{"id":154440,"date":"2026-02-01T18:12:36","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T01:12:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=154440"},"modified":"2026-02-01T18:12:36","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T01:12:36","slug":"sri-lanka-whither-goest-thou","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2026\/02\/01\/sri-lanka-whither-goest-thou\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka, whither goest thou"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em><strong>Ashley de Vos<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>On the 4<sup>th<\/sup> of February 1948, Ceylon was granted Dominion status by the British Crown. The Queen remained the head, and Ceylon had a Governor-General. The island&#8217;s residents were encouraged to celebrate the event as Independence Day. This Ceylon did for many years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sri Lanka has had two main republican constitutions\u20141972 and 1978\u2014designed to sever colonial ties with Britain, establish a sovereign republic, and centre state power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The First Republican Constitution, promulgated on 22 May 1972, replaced the Soulbury Constitution, thereby eliminating the last remnants of British dominion and establishing Sri Lanka as a free, sovereign, and independent republic. It established a National State Assembly, the supreme instrument of state power, and Ceylon became Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 1978 Second Republican Constitution (Current), promulgated on the 7th September 1978, replaced the 1972 system with a strong executive presidency, comprising a head of state and head of government, elected directly for a six-year term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even at this late stage, should Sri Lanka instead celebrate 22nd May 1972 as the true independence day, rather than unnecessarily wasting taxpayers&#8217; resources to celebrate the 4<sup>th<\/sup> February 1948? A meaningless exercise, but then, who decides?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Ashley de Vos<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ashley de Vos On the 4th of February 1948, Ceylon was granted Dominion status by the British Crown. The Queen remained the head, and Ceylon had a Governor-General. The island&#8217;s residents were encouraged to celebrate the event as Independence Day. This Ceylon did for many years. Sri Lanka has had two main republican constitutions\u20141972 and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-154440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154440","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=154440"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":154441,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154440\/revisions\/154441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}