A note on the rebellion
By D. C. Ranatunga
"The Rebellion (1818) in Ceylon having baffled the attempts of that Government to quell it, assistance was sent for. Our troops seldom see the enemy but are knocked down when passing through the country in all directions. Sometimes a few natives are captured, but are not generally hanged".
This handwritten note, sent by Brigadier Arthur Molesworth commanding troops to quell the 1818 Kandyan rebellion to Rev. Edward Lewton, East India College, Hertford, England, was among the exhibits at Lanka Philex 2003, the stamp exhibition held recently to mark the 25th anniversary of the Philatelic Society of Sri Lanka.
Brigd. Molesworth was present at the capture of Colombo by British troops in 1795 and had later been sent to India. The note dated 18 July 1818, had cost 8 shillings. To me, it was the most interesting and revealing exhibit at the exhibition. Interesting both for the contents and for the fact that it had been preserved for 185 years. Revealing because it was an admission by a top rank British army official of the tough time they had in trying to quell a rebellion by the native people.
The note prompted me to glance through the history books and recall what I had studied many decades ago. The prospect of a rebellion appeared as early as 1817; two years after the British captured the Kandyan Kingdom. There was popular discontent among the people. Moreover, Uva and Vellassa, the rather sparsely populated, remote areas in the kingdom had a distinct loyalty towards the old regime. The people there remained hostile to the new rulers. By mid-1817 a pretender appeared in the form of a Nayakkar prince posing off as a descendant of the deposed royal family. An ex-bhikkhu, Vilbave by name, posed himself as Doraisami. The Nayakkaars having been the last rulers of the kingdom were acceptable to the people - hence the pretender disguising himself as one belonging to that clan. Usually a pretender appeared away from the centre of power and made a place of religious worship his centre of operations. In this case, Vilbave chose Kataragama declaring that God Kataragama had chosen him to be king of Lanka. He thus became a rallying point for the discontented people.
The rebellion broke out in Uva in September 1817 at a time when the British troops were depleted. Being the rainy season, movement was also hampered. Just as much as the British were taken by surprise, the Kandyan chieftains too did not know about the uprising. As K. M. de Silva states in ‘The History of Ceylon-Volume 3', the chieftains saw an opportunity for a concerted attempt to drive the British out. "The first influential chief to defect was Keppetipola Disava of Uva who went over to the rebels in November 1917. He was Ehelepola's brother-in-law, and his family was connected with most of the important chiefs. His defection was ominous in two ways: it marked the beginning of an aristocratic commitment to the cause of the rebels, giving it a leadership and more precisely defined sense of purpose; and it was a sign that the rebellion could not be contained within the confines of Uva," de Silva explains.
As to the tactics adopted by the rebels, de Silva's comments tally with what Brig. Molesworth had said in his note. "The manner in which the rebellion spread caused difficulties for the British. It was spasmodic, irregular and local. The scanty British troops were spread too thin to cope successfully with these. The only answer to the guerrilla tactics adopted skilfully by the Kandyans was to starve the villages, which harboured guerrilla bands into submission, and to terrorize the population in the hope of cutting support for the guerrillas."
As to the degree of success of the rebels' efforts, de Silva says that if the Kandyans had been able to inflict any telling losses to the British, it might have been a different story. However, there were no such military victories and soon the tide started turning against them due to the superiority of British fire power. Things changed by mid-1818 with Uva and Vellassa being subdued and the revolt confining itself to Matale, Dumbara and Nuvarakalaviya. Gradually these areas were also brought under control.
"The great rebellion of 1817-18 was much the most formidable insurrection during the whole period of the British occupation in Ceylon. When after a long and ruthless campaign, the resistance of the Kandyans was broken at last, the British were effectively rulers of Ceylon, and for the first time in several centuries the island was under the control of a single power", de Silva concludes.
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