History of Sri Lanka

The first historical data concerning Sri Lanka come from year 543 B.C., when the Aryans reached the island from the north of India. It was in that year, when Vijaya , the son of the king from the north of India, arrived on the island with 700 of his followers. After overcoming resistance put up by the Yakkhas, considered to have been the original inhabitants of the island, the invaders settled there.

After first colonizers had settled down, the Aryan immigration continued. The newcomers established themselves in different parts of the country and form a number of communities and small kingdoms. The most prominent among  the latter were the kingdoms of Sohana in the south and Anuradhapura in the north.

Under the Devamanpiyathissa (307- 267 B.C. ) in Anuradhapura, Mahinda the son of an Indian king called Ashoka, arrived on the island with a group of Buddhist monks and began preaching and promotion their religion throughout the country.

The expanision of the Buddhism produced a development of literature and other forms of artistic expression, and Buddhism become a unifying factor for the inhabitants of the country. 

The kingdom of Anuradhapura continued to grow until the 10^th century, when it was invaded by the Cholas coming from southern India. This marked the beginning of a period of instability, as other invaders, such as Pandyas, stormed it, provoking frequent battle which eventually caused the downfall of Anuradhapura. It was succeeded by polonnaruwa, which had been the military camp of the invaders.

At the beginning of the 16^th century there were centers of power in the country, kotte in the south west, kandy, in the central highlands and Jaffa in the extreme north.

In 1505, the Portuguese navigator Lourenco de Almeida arrived at the coast of Sri Lanka. Exploiting the rivalry between the king of kotte and Moslem merchants who monopolized the trade with spices. The Portuguese established close ties with the king, who in addition, Viewed them as his allies against the Molslem merchants and his other local rivals.

The first group of Europeans stayed in the country for 150 years. When they met with strong resistance from the kingdom of Sitawaka, the Portuguese helped strengthen the rulers of Kandy to turn them against the former, but in the end the kingdom of Kandy turned against the Portuguese with greater vigor than did Sitawaka.

The Dutch presence on the island lasted from 1656 to 1796. In that period they concentrated in their hands the export of cinnamon, acquired a monopoly on trade in elephants, built roads and canals and improved the cultivation of rise by bringing in slaves from Indonesia.

In 1796, the British arrived in Sri Lanka and easily defeated the Dutch, upon which they turned the island in to a colony.

The kingdom of Kandy, which for years had fought the Europeans, finally fell in 1815 overwhelmed by the military superiority of the enemy. Nevertheless, the Kandyans rose in rebellion in 1818, only to be drowned in blood.

The British East Indies Company in Madras administered the British possessions in the area until 1802, when the British Crown took direct charge of them. In addition, The British introduced monetary economy to replace “rajakariya” a feudal system of pay, and imposed the use to English, which remained the official language of the island until 1956.

Although the British imposed their domination on most of the island, they failed to subjugate completely the seven kingdom into which its territory continued to be divided until 1815.

The long tradition of herioic struggle by the Sri Lankans against foreign domination forced the British to establish on the island in 1832 a colonial administration independent of the administration of their Indian colonies in order to ensure better control of the island.

In the course of the 19^th century, the British developed the exploitation of banana plantations until they turned that crop in to the basic wealth of the country. However due to the economic crises of 1844- 1844, a drop in banana prices and competition from other countries, banana growing began to the replaced as of 1870 by the cultivation of tea and rubber trees.

The two world wars created favorable conditions for a considerable expansion of the export of tea. The whole tea industry was monopolized by the British, and even today when the tea plantations have been nationalized and in the hands of local producers, the international tea trade continues to be controlled by British monopolies. Since the beginning of this century the native inhabitants of Sri Lanka were permitted to share gradually in the administration of the colony.

Until 1919 the British permitted only the native Sri Lankans to hold seats in the Legislative council. This representation was enlarged under the constitution of 1920 and again in 1924. Three years later, in 1927, the British sent to the country the Donoughmore Commission, which abolished communal representation and established a Council of state made up of 50 elected members and eight appointers and the council was divided in to eight executive committees. The chairmen of the committees, together with three appointed British secretaries, farmed a cabinet. All these legal and government measures were embodied in a constitution promulgated in 1931.

In 1945, when the 2^nd world war ended, Great Britain, Fearing that the spirit and struggle for national independence spurred by the victory over fascism and militarism would create problem which her weekend postwar economy could not handle, began to organize the formal independence of her Asian colonies.

The Soulbury commission its independence of February 4, 1948, as a parliamentary republic within the British Commonwealth and the name Ceylon. The elections to constitute the first parliament were held in 1947. Already then there existed  the United National party (UNP), the Lanka Sama Smaaja (Socialist), was communist party and the Tamil Congress party . On the tea plantations the Indian workers associated themselves in the Ceylon Indian Congress. The first government was formed by the UNP under Prime Minister D.S. Senanayake. It was later joined by the Tamil Congress Party.

A split occurred within the UNP in 1951, and as a result the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) was formed under the leadership of Solomon Bandaranayake. When Senanayaka died in 1952, he succeeded by his son, Dudley Senanayake who subsequently held the post of Prime Minister four times.

Between 1953 and 1956 the government was headed by another member of  the UNP, John Kotelawala, but in the Sri Lanka Freedom Party won the elections and Bandaranayaka became Prime Minister in 1956. Under his government, sihalese was declared to be the country’s official language replacing English, bus transport companies and port of Colombo were nationalized, defense agreement with Great Britain were cancled, British air and naval bases were taken over by Sri Lanka and relations were established with the socialist countries.

In September 1959 one of the person assassinated Prime Minister Bandaranayake, and some months later, in 1960 General Elections were held, which were won by the UNP, then led by J.R. Jayawardena and Dudley Senanayake became Prime Minister again.

Because the elections did not produse the required majority for any party,new elections were held in July of the year and were won by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party. Solomon Bandaranaike’s widow, Sirimava Bandaranaika , was appointed Prime minister and her government lasted until 1965.

In elections held that year the UNP was victorious under the leadership of Dudley Senanayake, who indeminified the petroleum companies which had been nationalized in the previous period.

In 1970, Sirimavo Bandaranaike returned to the premiership in a United Front coalition government formed by the Sri Lanka Freedom party, the Communist party and the Lanka Sama Samaja . The United Front Platform called for socio-economic changes of a broadly democratic character. In July of the year, the Sri Lanka government established relations with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and Koreans People’s Democratic Republic. In the same month the parliament approved a resolution under which if assumed the authority to draw up a new constitution.

A serious drought had been plaguing the country since 1969, and by 1971 the harvest was extremely poor. Moreover, the impact of the world crisis had a disastrous effect on the Sri Lanka Economy. Imports of many goods had to be cut for lack of foreign exchange or because of the high prices on the world market.

Also in 1971, an armed insurrection occurred, let by a People’s Liberation Front, whose members were mostly unemployed school leavers. The insurrection was resolutely put down by the government. The state of emergency proclaimed on that occasion was not lifted until five years later.

A new constitution, replacing the document drown up by the Soulbary Commission, which had been Sri Lanka’s supreme low since independence in 1948, was enacted on May 22, 1972. Under the new constitution the country assumed the name Sri Lanka

On the other hand, the tension existed between the Sinhalese and Tamil communities continued gaining in intensity. In 1976 the Federal Party and other Tamil groups formed a United Liberation Front, which demanded the establishment of the Tamil state in the northern and eastern parties of the island, inhabited by the minority ethical groups.

Contradictions that emerged in the ruling coalition due to a number of economic difficulties caused by natural phenomena and world economic crisis, as well as by the government inability to carry out an agrarian and solve the Tamil problem, resulted in a landslide victory of the opposition United National Party, headed by J.R. Jayewardene, in a elections held on July 1977.

The UNP won 140 of the 168 parliament seats, the United Front of Tamil Liberation captured 18 seates, while the Sri Lanka Freedom party did not gain more than eight seats. 13% of electorate abstained from voting. In October of the same year parliament approved a constitutional amendment establishing a presidential system of government, and in February 1978, Jayawardene became Sri Lanka’s first President.

1978 was marked by continued protests and demands raised by the Tamil terrorists which on many occasions turned in to violent clashes. In an attempt to calm down the aroused passions, the new government included in the constitution promulgated in September of that year a provision under which Tamil was recognized as a national language alongside Sinhalese, which continues to be the official language. The constitution also modified the name of the country to the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka.

The Jayewardene government changed the economic course followed by its predecessor, opening the country to foreign capital investments and resorting to the financial of its development plans with funds provided by the advanced capitalist countries and international organizations.  In its foreign policy , the Jayewardene government has continued Sri Lanka’s participation in the movement of non- aligned countries and its orientation in favor of international peace.

Domestically, in order to  isolate politically the former prime minister and leader of the Sri Lanka Freedom party, Sirimavo Bandaranayake, the new government suspended on October 16 , 1980, her civil rights for seven years, expelled her from parliament, and prohibited her participation in the general elections to be held in 1983, as well as in the presidential elections scheduled in 1984.