{"id":98720,"date":"2020-02-05T16:14:27","date_gmt":"2020-02-05T23:14:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=98720"},"modified":"2020-02-05T16:14:27","modified_gmt":"2020-02-05T23:14:27","slug":"sri-lankas-independence-falsehoods-and-hard-facts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/02\/05\/sri-lankas-independence-falsehoods-and-hard-facts\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka\u2019s independence: falsehoods and hard facts"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Janaka Perera<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The biggest falsehood some of our\npoliticians and some historians have been spreading over the past 70 years is\nthat Sri Lanka won her independence from Britain in a \u2018bloodless struggle\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hard fact is that there was no\nindependence struggle as such after the Matale uprising of 1848 was brutally\nsuppressed. Thereafter the country saw only agitations for Constitutional\nreforms.  If there was any bloodshed it was during the 1915 communal riots\nbecause the British overreacted to the situation that caused some leaders to be\narrested and a prominent patriot to be executed (Captain Henry Pedris).  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One noteworthy exception was E.W.\nPerera, the \u2018Lion of Kotte\u2019, who risked his life taking a petition hidden in\nhis shoe against Governor Robert Chalmers. It was at the height of the First\nWorld War that Perera went by sea in submarine infested seas to the England.\nThe petition was a condemnation of the declaration of Martial Law that caused\nthe deaths of many innocent Sinhalese. The petition resulted in the Governor\nbeing recalled to England.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also of significance was the Anagarika\nDharmapala\u2019s fierce campaign for a national cultural revival and return to\ntraditional values like India\u2019s Raja Ram Mohan Roy, one of the founders of the\nBrahmo Sabha in the 19th<\/sup> Century (he is considered the “Father of the Indian Renaissance\u201d)).[<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After 1848 we had no freedom fighters\nlike Keppettipola or Puran Appu or India\u2019s Mahathma Gandhi, Bhagat Singh and\nSubhas Chandra Bose among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The definition of a freedom struggle\nmeans the activists risking their lives one way or the other. Gandhi\u2019s\nnon-violent civil disobedience campaign led thousands of his followers to be\nbaton charged and jailed and also to be massacred as in Amritsar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those like Bhagat Singh and Subhas\nChandra Bose who took up arms against the British rule paid with their lives\n(although there\u2019s a dispute on what really caused the death of Bose).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The external factors that compelled the\nBritish to grant independence to India (and therefore to Sri Lanka) and Myanmar\nmuch earlier than they ever imagined have been almost totally ignored by our\nhistorians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Likewise were the Freedom fighters of\nMyanmar, Indonesia, (and after World War II) Cyprus, Kenya, Angola, Algeria\netc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before 1939, the European colonialists\nwere in no hurry to grant self-rule to these countries despite nationalist\nmovements and uprisings. In Sri Lanka there were no nationalist struggles after\n1848 but only appeals for constitutional reforms hoping for greater freedom\nthrough the goodwill of the colonial masters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it did not take long for the\nBritish and other European Imperial powers to wake up from their\nslumber.   The outbreak of World War II in September 1939 and Japan\u2019s\nentry to the war in December 1941 heralded the end of the British Raj and the\nAsian empires of other European powers. Until then its transplanted European\nlife-style had insulated the colonialists from the natives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Japan\u2019s success in humbling the United\nStates, Britain and the Netherlands in the early days of the Pacific War dealt\na mortal blow to the Western prestige in Asia. Japan\u2019s quick victories in\n1941-42 proved to the natives that Europeans were not superior to the Asians. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Britain was now fighting with its back\nto the wall and it desperately sought the loyalty of the natives in conducting\nthe war.  The possibility of sabotage and collaboration with the enemy\ncould not be ruled out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the loss of Malaya – now Malaysia\n– and Singapore, the ports of Colombo and Trincomalee became vital to the\nBritish as a link between Europe and the Far East.  The home base of the\nBritish Far Eastern Fleet was Trincomalee. This country also played a very\nsignificant role as a rubber producer for the Western Allies during the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka\u2019s (then Ceylon) importance to\nthe British was such that the Allied South-East Asia Command (SEAC)\nHeadquarters under Admiral (later Lord) Louis Mountbatten was shifted from New\nDelhi to Kandy in 1944.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fr. S.G. Perera in his Ceylon\nHistory<\/em> states that the unstinted support of Sri Lanka\u2019s conservative\nleaders to the cause of Britain and her allies was a key factor in the demand\nfor constitutional reforms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In India patriots were in a\ndilemma.  According to Indian Author Kushwant Singh the crux of the\ndilemma was whether to go all out to aid Britain and then demand independence\nfor themselves or insist on a declaration of independence and then put their\nfull weight behind the Western Allies.  To the British India\u2019s loyalty was\ncrucial in winning the war.  Indian soldiers played a major role in the\nwar against Axis Powers (Germany, Italy and Japan). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\nsection of these troops, however, had joined the fiery Indian Nationalist\nSubhas Chandra Bose who formed the Japanese-backed Indian National Army to\nfight the British. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile,\nMahathma Gandhi\u2019s Quit India Movement \u2013 a sporadic outburst of anti-British consciousness\n\u2013 was shaking the British Administration in many parts of the subcontinent.\nUnder pressure from the Opposition within the British National Government,\nLondon sent Sir Stafford Cripps to India with an offer of a Constitution-making\nbody after the end of hostilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite\nmilitary victory World War II left Britain a battered and impoverished nation\nand not all the rhetoric of Winston Churchill could disguise it. It was the\nfinal blow to the British Empire. The British were realists and knew their game\nwas up. Prime Minister Clement Atlee went ahead with what Churchill would not\nand drew plans to liquidate the empire on which the sun would never set.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When India \u2013 Britain\u2019s Jewel in the\nCrown – won her independence there\u2019s no point in clinging to small Sri\nLanka.  The failure of our historians, educationists and politicians to\nadmit this fact will only result in misleading the younger generations into\nthinking that it we won independence on our own in a bloodless struggle\nisolated from events occurring right round our country. It is beyond\ncomprehension why these external factors that led to Britain leaving India and\nSri Lanka are still not acknowledged. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Janaka Perera The biggest falsehood some of our politicians and some historians have been spreading over the past 70 years is that Sri Lanka won her independence from Britain in a \u2018bloodless struggle\u2019. The hard fact is that there was no independence struggle as such after the Matale uprising of 1848 was brutally suppressed. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-janaka-perera"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98720","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=98720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98720\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}