{"id":3947,"date":"2012-01-29T19:36:56","date_gmt":"2012-01-29T19:36:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/colombotelegraph.com\/?p=3947"},"modified":"2012-01-29T19:36:56","modified_gmt":"2012-01-29T19:36:56","slug":"populism-and-sinhala-kingship-in-the-rajapaksa-regimes-political-pitch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/populism-and-sinhala-kingship-in-the-rajapaksa-regimes-political-pitch\/","title":{"rendered":"Populism And Sinhala-Kingship In The Rajapaksa Regime\u2019s Political Pitch"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Michael Roberts<\/a> –<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Dr. Michael Roberts<\/p><\/div>\n

On 4th<\/sup> December 2011 the Sunday Island <\/em>carried a headline: \u201cMahinda ready to meet General Fonseka\u2019s family over pardon\u201d \u2014 with a picture alongside showing President Mahinda Rajapaksa seated in an armchair perusing an official document \u2013 a document in royal red and marked by a recognisable state seal. It is the juxtaposition of the headline and image that drew my interest. In my reading as an analyst attentive to indigenous cultural threads, this combination suggested several interrelated motifs, namely, that<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. President Rajapaksa is the epitome of sovereign power, vested with the rights of clemency on high, just like Sinhalese kings of the past who could be supplicated by condemned subjects who crawled on their knees to the palace gates (mah\u0101v\u0101sala<\/em>) and begged for pardon for their evil-doings or crimes;[i]<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n
  2. President Rajapaksa is akin to a manorial lord of the past, a patrimonial figure who is readily accessible on his verandah to subordinate officials, tenants and other people seeking favours from this font of noblesse oblige<\/em>;<\/li>\n
  3. President Rajapaksa is a son of the soil, native to core. After all, what can be more native than a hansi putuva<\/em>? He is, therefore, as personable as approachable.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    In sum, what one sees here in this interpretation is native kingly power on high within a hierarchical situation, marking a flow of authority from an apical fountainhead to persons and \u2018satellites\u2019 below. The imagery on this front-page suggests motifs that I have incorporated within my theoretical construct, \u201cthe Asokan Persona<\/a>\u201d (Roberts 1994b: 58-72). But within today\u2019s modernist setting the imagery also conveys themes that I would describe as \u201cpopulist.\u201d The essay will clarify each of these concepts in turn.<\/p>\n

    The Asokan Persona as Analytical Model<\/strong><\/p>\n

    The Asokan Persona<\/a> is a distilled picture of the conceptions of authority and symbols of status and power embodied in a cakravarti<\/em> figure in Sinhala society over the past centuries. It assumes varying contexts of hierarchy and focuses upon the relationship between a superior and a subordinate. It seeks to delineate the images of authority and status that inform such interpersonal exchanges. It argues that such conceptions of authority and status are both embodied in, and reproduced within, the mechanisms of social distancing and the verbal and kinesic symbols of status.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a>

    True, the Rajapaksas have successfully incorporated many former opponents into their regime through patronage, spoils and largesse in ways that have created a sprawling government establishment. But there are limits to populist authoritarianism through such patronage.<\/p><\/div>\n

    It is not simply an issue of a superior being imposing his power on subordinates. The whole point of the paradigm is to mark the manner in which the everyday practices of subordinates, some of which are taken-for-granted, incorporate and reproduce the status and power of the superior person and\/or position. In this manner the Asokan Persona takes one into the realm of hegemonic practices <\/a>in the sense in which the concept \u201chegemony\u201d is used by Antonio Gramsci \u2013 whereby those subordinate and inferior participate in their own subordination (Roberts 1994b: 57-58, 70-71).<\/p>\n

    One illustration of the meaningful practices which embody the Asokan Persona and perpetuate its reproduction over time is the Sinhala word pirivar\u0101gena<\/em> as it is understood in several contexts. This term describes the entourages around powerful personages. Such a term not only arises in political contexts as well the adulation around film stars, cricketing greats and other people of prominence; but also comes into play in reading the artistic and sculptural imagery in Buddhist temples because the figure of the Buddha is often surrounded by deities or devoted disciples in positions pirivar\u0101gena<\/em>.<\/p>\n

    Note, too, that the numerous deities of the Hindu dispensation who have been absorbed into the Sinhala Buddhist practices of supplication derive their authority from the receipt of the Buddha\u2019s varam<\/em> or varan. Varan <\/em>means \u201cdelegated authority\u201d and implies hierarchy. It encodes encompassment or incorporation within hierarchy, even if one is a powerful being like a deity who in turn receives supplication from lesser beings (humans). Thus, the deities are encompassed by the Buddha Dhamma (Obeyesekere 1966; Roberts 1994c, 1994d).<\/p>\n

    Equally significant in these illustrations is the fact that such meaningful terminology crosses the domains of \u201cpolitics\u201d and \u201creligion.\u201d This is what one would anticipate for an Asian context where the two have always been intimately intertwined and where the separation of \u2018State\u2019 and \u2018Church\u2019, politics and religion, has not proceeded in the manner that eventuated in modern Europe in the early modern era and after the French Revolution of 1789.<\/p>\n

    Populism and Fascism in Comparative Perspective<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Populism describes a political current which places the masses (the volk<\/em>) within a nation state on a pedestal and claims to work for their greater good (Worsley 1969; Wiles 1969 and Stewart 1969) . In world practice in recent centuries it refers to a cult of the masses which vests the figure espousing and embodying the popular cause with an enormous concentration of power. Populism was especially pronounced in several Eastern European countries between the two World Wars. In this period, the populist \u201ccult of the masses\u201d overlapped often with what has been called \u201cpeasant essentialism\u201d (Brass 1990).<\/p>\n

    Eastern Europe in this period saw the emergence of several peasant parties, some drawing inspiration from \u201cthe historical messianism\u201d associated with the Russian narodnik<\/em> movements (Walicki 1969: 62-90; Wiles 1969: 171-76; Ionescu 1969: 104-09). Romania presents a significant illustration that offers qualified comparative insights for those familiar with Sri Lankan history in the last seventy years. Here, the Left intellectual Constantin Stere (1865-1936) moved away from orthodox socialism and drafted an essay in 1908 entitled \u201cPoporanism or Social Democracy<\/a>?\u201d. Addressing Romania\u2019s agricultural context, Stere did not see any future for industrialization programmes or a proletarian emphasis in politics; and argued instead for a \u201cpeasant state\u201d where small agricultural plots would serve as the basis for economic development.<\/p>\n

    From this moment Stere and Dobrogeanu Gherea spearheaded the campaign to gain voting rights for the Romanian peasantry through the slogan poporism.<\/em> Though Stere has been described as a \u201cconstitutionalist populist\u201d (Ionescu 1969: 102), the influence of narodnik<\/em> currents of thought also implanted messianic threads conducive to a cultic dependence on a leader figure.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a>

    What all this means, therefore, is that Sri Lanka is presently burdened with a form of populist authoritarianism that is necessarily short-term, one that has to calculate how to reproduce itself at the next general elections.<\/p><\/div>\n

    Leader-figures were particularly prominent in the organisation known as the Legion of the Archangel Michael<\/a> which was set up in 1927 by a religious mystic, Cornelia Zelea Codreanu. The Legion\u2019s ideology was ultra-nationalist, anti-communist, anti-Semitic and fascist; but, unlike other contemporary fascist movements in Europe, it presented an overt religiosity centred upon the Romanian Orthodox Church. Its fascist character was sharpened in 1930 when Codreanu formed the \u201cIron Guard\u201d as a paramilitary branch of the Legion (Wiles 1969). This core group\u2019 assumed such importance that its name became synonymous with the Legion. Then, in 1935 its leaders adopted a new name: \u201d the Totul pentru \u0162ar\u0103\u201d party, literally \u201cEverything for the Country\u201d, but commonly translated as \u201cEverything for the Fatherland\u201d or occasionally \u201cEverything for the Motherland\u201d (for background, see Wiles 1969; Bucur 2007 as well as Wikipedia).<\/p>\n

    The Iron Guard\u2019s support base seems to have been strongest among students and peasants. However, it garnered only 15.5 percent of the vote at the elections in December 1937, coming third behind the National Liberal Party (35.9%) and the Peasants\u2019 Party (20.4%). At this point in 1938 the factionalized and fractured state of democratic politics and the widespread resort to violence from many sides, especially the Iron Guard, encouraged the constitutional monarch, King Carol, to intervene with a coup d\u2019etat which rendered him dictator. Carol is described as having played \u201ca very similar populist card as Cordeanu during a period of political and social instability [in order] to rally support for his personal authority\u201d (Bucur 2007: 100-01). In the event his dictatorship did not last long because the onset of World War II in 1940 and foreign pressures altered the political scales in Romania in ways that are too complex and\/or irrelevant for our comparative reflections.<\/p>\n

    The Romanian tale between the two World Wars can be supplemented by the events that unfolded in Italy and Germany between 1918 and the early 1930s. The rise of Mussolini and Hitler<\/a>, as we know, was facilitated by the parliamentary process of elections in their respective countries. The vote and a parliamentary base provided their respective parties with the platform to seize power. While there must surely have been differences in the factors aiding the advances towards dictatorship in both countries, the critical point here is that the democratic process enabled both these fascist parties to muster popular support and thereafter legitimize their authoritarian regimes with a plebiscitarian hue that was not wholly dissimilar to the world\u2019s first \u201cpopular dictatorship,\u201d namely, that established by Napoleon Bonaparte.<\/p>\n

    Sri Lanka: 1956-2012<\/strong><\/p>\n

    The establishment of universal suffrage in 1931 as Sri Lanka moved towards political independence encouraged political activists to cultivate popular appeal through vote banks, patronage and rhetoric. After independence was secured by DS Senanayake and his aides in 1948 through a pragmatic course that utilized the geo-political context, the UNP grouping which he had founded as an elite-led cross-ethnic coalition was challenged in the mid-1950s by the Mahajana Eksat Peramuna, another coalition fostering two major political currents: (a) the force of cultural nationalism centered upon the Sinhala language, indigenous imagery and Buddhism; and (b) the grievances and demands of the underprivileged directed against the privileged classes.[i]<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a>

    populist authoritarianism is sometimes described as a form of \u201cplebiscitarian dictatorship\u201d because of its Bonapartist motifs and its mass appeal, mass support that is sometimes confirmed by referendums. So, the issue arises: are we in danger of sliding in this direction under the impulses of the Rakjapaksas and the forces they have assembled?<\/p><\/div>\n

    The demands of the have-nots were bolstered by powerful socialist and Left currents of thought that had their roots in the Marxist parties that had taken shape in the island from the 1930s. Their vociferous attacks blended neatly with the nativist disparagement of the privileged as a Westernized and de-nationalized body of people. The MEP slogan of \u201cSinhala Only\u201d therefore distilled both currents of thinking and promised avenues of advancement to both the Sinhala-speaking have-nots and those aligned with the coalition.<\/p>\n

    In the event the MEP led by an elitist Oxford educated aristocrat, SWRD Bandaranaike, swept to power through a momentous triumph at the general elections of 1956, completely out-muscling the right-wing UNP in a landslide victory. For this reason one can speak of the \u201c1956 revolution\u201d and the \u201c1956 ideology.\u201d A central dimension in this movement was the rhetorical emphasis on the duppath podhu janath\u0101<\/em>, namely, \u201cthe poor [suffering] people,\u201d \u2013 a slogan that reverberated throughout politics in subsequent decades and also promoted the emergence of the Janat\u0101 Eksat Peramuna (see below).<\/p>\n

    A sub-theme in the political rhetoric of the 1940s and 1950s was the attack on the \u201ckachchery system\u201d and the administrative order established by the British with the Ceylon Civil Service at its apex. The campaign depicted the system as \u201cfeudal\u201d and \u201ccolonial.\u201d The Leftist and nativist\/nationalist hues sustaining this drive should not obscure the fact that this pressure was a power-grab. The political spokesmen were targeting the separation of powers installed by the British in what was in effect a major political shift. What one see from 1956 is a gradual process by which the administrative services were taken over and subordinated by the parliamentarians and politicians (paving the way eventually for encroachments on the judiciary in more recent decades).<\/p>\n

    Marxist dogma was a central force in this process. When I interviewed Colvin R. de Silva in the late 1960s,[ii]<\/strong><\/a> he insisted in typical lucid vigour that the United Left Front required executive heads of departments who were in sympathy with their socialist programmes. In brief, democratic centralism must prevail in the firmament. So it came to pass: this process `was set in train when the ULF came to power in 1970. This turn in politics was then taken further with a twist of its own when JR Jayewardene established the de Gaullist constitutional order of 1978 with some assistance from scholars like AJ Wilson.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a>

    His roots in the south east encouraged local people, including sycophants, to see him as modern day Dutugemunu and to clothe him with the honorifics bestowed on famous Sinhala kings in the past.<\/p><\/div>\n

    The \u201c1956 revolution\u201d was a triumph for the SLFP party led by the Bandaranaikes and the forces of linguistic nationalism in ways that have been deeply etched into the subsequent politics of confrontation. The alienation of the Tamil peoples which it encouraged was further entrenched (1) because the principal other contender for parliamentary power, the UNP, also adopted the linguistic and cultural slogans of 1956; and (2) because the Trotskyist parties abandoned their principled demand for parity of status for both languages and joined the SLFP in the coalition known as the United Left Front (ULF) in 1964.<\/p>\n

    So, the ingredients were in place for the Tamil political activists of most shades to become disenchanted with the idea of federalism and to move towards a demand for a separate state. The Republican Constitution installed by the ULF in 1972 was the final nail in this trend. The principal Tamil party, the TULF, adopted secession as their goal through the Vaddukoddai Resolution in May 1976.<\/p>\n

    There was a parallel development in the 1960s to 1980s that has had a significant influence on today\u2019s politics. This was the emergence of the JVP in the Sinhala-speaking regions. The insurrectionary JVP of the period 1967-71 was almost composed of youth in the age bracket 15-30. In this first phase the JVP was a fusion of two ideological legacies: they were both the children of the Old Left and the children of 1956. Directed by the limited avenues of economic advancement for those educated only in Sinhala within a decrepit economy, they absorbed Naxalite-Maoist-and Latin American revolutionary theories as a path to a seizure of power.<\/p>\n

    The abject failure of their boy\u2019s own adventure in revolutionary action in 1971 did not deter their hard core members. After 1971 those that survived their failed take-over honed their discipline in jail. When fortuitous circumstances led to their release in 1977 some elements regrouped. Further political transformations, notably the emergence of Tamil separatism under the LTTE and then the intervention of India through its imposition of the IPKF in mid-1987, provided the reformed JVP with the opportunity to mount a campaign in defence of national sovereignty. Their second insurrection of 1987-90 was in effect a civil war in the south, involving unbridled ferocity on both sides.<\/p>\n

    Though socialist ideas informed JVP motivations within this phase, the 1956 ideology of linguistic nationalism and indigenist currents of thought, gilded with Xenophobia, dominated this campaign in the late 1980s. Note, too that the last quarter of the twentieth century was featured by an intellectual currents identified as J\u0101tika Chintanaya. Articulated by such advocates as Gunadasa Amarasekera and Nalin de Silva the J\u0101tika Chintanaya sentiments were also threaded by a form of indigenist populism.<\/p>\n

    Subsequently, after the second JVP insurrection was had been crushed by brute force in 1989-90 and a revamped JVP emerged in the late 1990s and 2000s as a parliamentary party, the new JVP was not that different from the J\u0101tika Chintanaya. In the 2000s, however, the SLFP itself was re-invented in the mantle of 1956 once the Rajapaksa clan displaced Chandrika Kumaratunga (nee Bandaranaike) at its masthead. The stance adopted by Mahinda Rajapaksa was directed towards the rural folk and was explicitly anti-elitist in rhetoric [as distinct from practice]. In dressing itself under the banner of \u201cMahinda Chintanaya,\u201d it effectively stole the sarong and vest from the JVP even as the two allied together in the 2005 parliamentary elections in order to trump the rejuvenated UNP.<\/p>\n

    Having secured this \u2018democratic\u2019 victory, the Rajapaksa regime split the JVP by its offer of spoils to some leading lights within that party. It also embraced the small party known as the J\u0101tika Hela Urumaya, which is widely regarded as an ultra-nationalist organisation directed by Sinhala Buddhist chauvinism. In effect, the new SLFP of the Rajapakses became the dominant expression of Sinhala heritage and power in Sri Lanka\u2019s political firmament, a force that is often depicted by radical and moderate commentators as \u201cSinhala supremacist.\u201d[iii]<\/strong><\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n

    The Rajapaksa brothers were a key element in the combination of forces that engineered the comprehensive defeat of the LTTE as a military force in the island by May 2009. This momentous change has been a major benefit to most people in the land and therefore contributed immensely to the prestige and authority of Mahinda Rajapaksa. His roots in the south east encouraged local people, including sycophants, to see him as modern day Dutugemunu and to clothe him with the honorifics bestowed on famous Sinhala kings in the past. Moreover, political rhetoric these days is regularly threaded by a reiteration of extreme Sinhala nationalist positions, spiced with the occasional strain of Xenophobia and the bashing of some Western state(s) and\/or NGO\u2019s.<\/p>\n

    Mahinda Rajapaksa\u2019s emergence to supreme power in the recent past was accompanied by a considered distancing from the elites of Colombo. His appeal has been to the rural bourgeoisie and underprivileged. The successful expansion of the Rajapaksa-led SLFP\u2019s clout by patronage and electoral process was confirmed in his clear victory over Sarath Fonseka at the Presidential Election of January 2010 and then consolidated at the parliamentary elections of April 2010. Note that it is a standard practice within Sri Lanka\u2019s political dispensation for a ruling party to call the presidential elections before those for parliament. The presidential executive can tilt the parliamentary process.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a>

    So, what are the prospects of a Rajapaksa dictatorship eventuating and what restraints remain? Apart from Sri Lanka\u2019s geo-political situation in the Indian Ocean space dominated by Big Brother India and the overarching moral pressure of the cumulus clouds we call \u201cthe West\u201d, what are the internal restraints?<\/p><\/div>\n

    Returning recently to his village Happawana-Harumalgoda after a life in exile, the radical Dayapala Thiranagama <\/a>noted its transformations since he was child in the 1960s: \u201cit no longer bears the hallmark of destitution and abject poverty\u201d and it \u201cwill continue to change at increasing speed.\u201d But this is a footnote to his verdict that \u201cPresident Rajapaksa enjoys a solid political support among the Sinhalese rural masses, which hitherto no other political leader has been able to command\u201d (Thiranagama 2012). Coming from a Left radical whose article also conveys reservations about the anti-democratic trends in contemporary politics, this is a significant pointer to the character of \u201cthe Rajapaksa regime\u201d (a considered phrase <\/a>that I have deployed elsewhere as well \u2014 note Roberts 2009).<\/p>\n

    What, then, one sees in Sri Lanka is the development of \u201cpopulist authoritarianism\u201d built upon Sinhalese nationalism and a rural-cum-rurban vote within a context where the Sinhalese have constituted some 69-80 per cent of the population over the last fifty years. Since virtually every political party in Sri Lanka has been oligarchic in its internal structures and favours a top-down mode of operation, sometimes augmented by dynastic threads and the Marxist concept of \u201cdemocratic centralism,\u201d the overall tendency in Sri Lanka\u2019s politics has been towards the periodic creation of \u201cpopulist authoritarianism.\u201d<\/p>\n

    The authoritarian character of the present Sri Lankan state is also supported by the 1978 constitution as consolidated by subsequent amendments and the subservience of both the judiciary and the leading administrators. Those aspects of political behaviour and those symbolic images that I have called \u201cthe Asokan Persona\u201d contribute to this process. They point not only to the overconcentration of power, but also raise the spectre of a further shift towards a dictatorship. Recall my opening comparisons: populist authoritarianism is sometimes described as a form of \u201cplebiscitarian dictatorship\u201d because of its Bonapartist motifs and its mass appeal, mass support that is sometimes confirmed by referendums. So, the issue arises: are we in danger of sliding in this direction under the impulses of the Rakjapaksas and the forces they have assembled?<\/p>\n

    This danger is not only accentuated by the 1978 constitutional structure and its subsequent amendments, but also by the censorship and intimidation of the press that occurred during Eelam War IV in 2006-09. This period saw regular disappearances and assaults <\/a>on several press personnel, a few killings (notably that of Lasantha Wickrematunga) and pressures which forced others to leave the country (JDS 2009; Kurukulasuriya 2010). The overarching fears are captured in the metaphor \u201cthe white van phenomenon.\u201d This force encouraged some measures of self-censorship and caution in the reportage of the independent media. Though disappearances have abated in some measure since mid-2009, the overarching fears and constraints, and acts of censorship, still continue. Middle-class personnel have even advised me to be cautious in my journeys and writings in Sri Lanka. It would not be amiss to talk of \u201cthreads of fear and caution.\u201d<\/p>\n

    So, what are the prospects of a Rajapaksa dictatorship eventuating and what restraints remain? Apart from Sri Lanka\u2019s geo-political situation in the Indian Ocean space dominated by Big Brother India and the overarching moral pressure of the cumulus clouds we call \u201cthe West\u201d, what are the internal restraints?<\/p>\n

    As hypothetical surmise, I mark three major factors that would restrain such a development. The first is the character of populism in Sri Lanka as it has taken root in the Rajapaksa walauwa<\/em> and its corridors. President Rajapaksa believes in his popularity and the popularity of the Rajapaksa dynasty. He desires to sustain it and pass it down the lineage as a legacy. This means that it has to be periodically affirmed through general elections. Therefore familial subjectivity and family interests will influence the future.<\/p>\n

    In this future such a subjective inclination will mesh with the inclinations of the Sri Lankan people. In contrast with the neophyte democracy of Romania in the 1930s, Sri Lanka has \u2018enjoyed\u2019 universal suffrage and elections for 80 years. General elections are an institution and deeply entrenched as an expectation among the generality of people. Any breach of this practice will jeopardise the perpetuation of the populist\/popular character of the Rajapaksa lineage<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    General elections and Sri Lanka\u2019s version of democracy have also institutionalized a multi-party system. However weak the opposition parties, and however oligarchic\/dictatorial their internal organisation, they exist as entities. Their presence provides a source of resistance to any dictatorial take-over. True, the Rajapaksas have successfully incorporated many former opponents into their regime through patronage, spoils and largesse in ways that have created a sprawling government establishment. But there are limits to populist authoritarianism through such patronage. In helping A to get a coveted post, one can alienate B who anticipated that very post. Dissatisfied clients gravitate to the opposition parties; or they await the opportunity to do so. The vast patronage system can leak like a sieve when the popular tide turns<\/p>\n

    What all this means, therefore, is that Sri Lanka is presently burdened with a form of populist authoritarianism that is necessarily short-term, one that has to calculate how to reproduce itself at the next general elections. This tendency in its turn generates its own problems and can cater to the expression of Sinhala majoritarianism within a context created by island\u2019s demographic composition and its distribution in space (Roberts 1978). We are hung in the cleft between Scylla and Charybdis.<\/p>\n

    BIBLIOGRAPHY<\/strong><\/p>\n

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    Bucur, Mario<\/strong> 2007 Carol II of Rumania,\u201d in Fischer, Bernd (ed.) Balkan Strongmen<\/em>, West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press, pp. 87-119.<\/p>\n

    De Silva, K. M<\/strong>. 1996 Reaping the Whirlwind<\/em>, Penguin.<\/p>\n

    De Silva-Wijeyeratne, Roshan<\/strong> 20 \u201cBuddhism, the Asokan Persona and the Galactic Polity,\u201d Social Analysis<\/em> 51: 56-78.<\/p>\n

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    Fernando, Basil<\/strong> 2009 \u201cAshokan Persona and theRooster Coop,\u201d Lanka Guardian, http:\/\/www.srilankaguardian.org\/2009\/06\/ashokan-persona-and-rooster-coop.html.<\/p>\n

    Ionescu, Ghita<\/strong> 1969 \u201cEastern Europe,\u201d in G. Ionescu & E. Gellner (eds.) Populism. Its Meanings and National Characteristics<\/em>, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, pp. 97-121.<\/p>\n

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    Knox, Robert<\/strong> 1911 An Historical Relation of the Island of Ceylon, <\/em>ed. By J. Ryan, Glasgow, Maclehose and Sons.<\/p>\n

    Kurukulasuriya, Uvindu <\/strong>2010 \u201cI finally boarded the plane,\u201d 2 April 2010, http:\/\/www.fojo.se\/international\/freedom-of-expression-around-the-world\/uvindu-from-sri-lanka<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    Obeyesekere, Gananath<\/strong> 1966 \u2018The Buddhist Pantheon and its Extensions,\u201d in M. Nash (ed.) Anthropological Studies in Theravada Buddhism<\/em>, New Haven, Yale University Southeast Asian Series.<\/p>\n

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    Stewart, Angus<\/strong> 1969 \u201cThe Social Roots,\u201d in G. Ionescu & E. Gellner (eds.) Populism. Its Meanings and National Characteristics<\/em>, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, pp. 180-96.<\/p>\n

    Roberts, Michael <\/strong>1978 \u201cEthnic Conflict in Sri Lanka and Sinhalese Perspectives: Barriers to Accommodation,\u201d Modern Asian Studies<\/em>, 12: 353-76 [reprinted in Roberts, Exploring<\/em> Confrontation<\/em>, 1994].<\/p>\n

    Roberts, Michael <\/strong>1984 \u201d \u2018Caste Feudalism\u2019 in Sri Lanka? A Critique through the Asokan<\/p>\n

    Persona and European Contrasts\u201d, Contributions to Indian Sociology<\/em>, 18: 189-217 [reprinted<\/p>\n

    in Roberts, Exploring Confrontation<\/em>, pp. 73-88].<\/p>\n

    Roberts, Michael <\/strong>1994 Exploring Confrontation. Sri Lanka: Politics, Culture and History<\/em> Reading: Harwood Academic Publishers.<\/p>\n

    Roberts, Michael <\/strong>1994b \u201cThe Asokan Persona as a Cultural Disposition,\u201d in Roberts, Exploring Confrontation<\/em>, Reading: Harwood Academic Publishers, pp. 57-72.<\/p>\n

    Roberts, Michael <\/strong>1994c, \u201cThe Asokan Persona and its Reproduction in Modern Times,\u201d in Roberts, Exploring Confrontation<\/em>, Reading: Harwood Academic Publishers, pp. 73-88.<\/p>\n

    Roberts, Michael <\/strong>1994d \u201cFour Twentieth Century Texts and the Asokan Persona,\u201d in Roberts, Exploring Confrontation<\/em>, Reading: Harwood Academic Publishers, pp. 57-72.<\/p>\n

    Roberts, Michael <\/strong>1994f \u201cThe 1956 Generations: After and Before,\u201d in Roberts, Exploring Confrontation<\/em>, Reading: Harwood Academic Publishers, pp. 297-314.<\/p>\n

    Roberts, Michael <\/strong>2004 Sinhala Consciousness in the Kandyan Period, 1590s to 1815<\/em>, Colombo, Vijitha Yapa Publications.<\/p>\n

    Roberts, Michael<\/strong> 2009 \u201cThe Rajapaksa Regime and the Fourth Estate,\u201d 9 December 2009, http:\/\/www.groundviews.org\/2009\/12\/08\/the-rajapakse-regime-and-the-fourth-estate\/<\/p>\n

    Roberts, Michael<\/strong> 2010a \u201cHitler, Nationalism and Sacrifice: Koenigsberg and Beyond\u2026 towards the Tamil Tigers,\u201d 19 March 2010, in http:\/\/thuppahi.wordpress.com\/2010\/03\/19\/<\/a><\/p>\n

    Thiranagama, Dayapala <\/strong>2012 \u201cEnding the Exile and Back to Roots: Fears, Challenges and Hopes,\u201d 2 January 2012, http:\/\/groundviews.org\/2012\/01\/02\/ending-the-exile-and-back-to-roots-fears-challenges-and-hopes\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    Walicki, Andrzej<\/strong> 1969 \u201cRussia,\u201d in G. Ionescu & E. Gellner (eds.) Populism. Its Meanings and National Characteristics<\/em>, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, pp. 166-709.<\/p>\n

    Wiles, Peter, <\/strong>1969 \u201cA Syndrome not a Doctrine: Some Elementary Theses on Populism,\u201d in G. Ionescu & E. Gellner (eds.) Populism. Its Meanings and National Characteristics<\/em>, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, pp. 166-709.<\/p>\n

    Worsley, Peter<\/strong> 1969 \u2018The Concept of Populism,\u201d in G. Ionescu & E. Gellner (eds.) Populism. Its Meanings and National Characteristics<\/em>, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, pp. 212-50.<\/p>\n

    \n
    \n<\/div>\n

    [i]<\/a> The review of political developments in this section is based on Jupp 1978; Roberts 1978, KM de Silva 1996 and Roberts 1994c.<\/p>\n

    [ii]<\/a> See ROHP in Barr Smith Library, University of Adelaide, interviews dated 23 June 1967, 20 September 967 and 4 January 1968.<\/p>\n

    [iii]<\/a> For instance see the articles published by Tisaranee Gunasekera and Shanie in the local English-media newspapers and some of the essays in the web sites www.groundviews.com<\/a> and www.transcurrents.com.<\/p>\n

    \n
    \n<\/div>\n

    [i]<\/a> I have misplaced the precise reference but see Ralph Pieris 1956; Dewaraja 1972; Roberts 2004 and Knox 1911 for background and other relevant details.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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