The Ideal of Ananda

OLCOTT ORATION THE IDEAL OF ANANDA BY SANJIVA SENANAYAKE 22ND NOVEMBER, 2014 Venerable Sirs, the Principal of Ananda College, Mr. Kithsiri Liyanagamage, members of the staff, the President and members of the OBA, fellow Anandians, Ladies and Gentlemen I wish to thank the OBA and the College for honouring me with an invitation to deliver the Olcott oration. This is a special year. The oldest building still standing on this site, Olcott Hall, is exactly 100 years old as I speak and as soon as the current dearth of classroom space is overcome, the OBA plans to refurbish it to its former glory. We look forward to your support. Ladies and Gentlemen, my connections with Ananda College also go back almost a century. My grandfather was Principal for 25 years starting on 1st January 1918. My mother, my brothers and I were students here. So were many of my relatives. But, despite all this, I have to confess that until a few years ago I was relatively ignorant about the “Ideal of Ananda”. What was the vision our founders had in mind when Ananda was established ? What sort of men were they ? What were the challenges they faced ? How did they succeed against immense odds ? Almost all my school teachers and Principals were either Anandians or absolutely devoted to what Ananda stood for. They were the stalwarts who made my education at Ananda very special. They were humble and did not wish to boast. And we were probably too full of ourselves that we didn’t ask. That is something I really regret. I suppose to appreciate history, it helps to have a history of one’s own. In researching the history of the College I learnt a lot about Ananda, about the profound influence it had on the history of our country, about the heroic individuals who made it all happen .... and about myself too. One thing is clear. Ananda was never destined to be a mere school. Its roots and its history, the vision and sacrifices of its founders and the striving of subsequent generations of teachers, benefactors and students destined it to be a pivotal national institution in the 20th century. An illustrious alumnus and acclaimed journalist Tarzie Vittachi described it perfectly in an article to the centenary magazine of the College - he called Ananda a ‘Crucible of Change”. To appreciate this great institution, it is important to understand the environment in which our founders worked their wonders. Therefore, I will first speak about the events that led up to the end of the 19th century when the seeds of Ananda College was planted in Pettah in the year 1886. The original school was called the Buddhist English School. Religious persecution of non-Christians (Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims) was systematically conducted by the Portuguese mainly from the middle of the 16th century onward. The Portuguese were followed by the Dutch in the middle of the 17th century who, though less brutal, continued the persecution of non-Christians - as a matter of policy - through administrative and legal means. 1 Incidentally, the Portuguese Catholics who were relentlessly persecuted by the Dutch were given refuge in the hinterland by Buddhist kings, despite all the inhuman cruelty that the people had endured. That act of forgiveness and hospitality enabled Father Joseph Vaz, known as the Apostle of Ceylon to secretly enter Ceylon from Goa and revive a dying Catholicism. He is due to be canonized by Pope Francis in January in recognition of his 24 years of work in Ceylon until his death in Kandy in 1711. After much intrigue the British occupied Kandy in 1815 bringing the whole country under their rule. Although the British gave a clear, written undertaking to protect and nurture Buddhism in the Kandyan Convention signed that year, it was really a cynical lie. The Uva- Wellessa Uprising of 1818, and the infamous massacres and scorched earth policy followed by Governor Brownrigg to quell it, made the intentions of the new rulers quite clear. Here I would like to quote a passage from the report of the Buddhist Committee of Inquiry of 1956 that explains the thinking behind the British colonial policy. It is a quotation by Lord Acton, Regius Professor of History at the University of Cambridge, in relation to colonial India - “We have to accomplish a change both in the State and in society to supersede the traditional government and the traditional civilisation. Indian culture, though it was developed, by the same Aryan race to which our own civilization is indebted, has been arrested in its progress. Its law has been identified with its religion and, therefore, religion has tied down the people to the social usages and opinions which were current when the laws were first reduced to a code. The religion and manners of the Orientals mutually support one another; neither can be changed without the other. Hence the pioneer of civilisation has to get rid of the religion of India, to enable him to introduce a better culture, and the pioneer of Christianity has to get rid of the Indian culture before he can establish his religion. Thus the future progress both of Christianity and of civilisation demands that the Oriental career of England should not stop short at the point of contact with Eastern kingdoms and governments but should go on to deal with Eastern society.” Lord Acton goes on to say that this change in society was being accomplished not by violent suppression but by “choking out of all life” of the local institutions by apparently harmless laws and unseen administrative changes. This duty that Acton speaks of was accomplished with greater success in Ceylon than in India. As a matter of interest, it is the same Lord Acton who said “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Of course, he also wrote “There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men.” The broad strategy was straightforward – destroy the local religions to create brown Englishmen and destroy the local culture in order to implant Christianity. It was a package- deal. During the early 1800s the evangelical Christian movement was politically powerful in Britain and missionary activity was actively encouraged from London. The first to arrive in Ceylon were the Baptists in 1812 followed closely by American missionaries from Boston 2 (1813) and the Wesleyans (1814). Anglicans from the Church Missionary Society came in 1818. They fanned out with assistance from the government and started opening schools, primarily as a means of gathering converts to Christianity. The Americans concentrated their efforts in the north centred on Jaffna. The government openly funded building and repairing of churches and regular missionary activities, aided production of Christian literature in the local languages and provided grants to Christian educationists. The entire cost of building Anglican churches was met by the government up to 1845, when protests from other Christian groups led to partial financing being given to them. In 1831, government expenditure on the Ecclesiastical Department was three times the expenditure on the entire government school system; and the focus of the government schools was also the dissemination of Christianity. Ironically, State-funded education only began in England in the late 19th century. Apparently, it was considered that wider education opportunities would affect the availability of industrial workers. Economic, legal and administrative measures were also systematically used to undermine the social structures of non-Christians. For instance, only Christian marriages were recognized as legally valid thus coercing people to convert so they could leave their property to their children. Rev Twisleton, the Archdeacon of the Anglican Church, wrote in 1810 – “According to the Dutch law as it existed and still exists here, no Sinhalese whatsoever can claim inheritance in a court of Justice with success, unless the parents had been married according to the Christian mode. If the parents were married according to what is called the Sinhalese, he is in the eye of the law a bastard.” There is certainly no ambiguity there. The Anglican Church had a monopoly on registering marriages until 1847, after which other Christian churches were permitted to do so. The sweeping Colebrooke-Cameron reform proposals of 1832 perversely helped the Buddhist cause too. Strangely enough, it was as mundane a matter as persistent government budget deficits that caused London to send to Ceylon Messrs Colebrooke (who handled administrative and economic issues) and Cameron (who worked on legal matters). I will just mention a few reforms that are relevant to today’s topic. The absolute power of the Governor was reduced and certain government trade monopolies were eliminated. The civil service was opened up to Ceylonese - a move more liberal than in any other European colony - even though it was only to the lower levels and mainly to cut down government expenditure. To achieve this, Colebrooke proposed standardisation and expansion of English education - but not for the masses on the periphery. Although Colebrooke said that “the education afforded by the native priests in their temples and colleges scarcely merits any notice”, he ignored the demands of the missionaries to keep the government out of education. He also rejected the contrary view of Governor Barnes who said that the school system “has got too much into the hands of the clergy. It has been considered more as an instrument of conversion of the people to Christianity than of general improvement in civilization.” 3 The judicial system was overhauled and officially all were granted equal rights in the eyes of the law under the Charter of Justice of 1833. The feudal rajakariya system of service in exchange for land tenure, which obliged dependents to provide free labour to those who had power over them, was abolished.

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