Sri Lanka and its relations with India

Text of the speech delivered by High Commissioner for Sri Lanka to India Prasad Kariyawasam, at the Public Forum organised by the Kerala International Centre on June 13, 2012

High Commissioner for Sri Lanka to India Prasad Kariyawasam

My visit to Kerala is a manifestation of Sri Lanka’s desire to expand relations with the Southern Indian states and the primacy we have given in this context to Kerala. Sri Lanka and Kerala have had an age old relationship with vibrant people-to-people contact that is recorded in history. Though the economies of Sri Lanka and Kerala appear similar at first glance, there is potential for us to create synergies and leverage market advantage through creation of a common platform on commodities that both Sri Lanka and Kerala can dominate in the world market. This includes spices, coconut and rubber products. Sri Lanka is keen to revive and reinvigorate ties with Kerala in all spheres including the political contacts.

My topic today is Sri Lanka and its relations with India.

Relations between India and Sri Lanka are ancient and predate the modern State system based on the Peace of Westphalia of 1648. Bonds between our peoples, our kings and our rulers are even older than recorded history.

Somehow, with the evolution of history, that is, the long years of colonial rule, the travails of freedom struggles and Independence, and the efforts thereafter to govern in the modern Nation State System, which itself is evolving; while dealing at the same time with several complications inherited from colonial rule; resulted in the blurring of the ties that bound our people in the ancient past.

Today, with the end of terrorism that plagued Sri Lanka for 30 years, and the rise of India on the world stage, we have a historic opportunity to once again go back to building our traditional friendships, especially with the Southern States of India and restore our age-old ties.

Historical chronicles

This is a path that our two nations have already embarked upon. Relations with Kerala are most important to Sri Lanka in this context. In our historical narratives, Kerala has found a special place and was referred to during Emperor Asoka’s time as 'Keralaputra'. We have had continuous people-to-people and economic contacts thriving until the arrival of European powers in our region. It is widely believed in Sri Lanka that exchanges between the people of Kerala and Southern Sri Lanka was a normal fact of life until recent times.

In this context, I want to first set before you, very briefly, what Sri Lanka was historically and the nature of Sri Lanka’s relations with India.

A strong influence on Sri Lanka’s history right throughout, for thousands of years, has been her position in the Indian Ocean, namely, her strategic location: an island, located midway between East and West. For over 2000 years before the advent of the colonial powers, Sri Lanka served as a safe and important entrepôt, providing ports for the exchange of goods between East and West; a contact point between two great regions.

Sri Lanka, since time immemorial, has seen the continual absorption of influences from the outside world. This is evident in the multilayered make up of the population, its manners, its traditions, culture, architecture, food and attire. But, throughout history, the people of Sri Lanka have displayed a resistance to attempts at physical conquest and control. Nevertheless, we have welcomed those who settle and integrate with us including those from Kerala. Being divided by India by just 30 miles, a narrow strip of Sea, Sri Lanka has been close enough to India to be influenced throughout history, but remained fiercely independent so as to preserve a distinct individuality.

The history of Sri Lanka from the 3rd Century BC onwards is one of the best documented in the region. The island has a collection of historical chronicles and religious writings which have no parallel in South Asia. Recorded history begins over 2300 years ago when Emperor Asoka of India sent his son and daughter to Sri Lanka. They set out to Sri Lanka from Sanchi and were received in Sri Lanka’s ancient Kingdom of Anuradhapura. This is an important civilizational link between our two countries.

A sapling of the Pipal tree under which Prince Siddharta attained enlightenment as Gautama Buddha in Bodhgaya, was taken to Sri Lanka by Emperor Asoka’s daughter. That tree continues to stand in Anuradhapura even today. It is acknowledged as the oldest recorded tree in the world and has remained in continuous worship since the inception in 3rd Century BC. For nearly 13 centuries Anuradhapura remained the principal seat of government and the major centre of Sri Lankan culture and civilisation. Its monasteries were great centres of learning, visited by scholars and pilgrims from many parts of Asia. It housed an international trading community, which included traders from India, China, Rome, Arabia and Persia. It was from the court at Anuradhapura that Sri Lankan ambassadors were despatched on several occasions to the imperial courts of Rome and China. The Great Indian Buddhist scholar and commentator, Buddhaghosa, spent many years in Anuradhapura during the 5th Century, codifying the Buddhist scriptures which had been lost in India. Gunavarman, the Kashmiri monk, who carried Buddhism to Indonesia and China, passed through Sri Lanka, and must certainly have visited the city’s monasteries. Monks from Anuradhapura went out to many lands, such as India, China, Cambodia and Java, leaving in those distant places, inscriptions and records of their visits.

Kerala is a great tourist destination spot. File photo

Influences from Southern India have been of fundamental importance from prehistoric times. For a thousand years before the arrival of the Portuguese, several conquerors from South India invaded parts of Sri Lanka and established dependencies. At the same time, there was a long history of Sri Lankan rulers sending emissaries to Southern India for their queens and for cultural and economic pursuits. The Buddhist temples from the Polonnaruwa period onwards incorporated Hindu shrines in their premises. This is a feature one would find in Buddhist temples even today.

Ancient civilisations

It has been said that ‘there is no island in the world that has attracted the attention of authors in so many distant ages and so many different countries as Ceylon’. During much of the historic period, there are descriptions of the island: in the Hindu epics, in accounts of early Chinese Buddhist travellers, in the works of the Greek, Roman and Arab geographers, and eventually in the Portuguese and Dutch archives.

One of the earliest foreign records is that of a pilot in one of Alexander’s fleets, who seems to have visited Sri Lanka in the 4th Century BC. In the 1st Century AD, Pliny gives a description of the country and its people, which he seems to have compiled from the accounts of Sri Lankan ambassadors to the court of Emperor Claudius. Some of the most accurate accounts are considered to be by the Chinese Pilgrim Scholar, Fa-Hsien, who visited Sri Lanka in 5th Century to visit the Buddhist monasteries which by that time had become great centres of learning. The beauty and wealth of the island had caught the imagination of Arab writers to such an extent that the land they referred to as ‘Serendib’ was incorporated into the stories of Sinbad the Sailor. They believed that Adam lived there when he was exiled from Paradise. Even today, a Holy Mountain in Sri Lanka, 7,300 feet in height, called Siri Pada or Adam’s Peak, which has, at its Summit, a depression resembling a foot print, is considered by the Muslims as Adam’s. The same footprint is venerated by Buddhists as that of the Buddha; by Hindus as that of Shiva; and by Christians as that of St. Thomas the Apostle.

It is also said of Sri Lanka that ‘there is probably no place that occurs so frequently or is so correctly situated on ancient maps’. Perhaps nothing conveys this so graphically as the map of the world by Ptolemy, the Egyptian geographer of the 2nd Century AD. There, Sri Lanka, referred to as Taprobane, appears about 20 times its actual size, dominating the twin arcs of the Indian Ocean formed by the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea.

All this stands testimony to the fact that Sri Lanka was not only a rich and beautiful island but that it was also the seat of one of the small but important historical civilisations of Asia. Historians of science have placed the Sri Lankan builders amongst the great hydraulic engineers of the pre-modern world, on a level with those of ancient Egypt and China. The scale of their achievement can be measured when one considers that in the 12th Century, there were 600 miles of man-made canals in an island that is less than 300 miles long. The ruins of great monasteries and cities, colossal man-made lakes, numerous inscriptions and a large body of ancient literature still survive as testimony to the achievements of the Sri Lankan people over a period of 2000 years and more. They indicate that from about 3rd century BC to about the 15th century, Sri Lanka took its place with other countries in Asia, as one of the most advanced and developed countries of the pre-modern world. Throughout this period, the people of Sri Lanka had evolved its own distinctive culture and economy while keeping in close contact with the outside world and being open to ideas and exchanges with the countries of the Indian Ocean region and beyond.

Political party system

With the beginning of the modern era, the world began to change and enter upon a new historical stage. Sri Lanka was compelled into forming new relationships with powers from overseas, particularly, the Europe of the Renaissance. The colonial expansion of the European maritime nations had a direct political, economic and cultural impact on Sri Lanka. Our traditional relations with the people of Kerala may have been somewhat severed as a result. The Sri Lankan people were outmanoeuvred by successive waves of Portuguese, Dutch and British colonisers armed with military power and aggressive economic and diplomatic strategies of a rising Europe. The country remained a British colony for 150 years until Independence in 1948.

The process of transformation of Sri Lanka into a modern nation with modern institutions, therefore, took place under colonial domination.

Modern constitutional governance in Sri Lanka commenced in 1833, during the time of the British, with what is known as the Colebrooke-Cameron Reforms. These reforms provided the first inklings of constitutionalism for Sri Lanka. From this point on, constitutional governance evolved. At first, Restricted Legislative Assemblies were established. In due time, they were enlarged until, in 1931, the people of Sri Lanka received Universal Adult Franchise. Thereafter, a National Assembly was established and the political party system emerged. In keeping with the British system of governance, a strong Bar and an independent Judiciary developed in the country. The Parliament was established with the advent of Independence in 1948 and the Constitution known as the Soulbury Constitution, modelled along the Westminster model of government, was adopted. This was not an end in itself. Although, what may be described as a vibrant, practicing democracy was established at the time, the process of finding the perfect constitutional model for the empowerment of people encompassing all communities still continues in Sri Lanka, even after 60 years of Independence.

In 1972, a new constitution was formed under an electoral mandate given to the Left Front Government. This exercise saw Sri Lanka breaking away from the colonial model. Continuing the process of modernisation of the constitutional structure in Sri Lanka, another new constitution was adopted in 1978, following the mandate given by the electorate to the United National Party. This saw the introduction of a new constitution that broke away completely from the previous Westminster model.

The 1972 constitution declared the President of the Republic to be the Head of State; thereby changing the role of the Governor-General from one of being a mere representative of The Queen to that of a President, as a Head of State for Sri Lanka. The 1978 constitution changed this completely, expanding the role of the President as Head of State, Head of the Executive and of the Government and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. This 1978 constitution is the one by which Sri Lanka is currently governed. For 30 long years, since the late 1970s, democracy in the country was under siege. A terrorist group, bent on carving out a separate State in the North and the East of the country, unleashed indescribable violence on the nation. Their aim was to convert the multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious society that the people of the country had enjoyed for many centuries, into a narrow, mono-ethnic, mono-linguistic State.

To be continued