t was in 1815 that the Sinhala English Pact or what is known erroneously as the Kandyan Convention was signed. As we have often said there were two very important clauses in the Pact, without which the Sinhala leaders would not have signed it. The English promised to rule the country according to Sinhala siritha (law) and to protect and safeguard what they called Buddhagama and Devagama or in other words Sinhala Buddhist culture. However, the English being gentlemen, the way they introduced themselves, breached the Pact even before one could say Brownrig.
The result was our first independence struggle against the colonialist rule of the English over the entire island, though from 1506 onwards Sinhala people had fought against the Portuguese, the Dutch and the English in different areas at different times without surrendering. The Sinhala people were not defeated at war and finally they signed a Pact with the English on how the country should be ruled.
Keppetipola Nilame gave leadership to the independence struggle, however there were even then some Kalusuddas or Sinhala people who had been conditioned to support the English and probably to think like the latter, and with their aid and also of course with superior military power the English were able to defeat the uprising. Though the Kalusuddas were produced on a mass scale after the establishment of English schools it is clear that since 1506 there had been Kalusuddas among the Sinhala people. Keppetipola Nilame was killed by the English, definitely not in the name of good governance, and what is more the males over twelve years in Uva Vellassa were massacred by the godfathers of good governance.
Sinhala Buddhist culture
Since 1506 the Sinhala people have been fighting to regain the Sinhale and the Sinhala culture that they were familiar with. The main objective of all these struggles has been to win back due recognition to Sinhala culture and especially to Sinhala Buddhist culture. However, people such as Ranil Wickremesinghe are ignorant of this and they wanted to commemorate the five hundredth anniversary of the arrival of the Portuguese. In fact Ranil proposed to celebrate the occasion when he was the Prime Minster for about two years under Chandrika Kumaratunga but the people displaced him from the position of the Prime Minster and also Chandrika Kumaratunga from the Presidency before 2006 (5). Mahinda Rajapaksa became the President in 2005 and stopped all those nonsense of worshipping colonialism by the Kalusuddas and the Kalusuddis.
If we confine ourselves to the period after signing the Sinhala English Pact we find a number of patriots who had given leadership to our independence struggle. As Gunadasa Amarasekera has argued Anagarika Dharmapala was not a mere Buddhist revivalist upasaka but a leader who gave leadership to a political movement. The movement was nothing but the nationalist movement that had the aim of giving due recognition to Sinhala Buddhist culture. As Amarasekera has stated 1956 was nothing but a revival of the Dharmapala movement. Amarasekera's conjecture can be extended and we could state that 1956 was in effect a continuation of the independence struggle against the English who had the support of the Kalusuddas and Kalusuddis.
The official language act wanted to give due recognition to the Sinhala language replacing the English of the Suddas and the Kalusuddas. However the Marxists and Liberals alike, who are instructed by the West through their theories and concepts, opposed the Official Language policy, and finally joined hands with Tamil racism that had been established and nourished by the English since the establishment of the Legislative Assembly in the early decades of the nineteenth century.
The independence struggle since the latter part of the nineteenth century has concentrated on cultural colonialism, which is maintained in Asia, Africa and South America through Western knowledge imparted using schools, universities, and now media especially the television and to some extent cinema and Literature. Anagarika Dharmapala gave leadership to the fight against cultural and economic colonialism after the second major independence struggle against political and economic colonialism by Veera Puran Appu, Gongalegoda Banda. It has to be emphasized that the Bhikkus were the instructors behind all these struggles, who were identified by the English as the yellow peril.
The Liberals, Marxists and others who are merely agents of colonialism ignore the cultural component of Western colonialism that came into existence in the latter part of the fifteenth century. Western colonialism has three components, namely political, economic and cultural and the Western theories concentrate only on the political and economic components.
The Sinhala people who have no inclination to theorize have understood by intuition the cultural component and unlike the "sophisticated" educated people who are nothing but imitators, have understood Tamil racism as the major instrument used by the English to maintain colonialism in the country. The SLFP that was established in 1951 along Liberal lines was converted to a party based on nationalism fighting against colonialism with an emphasis on the cultural component around 1954 during the time of Minneriya election. The party adopted the Sinhala Language policy and after that it worked towards being the party of nationalism (Jathikatvaye Pakshaya).
"Dharmishta Rajya" concept
However, the Party was defeated in 1977 due to misguided "socialist" economic policies and JR Jayewardane came to power through his "Dharmishta Rajya" concept, which was nothing but a camouflage to cover up his pro colonialist policies, similar to the good governance cry of the non nationalist forces to undermine the struggle for freedom by Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa. The Sinhala people were cheated by JR Jayewardane with the "Dharmishta Rajya" concept and he went on to establish a semi autocratic state and by 1989 the SLFP was in doldrums.
Mrs. Bandaranaike was the leader of the Party and Mr. JRP Sooriyaarachchi the secretary. Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa had formed a committee to commemorate the late Mr. Bandaranaike and they wanted to organize a meeting for the purpose. However, Mrs. Bandaranaike was not in favour of the idea as she thought that people would not attend the meeting due to "yahapalana bheeshanaya" of the UNP, but the committee was looking for a speaker. The speakers were not found in dozens in those "bheeshana" good governance days of R Premadasa, and Messrs. Mahinda Rajapaksa and SB Dissanayaka came to our home to invite me to deliver the first Bandaranaike Memorial Lecture. I spoke on "Panashaye Daruwo" (children of fifty six) to a crowd that overflowed the BMICH, to the satisfaction of Mrs. Bandaranaike, and as Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa has admitted it was the beginning of a new era.
Unfortunately the children of Mr. and Mrs. Bandaranaike were not children of fifty six and at various times they had left the party of their parents to join other parties. In the early nineties when the SLFP was gaining strength mainly due to its nationalistic policies and the organizational abilities of Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa, Western powers and their agents in Sri Lanka including Rajitha Senarathne who is familiar with PRRA that was formed to annihilate the JVP, but who quotes Trotsky now to proclaim that he would march differently but fight together with the JVP against the SLFP, wanted to change the nationalistic policies of the SLFP. It is clear that Rajitha Senarathne from his Janawegaya days has been against the nationalistic policies of the SLFP and he wanted to destroy the JVP then due to its pseudo nationalistic policies after the Indo-Lanka Accord. Now he fights with the JVP that has dropped its pseudo nationalistic policies just as much the leaders of the JHU have done, against the nationalistic policies of the SLFP.
However, Chandrika Kumaratunga was able to capitalize against the seventeen year rule of the UNP and became the President of the country in 1994. Her policy of ending the war was by giving more than one third of the country to "Mr. Prabhakaran" through so called peace talks based on Western knowledge that the LTTE cannot be defeated. The common man did not allow her to do so and finally elected Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa as the President of the country. Mr. Rajapaksa continued with the nationalistic policies of the SLFP and defeated Tamil terrorism at Nandikadal in 2009. It is clear that he would continue to defeat Tamil racism that is operated by England from London through the dispersed Tamils living there and the rest of the Western countries.
Western colonialism
The West wants to defeat Mr. Rajapaksa and give him the same treatment given to Keppetipola Nilame as he has fought against Western colonialism. They want to punish the Defence Secretary, the officers and the soldiers of the armed forces through a so called internal domestic inquiry or "domestic war crime tribunal" that has been promised by Maithripala Sirisena who is only a puppet of Chandrika and Ranil who in turn are agents of Western colonialism, following the way the English massacred the Uva Wellassa people. Those who want a "change" are looking for a blood bath massacring the nationalistic forces in the country.
All the non nationalistic forces have got together against Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa and the nationalistic SLFP, and parties such as SLMC and TNA would not have supported Maithripala if he did not promise them what the government refused to give. If both the government and the opposition rejected their demands they should have said that they would not support either of the two candidates. Those who think that leaders of the JHU would be able to prevent paving the way to an Eelam under a puppet of the Westerners do not know the opportunistic policies of the former. In any event they claim that they could not get the approval of Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa who gave political leadership to defeat the LTTE, for their policies. If that is the case how can one expect them to get the approval of Ranil and Chandrika who signed a so called ceasefire agreement with "Mr. Prabhakaran" and wanted PTOMS, for their policies even if they are genuine.
The Muslims and the Tamils should ignore not only their leaders in Sri Lanka but in the West and unite with the nationalistic forces to defeat Western colonialism. The Muslims should look up to the Palestine leaders who have named a road after Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa and not up to the opportunistic Muslim leaders in Sri Lanka who are only agents of Western colonialism. In any event the Sinhala nationalistic forces would not allow themselves to be massacred nor allow the Westerners to destroy Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa. They have learnt a lot since the days of Keppetipola Nilame.
Nalin De Silva
02-01-2015