Givisuma\u2019) must be examined in the context of British colonial policy seeking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[165],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-senaka-weeraratna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112832","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=112832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112832\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}