ISAS Insights

Sri Lanka, earlier called Ceylon, has been part and parcel of the South Asian sub-continental ethos for thousands of years. It dates back to the epic Ramayana when it was said to be the Kingdom of Ravana who was alleged to have been the abductor of the saintly Sita, the wife of the god-king Rama (Revisionist history now tends to take a more benign view of the Lankan monarch, doubtless coloured somewhat by contemporary religious-ethnic politics). Among the Europeans, the Portuguese were the first to arrive on the Lankan shores, founding Colombo in 1517. The Sinhalese soon moved their capital to the more secure Kandy. Their King in 1638 invited in the Dutch to supplant the Portuguese. This the Dutch accomplished. They also founded the 'Dutch East India Company', mostly manned by their legacy of the mixed race they left behind, the Eurasian Burghers. Apprehensive during the French control of the Netherlands at the time of the Napoleonic Wars, and in line with a burgeoning interest in sub-continental India, the British moved in. In 1803 they occupied Kandy, and snuffed out Lankan independence.