The peace process in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Civil society in Sri Lanka has, to a large extent, been shaped by British colonial rule and the establishment of the modern, democratic state in the first half of the 20th century. In pre-colonial times, grass roots communities organised around the need for collective work in temples and for irrigation. A notion of pre-colonial cooperation and harmony and an ideal traditional Buddhist society, which was lost due to colonialism and modernisation and should be revived, today forms part of the Sinhalese nationalist discourse and of the mobilisation rationale of the large community development organisation Sarvodaya (see Gombrich & Obeysekere, 1988; Brow, 1990).

Citation

Bullion, A. (2008), "The peace process in Sri Lanka", Chatterji, M. and Jain, B.M. (Ed.) Conflict and Peace in South Asia (Contributions to Conflict Management, Peace Economics and Development, Vol. 5), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 149-169. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1572-8323(08)05010-8