Urban Studies, Vol. 39, No. 9, 1703– 1721, 2002
Indigenising the Colonial City: Late 19th-century Colombo and its Landscape Nihal Perera [Paper rst received, January 2002; in nal form, March 2002]
Summary. This paper is concerned with the indigenisation of Colombo and the transformation of the city from an exclusive domain of colonial power to a milieu which supported Ceylonese social and cultural practices. It investigates the shifting indigenous response to the colonisation of Colombo, from challenging to indigenising the city between the 1860s and the 1880s. The paper approaches indigenisation from a ‘reverse-Orientalist’ perspective that focuses on the landscape produced by the emergence of national e´lite, the revival of Buddhism and processes of naturalisation and migration. It demonstrates that indigenisation was integral to colonialism, which simultaneously instigated the Westernisation of subjects and the indigenisation of social and spatial structures. The resulting multilayered landscape, negotiated between imposing colonial structures and Ceylonese cultural practices, was characterised by irony, mimicry, ambivalence, liminality and hybridity.
R. L. Brohier (1984/2000, p. 2) asserts that “Colombo is a city forced on the peoples of Ceylon in spite of themselves. It was never a creation of their own choice or making”. First established as a Portuguese outpost in the early 16th century, colonial Colombo was governed by the Portuguese (1518– 1656), the Dutch (1656– 1796) and the British (1796 – 1948). As has been argued elsewhere (Perera, 1998), modern Colombo is a foreign implant with neither a hinterland that produced it nor a history of ‘organic development’ related to Lanka. The existence and meaning of colonial Colombo therefore has intimately depended on European metropolises. Yet it was this city which became the capital of independent Ceylon (Sri Lanka since 1972). The larger concern of this study is how colonial Colombo transformed from
an exclusive domain of colonial power to a Sri Lankan milieu which has supported Ceylonese social and cultural practices—a process here termed ‘indigenising the city’.1 Colonial Colombo was a divided city in which the former inhabitants were marginalised. In order to create their own city in what had been a busy ‘sea junction’ in the Indian Ocean trade network, the Portuguese divided Colombo along racial lines. Marginalising its Muslim traders and indigenous inhabitants, the Portuguese rst established a white, male Christian city.2 Despite the changes in its size and shape, for three and a half centuries until the 1860s, the fort area served as the exclusive locus of political power with no comparable social and cultural institutions outside it. During this period, the colonial authorities continually
Nihal Perera is in the Department of Urban Planning , Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana 47306, USA. Fax: 765 285 2648. E-mail: nperera@bsu.edu . 0042-098 0 Print/1360-063 X On-line/02/091703-19 Ó 2002 The Editors of Urban Studies DOI: 10.1080/0042098022015173 6
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pushed the Ceylonese out of the city. Dividing the city along ethnic lines and transforming the fort into their own ethnic enclave, the British also kept the descendants of the Dutch and the Portuguese in marginal positions. The latter formed a community in the area immediately outside the fort, the Pettah, where 500 families claiming Portuguese or Dutch ancestry lived in the early 19th century (Brohier, 1984/2000). This pushed the ‘native city’ further away. Its address, ‘Outer Pettah’—outside the fort—clearly indicates that, for the colonial community, the ‘native’ area was well outside the city (for places discussed in this paper, see Figure 1). At the early stages of colonialism, most Lankans refused unfamiliar and disorienting colonial social structures with a view to returning to earlier ways of life. The terms Lanka and Lankan are employed strategically here to refer loosely to the island and its indigenous societies prior to European colonisation as well as to provide agency to a ‘not fully colonised’ indigenous subject. As Frantz Fanon (1968) points out, where confrontation with the colonial order at rst disoriented the native, the colonial system subsequently became a world of which the native is envious. This transition from hostility to envy indicates that colonial culture had become hegemonic. At the same time, however, hegemonic colonial culture laid the foundation for the process of indigenising the colonial city. Social space is central to both colonialism and indigenisation. Colonial authorities could not govern without incorporating a segment of the colonised population into the ruling structures of power, and space was strategic in this regard (Yeoh, 1996). David Harvey (1990b, p. 419) argues that “the assignment of place within a socio-spatial structure indicates distinctive roles, capacities for action, and access to power within the social order”. Such spatial assignment and control are evidenced in the moulding of the colonised body with regard to race, class, gender and other socially constructed categories, but it is also evidenced in the control over the space occupied by this body, and the way in which
the body—space relationship facilitates the social order. Drawing on Michel Foucault, Harvey (1989/1990a, p. 8) points out that “the reorganization of space is always a reorganization of the framework through which social power is expressed”. A key variable in such analyses of space is social power: the capacity of some subjects to transform activities, to intervene in a given situation in order to alter it, or to impose the will on some subjects by the potential or actual use of violence (Giddens, 1987; Castells, 1989). Yet social power does not go uncontested. Indigenisation is simultaneously a form of assimilation and resistance: a way of assuming a colonial subject position through the creation of new and hybridised cultural practices and spaces. Landscape is integral to this process. As James Duncan (1989) has argued, landscapes are culturally produced models of how the environment should look, or what it has transformed into as people shape them physically or symbolically reinterpret them. This paper investigates the relevance of these ideas to Colombo’s landscape of indigenisation. The indigenisation of Colombo’s colonial social and spatial structures took place through the adaptation of its subjects who conformed to norms and familiarised forms within the colonial system. Imagination is central to this adaptation as indigenes could only adapt daily practices within their own perception of colonial society. As the colonial order of things is at rst unfamiliar, the adaptation within such order requires indigenes to familiarise particular colonial subject positions and spaces. Such familiarisation begins with perceptual frameworks and ‘languages’ which, when employed, essentially reinterpret these structures. Furthermore, these frameworks and languages would also be modi ed in this complex and interactive process of indigenisation. Although the indigenisation of various structures does not necessarily revamp the entire colonial system, the reinterpretation of subject positions provides new meanings for colonial social and spatial structures, allowing them to be reappropriated and reinscribed by the indige-
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Figure 1. Colombo: places referred to in the text. Sources: Survey Department, Sri Lanka; Roberts et al. (1989).
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nes. In other words, subjectivity itself provides an opportunity to reinterpret the very same structures from within.3 The process of indigenisation therefore constitutes the transformation of colonial institutions and spaces, particularly of their meanings and representations and of the power relations constituted as coloniser— colonised. Indigenisation can thus be viewed as resistance to colonialism. Despite the constitutive role played by social space in the formation and transformation of society and subjectivity, society and space do not change as a single monolithic entity; nor do they change in tandem, at the same rate and in the same ways. Society and space operate together: they in uence and affect each other, but one does not determine the other.4 Indigenisation and colonisation are simultaneously complicit and con ictual: these processes are neither separate nor direct opposites—indigenisation does not begin where colonisation ends. Adaptation within colonial social and spatial structures has been a basic Lankan response to colonialism. From the beginning of colonial rule in the early 16th century, under the Portuguese and the Dutch, Lankans served in colonial military and administrative capacities. This was the principal way in which the Ceylonese advanced their political and economic positions within colonial society. Yet indigenisation at various stages of colonialism, particularly at the early stages of colonialism and immediately before independence, varied radically. The focus of this paper is on the turning-point of this trajectory: the shifting of the principal Lankan response to colonial Colombo from challenging to indigenising the city in the late 19th century. As British colonisation reached its peak between the 1860s and the 1880s, the colonial community and authorities became comfortable in Colombo. By the 1860s, the British had not only created a plantation economy and incorporated the colony into the larger world economy, but had also established a high degree of hegemony for their world-views in Ceylon (Perera, 1998). After keeping the natives out for seven decades,
the British began to expand their domain. This is apparent in the demolition of forti cations in 1869 and the construction of a residential suburb for the colonial community in Cinnamon Gardens (about 2 miles outside the fort). Concurrently, the British authorities also expanded the of cial boundary of Colombo and established a municipal council to administer the city. According to K. M. de Silva (1997), the traditional ‘nationalism’ guided by the Kandy-based aristocratic leadership had ceased to be a serious threat to the stability of British rule by the 1870s. Concurrently, the process of indigenisation had become more voluntary and highly visible and had moved from the margins to the mainstream of society. The Ceylonese had become familiar with the colonial system, nding ways to obtain power within political and economic structures. Located in the heartland of the island, Kandy was the last kingdom to fall to the British in 1815. By the 1880s, the Colombo—Kandy con ict (in which Kandy challenged Colombo’s authority) had shifted to Colombo, transforming the city into the principal site of negotiation and contest. If the Lankans were attempting to escape colonialism until the 1850s, from the 1860s they were increasingly focusing on appropriating colonial structures, spaces and symbols and making a livelihood or strengthening their positions within the colonial order. The 1920s and 1930s saw the rise of more direct challenges to colonialism. These, however, fall outside the purview of this paper. The principal thrust of studies in colonial urbanism and architecture is on the immense in uence of colonialism on the subjects. Scholars have strongly argued about the continued impact of colonialism even after independence. For most, colonialism peaked in the early 20th century (Christopher, 1988). This study does not share this view. As will be shown, although the impact of colonialism has continued beyond independence, the indigenisation of colonial society and space transformed the trajectory of colonialism in the late 19th century.
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In the literature on colonial urbanism and architecture, however, the contested aspects of social space are largely ignored and processes of indigenisation are conspicuously absent. 5 Building on early work which engages in social and cultural analysis (for example, Red eld and Singer, 1954; McGee, 1971) and approaching colonial urbanism from a variety of theoretical perspectives, scholars have begun to expose the political and social power involved in the historical construction of social space and the connections between colonial policies and spatial subjectivity (King, 1976, 1990; Ross and Telkamp, 1985; Saueressig-Schreuder, 1986; Metcalf, 1989; Rabinow, 1989; Mitchell, 1991; Wright, 1991; Al-Sayyad, 1992; Crinson, 1996; Home, 1997). Despite the availability of a rich body of urban-politicaleconomy-based work, studies in both colonial and post-colonial urbanism still approach the subject from a broad but EuroAmerican vantage-point, rarely providing agency to indigenous populations. Yeoh (1996) points out that these studies have largely focused on the uncontested supremacy of European colonisers, while Spivak (1999) points to the Eurocentrism of assuming that imperialism began in Europe. Anthony King (1992) aptly argues that this focus on European colonialism, which occupies the historical space of those places and people of which the literature speaks, has marginalised and silenced resistant and vernacular voices. What these studies fail to consider is that, to quote Arjun Appadurai in a different context, at least as rapidly as forces from various metropolises are brought into new societies they tend to become indigenised in one or another way (Appadurai, 1996/ 1998, p. 32). Maintaining the signi cance of investigating the indigenous institutions and their physicalspatial expressions, King (1976) also highlights the need to develop an acquaintance with the indigenous language and culture for such analysis. Indigenous responses to colonialism—and
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post-colonial developments which may be moving away from the colonial past—cannot be effectively identi ed or addressed without shifting the vantage-point of inquiry from physical and intellectual stand-points to an indigenous realm that provides for agency. Yeoh and Kong (1994) emphasise that the colonial landscape, which is a contested terrain, does not simply articulate the ideological intent of the powerful who plan and shape the landscape in particular ways. It also re ects the everyday meanings implicit in the daily routines of ordinary people. Anthony Giddens (1987, p. 11) highlights “the capability even of the most dependent, weak and the most oppressed … to carve out spheres of autonomy of their own”. As opposed to histories of colonial urbanism which have led scholars to analyse imperial and colonial power, new perspectives could reveal cultural spaces within which new social spaces and landscapes were indigenised. The deconstruction and the decentring of colonial discourses have been effectively carried out by scholars of subaltern (postcolonial) studies. Yet this paradigm has not yet had much to say about social space and urbanism. Shifting the vantage-point in different ways and questioning ‘post-colonial’ and ‘nationalist’ constructions of social space at different scales, the work of Yeoh and Kong (1994), Yeoh (1996), Nalbantoglu and Wong (1997), Kusno (2000) and myself (Perera, 1998) has laid a foundation for the study of post-colonial urbanism from a ‘subaltern’ perspective. By approaching the issue of indigenisation as a particular contestation of colonial society and space, and providing agency to indigenous populations, this paper hopes to contribute to these perspectives. This paper is also concerned with the power of subordinates to effect changes in Colombo’s social space and the impact that indigenous consciousness, intentionality, everyday practices and collective action has had on shaping colonial social space and the city’s landscape (Smith and Tardanico, 1987/ 1989). With regard to ‘weapons of the weak’, James Scott (1985) stresses that the relatively powerless typically avoid direct symbolic
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confrontation with authorities, but mostly use ordinary weapons such as foot-dragging and false compliance which require little or no co-ordination or planning and often represent a form of individual self-help. Indigenisation was, therefore, not a goal of any struggle, like national independence, but a combined effect of a variety of local responses to colonialism. This paper approaches indigenisation from a perspective of ‘reverse-Orientalism’ (Said, 1978) instead of the construction of British knowledge of the Ceylonese. It focuses on the types of knowledge that the Ceylonese developed about the colonial society, the types of space they carved out for themselves and how the landscape of Colombo was transformed with their entry into the city. In mapping out the landscape of indigenisation of Colombo, the paper investigates three kinds of response to colonial social and spatial structures which transformed indigenisation from a marginal to a mainstream process between the 1860s and the 1880s. These responses were variously deployed by emulators of British colonial models, by resistance movements and by marginal groups. In particular, the paper focuses on the emergence of a national e´lite, the revival of Buddhism and the demographic changes caused by the residents and migrants. The Rise of a Ceylonese Elite While the Kandyan aristocracy was still resisting colonialism and defending their historical socio-political system in the early 19th century, the Low Country which had been colonised for over three centuries saw the emergence of an e´lite who rode the tide of colonialism imagining a (post)-colonial future. The British subjugation of Kandy favoured the Low Country and some stood up to the occasion, advancing themselves to the position of a Ceylonese e´lite. They were largely from the three main non-Goyigama castes: Karava, Durava and Salagama (KSD), where Goyigama is viewed as the upper caste. The Ceylonese e´lite, the owners of plantations and mines, political leaders and
administrators, belonging to both Low Country Sinhalese and Colombo-based Tamil communities, had become a signi cant agency within the colonial system by the 1860s. The indigenisation of colonial economic, political and administrative structures and spaces began to be prominent in the next two decades. The rebellion of 1848 was the crucial turning-point; it was both the last major political insurrection in Kandy and the instance of the rst signi cant urban movement in Colombo which tested the ideas of European radicalism in Ceylon (de Silva, 1997). The rise of a Low Country e´lite is well addressed by Michael Roberts (1982), Patrick Peebles (1995) and Kumari Jayawardena (2000) and will not be elaborated here, where the focus is on the indigenisation of Colombo and its landscape. By the 1880s, the economic e´lite had not only penetrated into a larger plantation economy dominated by the British, but had also created a signi cant share for themselves within it. According to Roberts (1982, 1997), the foundation for the emergence of a Karava e´lite was laid earlier during Portuguese and Dutch times, when the primary capital was generated that was later invested in the early 19th century. In addition to the advantage the Low Country had due to its commercialisation, monetisation, Westernisation and Christianisation for almost three centuries before the fall of Kandy, the British suspicion of the Kandyan aristocratic families privileged the emerging e´lite of the Low Country (Roberts, 1982). By the 1880s, the Low Country e´lite had surpassed the Kandyan aristocrats with regard to their social position. The Low Country ‘entrepreneurs’ swarmed over the Kandyan districts as labourers, businessmen and teachers (Roberts, 1982). Moreover, the Low Country people in general had the means to support the much-needed Western education and Westernisation, and the Tamils were also outpaced by the Karavas with respect to the education of women (Roberts, 1982). As the colony transformed from a military outpost to a plantation economy in the mid 19th century (Perera, 1998; Bandarage,
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1983), the Ceylonese administrators, who served in the bottom layers of the colonial administration, advanced themselves into a new e´lite. This occurred within a context where the role of traditional administrators was becoming less important than attributes of education, pro ciency in English, lifestyle, profession and landholding (Peebles, 1995). In the course of the 19th century, the outlook of the administrative e´lite changed from ‘barefoot chieftains’ in coats patterned after 17th-century Portuguese uniforms to Victorian lawyers with Oxbridge degrees and fashionable suits. At the top of the hierarchy, the Mudliars added shoes and stockings, but continued to wear coats (Peebles, 1995). English education differentiated the e´lite from the rest. Higher education not only added an element of achievement, particularly useful within a system based on merit as opposed to inheritance, but also generated an enthusiasm for higher education among the rest of the society (Peebles, 1995). Concurrently, the political e´lite—known as the constitutionalists—were indigenising the colonial political system. Their main goal was to progress within the political system, but not radically to change it. Brought up within the colonial system, they depended on it for their identity. Hence, the Ceylonese e´lite—at large—did not question the appropriateness of the centrality of Colombo within Ceylon or the colonial landscape of the city. Yet the e´lite familiarisation within the colonial system was ambivalent; the e´lite were almost British, but not quite, and their formation was both incomplete and virtual. Along with the emulation of British colonial models, in effect, the e´lite were appropriating colonial structures, spaces and symbols, and were also challenging the larger system within which they were subjects. Although the economic e´lite were not attempting to transform the familiar colonial environment in Colombo, their adaptation of that environment caused substantial changes in it. They were penetrating into the Fort and Pettah areas which had been exclusively Eu-
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ropean domains. According to H. A. J. Hulugalle (1965), apart from jewellers, there were few Ceylonese business premises in the Fort including C. Matthew & Co. ship-handlers and stevedores. Among the several Ceylonese business houses in the Pettah were H. Don Carolis & Sons (founded in 1860), N. S. Fernando (1875), Don Davit & Sons (1875), A. S. F. Wijegoonaratna (1876), W. D. Carolis (1879), S. L. Naina Marrikar (1888) and Arthur J. Fernando & Co. (1891). Colombo, and not Kandy or Galle, was the main attraction for investments during the late 19th century. In addition to new ones, Colombo also attracted already-established businesses from other cities. For example, the oldest jeweller in town, Othaman Lebbe Makan Markar, started his business in Galle in 1860 but moved it to Colombo a few years later (Hulugalle, 1965). In locating such businesses, these entrepreneurs gradually developed an environment friendly to Ceylonese businesses. What the British colonial culture achieved in Ceylon was a high degree of hegemony among the families of the owners of plantations and mines, political leaders and administrators, particularly with their sons educated in England and being Christian in faith. The e´lite jealously guarded their culture from further diffusion, perhaps increasingly exaggerating the aspects of metropolitan culture as a buttress to maintain their social and cultural identity, using this to symbolise their privileged position among the Ceylonese (Duncan, 1989). As the colonial third culture,6 the e´lite culture was neither British nor Lankan; their identity was a result of the transformation of indigenous cultural perceptions as they adapted within colonial society. It was a Ceylonese e´lite third culture which was rooted in an upperclass Lankan culture heavily in uenced by strong but selected aspects of colonial culture and constructed in a way that represented the power of the e´lite to the average Ceylonese and their worthiness to the colonial community. Concurrent to pursuing the British model, the Low Country e´lite were competing
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against the traditional aristocracy and the Goyigamas who were viewed as the upper caste. The mobility within the colonial system was mostly used by the Burghers, the Tamils, the Muslims and the Low Country Sinhalese who did not belong to the upper strata of ‘traditional society’ (Roberts, 1982). As part of their challenge to Goyigama supremacy, the Low Country e´lite tended to pursue social prestige in a style that had been formulated by the Goyigama aristocracy, favouring the lifestyle of the walawwa hamu (lord of the manor house) (Roberts, 1982). Hence, the older Sinhalese values remained resilient and relevant; the e´lite were not ready to discard them in their entirety (Roberts, 1982). In addition, the e´lite were also inventing new traditions; Ponnambalam Ramanathan, for example, took to wearing the traditional long-coat and turban of the Indian aristocracy (Jayawardena, 2000). At other times, however, the Ceylonese took their cue from the British gentry (Roberts, 1982). The more opulent and topbracket Sinhalese gentry, whose forebearers had been lured by honours and emoluments to serve as sentinels and guardians of their interests by the Dutch, had with the departure of their patrons congregated around Wolvendal, in the vicinity of the Outer Pettah. They lived with the ladies of rank, lama etens, in spacious walawwas (manor houses) off Green Street, Kuruwa Street and Silversmith Street (Brohier, 1984/2000). Even in the Dutch times, the Mudliars, whose seat of power was distinctly rural, established townhouses for themselves in Colombo. In and around Wolvendal, the four Maha-Mudliars had built their walawwas with extensive groves of trees (Roberts et al., 1989). The new e´lite not only followed the British to Colombo, but also mimicked the colonial lifestyles and residential house forms. For Homi Bhabha (1994, p. 86), “mimicry emerges as the representation of a difference that is itself a process of disavowal”. This mimicry, which repeats rather than re-presents, leads to mockery and ambivalence (Bhabha, 1994). What the e´lite pro-
duced was colonial but not quite; also (Lankan) aristocratic but not quite. The outcome was a hybrid; in addition to the design and the names, the palatial houses of the e´lite were also located in the liminal space between the colonial community and the indigenous city. The early 19th-century expansion of Colombo transformed the outskirts of Wolvendal to the low-income housing—called huts and tenements—of the Malays and the Javanese. After emancipation, the former slaves also settled in what used to be Slave Island, across the Beira Lake off the southern ank of the fort (Brohier, 1984/2000). The colonial residential trend, which was towards the north of the fort especially to Mutuwal and Grandpass during early colonial periods, turned towards the south, particularly to Kollupitiya and Cinnamon Gardens in the 1860s and the 1870s (Hulugalle, 1965). The e´lite, who were not allowed membership in British clubs, also created their own exclusive Oriental Club in the vicinity of the Cinnamon Gardens (Roberts, 1974). The e´lite neighbourhood s were patterned after the colonial model (see Figure 2). In addition to clothing fashions, they also followed the latest European architectural styles, absorbing them into the wealth and competitive spirit of the Ceylonese e´lite. In the decades following the 1860s much money was spent on conspicuous housing; palatial residences were constructed in Colombo by the wealthy, with mock-Italian decor, large gardens and wedding cake architecture (Jayawardena, 2000, p. 258). Many of the houses had imposing royalsounding names, for example: Oliver Castle (H. J. Pieris), Deyn Court (Bastian Fernando), Hill Castle (S. C. Obeyesekere), Elscourt (Jeronis Pieris) and R. E. S. de Soysa’s Victoria Maligawa (palace) (Jayawardena, 2000). Some had Orientaltype names which followed the colonial pattern: Sukhastan (Abode of Happiness) of P. Ramanathan, Ponklaar (Golden Garden) of P. Arunachalam, Tyaga Nivasa (Tyaga’s
Figure 2. Colonial-style houses in the e´lite neighbourhoods of Colombo. Source: Cave (1908).
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Abode) of N. Tyagarajah and Sirimethipaya (Abode of Prosperity) of A. E. de Silva Jr. Many of the sons of the entrepreneurs and professionals emulated the British aristocracy in its penchant for dog-breeding and horse-racing which were considered to be the Sport of Kings (Jayawardena, 2000). They preferred the areas of the city in which the services were highly superior, the maintenance of which required disproportionate amounts of resources. Establishing their presence, the e´lite also began publishing their own newspaper, the Ceylon Standard in Colombo in 1898 (Roberts, 1984). In this way, the Ceylonese e´lite were engaged simultaneously both in expanding the colonial landscape and in indigenising its meaning. The palatial houses of the traditional e´lite, located in the outskirts of Colombo, near Wolvendal, were being replaced by the new e´lite houses around the colonial community. Locating themselves adjacent to the colonial community and emulating the building forms and lifestyles, they were expanding the colonial residential zones within the city. Concurrently, penetrating into the Fort and the Pettah, the (economic) e´lite indigenised the business district as well. The meanings of the fort and the Pettah were depoliticised as they were identi ed simply by the politically neutral terms Fort and Pettah. The e´lite were pleased with colonial values and the segregated city, but struggled to be on the privileged side. In so doing, the e´lite provided legitimacy for Colombo as the seat of (colonial) government and principal site of political negotiation in Ceylon, a mandate it had not received from its inception (Perera, 1996) The presence of the Ceylonese e´lite in Colombo was conspicuous; the buildings were built in high styles; their names were alien; and the landscapes were unfamiliar to the regular Ceylonese. Yet the landscape was ambivalent. The environment was colonial, but not quite; the residents were Ceylonese, but not quite. What the e´lite produced were hybrid residential environments located in between those of the average Ceylonese and the colonial community.
The Revival of Buddhism The late 19th century was a period of cultural and religious regeneration in Ceylon (Bastin 1997; Samaraweera, 1997). The Hindu revival took place a generation before the Buddhist revival and does not constitute the transformation of Colombo in the late 19th century. After a long struggle to survive under colonialism—over three centuries in the Low Country—Buddhism revived strongly during this period. The broad-based transformation which Buddhism underwent in the late 19th century has been addressed by scholars such as Gombrich and Obeyesekere (1988), Obeyesekere (1970) and Malalgoda (1976) and need not be repeated. Here, we investigate the impact of the Buddhist revival on the landscape of Colombo. The revival of Buddhism between the 1860s and the 1880s made one of the most signi cant impacts on colonial Colombo, but was not readily re-presented in its landscape. The Buddhist revival marked both the culmination of the long-term process of Ceylonese adaptation within the colonial system and the emergence of a strong challenge to it. As part of this process, new key institutions were created, the old ones adapted within the colonial system and the protest against colonialism was taken to Colombo. This not only displaced, in regard to its signi cance, the larger Kandy– Colombo (Lankan– British) con ict by a process which would indigenise Colombo from within, but also it provided its ‘native city’ with a strong cultural institution capable of contesting the supremacy of colonial cultural and political institutions located within the Fort. Moreover, the revival blurred the more readable landscape which the e´lite were concurrently producing. Representing irony and ambivalence, it added another power dimension which was largely hidden in the clandestine type of landscape it produced. With the eradication of its millenniumlong structure of operation, the Buddhist establishment in Ceylon weakened under colonialism. 7 When the Low Country was subjugated by the Portuguese in the late 16th
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century, the King of Kandy—in the Up Country—warmly received the Buddhist monks who had ed from the Portugueseruled areas and endowed them with new temples and land grants, thus keeping Buddhism alive. The British conquest of Kandy in 1815 deprived the order of monks (the sangha) of any royal patronage. In addition, under three colonial regimes, Buddhism was also subjected to competition from various forms of Christianity which received the support of the colonial state (Malalgoda, 1976; Boxer, 1965/1990; Tinker, 1989). Within this inverted environment, with no patronage from the rulers, the laity assumed a leading role in the revival of Buddhism. The Buddhist revival was basically a Low Country movement (de Silva, 1981) which both supported and was supported by the rise of a Low Country e´lite. The revival became apparent from the turn of the 19th century, even before the fall of Kandy, when certain members of the KSD castes of the Low Country actively challenged the decision of the King of Kandy to restrict ordination to Goyigamas by organising new fraternities (nikayas) (see de Silva, 1981). Changes in colonial state policy and the con icts between different Christian faiths helped the Buddhists to reorganise and reinvigorate their religious activities in the late 19th century. The leadership of the movement was largely in the hands of the emerging Low Country e´lite (de Silva, 1981). Later, the revival received support from international activists (theosophists) like the American Henry Olcott and the Russian Madam Blavatsy, and some sympathy from high-ranking colonial of cials (de Silva, 1981). The principal outcome of the collapse of the Goyigama monopoly of religious life and the entry of non-Goyigamas into religious activity was the expansion of the religious sphere, including an increase in the number of fraternities, monks and temples. This development socialised, reorganised and strengthened the Buddhist establishment. The laity not only became increasingly involved in religious activities but also, from the
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1880s, displaced monks from some of their traditional positions of religious leadership (Gombrich and Obeyesekere, 1988; Malalgoda, 1976; de Silva, 1981). This caused Buddhism to spread rapidly across rural villages. The revival of Buddhism profoundly affected the urban areas and Colombo as well. For the greater part of the century, Protestant Buddhism was limited to a small emerging middle class in Colombo and smaller cities like Galle (Gombrich and Obeyesekere, 1988) which was the leading centre of Buddhism in the Low Country in the late 18th century (Malalgoda, 1976). Gombrich and Obeyesekere (1988) argue that Buddhism was transformed in the late 19th century (1860– 85) into what they call ‘Protestant Buddhism’, in regard to its protest against British colonialism in general and Protestant missionaries in particular. The protest against colonialism and Christianity was also the process by which, and for which, Buddhism acquired many Protestant missionary attributes. Adapting and creating Buddhist organisations and practices within the colonial system were strongly characterised by the ‘oppositional politics’ which, according to Terry Eagleton (1990, p. 26), move under the sign of irony, following “a terrain already mapped out by [their] antagonists”. The formation of a Buddhist Theosophical Society, the invention of a ag, the incorporation of songs modelled on Christmas carols and the use of English, among other things, represented this direction of change. The new missionary schools sponsored by the Buddhist Theosophical Society and the Mahabodhi Society adopted the model of Christian missionary public schools, whether in regard to the curriculum or cricket (Gombrich and Obeyesekere, 1988; Obeyesekere, 1970). What Protestant Buddhism produced were hybrid institutions, a prime characteristic of which is ambivalence (Malalgoda, 1976). These were principally Buddhist organisations, but not quite. Both hybridity and ambivalence are evident in the spatial representation of this transformation as well. The leaders attempted to reproduce Buddhism but following the
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colonial spatial organisation with Colombo at its centre. Most crucially, Colombo was transformed into the locale of the most important temples after Kandy and the monastic schools provided a strong presence for Buddhism in the city. First, the temples at Kelaniya and Kotte, former Lankan seats of power in the vicinity of Colombo, were reinvigorated. Secondly, these historical temples were supplemented with newer ones built much closer to or within Colombo. The most important of these were the residences of the founder of Amarapura Nikaya, Lamkagoda Dhirananda—the Jayasekararamaya at Dematagoda—and of the leading anti-Christian polemicist of the 1860s and 1870s, Mohottivatte Gunananda—the Dipaduttaramaya at Kotahena (Malalgoda, 1976). Thirdly, the dominance of Colombo with regard to monastic educational institutions (piriven) was rmly established with the founding of Parama Dhamma Cetiya Pirivena at Ratmalana (1845), Vidyodaya Pirivena in Maligakanda (1873) and Vidyalankara Pirivena at Peliyagoda (1875) (Malalgoda, 1976). In addition, missionary-type institutions and schools, which involved more lay participation, were also established in Colombo. New organisations involved in the competition against Christianity—such as the Buddhist Theosophical Society, the Society for the Propagation of Buddhism and the Mahabodhi Society—were all established in Colombo. These were supplemented by lay organisations such as the Young Mens Buddhist Association, and missionary schools (Ananda College, 1889). It was also in Colombo that the Buddhists established their main printing presses and publishing houses (Malalgoda, 1976). This score of institutions, buildings and related activities which sprang up as part of adopting Colombo as a centre had a profound impact on the city and its landscape. The coincidence of principal political and religious institutions had been a common feature in the Sinhalese kingdoms. Yet in Colombo, Buddhism was not favoured with the patronage of the political authority.
Hence, with regard to the physical landscape, the presence of these institutions and organisations was less conspicuous, not as grand as those in historical Lankan capitals. For the most part, existing buildings were adapted for new uses. For example, the Buddhist Theosophical Society was located in a house in Slave Island (Amarasuriya, 1981). Most of the Buddhist activities were located outside the colonial domains within the city in places like Dematagoda, Maradana and Slave Island. Sparing the Fort area and the newly constructed residential suburb and colonial cultural zone, the Cinnamon Gardens, Buddhist activities in ltrated into the Pettah as well. The Buddhist Educational Movement and its Sunday School, for example, were located in Maliban Street, Pettah (Amarasuriya, 1981). In contrast, the activities located on the outskirts of the city were more visible. The Buddhist presence within the city was largely dispersed, but not physically conspicuous. What the Buddhist revival created in Colombo was, therefore, a clandestine landscape. As Buddhism provided strength to the Ceylonese, Buddhist organisations spread like a web within Colombo, but were differentiated by function and level of activity rather than by physical location and form. Nonetheless, the indigenous city became larger and, for the rst time, the locus of a principal Ceylonese institution directly challenged the colonial authority. From a ‘national’ perspective, this cultural regeneration transformed Colombo into the principal site of political and cultural negotiation in Ceylon, intensifying the contest over space. In this way, the con ict was brought home to Colombo, making it a more pronounced dual city. What this produced in Colombo was a hybrid landscape, the principal characteristic of which was ambivalence. The colonial zones of the Fort and cultural institutions in the Cinnamon Gardens, built in high-style colonial architecture, continued to dominate the landscape of the city. Yet beyond the intermediate e´lite residential areas was the vast hybrid and ambivalent ‘indigenous’ city in which the Buddhist
INDIGENISING THE COLONIAL CITY
presence was more apparent towards the periphery, mainly in the outskirts of the city. As it moved towards the centre, the Buddhist landscape blended in with the environment but its activities contested the authorities— quite the opposite of the e´lite landscape. Demographic Changes and Expansion While the upper classes were modifying the landscape of Colombo and the revival of Buddhism was inducing changes in its meaning, the residents and migrants indigenised their locales and thus the city at large. The population of Colombo grew from a meagre 28 000 in 1800, to about 150 000 in 1900, most of it in the latter part of the century. By the 1870s, the Colombo municipal area held twice as many people as Galle and Kandy, the next-largest cities (Ferguson, 1903; Turner, 1927). Migration appears to be the principal cause of this growth. In addition to migrants, Colombo also received immigrants from southern India and other British colonies who, in the process of naturalising, indigenised their cultures and spaces. In addition, the expansion of city limits was also a reason for the population increase and indigenisation, but was related to migration since a signi cant proportion of migrants settled outside the early 19th-century city limits. These processes transformed both the form of the city and its meaning between the 1860s and the 1880s. The following pages focus on the impact of naturalisation, migration and expansion on the landscape of Colombo. Most immigrants in Colombo had naturalised and the population of Colombo had largely been indigenised by the end of the 19th century. This was a transformation of the larger colonial space brought about by the everyday practices of the subjects. With regard to the Muslims, in addition to adopting Tamil as the daily language (Arabic for prayers), caste strati cation also seeped into their communities (Azeez, 1986). The Muslims who had settled in Colombo temporarily for trading purposes became naturalised. Similar patterns of indigenisation can also be
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seen among numerous immigrant groups which had come to Colombo during the preand early colonial periods. Moreover, the cultural awakenings among principal Ceylonese ethnic and religious groups in the 19th century encouraged the consolidation of European and Eurasian groups living in Colombo into what became the Burgher community, created by generations of adaptation to local culture and the environment and mixed marriages. Although the people of Portuguese, Dutch and English origin were privileged at the beginning of the British rule, about a third of the Burghers were in the regular labour pool in 1871 (Roberts et al., 1989). Clinging on to Dutch heritage and the Anglophile leanings of the core group, and within a Ceylonese patriotism forged in opposition to British subjection, a ‘comradery’ developed through which the Sinhalese and Tamil middle classes, and European and Eurasian people in Ceylon developed a distinctly Ceylonese community (Roberts et al., 1989). As part of this transformation, their locales, including the principal domain, the Pettah, were subjected to indigenisation. In contrast to the Ceylonese adaptation to the colonial system, the immigrants adjusted their cultures and spaces with a view to nding accommodation within a Ceylonese cultural and environmental context. Since they had indigenised over a long period and within their own framework, indigenisation was not re ected by massive changes in the physical landscape. The issue had more to do with how they accommodated new uses which were closer to Ceylonese uses, in spaces within and outside their dwellings. Concurrently, the spaces they shared with the British became contested. In cricket elds, for example, the Burghers were the rst major ethnic group to represent Ceylon against the English. Indigenisation is, therefore, multidirectional and cuts across the line that separates the cultures that are in contact, destabilising the coloniser—colonised divide in many ways. Yet physical evidence of the naturalisation of immigrants in the landscape was scarce.
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What the naturalised Ceylonese produced through their daily practices were liminal and hybrid spaces in between the cultures, overlapping with components of many of the cultures involved, but largely based in the culture and environment of Ceylon. Both the composition of the population and the types of space they produced in Colombo were, therefore, radically different from those in surrounding areas and other cities in Ceylon. If the landscapes produced by various colonial communities were ‘foreign’ at rst, the indigenisation of the immigrant communities transformed Colombo into a unique city in Ceylon. Despite migration, early 20th-century Colombo was very diverse, with the Sinhalese constituting only 35– 45 per cent of the population (Roberts et al., 1989). The impact on the city’s landscape created by the migrants was broader. This impact was, however, related to the expansion of the city as a large number of people, including a few particular class and ethnic groups, migrated to the periphery of the larger city. The migrants, in effect, expanded and indigenised the city. Until the 1860s, Colombo consisted of three principal zones—the fort, the Pettah and Outer Pettah. Along with the establishment of Colombo Municipal Council in 1865, the demolition of forti cations in 1869 and the building of the Cinnamon Gardens in the 1870s, the of cial perception of Colombo and its boundaries changed dramatically (Perera, 1998). The municipal area of the 1880s was about 13 times as large as the fort area and included a number of low-income areas such as Maradana, New Bazaar, Kotahena and Slave Island which had a majority of Ceylonese. The population of Colombo in 1881 was about 20 times that of the combined Fort and Pettah areas (Hulugalle, 1965). The enlargement of the city in the 1860s and the 1870s had, therefore, caused the colonial city itself to naturalise, by grounding it in the larger native city. Migration not only escalated in the 1860s, increasing Colombo’s population by over 300 per cent between 1824 and 1891 (mostly in the last few decades), but also changed the
ethnic, religious and class composition of the city. The introduction and expansion of communication networks, which began with the advent of the railways in the 1860s, facilitated the rural to urban migration. The principal purpose of the colonial communication infrastructure was to organise the political, economic and administrative systems from Colombo. Reversing this directionality, the migrants employed the transport networks to move to the city. In 1921, 47 per cent of Colombo’s population were already Sinhalese and largely from the Low Country; the Sinhalese and Ceylon Tamils and (naturalised) Ceylon Moors and Burghers made up 63 per cent of it (Hulugalle, 1965). The in ux of migrants transformed the basic spatial structure of ethnic and class groupings in Colombo. Most crucially, the Low Country Sinhalese replaced the Europeans as the main ethnic group four centuries after they had appropriated the city from the Muslims. Hence, the city marked by clock towers and Georgian buildings at its centre was in ltrated by Buddhist and rural forms of building and the ‘huts’ which the British were determined to keep out of the city. The Tamil neighbourhood of Wellawatta, then right outside the municipal boundary, had also appeared by the 1880s (Roberts, 1984). In the 1880s, therefore, the city was far more Ceylonese compared with the British Colombo of the early 19th century. The dwellings in low-income areas were not Sinhalese or English in form, but represented the burgeoning working class within a capitalist city. Most of these dwellings were produced as part of ‘industrialisation’, particularly the expansion of the harbour and the building of railway workshops, warehouses and printing presses. These neighbourhoods, which spread across areas such as Maradana, New Bazaar, Kotahena and Slave Island, housed a large proportion of the working classes. The expansion of the port in 1883, and of its associated industries, was primarily instrumental in converting large areas, such as Kochchikade and Gintupitiya, into dockland areas giving rise to a particular
INDIGENISING THE COLONIAL CITY
clustering of working-class tenements and small businesses (Roberts, 1984). There were two types of working-class dwellings, labelled by the municipal authorities as ‘slums’ and ‘shanties’. The rst were the large houses, left by middle- and upperclass people who lived mainly on the north side of the fort, and also in the Pettah area, later adapted by low-income groups as ‘multifamily’ quarters. Large families were cramped into one or two small rooms, contributing to what Roberts and others call the ‘decline’ of the Pettah and Colombo North between the 1860s and the 1910s (Roberts et al., 1989). One such residence in Slave Island had 32 dwelling rooms. In an article, a medical practitioner of Colombo, Lisboa Pinto, stressed in the 1890s that sanitation and hygiene were unknown and impossible … dozens of our printers live in wretched houses about 15 feet by 8 feet, some of them scarcely of the dimensions of a stable. I often nd such room occupied by the bread winner of the household (the man) and his wife and children … one door to the house and no windows; all the smoke from the replace lling the room (Pinto 1893; quoted in Jayawardena, 1972, p. 11). These dwellings did not transform the larger physical landscape, but its meaning and function. This landscape partly represents the predominance of the males in the city. Both the immigrants and the migrants, until the 20th century, were largely male. Even as late as 1921, 61 per cent of Colombo’s population were male (Roberts, 1984). Single men lived in small rooms in lodging houses known among immigrants from India as kiddangies, sustained by the small shops and other marginal services which were part of the socalled informal economy of the poor (Roberts et al., 1989). The gradual settlement of migrants in Colombo, later joined by their families, eventually feminised the city bringing about a gender balance by the 1960s (see Perera, in press).
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The other type of dwelling was self-built housing which added a new dimension to the landscape of Colombo. A common solution to the lack of affordable dwellings had been the construction of single-storeyed, mostly detached, small housing units using less durable material found in the urban environments. Building their own houses with the materials available, and using self-help methods to do so, represents the transfer of rural housing methods to the city. With regard to ‘Third World cities’, Terence McGee (1971) has argued that characteristics such as high fertility and the persistence of the ‘extended family’ are simply aspects of their ‘ruralness’. The fact that the British authorities did not allow what they called ‘huts’ within the fort (Percival, 1803/1990) indicates that there were rural types of building outside it, in larger Colombo. While the self-built houses helped the migrants to familiarise the city by building a familiar environment within it, they also ruralised parts of its landscape. As between urban and rural, this type of housing landscape represents both a liminal space which is neither urban nor rural, but somewhere in between, and a hybrid form which combines urban living and building materials with rural building methods and dwelling forms. The housing of the lower-income population thus transformed both the overall landscape of the city and its meaning for the Ceylonese. The dwellings of regular Ceylonese were not built in high architectural styles, nor were they large in size. Yet by the 1880s, the Ceylonese occupied a very large area of the city. They did not overpower the formal landscape in any formal way, but annexed a large indigenous component to a foreign city. The city was no longer limited to the Fort and the Pettah areas which had become the centre of the city for the colonials and an ambivalent zone for the indigenes. It was a part of their city, but not quite; it was unfamiliar to them and they were not welcome in most places. In contrast to the walls and moats which separated the British from the rest, however, the new boundaries were more permeable.
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Although the British still held power in it and the city was a contested terrain, a large part of Colombo had become familiar territory for the Ceylonese by the 1880s. This is evident in subsequent decades in their undertaking, within the larger colonial framework, of administrative tasks, business ventures and political roles, and also in their getting involved in social movements such as the revival of Buddhism and labour movements.
Conclusions A major conclusion of the study is that indigenisation was integral to European colonialism. The very success in the establishment of hegemony for European culture was precisely what provided a primary condition for the indigenes to emulate the models of the colonial community. The establishment of hegemony was carried out through the use of military and economic forces to block Lankan access to indigenous types of alternative pasts and futures, publicising the success of the colonial administration and economy and providing room for the Ceylonese to participate within the colonial system. Indigenisation was, however, a two-way process which simultaneously caused the Westernisation of the subjects and the indigenisation of the spatial structures. In short, social power was contested and resisted in Colombo; it is within this contested arena that indigenisation became possible and was carried out. The transition of indigenous attitudes from confrontation to adaptation of colonial social and spatial structures was played out through the negotiation between larger colonial structures and Ceylonese cultural practices. Imagination was central to indigenisation as the indigenes could only adapt their daily practices within the colonial society and a space of their own imagination. Although the familiarisation and reinterpretation of these structures did not fully overturn the colonial system, they amounted to the appropriation and reinscription of colonial social and spatial structures by the Ceylonese. The
resulting society and landscape were, therefore, negotiated between the imposing colonial structures and the adapting Ceylonese practices. In different ways, the rise of a Ceylonese e´lite, the revival of Buddhism and the naturalisation and migration of people to Colombo together made indigenisation a principal process in Colombo between the 1860s and the 1880s. What indigenisation produced in Colombo was not the antithesis of the colonial landscape. The resulting landscape was multilayered and was characterised by irony, mimicry, ambivalence, liminality and hybridity. The Ceylonese emulation of colonial social and spatial models represented irony, the oppositional politics which followed a terrain already mapped out by their antagonists. This is most apparent in the location of Buddhist organisations which contested colonialism in Colombo (but not in Kandy or Galle). The e´lite not only followed the British lead to Colombo, but also mimicked colonial residential preferences and house forms. This mimicry, which repeated rather than re-presented, thus led to mockery and ambivalence. What the e´lite produced was a hybrid which would represent their power to the average Ceylonese and their worthiness to the colonial authorities. The larger landscape which the migrants produced was varied and largely liminal in character. Most of their newer dwellings, characterised by high densities and the use of their own labour, were located near the new ‘industrial’ areas and represented both the proletarianisation and ruralisation of the city. Within this combined e´lite and proletarian class environment, the Buddhist revival produced a clandestine landscape in which intense Buddhist activity occurred but could not be easily traced from its external form. While it blended in with the larger landscape, the activities contested the authorities. The indigenisation between the 1860s and the 1880s did not replace colonialism, but made it the most signi cant Ceylonese response to colonialism. It did not replace the colonial city, but indigenised the larger city,
INDIGENISING THE COLONIAL CITY
both covertly and overtly, from all sides. Both the Fort area, with its Georgian buildings and clock towers, and the colonial residential area of Cinnamon Gardens, which was added during the same decades with many cultural institutions and the Colombo Town Hall, stood impressive but unfamiliar to the indigenes. Even the Ceylonese e´lite were not entertained in British social sets. Hence, the landscape represented a hierarchy from the colonial community to the e´lite, the average Ceylonese and the proletariat. Yet the contested aspect began to be stamped from the outer ends of the city where the Buddhist (and indigenous ) presence was conspicuous. In between were the noticeable e´lite residential areas which mimicked colonial residential house forms and a landscape that camou aged the Buddhist presence. Colombo was a contested, hybrid and liminal space.
Notes 1.
2.
3.
4.
5. 6.
7.
For an elaboration of this context and the context within which the arguments in this paper have been developed, see Perera (1998). According to Gerrit Knapp (1981), the Dutch VOC also managed to preserve a ‘white face’ in Colombo, especially in the castle. For gender relations in Colombo, see Perera (in press). Within different contexts, Holston (1989), Yeoh (1996), Perera (1998) and Kusno (2000) demonstrate how the signs of modern and colonial were appropriated by the subjects they were supposed to transform. This argument is built on my own study of society and space (see Perera, 1998) and Gayathri Spivak’s (2001) position concerning the transformation of social structures and their subjects. The two signi cant works on ‘indigenisation’ that I have come across are Yamamoto (2000) and Appadurai (1996/1998). The European colonial culture which results from the transformation of metropolitan cultural institutions as they come into contact with the culture of the indigenous society (King, 1976, p. 58). Buddhist ‘faith’ or Buddha’s teachings (Dhamma)—is a different issue which is not the subject of this paper.
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