An Island Unto Itself

...Whether Ceylon can continue to maintain its democratic political framework in the face of the highest rate of population increase in Asia (except for Taiwan), of only a small increase in the rate of investment and economic development, of continuing communal and religious strife and of continuing strikes at its economic nerve center (the Colombo port)—all this still remains to be seen...

...Caste differences, though not as pronounced as in India—but more resistant to change than some Western-educated Ceylonese are prepared to admit—are yet sufficiently divisive to influence even Cabinet relationships...

...Unlike a recent Ambassador-designate to that country, however, many Americans today would probably know something of its present Prime Minister—if only because she is the first woman in any country to have been elected to such high political office...

...And the materials presented on Ceylonese post-independence politics are sufficiently detailed to be of use both to global policy makers as well as to those concerned with the development of an analytic framework for comparative political analysis...

...This is surely a remarkable record...

...The almost one million un-assimilated Indian estate workers, allegedly a serious economic threat to the Sinhalese (and particularly Kandyan) peasants, are a crucial source of internal tension as well as the most important basis for potential conflict between Ceylon and India...

...And though the country was in a state of near-anarchy in 1958, it has since conducted two orderly and successful general elections, in which the electorate has been able to choose candidates from a political spectrum ranging from the United National party on the right to two...

...Nevertheless, Ceylon, unlike many other new states in Asia and Africa, has continued to manage its own affairs without either partition, revolution or military rule...

...Bitter differences between the Sinhalese majority (70 per cent of the island's 9 million inhabitants)—who are primarily Buddhist in religion and Sinhalese in speech—and the Tamil minority—primarily Hindu in religion and Tamil in speech—erupted into an orgy of physical violence in 1958...

...Status and economic insecurity of the lower-middle class, and its resentment of the small Westernized political elite, comprise still another source of constant tension as well as one of the sources of the political strength of both Bandaranaikes...

...and though Wriggins very ably describes the bases for Ceylon's tensions and conflicts, the bases for its relative political stability do not emerge as clearly...

...Moreover, although primarily interested in politics, he presents sufficiently generalized accounts of the historical, economic, cultural and religious matrix within which political behavior occurs for this volume to serve as a general introduction to Ceylon for the educated layman...

...Reviewed by Melford Spiro Professor of Anthropology, University of Washington ALTHOUGH WORLD WAR II and the cold war have made many Americans aware of Asia, most of them—if I may judge from casual conversation with friends and students—are probably unable correctly to identify the location of Ceylon, let alone to give even a superficial account of this island, its people and its history...

...Bandaranaike's assumption of power, but it is sufficiently up-to-date to have included a reference to the event that enabled her to achieve victory—the assassination of her Prime Minister husband, Solomon West Ridgeway Bandara-naike, in September 1959...

...Ceylon, an island half as large as Illinois 25 miles off the southeast tip of India, has known not one, but three, colonial powers since the 16th century—Portugal, Holland and England...

...Trotskyite parties and a Communist party on the left...

...Tension between Buddhists and Christians (especially Catholics), and the latter's alleged educational, political and economic advantages, have brought thousands of Buddhist monks, fearful of the future of Buddhist culture, into the political arena...

...and the bitterness which occasioned this violence remains a major obstacle to national unity...

...In Ceylon: Dilemmas of a New Nation, W. Howard Wriggins, Chief of the Foreign Affairs Division of the Legislative Reference Service at the Library of Congress, has written what is surely the most comprehensive and authoritative work on the politics of modern Ceylon...

...This volume under review was published before Mrs...

...These are only some of the bases for the economic dislocations (including a series of dramatic port strikes) and political conflicts that have characterized Ceylon since 1955...

...But its heterogeneous colonial experience is only one source of Ceylon's social and cultural pluralism, and of the social and political conflict attendant upon it...