Struggle for independence and freedom in education - Part II:

Unpopular taxes on Sinhala peasantry by British

Gunapala Wickremaratne

Continued from January 27 (Wednesday)

The causes that led to the 1848 rebellion were unpopular taxes, an unjust agrarian policy and wide spread injustice, suppressions, wrongs and losses inflicted often by the British Government upon the Sinhalese peasantry. Emerson Tennent, the colonial secretary had introduced certain taxes namely, the dog tax, gun tax, shop tax and the road tax; the last mentioned being particularly unpopular because it had to be rendered by Rajakariya labour on roads for six days of the year and applied to all male adults including the Bhikkhus themselves.

Road tax

This insult to the Sangha aroused widespread resentment. Subsequent to the rebellion the Bhikkhus were exempted from the road tax. The Crown Lands’ Ordinance No. 12 of 1840 which dispossessed the peasant of all land except his paddy field and the scrap of ground on which his house was built.

The rest of the Kandyan land was by an ingenious process of legal squabbling, taken over by the Government and sold for a song to coffee planters and later to the tea planters.

Europeans and Malabar coolies now invaded ‘the secret haunts’ of the Kandyans disturbing their habits and interfering with their customs.

All the old chieftons had gone to oblivion or thrown their lot with British for the acquisition of a new faith, land, property, power and status. The time seemed ripe for a rebellion but no leader among the aristocracy could be found.

Yet at Nalanda the peasants discovered Gongalegoda Banda alias Peliyagoda David, a low country Sinhalese who had the courage to lead the revolt for freedom. He hailed from Wanawahala, a part of Kelaniya, near Peliyagoda. They took him to Dambulla where they made the Nayaka thera appoint him King.

The ‘King’ appointed his brother Denis as sub - king and one Puran Appu, another low country Sinhalese as his first Adigar.

Martial Law

Chapter III of The Revolt in the Temple published in 1953 to commemorate 2500 of the Land, the Race and the Faith describes, the destruction by the British under Martial Law thus; “Captain Watson’s death proclamation commanded everybody, on pain of being killed, to report where the belongings of the rebel leaders were concealed.

Soldiers invaded the villages. Women were tortured to reveal where they had hidden their money and jewellery; cattle, paddy and movables were confiscated and sold, then the cottages themselves were set on fire.

At times whole villages were reduced to cinders by fire” - (pg.101). Dingirala, the ‘sub - king’ was shot and his body hanged for four days after, Kandapola Unnanse, a Bhikkhu who lived as a hermit in a forest cave, was brought to Kandy hand - cuffed and tried for high treason”.

Political freedom

“Then came the tragic period in the island’s history, when that unity of purpose and identity of interest, which stirred the Sangha, King and people alike to action, was ruthlessly destroyed by foes from without and treachery from within.

Thus it came to pass that, with the loss of political freedom, Lanka’s national consciousness vanished or became dormant.”

The 1915 riots were more than communal, when considering the causes that led to it. It was the manifestation of frustration and deep rooted religious and national awakening.

Buddhism, Sinhala language, customs and manners and even personal names came to be looked down upon. Everything English and Christian came to be regarded with high esteem. It became the custom for Buddhists to swear on the Bible.

Buddhist studies continued in the temples of the Southern Province. A reaction to the artificial existence arose from the ranks of the Sangha.

The establishment of a Pirivena at Ratmalana in 1839 and the scholars like Hikkaduwa Sri Sumangala and Pandit Batuwantudawe gave an impetus to the reformation of the Sangha. Buddhist activity came to the forefront in the form of controversies with Christian missionaries at Baddegama, Kelaniya and Gampola.

Freedom fighter

The 1873 great controversy at Panadura, between the Buddhists under the leadership of Migettuwatte Gunananda Thera and the leaders of the Protestant Church, published by the Ceylon Times, brought to Sri Lanka, the enlightened American freedom fighter Colonel Henry Steele Olcott. With Madam Blavatsky, he founded the Buddhist Theosophical Society (B.T.S.) of which he became the first President. Olcott arrived in Galle on May 15, 1880.

“With the instinct of a true warrior, he sized up the situation at once; the Buddhists of Ceylon were being crushed between two grindstones - the British Government and the Christian missionaries. Against this inhumanity a fight was being made and the doughty soldier entered the fray at once, to lead the campaign for the restoration of their rights to a community which had been denied those rights by a Government which had failed or deliberately refused to understand their aspirations” - (The Revolt in the Temple (pg 117)

As indicated by Prof. J.E. Jayasuriya in his book Education in Ceylon - before and after Independence, the scheme of assistance by the government to denominational schools belonging to certain Protestant Christian denominations began in 1843. During the first 30 years of the scheme, Protestant Christian denominations were the chief beneficiaries. The Roman Catholics, the Buddhists, the Hindus and the Muslims also gradually entered the scheme, and in course of time the Roman Catholics along with the Protestants came to occupy a place of dominance in the scheme.

Glorious past

The first and foremost object of the missionaries was to convert people to Christianity but the practical experience soon convinced them, that they had to start schools as an important means of proselytisation.

Within a few years after the establishment of the B.T.S. three colleges and 200 schools were opened for nearly 20,000 children. Not only did Olcott and his co-workers championed Buddhism, but they also idealized the glorious past of the Sinhalese.

Under eminent leaders like Anagarika Dharmapala, Walisingha Harischandra, Piyadasa Sirisena and others, national consciousness was created in the country. The Sinhalese began no recall that they were heirs to one of the most ancient civilizations of the world.

“The role of the denominational schools in education came into sharp focus when, about the year 1900, the question of making education compulsory was being considered.

“The number of secular government schools at the time was 498; the number of Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim grant - in - aid schools was only 211 although the adherents of these religions constituted 90. 14 percent of the population; the Christians constituted only 9.74 percent of the population but had 1117 grant-in-aid schools”.

Buddhist schools

To insist on compulsory attendance without increasing the two former categories of schools many times, a prospect that was unachievable, would be to insist on Christianization” - (op.cit - cited from Ceylon census 1900; commission Report; Elementary Education 1905.)

It is in the context of the brief description given above, that until Buddhist schools were opened in sufficient numbers, no education could be provided in a Buddhist environment to the majority of Buddhist children attending schools.

The BTS and the private philanthropist managers and associations were also compelled by circumstance to provide education in the English medium in a Buddhist environment.

The recruitment to public services was from those educated in the English medium.

The education ordinance No. 1 of 1920 brought all assisted schools irrespective of language medium, within the scope of the conscience clause of the 1906 and 1907 ordinance that were limited in application.

To be continued