Becoming the State: Territorializing Ceylon, 1815 – 1848
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Becoming the State: Territorializing Ceylon, 1815 – 1848 by Ajay Parasram A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science with specialization in Political Economy Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario Unceded Algonquin territory © 2017 Ajay Parasram Abstract: This dissertation studies the political, economic, and cosmological processes through which the idea of “total territorial rule” at the core of the modern state came into being in the context of British colonial rule on the island of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) between 1815 – 1848. It develops a decolonial theoretical framework informed by the idea of a “pluriverse” of multiple ontologies to show the empirical and imperial avenues through which the idea of the modern/colonial state became normalized in Ceylon. Specifically, I discuss the rajamandala system and its long history in Buddhist South Asia as an approach to organizing political society that is ontologically distinct from British approaches. The process of “Buddhification” enabled foreign rulers to naturalize into the rajamandala system; it provides a context within which to better understand the importance of British rule across the island, traditionally marked as beginning with the 1815 Kandyan Convention. I present the Convention as a moment of sovereign ontological collision where two ontologies of sovereignty conflicted. The ontological conflict manifested in different forms of violence locally, regionally, and imperially, through insurrections, religious politics, and political economic transformations. By drawing attention to Europe’s externalization of violence in modern state formation, we must rethink the characterization of 1815 – 1914 as “peaceful” as the European peacefulness of this period depended on the violence of colonial state formation. Relatedly, though historians of South Asia tend to mark the rise of the British Raj in 1858 India, one of the empirical contributions this dissertation makes is showing that the period between the 1815 Kandyan Convention and the 1848 Matale Rebellion in Ceylon and the associated contestations between colonizing and anti-colonizing vectors ii over land, sovereignty, economy, and spirituality should be considered an earlier site of imperial state (trans)formation. The dissertation contributes to decolonial international relations, global history, and global political economy by emphasizing one important manifestation of modernity/coloniality: the territorial state. Relatedly, it intervenes in peace and conflict studies by insisting that making sense of postcolonial crises involving territory in the 21st century, we must first understand the historical and conceptual processes that naturalized “total territorial rule.” iii Dedication: I dedicate this dissertation to Mat Nelson, who died on Jan. 17, 2017. I met Mat in a 2006 graduate seminar at the Institute of Political Economy entitled “Other Worlds, Other Globalizations,” and have benefitted enormously from his generous and thoughtful presence over the last decade. We spent much of our time intellectually invested in the 19th century, with our feet grounded in the 21st. We were classmates in study, friends in life, comrades in activism, co-conspirators in independent journalism, and finally, colleagues in academia at the boundaries of our student lives. He carried the burden of his genius with considerable grace, generosity, curiosity, and fierce commitment to working across disciplines. His passing is a loss not only to those who knew him, but also to future generations of scholars and students, now denied the critical insights his work promised. iv Acknowledgements I have the greatest respect for my dissertation committee; without the intersectional, trans-disciplinary guidance of Hans-Martin Jaeger, Cristina Rojas, and Chinnaiah Jangam, I would not have been able to research and write this dissertation. Dr. Hans-Martin Jaeger’s critical guidance over the last seven years has been an anchor and a model of how to be an intellectual. I mean this not only in his capacity as my supervisor; I and other graduate students have come to respect his perpetual intellectual curiosity and the depth to which he engages ideas. As my supervisor, he has engaged my work in its most raw and incoherent forms, playing a steady and inspirational role in its gradual refinement. The amount of academic writing he has received from me pales in comparison to the volumes of verbose, panicked emails he has always taken care to respond to with lightning-fast speed, or the unannounced and lengthy visits to his office after which I have always left feeling challenged, inspired, and more intelligent. Without Dr. Cristina Rojas, this dissertation would simply not have been possible. Through Cristina’s constant, generous mentorship and enormous social network, I first learned about pluriversality and decolonial studies, as well as how to be an international colleague. Cristina’s humility, precision, and exciting writing and research has driven me (nearly) to learn Spanish to enter her world of research more completely. Beyond her vital feedback on this dissertation, she has also been instrumental in my understanding of publishing and has given valuable eleventh-hour feedback on manuscript revisions. Dr. Chinnaiah Jangam has also been a critical juncture in my intellectual and professional life. Aside from saving my project when I was denied travel documents to Sri Lanka by urging me to take my research in a more historical direction, he has always seen, several steps ahead of me, the broader, real-world benefit of the research. Every v meeting we had left me excited, and in the early days, I did not realize that this turn towards history would ultimately lead to a faculty position in the Department of History and International Development Studies at Dalhousie University. My committee’s collective contribution to this dissertation and to my life cannot be overstated. I have benefitted from a vibrant intellectual community at Carleton University, particularly the Postcolonial/Decolonial Reading Group that Cristina and I started a few years ago. This trans-disciplinary group of professors and graduate students from Carleton, University of Ottawa, and Queens University has been intellectually and socially important for us all. Special thanks to: Xiaobei Chen, Daniel McNeil, Hans- Martin Jaeger, Maggie Fitzgerald Murphy, Manvitha Singamsetty, Jennifer Matsunaga, and William Felepchuck, who has taken over my role as co-facilitator since I left Ottawa. I’d also like to acknowledge my inspiring colleagues from Migration and Diaspora Studies: Daniel McNeil, Johnny Alam, Jay Ramasubramanyam, James Milner, Alejandro Hernandez, and Ying-Ying Tiffany Liu. I am grateful to the Leveller newspaper for inviting me to their editorial collective in my first year of doctoral studies. Being a part of this publication has been invaluable and provided a crucial, practical refuge through my doctoral studies. The vibrant graduate community at the Institute of Political Economy has, over the years, permeated nearly every part of my life in Ottawa, not least of all the Critical Social Research Collaborative. Special thanks to Robyn Green, Ryan Katz-Rosene, Gulden Ozcan, Mandy Joy, Amanda DiVito Wilson, Chris Hurl, the late Mat Nelson, J.Z. Garrod, Vladimir Diaz-Cuellar, and of course, Donna Coghill, who has been at the centre of this Institute. My first peer- reviewed publication, which was the catalyst for this dissertation, came out of a nerve- racked graduate conference at the Institute of Political Economy in 2011. I am also vi grateful to Brookes Fee, who has always acted like an advocate for us graduate students in Political Science over the years. Many professors have made lasting impacts on my scholarship at Carleton. They have encouraged my publications, rocked my intellectual foundations, and shown me new ways to think. What more could one hope for from graduate school? These people include Fiona Robinson, Jill Vickers, Radha Jhappan, Jeremy Paltiel, Achim Hurrelmann, James Milner, Elliot Tepper, Simon Dalby, Trish Ballamingie, Laura MacDonald, Linda Freeman, Randy Germain, Abdulghany Mohammad, Brian Schmidt, Gopika Solanki, William Walters, Jai Sen, and Martin Geiger. I deeply appreciate and will always fondly remember the intellectual, inspirational, and life support of dear friends in Ottawa: Andy Crosby, Rachel Ariey- Jouglard, Edward Zvekic, Adam Gassner, Trevor Sewell, Lucille Villasenor-Carson, Rana Elhassan, Samira Dualeh, Alana Roscoe, Colin Cordner, Pablo Mendez, Fiona Jeffries, Jennifer Ridgely, Gustavo Morales, Chris Dixon, Maseeh Haseeb, and Alexis Shotwell. I’m particularly grateful for the long-term mentorship and friendship of Jean- Michel Montsion, and William Biebuyck. From dusty offices to library corners, to pubs and oak trees, and all over this continent, William and Jean-Michel have always been generous, supportive, challenging, and strong pillars of my time as a graduate student. While these people have long nourished my soul and mind, special thanks go to Ranjan and Tamara at Ceylonta restaurant, who have nourished my body for more than ten years. I have benefited enormously from the audacity, generosity, and camaraderie of friends, colleagues, and mentors in the Global Development Section of the International Studies Association: Robbie Shilliam, Gurminder Bhambra, Lisa Tilley, Olivia Rutazibwa, Heloise Weber, Martin