Dr Sudath Guanasekara

Part 1.

This document is expected to serve as the blue print of a Master plan for the rehabilitation, Development and Protection of the Kandyan areas as defined in this paper below and its people, located right at the center of this Island (The Geographical heartland HADABIMA” of this Island) and it is designed to usher in a new chapter in the development story of this Island nation, with special attention on the Kandyan areas.

The Kandyan areas (more fully described in annex 1) referred to in this essay were the most affected firstly, due to political and economic isolation from the outside world for 319 years (1505 to 1815) due Portuguese, Dutch and British occupation of the coastal belt with intermittent attacks and secondly, direct and accelerated repression, oppression, destruction and exploitation by the British UNTIL 1948. It is also the worst affected part in the country’s physical, economic, social and cultural spheres during the 133-year period of direct British colonial Administration (1815-1948) in this country. The two darkest black marks in the history of British occupation were the 1817-18 Uva Wellassa rebellion and the 1848 Matale rebellion. These two have gone down in history as the most horrendous and inhuman black marks in British colonial rule in this country. What is even more despicable was that these areas were also the most neglected, discriminated and denationalized region by all governments since 1948-up to date with no regard for a great people who defended this country for 443 years, against the military might and the atrocities of three foreign invaders namely, the Portuguese, Dutch and the British to protect the motherland for posterity at great expense.

The Master Plan

This master plan of development is designed to rectify all these historical injustices inflicted upon the natives of these regions and usher in a new and vibrant development era in the Kandyan Areas.

The Proposal referred to in this document covers mainly the Central and Uva Provinces referred to in the Kandyan Peasantry Commission Report of 1951, that were the main theaters of the freedom struggles waged by the patriotic Kandyan Sinhalese of the then Kandyan Kingdom in 1818 and 1848, against the oppression and genocide by British invaders. However, the area of implementation of the proposed development plan extends to a wider area covering all other     Divisional Secretary Areas in the districts adjoining the central hill country in other provinces as well, recommended by the  proposed Authority or requests  made by the public so that it will cover some parts of Sabaragamuwa, Southern, NWP and even the Eastern province in the Ampare District, as they all were within the affected Kandyan areas, where in the people were also  victims of colonial rule suffering the same colonial victimization. Initially it will be implemented within the project area and broaden the spillover benefits of this project to a wider segment of deserving citizens in the country covering almost 1/3 the area of the whole Island as it gathers momentum.

The oppressive and exploitive rule of the British for 133 years (1815-1948), constitutes one of the worst criminal records of British colonial administration in the world, as John Davy has once said.

I quote,

John Davy commenting in the aftermath of the 1818 observes that The history of British rule in Sri Lanka after 1818 rebellion cannot be related without shame. None of the members of the leading families in the Kandyan families in the Kandyan country have survived. Small-pox and privations have destroyed those spared by the gun and the sword”. (John Davy Scholar, Army surgeon and physician in attendance on Brownrigg during 1817-1819.)

Their criminal records of oppression and suppression and extra judicial murder and genocide committed during the 1848 Matale rebellion, by Torrington were even worse and were more savages according to extant historical records.

Kandyan areas

The Kandyan Kingdom (Kandaudarata) at the time of annexation to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1815 was that part of the country covering nearly 90 % of the Island of Sri Lanka/ Sinhale, bordered by a narrow maritime belt that was under the Portuguese, Dutch and the British consecutively, for 310 years from 1505 to 1815. This Kingdom was found by King Wimaladharmasuriya in 1594 with Sekadagala as its capital and continued as an independent country until it was ceded to the English by a convention between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Sinhale on 2nd March 1815.

It was also the legitimate successor to the Lankadhiipa /Sinhale Kingdom found in 543 BC and the last link of that great Sinhala Buddhist Kingdom that protected its sovereignty and independence for 2358 years until it was ceded to the British crown in 1815 by deception and intrigue on the part of the British led by a cunning British Civil Servant called John D’Oyly who was supposed to be the best spy in the British empire, due to disunity and lack of farsightedness among the native leaders.

Had the Kandyans also not resisted and not fought against the invaders, during this 310-year period definitely, the Sinhala nation too would have got extinct, just like what happened to the native N&S Americans, Australians and New Zealanders due colonial invasions by the Western invaders. It was those patriotic and brave Kandyans, (a term coined by a British naval Captain Robert Percival in 1805 to call those who lived on the hilly center of the country) who protected the motherland for posterity.

It was these Sinhala patriotic people called Kandyans who fought fearlessly and died in the battles against three invaders to protect the heartland of the motherland and sacrificed everything they had, including their lives in tens of thousands on behalf of all those who lived even in the maritime belt of this land during the colonial rule.

Therefore, the present-day generation not only Sinhalese living all over the country but also all others including Tamils and Muslim as one unified nation with no distinction as Kandyan or low country Sinhalese even though their ancestors had taken the side of the British as they were helpless before the invaders mighty gunpower owes the greatest debt to the brave and patriotic Kandyans, the sons of Lanka who sacrificed everything they had cherished and jealously guarded for 2 ½ millennia including their land, system of government, legal system, religion, culture, traditions and customs and personal belongings including their loved ones, wives and children and finally, their own life  to protect this land for us to live today. Therefore, it is the bounden duty of not only the Sinhalese living all over the world but even all other communities such as Tamils and Muslims who have made this country their home, to join hands with the government to solve the socio-economic problems of the people in these areas and also to agitate for reparation for the crimes done to a country and a nation with a rich culture by the British colonial rulers, who built an Empire where the sun never set as they boast, with riches plundered and robbed from countries like ours.

(To be continued)