Summary and Comments on Koji Kawashima's "Sri Lanka and Ethnicity: The Formation of Sinhala Nationalism and Minority Groups" - Recommended for a detailed look at Sinhala nationalism and the ethnic conflict process!
Introduced here is "Sri Lanka and Ethnicity: The Formation of Sinhala Nationalism and Minority Groups" by Koji Kawashima, published by Akashi Shoten in 2006.
Let's take a quick look at the book.
How did the civil war that continues to rock Sri Lanka come about? This book uses a wealth of primary documents to decipher the development of nationalism in Sri Lanka from the period of British colonial rule to the present after independence, and the reality of the escalating ethnic conflict.
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This book, "Sri Lanka and Ethnicity: the Formation of Sinhala Nationalism and Minority Groups," is highly recommended for studying the history of ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka.
So far in this blog, Yoshio Sugimoto has discussed the ethnic conflict in Sri LankaThe Legacy of Buddhist Modernism."and Toshio ShibuyaSri Lanka Today Magazine.and other books.
The Legacy of Buddhist Modernism, as the title suggests, looks at how Sinhala Buddhism became linked to nationalism, with a focus on the figure of Dharmapala, while Sri Lanka's Modern History was a recommended primer on the conflict as a whole.
In contrast, "Sri Lanka and Ethnicity: The Formation of Sinhala Nationalism and Minority Groups" is unique in its ability to examine the formation process of ethnic conflict in detail for each ethnic group and religion. In particular, the book focuses on the anti-immigrant movement of the 1930s and 1940s.
This is discussed in the "Introduction" as follows.
Much valuable research has been conducted on the formation and political development of Sinhala nationalism during the British colonial period. This book attempts to discuss ethnic issues during the British colonial period and after independence, while incorporating the results of such studies, but it also focuses on the relationship between immigration and nationalism from the 1930s to the 1940s, which has not been adequately discussed until now. In fact, the process of development of the anti-immigration issue and Sinhalese nationalism during this period has not been fully elucidated until now. The reason for this is not always clear, but it may be because this issue was not considered to be directly related to the Sinhala-Tamil conflict of today. The 1930s in Sri Lanka were extremely uneasy and dangerous times, not only from the perspective of Indian immigrants but also from that of most minorities in Sri Lanka. As Sinhalese political dominance was established, a series of laws were passed that were clearly aimed at excluding Indian immigrants. Anti-Indian sentiment among the Sinhalese increased, and not only were there numerous incidents of discrimination and violence against Indian workers, but Indian workers in government positions were fired, workers were expelled from plantation plantations, and finally, in 1948, Indian nationality was stripped from the population.
The anti-immigrant movement against Indian immigrants in the 1930s and 1940s arose in the historical process of the establishment of Sinhalese majority rule, and in this sense, it was clearly deeply related to the ethnic conflict that followed independence. In particular, many of the politicians who promoted this anti-immigration or disenfranchisement of immigrants remained influential even after independence, as we will see below. The political approach of appealing to Sinhalese prejudices and fears in order to win their support was largely established in the 1930s and became a pattern of Sri Lankan politics from that time onwards. Therefore, in order to answer the question of why the political use of nationalism was so successful in the general election of 1956 and in Sri Lanka thereafter, it is necessary to analyze the movement toward the disenfranchisement of Indian immigrants that took place almost immediately before that election. This book attempts to examine the development of Sinhala nationalism mainly from the late nineteenth century to the present, focusing on this interrogatory.
Akashi Shoten, Koji Kawashima, Sri Lanka and Ethnicity: The Formation of Sinhala Nationalism and Minority Groups, p. 14-15
I think this passage suggests that the civil war in Sri Lanka was more complex than just the Sinhalese/Tamil dichotomy.
He then explains the flow of this book as follows. Just reading this section will give you an idea of the complex political pattern in Sri Lanka.
This book is organized as follows. Chapter 1 focuses on the anti-Christian movement that began to gain momentum in the mid-19th century, and examines how the anti-Christian movement or the Buddhist revival movement was linked to Sinhala nationalism. In particular, I will show how religious boundaries became very exclusive and fixed in the face of the Christian missions, and how Sinhala identity was emphasized and incorporated into the anti-Christian movement, especially from the end of the 19th century.
Chapter 2 discusses how Sinhala nationalism grew in influence, particularly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, by examining the background and character of the prohibition movement and the anti-Moorish riots of 1915, which were rapidly gaining momentum at the time.
Chapters 3 and 4 deal with urban immigration and the anti-immigrant movement against them. Many of the urban migrants were Malayalis from today's Kerala, India. This chapter clarifies the reality of this situation and examines how the anti-immigrant movement against them was carried out. In addition, we will examine colonial policies on this issue and consider why this problem became more serious.
Chapters 5 and 6 deal with the relationship between the people known as the Indo-Tamils and the Sinhalese. We will show how ethnic conflicts were formed in the plantation areas of the Central Highlands, and show that the sense of ethnic crisis among the Indo-Tamils led to the formation of labor unions, or that the stripping of their nationality in 1948 occurred in the trend toward establishing Sinhalese political control. In addition, issues such as the impact of the nationalization of plantations after independence, and the development of education and the search for a new identity, which became prominent from around the 1980s, will be dealt with.
The final chapter, Chapter 7, will examine the conflict between the Sinhalese and Sri Lankan Tamils, which became a serious issue and became more apparent after independence, particularly the impact of the 1983 riots and the development of the civil war.
Today, most nations are so-called multi-ethnic nations, and there are almost no nation-states (nation-states) that are created by only one ethnic group. The coexistence of different ethnic groups in such a multi-ethnic nation is an extremely important and difficult problem. Needless to say, the existence of different ethnic groups does not inevitably lead to ethnic conflicts, nor do ethnic conflicts inevitably lead to violent conflicts. There must be various factors that give rise to ethnic conflicts, aggravate them, and expand them into violence and civil wars. This book is an examination of the causes and circumstances.
Akashi Shoten, Koji Kawashima, Sri Lanka and Ethnicity: The Formation of Sinhala Nationalism and Minority Groups, p. 14-16
Some line breaks have been made.
This book gives us a new perspective on the Sri Lankan civil war.
I read this book and said, "What? That's right!" I was also surprised at the number of times I found myself saying, "Oh, I didn't know that!
This book is a must read for anyone interested in the Sri Lankan civil war and political process. I highly recommend this work.
This is "Koji Kawashima's "Sri Lanka and Ethnicity" - Recommended to learn more about Sinhala nationalism and the ethnic conflict process! was.
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