COLOMBO, February 2: Sri Lanka last battle for freedom from British colonial rule was way back in 1848 and when independence was granted 100 years later, local leaders went quietly into top hat and tail coat to accept it.Sri Lanka's Don Stephen Senanayake raised the Lion flag here on February four, 1948 after a peaceful transfer of power.Six days after being granted political freedom, Senanayake became Prime Minister in the first parliament of independent Sri Lanka which opened in the presence of the Duke of Gloucester.The hand over ceremony was at Torrington Square, named after the British Governor who ruthlessly crushed a local uprising 100 years earlier against the British domination of this Indian Ocean island.The freedom movement of Sri Lanka, then known as Ceylon, drew inspiration from the Indian National Congress which led the neighbouring country's freedom struggle but was content with compromise."We need not defy or annoy the British," Senanayake said as younger and more belligerentmembers of the Ceylon National Congress tried to seek Japanese help to oust British rulers from here during World War II.Former president Junius Jayewardene, one of those who tried to get the Japanese to oust the British, recalled in a 1991 lecture that Senannayake felt the country would automatically get independence after the war."My working with them (the British) and friendship with them now when they are in trouble, will bring results after they win the war," Jayewardene quoted Senanayake as saying even as the Japanese bombed the country."The British empire cannot survive after this war," Senanayake told agitators of the Congress. He died in march 1952 after falling off his horse.The British conquest of this island began in 1796 but the final capture of the entire country was on March two, 1815 when chieftains of the central province of Kandy signed a treaty with the British Government of King George III.Kandy was to have been the venue for the main independence golden jubilee celebrationswith Britain's Prince Charles as guest of honour, but the venue was switched to the capital after Tamil Tiger guerrillas bombed the famous Buddhist shrine there killing 16 last week.Within three years of the Kandyan chieftains surrendering to Britain, the Sinhalese rose in revolt against the British but the uprising was quelled mercilessly.Fifteen years later, in 1833, the British introduced a Legislative Council and an Executive Council which existed for 77 years.It was only in the early part of the 20th century that there were rumblings again, when local politicians began demanding a greater say in the Legislative Council rather than a total break from the British empire.M G Mendis, a Leftist leader at the time, recalled, "there was no militant freedom struggle here although we all supported what was taking place in India. Ours was more of a trade union movement."Mendis, 87, who was a key figure in the communist party, went into hiding for a month when the British were out to find him fororganising strikes against the war."When Russia entered the war, we supported the war and did not resort to any agitation," Mendis said at his home near Colombo.Mendis, who is now retired from active politics, says there were people in Ceylon who gave up western clothing and began wearing the national dress - a white sarong and white collarless shirt - as a sign of defiance.Most politicians still wear the collar-less shirt but with western trousers and the outfit has come to be known among cynics as the kapati coat or crooks' coat.
