Post Colonial Period

Since 1948 three phases in the development of Sri Lanka can be distinguished: 1948-1956, the period of the brown sahibs; 1956-1970, the rise of progressive and popular forces; and from 1971 onwards the period of economic decolonization and socialist revolution.

1948 to 1956
During this period the country was ruled by middle-class elite trained during the colonial period in the best traditions of British liberal thought. This educated, anglicized and for the most part very anglophile elite held all the positions of economic power, and the brown sahibs took over from their predecessors, the white sahibs, with remarkable smoothness. A fairly conservative government of national union was headed by D. S. Senanayake, however, some unresolved ethnical issues were left out one of these is the status of the Indian Tamils. In 1949, a faction of the Ceylon Tamil Congress led by S.J.V. Chevanayakam broke away and formed a new party, Tamil Federal Party. This was followed by the break up of the United National Party due to internal differences of the leaders.

In March 1952, Prime Minister Senenayake died in a horseback-riding accident and the entire nation suffered from the loss of the only man who could pose as a credible symbol for country’s unity. An election was held after the death of the prime minister, in which the UNP won headed by the former prime mister’s son Dudley, the SLFP (Sri Lanka Freedom Party) came out as a major opposition party, while the Tamil Congress lost much of its following to the Federal Party, the leading proponent of autonomous homeland within a Sri Lankan Federation. During this period an opposition party grew up, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, which emphasized purely Sinhalese values and Buddhist traditions, professed a straightforward form of socialism and called for economic decolonization.

During Dudley Senanayake term the nation’s economic problems become apparent: the fast growing population; and the immense violent civil disobedience due to the reduction of rice subsidy. The unrest of the people led to the resignation of D. Senanayake and Sir John Kotelawala became the new prime minister and remained in the office until 1956.

1956 to 1970
In 1956 the Freedom Party joined the Marxist parties in a People’s United Front (Eksath Peramuna) and won a general election. Its leader Soiomon Bandaranaike was a highly anglicized middle-class Sinhalese from Kandy, who had been knighted and received into the Church of England but had reverted to Buddhism. As Prime Minister he carried through a number of nationalisation measures and sought to develop a welfare society in Sri Lanka. One of his leading objectives was to introduce a system for the distribution of free rations of rice a far-reaching measure in a country which depended so largely on rice for subsistence. The emphasis placed on distinctively Sinhalese values as the nationalisation of education and the gradual replacement of the English language by Sinhala. The declaration of the Sinhala as the official language of the country led to confusion among the Tamils and perceived the act as an attack to their culture,language and economic position.

The first major episode of the communal violence on the island since independence happened in May 1958 when a rumor that a Tamil had killed a Sinhalese. Hundred of people died mostly Tamils and the state of emergency was declared forcefully relocated more than 25,000 Tamil refugees in the north. This violence left a deep scar between the two major ethnic groups of Sri Lanka.

In 1959 Mr. Bandaranaike, who had incurred the hostility of certain orthodox Buddhists, was assassinated by a Buddhist monk. The ground for the murder was apparently related to economic considerations. He was succeeded by Wijeyananda Dahanayake; however, Dahanayake unable to retain his post was defeated in 1960 general election by Dudley Senanayake. Due to lack of support of any other major party in the Parliament the UNP government fell and a new election was scheduled on July of the same year.

In 1960, after an election, his widow Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike became the 7th Prime Minister and the first woman Prime Minister in history. She carried out her husband’s ideas with great enthusiasm that led to the deterioration of Sinhalese-Tamil relation. The enforcement of the policy that recognize Sinhalese language as the only official language of the country led to Tamils unrest thus resulting a declaration of state of emergency and restriction of Tamil political activity.

In 1965 a coalition of the government’s opponents brought the conservatives back to power. The UNP regained its power securing more than 39% of parliamentary seats. The first action of the new government was the declaration of economic bankruptcy and the intention to improved relationship with the United States. The new government developed a mixed economy emphasizing on the private sector, and reversing the trend of the previous administration. Despite of the government effort to improve the economy of the country, the country’s economic difficulties got steadily worse; the worldwide shortage of rice production and concurrent precipitous decline in the price of Sri Lanka’s export commodities.

In 1966 a Tamil Regulation was enacted, this was designed to make the Tamil language officially parallel to Sinhala in Tamil-speaking regions. The Sinhalese activists expressed antagonism toward the regulation that led to civil violence and forced the government to declare a state of emergency for a year.

The left-wing opposition was meanwhile gathering its forces. In the 1970 election the People’s United Front was victorious, and a new government was formed with some orthodox Communist as well as Trotskyist members, and with Mrs. Bandaranaike as Prime Minister. Sri Lanka’s economic difficulties continued to increase. While Parliament was preparing a new and distinctively Sri Lankan constitution the discontents caused by unemployment and the destitution of the landless peasants exploded into violence on 5 and 6 April 1971.

Since 1971
The rising of April 1971 involved more than 80,000 peasants under the leadership of unemployed intellectuals inspired by the doctrines of Maoism and Che Guevara. There were bloody encounters between the revolutionaries and the army, but in spite of their superiority in numbers the revolutionary forces were unable to win the day over the 30,000 troops who opposed them. Although taken at a disadvantage by the scale of the rebellion, which indeed surprised all observers, the army soon regained control of the situation and carried out a campaign of pacification. The government took severe action against extremists and tried to speed up its programme of economic and social reform. Since then the agitation appears to have died down; but there are many who believe that Sri Lanka has now entered a new phase which will lead to a genuine process of decolonization and a fairer distribution of the national wealth.

The Parliament had been continuing with its work, and on 22 May 1972, after 157 years of foreign rule, the first authentically Sri Lankan Constitution was promulgated. Ceylon now became officially known as the Free, Sovereign and Independent Republic of Sri Lanka. Under its new constitution the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government were vested in the National State Assembly. The new constitution manifests lack of protection for the right of minorities nor has elements of federalism that dismayed many sectors of the population particularly the Tamils. Because of the distinct discrimination against the Tamils, the Tamil community reacted collectively and founded the Tamil United Front, which later on became the Tamil United Liberation Front.

Junius Richard Jayewardene refurbished the weakened image of UNP and by 1977 general election he was voted as the new prime minister by a landslide victory, winning 140 out of 168 seats. The Sri Lankan Tamils under the TULF party became the largest opposition party in the Parliament. When Chelvanayakam, the leader of TULF died the opportunity for unity with the Tamils was also lost. The Tamil separatist underground or Tamil Tigers was gaining the support of the increasing number of embittered Tamil youths. In 1972, Velupillai Prabhakaran founded the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the strongest among the separatists. There were manifestations of violent measures in their proposition for mandate for a separate state. The grisly acts of the Tamil terrorism led to communal violence that engulfed the island within two weeks after the inauguration of the new government.

During the term of Jayewardene a new constitution was created, the 1978 Constitution was patterned after the France presidential system with a powerful chief executive. The president will be elected for a six year term and has the power to appoint a prime minister and preside a cabinet meeting. The new constitution also incorporated substantial concessions to Tamil sensitivities. Despite the conjunction of the TULF with the other parties in the government for unity and Tamils autonomy the Tamil Tigers intensify their terrorist attacks that led to the repercussion against Tamils, the declaration of state of emergency and the eradication of terrorist threat.