'See Ceylon and Live'
BHARGAVA, G. S.
The carefree, jovial Ceylonese are politically apathetic and give little thought to impending economic crisis See Ceylon and Live By G. S. Bhargava Colombo "See Ceylon and live," reads a Ceylon...
...There is no explanation for this policy other than fear of domination, justified or otherwise...
...Tamil...
...The second explanation, i.e., middle-class preponderance, is equally untenable, because in India even the middle classes do not share this approach to life...
...N. M. Perera's Trotskyist Sama Samajist party has more negative virtues than positive ones...
...Now, with the advent of synthetic rubber and increasing competition from other tea-producing areas, the monopoly is almost gone, but the balance-of-payments position remains the same...
...Another peculiarity of Ceylon is the comparative absence of linguistic feeling...
...The crowded port of Jafna is a standing monument to this migration...
...But, unlike other imperialisms, this "imperialism" is indispensable to the island's economy...
...Politics in Ceylon is also unique...
...To uproot them from their homes and transplant them to a strange country, albeit the land of their origin, is reprehensible from any point of view...
...People of Indian origin in Ceylon are mostly Tamils, and if, out of racial or linguistic affinity, the Ceylon Tamils had made common cause with them, the Kandyan Aryans would have been easily outnumbered...
...It reveals the outlook of the island's people on life in general and the problems confronting them in particular...
...which was suggested some time ago by several South Indian politicians, further proves the linguistic appeal's inefficacy...
...It must have wrought this miracle by providing its adherents with a more rational perspective than is possible under other religions...
...Culturally, too, there is much in common between the Ceylonese Tamils and the people of Indian origin...
...In fact, he sidetracked political conversations with anecdotes about soccer matches and picnics with girl friends...
...Imperialism of the underdog" is the caustic phrase coined by Bandaranaike, who heads the opposition Lanka Freedom party, to describe the preponderance of Indian labor in Ceylon...
...Even Prime Minister Sir John Kotelawala did not look weighed down with troubles...
...I wondered...
...Especially to one from India, it is glaringly evident that the Ceylonese live every minute of their lives avidly, almost greedily...
...Moreover, about 500,000 of the total 800,000 Indian workers have never been to India since birth...
...Brought to the island as indentured labor, the Indian workers have built up, with their sweat and blood, the tea, rubber and other plantations which are today the mainstay of Ceylon's economy...
...The present Prime Minister and UNP leader, Sir John Kotelawala, is the nephew of D. S. Senanayake, a former Prime Minister and party leader...
...And while the UNP does not readily fit into any accepted political nomenclature, it can be safely described as conservative...
...Bandaranaike's Lanka Freedom party, for instance, is a conglomeration of disgruntled politicians as devoid of an ideology as is the ruling party...
...Even the racial difference stemming from the fact that the Tamils are Dravidians and the Kandyans Aryans is more academic than real...
...But, curiously enough, while the Burma Government goes out of its way to offer Burmese nationality to Indians long resident there, Ceylon is trying to brand thousands of them stateless and drive them to India...
...even potatoes are imported from Australia...
...The Communists have no more than nuisance value...
...Until this imbalance is rectified, Ceylon's industrial and agricultural progress is bound to be slow...
...Otherwise, the thorny Ceylon Indian problem would not exist...
...Very few of the island's requirements are found at home...
...The ruling United National party (UNP) is the monopoly of a single family and is humorously called the uncle-nephew party...
...Public leadership is a close preserve, a kind of feudal inheritance, which leaves the vast multitudes untouched and uninterested...
...But how can people who are almost apathetic to politics be so strongly influenced by a political development whose repercussions still remain to be felt in other walks of life...
...Similarly, there are Indian employes in Ceylon who have temporary-residence permits which cease to be valid the moment they leave the island even on a holiday...
...The carefree, jovial Ceylonese are politically apathetic and give little thought to impending economic crisis See Ceylon and Live By G. S. Bhargava Colombo "See Ceylon and live," reads a Ceylon Government publicity handout beckoning tourists to the land of "dance and music...
...But history reveals a different trend: The Aryan Kandyans were driven by the Dravidians from the southern tip of India to the south of the island...
...When it enjoyed a monopoly in rubber and tea, Ceylon could afford the luxury of a preponderance of imports over exports...
...Except for Indian labor, there is not much of a working class in the island, and the party does not claim to represent the former, so it is middle-class in character and outlook...
...Though a rather cheap adaptation of the famous saying about Naples of yore, the slogan is not without substance...
...The Sama Samajists could very well provide an alternative to the UNP if they shed their theoretical lopsidedness and developed a comprehensive outlook like that of Socialists elsewhere in Asia...
...There is another part of the Indian problem which is prevalent in almost every Southeast Asian country...
...But the Government's vigilance in isolating the local Stalinists from outside sources of financial and other help, and the apathy of the average Ceylonese toward slogan-mongering professional politics, have reduced the Communist party to a group of theoreticians cut off from the world around them...
...Indian gods (Aryans) invaded the island but did not set up an empire...
...Sir Oliver is known as the one-man brain trust of Ceylon and has survived three Prime Ministers...
...If Ceylon had made a distinction between those Indians who labor for the island's prosperity and those who reap a rich harvest without having ever sown, no one could have pointed an accusing finger at it...
...though that does not mean it has a social philosophy or ideology...
...Many explanations are volunteered for this Ceylonese attitude...
...Ceylon occurs prominently in Hindu mythology: It is called "Lanka," meaning an island peopled with dark-bodied demons (Dravidians...
...The economies of the countries concerned are greatly affected by their activities, and the governments are justified in dealing with them in as effective a manner as necessary...
...However, a Tamilian like Sir John Kotelawala is as keen on sending away the "surplus" Indians as the Aryan opposition leader, volatile Bandaranaike...
...replacement of evil by good was their aim and it was achieved...
...They have a knack of circumventing every restriction imposed on transferring money from the country in which they operate, and of getting their profits home safely...
...The lack of an alternative party, coupled with the fact that some members, like the present Finance Minister and Governor-General-designate, Sir Oliver Goonetilleke, are highly capable and efficient administrators, keeps the UNP in power...
...If the average Ceylonese is carefree and jovial, he is also easygoing and lazy...
...Some attribute it to the ease with which the country achieved its present political status...
...While exports rose 16 per cent between 1948 and 1953, the corresponding increase in imports was 35 per cent...
...As in India, the opposition is heterogeneous, but an additional disadvantage is that no single party has been able to combine seasoned leadership with an appealing program...
...Beyond that, however, it has failed to strike roots in Ceylon and adapt theoretical Trotskyism to the requirements of a country that has neither a working class nor much of a peasantry...
...But there is no linguistic friction between the Jafnites and Kandyans...
...What is more, with a population of only 7 million, Ceylon can take in a few hundred thousand Indians from the densely populated south...
...Almost all the leading lights of the party are related...
...and Sinhalese are the two main languages in the island, with Jafna in the north and Kandy in the south as their respective cultural centers...
...This involves Indian businessmen and moneylenders, who monopolize trade and industry and push out the "natives" by sheer financial superiority...
...Even the most fanatic anti-Indian politicians realize this and confine their hostility to "surplus" Indians...
...Don't they have problems...
...It has definitely curbed the growth of Stalinist influence in the island...
...Perhaps the answer is to be found in Buddhism, the island's principal religion...
...in its pristine form...
...Both history and mythology substantiate the Ceylonese fear of "Indian imperialism...
...The championship of Indian labor's cause by the Trotskyists and Communists has only widened the gulf between the people of Indian origin and the Ceylonese middle class...
...Recently, they registered a small dent in the Sama Samajist party and won over some of its members under the guise of a "united front...
...In Colombo, one finds the shops packed with imported goods, eating houses almost always filled to capacity, bazaars doing a brisk business, and men and women in a carefree, jovial mood...
...It believes in living on bogeys and rarely discusses real issues...
...That the Ceylon Tamils were not taken in by the idea of a sovereign Tamil state comprising Tamil areas of India and Ceylon...
Vol. 37 • July 1954 • No. 27
