A Glimpse into Sri Lanka-United Kingdom Relations

By J. K. Janith Prabashwara Perera

University of Leeds, United Kingdom

Introduction

With Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) under British rule for 133 years, the ties between Sri Lanka and United Kingdom extend across colonial history, trade, diplomacy, and cultural exchange. From its past as a British colony to its present as a sovereign state, Sri Lanka maintains a complex yet dynamic relationship with United Kingdom—marked by strong bilateral cooperation and a trilateral connection through the Commonwealth of Nations. This article provides an overview of these relationships, offering insights to further strengthen the foreign policies of both nations for mutual growth and collaboration.

Pre-Colonial Era

In Pliny, the Elder's Naturalis Historia, Sri Lanka (then referred to as Taprobane) is described as an exotic and wealthy island renowned for its pearls, gems, and spices, which were highly prized in the Roman Empire. This led to the establishment of trade connections between the two regions. Pliny also mentions an embassy from Sri Lanka to Roman Emperor Claudius (41–54 CE), highlighting the early diplomatic and trade relations between them (Murphy, 2004). It is noteworthy that, during this period, Britain was part of the Roman Empire, known as Roman Britain.

Colonial Era (1796–1948)

The coastal areas of Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) came under British control in 1796, when the Dutch ceded power during the Napoleonic Wars (Sivasundaram, 2007). This presented an opportune moment for the British Empire to extend its dominance, especially considering the island’s strategic maritime position and the wealth of precious stones and spices it possessed. However, it was not until 1815, following the signing of the Kandyan Convention, that the British gained control over the entire island (Amarasinghe and Rajhans, 2020). With this consolidation of power, Ceylon officially became a British colony. During this period, the British introduced plantation agriculture, infrastructure development, educational reforms, and an administrative and judicial system—many of which have left a lasting legacy on the country today.

The introduction of plantation crops such as tea, rubber, and coffee, which became vital to Sri Lanka's export economy, was one of the most significant legacies of British rule. Tea and rubber remain two of Sri Lanka’s primary exports, providing essential foreign income. In 2022, the United Kingdom was Sri Lanka’s second-largest export partner, accounting for 7.44% of the total export share (World Integrated Trade Solution, 2025). In terms of infrastructure, the railway system, established during British rule, remains one of the main forms of public transportation. Despite ongoing modernisation efforts, much of the original infrastructure is still in use and maintained.

The administrative and democratic reforms implemented by the British also left a lasting impact. Although local representation was limited, the establishment of the Legislative Council in 1833 marked a significant milestone in Sri Lanka’s move toward democratic governance (Jayasinghe and Welikala, 2013). However, communal representation in the Legislative Council has been criticised for deepening ethnic divisions, which later contributed to the rise of Tamil nationalism and ultimately plunged the country into nearly three decades of ethnic conflict (Soherwordi, 2010). In 1931, the Donoughmore Reforms introduced universal suffrage, paving the way for a more representative government. These changes eventually led to the Soulbury Constitution in 1947, which set the stage for Sri Lanka’s independence in 1948. However, Sri Lanka remained a dominion until 1972, with the British Queen as the head of state (Abeyratne, 2019). The parliamentary system, based on the British Westminster model, remained in effect until 1978, when an Executive Presidential system was introduced through the second Republican constitution. Today, Sri Lanka operates under a semi-presidential hybrid presidential-parliamentary system, with the Prime Minister also playing a significant role in governance.

The judicial and education systems in Sri Lanka are also deeply influenced by British practices. English Common Law, based on legal precedents and judicial decisions, which was adopted during the colonial era, continues to govern Sri Lanka's legal framework (University of Minnesota, 2018).  Similarly, Sri Lanka’s education system has been heavily influenced by British models, with remnants of its colonial legacy still evident. For example, the university system follows the British higher education structure (Jayasuriya, 2001), while gender-segregated schools—established during British rule—continue to function today, reflecting the enduring impact of coloniality (Albrecht, 2024).

Post Independence (After 1948)

On 4 February 1948, Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) became a self-governing independent state with a Westminster-style parliamentary system (Abeyratne,2019). D. S. Senanayake, the first Prime Minister of independent Ceylon, also assumed the roles of Minister of External Affairs and Defence, maintaining close ties with the United Kingdom. In 1949, Prime Minister D. S. Senanayake signed the London Declaration, officially making Ceylon a founding member of the Commonwealth of Nations, a voluntary association of independent states that preserved Ceylon’s sovereignty while maintaining strong diplomatic and historical connections with Britain. However, the British monarch remained the Head of State, British military forces continued to operate in Ceylon for few years even after independence, and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the UK remained the highest court of appeal. As a result, Ceylon functioned as a Dominion until 22 May 1972, when it became a republic and was renamed the Republic of Sri Lanka (Abeyratne, 2019).

In the decades following independence, Sri Lanka and the UK maintained strong relations centered around trade, education, and governance. Many Sri Lankan political leaders travelled to the United Kingdom for education and exposure to new ideas. At the time of independence, Sri Lanka was an open economy, with a tariff-based preference to products of the British Empire, before efforts to diversify trade with the rest of the world was focused (Jayawardena, 2018). The UK continued to be a major export market for Sri Lankan products, including tea, rubber, textiles, and coconut products. In the 1970s, when Sri Lanka attempted trade liberalisation and more open economic policies, the UK remained a key trade partner. Records from the UK Parliament (2000) confirm that since 1964 Sri Lanka has received formal development assistance through British government aid agencies. These aid and technical assistance have been invested in the development of public administration, healthcare, agriculture, and community development projects. Relations between the two countries took a significant turn during the years of the civil war and its immediate aftermath.  

Civil War and Post-War Diplomatic Challenges

Relations between Sri Lanka and the UK became strained during Sri Lanka’s civil war (1983-2009) due to the UK’s concerns over human rights violations by both the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The UK also became home to a significant Tamil diaspora, many of whom voiced concerns over the human rights abuses in Sri Lanka (Vimalarajah and Cheran, 2010).

During the civil war and its aftermath, the UK provided humanitarian aid to displaced Tamil populations and civilian victims. British humanitarian organisations, including Oxfam GB, Save the Children UK, and the British Red Cross, played key roles in relief efforts despite significant access challenges (Goodhand, 1999; Harris and Lewer, 2002; Save the Children, 2024; Tran and Chamberlain, 2009). Additionally, the UK supported international peace efforts, particularly during the failed peace talks and the Ceasefire Agreement in 2002 (UK Parliament, 2002).

Although the UK became home to a large Tamil diaspora, the LTTE’s violent campaign for Tamil Eelam, employing tactics of terrorism, led the UK to designate the LTTE as a terrorist organization in 2001. Additionally, due to LTTE supporters in the UK engaging in fundraising and lobbying efforts, the UK viewed the LTTE as a threat to national security and banned it under the Terrorism Act 2000 (Curtis and Robinson, 2024). After the military defeat of the LTTE in 2009, the UK advocated for justice and accountability, calling for an independent investigation into war crimes allegations (Mason, 2013). This created diplomatic tensions between the two countries, but the UK remained a key partner in Sri Lanka’s post-war reconstruction and reconciliation efforts, providing financial and technical aid for peacebuilding, human rights, and governance projects.

Contemporary Ties

In recent years, marked by Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic, and political and economic instability in Sri Lanka, trade, development, and political relations between the two countries have demonstrated both cooperation and diplomatic concerns. The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) provides free international export sales leads to UK Businesses to facilitate trade between the two countries (UK Government, 2025a).

While the policies of former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa (2019-2022) were met with mixed reactions in the UK, particularly regarding concerns over freedom of speech, press freedom, and minority rights, the UK's assistance for economic reforms and humanitarian aid played a pivotal role in strengthening bilateral relations (Walker and Curtis, 2022). However, in 2023, British Minister for the Indo-Pacific, Anne-Marie Trevelyan visited Sri Lanka to further solidify ties, focusing on areas such as climate change, security, and human rights. During her visit, she travelled to both Colombo and Jaffna, where she met with then-President Ranil Wickremesinghe and other key government figures (Daily FT, 2023).

More recently, in January 2025, Minister for the Indo-Pacific, Catherine West visited Sri Lanka with a focus on boosting exports and economic growth, meeting with the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sri Lanka (UK Government, 2025b). This signifies strong and continued diplomatic ties between the two countries.

Development assistance from the UK has played a crucial role in Sri Lanka's post-war recovery, as well as during the pandemic and the subsequent economic recovery phases. In particular, the UK provided lifesaving aid to Sri Lanka's most vulnerable populations, further strengthening diplomatic ties between the two nations (UK Government, 2022).

Today, Sri Lanka and the UK continue to engage in trade, investment, education, and sustainable development. The UK remains a top destination for Sri Lankan migrants, and British influence is still evident in almost every sector in Sri Lanka. Additionally, the two nations collaborate in areas such as climate change, security, and tourism.

Conclusion

From the colonial era to the present day, the two nations have maintained strong diplomatic, economic, and cultural ties. Sri Lanka’s trade with the UK, particularly in commodities like tea, rubber, and textiles, has remained a cornerstone of this relationship, while the UK continues to show interest in Sri Lanka's development, economic growth, and political stability. In conclusion, despite challenges, such as differing perspectives during Sri Lanka’s civil war, the diplomatic ties between the two nations have remained resilient. As Sri Lanka navigates its post-war reconstruction, development, and economic recovery, the partnership with the UK remains a vital pillar of progress, fostering growth, stability, and shared prosperity.

 

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RUSSIA OVERSHADOWS G7 2022 SUMMIT

GUEST COMMENTARY by Banura Nandathilake

Despite being an informal collective of ‘advanced economic’ liberal democratic states, the Group of 7 (G7) bringing together Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom and the United States have fervent goals. Held from 26 to 28 June 2022, the summit was in response to a global society capsized by division and shocks, as a call to unite and join to defend ‘universal human rights and democratic values, the rules-based multilateral order, and the resilience of democratic societies’ (G7, 2022). The viability of such remains to be seen.

Formed in 1975, leading states in a world of global economic recession induced by the OPEC oil embargo understood it may be in their mutual interest to coordinate on macroeconomic interdependencies. While it was first a forum for Finance ministers to hold annual meetings, the G7 developed into a round-table between leaders of the Western World. In 1988, Russia joined the G7, which was then named the G8 albeit temporarily until Russia’s dismissal for its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

The G7 states in the contemporary, with an aggregate that represents 45 percent of the global economy in nominal terms and 10% of the world’s population, hold annual summits to coordinate economic policy goals, facilitate collective action on transnational issues and propagate neo liberal norms, in conjunction with the European Union and other invitees. All 7 member states are identified as mature and advanced democracies with a Human Development Index score of 0.800 or higher.

Unlike international organisations and groups such as NATO, the G7 group has no formal legal existence, no permanent secretariat or official members. It thus has no legally binding rules that abide by or ratify states to uphold decisions and commitments made at G7 meetings. As such, while compliance with G7 norms is procedurally voluntary, they are impacted by social norms of persuasion, influence, mutual accountability and reputation. Topics of conversation between member states have encompassed growing challenges such as counterterrorism, development, education, health, human rights and climate change.

The 2022 Summit

From 26-28 June 2022, the leaders of G7 States met in Elmau, Germany joined by the leaders of Argentina, India, Indonesia, Senegal and South Africa, as well as Ukraine. Representatives included German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, US President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, French President Emmanuel Macron, European Council President Charles Michel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen,

The summit focused on the Covid-19 crisis, climate change, the Russian Ukrainian conflict, and China. 

Climate Change

The shared concerns of climate change were a major topic of discussion during the 2022 Summit. The group endorsed the goals of an open and cooperative international Climate Club, in alignment with the 1.5°C pathways and hastened the implementation of the Paris agreement. The group further pledged to commit to a decarbonised transportation sector by 2030, a fully or predominantly decarbonised power sector by 2035. However, the latter may have been incentivised by political concerns of Western states to a major degree.

Liberal Democracies of the West

Liberal democracies may be understood to exist where the state subscribes to a liberal economic system and a democratic political system. A concise summary of such is as a liberal economic system proscribes significant political control over an decentralised, capitalistic, market driven economic system, as it is understood that the market mechanism is the most efficient means of linking demand to supply, market to consumer. A democracy may be understood as a domestic political model which, in conjunction with an impartial judiciary, free media and others, elected representatives aim to promote a decentralised representative governance through accountable, transparent and inclusive institutions.

By virtue of being a liberal democracy, all member states find common ground, parallel norms, alignment of macro foreign policy goals and understanding with each other. This allows the informal G7 to coordinate hard power security and economic interdependence in addition to cooperating with civil society groups to promote human rights, and uphold a democratic zone of peace in the face of non-democratic powers. A strong culture of mutual accountability exists between G7 states. Accountability may be through internal processors of the forum, where social norms allow for persuasion and disincentivize coercion. Coercion may not at all be necessary, as liberal democratic states would all be of a positive sum world view. Furthermore, the level of trade interdependence between states would act as means of checks and balances, as every state is needed by the other, thus it is in every G7 state’s interest to be in their good books.

The Illiberal Rest

Russia and China, in addition to states such as Iran, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela are understood by the West to be illiberal states. Both major powers, albeit one a receding power, have capitalist and liberal economic systems where the state’s political machine exerts a heavy pressure on the market mechanism. While the state may be able to provide a higher quality safety net to its citizens by restraining the destructive forces of capitalism to better allocate scarce resources amongst the vulnerable, significant barriers to such exist. China’s GDP has grown at a surprising rate vis a vis other developing states, which has allowed the CCP significant geopolitical leverage. However, China’s domestic political model is authoritarian, whereby citizens do not have much say in how they are governed. Exclusive political institutions have no means of accountability or transparency, which leads to significant corruption. As Wedeman (2004) analyses, corruption is a feature of the Chinese system, thereby stifling economic and social growth. Corruption and lack of domestic checks and balances to those in power may be more apparent in Russia than China, where the control of the Kremlin and the Oligarchs have poignant effects on not just its citizens but also its neighbours; as the lack of domestic accountability may mean the lack of stringent checks balances, which then mean lesser shackles on the zero-sum ambitions.

Russia-Ukraine Conflict

The Russia-Ukraine conflict may be interpreted as a conflict between the forces of liberal democratic values of positive peace, pluralism and self-determination versus a one man’s nostalgic dreams of a ‘Neo’ USSR. Being at complete odds, the reaffirmed condemnation of Russia’s ‘’illegal and unjustifiable war of aggression against Ukraine’’ by the liberal democratic G7 states is hardly a surprise. Nor is their promise of ‘’needed financial, humanitarian, military, and diplomatic support’’ for Ukraine in its defence of its sovereignty, during its path on a free and democratic society.

The Sanctions Regime

Sanctions and more sanctions were promised by the group of seven advanced economies, who vowed to “align and expand targeted sanctions to further restrict Russia’’ in its access to key technological industrial imports and services. Such a move would severely restrict the ability to sustain their war machine thereby adhering to security commitments to Ukraine. The G7 Leaders pledged new sanctions on Russians who had committed war crimes in Ukraine, and are contributing to exacerbating “global food insecurity” by “stealing and exporting Ukrainian grain”. New penalties on Russian gold exports were further proposed, as well as a cap on the oil price to phase out global dependency on Russian energy.

However, a complete restriction of the import of Russian energy may be an ambitious task. European nations such as France get a quarter of their oil and 40% of their gas from Russia. While Germany has halted the progress of the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline, the EU has currently agreed to reduce its Russian gas imports by only two-thirds. President Biden however is banning all Russian oil and gas imports to the US, and the UK is ready to phase out Russian oil by the end of the year. The US, UK and Ukrainian Leaders are keen for other G7 nations to follow suit.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who joined in on a trio of meetings via Videolink, stated that the summit will show "who is our friend, who is our partner and who sold us out and betrayed us". He reiterated his calls for fresh deliveries of weaponry, as he believes Russia will want to extend the war until winter wherein they could make new territorial gains to consolidate power. The financial support of G7 allies in 2022 already amounts to more than USD 2.8 billion in humanitarian aid, and a further USD 29.5 billion is pledged in supporting Ukrainian reconstruction.

China and the BRI

A growing China poses a “threefold threat” to G7 countries — economically, ideologically, and geopolitically. China’s GDP is second only to the US and it is fast catching up. China’s growing state-overseen tech industry, fuelled by globalisation and interdependence, is fast spreading a culture of surveillance and censorship, which act as means for the globalisation of authoritarianism. Said authoritarian ideals are further spread through Chinese geopolitical projects and alliances such as the BRI, which usually focus on developing, quasi democratic states with little to no accountability such as those in Africa and Central Asia. Furthermore, China’s action with regard to the Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region and its influence in Hong Kong have drawn condemnation from G7 members. China’s growing trade and defence ties with Russia have also caused concerns.

A Western Counter to the BRI

A Western counter to the BRI emerged during the G7 summit, aptly named Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment. The BRI is a global infrastructure development strategy which was developed as per Chinese leader Xi Jinping's vision in 2013, as a means for China to assume a greater role in global politics by easing access to China and its capabilities and boosting global GDP. Dubbed the Belt and Road Initiative and with over 145 countries signed up, the BRI is currently constructing a network of overland routes, rail transportation, sea lanes and energy pipelines to connect China to Southeast Asia, Central and South Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa. However, the project has been criticised as a tool to increase China’s political leverage in developing countries. Thereby, the BRI has been criticised for neocolonialism, economic imperialism.

In such a context, the G7 had launched a $600bn Build Back Better World (B3W) initiative infrastructure plan to counter China, in private and public funds to finance infrastructure in developing low and middle-income countries over five years. By working to narrow the global investment gap, the B3W would create new Just Energy Transition Partnerships with Indonesia, India, Senegal and Vietnam, building on existing partnerships with South Africa.

While US President Biden understood that “Developing countries often lack the essential infrastructure to help navigate global shocks (thus) feel the impacts … and they have a harder time recovering,” he stressed that the B3W “isn’t aid or charity. It’s an investment that will deliver returns for everyone”. Despite being dwarfed in comparison to the multi-trillion-dollar BRI, the B3W offers means of accountability, transparency and mutual trust between the neo liberal developed states and the developing states. The initiative would, according to Biden, further allow developing states to “see the concrete benefits of partnering with democracies”. While a cynic may argue that the developed have no interest in the developing other than exploitation and/or self-interest, and such may be observed to be true, President Biden may have been right when he said that underdevelopment is “not just a humanitarian concern, but an economic and a security concern for all”.

Mutual gains depend on interdependence, and without developing countries, there cannot be any sustainable recovery of the world economy. However, the development of low-income states is necessary but insufficient for a holistic global economic recovery, which remains shadowed by the conflict of value systems: liberal and illiberal, democratic and authoritarian.

 

BEGGING AROUND THE WORLD: An Evolving or Receding Sri Lankan Foreign Policy?

 By George I. H. Cooke

Sri Lanka has now reached out to the Russian Federation owing to the growing national crisis in the island nation. A national crisis which involves foreign exchange, fuel, power, and of course basic essentials which have been scarce at intervals in the past several months. Yet the biggest crisis facing Sri Lanka is the lack of decisive strategizing. The country is on the eve of its 75^th anniversary of independence in 2023 but has no clear idea where the nation will be in the next couple of weeks let alone next year. Countries strategize by aiming for where they want to be and what they want to achieve for generations to come, but Sri Lanka has been left very much in the lurch due to poor decision making and short-sighted policies of consecutive administrations, which have put personal gain and party politics ahead of the country and its future.

Reflecting on 1931, when the British deemed it suitable to foist universal franchise on the Ceylonese it is possible to deduce that this was probably one of the biggest mistakes they made, or it was perhaps done with a view to continuing the unhealthy policy of ‘divide and rule’. Many Ceylonese leaders themselves were not overly thrilled with the prospect of universal franchise at the time, owing to their own concerns. However, with the testing of the waters in Ceylon so early in the last century, the island nation received, it can be argued, an early start over the rest in Asia. 

The pros and cons of that decision can be long debated, but from independence onwards, the people of Sri Lanka enjoyed the ability to elect leaders to lead the nation. Yet have the people matured as a polity? Churchill himself opined that ‘the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.’ While the statement maybe deemed arrogant in some quarters, it is proven continuously around the world. Just as leaders have focused on personal gain and party politics, voters too have focused on personal gain instead of questioning policy or seeking policy options, especially at times of elections, nor have they held their representatives accountable for decisions taken.

Russia is in the throes of a conflict and Sri Lanka did not defer the financial request despite this situation. The insult is increased when news of Sri Lanka’s abstention at the UN and information regarding the request are both made public at the same time, giving rise to the notion that Sri Lanka abstained expecting assistance in return. Russia is a country that has consistently supported Sri Lanka in the UN Security Council ever since diplomatic relations were established 65 years ago, and the position of Sri Lanka is justifiable but a lack of communication, or effective explanation of the Sri Lankan stance has given rise to misperceptions.

Countries such as India and China are quite probably dreading calls, requests for meetings or any form of correspondence emanating from Sri Lanka. These two countries have been continuously approached and have consistently responded positively to requests that have been forthcoming from Colombo. Other countries must be hugely worried when approached by Sri Lankan diplomats in their capitals, or when they are invited to the Foreign Ministry in Colombo. A country which has had a long history dating back thousands of years even sought assistance from Bangladesh which came into existence just fifty years ago. Bangladesh is currently galloping into the future as a result of effective and decisive strategizing. Turning to countries far and wide and expecting them to keep Sri Lanka afloat only raises the stakes against the country.

The abysmal point at which Sri Lanka finds itself at present is not one from which the country can never hope to return. It is reversible, thankfully. Yet the reversing needs to be done by those who decided to progress this far down this road. Borrowing from other countries, seeking currency swaps and begging around the world, has resulted in Sri Lanka falling in esteem, respect and recognition, which has in turn eroded investor confidence, damaged image and added to the woes of the island nation on the world stage.

It is not only the pandemic that is to blame. It is not only the lack of tourists in the last couple of years that is to blame. It is not only the Easter Sunday attacks and the fear it caused, that is to blame. It is not only the decades long conflict that ended nearly 13 years ago that is to blame. Undoubtedly these developments and events have all contributed to the current situation but it is clearly the lack of strategizing by successive governments that has brought the island to this abysmal point.

As a country, Sri Lanka is highly dependent on the outside world, and has been from independence onwards. This is true of most countries, owing to growing interdependence brought about through trade, investment and financial interactions. Yet one of the key errors that were made was in not focusing sufficiently on the apparatus that engages with the outside world – the Foreign Ministry and Foreign Service. Since 1977 when J. R. Jayewardene decided to appoint Sri Lanka’s first non-prime ministerial Foreign Minister, in A. C. S. Hameed, the Ministry and Service have received step-motherly treatment. There were slight gaps of exception, but against the entirety of history those periods remain relatively brief.

Budgetary allocations for the Ministry have been well below the requirements. Missions around the world have been understaffed, or staffed with political appointees who have been highly incompetent, except for a handful who went beyond the call of duty to enhance Sri Lanka’s image globally. For a country that is highly dependent on the outside world, it is clear that the institution tasked with international engagement must be strengthened. Capacity development should have been a crucial area of emphasis. Instead of sending Foreign Service officers for short term all expenses paid courses in other countries upon receiving invitations only, carefully constructed programmes in renowned international institutions, aimed at improving quality and capability, should have been the focus. Such programmes naturally require financial resources and this is just one reason why the ministry requires a higher budgetary allocation. The list of possibilities remains endless and it is understood that resources within the country are limited, but excellence as an end result cannot be expected if mediocre input is all the country can afford.

Despite these challenges the progress made and achievements to date are highly praiseworthy. The Foreign Service has been able to make this amount of progress owing mainly to individual capabilities rather than collective synergy. However, those with immense ability, are forced to function in a stifling environment. On the other hand, the refusal on the part of the bureaucracy to step forward and explain policy options, highlight concerns, and warn when peril is at hand, has collectively resulted in misguided policy decisions. The entirety of the bureaucracy in Sri Lanka has a responsibility to support a government in implementing its policies but must also be able to flag issues, raise concerns and highlight pitfalls, as otherwise it is the leadership that goes astray, taking the country with them.

In the year leading up to our 75^th anniversary of independence, Sri Lankans, and notably the state and private sectors should be preparing for the future, instead all are grappling with the present and completely unaware of the future. Can the situation get worse? It can and it will. Adopting piecemeal measures to tide over daily activities, waiting for ships to arrive and then hoping that sufficient dollars are available to pay for fuel, or turning to our neighbours and seeking their assistance on a daily basis is not the future that Sri Lanka or Sri Lankans deserve.

Sri Lanka is rich in resources, potential and opportunity. Strategizing for the future has been a key requirement in the years gone by, and is undoubtedly the burning need of the hour. It is not too late to do just that. Rather than continuously asking for fish, it is time that Sri Lanka learns how to fish. Herein lies the importance of a country’s Foreign Policy through which Sri Lanka must identify areas requiring development within the country; draw up a clear national plan of action; seek investment to suit the Sri Lankan plan; engage with technically advanced countries and seek technology transfers especially in the energy sector; ensure value addition within the country prior to natural resources being exported; and most importantly guarantee that Sri Lanka comes first in policy formulation and implementation. 

Although the present predicament might be thought to be a situation in which Sri Lanka is returning to an old policy, of begging around the world, which Professor Ediriweera Sarachchandra also highlighted in a publication many decades ago, the question that begs answering is whether Sri Lanka ever deviated from this policy!

 

COMPLEXITIES OF GOVERNANCE AND POLICY: 90th Anniversary of Universal Franchise in Sri Lanka

 Lecture delivered by Dr Jane Russell, Historian, at the inaugural Awarelogue Lecture Forum of the Awarelogue Initiative to mark the landmark of Universal Franchise in Sri Lanka

I am greatly honoured to be asked by the Awarelogue Initiative to speak at their Lecture Forum in this year of 2021, celebrating the 90th anniversary of the advent of universal franchise in Sri Lanka. In my lecture, I shall touch on some of the complex problems of governance and policy faced by a small multi-ethnic island, flanked as it is and always has been, by economic and political superpowers

Today, I want to briefly revisit the grant (and in using that word I have already encountered a problem, one that I shall look at later) of universal franchise to Sri Lanka, then called Ceylon, 9 decades ago. But I am not so much interested in Ceylon’s perspective of getting universal franchise, as I   covered that ground in my book written over 40 years ago. As an activist historian, I am now more interested in the motives of the British overlords, in particular the Colonial Office during the 1927-1931 period, in giving Ceylon universal franchise. Why did the Colonial Office send out those particular Donoughmore Commissioners? Why did the Donoughmore Commission decide that universal franchise and the Executive Committee system of government was the most appropriate to foster successful self-government in Sri Lanka? Why did the Commission even want to foster democracy and self-government in an imperial dependency? These are the questions I shall try to answer.    

I should also like to make one disclaimer: in this brief lecture, I use the terms Ceylon, British Ceylon and Sri Lanka almost interchangeably. There is some vague method to my usage, based loosely on the date 1948, although that is in itself arbitrary, as it was in January 1973, when I first arrived in the island to take up a Commonwealth Scholarship at Peradeniya that Sri Lanka, the name of the new Republic, came into existence. If you find it at all confusing, I apologise in advance but I would ask you to bear with it – in the end it is the island of Lanka, Taprobane, Serendib, that I am talking about and no other!

First, I want to make it clear in discussing universal franchise as the basis for democracy that I am in complete agreement with wartime British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, who stated in 1947 at the end of the last global war that “Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government - except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…’

 

Democracy is (and I quote here from the Merriam-Webster American English dictionary) “government by the people especially a). rule of the majority and b). a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation, usually involving periodically held free elections.”

 

This otherwise acceptable definition is strangely wanting in one respect: it does not specify who the ‘people’ are: that is it does not state the criteria for deciding who may be eligible to vote. Nowhere does it specify the age, race, the language, birthplace, religion, gender, the sexual preference, educational standard, wealth and property, skin colour, or indeed any other discriminator determining who can vote in an election.  

 

From the turn of the 21^st century, the USA, which has long prided itself on its democratic norms and indeed paraded its democratic institutions as a model for other countries to follow, has come up against powerful geo-economic and political forces that do not recognize democracy as a particularly valid form of government and certainly not one that trumps   their own forms of governance.   Whether those challenging the primacy of democracy are from one-party states or one-person dictatorships or indeed violent anti-establishment Islamic religious movements like the Taliban, Islamic State or Boko Haram, these challenges are undermining US confidence in its democratic exceptionalism to the point where it is finding that its earlier, easy accommodation with elections and voting now under threat internally from anti-democratic proto-authoritarians like Donald Trump. The US political culture is now faced with the dilemma, which covertly has always dogged its democratic credentials, of deciding whether non-white members of its populace, and more specifically the black and/or mixed descendants of formerly enslaved peoples have a right to vote equal to those who consider themselves ‘truer Americans’ because of their paler skin colour and non-slave background.

 

Another reason I chose the Merriam Webster definition of democracy is because it baldly states that democracy is government based on rule by the majority. And this is where Sri Lanka’s ninety year experience of universal franchise becomes so historically valuable.

 

When the Donoughmore Commissioners came to British Ceylon in 1928, they were acutely aware that the political turbulence caused by the October 1917 revolution in Russia had changed the world forever.  The Commissioners came to Ceylon from a Britain where the more left-wing representatives in parliament and government had already started to realise that the political and economic costs of maintaining Empire were escalating to a point where it was becoming more rational to let Empire go rather than try to hang on to it.

 

An Edinburgh trained medic, and holder of the Military Cross, Dr. Thomas Drummond Shiels was appointed as a Donoughmore Commissioner by the newly-appointed Secretary of State for the Colonies Sydney Webb, who’d just been brought into front-line politics by being made a peer, (Lord Passfield) by the Labour Party, who were in government in Britain, in a coalition with the Liberals, for the very first time.

 

Webb was a neo-marxist and a great admirer of the Soviet Union. He knew Drummond-Shiels, his fellow-travelling Marxist and equally fierce anti-imperialist, would definitely become the intellectual driving force behind the Commission, which had been tasked to find a new constitutional settlement for British Ceylon. Privately, Drummond-Shiels was instructed by Webb to use this opportunity to find some constitutional process, an institutional mechanism, which would serve as a precedent, and so allow the government in London to dispose of their imperial possessions and responsibilities in a manner both politically practicable and ethical but also as timely as possible.

 

Ceylon was therefore chosen to be a laboratory for an experiment in ‘not-quite but almost’ self-government: a self-government which would lead, not to outright independence, but Dominion Status, the same status accorded within the Empire to Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa, ie. the white dominions. And here we can see the white supremacist basis which underpinned the British Empire and which would inevitably lead to its demise - a demise which neo-marxist politicians in Britain in the 1930’s could clearly envision, though without discerning how it might happen.

 

It seems that Ceylon was considered the perfect vehicle for this attempt at 7/10^ths self-government - so-called because 3 British colonial civil servants sitting in the Colombo parliament, or State Council, served as Ministers of Finance, Foreign Affairs and Internal Security, while all other Ministerial posts were given to elected State Councillors. But why did the leftists in the Colonial Office think Ceylon so well suited for democratic development? Well, for one British Ceylon was insulated from the influence of India and its other south and south-east Asian neighbours by its Crown Colony status.

 

Please allow me to digress a little here and explain something about Crown Colonies. These were special entities within the Empire; they were usually small islands,- Hong Kong, Bermuda, Jamaica, the Falklands for example - but Ceylon was considered the Premier Crown Colony. Why? Well, it was wealthy from the trade of its tea, rubber and coconut plantations; it had a two and a half thousand year plus history of Buddhist civilization; it did not have any large urban centres dominated by a plutocratic class where revolution might be seeded; the population density was low and the literacy rate was higher than in any other non-white imperial territory and English education among the elite was widespread; generally speaking, women had property and marriage rights equal to men; it had putative trade unions; a recognizable political party, the Ceylon National Congress; and the white, mostly British, but what was deemed ‘European’, plantation-owning class was small (unlike say in Kenya or Uganda). To British leftist eyes, Ceylon was a recognizably ‘westernized’ country, ripe for fully-fledged democracy.  

Yet it also had all the complexities associated with other Indo-Asian political cultures: caste division; racial, religious and language divisions; differing climatic zones; tribal peoples, etc. In short, Ceylon seemed a society that could be used as a model for future constitutional settlements, not just in the other Crown Colonies, but for all Imperial possessions, including the crown jewel of Empire, India. The Donoughmore Commission was therefore sent to Ceylon in 1928 as the harbinger of Imperial divestment: its job was to write the template for the leaving card of British Empire.

 

The institutional insulation of British Ceylon from its neighbours was an important element in this constitutional experiment. British India, which included today’s Pakistan, Bangladesh and Burma, was administered from London by the India Office, a completely separate department to the Colonial Office, which looked after Ceylon.

 

Of course the position of Indian Tamils, nowadays referred to as’ Up-Country Tamils’ in Sri Lanka and ‘Highland Tamils’ in India, was anomalous because they were in effect dual citizens of both British Ceylon and British India. Although having said that, they were, along with the least liberated caste groups of the Sinhalese and Tamil communities, the poorest educated, lowest paid and worst housed segment of the island’s population.

 

But they were also one of the most commercially valuable groups as it was from their labour that the bulk of foreign exchange earned from the plantation economy was generated. However, because British India had no administrative input into Ceylon’s governance, this group could be disenfranchised willy-nilly under the Donoughmore settlement, which is what happened as soon as the Commissioners left. Imagine how impossible this disenfranchisement might have been if India had been a sovereign nation in 1931? Imagine as well how Indian politics might have become enmeshed with Sri Lankan politics if India had been able to have a say in the writing of the Donoughmore Constitution? Isn’t it likely that India would have claimed Ceylon as a natural part of India? Just think about it - if things had been otherwise, British Ceylon might have been casually handed to British India, as Hong Kong was to China in 1997, as a gift from one Empire to another….

 

I shall now return to my narrative.

 

Significantly, Drummond-Shiels was the only Donoughmore Commissioner to have had experience of serving as an elected Councillor on London County Council, the LCC. In 1929, there were 148 Councillors and Aldermen elected by universal franchise to the LCC. London in the decade after the 1^st world war was a city of 8 million people, and owing to its position as the metropolis of Empire, as cosmopolitan as it is today. From 1919, all London’s residents, including women, had the right to vote and stand in LCC elections. In fact, many women were elected as London Councillors in the 1920’s. Moreover, a number of south Asians ran in the lower tier of local borough elections, some of whom were elected. When I interviewed Doric de Souza many years ago, he told me he’d been elected as a local borough councillor while living in London as a young man. London local elections were therefore ethnically diverse and incorporated an equal female franchise.

 

The LCC was a prestigious political institution. It had a huge budget raised from property rates and enormous responsibilities. Although a municipal agency, London’s government was larger than that of many countries. Councillors served on Executive Committees overseeing housing, education, transport and roads, social welfare, health and sanitation, police, fire brigade, courts and justice etc. Executive Committees, as anyone who has ever served on the EC of a sports club knows, are vehicles for cooperative management. The three political parties represented in the LCC were offshoots of the Liberals, the Conservatives and the Labour Party. On their chosen EC’s, Councillors from different parties and representing very different electorates, from the slums of the East End to the mansions of Mayfair, had to cooperate to make London governance work. London was therefore a microcosm, not just of Great Britain, but of the Empire as a whole.

 

Together with the Webbs, Sydney and Beatrice, and Leonard Woolf, the ex-Ceylon Civil Servant, husband to novelist Virginia, who by 1927 had become a pivotal back-room thinker on the Labour Party’s Foreign Policy Committee, Drummond-Shiels sketched out a plan to introduce London’s electoral and governmental system into British Ceylon. This leftwing brains trust thought universal franchise, together with an Executive Committee system of governance, would produce stable self-government in Ceylon, They hoped that this would then give the lie to imperialists in Britain -  politicians like Churchill, Chamberlain and other Tory grandees, plus Lord Rothermere and his fellow right-wing press barons who were mouthpieces of the financiers and corporate shareholders who had gained so much from Empire - when they argued that peoples of the non-white British colonies and imperial possessions were incapable of running their own affairs.

 

And this was not a forlorn hope. If you look at the constitutional settlement in Northern Ireland enacted after the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, it is made up of an electoral system of large multi-member constituencies, incorporating neighbourhood Protestant and Catholic communities, which uses the Single Transferable Vote System of Proportional Representation and the D’Hondt procedure for awarding seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly. It is a mechanism somewhat like the Duckworth-Lewis method used in cricket: it ensures fair proportionality given the fact that no Catholic will vote for a Protestant and no Protestant will vote for a Catholic. The system of government involves an Executive Committee at its head, and a mandatory coalition in which the First Minister is always drawn from the Protestant majority and the Deputy First Minister from the Catholic minority. If one resigns the other is constitutionally forced to resign as well. This form of power-sharing, also known as co-sociational democracy, was not devised by a Britisher at all but by a Belgium, Arend Lijphart, for societies emerging from conflict or those with potential for conflict. Switzerland, Belgium and the Lebanon also employ the co-sociational model.

 

If you study the Donoughmore Constitution, you will find that it is a forerunner of this model of democracy. However, because it used the First Past the Post voting system, which in 1931 was virtually the only recognized system of voting, it led to a situation where the Sinhalese majority in the State Council was able to prevent Tamil, Muslim and Burgher Councillors getting any real administrative power and so undermined the power-sharing idea behind its composition.

 

If, and this is the last of my many hypotheticals, if the Donoughmore Constitution had been combined with proportional representation plus a greater constituency weightage for minority areas, the Executive Committee system might still be in use in Sri Lanka, The Commissioners had tried to design a system for Ceylon that would prevent conflict arising from the permanent Sinhalese majority in parliament that universal franchise would engender. They tried to invent a system of democratic government that would fit Ceylon, Sri Lanka, like a glove. They failed and their failure has resulted in civil war and economic under-achievement.  

 

For let me be clear. Universal franchise was not something demanded by anyone in the Sinhalese, Tamil or Muslim communities. Neither George E. de Silva nor A E Goonesinghe, who were the most insistent that the franchise be extended, thought of asking for or indeed expected to get, even a full male franchise. They argued for a franchise for males over the age of 21, resident in Ceylon, who had at least had a primary education, ie men who could read and write in the vernacular and who had some kind of income. What they got was beyond their wildest dreams and indeed was the stuff of nightmares for all other representatives of Low Country and Kandyan Sinhalese, Ceylon Tamil, Muslim and Burgher communities consulted by the Commission.

 

Only the representatives of the Indian Tamil community, for obvious reasons, were in favour of full male franchise, regardless of any educational or income element. No-one, and I repeat no-one, except perhaps George de Silva’s wife Agnes and a few of her Colombo female friends, argued for votes for women. Messrs. De Silva and Goonesinghe, to give them their due, supported their wives in asking for equal votes for women but again what was asked for was votes for educated women.

 

This brings me back to the word which I used in my opening remarks, and which seemed so problematic:  that is the’ grant’ of universal franchise to Ceylon in 1931. This word ‘grant’ suggests that the people of Ceylon were demanding and lobbying for universal franchise in the late 1920’s. Nothing could be further from the facts. What most of the political and commercial elite of the island wanted and asked for when the Commission came, was a slight extension of the existing, very proscriptive, male franchise.  What they got in universal franchise destabilised the island’s political culture immediately. It led to the Jaffna boycott, the Pan-Sinhala Board of Ministers and the final rejection by all communities of the Executive Committee system, in favour of the Westminster model of parliamentary government, which proved even more unsuitable and has now been replaced by a French model.

 

Universal franchise was foisted on Ceylon in 1931. In the minds of its authors, it was a necessary act, done for the greater good of the world – it was done to rid the world of the racial and political injustice of Empire while introducing democratic values in governance in former imperial entities and as an exemplar for modern governance throughout the globe.

 

And overall, one might argue that it has, generally speaking, worked. Looking at the imperial dependencies, India is still the largest functioning democracy in the world. Ghana, and to a lesser extent, Nigeria, Zambia and Kenya are functioning democracies in Africa. We’ll leave out Hong Kong, as it’s a special case, but Jamaica and other islands of the ex-British Caribbean have stuck with democratic norms.  Burma is trying to get democracy back after decades of military rule. Pakistan and Bangladesh swing between democracy and army take-overs but they seem always to want to return to democratic ways and oftentimes do. South Africa has, after decades, overturned minority race-government in favour of majority rule.

 

There are dreadful failures of course: Nigeria and Uganda have been through terrible periods of bloodletting and Uganda, like Kenya, oversaw mass deportation of unwanted Asians. The Lebanon is sadly, and through no fault of its own, a basket case and the Israel-Palestine issue is still a running sore on the world’s body politic. But Ceylon’s contribution to world history in taking on universal franchise, unasked and probably prematurely, yet making it work so well for so long, has resulted in perhaps a fairer and more equal world than otherwise might have been the case.