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Chatted to Anju from Hashtag Generation about ‘history’ in Sri Lanka. What is it, how is it used to suppress or erase and what can we do about it? Tune in!

Original Post: Hashtag Generation’s GenPodcast

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Original post: The Pekoe Trail

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“The #SupportLocalArt Talk Series was launched during a COVID lockdown with the intention of creating further collaboration and conversation within the Sri Lankan art industry,” recalls Saskia Fernando Gallery Director Saskia Fernando. “We soon realised that the best way to sustain the program was if we passed on to our entire community, thus widening the reach and scope of these discussions. Edition Two of the series was hence presented by the MMCA Sri Lanka during a turbulent time, and its curation was influenced by various elements of the protests within the island in 2022,” she said.

The second edition of the #SupportLocalArt Talk Series, curated by the MMCA Sri Lanka, in response to the current economic and political situation in Sri Lanka, consisted of three online talks. Bringing together a host of panellists from different backgrounds and points of view, the talks addressed the role of art in relation to community, cultural diplomacy, and humour.

The first talk, #SupportLocalArt Talk: The Power of Community, was a conversation between MMCA Sri Lanka Curator Sandev Handy, artist Kamala Vasuki, academic Shamara Wettimuny, and artist Venuri Perera, about the role of community in relation to their activist practices. The talk responded not only to the current momentum of the ‘Aragalaya’ in Sri Lanka, but also to the ways in which the artists in the panel have combined their art with activism and community to spread awareness and build audience engagement.  In the second talk, #SupportLocalArt Talk: The Power of Diplomacy, MMCA Sri Lanka Chief Curator Sharmini Pereira spoke to French Embassy in Sri Lanka Cultural Attachė Aurelia Collard, academic and diplomatic historian George Cooke, and US Embassy in Sri Lanka Public Affairs Section First Secretary Kelly McCarthy, about the role of diplomacy in arts and culture in Sri Lanka. The talk highlighted the history of cultural diplomacy and the soft power role of cultural work to raise issues that traditional forms of cultural diplomacy cannot do. The panellists compared and contrasted cultural diplomacy in action across time and place in France and the USA. They discussed the numerous challenges as well the opportunities that exist when cultural diplomacy is framed in arm’s length to state policy, where cultural diplomacy can become an effective way to mitigate the negative perceptions created by higher level politics. 

In the third and final talk of the series, MMCA Sri Lanka Assistant Curator Education and Public Programs Pramodha Weerasekera chatted with comedian Dino Corera, comedian Gehan Blok, political cartoonist Gihan de Chickera, and art historian and curator Sharmini Pereira, about the relationship between humour and art. The talk highlighted the ways in which the panellists and their peers have used humour in their digital content, theatre performances, and cartoons, in the current moment of heightened economic and political instability in Sri Lanka. The panel also touched on the history of art and humour in Sri Lanka by acknowledging the practices of modernist artists such as cartoonist Aubrey Collette (1920-1992) who went into exile following criticism of his work during the 1950s and 1960s. 

Nations Trust Bank Chief Marketing Officer Sanjaya Senarath noted, “The bank believes that the partnership with the MMCA Sri Lanka will serve as an opportunity to empower the next generation of artists and art lovers alike. We believe that this talk series serves as a unique platform to reach out to communities and develop their talent and creativity. Nations Trust Bank has been an ardent supporter of local art and artists through its various past initiatives, and together with the MMCA Sri Lanka we look forward to exposing Sri Lankan contemporary art to the new generation, whilst uplifting local artists to a next level.”

Video recordings of all the talks of #SupportLocalArt: The Talk Series Edition Two can be viewed on its YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channelCylvj8EIwenvXEjCdKQgZ9A and the MMCA Sri Lanka’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mmcasrilanka.

Original Article: https://www.ft.lk/ft-lite/Pivotal-conversations-about-Sri-lankan-contemporary-art/6-741877

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Religious freedom is the ability provided for every individual – irrespective of the religious community they belong to – to be able to have, hold, change and/or adopt a religious belief of their choice. However, in Sri Lanka, as well as many other parts of the world, a lack of historical understanding of sociopolitical events, incidents, and developments that have shaped the current climate concerning relations between religious communities and a lack of social understanding and respect for the Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) have resulted in growing mistrust, intolerance, discrimination, and stirred tensions between religious communities and violence against minorities. 

Locally, matters are made worse by the State, which has historically adopted a majoritarian agenda, making it that much more important that society looks beyond the State and towards processes of cultural transformation to curb ethnoreligious violence. 

Operating on the consideration that ultimately, ethnoreligious coexistence is achieved through a process of dialogue between communities, the Alliance Development Trust (ADT) and MinorMatters – a public movement dedicated to fostering religious harmony and protecting the freedom of religion or belief in Sri Lanka – recently launched the country’s first virtual museum on religious freedom in Batticaloa.

The museum is designed as an inclusive space for archiving, learning, and critically reflecting on the complex histories and contemporary concerns relating to the freedom of religion or belief in Sri Lanka. 

The project was launched with the objective of giving way to much-needed dialogue which would potentially determine the peaceful terms on which communities manifest their religion or belief and the convincing of both majority and minority communities of the importance and benefit of coexisting within a framework of religious freedom. The regional launch of the museum took place at an event organised in partnership with Local Initiatives for Tomorrow (LIFT) – an NGO based in Batticaloa. 

Brunch reached out to Museum of Religious Freedom Project Lead Mike Gabriel, who shared how the initiative came to be and what they hoped to achieve through their work.  

A virtual museum

Mike shared that in 2018, the MinorMatters campaign was launched as a national campaign to promote FoRB and foster religious harmony in Sri Lanka. It was launched as a response to the anti-Muslim riots in 2018 where the main perpetrators were youth. 

In 2019, their proposed project to build a virtual museum integrated with an e-learning platform to trace the progression of FoRB in Sri Lanka and build religious harmony received the ‘Intercultural Innovation’ Award, which is given in partnership by the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations and the BMW Group. The project received fourth place out of 1,200 applicants from over 128 countries.

Mike noted that the aim was to build greater social respect for FoRB and religious harmony through awareness, introspection, and critical reflection on the historical narrative that had shaped relations between religious communities in Sri Lanka.

Working with their Lead Researcher Shamara Wettimuny and together with their own collective experience drawing from the work that ADT has been doing on the topic of religious freedom in Sri Lanka for the past 30 years, documenting religious freedom violations in Sri Lanka, engaging in training, education, advocacy, etc., the team was able to develop the content for the virtual space. 

“With Shamara onboard, we looked at a cross section of people because we know that history is often biassed, and history comes with the stains of numerous ideologies. So, we took it to academics, faith leaders, and interreligious cross sections to respond and give their feedback. Some such collaborators sharing their views were experts like Prof. Jayadeva Uyangoda, Prof. Harshana Rambukwella, Dr. Janaki Jayawardena, Dr. Nirmal Devasiri, and several others – all of whom vetted it for us and our final product was filtered through this process,” Mike explained. 

Addressing how far back the museum takes us and what it shows us, Mike shared: “We have looked at 200 years of history in Sri Lanka in relation to FoRB, and we identify the key moments that have had a significant bearing on the progression of FoRB in the island.” 

He explained further, adding: “It is a work in progress, but currently we have developed three clusters. We start in 1815 from the Kandyan Convention and come down all the way to present day Sri Lanka. The first cluster looks at the colonial period and its impact on religion, the other looks at how the war had an impact on religious communities, and thirdly we look at the law and how it has progressed in relation to FoRB. We also have an exhibition where we look at contested sites and synthetic sites in Sri Lanka.”

Mike also added that the museum was curated by Dr. Vindhya Buthpitiya, and the virtual experience was brought to life courtesy of their Art Director Thilini Perera.

Why a museum?

“Having worked on religious freedom, we have understood that there is a gap in religious freedom literacy. Even though we are a multi-religious society, there exists a gap, and we felt that we have to intervene in helping develop this literacy. We believe that when there is literacy amongst people there is likely to be greater social respect for the subject matter, which would then in turn give way for all communities to enjoy FoRB to the fullest,” shared Mike. 

Speaking at the launch event, ADT Director Yamini Ravindran shared similar sentiments: “To strengthen the freedom of religion or belief in Sri Lanka, it is imperative that we first improve FoRB literacy among communities with a specific focus on the country’s youth. Increasing awareness and understanding concerning FoRB will go a long way in positively impacting social attitudes toward FoRB.”

Mike noted that the project rationale was such that, if awareness was built among the masses highlighting the positive stories of coexistence between religious communities and creating in the process an easily accessible space to increase critical engagement with these issues while improving one’s knowledge and skills on FoRB, then it was possible that subsequent improvement in FoRB literacy and historical awareness would trickle down into society. 

“When we look at our history, we see violence when it comes to religion, but then we dig a little deeper and we see this history of coexistence where communities have supported each other and been there for one another, so it is a complex narrative. When we think of religious freedom right now, yes, there are definitely issues, no doubt about it. Even in the recent past, mass-scale mobilisation against certain minority religions in the country have occured,” he said. 

As Sri Lanka marked the 39th anniversary of Black July last week, Mike also spoke of how ethnic tensions from the past still continue to echo to this day: “While back then it was often tensions along ethnic lines, after the war these tensions and conflicts are being fought along religious lines. 

“We have seen behaviour that echoed what happened in ’83 – 2014 in Aluthgama, 2017 in Gintota, 2018 in Digana, and in 2019 after the Easter attacks, we have seen the turning to communal violence based on religion. As we reflect on the ’83 riots to ensure that nothing like that ever happens again, we must understand that there have been echoes of it happening in the recent past and we should take that far more seriously.”

More to come 

The museum is meant to be more than a space for reflection, also functioning as a platform for greater change. It’s launch was followed by a two-day workshop in Batticaloa on the freedom of religion or belief with the participation of 25 youth leaders belonging to various religious backgrounds in the region. 

Subsequent to the workshop in Batticaloa, MinorMatters also conducted a two-day workshop in Galle on 29 and 30 June in partnership with the Southern Province Education Department. Held at the Management Development and Training Institute in Wakwella, the workshop brought together 36 students aged 16-18 from across the district. The sessions which revolved around the freedom of religion or belief and the country’s history in relation to religious freedom were conducted based on the content of the museum.

Mike shared that similar workshops were set to be conducted for schoolchildren and youth in the Matara, Hambantota, and Jaffna districts over the course of the next few weeks. The workshop in Jaffna will be conducted along with a three-day exhibition based on the Museum of Religious Freedom.

MinorMatters also stated that the students and youth who participated in the workshops would be provided with small grants to develop campaigns to promote FoRB in their respective communities.

According to Mike, the workshops are expected to give way to changemakers in our communities, enabling them to be agents of change when it comes to religious freedom, noting that content in the workshops will be catered according to their target age groups. 

Info box

To learn more about the museum, please visit 

Website – museumofreligiousfreedom.lk 

Instagram – @morf_lk 

Original Article: https://brunch.lk/sri-lankas-first-virtual-museum-on-religious-freedom/

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Today we are witnessing mass protests across the island, in a way we haven’t seen before. Some of you here tonight may be participating in your first series of protests, and that’s exciting and important. Others here are seasoned activists who’ve taken to protest by getting on the street, and organising grassroots level resistance to various issues, or by advocating for change — whether in courtrooms, classrooms or on social media. Generations before us have taken to the streets, and spoken truth to power, often in the face of police brutality, including assault, intimidation and torture. Protest in Sri Lanka, then, is nothing new. Yet something in the air feels different this time. And before we can unpack what that change might be, it is worth looking back at some of the different protests that have taken place in Sri Lanka. What or who were the underlying drivers of those protests? What modes or forms did those protests take? And how did the state respond to such dissent? I cannot and won’t attempt to give you a comprehensive history of protest in Sri Lanka — it’s simply not possible to do in 15 minutes and for those protests I leave out, I ask your forgiveness. Instead, I’m going to try and paint a general impression of some of the different types of protests we have seen in the colonial, post-Independence and post-War periods, and reflect on what may be different in this present moment.

To begin with, let’s talk about drivers or factors underlying protests. When we each think about why we might be out on the streets, we will have our own personal reasons. Different issues move us to take action, while we remain indifferent to those that may not concern us. There are several reasons that people protest, but I am going to focus on three recurrent drivers of protest: identity, ideology, and interest-groups.

By identity I mean for example ethnic or religious identities, as well as gender identities. Think of the many Tamil protests to end militarisation and land grabs in the North and East, protests by Christian churches for justice following the Easter Sunday attacks, protests to reverse the ban on burials during COVID-19 that really harmed the Muslim community, and the untiring protests by Tamil mothers of the disappeared in the North. Today marks the 1,875th day of this protest in the North.

By ideology, I’m thinking of Marxism, socialism, nationalism or pacifism. Often, in a place like Sri Lanka, class-based or nationality-based ideologies often overlap with ethnic identities. The JVP in the 70s and 80s for instance were a Marxist, anti-elite, youth-based Sinhalese group. You can see the presence of more than one underlying driver in a protest.

And by interest-group, I’m referring mostly to unions — whether the GMOA, for medical officers, Inter-University Students Federation, plantation workers’ unions, railway unions, and so on. It’s worth noting that some of these interest groups or unions are often associated with political parties albeit to varying degrees. Once again, we see overlap between the drivers of protest in Sri Lanka.

So then we have identity, ideology, and interest groups that are three significant drivers of protest. Let’s talk about the forms these protests have taken, across the last century.

During the British colonial period, in 1905, the Supreme Court banned Muslims from wearing the fez cap in court, an item of religious attire that was considered part of the Muslims national identity. In response, the community organised a mass protest in the grounds of the Maradana mosque and an economic hartal in Pettah, where they closed down all their shops. The protest meeting at the mosque was attended by 30,000 people, which at the time constituted more than 10% of the entire Muslim population in Sri Lanka. They organised speeches and interventions from Sri Lankan and Indian Muslim communities leaders, and wrote a memorial of appeal to the King to reverse this policy. They eventually succeeded in their peaceful protest, and were within a year allowed to wear their fez cap in the courts. Now, some historians have criticised this form of protest as it remained limited to this particular Muslim issue — it never transformed into a national, anti-colonial campaign. It was the largest mass meeting up until that point but it was certainly not the last.

Another protest that coalesced along religious lines was temperance. Among Buddhists and Christians in particular, temperance was a growing issue in the early 20th century. The temperance movement advocated for abstinence from alcohol — specifically arrack and toddy, which was seen as a corrupting, Western influence, that also gave the colonial government huge revenues from production licenses and taxation. Campaigns called for boycotts of toddy taverns, and punishments in the form of fines for those who broke their pledges to abstain from alcohol. Temperance societies (amadyapana samagam) sprang up across the Southern part of the island first in 1904, and later in 1912, and attracted the leadership of future national-level actors such as D.B. Jayathilaka, and W.A. De Silva. Although some Tamil Hindus such as Ponnambalam Ramanathan chaired an important temperance rally in Colombo, and Burgher educators and councillors joined temperance committees, these campaigns, remained a largely Sinhalese protest.

In the post-Independence period, following the chauvinist Sinhala-Only language policy of the SWRD Bandaranaike government in 1956, a wave of peaceful Tamil protests began in opposition. One form of protest was the satyagraha, a form of non-violent direct action, like the sort espoused by Mahatma Gandhi in India, and Martin Luther King Jr in America (albeit called sit-ins in English). A key example of such a satyagraha was the Tamil satyagraha in February 1961 that began in Jaffna before spreading throughout the Northern and Eastern Provinces, to protest Mrs. Bandaranaike’s attempts at Sinhalisation of the judiciary and administrative services in Sri Lanka.

What did Sinhalisation mean in practice? Sinhala would be the sole Official Language in all areas of administration and in the courts. Tamil speakers stood to lose access to justice, employment, and basic government services. So the protest in response in February 1961 involved volunteers sitting in front of entrances to Kachcheris or district secretariats to prevent Govt employees from working by blocking their entrance — an effective form of non-violent direct action. The police forcefully removed them, carrying them by their hands and legs and dumping them on the ground some distance away. The satyagrahis then picked themselves up, and hurried back to their places to resume their sit-in. Soon the police began dragging them away, kicking or rolling those lying flat on the ground. Eventually batons were used against the protestors. One satyagrahi, Francis Pereira — a Bharatha Tamil from Chilaw — was removed forcefully and returned to his position 15 times, despite his clothes being torn to rags, and his body bruised. These efforts and police violence only attracted more crowds, as observing bystanders quickly joined as bodies in the protests. And incredibly, the police ceased their attempts just under 2 hours after arriving.

In the satyagraha campaigns that followed, police brutality increased, and more and more Tamils joined these protests. However, such protests never managed to gain nation-wide appeal, and remained largely confined to the North and the East. The Sinhalese South, by the late 1960s and early 70s, were preoccupied with their own inequalities, and demanded land reform, and better access to education and employment. For those of you who want to know about left-wing dissent and civil society protests from the 1960s onwards, the Archive on Dissidents and Activists in Sri Lanka, 1960s to 1990s, compiled by the American Institute for Lankan Studies is a fantastic, online archive that is accessible to the public.

Let me skip ahead now to the 1980s, when we really start to see the emergence of feminist groups, or women’s groups that protested against growing state-led violence, against JVP insurrectionists or ethnic minorities, and pioneered awareness raising programmes on women’s rights. Mothers’ Fronts groups are inspiring examples of dissent that saw women in the North and South protest the arrests and disappearances of their sons, brothers, husbands, and fathers during the youth insurrections and the ethnic conflict. Groups that are doing such important work today, such as the Women and Media Collective, INFORM, and the Mannar Women’s Development Forum, were established in this period between the 80s and 90s. In the words of academic-activist Malathi de Alwis, who is no longer with us, these feminist groups documented human rights violations by the State and militant groups, established peace education programs in schools, and organized demonstrations, and vigils for peace. Despite threats to their safety, these women protested against both the state and militant groups, and some paid for their activism with their lives. Rajani Thiranagama, for example, an academic and activist in Jaffna was ruthlessly murdered by the LTTE in her pursuit of truth and justice.

Following the end of the War, protests for accountability continue. And we can add a fourth ‘I’ to my list of underlying drivers of protest — in addition, to identity, ideology and interest groups. Let’s call them issue-based protests. Activists seek answers for disappearances, and murders, such as those of Lasantha Wickremetunga, Prageeth Eknaligoda, Wasim Thajudeen, and countless more. People demand justice for the Easter Sunday bombings, Justice for Hejaaz Hisbullah, answerability for the Bond Scam. They call for the end to cronyism, and other forms of corruption. Malaiyaha Tamil plantation workers continue to advocate for a 1000 rupee daily wage and land ownership. The LGBTIQ+ community has protested the demonization of same-sex relations by the state in general and the police in particular. Farmers protested the introduction of a poorly thought through and ultimately disastrous fertiliser ban. Lawyers and activists call for the repeal or reform of laws, ranging from the Prevention of Terrorism Act, to the Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act, to the abolition of the Executive presidency. Protest is part and parcel of life for many Sri Lankans.

So, what is different today? What is it about this moment that leaves us feeling hopeful, that something may change? So far, the government has not listened to protestors’ demands. Yet here we are, in Colombo and Kandy, Batticaloa and Jaffna, Tangalle and Oluvil, Anuradhapura and Vavuniya, unrelenting, on the streets. I’m a historian and it’s not quite my business to predict the future. In fact, telling the future hasn’t worked out so well for those who claim to be in that business either. I don’t know yet where this is going but perhaps, just perhaps, for the first time in our living history, all these drivers of protests are present in the current moment: we see identity, ideology, interest groups and issues represented in the fight for change today. Men, women, Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims, Burghers, nurses, daily wage earners, tech bros, free trade zone workers, environmentalists, privileged, deprived, able, disabled: we are all here and THAT is what is special. No one political party could have convened us, despite however much credit Johnston Fernando tries to give the JVP.

When I compare the current moment with the colonial period, which I’m most familiar with, it’s clear that those protests remained confined to those immediately affected or aggrieved by a particular issue. They had structure, leadership, and organisation. Yet those protests failed to resonate with the broader population, and remained confined to ethnic, religious, class, caste, or gender-based lines. Today we seem to have overcome those divisions and have a stab at unity. The demands GoHomeGota or GoHomeRajapaksas are about more than just resignations. We cannot romanticise this too much, but we can be hopeful. We need to remember that this may not be a fight for survival for all of us, but it is a very real fight for survival for some of us. The spiralling economic crisis is an emergency and needs to be solved now. Longer-term grievances should not be forgotten in the aftermath. There are calls for investigations into an incident involving military personnel who entered a protest area. This may be new to some of us, but it is something very familiar for those in the North and the East. These longer-term grievances cannot be forgotten.

Empathy and courage can sustain this moment, and on that note, thank you for your attention.

Original Article:

https://shamara-wettimuny.medium.com/protests-in-sri-lanka-a-historical-perspective-289e58908c5a

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Further Reading

Archive on Dissidents and Activists in Sri Lanka, 1960s to 1990s

Fez protest meeting — Shamara Wettimuny, ‘Imagining a National Headgear: Islamic Revival and Muslim Identity in Ceylon’

Temperance campaigns: John D. Rogers, ‘Cultural nationalism and social reform: The 1904 Temperance Movement in Sri Lanka’, i. Lanka’, The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 26(3) (1989), pp. 319–341.

1961 Tamil Satyagraha — D.B.S. Jeyaraj, ‘Feb 20th 1961 Launch of Tamil ‘Satyagraha’ Encounters Baptism of fire on First Day’.

JVP: Mick Moore, ‘Thoroughly Modern Revolutionaries: The JVP in Sri Lanka’, Modern Asian Studies 27/3 (1993)

Women’s protests: Malathi de Alwis, ‘The Changing Role of Women in Sri Lankan Society’, Social Research 69/3 (2002); Remembering Rajani (2009), accessible at: https://www.noolaham.net/project/68/6741/6741.pdf.; Wenona Giles, ‘The Women’s Movement in Sri Lanka: An Interview with Kumari Jayawardena’, accessible at: https://btlbooks.com/chapters/feminists_underfire/xhtml/c15.html; Kumudini Samuel, ‘Building Transversal Solidarities: Women’s Search for Peace in Sri Lanka’ in Rita Manchanda (ed.), Women and Politics of Peace: South Asia Narratives on Militarization, Power, and Justice (2017); Malathi de Alwis, ‘Motherhood as a space of protest: Women’s political participation in contemporary Sri Lanka’, Nivedini 9/1 (2001).

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The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed the growth of national, political and ethno-religious consciousness among various groups across the island. These groups had historically identified themselves at different times with different labels. For instance, at certain times groups saw themselves as Sinhalese, Tamils, Moors and Burghers, but at other times they identified through religious identity markers: Buddhists, Hindus, Christians and Muslims for example. In the preceding centuries and millennia, these identities were not fixed or unchanging. However, certain changes took place in the nineteenth century that appeared to solidify these identities in some way. What changes occurred in the nineteenth century to consolidate identities within and between different ethno-religious groups on the island? What was different about the period of British colonial rule, particularly when compared with the colonial rule of the Dutch and Portuguese before them? And how were labels such as ‘race’, ‘ethnicity’ and ‘nationality’ used in this period?

Following the total occupation of the island in 1815, the first modern attempts at classifying or categorizing the population took place. And here, groups were first separated by color and level of freedom: ‘whites’, ‘slaves’, ‘free blacks’ — which referred to Sinhalese, Tamils, and Muslims who were not enslaved.

For more on slavery in Sri Lanka, read Nira Wickramasinghe’s Slave in a Palanquin: Colonial Servitude and Resistance in Sri Lanka (2020). Sri Lanka is not a region that is not typically associated with slavery — and understandably so given the lower numbers of enslaved — even though it was a key port through which slaves were transported across the Indian Ocean. Slave in a Palanquin centers the island of Sri Lanka in the trans-Indian Ocean movement of slaves and pulls back the cobwebs on previously obscured narratives of enslaved men and women.

But about the rest of the population, including Europeans, and local groups? Historian John Rogers has convincingly argued that social classification during early British rule was used as a tool to establish a more centralized, unified, and self-consciously modern framework of government. As the British began experimenting with more sophisticated Census making, they decided to use ‘race’ as the identity marker that would categorize people or order the populations they had subjected under their rule. So, people were categorized as either Sinhalese, Tamils, or Moors for example. The use of ethnic labels as the primary mode of classification in Sri Lanka can be contrasted with religious identity labels that the British gave more prominence to in neighboring India. For an insight into the process of census making and the rationale behind the specific labels used, see John Rogers, ‘Early British Rule and Social Classification in Lanka’, Modern Asian Studies 38(4), (2004), pp. 625–647.

In the first representative body established in 1833, the Ceylon Legislative Council, ‘native’ groups were represented by three Members in Council, a Sinhalese member, a Tamil member, and a Burgher member. You can have a look at the original discussions and documents that formed the first attempt at constitutional reform in Sri Lankan history in the compilation by G.C. Mendis (ed.) ‘The Colebrooke-Cameron Papers: Documents on British Colonial Policy in Ceylon 1796–1833, I & II’ (1956: Oxford).

Muslims were not given separate representation until 1889 because they typically spoke the same language as the Tamils, and although they were of different ethnicity, it didn’t bother the British too much because it was ‘close enough’! For an exploration of the process through which a separate seat for a Muslim Member in the Legislative Council was created, see Shamara Wettimuny, The Origins of Muslim Political Representation and the Shaping of a Ceylon Moor Identity.

In addition to official, state-driven processes of identity formation such as constitutional reform, other changes taking place in the nineteenth century shaped ethno-religious consciousness across the various population groups in Sri Lanka. The religious revival was one such broad feature of the nineteenth century. Importantly, the British colonial state was officially ‘neutral’ in religious affairs, while it offered to Buddhism a greater degree of protection, as per the Kandyan Convention of 1815. To understand the complex, changing relationship between religion and the colonial state, explore the Virtual Museum of Religious Freedom in Sri Lanka, where you can look at key moments or episodes in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that advanced or challenged the state of religious freedom in the island.

But let’s return to the topic of religious revival. Anne Blackburn (Buddhist Learning and Textual Practice in Eighteenth-Century Lankan Monastic Culture, 2001) traces Buddhist revival back to the mid-eighteenth century with the reform of the Sangha, and heightened intellectual exchanges with Buddhist clergy in places like Siam. By the mid-nineteenth century, Buddhist revival took the form of confrontations with Christian missionaries, including the watershed Panadura Debate between monks and Christian actors. Meanwhile, a renewed sense of pride and organisation around a distinct (ethno-) religious identity also manifested through the growth of societies like the Young Men’s Buddhist Association, schools like the Buddhist English School (later Ananda College), and the proliferation of newspapers like Sarasavi Sandaresa and Sinhala Bauddhya. Revival by the turn of the twentieth century was embodied by Buddhist nationalist figures, such as Anagarika Dharmapala and Sinhalese writers/playwrights like Piyadasa Sirisena and John De Silva.

The many facets of Buddhist revival are discussed in the historiography, including in:

Kithsiri Malalgoda, ‘Buddhism in Sinhalese Society 1750–1900: A study of religious revival and change’ (1976: Berkeley)

David Scott, ‘Religion in Colonial Civil Society: Buddhism and Modernity in 19th Century Sri Lanka’ Cultural Dynamics 8(1) (1996), pp.7–23.

Tessa J. Bartholomeusz and C.R. De Silva, ‘Buddhist Fundamentalism and Identity in Sri Lanka’, in Tessa J. Bartholomeusz and C.R. De Silva (eds.), Buddhist Fundamentalism and Minority Identities in Sri Lanka (1998: Albany)

Richard Gombrich and Gananath Obeyesekere, Buddhism Transformed: Religious Change in Sri Lanka (1988: New Jersey).

K.M. de Silva, ‘Religion and Nationalism in 19th Century Sri Lanka: Christian Missionaries and their Critics’ Ethnic Studies Report XVI(1) (January 1998), pp. 112–117.

L.A. Wickremeratne, Religion, Nationalism, and Social Change in Ceylon, 1865–1885 (1993: Colombo).

Kumari Jayawardena, Labour, Feminism and Ethnicity in Sri Lanka: Selected Essays (2017: Colombo).

Harshana Rambukwella, The Politics and Poetics of Authenticity, (London, 2018)

The nineteenth century was not just a period of religious revival for Buddhists, but also for Hindus and Muslims. The period of Hindu revival was largely limited to the North of the island and was driven by actors such as Arumuga Navalar. Hindus in Jaffna invested significant resources in establishing Hindu schools that provided education in English, to counter the influence of Christian missionaries who ran the largest number of English-language schools across the island. Similar to the Buddhist revival, the Hindu revivalists saw a need to establish their own printing presses to counter missionary pamphlets and leaflets that sought to delegitimise Hindu beliefs among its adherents. Despite the similarities in the Buddhist and Hindu revivals and the fact that they were taking place during much of the same period, I haven’t yet come across any evidence that revivalists coordinated their efforts, or organised across religious lines. So, I often wonder why that is: did it (coordination) simply not happen or has the research not been done yet? If there was no effort to ‘join forces’, was it because of a lack of awareness of what the other religious revivalists were doing, or because of a concerted decision to maintain distinct trajectories?

For some further reading on the Hindu revival, see:

D. Dennis Hudson, “Arumuga Navalar and the Hindu Renaissance among the Tamils” in Kenneth W. Jones (ed.) Religious Controversy in British India: Dialogues in South Asian Languages (1992)

P K Balachandran, How Jaffna Hindus met the Challenge of European Missionaries (2019)

T. Sabaratnam, Sri Lankan Tamil Struggle: Religious Revival (2010)

GPV Somaratna, American Missionary Contribution to the enhancement higher quality of life in Jaffna Tamils in the first half of the nineteenth century (Web, undated).

The Islamic revival started relatively later than the Buddhist and Hindu revivals, in around the 1880s. The Islamic revival, too, contained parallels to the Buddhist and Hindu revivals that preceded it, with the growth of an indigenous press, and the establishment of schools for Muslim boys (and to a lesser degree, girls). Curiously, one of the symbols or figureheads of this revival was not a local Islamic leader but a foreign, nationalist exile from Egypt, Arabi Pasha. Arabi Pasha, together with the lawyer and educationist M.C. Siddi Lebbe, and the construction magnate Wapiche Marikkar, spearheaded the establishment of Islamic schools that provided English-language education in Sri Lanka, beginning with what is known today as Zahira College. This revival, and the emergence of a Ceylon Moor identity, was largely confined to elite Ceylon Moors, who were typically Southern, bourgeois traders who, according to Qadri Ismail, dominated the ‘Muslim social formation’. It is, thus, perhaps a misnomer to refer to it as the ‘Muslim revival’ as it is often known as, because it did not necessarily include non-Ceylon Moors (i.e. perhaps the term ‘Ceylon Moor revival’ is more accurate).

For an analysis of the construction of this Ceylon Moor identity against the backdrop of religious revival, see:

Lorna Dewaraja, ‘The Muslims of Sri Lanka: One thousand years of ethnic harmony, 900–1915’ (1994: Colombo).

M.A. Nuhman, ‘Sri Lankan Muslims: Ethnic Identity within Cultural Diversity’, (2007: Colombo).

Ramla Wahab-Salman, ‘A History of the “Ceylon Moor” Press (1882–1889)’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka 61(2) (2016), 55–79.

Ameer Ali, ‘Muslims in harmony and conflict in plural Sri Lanka: A historical summary from a religio-economic and political perspective’, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 34(3) (2014), pp. 227–242.

Vijaya Samaraweera, ‘The Muslim Revivalist Movement, 1880–1915’ in Roberts M. (ed.), Sri Lanka: Collective Identities Revisited, Vol. 1. (1997: Colombo). Marga Institute, 293–322.

Qadri Ismail, ‘Unmooring identity: the antinomies of elite Muslim self-representation in modern Sri Lanka’, in P. Jeganathan and Q. Ismail (eds.) ‘Unmaking the Nation: The politics of identity and history in modern Sri Lanka’ (1995: Colombo). Social Scientist’s Association. pp. 55–105.

Shamara Wettimuny, Imagining a ‘National Headgear’: Islamic Revival and Muslim Identity in Ceylon (Web, 2021).

For discussions on the identity and group consciousness of non-Moor Muslim communities, such as the Malays, see:

Ronit Ricci, Banishment and Belonging: Exile and Diaspora in Sarandib, Lanka and Ceylon (Asian Connections (Series): Cambridge, 2019).

B.A. Hussainmiya, ‘Baba Ounus Saldin: An Account of a Malay Literary Savant of Sri Lanka (b. 1832- d. 1906), Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 64/2 (261) (1991), pp. 103–134.

Dennis B. McGilvray, ‘Arabs, Moors and Muslims: Sri Lankan Muslim ethnicity in regional perspective’, Contributions to Indian Sociology, 32(2) (1998), pp. 433–483.

Mahroof, M.M.M. ‘The Sub-Communities of the Muslims of Sri Lanka: a Classificatory Narrative’ in Cader, M. L.A., editor. Exploring Sri Lankan Muslims: Selected Writings of M.M.M. Mahroof, South Eastern University of Sri Lanka, 2015, pp. 1–13.

Asiff Hussein, Sarandib: An Ethnological Study of the Muslims of Sri Lanka (Colombo, 2011).

These revivals have typically been discussed from a national, or local perspective. However, as the study of history has expanded to include transnational connections, comparisons, and exchanges, it is useful to ask how religious identities in particular were affected by global revivals or movements taking place beyond Sri Lanka’s borders. Such research has been done on figures like Anagarika Dharmapala, to ‘rescue’ him from the nation, and position him within broader, global histories in Asia and America.

This approach to history is known as global history. Here’s a short, 3-minute clip that discusses what global history is, why it is a useful approach to thinking about a local issue, and how it can change the way we understand our own histories. You can stop watching after 2 minutes as I think it turns into a university-specific discussion thereon!

Now, this brings us to a fundamental question — why study identity formation in the nineteenth century? If we want to tackle current problems, we need to understand what lies at the root or source of those problems. And often, we can find those answers in history. For instance, some of the nationalist identities that are held in Sri Lanka today can trace their origins back not 2500 years ago but just over 150 years ago, during this period of religious revival. History is important then, not just for understanding the past, but also the present. Some may even say, it can help us to chart the future. To end, this clip with sufficiently dramatic music tries to illustrate why history is important, and not just from an academic point of view, but for anyone.

About the Curator — Shamara Wettimuny

Shamara Wettimuny is a Beit Scholar in History at the University of Oxford. Her doctoral thesis is on identity formation and religious conflict in British colonial Sri Lanka. She is also a Tutor in Global and Imperial History at Worcester College, University of Oxford. Before beginning her DPhil, she was Team Leader of the Politics Research practice at Verité Research, where she focused on contemporary religious violence. She has a Masters and Bachelors in International Relations and History, both from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Original Article – https://everystorysrilanka.medium.com/exploring-ethno-religious-identity-formation-in-the-late-nineteenth-and-early-twentieth-century-f4ea6aafa20d

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