This essay by Gananath Obeyesekere originally apeared in Vol. 33,
No. 3 of The Journal of Asian Studies.
Some Comments on the Social Backgrounds of the April 1971
Insurgency in Sri Lanka - Gananath Obeyesekere
Part I
MANY scholarly articles and some polemical nature have been written on the 1971 insurgency in Sri Lanka. Recent studies of this movement (Fernando 1972, Egan 1972, Kearney 1973, Arasaratnam 1972, Warnapala 1972) have helped us understand some of the underlying political, social and economic causes of uprising. These articles have disputed early speculations about the social backgrounds of insurgents, including government apologists and theoreticians from the traditional left parties of Sri Lanka.
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| suspected insurgents arrested |
(a) These numbers represent
two persons arrested by the police (44.1%) and those who voluntarily
surrendered (55 • 9%). We don't know how accurately these numbers reflect
the general composition of the insurgents. For example, after a couple of
weeks, the insurgency sent a message to the prime minister urging them to
surrender. The message was justifiably interpreted by the public as an
amnesty or at least approaching it. Many persons were peripherally
associated with the insurgency — such as those held by some of the classes held
by cell leaders — surrendered. In many cases parents urged their children
to surrender or bring them to police stations, They felt that this would
be a better strategy. It is very likely that many "suspected
insurgents" were not fully fledged members of the movement.
(b) After the spirit of the
movement was broken, the government urged members of the public to suspend
information on the purpose of establishing a special bureau, or to the police. In
some instances minor monetary rewards were listed, and all instances of the
informant's anonymity were guaranteed. As would be expected, this led to a
spate of information and many people paid off private grudges, or hostile
feelings against low-caste individuals or informing them by personal enemies. There
is no doubt that many innocent people were implicated and subsequently
arrested.
(c) We do not know the
numbers of persons or the statistical breakdown of the security forces that
were killed and many more executed by the security forces. Nor do we have
any idea of the insurgents still operating in the forests, or quietly
remaining in their villages. Nevertheless I think the data are much more
satisfactory, especially in the large number of cases. While many of these
individuals may not have been directly involved in the movement, they would
have been in all probability. Table I gives the total numbers arrested or
“voluntarily” surrendered.
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| suspected insurgents in prison |
Table II reveals the following information:
(a) 92.8% of the suspected insurgents belonged to the age group
16-32 years.
(b) 71% of the suspected insurgents belonged to even a narrower cluster of 17-26 years.
(c)The modal age for males and females is 20.
Since the statistics are
unequivocal in this regard, we have here one of the most fascinating and unique
social movements in human history, where the youth of a country organized
themselves militarily to topple a government and came close to success.
The statistical information
also reveals that the overwhelming majority of the suspected insurgents were
Sinhala-Buddhists. Though there is no separate statistical breakdown for ethnic
groups, it can be presumed for Sri Lanka that all those who are classed as
Buddhists are ethnically Sinhala, and Hindus are ethnically Tamil. The
breakdown in terms of religion is given in Table III.
The
caste factor
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| suspected insurgents being arrested by the armed forces |
(1) What is truly
impressive is that the Goyigama, the major Sinhala caste in the nation (both
numerically and status-wise), heads the list below, and if we make certain
allowances for class and religious affiliation, its percentage representation
among the insurgents is higher than its national distribution, as we shall
presently show.
According to Ryan the various subcastes that constitute the Goyigama comprise over 50% of the population; I think it is close to 60%.
(2) The Karava, the second
major caste, is probably 10-12% of the total population, and is therefore
under-represented in the insurgency sample. However, in evaluating the Karava
data two factors have to be borne in mind:
(a) The urban elites in
Ceylon are almost wholly recruited from the Goyigama, Karava and Salagama
castes. Percentage-wise the Karava and Salagama are very strong in this lead.
The insurgency movement (to anticipate the latter part of my argument) is not
from this class of urban elites.
(b) Secondly, most
Christians come from the Karava caste, very likely about 1/2 its total
population. Probably the second largest number of Christians come from the
Goyigama caste. If then we control (impressionistically) for social class
(elite) and religious (Christianity) factors, the following conclusion seems
valid. Viewed in terms of national
population percentages of castes, although the Goyigama caste is perhaps
slightly under-represented in the sample of suspected insurgents, and the
Karava caste under-represented therein by about 40-50% !, a different
perspective emerges when we control for class (elite) and religion
(Christianity). Thus, in relation to the Sinhala-Buddhist non-elite population
of the country, the Goyigama and Karava are over-represented in the insurgency
sample.
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| The JVP leader, Wijeweera’s ancestral home |
(3)Viewed
in terms of their national population, I believe that the Salagama caste is
under-represented in the insurgency sample by about 50%. The Salagama have a
large elite representation but unlike the Karava they are almost 90% Buddhist
by religion. What then accounts for their under-representation in the
insurgency sample?
Several local factors are operative here. The Salagama are a tightly knit caste with a great deal of internal cohesion and well-defined links to caste members among the bureaucratic and political elite. Elite members of this caste have greater control over their fellow caste-men, who consequently could be kept away from movements that threaten the established order. An even more important factor is that Salagama communities are sandwiched between Karava communities on the West Coast and there has been a great deal of traditional hostility between the two castes. Since much of the insurgency leadership in this area was Karava, it is likely that the Salagama was not as easily motivated to join the movement which they perceived as Karava.
(4) Two of the low castes, the Vahumpura in the low country, and
the Batgama in the Kandyan area seem over-represented in the insurgency sample
(10.2% and 9.3% .respectively). I also believe that these castes suffered the
greatest number of casualties since some of the fiercest and most prolonged
fighting occurred in areas where these castes were localized-in Elpitya in the
Western Province (Vahumpura) and in the Kegalle District (Batgama). Moreover,
the army commander in one district was a native high caste person of the area
who conducted the campaign with complete ruthlessness against low caste
persons. Goyigama folk living in proximity to these low caste people used the
post-insurgency period to inform against persons of this caste, so that in some
Batgama villages in the Kegalle District the youth were practically decimated.
In general how should one view the caste data? The statistical
data suggest that, as far as the nation as a whole was concerned, caste was not
a major determinant of of the insurgency. Caste factors were locally and
regionally operative, in the relative aloofness of the Salagama and the strong
regional involvement of two low castes, Vahumpura and Batgama. However, some
caution must be exercised in interpreting the caste data.
(a) We know from other sources that the leadership of the
insurgency came pre dominantly from the Karava caste. But I would be reluctant
to interpret this exclusively in caste terms, as for example a reaction
against the domination of the Goyigama in national politics. The Karava have
always been noted for their entrepreneurship; Karava leadership was perhaps a
reflection of the organizational and entrepreneurial skills of that caste.
Furthermore, since Wijeweera, the leader of the insurgency, was Karava, he may
have used the caste and kinship network to organize the movement in its initial
stages.
(b) The caste data have to be broken down in regional terms in
order to draw more precise conclusions. For example, the Karava come from the
Western and Southern coastal areas of Sri Lanka, and it may be that the
Goyigama caste in these regions remained aloof from the insurgency owing to
their traditional enmity with the Karava. I have interview data from the Southern
Province which, however, makes me doubt this inference.
(c) The secretive, and exclusive youth based nature of the
movement also perhaps militated against caste. The youthful insurgents were
used to interacting with other castes in their schools, and were perhaps more
tolerant of caste than their elders. Moreover, the movement tapped the idealism
of the youth which may have helped them to transcend caste allegiances. It is
also likely that the cells, secret meetings, indoctrination sessions
brainwashed them of their caste identities for a higher and nobler goal, as
they perceived the movement. Caste would have been much more important had the
J.V.P. (Janatha Vimukti Peramuna, “Peoples’ Liberation Front”) been an “open”
movement, drawing its recruits from a wider age range.
The occupational background of the insurgents
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| weapons used by insurgents |
Thus far our
conclusions are that the insurgents are mainly Sinhala-Buddhist youth belonging
to the major castes in Sri Lanka. We suggested, incidentally, that they do not
come from the ranks of Sri Lanka’s elite ruling class. I turn next to the
socio-economic backgrounds of the insurgents, which I believe, will help us
understand more thoroughly their economic discontent. The data I will use are
the breakdown of the occupations of the insurgents, the occupations of their
fathers and their educational backgrounds. Table V gives the occupational
breakdown of the suspected insurgents. It should be noted that this table gives
the true occupational background rather than the caste occupational background.
For example, fishing is the means of livelihood of the 25 persons listed as
fishermen, and not simply their caste status. Similarly barbers are not a caste
but an occupation.
When these statistics were made available to the government
there were cries of jubilation from its left-wing theoreticians: after all, a
majority of these insurgents were employed, ergo they had no real reason for
insurgency, and therefore it was a “reactionary” attempt to oust a truly
socialist government. However, these statistics are certainly not that opaque,
and a careful interpretation will bring out an extremely disconcerning picture
of massive and widespread public discontent.
(I) Firstly, only the first
5 occupations on our list truly belong to the elite, occupying the top
positions in the professions or bureaucracy. They constitute only 0.2% of the
total. Thus the country’s elite is virtually not involved in the insurgency.
(2) Take the middle rung
administrative positions, and other stable occupations. The occupants of these
positions are in general extremely conservative, have styles of life modelled
on the elites, and have aspirations for their children to eventually join elite
ranks. They are 6-IO on the list, constituting 6.1% of the sample. This “lower
middle class group” is again poorly represented among the insurgents. Iwill
discuss their role later, only suffice here to state that about 66.3% of them
are under thirty.
(3) There is a large number
of persons who either occupy low positions in the government (“underdogs”) or
are self-employed in not very remunerative positions; of those in occupations
II-I8, constituting 21.4% of the suspected insurgents, 82% are under thirty
years of age.
(4) The blatantly
underemployed category (20-22)-intermittent and poorly paid
employment-constitute 39.6% of the sample. Ihave included cultivators here
since they are often virtually landless “tenant cultivators” or farm laborers
with no regular employment who call themselves cultivators, instead of the
derogatory term “laborer” or “unemployed”. Of this group 88% are under thirty.
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| The name board for Hambanthota town renamed by the insurgents as” liberated town”. Bala Tampoe, Prince Gunasekere and Lord Avebury who apeared for Human Rights of insurgents are here. |
(5) There are the totally unemployed (17.5%); among whom about 97% are under thirty; and a related group of students (I2.5%), all of whom are under thirty. That is, as we go down the occupational series the gross numbers involved in the movement as well as the percentage of young persons (under thirty) tend to increase. Socio-economic position is correlated with age: the lower the socio economic position the greater the numbers of younger persons involved. This may, however, partly reflect the lower average age of these occupational groups themselves. The occupational data are summarized in Table VI.
On the basis of the data in
Tables V and VI I draw further conclusions: the category of
"unemployed" ( 17.5%) is deceptive. Only 6.3% (elite and middle
positions) had secure employment with reasonable financial rewards. The rest
were either poorly employed, underemployed or unemployed. Students were not
only technically unemployed; their actual and self-perceived chances of
employment were remote, so that after leaving school they will probably move
into the category of unemployed or underemployed. Thus over 90% of the sample
were in unprestigious or economically unrewarding positions.
A comparison of the social
positions of fathers and sons shows no real differences in the first three
categories, but shows some interesting differences in the rest. The unemployed
group in the father’s generation is only 2.5% (260) while in the son’s
generation it is 17.’5% (and students 12.5%). This remarkable difference can be
explained if we look at the category “unspecified” in the parents’ generation:
2214 or 2I.7%, a category which does not exist in the generation of the sons. I
strongly suspect this unspecified category is an “underemployed or unemployed”
one, probably the former, made up generally of low caste people or of high
caste ones with no stable jobs, so that the sons who were interviewed simply
did not state the nature of their employment. If this interpretation of the
data is correct, the discrepancy in the lower reaches of Table VII is bridged
so that a collapsed category “unemployed underemployed” would show 8o% in the
sons’ generation and 73% in the fathers’. In general both parents and sons belong to the low socio-economic
groups, the parents somewhat lower than the children when it pertains to middle
and lower middle positions but better off than their sons when it comes to the
truly unemployed category. This is perfectly expectable since
economically poor parents were educating their sons to occupy stable positions
in the job and occupational structure. Some of them succeed, but the increase
is only +1.6% in the lower middle positions, +0.6% in the middle positions and
-0.2% in the elite positions. If the data are indicative of true trends, if
parents hoped that their children would get stable jobs of amy sort, the true
increase over the parental generation in regard to these jobs is only +2.0%!
The generation of the sons is doomed to massive underemployment or unemployment.
While both fathers and sons
belong to similar economic and occupational levels, it is likely that they have
radically differing views of their life situation. The parents are reconciled
to their economic positions. They have a model of status mobility through their
sons who will obtain an education and will move out of their present
socio-economic level. The sons, who have cathected
The
educational background
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| Lord Avebury questions family members of Premawathie Manamperi, the killed female insurgent of Katharagama |
(a) nearly 80% of all
suspected insurgents come from the type of schools known as Maha Vidyalayas. An
additional 64% come from Madya Maha Vidyalayas, which are schools of the same
type. These are generally high schools serving village youth, and it is obvious
that the education supplied in these schools is in some way an important factor
in the insurgency. They were also probably important recruiting centers for the
insurgency, for it is likely that the age category 15-19 consisting of
standards 5-8 and GCE (o) level are currently enrolled in these schools, (or in
the latter case have just left these schools). Their numbers are 2083, i.e.,
20.4% of the total.
(b) Tables VIII and IX also
show that only a few (4-0%) come from the technical schools and universities.
Though the numbers here are small, I have other evidence to show that the
Universities provided a major source of the leadership of the movement
(c) Table VIII shows that only 2.4% had not attended school, and
this is confirmed by Table IX which shows that 2.0% had no education. About 17%
had a “grade school” education.
Consider some of the
implications of this data. The suspected insurgents are a deprived group, but
not a depressed group like a lumpen-proletariat. Potential revolutions are not
created by demoralized, anomie groups: millenia! movements may come from such a
source. True illiterates form only a very small percentage and the poorly educated
are only 17% About 80% have a reasonable education, and had both the motivation
and the capacity to participate in what they viewed as a rational solution to
the political and economic ills that beset the nation. Consider the large
numbers (37%) that were in school or just out of it. They were products of mass
free education (and all of them were young persons born after independence).
The schools they were attending were the recruiting grounds and leaders of the
movement surreptitiously held “lectures” and discussions in these schools. The
grievances that these students had were real, and could easily be high lighted
by “cell leaders”. Indeed the traditional leftists in Ceylon did this
themselves, for they too in public speeches pinpointed the inadequacy of this
type of schooling. Schools had poor laboratory facilities and students were
generally trained for arts courses, which provided them with no technical
expertise. Many of them would simply not be able to enter University either due
to lack of vacancies there, or financial difficulties. Even if they did
complete a university degree there was no guarantee of employment. Thus if they
were not already aware of the bleak future that awaited them, they could easily
be made conscious of it. Their youth and idealism could then be tapped for a
new movement that held some promise for the future.
Part II
Part II
The
barbarians at the gates
img 17
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| Rohana-Wijeweera-and-Lionel-Bopage-taken-from-Welikada-Prison-for-sentencing- |
It is well known that one of the features of colonialism everywhere is the development of an indigenous elite, who were initially recruited to fill the minor positions in the colonial administration. Later the pattern of recruitment widened and after independence the whole government bureaucratic apparatus and the political system were controlled by them. The elite generally consisted of politicians, an administrative and professional elite including the security services, and a business elite either having direct control of economic wealth or holding business appointments in large European owned enterprises, particularly the tea plantations. It was a ruling class holding access to political and economic power and patronage. In Sri Lanka it was not internally homogeneous, but split on major ethnic lines or religious lines (Sinhalese vs. Tamil, Buddhist vs. Christian) and even on lines such as caste. The most serious division was the ethnic one but the other lines of cleavage were also operative. But overriding these factional cleavages was a common style of life, which may be termed “aristocratic,” (partly based on the aristocratic styles of traditional feudal Sri Lanka, particularly notions of power and prestige). As far as Sri Lanka’s elite was concerned one crucial feature of this life style was the use of English a11 the major language in the home and also as the language which the elite used for social interaction. The school system too was a powerful ground for secondary enculturation of the elite. There were the privileged schools modelled on the English “public school” system and located in Colombo and some of the major provincial capitals. These major schools formed a kind of old boys club: and intercollegiate cricket matches, old boys associations were highly important social gatherings for these people (see Fernando 1972 for an illuminating discussion of Sri Lanka’s elite). Once caste and ethnic lines were drawn, marriages tend to be endogamous, though hypergamy and hypogamy were also used as mechanisms for “outsiders” to establish alliances with the elite.
The political leaders of
all the major political parties-left and right-were members of this class with
their early education in one of the elite schools and their later education in
Oxford, Cambridge or the London School of Economics. The physical locus of the
elite was in Colombo: the administrative and business center; and with a thin
upper crust in the other major cities. Colombo like other Asian cities was an
unreal city; its physical and social character marked it out dramatically from
the rest of the country. The network of elite interaction was largely confined
to that city. The ideal of public servants and professional people was to live
in Colombo and even today sending one’s children to Colombo schools is a major
concern of elitist parents. Top provincial administrators and professional
people who have to work in the outstations often have their wives and children
in Colombo or at least their children are boarded there. Through time the
social isolation of the elite from the mass of population was paralleled by
their physical isolation in the city of Colombo and its immediate suburbs.
img 18
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| The ruling elites in a meeting. Sirimavo the leader of left wing SLFP and Prime Minister, J.R, the leader of right wing UNP and the leader of opposition and DR. Colvin , the leader of Trotskyist LSSP. |
Historically elite recruitment came from three major sources: (1) elite ranks themselves (2) the various caste groups (Salagama and Karava) that rose to economic prominence in the early period of British rule (3) the village aristocracy of minor colonial officials, such as headmen, who amassed a fair amount of wealth and could educate their children in elite boarding schools. The major source of secondary socialization for the children of the elite were the privileged schools mentioned earlier, the University of Ceylon, and English Universities for those who could afford them. The educational system was crucial for obtaining coveted bureaucratic positions and for the professions. Elite schooling combined with patronage was all that was essential for high school “drop-outs” to obtain highly paid jobs in business and the plantation industry. It is one of the greatest achievements of this patronage system that some of the least educated persons with the right school tie and the right connections could occupy some of the best paid jobs in the country, e.g., superintendents of plantations.
I think one could
conveniently call this group a “ruling elite” in that it had virtual control of
the political machinery, government, business and the professions. The life
style of the elite-and entry into its ranks through the educational (or
marital) system provided a powerful source of motivation for those below them,
and also a source of emulation. Who were those below them? Two significant
groups should be mentioned: the middle ranks of the administrative hierarchy,
teachers, technical personnel, and educated people in the village (headmen,
school teachers) who could afford to send their children to elite schools.
These middle ranks (category 2, in Table VI) were either “drop-outs” from above
or those who had moved up from below. Even if they could not achieve elite
goals, they emulated (in lowered tones) the elite life style, and they had high
aspirations for the children. A major concern of this “middle class” was to get
their children into “good schools” so that they would join the ranks of the
elite. The ideal position was the coveted Ceylon Civil Service, the top echelon
of the government bureaucracy.
Let me highlight one major
consequence of this elitist system. One could view the major political parties
sociologically as factions of a ruling elite. Take the major political parties
moving from right to left: the United National Party, the Sri Lanka Freedom
Party, the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (Trotskyites) and the Communist party.
Party manifestos and ideologies might be radically different from one end of
the spectrum to the other but the leadership of all these parties came from
elite ranks, almost without exception. They came from the same schools, went to
the same clubs, spoke English, and marriage alliances cut across political differences.
The Communist and Trotskyite leadership was not (and is not) a “disprivileged”
group: they spoke for the “disprivileged” but were themselves privileged, and
lived an unabashedly high style of life. Close relations, siblings, and even
parents, of this group might belong to right-wing parties, and a social network
connected them with the sources of power and privilege. It is no accident that
left-wing leaders could not mobilize a peasant organization: their class
position and physical isolation militated against it. They were successful in
building up working class trade unions; though here again the social gap
between the elite leadership and the workers themselves was immense. Thus all
Sri Lanka’s political parties could be viewed as factions of the elite striving
to gain political control of government. Nevertheless, one must emphasize that
these were clear-cut factions based on ideological differences.
Sri Lanka, with a dominant ruling elite, was till about 1956 an extremely stable country, a model democracy in Asia. However, this stability could not last very long for many reasons, some of which I shall examine here.
(1) Until around 1955 the
educational system was crucial for entry into elite ranks, but with the
development of free mass education this was no longer true. Universal free
education started in 1945, and its impact began to be felt after 1955. By 1¢o
practically every village or group of villages had its school, so that now we
have near universal literacy in Sri Lanka. High schools known as Maha
Vidyalayas and Madya Maha Vidyalayas were established everywhere in the
villages, and sons of peasants were able to get a high school education. By
1960 sons of well-to-do peasants were entering the several newly created
universities and technical and teacher training institutes. Thus by 1972 the
earlier situation had changed radically: children of the elite now constituted
only a very small proportion of university entrants. Neither the parents of the
village students, nor the students themselves were satisfied with the station
of life into which they were born. Their aspirations were to occupy upper
positions in the governmental structure if they entered the University, or
lower but respectable jobs if they were high school products.
But though the school
population expanded dramatically, the economic opportunity structure remained
stagnant. There were limited jobs for the hundreds of thousands who were
aspiring for them. This had an immediate impact on the political patronage
system: since jobs of any sort were scarce, competition for jobs became
extremely acute, and jobs increasingly became dependent on political patronage.
By 1970 competitive examinations had become a virtual farce, and even extremely
low positions such as office peon, driver, temporary clerk, or even casual
laborer were appointed by high-ranking politicians such as Ministers of State.
Access of village youth to the decision-making heads was through party henchmen
and political mediators on the village level, through to the M.P. of the
district, and from him to heads of government departments and Ministers.
Educational qualifications which were at one time paramount ceased to mean
anything: there were too many qualified persons for practically no jobs.
Economic pressures then forced persons to drop their aspiration levels so that
there are now University graduates in menial occupations. This does not mean,
however, a decrease in frustration. On the contrary, a conscious dropping of a
highly desired aspiration level probably leads to increased frustration. It is
this phenomenon that accounts (at least partly) for the clustering of
insurgents at the lower levels of the occupational structure: they are there
because they have simply nowhere else to go.
(2) Simultaneously with the problems noted above there was an
increasing political consciousness of the electorate. It should be remembered
that Sri Lanka was the first country in Asia to obtain universal franchise.
This in combination with increasing literacy and education made Sri Lankans an
extremely politically conscious community. The Trotskyite and Communist parties
were largely responsible for the early politicization of the urban
proletariat, and the rural peasantry came into political prominence by the
massive and dramatic victory of Mr. Bandaranaike in 1956 over the conservative
UNP. The appeal of Mr. Bandaranaike was that he could raise the self-esteem of
peasants and appear as a champion of their interests. Peasants had the vote but
lacked an organization to articulate their interests and draw them into the
political arena. Bandaranaike’s success was due to the fact that he used a
village aristocracy-Ayurvedic physicians, monks, various influential officials
in the village-to mobilize the peasant vote. In 1956 the peasant vote was
systematically mobilized, and this resulted in his sweeping victory. This was
the first real breakthrough in the politicization of the peasantry. Soon
Bandaranaike’s S.L.F.P. had built a kind of grass roots organization-led by
the aristocracy I mentioned earlier-in the villages. Since then Sri Lanka has
had a highly politically conscious peasantry: one clear manifestation of this
is that almost all local government elections in the villages are now run on
party lines, and kinship and other factions in the villages became rationalized
and articulated in terms of party ideology and affiliation.
img 19
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| JVP rally in Colombo in 1970 |
A good illustration of this
problem came out in casual interviews I had with young men (not insurgents) in
an area where insurgent activity was very high. Among them I interviewed a
group of five persons who were all high school graduates (GCE ‘O’ level),
unemployed for the last three years. All had occasional sporadic employment,
and all of them assisted their parents in their agricultural work. But their
parents owned only small units of paddy land, not even sufficient for their own
subsistence and hence these young men were mostly unemployed. One person passed
out of high school three years ago. He applied for many jobs but did not get
any. Eventually he worked as an unpaid apprentice in a garage in a nearby town.
He worked there for a year and, having acquired some mechanical skills, applied
for a technician’s examination held by the state owned bus service (the
C.T.B.). He passed this exam and was called for the interview. Suddenly without
any provocation, the results of this examination were “cancelled”. But the
appointments were nevertheless made, not by examination, but on the
recommendations of the M.P. of the government in power. Since my informant had,
like many youths in the area, worked for the present government, he approached
the M.P. to try to get the job. But it transpired that the number of positions
allocated to the M.P. had already been filled-by young men who were in fact
political opponents of the M.P. Rightly or wrongly, the youths I interviewed
felt that the M.P. had been bribed by persons of wealth in the area.
The story is utterly
typical. Since jobs are scarce, all competitive or open methods of recruitment
have been abandoned and the government M.P. of the area is given tremendous
power in these appointments. In the appointment of teachers, for example, each
M.P. is given a fixed quota to fill. But very often the persons who get the job
are kinsmen of the M.P., or those who have access to the patronage network
through their elite connections. In some instances the wealthy of the area who
are politically opposed to the M.P. in fact get the job, owing to bribery or
the capacity to manipulate the patronage system. Naturally the young men I
interviewed harbored a felt sense of injustice, a feeling that is
extraordinarily widespread among the unemployed youth. This I think was an
extremely important motive for young persons to join the insurgent movement.
Hardening
of class boundaries
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I do not see the peasantry as a class in any meaningful sense, but I do see the elite as one. I noted previously that political parties in Sri Lanka could be seen as factions of an elite. A common style of life, marriage alliances, and kin networks cut across the political factions. These overarching cultural and social factors make for easy changes in party allegiances, so that the movement of individuals from one party to another is relatively easy. This is true even of the Trotskyite and Communist parties: crossing of party lines has been an easy and frequent feature from extreme left to extreme right. Only a small, hard core of party leaders have stuck it out, and even these people could easily link up with a party like the S.L.F.P. (with a strong right wing). I am, of course, not suggesting this is the only factor involved, but a common life style and interaction patterns outside of party ties facilitate and make possible both the continual crossing of party boundaries, and the formation of political coalitions between ideologically incompatible groups. Indeed one of the fascinating problems deserving of further study is the inexorable process whereby young dedicated left-wing radicals of the forties were gradually assimilated into the elite life style, and the process whereby their political ideologies (Marxism) were transformed and made consonant with their class interests.
With the increasing
problems faced by the society-particularly the scarcity of jobs-the overarching
cultural factors and sociological networks become even more important.
Irrespective of who was in power, the prestigeful positions went to those who
came from elite ranks; and even minor jobs went to those who can establish
connections with them.
Rarely could a village lad,
even with a B.A., get an administrative job in a firm or large business because
of his poor knowledge of English. In spite of lip service paid to the National
Language, the same restriction applies to jobs in government-it operates in
many devious ways. Many students in the Universities are quite aware of it. The
few jobs available then, in general, go to the elite because of their social
ties with persons holding power and because they may have special cultural advantages
over the others (e.g., knowledge of English). The upshot of all this is the
strengthening of the overarching social ties among the elites and a weakening
of political (factional) boundaries. For example, a Minister, a former
Trotskyite who later crossed over to the S.L.F.P., and is viewed as one of the
left leaders in the S.L.F.P., married his daughter to a wealthy businessman
from the right-wing U.N.P. who owned a factory for assembling a Japanese
product. Not long afterward, another Minister from the Trotskyite L.S.S.P.
ordered government corporations to buy this product at three times its true
value. This is not corruption in the simple sense: no one got a bribe I am
sure. It simply reflects the operation of the extra-political ties I mentioned
earlier. This kind of behavior is not unique to the present regime in Sri
Lanka; on the contrary it was characteristic of all the regimes Sri Lanka has
had since her independence.
The examples given here
illustrate one critical feature of the extra-political ties that link the elite
together: kinship and marriage. Numerically the elite is very small, but
marriage and kinship shrink them further into smaller factions owing to ethnic
and caste endogamy. This means that the “marriage market” is a small closed one;
spouse selection and marriage alliances unify individuals and groups who are
politically divided into larger, cohesive, extended kin groupings. This is
especially true of the numerically small castes, such as Karava and Salagama,
where persons who are politically divided often manifest extraordinary kinship
loyalty and solidarity. These kinds of kin-links, and the intimate nature of
elite interaction partly account for the extreme personalization of politics in
Sri Lanka.
Aftermath
Within a year of its eruption
the Government had the insurgency well under control, but the process of
alienation of the elite from the rest of the country has accelerated further,
resulting in the hardening of the elite class boundary. The most vociferous
condemnation of the insurgency came from the traditional left (C.P. and
L.S.S.P.). The effect of the external threat was to make political divisions
within elite ranks fuzzier and their social links stronger. Appointment to jobs
nowadays is based on social rather than on political connections. Along with
the increased solidarity within the elite is their increasing physical
isolation in the city of Colombo. Colombo-centrism has increased. Immediately
after the insurrection members of the elite located in the outstations pulled
into Colombo, and this trend has continued, increasing the unreality of Colombo
as a city. In the city social and political life goes on in isolation from the
rest of the country. Confronted with massive economic and social problems,
elite bureaucrats, planners and politicians seek bizarre solutions. Planners,
for example, are preoccupied with paper plans impossible of implementation.
Posed with what seem unsolvable economic and political issues, politicians and
bureaucrats are increasingly using the psychological mechanism of denial. The social
effect of “denial” may be called picayunism,
an overwhelming preoccupation with trivia, irrelevancies, elaborate paper
plans, and social legislation that cannot be implemented.
References
ARASARA TNAM, Sinappah, 1972,
“The Ceylon Insurrection of April 1971: some causes and conse quences,”
Pacific Affairs, Vol. 45, No. 3, 356-371.
EGAN, Michael, 1972, “Some reflections on the 1971 Ceylonese
Insurrection.” Paper read at the Canadian Sociology and
Anthropology Association Meetings, Montreal, May 28-June 1, 1972.
FERNANDO, Tissa, 1972, “Elite politics and revolutionary
movements in Ceylon: a sociological perspec tive.” Paper read at the Canadian
Sociology and Anthropology Meetings, Montreal, May 28-}une 1.
KEARNEY, Robert, 1973, “The 1971 Ceylonese uprising: an
ecological interpretation of its origins and fate.” Paper prepared for the
Research Conference on Communist Revolutions, Estate Carlton Beach Hotel, St.
Croix, V.I., January 24-28, 1973•
OBEYESEKERE, Gananath, 1967, Land Tenure in Village Ceylon.
Cambridge University Press.
RYAN, Bryce, 1953, Caste in Modern Ceylon. Rutgers, The University Press.
RYAN, Bryce, 1953, Caste in Modern Ceylon. Rutgers, The University Press.
WARNAPALA, W. A. Wiswa (Politicus, pseudonym), 1972, “The April
revolt in Ceylon,” Asian Survey,
Vol. 12, No.3, March, 259-274.
Vol. 12, No.3, March, 259-274.
Courtesy - kathika.lk
