By Megara Tegal
Last week, Sri Lanka celebrated its 73rd year of independence from colonial rule, in all the grandeur that could be displayed in the backdrop of a global pandemic. Focus, as it has been for years now, was on the war that ended in 2009. The defence forces were the stars of the show. Little was said about actually gaining independence in 1948, and the anti-imperialist struggle countries like Sri Lanka continue to experience.
Perhaps, celebrating Independence Day by memorialising those who fought for independence and against imperialism would be at least somewhat more effective in developing a sense of unity among the various communities, rather than focusing so heavily on the end of a war that was divisive, and during which many communities suffered. It could bring together the various communities, religious and ethnic, to fight the real enemy in the war that continues today – the war against imperialism.
It is with this in mind that I write this article: To remember the real independence and anti-imperialist struggle in Sri Lanka, and within this scope, to highlight those who are often left out or given very little recognition, but were instrumental to the success of these movements. Several of these side-lined heroes are women, the likes of Doreen Wickremasinghe, Selina Perera, Maimoon, and Caroline Anthonypillai.
At the height of the anti-colonial struggle
Doreen Wickremasinghe (1907-2000) was one of the most prominent feminist activists since the nascent stages of the independence struggle, and a Member of Parliament in post-independence Sri Lanka. She was not Sri Lankan by birth, but she lived most of her life in Sri Lanka, zealously fighting against British imperialism, and for the rights of the working class. Born in the UK to a very active socialist family, Doreen was immersed in socialist ideologies from a very young age.
It is noteworthy to add that the early 1900s was also a period of great significance for women’s rights across the western world. It was during this time that the suffragettes were formed, and revolutionary militant feminists such as Clara Zetkin, Rosa Luxemburg, and Alexandra Kollontai, among many others, broke barriers for women in accessing their rights at home and on the factory floor. Doreen, and other firebrand Sri Lankan feminist activists at the time, espoused the passion and vigour of these radical feminists.
Soon after completing her bachelor’s degree at the University of London, she met Dr. S.A. Wickremasinghe – a doctor completing his medical training in the UK at the time and a Sri Lankan socialist, later the first socialist Minister in the State Council of Ceylon. Wickremasinghe invited Doreen to Sri Lanka in 1930, and she was made the Principal of the Sujatha Vidyalaya, a girls’ school in Matara.
Appalled by the British-styled education at the school, Doreen set to work in altering the curriculum to include Sri Lankan history, among other changes, and thereby empowered the students and teachers with the tools to think critically of the colonial and imperial politics that governed their lives, a feature that was adapted in two other schools in which she was subsequently appointed as principal.
In 1932, while Doreen was the Principal of Ananda Balika Vidyalaya, the Suriya-Mal Movement was conceived. It was an anti-imperialist movement that was vitally important to the independence movement. In 1947, women party members of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP), the Communist Party (CP), and non-party-aligned leftist women collectively formed the Eksath Kantha Peramuna (EKP).
At the helm of the EKP were Doreen, Vivienne Goonewardena, Edith Gyomroi Lodewyk, Vimala Wijewardena, Parameswari Kandhiah, M.V.P. Peiris, Vaikuntavasam, Shirani (Gamage) Jayawardena, Jeanne Pinto, and Irangani Helen Gunasekera, the latter who was the daughter of Dr. Mary Rutnam, the pioneer fighter for women’s rights in Sri Lanka as described by feminist writer and academic Kumari Jayawardena.
The EKP took on several issues faced by working women, such as their living conditions in slums, their health, maternal and infant mortality, the condition of women’s wards in hospitals, and housing for the poor. Their findings were published in their paper Kantha Handa, and local daily newspapers. “The EKP”, as noted in the book Socialist Women in Sri Lanka, “also campaigned for the right of women to join all branches of the public service. Apart from practical work, the debate was also conducted on a more theoretical level. The EKP took pains to assert its socialism, to distinguish its policies from those existing women’s organisations and distance itself from women fighting merely for equal rights within a capitalist framework”.
Women in the Suriya-Mal Movement
The Suriya-Mal Movement was the brainchild of Aelian Perera, a member of the Ex-Servicemen Association, and it was carried out in opposition to the jingoistic Poppy Day collection organised in commemoration of the end of World War I. Large sums of money collected with the sale of poppy flowers in Sri Lanka were shipped back to the UK for the British ex-servicemen, while the local veterans (several local men were recruited to the “Ceylon Defence Force” and shipped off to England to join the British Army, where many of these recruits were killed in action) who also fought in World War I were woefully neglected.
Local suriya (portia) flowers were sold as a counter campaign, but Perera and the Ex-Servicemen Association promptly abandoned the campaign when they grasped the larger, anti-imperialist implications of it.
The anti-imperialists, however, were not about to let the campaign perish. Doreen Wickremasinghe took the reins and amplified it, turning it into a movement. This feat could not have been achieved without the dedication and tireless work carried out by the teachers of Ananda Balika Vidyalaya, Lilian Bandaranaike, Helen D’Alwis, Shirani Gamage, Eva de Mel, Winifred de Silva, Adeline de Saram, Maud Perera, Avril de Mel, and Ransiri Goonaratna, aside from prominent Youth League members, while under threat by the colonial rulers.
“Doreen’s residence (the Ananda Balika Vidyalaya Principal’s house) became the nerve centre for the Suriya-Mal campaign, with the school’s teachers and senior students making paper suriya flowers and the tills for collecting money. An intense campaign was launched, which included publicity for the movement in schools, factories, and offices. Youth League members wrote articles in journals and to the press to explain the political importance of the campaign,” Kumari Jayawardena highlighted in the book Socialist Women of Sri Lanka.
Suriya-Mal activist Elileen Wirasekera and Helen D’Alwis wrote a pamphlet with the message: “Wear the Suriya flower on 11 November and demonstrate your self-respect and independence. Register your refusal to encourage participation in the Imperialist War. Every suriya mala is a blow against imperialism, fascism, and the war. Wear the suriya mala for freedom and peace.”
The Suriya-Mal Movement extended support by means of relief work during the malaria epidemic that was spreading rapidly at the time in the poverty-stricken rural areas of the country. During their interactions, the activists learnt more of caste oppression and discrimination, and they took up the caste issue as an anti-feudal campaign.
As the Suriya-Mal Movement grew in popularity and garnered support from the locals, the British authorities were outraged and anxious. The pro-British press in the island published scathing articles against the movement and its organisers. Finally, the colonial authorities passed the “Street Collection Regulation Ordinance”, which effectively scuttled the movement.
Imperialism today
A few other notable pre-independence feminist activists in Sri Lanka include Florence Senanayake (the only woman MP in the first Parliament of Ceylon), Kusumasiri Gunawardena, and Ponsinahamy. There have of course been countless other women, who participated in the anti-imperialist movement at the time, and their collective work, whether it was in the Suriya-Mal Movement, organising, protesting, and writing, contributed to Sri Lanka gaining independence in 1948.
They were from various backgrounds – some foreign and some working class, and from the many religious and ethnic groups in Sri Lanka. The courage and spirit of these women must be celebrated, for unlike their male peers, these women not only fought against the colonists but also against the social norms prevalent at the time. Participating in political work was twice as difficult for women.
For example, Vivienne Goonewardena’s father was unflaggingly against his daughter entering university, as it would delay her marriage. She resorted to furtively preparing for a scholarship exam. She performed phenomenally at the exam, and was awarded the English honours course at the university. But her university education was cut short as pressure from her father intensified.
Later, she defied her father once again, and pursued a general course in arts, graduating from the University of London. If it were not for Vivienne’s determination and rebellion against the patriarchy in her home, her invaluable contributions as an activist and parliamentarian may not have been made.
The revolutionary work of the women and men from the early 1930s to 1948, must be commemorated to serve as a reminder that the war against imperialism continues today. While Sri Lanka gained independence from colonial rule, the fight against imperialism continues.
Imperialism today is in the form of powerful, wealthy states, pursuing overseas territorial acquisitions, exploiting labour and natural resources, and ruling over countries through capitalism. These are the modern-day anti-imperialist battles that we must unite and collectively fight against and we – women and men – can draw inspiration and courage from these radical feminists who left an indelible mark in our history in their fight against imperialism during colonisation.
(The writer is a researcher in women’s rights and minority rights)The anti-imperialist movement by women in Sri Lanka
11 Feb 2021
The anti-imperialist movement by women in Sri Lanka
11 Feb 2021
By Megara Tegal
Last week, Sri Lanka celebrated its 73rd year of independence from colonial rule, in all the grandeur that could be displayed in the backdrop of a global pandemic. Focus, as it has been for years now, was on the war that ended in 2009. The defence forces were the stars of the show. Little was said about actually gaining independence in 1948, and the anti-imperialist struggle countries like Sri Lanka continue to experience.
Perhaps, celebrating Independence Day by memorialising those who fought for independence and against imperialism would be at least somewhat more effective in developing a sense of unity among the various communities, rather than focusing so heavily on the end of a war that was divisive, and during which many communities suffered. It could bring together the various communities, religious and ethnic, to fight the real enemy in the war that continues today – the war against imperialism.
It is with this in mind that I write this article: To remember the real independence and anti-imperialist struggle in Sri Lanka, and within this scope, to highlight those who are often left out or given very little recognition, but were instrumental to the success of these movements. Several of these side-lined heroes are women, the likes of Doreen Wickremasinghe, Selina Perera, Maimoon, and Caroline Anthonypillai.
At the height of the anti-colonial struggle
Doreen Wickremasinghe (1907-2000) was one of the most prominent feminist activists since the nascent stages of the independence struggle, and a Member of Parliament in post-independence Sri Lanka. She was not Sri Lankan by birth, but she lived most of her life in Sri Lanka, zealously fighting against British imperialism, and for the rights of the working class. Born in the UK to a very active socialist family, Doreen was immersed in socialist ideologies from a very young age.
It is noteworthy to add that the early 1900s was also a period of great significance for women’s rights across the western world. It was during this time that the suffragettes were formed, and revolutionary militant feminists such as Clara Zetkin, Rosa Luxemburg, and Alexandra Kollontai, among many others, broke barriers for women in accessing their rights at home and on the factory floor. Doreen, and other firebrand Sri Lankan feminist activists at the time, espoused the passion and vigour of these radical feminists.
Soon after completing her bachelor’s degree at the University of London, she met Dr. S.A. Wickremasinghe – a doctor completing his medical training in the UK at the time and a Sri Lankan socialist, later the first socialist Minister in the State Council of Ceylon. Wickremasinghe invited Doreen to Sri Lanka in 1930, and she was made the Principal of the Sujatha Vidyalaya, a girls’ school in Matara.
Appalled by the British-styled education at the school, Doreen set to work in altering the curriculum to include Sri Lankan history, among other changes, and thereby empowered the students and teachers with the tools to think critically of the colonial and imperial politics that governed their lives, a feature that was adapted in two other schools in which she was subsequently appointed as principal.
In 1932, while Doreen was the Principal of Ananda Balika Vidyalaya, the Suriya-Mal Movement was conceived. It was an anti-imperialist movement that was vitally important to the independence movement. In 1947, women party members of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP), the Communist Party (CP), and non-party-aligned leftist women collectively formed the Eksath Kantha Peramuna (EKP).
At the helm of the EKP were Doreen, Vivienne Goonewardena, Edith Gyomroi Lodewyk, Vimala Wijewardena, Parameswari Kandhiah, M.V.P. Peiris, Vaikuntavasam, Shirani (Gamage) Jayawardena, Jeanne Pinto, and Irangani Helen Gunasekera, the latter who was the daughter of Dr. Mary Rutnam, the pioneer fighter for women’s rights in Sri Lanka as described by feminist writer and academic Kumari Jayawardena.
The EKP took on several issues faced by working women, such as their living conditions in slums, their health, maternal and infant mortality, the condition of women’s wards in hospitals, and housing for the poor. Their findings were published in their paper Kantha Handa, and local daily newspapers. “The EKP”, as noted in the book Socialist Women in Sri Lanka, “also campaigned for the right of women to join all branches of the public service. Apart from practical work, the debate was also conducted on a more theoretical level. The EKP took pains to assert its socialism, to distinguish its policies from those existing women’s organisations and distance itself from women fighting merely for equal rights within a capitalist framework”.
Women in the Suriya-Mal Movement
The Suriya-Mal Movement was the brainchild of Aelian Perera, a member of the Ex-Servicemen Association, and it was carried out in opposition to the jingoistic Poppy Day collection organised in commemoration of the end of World War I. Large sums of money collected with the sale of poppy flowers in Sri Lanka were shipped back to the UK for the British ex-servicemen, while the local veterans (several local men were recruited to the “Ceylon Defence Force” and shipped off to England to join the British Army, where many of these recruits were killed in action) who also fought in World War I were woefully neglected.
Local suriya (portia) flowers were sold as a counter campaign, but Perera and the Ex-Servicemen Association promptly abandoned the campaign when they grasped the larger, anti-imperialist implications of it.
The anti-imperialists, however, were not about to let the campaign perish. Doreen Wickremasinghe took the reins and amplified it, turning it into a movement. This feat could not have been achieved without the dedication and tireless work carried out by the teachers of Ananda Balika Vidyalaya, Lilian Bandaranaike, Helen D’Alwis, Shirani Gamage, Eva de Mel, Winifred de Silva, Adeline de Saram, Maud Perera, Avril de Mel, and Ransiri Goonaratna, aside from prominent Youth League members, while under threat by the colonial rulers.
“Doreen’s residence (the Ananda Balika Vidyalaya Principal’s house) became the nerve centre for the Suriya-Mal campaign, with the school’s teachers and senior students making paper suriya flowers and the tills for collecting money. An intense campaign was launched, which included publicity for the movement in schools, factories, and offices. Youth League members wrote articles in journals and to the press to explain the political importance of the campaign,” Kumari Jayawardena highlighted in the book Socialist Women of Sri Lanka.
Suriya-Mal activist Elileen Wirasekera and Helen D’Alwis wrote a pamphlet with the message: “Wear the Suriya flower on 11 November and demonstrate your self-respect and independence. Register your refusal to encourage participation in the Imperialist War. Every suriya mala is a blow against imperialism, fascism, and the war. Wear the suriya mala for freedom and peace.”
The Suriya-Mal Movement extended support by means of relief work during the malaria epidemic that was spreading rapidly at the time in the poverty-stricken rural areas of the country. During their interactions, the activists learnt more of caste oppression and discrimination, and they took up the caste issue as an anti-feudal campaign.
As the Suriya-Mal Movement grew in popularity and garnered support from the locals, the British authorities were outraged and anxious. The pro-British press in the island published scathing articles against the movement and its organisers. Finally, the colonial authorities passed the “Street Collection Regulation Ordinance”, which effectively scuttled the movement.
Imperialism today
A few other notable pre-independence feminist activists in Sri Lanka include Florence Senanayake (the only woman MP in the first Parliament of Ceylon), Kusumasiri Gunawardena, and Ponsinahamy. There have of course been countless other women, who participated in the anti-imperialist movement at the time, and their collective work, whether it was in the Suriya-Mal Movement, organising, protesting, and writing, contributed to Sri Lanka gaining independence in 1948.
They were from various backgrounds – some foreign and some working class, and from the many religious and ethnic groups in Sri Lanka. The courage and spirit of these women must be celebrated, for unlike their male peers, these women not only fought against the colonists but also against the social norms prevalent at the time. Participating in political work was twice as difficult for women.
For example, Vivienne Goonewardena’s father was unflaggingly against his daughter entering university, as it would delay her marriage. She resorted to furtively preparing for a scholarship exam. She performed phenomenally at the exam, and was awarded the English honours course at the university. But her university education was cut short as pressure from her father intensified.
Later, she defied her father once again, and pursued a general course in arts, graduating from the University of London. If it were not for Vivienne’s determination and rebellion against the patriarchy in her home, her invaluable contributions as an activist and parliamentarian may not have been made.
The revolutionary work of the women and men from the early 1930s to 1948, must be commemorated to serve as a reminder that the war against imperialism continues today. While Sri Lanka gained independence from colonial rule, the fight against imperialism continues.
Imperialism today is in the form of powerful, wealthy states, pursuing overseas territorial acquisitions, exploiting labour and natural resources, and ruling over countries through capitalism. These are the modern-day anti-imperialist battles that we must unite and collectively fight against and we – women and men – can draw inspiration and courage from these radical feminists who left an indelible mark in our history in their fight against imperialism during colonisation.
(The writer is a researcher in women’s rights and minority rights)Kapruka
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Discover Kapruka, the leading online shopping platform in Sri Lanka, where you can conveniently send Gifts and Flowers to your loved ones for any event. Explore a wide range of popular Shopping Categories on Kapruka, including Toys, Groceries, Electronics, Birthday Cakes, Fruits, Chocolates, Automobile, Mother and Baby Products, Clothing, and Fashion. Additionally, Kapruka offers unique online services like Money Remittance, Astrology, Medicine Delivery, and access to over 700 Top Brands. Also If you’re interested in selling with Kapruka, Partner Central by Kapruka is the best solution to start with. Moreover, through Kapruka Global Shop, you can also enjoy the convenience of purchasing products from renowned platforms like Amazon and eBay and have them delivered to Sri Lanka.Send love straight to their heart this Valentine's with our thoughtful gifts!