Amiable Academic Reciprocities: Peebles & Roberts, 1970

Michael Roberts

The academic world and its scholarship is marked by cooperative work as well as animosities and rivalry – whether personal or based on political affiliations. The Sri Lankan scenario was/is no different. As I participated in this environment as a lecturer in History at Peradeniya University,[1] I was extremely fortunate in: (A) benefitting from a salubrious physical setting and a favourable arrangement of buildings and a super library; and (B) a bunch of dons who were as inspiring as amiable –so that the “Senior Common Room’ in the Faculty of Arts was not only a spot for invigorating tea, but also a site for the exchange of ideas.

The initiation of the Ceylon Studies Seminar in 1968 with the premises of the Sociology Department headed by Professor Gananath Obeyesekera providing an inspiring locale for lively discussions thereafter proved to be icing on this academic cake. The Ceylon Studies Seminar can be marked as an activity that promoted lively debate on numerous topics for over two decades.[2] This institution can, now, be extolled as a story of academia  in pursuit of knowledge via cooperation and debate – debate that was often rooted in fundamentally hostile political positions.

Scholars from abroad (a few attached to Peradeniya University– for e.g. Professor Rainer Schickele) were part of this circle of intellectual activity’. Among those who attended some of the seminars in 1969/70 was a young American postgraduate scholar in History, Patrick Peebles. As our friendship flowered and Peebles moved to Britain to research the British documents pertaining to his topic, we seem to have exchanged letters. I have no copies of my mail; but chanced upon two letters sent to me by Patrick in my collection of odds & ends. One is handwritten and dated 16 May 1970 and the second is a typewritten airletter dated 18 May 1970.

I now reproduce them here to indicate to those unfamiliar with academia and the tasks/foibles of research the mundane steps that are part of the daily grind. One of the tangents within this tangent is the reference by Peebles to his interaction with two Sri Lankan postgrad students in History who were in London delving into its documentary material: namely, PVJ Jayasekera and PPG Sarath.

It is perhaps a reflection on life’s ‘toll’ that Sarath moved to Chicago in pursuit of his studies and then disappeared from the world of academia; whereas Jayasekera returned to Sri Lanka, engaged in local political debates and (eventually) presented his thesis work in 2017 in a book under the Yapa bookshop imprint that is entitled  Confrontations with Colonialism: Resistance, Revivalism and Reform under British Rule in Sri Lanka 1796- 1920 (2018).[3]

At some point later (early 1980s?) Peebles took umbrage about some action on my part and our exchanges ceased thereafter.[4] As my own research-endeavours focused increasingly on the JVP uprising and on the contemporary ethnic conflict between the island’s two principal ‘races’, I did not keep track of Peebles’ continuing work on Sri Lanka.

This item is one step in the effort to make up for this deficiency – following the presentation within my website of his 1990 article on “Colonization and Ethnic Conflict in the Dry Zone of Sri Lanka” (an essay that I was not aware of till this month).[5]

Nadeeka Pathuwaaratchchi in Colombo has typed the handwritten letters at my request; and I will follow this up with other items displaying Patrick’s CV and his career path as conveyed in Wikipedia and such sites.

Peebles- Roberts, 16 May 1970

43 Amhurst Park, London,

16 May 1970

Dear Michael

I have started several letters to you but haven’t finished one yet. I hope I complete this one. I am working my way around the major collections in London, and expect to finish up about June 20. I have not been to either Oxford or Cambridge, but we will visit each at least. We have met many of the Ceylonese scholars here; strangely I have had more communication with Ceylonese scholars in London than in Colombo. I meet Jayasekera and P. P. G. Sanath family often.

My research has progressed fairly well. I think I will be looking at the early 19^th Century mudaliyars not as Sinhalese elites but as caste elites. That is I see the ‘Kara-Goi’ contest not as a continuation of an earlier rivalry — or the ‘rise’ of the non-Goyigamas — but as a new conflict brought about by the 19^th century integration of Sinhalese society. I think there is at least as much evidence for this as there is for the argument of an underlying integration of Sinhalese society before 1800. The time limits of my thesis are pretty vogue, but I don’t think I’ll cover much past Gordon’s government, This means omitting some of the data collected about arrack renting and the mudaliyar system after 1890. This I think is right, because they belong more properly with excise and headman reforms of the early twentieth century, and with the temperance movement.

I have been pleased with the amount of data I have found on arrack and toll rents in CO54 The best data come from reports of GA’s to the Colonial Secretary. This renews my belief that Ceylonese scholars should use the CNA [Ceylon National Archives] more. (I think you should work out an arrangement where doctoral students would be allowed to import a car and have tutoring in Oxford English if they remain in Ceylon – that would make it unnecessary for most Ph. Ds to ever leave the island.) I am listing the following in case you want to look them up. In addition there is one report that I have not seen – GAWP to Col. Sect 30 Sept 1840 and 1 Oct 1840 on arrears of revenue, renters in arrears in 1818 and 1830, and refers to other correspondence. If you look at this, could you send me the names of the —arrack renters and the rents?

GAWP to C. S.   “     to    “	3 Dec 66 and 8 June 67 –   27 Jan 44	Fraud charges –vs on HettiaKandege Bastian Fernando Petitions from toll Renters
GACP to C. S .  618 66	24 Dec 70 17 Feb 71	Arrears of Lindamulage Bastian Silva Renter of Yatinuwara and Udunuwara 1868-69
GACP to C. S.   C. S. to GACP	No 476    3 Sept 49 –           6 Oct  49 No 476  14 Sept 49	Details of the 1848-49 rent and their losses in the Matale riot – held by Susew Soysa and partners

There is one interesting case I would like to know more about – although it is not directly relevant to my thesis. Here is the changes of bribe taking and fraud against Philip Wodehouse. It is discussed in CO 54/261 Torrington to Grey (Conf.) 11 December 49, but the matter was chopped abruptly. I suspect Wodehouse’s influence squelched the affair. Wodehouse apparently gave his side in a letter to the Sect. of State 21 Feb 1850 – but this is gone, probably for the same reason. The renter involved was Telge David Peiris, and some of the correspondence is in GAWP to C. S. 4 April 49; and nos 223, 279, 344 3 June, 20 June, – 2 Sept 1852

Finally there is a report on ——– renting by the Auditor General (John Douglas) to C. S. no 377 of 24 Sept 1870.

I have been reading the Stanmore Papers in the British Museum, along with other material on Gordon’s term. His diaries for most of the period are missing and his only correspondence with Ceylonese is that with Attorney General Samuel Grenier. Sinhalese social organization, was not, as I had hoped, a matter of interest to him – once he decided that the Goyigama were the only respectable caste, he doesn’t seem to have investigated further. His interests in Ceylon were irrigation, antiquities and Buddhism. Beyond that he was pre-occupied with English politics and his past in Fiji.

Has anyone looked quantitatively at the distribution of landowning in Ceylon? I heard that Kumari Goonewardene [sic] was working on it, but never got to talk to her. I have the feeling that there were no large Sinhalese landowners before the nineteenth century, even among the mudaliyars. Do you have any data? In any case, those who held land under the Dutch must have increased their holdings many times over during the nineteenth century.

One surprise so far: the arrack and paddy renters of the early British period were Mudaliyars – the collectors awarded them the rents on the grounds that they were ‘respectable’ and ‘propertied’ – and possibly because they identified the mudaliyars with South Indian village headmen and zamindars. This also might mean that the mudaliyars were more astute at bribery than their rivals.

I’ll close for now. ——– love to Shona and the girls.

Pat

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Peebles- Roberts, 18 May 1970

May 18 1970

Dear Michael,

I just realized that I did not ask you the most important question of all in my letter: did you get the grant to come to Chicago? If you do come, I don ‘t think you will have to worry too much about materials on Ceylon. Between the data you have already collected and the time you will be spending on theory and methodology, you will be very busy. Most of the reference works will be available on inter-library loan, except for the large series (blue books, Fergusons Directories etc.).

I don’t remember if I mentioned in my letter that I have become interested in the case of the dismissal of Juanis de Silva, an honorary Mudaliyar and secretary of the Colombo Road Committee, who was sacrificed in Gordon’s attempt to prosecute his own crown counsels (Morgan and Ferdinandes) for bribery. The case illustrates a number of issues: Caste– Silva was a Karava and would not have been dismissed if he were a Goyigama; limits of government authority– Gordon was unable to reform the bar; and colonial control over local affairs– Gordon nearly resigned over the incident. I am going to write to M. G. Cooray describing the affair in hopes that he takes an interest in the history of the judicial process, or of the Attorney-General’s department, or even of Gordon’s term as a thesis topic.

It is hard to avoid the feeling that a lot of what I am looking into here has been covered in Ananda Wickremeratne’s thesis– but if he does not want us to see it, all of us will have to proceed as if it does not exist. I probably will write him this week with some questions about his work.

I have spent less time looking at newspapers than I thought I would. What I have seen so far has 1ittle information about anything not directly connected with the English, and when it does it takes a condescending, patronizing tone– e. g. the Observer pleading for justice for the non-Goyigamas. I have not gone through many newspapers yet, so I may be wrong in these first impressions.

Has Yasmine Gooneratne written anything on Mụdaliyars yet? I imagine a lot of information on nineteenth century elites will be forthcoming in the next few years in response to your work and hers (if she publishes it). I heard a lot of talk about a rebuttal to your rise of the Karava—I hope someone does start a dialogue. Does anyone here have a copy of the paper? Jayasekera would like to see it and I do not have mine here.

Write if you get a chance.

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REFERENCES

Jayasekera’s Study of British Colonialism in Ceylon reviewed

FOOTNOTES

[1] I was a temporary Assistant Lecturer initially in late 1960 at Peradeniya University and then made permanent; and returned as an Assistant Lecturer in early 1966 after completing my doctoral work. I taught in the History Department from then till mid 1975 when I secured a Humboldt Fellowship to Heidelberg Universitat. It was while I was in Heidelberg that I secured a job in the Dept of Anthropology at Adelaide University in 1977 because of my friendship with its foundation Professor, viz. Bruce Kapferer — a friendship forged in Sri Lanka in the early 1970s because of overlapping research interests and his focus on Karava Sinhala entrepreneurs from the locality of Galle – my hometown.

[2] Visit these TPS sites for details:…. https://thuppahis.com/2018/10/02/nationalist-studies-and-the-ceylon-studies-seminar-at-peradeniya-1968-1970s/ ……………………………………&  https://thuppahi.wordpress.com/?p=30414&preview=true

[3] As far as I am aware, there has been only one volume. I do not know if this is a verbatim reproduction of his original dissertation or a re-worked and updated version.

[4]  My memory is deficient on this issue.

[5]  See …. https://thuppahis.com/2024/04/12/colonization-and-ethnic-conflict-in-the-dry-zone-of-sri-lanka-article-in/#more-80702

 ALSO NOTE

• https://library.ndsu.edu/AS2.pub/repositories/3/archival_objects/81951
• https://thuppahis.com/2018/10/02/nationalist-studies-and-the-ceylon-studies-seminar-at-peradeniya-1968-1970s/