Road to an “Independent” Sri Lanka Nominal Independence (1948–1972) — Freedom Without Sovereignty

 

 

 

On 4 February 1948, Ceylon was declared “independent.” Flags were raised, an anthem was sung, and a new political chapter was ceremonially opened. Yet beneath that symbolism, few recognised that the foundations of colonial control remained largely intact. What Sri Lanka received was nominal administrative independence — not civilisational or psychological sovereignty — and certainly no restoration of the Buddhist ethical order that had governed this land for centuries. That moral framework, rooted in the Buddha Dhamma, had once provided unity, peace of mind, social restraint, and harmony across communities, embracing all beings without distinction. Its deliberate dismantling under colonial rule was never reversed.

 

Over 400 years of colonial rule left a tragic legacy.

 

What Sri Lanka continues to search for today — peace of mind, social cohesion, moral leadership, and a sense of belonging — already existed within its own Buddhist civilisational code. Yet colonial education, employment structures, and social re-engineering conditioned generations to look down upon the Sinhala civilisation that built this nation and the Buddha Dhamma that sustained it. This conditioning did not merely marginalise Buddhism as a religion; it discredited it as a governing moral philosophy. As a result, many now resist acknowledging the very framework that once held the nation together systematically discredited by colonial conditioning and post-colonial cowardice.

 

The period from 1948 to 1972 represents a phase of nominal “independence”—a transfer of power in form, but not in substance. While governance shifted from foreign administrators to local elites, the systems, structures, values, and mindsets imposed by colonial rule were largely preserved by those elites. The result was a nation technically free, yet still governed by colonial frameworks — frameworks no one seriously sought to dismantle, but instead used as political tools and slogans to manipulate the masses.

 

A People already Conditioned for Subservience

 

This colonial mindset continuity was not accidental.

For over four centuries, Sri Lankans had been psychologically groomed to look down upon their own heroic past, civilisational achievements, and ethical systems of governance. Colonial rule did not merely suppress resistance; it trained people to feel comfortable within a subservient order.

 

Carrots were dangled — titles, positions, English education, commercial opportunities, and cosmetic privileges — rewarded those willing to abandon moral restraint for material gain. Gradually, a commercial value system replaced a moral one. Success became defined not by virtue, service, or duty, but by proximity to power, profit, and foreign approval. Those who looked down on Sinhalese & Buddha’s principles were rewarded the most.

 

By 1948, this conditioning had taken deep root. A population long distanced from its own civilisational confidence was ill-prepared to reclaim sovereignty in any meaningful sense. Political independence was handed to a people trained to function within externally imposed limits and not challenge them beyond a limit.

 

What Sri Lanka Gained in 1948

Though nominal, Sri Lanka gained:

 

• Self-rule through an elected local government
• International recognition as a sovereign state
• The ability to manage internal administration without direct foreign governors
• Entry into global institutions as an independent nation

For the first time in centuries, Sri Lankans were allowed to formally govern Sri Lanka.
However, what was gained was surface-level control, while the deeper levers of power — legal, judicial, economic, educational, cultural, and psychological — remained externally defined.

 

What Sri Lanka Did Not Gain

Despite independence, Sri Lanka did not regain:

 

• Full constitutional sovereignty
• Control over its civilisational direction — the freedom or even will to return to an ethos deliberately denied
• Freedom from colonial legal, educational and administrative frameworks
• Psychological independence from Western validation

 

Continuing Rule Under the Crown (1948–1972)

 

• The British monarch remained Head of State
• The Governor-General represented the Crown
• Colonial legal structures remained intact
• English continued as the dominant language of power
• Colonial education systems continued largely unchallenged

This was independence without decolonisation.

 

Sri Lanka did not reclaim its legal philosophy, its educational purpose, or its civilisational orientation.

Instead, it inherited colonial machinery and simply replaced foreign operators with local ones.

The colonised system continued to function — now operated by Sri Lankans trained to think like colonisers.

 

The Colonial Planting of Ethnic Fault Lines

Nominal independence came with hidden nuances deliberately planted by colonial rule. Ethnic separatism in Sri Lanka did not arise organically; it was seeded well before independence through colonial policies that encouraged communal consciousness, competition, and grievance politics.

 

Settler colonization: Under British rule, large numbers of South Indian Tamils were brought into the island as plantation labour and gradually absorbed into the colonial administrative and economic system rather than repatriated after their contracted ended. Simultaneously, colonial censuses, education, and employment structures elevated communal identity over shared civilisational belonging. This process fundamentally altered demographic, political, and psychological balances.

 

Even before independence, colonial authorities encouraged minority elites to articulate claims of separateness and self-governance. In 1949, immediately after independence, the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) was formed, alleging discrimination in a country that had only just emerged from 443 years of foreign rule. This raises an unavoidable question: where was this alleged discrimination when Portuguese, Dutch, and British rulers governed the island, controlled land, law, language, and livelihoods? The grievance was redirected not toward colonial injustice, but toward the Sinhala majority — despite the fact that the structural distortions were entirely colonial in origin.

 

Colonial missionary education further deepened this imbalance.

 

Minority communities disproportionately benefited from English-medium missionary schools, access to colonial administration, and overseas higher education.

Only a small section of Sinhalese gained similar access — often at the cost of religious conversion, cultural alienation, and internalised contempt for their own civilisation and the Buddhist Dhamma that had sustained the nation.

 

At post-independence, every time calls to reverse colonial privileges in favor of those unfairly denied arose, these colonial privileges were quickly reframed as “discrimination,” while the real architects of that inequality escaped accountability.

 

What independence inherited, therefore, was not communal harmony, but a society primed for division — a classic colonial divide-and-rule legacy that would later be weaponised into separatist politics and prolonged national instability.

 

The Rise of the Colonial Elite after Independence

 

Independence empowered a Western-educated elite, many shaped by missionary schools and colonial values. They spoke English fluently, understood British administrative culture, and were comfortable operating within inherited colonial frameworks.

 

But this elite was not rooted in the civilisational ethos of the land.

As a result:

• Western norms continued to define “progress”
• Indigenous knowledge remained marginalized / given cosmetic value
• Buddhist ethical governance was not restored
• Education continued to reward alienation from heritage

The elite did not dismantle colonial systems; they managed them.

This created a paradox:

Sri Lanka was politically independent but mentally governed by colonial logic.

Attempts to challenge colonial continuity were not without consequence. S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike was assassinated in 1959, and his widow, upon assuming office, faced a Catholic-linked coup attempt in 1962.

 

Language, Culture, and the Continuation of Alien Standards

Language remained a key instrument of neo-colonial control.
English continued to dominate law, higher education, administration, and social mobility. Those fluent in English accessed power; those grounded in indigenous languages were sidelined.

 

This preserved colonial class divisions and reinforced the idea that belonging to one’s own culture was a disadvantage.

 

Culture too remained framed through Western lenses. Indigenous traditions were tolerated as folklore, not respected as systems of knowledge. Buddhism was permitted as religion, but its role as a governing moral framework was not returned to its former glory.

 

The final years of nominal independence (1966–1972) marked the formal break from the British Crown but also exposed the fragility of the post-colonial state.

In 1970, Sirimavo Bandaranaike returned to power with a United Front mandate, accelerating state control, nationalisation, and socialist reform. In 1971, a violent Marxist youth insurrection erupted—an explosion rooted in unemployment, ideological confusion, and colonial-era distortions—brutally suppressed by the state. Later that year, the colonial-era Senate was abolished.

On 22 May 1972, Ceylon became a Republic. While Buddhism was restored to its foremost place, the new constitution also inherited unresolved ethnic, economic, and structural fault lines planted under colonial rule—fault lines that would soon be exploited.

 

Neo-Colonial Control Without Direct Rule

After 1948, colonialism did not disappear — it evolved.

Control continued through:

• Education systems that continue to shape thinking
• Legal systems preserving colonial jurisprudence
• Economic dependency on foreign markets and aid
• Foreign advisors, institutions, and benchmarks
• Psychological dependence on Western approval

Sri Lanka was no longer ruled by force, but by frameworks.

Decisions increasingly sought legitimacy not from the people or civilisational values, but from:

• International institutions
• Donor agencies
• Foreign governments
• External “international experts” or their local lackeys

This marked the transition from colonial rule to neo-colonial influence.

 

What was Lost in the Process

The most devastating loss was not material — it was peace of mind and civilisational confidence.

 

Sri Lanka lost:

• Trust in its own historical wisdom
• Confidence in indigenous governance models
• Ethical coherence in leadership
• Civilisational continuity in education
• A shared moral compass

The nation began to drift — politically independent, yet internally fractured; globally connected, yet locally unanchored.

 

Instead of restoring the ethical foundations dismantled by colonialism, post-independence governance deepened reliance on the very systems that caused the rupture.

 

Why 1972 Became Necessary

The 1972 Republican Constitution was not merely a legal milestone — it was an admission.

 

An admission that:

• Independence in 1948 was incomplete
• The Crown’s presence was incompatible with sovereignty
• True self-definition had been delayed

Yet even in 1972, while formal ties to the Crown were severed, the colonial mindset remained.

Removing the Crown did not automatically remove colonial conditioning.

 

The Core Failure of the Post-Independence Period

The fundamental failure between 1948 and 1972 was this:

Sri Lanka sought to modernise before it decolonised the mind.

Instead of restoring civilisational grounding and then engaging the modern world on its own terms, the nation attempted to advance by copying external models — repeating the colonial pattern in post-colonial form.

As a result, independence remained procedural, not transformational.

 

 

A Bridge to the Next Phase

Nominal independence exposed a hard truth:
Political freedom alone does not guarantee sovereignty.

Without:

• Ethical grounding
• Civilisational confidence
• Educational realignment
• Psychological independence

…a nation remains vulnerable — especially when it governs itself.

 

 

 

Shenali D Waduge