Vijayashree RameshA REMINISCENCE
It is time that we have to revisit, rethink, glorified past of our country which fell into the ploy, hands of the devious dominance, manipulation of the British. British always seemingly chose to come into other countries landing at the sea ports for commerce, often exhibiting their naval and weaponry prowess. The invasion started from there, later they created internal disturbances and claimed the land.
When Macaulay was asked to tour whole of India, he reported back the richness in culture, education, contentment and prosperity of people being in abundance. If our way of education is thwarted and English way of education and thinking is implemented Indians would lose our self-worth, tradition, Indianness. That was his finding.
Was it only before independence India stood divided ? No. Over the past centuries Afghanistan, Burma, Sri Lanka were separated from India. The most manipulative division is of India and Sri Lanka who boasted of being politically, socially more or less the same. It is to be noted that this division was done with such finesse by the then ruling British, which was not likened by both the countries.
The unique features of India and Sri Lanka were the existence of the common political, social, which can be seen from the tell tales of Kandapuranam, Ramanayanam, existence of Karthikeya Gramam which later became Kadirgamam, yazhpaanam-Yaazh a musical instrument paanam the peasant folklore cult. As South India boasts of old and heritage temples the same can be told for Sri Lanka also.
While delving into the past History Pandian, Naicker, Rajasthani kings had gotten married to women from Sri Lanka and vice versa. King Ashoka’s daughter Shangamitra had travelled to Sri Lanka to spread Buddhism. Singalar a clan from West Bengal and Orissa have made inroads into Sri Lanka which has been proven genetically too.
Why is the fact that India and Sri Lanka remained one is not known to people than the divided status ? This is because of the blind spot that we created to look at things in only one way. For an example if asked where is Kuwait Located ? all of us would unanimously say middle east, where as the actual location when looked from the Europe side the location is South West Asia. What are the reasons for being in the blind spot for way too long ?
In the year 1796, East India Company captured Sri Lanka where a portion of that captured territory was attached to Madras Presidency. Later a settlement called TREATY OF AMIENS was signed on 27 March 1802, in Amiens, France, where Sri Lanka in its entirety came under the reign of the British which was their first domination ever.
Following this, in the year 1833, Queen of England asked her Colonel Quin Brooke, to report to her how Ceylon should be ruled ? In his report to the Queen he suggested that India and Ceylon should be ruled separately for administration purposes. The reason for this being, When decisions have to be taken for trade and commercial purposes, to test whether they are going to give the right results or not have to be tested as a pilot project based on the culture, social and economic considerations. Since, they were more or less the same for both the countries.
Any decisions would be easier to test on then Ceylon than India would be better it was thought of. For this sole purpose they divided them as British India and British Ceylon. In the year 1885, when Indian National Congress was formed to fight for British India only, where as Ceylon National Association was formed to 1887 to fight for Ceylon only. All this was done only in view with what Britishers had in mind for their DIVIDE AND RULE POLICY.
Many of our leaders who fought for our freedom supported Britishers cause without realising their ploy. The theory which they applied for their own country was applied here that is of ISLAND AND MAINLAND. Island being England and Continent being Europe and in Indian parlance Ceylon being Island, India being the Mainland in the minds of our leaders.
It is ironical that Nehru in his book Glimpses of World History, had quoted that cholas’ were aggressors in Ceylon, whereas in his book Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History by Vinayak Damodar Sarvarkar, had quoted Ceylon is the Bodhi Circuit of India. This apparently showed that Nehru was more European in his mind, thought and action whereas Sarvarkar was more Indian at it.
Peculiarly at the time of independence in 1947, Mount Batten was chosen to be our First Governor General, who was a non politician, given the fact that he was the South East Asian Commander in Chief at the World War II, a military leader, whose thoughts were to be more military like, as the earlier Governor Generals were all politicians.
Ceylon got its independence on February 4, 1948, in the meantime Sardar Valla Bhai Patel and VP Menon added all the princely states to India. Fear ridden Britishers in Ceylon thought, what if Ceylon gets attached to India? immediately drafted and signed a Defence Agreement with Ceylon, that if any country attacked Ceylon, British would only help and support Ceylon. Owing to this reason, British had its naval base in Trincomalee till 1956, that was when Ceylon became a member of the UN. Our leaders were seemingly unaware of the British manipulations or they were pushed to a corner that getting independence would suffice.
The Dravidian Party in the south, asked for a separate Dravida Naadu, but that didn’t include Ceylon. This was because of the then Justice Party members who were more Europeanised in their thoughts and actions, when Britishers left our country, they didn’t want them to leave India and pleaded them to stay back. They were the agents of the Britishers who parroted each and every word of the Britishers. Such was their hatred towards Nation and Nationalism, that they had banned the patriotic songs of Mahakavi Subramaniya Bharathi.
One cannot expect Nationalism from the then Justice Party and is it too much for asking from the Dravidian parties ?
Based on Inputs From S Chandersekaran, World Trade Expert and Writer
Arul Kumar