The politics of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) (South Asian political systems) PDF
Preview The politics of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) (South Asian political systems)
NUNC COGNOSCO EX PARTE THOMAS J. BATA LIBRARY TRENT UNIVERSITY Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation https://archive.org/details/politicsofceylonOOOOkear SOUTH ASIAN POLITICAL SYSTEMS General Editor RICHARD L. PARK The Politics of Nepal: Persistence and Change in an Asian Monarchy by Leo E. Rose and Margaret W. Fisher The Politics of Pakistan: A Constitutional Quest by Richard S. Wheeler The Politics of Afghanistan by Richard S. Newell The Politics of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) by Robert N. Kearney SOUTH ASIA The Politics of Ceylon [Sri Lanka] ROBERT N. KEARNEY Cornell University Press ITHACA AND LONDON ,KV 6 S3 1^13 Copyright © 1973 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information address Cornell University Press, 124 Roberts Place, Ithaca, New York 14850. First published 1973 by Cornell University Press. Published in the United Kingdom by Cornell University Press Ltd., 2-4 Brook Street, London W1Y 1AA. International Standard Book Number 0-8014-0798-2 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 73-8702 Printed in the United States of America by York Composition Co., Inc. Librarians: Library of Congress cataloging information appears on the last page of the book. Foreword Serious study of modem South Asia is a relatively recent de¬ velopment in the United States. It began shortly after World War II, and was made possible by opportunities for language study and research in the region. Scholarly work on current South Asian themes, however, rests upon older academic traditions that emphasized principally the philosophy, religion, and classical literature of these ancient civilizations. This series, “South Asian Political Systems,” is addressed to contemporary political prob¬ lems, but is presented in the context of institutions and value systems that were centuries in the making. Over the past quarter century, humanists and social scientists in Asia, Europe, the United States, and elsewhere throughout the world have worked together to study modern South Asian cul¬ tures. Their efforts have been encouraged by a recognition of the importance of the rapid rise of nationalism in Asia in the twen¬ tieth century, by the decline, hastened by the war, of Western imperial systems, and by the appearance of dozens of independent states since the founding of the United Nations. Scholars were made increasingly aware that the South Asian peoples were not anonymous masses or abstract representatives of distant tradi¬ tions. They were, like us, concerned with their own political affairs, with raising families, building houses, constructing in¬ dustries, educating the young, and creating better societies. They were nourished by their heritage, but they also struggled to devise political institutions, economic processes, and social organizations V 246558 vi Foreword that were responsive to modern needs. And their needs were, and continue to be, great. It was an awareness of these realities that encouraged private foundations and agencies of government to sponsor inten¬ sive field work in South Asia, including firsthand observation of day-to-day life and opportunities to discover and use rare source material. India has received the most attention, in part because of its size and intrinsic importance, in part because scholars have concentrated on teaching Indian languages, and research tends to be done where the languages are understood. More and more the other countries of South Asia—Pakistan, Nepal, Ceylon, Afghanis¬ tan, and Bangladesh—have begun to attract scholarly attention. Whereas in the late 1940’s one was hard pressed to find literature about the region, except in journalistic accounts or in British im¬ perial histories, in the 1970’s competent monographs and reliable periodicals are abundantly available. Today one can draw from an impressive bibliography on South Asia, including a commend¬ able list of political works. It remains true, however, that recent South Asian studies have been largely monographic—books that examine narrow themes in detail and that appeal to a small group of specialists who hap¬ pen to be concerned with these themes. There are few broad guides to the politics of the countries of South Asia. This series has been designed to fill part of the need. One of the problems in writing introductory works is that learning about a foreign culture is never a simple process. Ex¬ perience tells us that each political system is imbedded in a broader social system, which in turn has roots in a particular history and a unique set of values. Language transmits culture, so one way to approach an unfamiliar culture is through the close study of language and literature. Knowledge of history, or of the arts, or of social organization offers another path to understand¬ ing.
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