The recent hullabaloo faced by former president Ranil Wickremesinghe still continues to be a hot topic in many circles. Without focusing on the political content and hara-kiri he committed before the astute questions asked by Mehdi Hasan, a veteran journalist from Al Jazeera, what struck me the most was the former Sri Lankan Head of the State’s remarks on attending the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II amidst the financial crisis that Sri Lanka faced in 2022. When Hasan questioned the irrationality of decision of spending government money on attending a funeral , Ranil said “ I wanted to go,I had to come, I was the subject of Her Majesty Queen, the most favorite leader of Ceylon.
The statements made by the former Sri Lankan president provide a psychological analysis of his character, reflecting the resistance he embodies from the outset. In an era when Britain has diminished in stature, becoming more of a shadow under American influence, it is surprising that any leader within the Commonwealth would express such humility toward British authority. In South Asia, British influence has significantly waned due to India’s rising prominence. For instance, when Shashi Tharoor, the well-known Indian statesman, was invited to Oxford University for a debate on British colonial reparations, he boldly criticized British atrocities in front of the British elite at the Oxford Union, showing no signs of fear.
The meekness and loyalty to the crown is a mere bygone memory of the commonwealth as its member states possess the complete sovereign equality along Britain. Moreover, the countries that suffered under the British colonial atrocities have come to a juncture in openly condemning what their colonial masters did to them in the past. Against the backdrop of such a setting in a changing world, Ranil Wickremesinghe speaks about the diseased monarch with a sense of nostalgia saying that he was her subject and the queen was the favourite leader of this island. As an admirer of history, Mr . Wickremesinghe should know that the queen made only two visits to this country and her association with the people was a distant affair. In fact, Mr. Wickremasinghe cannot be reproached for making this remark as he represents a class of individuals exactly personified by Frantz Fanon in his “ Wretched of the Earth”. Algerian-born Marxist writer, Fanon devoted his lifetime to studying the underlying effects of French colonialism in North Africa and studied how colonial culture continued unharmed due to a class of products produced by colonialism itself. He meticulously examined how psychologically the class of individuals produced by the colonial masters become weak to embrace colonialism as a blessing. Fanon acknowledges this as “colonial alienation of the person “and it is by all means a psychological illness.
The generation that President Wickremesinghe represents, apotheosized the British empire as a benevolent empire involved in a civilizing mission. It was not by coincidence that the founder of UNP and the first Prime Minister of Ceylon sought British support in the advent of independence to secure the external affairs of the island. Without any substantive facts, he suffered from paranoia about India and persuaded the British to look after Ceylon’s defence. It was a typical example proving the logic of Fanon on how the colonial mind functions. At the culmination of any colonial rule that lasted for years, the set of natives emanating from it tended to believe that they could not live without the protection of the colonial masters. In a most evasive manner, the British produced a set of classes in the empire and Ceylon was the perfect example of the colonial triumph of transforming the society into a sheer mumbo jumbo by destroying the consciousness as a whole. Dharmapala referred to these newly emerged colonized natives as “ kalu suddas “ . Macaulay’s tradition of public school systems in Ceylon such as Royal, S.Thomas’ and Trinity were responsible for producing the national leaders of this country for several decades. Perhaps, Mr. Wickremesinghe represents the very last of that caliber, which has become a rarer breed in new Sri Lanka.
When Mr. Wickremasinghe justified his infatuation with British rule, Mehdi Hassan could have questioned why he did not attend the funeral of the King of Thailand in 2016. Unlike the British queen, who made little effort for the welfare of Sri Lankans, the Thai king dedicated his wealth to the preservation of Buddhism, serving as a royal patron of the Siam chapter in Sri Lanka. Both countries share an ethos that nurtures Buddhism. However, the government in power in Sri Lanka, where Mr. Wickremesinghe served as Premier, did not participate in the royal funeral in Thailand in 2016. Ironically, when the country was debt-ridden in 2022, facing power cuts and fuel shortages, Mr. Wickremasinghe prioritized attending the royal funeral in the UK, revealing a deeper colonial mentality. On the surface, it is understandable that Mr. Wickremesinghe harbors such a reverent attitude toward the British. This seems to be a pathological characteristic unique to the United National Party from its inception. Its leaders have historically admired the British. For instance, Dudley Senanayake sought refuge on a British warship during the Hartal of 1953, while JR Jayawardene, Mr. Wickremesinghe’s uncle, invoked the validity of the British-Ceylon defense pact before the rise of the Tamil guerrilla insurgency in the 1980s. R. Premadasa was a notable exception to this mentality; he audaciously expelled a British diplomat from Sri Lanka after the diplomat made unnecessary remarks about the country’s internal politics.
In summary, Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe’s nostalgia for British royalty can be effectively understood through the lens of post-colonial theorists like Frantz Fanon. The psychoanalysis of leaders who were raised in an environment where colonialism was viewed as a blessing reveals various aspects of the political culture that developed during the post-independence era.
