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Based on your blog, you have Sri Lankan ancestry. From the failed Dutch attempts at colonisation. That came after the failed Portugese attempts. Did British co

Based on your blog, you have Sri Lankan ancestry. From the failed Dutch attempts at colonisation. That came after the failed Portugese attempts. Did British colonisation really have significant local support from the Sinhalese? Because I feel like the fact that there were two Kandyan wars before Britain managed to take control of Sri Lanka is a strong argument against that. And if the British colonisation had so much local support, then why did they import Tamils, surely the Sinhalese were eager to work for them? Colonisers have always played off groups/tribes/petty kingdoms against each other to gain a foothold. Substantial support? Citation needed, seriously. And as for India not being held by arms alone, true, it was also held by alliances with petty kingdoms and diplomats playing them off against each other. As well as a bunch of armed soldiers invading when push came to shove. This is exactly how it played out in Ireland too. Where my family is from - on the coloniser side. But then India wasn't a coherent polity at the time - which is the point I made in a previous paragraph about how colonisers rolled.

graemep 2y ago
I also have Indian ancestry (and Dutch and Portuguese) and many other things. With regard to India, and to some extent Sri Lanka, the worst lower castes had to fear from empires was that one oppressor would be replaced with another. They also got the opportunity to move and start elsewhere (as my fisher caste ancestors did, very successfully) where prejudices were weaker. I would turn your question about Tamil labour in Sri Lanka around - why were they willing to leave their homes and go to another country to work for the British? I did not say there everyone supported British rule, I said a large enough group did to make it viable. Minorities and oppressed groups were probably more likely to do so. According to the books I have read on colonial Sri Lanka there was definitely support. It is also the only explanation of how a tiny number of British people could run the country (just as in India). Sometimes you would have one British civil servant in charge of a district, and the only British person in that district. I recently read Leonard Woolf's biography (the second volume) and it is very illuminating on how things did work - and this is a work of a man who came to oppose the imperial project, so not biased in favour of it.

graemep 2y ago

I also have Indian ancestry (and Dutch and Portuguese) and many other things. With regard to India, and to some extent Sri Lanka, the worst lower castes had to fear from empires was that one oppressor would be replaced with another. They also got the opportunity to move and start elsewhere (as my fisher caste ancestors did, very successfully) where prejudices were weaker. I would turn your question about Tamil labour in Sri Lanka around - why were they willing to leave their homes and go to another country to work for the British? I did not say there everyone supported British rule, I said a large enough group did to make it viable. Minorities and oppressed groups were probably more likely to do so. According to the books I have read on colonial Sri Lanka there was definitely support. It is also the only explanation of how a tiny number of British people could run the country (just as in India). Sometimes you would have one British civil servant in charge of a district, and the only British person in that district. I recently read Leonard Woolf's biography (the second volume) and it is very illuminating on how things did work - and this is a work of a man who came to oppose the imperial project, so not biased in favour of it.