By Sena Thoradeniya

(Contd. From 26 September 2023)

Government Agent’s and Assistant Agent’s Circuits in the Provinces/Districts

1.Official Diaries:

The activities of Government Agents and Assistant Agents were not limited to office work in kachcheris. They travelled throughout the Provinces and Districts respectively under their authority every month, sometimes several weeks continuously reviewing the work carried out in the districts by government institutions and checking whether the Headmen were implementing the work allotted to them. Official Diaries maintained by Government Agents, Assistant Government Agents and Office Assistants (OAs, third in the hierarchy of kachcheri administration) provide valuable information with regard to their office work in the kachcheris and circuits, how provincial and district administration was carried out by intermediaries Rate Mahattayas, Korale Mahattayas and Village Headmen (V.H. or Arachchis) in the latter.

The information contains in these Diaries illustrate Colonial administrator – native chief – ordinary villager relations in each district. It is the opinion of this writer that attention given to the information contains in these diaries by historians, sociologists and anthropologists is negligible, fragmentary and restricted to the chosen fields of study of their own and no Researcher or a group of Researchers or an Institute had done an in- depth study of these diaries. It is sad to say that thousands of documents deposited at the Sri Lanka National Archives (SLNA) in Colombo and Kandy remain untouched.

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It was the duty of the Rate Mahattaya to receive, entertain and provide accommodation for the top official of the Province/District when he was on circuit. Native Headmen erected pandals, decorated bazars to welcome them and they were taken in procession accompanied with a large number of Kandyan dancers and tom – tom beaters. 

In plantation districts colonial administrators stayed the nights with British planters. In places where Rest Houses were available administrators found lodgings there. In remote areas temporary bungalows were erected by Headmen, village washer man providing linen.

Ponies, carts, bicycles and sometimes canoes were used for transportation in the North Central Province. In rugged mountain terrain in the Central Province where horse riding was a nightmare, Colonial administrators were carried by two villagers forming a ‘chair’ (ath putu) with their folded arms upon orders by Chieftains. (The dignitary ‘sat’ on the folded arms of the two carriers, his arms put around their necks. Even in early sixties politicians were carried like this to meeting places). Once Saxton the Government Agent of Central Province in his circuit to Eladetta in Udunuwara, was taken on an elephant arranged by the Diyawadana Nilame.

While the Government Agent/ Assistant Agent were on circuit, Rate Mahattayas in charge of divisions, Korale Mahattayas in charge of Korales and Village Headmen were in attendance. When Government Agent/Assistant Agent punishing villagers and minor village level officers (sometimes Koralas and Arachchis) severely there is not a single entry to denote that the Rate Mahattayas or Presidents of Village Tribunals had arbitrated on behalf of the wrongdoer, pleaded for clemency or mitigate the punishment.

2. Peculiarity of the North Central Province:

For this essay we have taken the Diaries of North Central Province only for obvious reasons. More than any other Province this writer opines that the Diaries of Assistant Government Agents (when it was attached to the Northern Province) and Government Agents of the North Central Province provide a microcosm of how provincial and district administration was carried out by the colonial administrators with their local hirelings  and shocking revelations about the plight of the Kandyan Sinhalayas.

There is evidence to show that colonial administrators had visited every nook and corner of the district/province inspecting irrigation works (tanks, sluices, anicuts, earth work and masonry work, canals), schools, and archeological excavations carried out at the time. In the Central Province, dispensaries, hospitals, local boards and sanitary boards, roads of different types, bridges, major and minor irrigation works, wells, ambalams, edandas and cocoa cultivation were under the scrutiny of GAs and AGAs. 

Inspection of official diaries of minor headmen took place while on circuit and those who made incomplete or false entries were punished varying from fines, interdiction or summarily dismissal.

The question arises why dismissing from service, prosecuting, punishing, suspending, fining of minor officials took place in such a magnitude. We may attribute many reasons, but all are inferences that need more evidence and detailed analysis. Colonial provincial administration opened up new avenues and opportunities for minor village level officials hitherto unknown prior to Colebrook-Cameron Reforms, to engage in cheat, fraud and other malpractices and misuse, consequences of a superimposed money economy over feudal economic relations. History of present-day fraud, malpractices, misuse of resources and abuse of power is embedded in this colonial administration.     

3. Appointments:

Appointing Arachchis and Vel Vidanes, renewal of Acts of Appointment of Arachchis and Korale Mahattayas, suspending or temporarily suspending Acts of Appointment took place while Government Agent was on circuit. We come across a Government Agent transferring a hospital orderly for sending a post card to a prisoner (for prisoner’s use) which was intercepted by the gaol keeper.

4. Suspensions:

Suspending Arachchis for issuing cattle vouchers after an outbreak of rinderpest in the Thulana, Police Vidanes for defrauding chena payments of villagers, Korale Mahattayas who were retaining the money collected as cattle branding fee and payees complaining their cattle not still branded was a common occurrence.

5. Dismissals:

Dismissing Arachchis for giving false evidence; delaying to write crime reports (on the same day he was informed) or not making any enquiry into alleged charges of robbery and arresting offenders; for possessing illicit salt; Korale Mahattayas and  Arachchis for accusing Rate Mahattaya of extortions and gratifications (Government Agents always shared the same opinion with Rate Mahattayas); Irrigation Sub Inspectors for receiving bribes; caretakers of badly kept Circuit Bungalows; Rest House keepers who sold arrack to coolies; sentencing to Rigorous Imprisonment or dismissing Arachchis and Vidiye Arachchis for falsifying Road Tax Accounts; examining crime report books of Arachchis  they were dismissed for irregularities detected; dismissed minor employees for using old cart licenses (old stamps); Vel Vidanes for illicit chening. 

B. Constantine, the Government Agent wrote in 1913: I do not want to dismiss more headmen than necessary”.

Sometimes Vel Vidanes were offered the choice of being dismissed or paying a fine of Rs. 10/=.  Some Koralas and Arachchis resigned before removing from office as they were allowed to resign for misdeeds.

In a rare occurrence the punishment meted out took the form of severe warning: warning Korale Mahattayas and Arachchis for spill blocks; slackness in chena matters”; ordering Wev Lekams to carry out the work assigned to them by Irrigation Sub-Inspectors.

6. Rewarding:

 It will be incomplete if we do not record that in certain instances Korale Mahattayas and Arachchis were rewarded for detecting illicit chenas, who got offenders punished and those who instituted more crime convictions, in other words for punishing the unfortunate villagers. The only encouraging feature for the wellbeing of the peasantry was rewarding minor officials for measures taken for controlling rinderpest and anthrax.

7. Fining Minor Officials:

Fining formed the most predominant mode of punishment. Mostly minor headmen and sometimes Korale Mahattaya were fined varied amounts for careless diary entries and interpolations; neglect of duty; disobedience and failure to comply with Rate Mahattaya’s orders; general insubordination; careless work; not reporting vital matters; irregular execution of cattle vouchers (regarding sales  of cattle) and cattle voucher forgeries; for cattle untethered and wallowing in the tank; connivance at illicit possession of toddy; complicity in illicit clearing of Crown” land; not remitting Crown land rent collections; exaggerating cattle trespass damages; absenting from court cases; those Arachchis who had forgotten to bring their Crime Report Books when GA was in circuit; delays in reporting cases of theft;  timber extraction or possession of timber or under valuing timber extracted by permit holders or permitting excess extraction; failure to inquire into complaints;  delaying to send reports;  irregularities in cattle branding receipts;  neglecting to report to Chena Muhandiram  illicit chenas and  exact acreage or excess chenas than permitted. (when a permit had been granted Arachchi was bound to measure the acreage allowed and cleared).Once an Arachchi was fined Rs. 7.50 for increasing his fees for a chena report from 50 cents to 1 rupee without permission.

Vel Vidanes were fined for laziness; breeching of irrigation tanks due to blocking of the spill; not clearing the spills full of weeds and sand; not carrying out the work assigned to them by Irrigation Sub-Inspectors.

Fining Rest House Keepers for not looking after the earth closet properly”.

Koralas were fined for allowing to clear more than 2 acres for chenas; keeping cattle branding money with them without handing over to Rate Mahattayas.

Minor Headmen were the worst lot to suffer from the rule of higher native officers and British Colonial officers. The eventual vanquished was the hapless peasants as the village Arachchi exerted power and ruthless oppression over them.

7. Fining Villagers:

Fines were imposed upon villagers too by the Government Agent: owners of cattle were fined for cattle untethered and wallowing in the tank; for not getting permits for keep timber;  for false petitions; purchasing cattle without a cattle voucher; damaging irrigation bunds;  defaulting earth work; keeping unlicensed guns or those who had not renewed their gun licenses; for shooting sambhur; fining road tax defaulters; prosecuting and fining those who cultivate the bed of abandoned tanks and for illicit chena cultivation.

Often Rate Mahattayas complained to the GA that villagers do not do any earth work on tanks.

When the GA observed that the tank bund and ‘tisbambe’ (30 fathoms) around gangoda (cluster of houses) not properly cleared he ordered Korale Mahattaya to prosecute villagers if not cleared at once.

If the GA found that fining by magistrate was insufficient in illicit chena clearings, calculating illicit profits earned (sometimes 95% and 80%) submitted those cases to the Attorney General under General Order 655 and asked him to move for enhancement of sentences.

Official Circuit was a circus of punishing minor headmen and villagers. The Government Agent himself had realised after punishing minor headmen and villagers the cruel nature of his own work. W. L. Kindersley wrote in 1912: I fear my progress has been of a somewhat devastating character, but there is no other way to convince the Village Headman that I will not tolerate the destruction of their tanks by him and his fellow villagers”. Again In 1913 he wrote: people suspicious that government exists only to fine them”.

8. Village Tribunals and Police Courts:

GAs examined Gamsabhava records; heard divorce cases; instructed the Presidents of Village Tribunals to fine heavily if he found the fines imposed by the latter were insufficient. All the pangukarayas who were guilty of allowing cattle to stray on tank bunds and damaging them, who blocked up spills to get extra water causing breach of bunds in the rainy season were severely punished in this manner.

Villagers were punished for not paying any heed to summons and deadlines to warrants to attend Village Tribunals. In such a case a VT President under GA’s instructions searched villages, rounded up defaulters and punished 99 offenders. GA was happy: a much-needed lesson that the arm of the law is long enough to reach them in distant villages and strong enough to punish them”. 

GA attended Police Courts and presented cases for neglecting to obey rinderpest regulations; offenders were fined heavily. He ordered lashes to prisoners; in 1912 GA ordered 15 lashes to a prisoner; Medical Officer pronounced that the prisoner was unfit for corporal punishment and asked for a revision of sentence.  GA intending that lashes to form the main component of the sentence ordered the prisoner 9 months additional imprisonment instead.

9. School Inspection:

Another task performed by the Government Agent on circuit was inspecting schools; at Manampitiya he gave 10 cent prizes to those who have topped in their classes and wrote: I generally give a prize or two of this nature.” 

At Tambuttegama the school was being conducted by a monitor about 13 years old in 1911; the Government Agent was satisfied that he filled the log book and seemed to be able to maintain order.” In some schools the GA ordered the monitor to give a lesson in front of him. He warned teachers of gansabhawa schools that they will be dismissed if their work found unsatisfactory at the next examination.

10. Chena Cultivation:

G.A.s in the North Central Province in their circuits, devoted much time to check whether peasants were engaged in illegal chena cultivation. For clearing land for chenas he ordered to pay double or thrice the assessed damage. Illicit chena cultivators were prosecuted and sentenced to 3 months or 6 months imprisonment; GA wrote that it was an exemplary punishment”.

Rate Mahattayas complained about illicit chenas and the GA went with him to inspect jungle clearings and punished the offenders then and there.

The conception the GAs had about NCP villager was a devil with nothing between him and starvation, but chena cultivation.” Kindersley wrote (1912) that the object of his circuit was not to make grants of land to beggars”; I fear I must look too benignant”. 

Most people wanted an extension of their previous year’s chena permits; but the GA was shrewd enough to getting to know that as the tanks were full the villagers had abandoned their chenas to work their paddy fields and refused their applications. Always the GA was rude enough to report that the villagers were apathetic about their cultivation, reluctant to utilise rainy season to sow large areas. This same opinion was shared by the GAs in the Central Province when prosecuting Grain Tax defaulters saying that the Kandyan farmers were lazy.

GA allowed chena permits when he came to know that there had been a 3-year failure of paddy crops in some areas and that their chena crops were mortgaged before they were reaped.

He instructed Rate Mahattayas not to issue chena permits where the tanks were full and the paddy fields cultivated were sufficient for the wants of villagers; chenas should be given only if the tank bund had been breached or fields under-cultivated owing to lack of cattle.

In 1913 Baxandall Constantine who succeeded William Loving Kindersley, instead of chena permits issued to individuals, issued communal chena permits for a number of small chenas. These permits were issued at the rate of ½ an acre for each individual; each tract granted to have its boundaries defined and cultivators were not allowed to clear outside the tract given to him. Government did this not because of its love to people but to ease the work of Chena Muhandirams as it was easy to inspect large communal chenas rather than inspecting too many chenas. Chena farming was not allowed if the villager was an owner of paddy lands sufficient enough to provide him and his family with food; vagaries of climatic conditions not taken into consideration.

Villagers cleared more chenas not knowing how much an acre represents; if excess land cleared on permits, accepted by Arachchi, without reporting to kachcheri the Arachchi was fined; GA thought that it was merely a polite way of admitting the offence”. In such situations GA asked to pay compensation (sometimes Rs.250/=) and fined the Arachchis and Vel Vidanes if their names were included in the communal lists.

But what happened exactly was the impossibility of supervising properly chena clearings. GA himself had admitted that knowledge of Arithmetic of the Arachchi was generally confined to addition and subtraction and did not extend further to multiplication and they were unable to measure an acre of land on the ground.

11. Rinderpest Control:

Rinderpest Control also took a prominent place in their circuits. GAs checked whether farmers adhered to stipulated methods of controlling rinderpest; if not the Government Agent instructed Rate Mahattayas to impose heavy fines; if an outbreak occurred again Aarachchis were removed from office; at the same time some GAs wrote that Rate Mahattayas’ method of eradicating it was drastic and made him unpopular”. Rate Mahattayas reported to the GA the slackness of Koralas in rinderpest control and general insubordination; GA ordered to shoot and kill cattle suspected of rinderpest.

12. Cattle Branding and Stray Cattle:

Checking the lists of branded cattle with the Rate Mahattayas the GA ordered to shoot unbranded buffaloes and identified the offenders for meting out punishment.Constables were sent by the Government Agent to shoot stray cattle and gypsies’ dogs: In order to control anthrax, the Government Agent ordered to shoot all animals not tethered. Licenses were issued to shoot stray cattle.

in 1912 the Government Agent sent the Kachcheri Mudliyar and a constable with a rifle to a gypsy camp to shoot all dogs not claimed by definite persons or take the names of all those who do claim dogs with the view to prosecute under Rabies and Dog Registration Ordinance and collect evidence with regard to killing of game. The constable killed 19 unclaimed dogs and brought a man who killed a sambhur and sold its meat.

13. Petitions:

GAs accepted petitions, listened to verbal requests and entertained complaints, mostly demanding land for chena cultivation, reporting lack of irrigation facilities and asking to restore tanks, to raise spill and change irrigation rates.

Sometimes petitioners were prosecuted and sentenced to 6 months R.I. for presenting him false petitions against headmen.

People claimed land on the famous Kiralawa Sannasa and Kirindiwatte Sannasa. GA found that it was impossible to check their validity. He wrote that their validity was not tested in Courts. Bell proved many sannases were forged.

14.  Detecting Misdeeds:

Circuits helped the Colonial administrators to get to know misdeeds of Arachchis. In 1912 Dematawewa Arachchi was found encouraging a gang of gypsies with a pack of dogs hunting deer to get skins and horns. Rate Mahattaya produced the gypsies with 5 dogs and sambhur skin. The dogs were shot on the spot and gypsies and Arachchi were fined. While searching the Arachchi’s house for hide and horns the Korala had discovered illicit salt and the Aracchiwas prosecuted for another offence.

On the spot solutions were given to villagers’ demand for restoration of minor irrigation tanks, excess irrigation rates and for defaulting earth work of past years.

In 1912 at Mahagalkulama terms offered by the GA to the villagers were somewhat weird: abandon the tank; sign a document for renunciation of land and give back ownership to Crown; no more irrigation rates; all cases for defaulting earth work will be dropped; no more work will be called for from the villagers. All hapless cultivators had no other alternative other than agreeing to GA’s terms.

There were no black coated saviours, civil society” boys and girls. GA wrote triumphantly: their readiness to give up the land is a fair proof of hopelessness of the scheme”.  

15. Some Other Work:

GAs held sales of land for default of irrigation rates and labour rates and collected all arrears. They decided whether taverns should be opened or not; checked inside taverns and investigated connivance of police officers with renters and tavern keepers: renewed gun licenses (this saved the journey to the kachcheri); identified sufferers from parangi. Inspection of official diaries of minor headmen took place while on circuit.

16. Hunting:

Once a Korale Mahattaya was fined Rs. 5/= for not detecting slaughter of game. But the GA issued game licenses to foreigners to shoot bears, elephants, leopards and buffaloes.

When Government Agents and royal dignitaries went on hunting, facilities were provided by Chieftains. The Government Agent of NCP used his circuits to engage in hunting deer, mouse deer, snipe, plover, pigeons and pigs. (numbers shot were given in the diaries; some days 130 snipe in one session). GA recorded that he spotted tracks of spotted deer and other game; all animals have adopted to the habits of the hunter; peafowls at a distance of 200 yards either fly or runaway.

Assistant Agent in Nuwara Eliya found pleasure in elk hunting in Bopaththalawa. Blossoming of nilu flowers in jungles of Pundaluoya, Ramboda, Pedro, Horton Plains and Bogawantalawa attracted jungle fowl and doves; thereafter shooting commenced.

On one occasion the GA ordered the Rate Mahattaya to kill an elephant at Tirappane proclaimed by him as a rogue elephant: if no one else will take on the job I suppose I will have to kill it when I return from Tamankaduwa”.

17. Herbert Rayner Freeman:

We will be failing in our duty if we do not mention about famous Government Agent of NCP Herbert Rayner Freeman, who took over from Constantine in March 1915. Only other Civil Servant who was sympathetic to the villagers, who represented their problems to his superior officers for defaulting Grain Tax payments and problems associated with peasant cultivation was C. J. R. Le Mesurier, Assistant Government Agent of Nuwara Eliya (1881 and 1886-1891). (See: LankaWeb : March 12, 2023).

In his official diaries we never find instances Freeman fining and dismissing Arachchis and other minor officials. His observations are very important in understanding a sympathetic administrator: There appears to be a system of over prosecution by the Kachcheri in the courts here and I think it should be possible to settle more with the villagers in the patriarchal way of the somewhat distant past”.

It is a dreary job visiting North Central Province villages, where the prevailing feature is prosecution; here they are being prosecuted for (not doing) spill clearing work, sluice earthwork, weeding village roads”, what we have discussed in earlier paragraphs.

He reported food scarcities in villages owing to failure of rains, villagers selling cattle to get food and was unhappy Arachchis charging 50 cents per acre for clearing boundaries of chenas and proposed a nominal fee in such years. He exempted parangi patients from doing earthwork. It was a pathetic sight parangi patients applying sand on the sores to cover them from flies he wrote.

He observes that in some villages cultivation of food crops had not taken place in 3 to 6 years.  For the hapless villagers he gave plenty of chenas. 

In March Freeman received a cable from his son that he had obtained a commission in the Regular Army. In May the news comes that his son who was in the Northumberland Fusiliers (soldiers armed with fusils or light muskets) was going to France immediately. As any other pseudo- theorist or psycho-analyst, this writer would not come out with an absurd theory that Freeman was sympathetic to the peasantry of Nuwara Kalaviya and Tamankaduwa  because he was psychologically concerned about his son’s safety who joined the British Army. (His son having recovered from his wounds went back to France to rejoin his regiment).

Freeman was very critical about the behavior of Punjabi soldiers who came to NCP without any notice to the GA under martial law in 1915 (molesting people, plundering). He attributes arson of some Muslim boutiques at Nochchiagama to Muslims themselves.

It seems that he was the only Government Agent who had visited isolated villages hidden in the jungle. What he had observed was pitiable. Crop damage due to drought and floods, scarcity of food, no food except jungle food or living on bulbous roots grown in tanks like nelum ala (But oneGA wrote in 1913: The people seem well nourished though they have not too much paddy, seem to thrive on their diet of lotus seeds which they have in plenty”; living on olu rice and lotus seeds but look well nourished”),  elephants and monkeys destroying crops, diseases like malaria, parangi and other skin diseases, worm diseases of all types, some villages have been wiped out completely by sickness, penury and deaths; only 2 or 3  houses left; in some villages only one man lives;  empty kurakkan barns; starvation; buffaloes run over by trains (one Arachchi reports that during the three years he held office 160 cattle have been run over by train); loss of cattle owing to ravages of rinderpest; attacks of wild animals; tanks turned into puddles of dirty water; houses without roofs; males migrating to estates in Matale and Kurunegala and also to Puttalam to clear land  for coconut cultivation or moving from villages to Anuradhapura  as coolies in the town; indebtedness to creditors in bazars; people becoming nomads selling their land.

The only want of these people is something to eat”, he wrote. Where there is food practically no sickness”. Not a grain of kurakkan seen in a march of 6 hours”. These personages probably had not a much worse time than this.” They are still suffering from having been fined heavily (300%) for clearing outside the chena reserve about 4 years ago. Their fields submerged by Nachchaduwa and the irrigation department is unwilling to give them water for the exchange of land from Nuwara Wewa”. 

After observing the misery of the villagers he writes: It would be useful if some land and health commissioners could see villages where drought had prevailed for a year or two and chenas are restricted and all the barns are empty: then visualize one’s own premises devoid of supplies for 12 months and the occupants living on bazar credit”.

It should be noted that Afghans came from Colombo to give credit and collect debts from villagers of NCP.

Even after a century present day peasant of NCP share the same problems as their forefathers and some more new problems had been created by the new capitalist class like the rice millers, traders and middlemen.

At his retirement he had the option of returning to England or remaining in Ceylon (Sri Lanka); he decided to remain to work for the improvement of villagers’ lot in NCP, the province he loved most. In 1924 he contested for the NCP seat in the Legislative Council. He defeated the incumbent native member by a majority of 7423 votes. The incumbent member polled only 888 votes. In 1931 he was elected to the first State Council from the Anuradhapura Seat with a majority of 7423 votes and was reelected in 1936 unopposed and served in the Executive Committee for Communications and Works.

Grateful people of Anuradhapura named a road in Anuradhapura town as Freeman Mawatha.

18. Disrespect to Our Culture:

British administrators advocated individualism, individual emancipation as against communal cooperative work when dealing with peasants as they did in the Central Province. in most villages the communal method of tackling all work appear to have eradicated the individualistic interest and no man improves his own land by any individual effort but content to till it with and like his neighbor”. This was the spirit and consciousness the colonial administrators wanted to kill and eradicate.

In a circuit to Tamankaduwa in 1912 the dhoby had demanded Rs. 1/= from the GA for providing clothes; the GA refused to pay saying that it was an old custom and dhobies should provide this service; to pay for clothes put up in one’s honour is to my mind ridiculous. In no other province dhobies expected payments”. This had happened in a time when the British pontificated that they had abolished rajakariya system, feudal relations based on caste, that every service provided should be paid in cash.

GA Constantine in 1915 had an ethnically biased opinion about Kandyan Sinhalayas:  Referring to work at Minneriya he said fields are owned by Tamils, Kandyan and low country Sinhalese. The average Kandyan does object to outsiders and will cheerfully lose Rs. 10/= if he can damage the outsider Rs. 5/=”.

In an earlier article posted on 12, March,2023, we had stated how Matale AGA S. M. Burrows ridiculed Sgiriya frescoes and buddha statues.  Hodson who succeeded Codrington as GA, Central Province, who had his official quarters in the old palace wrote: the religious exercises next door made day and night hideous.  At all festival times old palace is uninhabitable.” Hodson was referring to thewava at Dalada Maligawa.

GA, NCP in 1914 had a peculiar way of naming ancient shrines at Anuradhpura, as Bo-tree temple”, Mahinda’s bath” at Mihintle.

In 1929 a dispute occurred with regard to the route of Hanguranketha perahera. One section wanted to take the perahera passing R.E.S. Soysa’ bungalow (tea estate owner whose forefathers were the topmost arrack renters in CP who provided arrack to 1848 British troops who massacred Kandyan freedom fighters; converted as a Buddhist from being a Roman Catholic). Others refused it as it was not the ancient custom.  But the Rate Mahattaya took the perahera past Soysa’s bungalow. Disgusted acting Basnayaka Nilame Nugawela went straight to the temple. Rate Mahattaya gave a lunch to British planters in the area.

The Colonial AGA Hobday witnessing the drumming in the perahera insulted it: As for music goes, I prefer the noise of a heavy bombardment”.

Meda Wahala, the queens’ palace was occupied by the Fiscal Office. Palle Wahala, the abode of the other members of the Royal household housed the military hospital. (Later this was converted into Kandy Museum by Wace). Britishers built St. Pauls’ Cathedral (and St. Pauls’ College) inside the Maligawa square.

19. Passive Resistance of Peasantry:

From these Diaries occasionally, we gather information with regard to passive resistance of villagers while the Colonial administrators were on circuit. Government Agents were not shy enough to record how they were deceived by ordinary villagers. But we have never come across a native office holder defying orders of colonial administrators, subverting policies” of the British or expressing resistance to British Colonialism”.

Petitioning was the most common and popular method adopted in airing grievances of peasants and their resistance; petitions were presented to GA, AGA or OA at kachcheris or while these top officials were in circuit; petitions were mostly related to their economic problems, land and water; sometimes used to show how they were oppressed by Arachchis, Koralas or even Rate Mahattayas and powerful people in the villages.

There were professional petition writers in towns who wrote petitions either in English or Sinhala. Petition writers used a unique language, a language peculiar to them, full of praise of the recipient, his virtues and showing the slavishness of the petitioners. In some petitions, petitioners were presented as Memoralists” in the petitions.

Slavishness of the petitioner (or rather petition writer) was specifically exhibited in the petitions written in Sinhala, sometimes in Sanskriticised Sinhala used to address Kandyan Kings in ancient documents or language of the lower strata of the society used while addressing the nobility.  

GAs thought that some Koralas in NCP encouraged villagers to defy orders of Rate Mahattayas whom they had feelings of undisguised hostility”. GA allowed such Korale Mahattayas to resign but later regretted, allowing them to resign instead of dismissing them.

This shows us an important aspect of regional administration; i.e. that GAs extolling the services of Rate Mahattayas, the highest ranker in the division and the lesser headmen as Korale Mahattayas and Village Headmen were suspected by them.    

Hearing that the GA was coming, villagers driving their cattle to the jungle to hide them for fear of rinderpest checking was a common way of passive resistance; but on the following day the GA visited the village again; villagers professed ignorance of ownership of cattle when asked. 

An old man related a heart-rending story to the Government Agent of NCP in 1911 while he was on circuit. If our crops fail and we have nothing to eat we clear jungle; we are fined. If we have small children hardly able to walk within three miles and owing to bears and elephants, we are afraid to send them to school and we are fined; if we don’t satisfy the Irrigation Sub- Inspector in regard to earth work on tanks, we are fined. If we don’t please the Arachchi we are charged with not clearing the tis bambe” and we are fined. We don’t keep cattle now. If we do, it is said we allow them to stray and they are shot and we are fined. How can we live like this?”

The Government Agent writes: I was capitulating to the old man over chenas”.

The most important part of this story begins later when the Rate Mahattaya and the Kachcheri Mudliyar arrived at the scene. They hardened my heart” was his conclusion! Native officers knew how to harden the heart” of the Colonial administrator! According to the Government Agent it was Rate Mahattayas who had told him that chenas were not necessary.

It should not be interpreted that the Government Agent did not understand Sinhala spoken by an ordinary villager or an interpreter had interpreted the words of the villager wrongly. Earlier the same Government Agent had written that all the Chief Headmen speak English: I get to know headmen better talking to them in the vernacular than English”.  

In 1912 at Sangilikandarawa an old man volunteerd to lead the GA to a snipe field” where he could shoot snipe, teal and deer. But the old man takes the GA to his paddy field which had not been given water from the irrigation channel. GA wrote: his ingenuity deserved a reward”.

Aelian King, Assistant Government of Badulla (when Badulla District was a part of Central Province) in 1884 went on a circuit to Buttala, lectured” the assembled villagers on the proposed Road Ordinance (people were paying Rs.1/50, while the new Ordinance contemplated to increase it Rs. 2/=). He wrote: Here somewhat disheartening account of the road which I pass in my march to Wellawaya. The Rate Mahattaya and other headmen take leave of me and I proceed on my journey accompanied by 4 men with axes. After going a mile or 2 these men one by one find excuse for dropping behind and finally disappear altogether”.  King does not continue from there how he went to Wellawaya or whether he went back to Buttala finding his own way.

In 1912 at Talawa a villager was due to pay Rs.124/= for 3 lots of land. He elected to pay for only one lot on which Rs. 94/76 was due. He paid Rs. 48/= in one-rupee notes; then he produced a heap of 10 cents coins amounting to Rs. 43/=; paid 1 rupee in 1 cent coins and the balance Rs. 2.76 in fifty-five (55) 5   cent coins and 1 cent. This transaction had taken 25 minutes and there were 50 more similar payments. GA says that this reminded him the proverb milking the bull”. Then the villager argued that he deserved to have the rest free of charge.

In a Gansabhawa school at Mutugalla in Tamankaduwa the Government Agent was received by some boys, one with a small tom tom and another three singing a welcome song. The Government Agent was fair enough to describe their lamentation. After some verses they changed into the same tune in the minor and bewailed the hardships the villagers had to contend with”, that they changed the song of welcome in the major into a kind of lament in the minor. Hardships the villagers encountered were easily observable: drought, floods, devastation of crops by wild animals, food scarcity, diseases and fines. This was how the ordinary villagers, not the Chieftains, defied the dictates of colonialists in a subtle way. 

In 1912 GA NCP looking for Road Tax defaulters found, to spite village Arachchi some villagers pay to some other Arachchi, so as to reduce the commission their adversary got. But the Arachchi reported them as defaulters and the Committee had to issue warrants on such men who were reported as defaulters and GA warned the Arachchis not to accept the tax from anyone who was not in his list.

 In 1912 at Tamankaduwa in a Muslim dominated area the GA shot a pig around 5.45 p.m. As only Muslims were with him, he sent the Muslims to the village to bring some Tamils. GA mounted guard over the pig till 7.30 p.m.” Moors returned with only one Tamil. GA was able to take off only hind legs! 

A much more serious thing happened in Mihintale in 1912. People disregarded summons and refused to pay any heed to warrants issued to them by Village Tribunal in tank cases as they overlooked the authority of its President and Headmen. GA instructed the President to deal very severely with these recalcitrant people and Rate Mahattaya to produce them for trial and propose to stop chena cultivation in villages that are in default.

When pangukarayas were sked to pay Rs. 250/= as the cost of raising the spill they protested: they said: there is not a single 5 copper cent in the village; it should be done free; but the GA did not agree: he suggested to spread the payment to 2 or 3 years.

Tamankaduwa Village Headmen were reluctant to report cases as they had to go to Anuradhapura Police Courts and the batta given to them was hardly sufficient to cover their expenses.

In 1903 it was estimated to repair Wahala Ela in Patha Dumbara at a cost of Rs.391/=. Beneficiaries held a meeting and decided that the work was unnecessary as they could not pay a portion of the total cost. Same thing happened at Siyambalagastenna Ela in Uda Dumbara as farmers refused to bear any portion of the expenses estimated to repair a breach in the canal with an iron trough. In 1905 farmers cultivating fields with water from Udugoda Bandara Ela in Patha Dumbara refused to pay for improvements and repairs of the canal citing that they were not adequately compensated for the land lost due to earlier improvements.

In 1930 Mahajana Sabhawa of Kaikawela, Matale East requested the GA, famous historian H. W. Codrington to remove Rate Mahattaya of Matale, Udugama as he was overage. Codrington could not find his birth certificate; Secretary of the Sabhawa requested GA to obtain it from Udugama. 

END OF PART VII

NEXT: Durbars, Empire Day Celebrations, King’s Birthday, Victory Day Celebrations, Celebrating occupation of other lands and the Peace Treaty (Armistice), Abolition of the post of Chief Headman.