IASH Work in Progress talk
Harshana Rambukwella (Open University of Sri Lanka, IASH Fellow):
Authenticating self and nation: S W R D Bandaranaike’s quest for indigeneity
Harshana Rambukwella, Senior Lecturer, Postgraduate Institute of English, Open University of Sri Lanka
Honorary Assistant Professor, School of English, University of Hong Kong
Abstract
Images of an advanced hydro-civilization and a moral and social order based on paddy cultivation and village life have played a significant role in Sinhala nationalist discourse since the early twentieth century. Partly influenced by colonial sociology, the local political elite fashioned these ideas into a discourse of Sinhala authenticity which sought to position themselves as custodians of national culture. From its outset this was a fraught discourse. Heavily Anglicized and often having limited understanding and access to the people they sought to represent, the elite were never fully in control of this discourse of national authenticity. S W R D Bandaranaike, who became the second Prime Minister of Sri Lanka in 1956 (eight years after independence from British rule), is popularly seen as one of the few elite politicians of the late colonial period who substantively engaged in mass-based politics and is often eulogized as a heroic anti-colonial figure. This paper looks at the contradictions and ironies in Bandaranaike’s turn to indigeneity and locates Bandaranaike’s quest for an authentic personal and political image within the larger political and cultural shifts of the time, while also looking at the idea of authenticity and its implications for the postcolonial trajectories of Sinhala nationalism. The presentation will also briefly discuss authenticity’s continued resonance in contemporary Sri Lanka