The ethnic factor inSri Lanka’s foreign policy, 1948-1956

By Uditha Devapriya

The linkages between domestic politics and foreign policy represent an interesting, if not intriguing, object of study. There may be convergences between the two, but more often one comes across significant differences as well. This is as it should be: the factors which determine a country’s domestic politics are clean different from those which determine its foreign relations. Not least among these factors is ethnicity: at home, it becomes a divisive issue, a tokenistic abstraction used to win votes and elections and entrench a certain group over all others, but abroad, internationally, it becomes a non-issue.

For obvious reasons, it makes sense to follow a progressive set of policies over these issues, at home and abroad. However repugnant it may be, to give one example, ethnic nationalism has become a playbook of populist politicians, even in the most “liberal” and “developed” countries. Yet ethnic politics can be, and is, a hindrance to a country’s image abroad. This is as true for Sri Lanka as it is for the United States, Europe, and Japan.

Sri Lanka’s inability to defend itself properly at international forums and organisations, over such themes as human rights and accountability, thus betrays a failure to manage these issues well. Today, local officials talk of revamping Sri Lanka’s foreign policy establishment, starting from the Foreign Service. They have tasked entire think-tanks and institutions with a review of the country’s external relations. Yet reformist rhetoric is hardly a substitute for actual reform. The truth is that no number of reforms will be effective unless the country takes stock of its fundamental weakness: its failure to balance domestic politics with foreign policies, particularly over issues like ethnicity. To do so, scholars need to examine the roots of this failure, which can be traced back to the 1940s and 1950s.

Immediately following independence, Sri Lanka endeavoured to become a part of the international order through membership of multilateral bodies like the UN. Largely because of its Cold War alliances, however, it was deprived of these opportunities until a good 10 years later. In this, the country had only itself to blame. Its foreign policy choices during this period were guided less by pragmatism than by ideological affinities with a power bloc. Even in its more laudable achievements, such as its stance on the nationalist uprising in Dutch Indonesia, the regime of the day followed a certain line: “[i]n the course of discussions,” S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike later recounted, “it appeared to me that I was expected… to follow the line Great Britain adopted over the Indonesian issue.”

A state of affairs like this could only come about because of the non-modernising character of the country’s elite. D. S. Senanayake is constantly celebrated as the Father of the Nation, with not a few commentators comparing him to historical figures like Lincoln, Gandhi, and even Nehru. Yet the truth of the matter is that, going by his ideological predilections and his foreign policy postures, Senanayake resembled Hastings Banda, the pro-Western leader of independent Malawi, rather than those other historical personages. Moreover, the elite of which he was a member were deeply compradorist and unable to prioritise anything other than their property and privilege, be it in domestic politics or foreign policy. This, in the long run, led them to side with certain countries and antagonise all others.

The foreign policies adopted by the UNP had the effect of limiting the country to a Western bloc and preventing it from becoming a part of the international system. While the West had played a leading part in the establishment of multilateral institutions, especially the UN, these institutions were now quickly being dominated by the newly decolonised countries of Africa and Asia, and by the socialist bloc. This was only to be expected, and in refusing to recognise that reality, Sri Lanka could only limit its choices. The blame for this, of course, has to go to the colonial elite: as Dayan Jayatilleka has noted aptly, the crème de la crème of the country paradoxically failed to produce a Nehru.

It is my contention here that the Sri Lankan elite resorted to the most divisive politics at home to buttress its pro-Western foreign policy stances. To give one example, all three UNP regimes from 1948 to 1956 summoned and then played to Sinhalese fears of Indianisation, in tandem with its anti-Indian line abroad. A corollary of this was the Indian Tamil problem: D. S. Senanayake’s decision to deprive Indian Tamils of citizenship, an act that was as racist as it was classist, was linked to the UNP’s rather irrational and silly fears of a Leftist takeover of the country, given the Left’s impressive performance in the Estates.

Not surprisingly, the UNP’s upper echelons neglected to manage these tensions, which more or less followed from its failure to balance domestic political and foreign policy concerns. Its increasingly archaic policies also fuelled much discontent, especially among Sinhalese and Buddhist communities, who felt out of place in an administration manned by a colonial and colonised, un-Buddhist elite. This discontent, symbolised by the defection of the Buddhist clergy from the UNP to the SLFP, should have provoked a rational response from the party, but all it did was to force it to adopt even more archaic, divisive, and fundamentally flawed policies, personified rather fittingly in the character of John Kotelawala. It was a two-way process: the UNP was not above using race and religion to quash dissent, while the SLFP led Opposition and its front-guard deployed both in return.

The problem with the SLFP’s front-guard, particularly the Buddhist clergy, was that it did not possess, still less mobilise, the progressive, anti-imperialist ideology that its counterparts in the Left did and had. A great many of those who joined forces with the SLFP had themselves been part of the UNP; some of them would later return to the UNP. But the battle lines in the late 1950s were between the proverbial forces of light and darkness, and for better or worse, the former were represented by those who had once associated with the latter. In such a scheme progressive politics had no place: the Opposition mustered all it had to quash the government of the day. It did this, successfully, by depicting the UNP and its leadership as a historical anachronism, and by deploying populist, divisive rhetoric.

The clash between these parties produced two contradictory results. On the one hand, the SLFP broke away the UNP’s foreign policies, from the high-strung pro-Western posturing of the past to a more proactive approach, which won Sri Lanka the respect of the world and of the Global South in particular. On the other hand, having benefitted from an upsurge in nationalism, it kowtowed to forces that represented, at almost every level, the antithesis of its progressive foreign policy record. Thus, while S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike transformed into Nehru’s equivalent of Sri Lanka abroad, in his own country he became anything but a Nehru. The Indian Congress Party would have, as it did, put a stop to the racialist politics of the RSS, achieving a congruence between domestic politics and foreign policies. Neither the UNP nor the SLFP had the will or the power to put a stop to the Saffron Brigade.

I would contend that this was, and is, the biggest failure of the 1956 election. Instead of leading to a congruence of values between domestic politics and foreign policies, the election served to disfigure both, producing not one, but two Sri Lankas: a Sri Lanka that touted progressive policies abroad, and a Sri Lanka that practised populist, reactionary politics at home. A large part of the blame for this must, of course, go to the architect of that year’s election win, S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike. At the same time, the blame must also be placed on the UNP’s non-modernising, archconservative bourgeoisie. Their actions – and worse, their indecisiveness – served to draw a wedge between Sri Lanka’s aspirations in the world and its actual, less than laudable political record at home.

It is this gap, between domestic politics and foreign policy – as witness the government’s unforgivable record on COVID-19 burials, versus its laudable stance on issues concerning the Muslim world, such as Palestine – which has hindered the country from becoming what it should be in the world. For the country to develop, to go beyond where it is now, it thus has to take stock of the past, where it went wrong, and seek to adjust accordingly. If it is to be more Nehruvian, Nasserian, or more progressive abroad, it must deploy progressive politics at home. In other words, it must practice what it preaches, and preach what it practices. Unless it follows this strategy, it will continue to show one face to the world and another to its own citizens: a policy hardly conducive to the country’s image overseas.

The writer is an international relations analyst, researcher, and columnist who can be reached at udakdev1@gmail.com.