Urban Studies, Vol. 39, No. 9, 1703–1721, 2002

Indigenising the Colonial City: Late 19th-centuryColombo and its Landscape

Nihal Perera

[Paper � rst received, January 2002; in � nal form, March 2002]

Summary. This paper is concerned with the indigenisation of Colombo and the transformationof the city from an exclusive domain of colonial power to a milieu which supported Ceylonesesocial and cultural practices. It investigates the shifting indigenous response to the colonisationof Colombo, from challenging to indigenising the city between the 1860s and the 1880s. The paperapproaches indigenisation from a ‘reverse-Orientalist’ perspective that focuses on the landscapeproduced by the emergence of national elite, the revival of Buddhism and processes of naturalis-ation and migration. It demonstrates that indigenisation was integral to colonialism, whichsimultaneously instigated the Westernisation of subjects and the indigenisation of social andspatial structures. The resulting multilayered landscape, negotiated between imposing colonialstructures and Ceylonese cultural practices, was characterised by irony, mimicry, ambivalence,liminality and hybridity.

R. L. Brohier (1984/2000, p. 2) asserts that“Colombo is a city forced on the peoples ofCeylon in spite of themselves. It was never acreation of their own choice or making”.First established as a Portuguese outpost inthe early 16th century, colonial Colombo wasgoverned by the Portuguese (1518–1656),the Dutch (1656–1796) and the British(1796–1948). As has been argued elsewhere(Perera, 1998), modern Colombo is a foreignimplant with neither a hinterland that pro-duced it nor a history of ‘organic develop-ment’ related to Lanka. The existence andmeaning of colonial Colombo therefore hasintimately depended on European metropo-lises. Yet it was this city which became thecapital of independent Ceylon (Sri Lankasince 1972). The larger concern of this studyis how colonial Colombo transformed from

an exclusive domain of colonial power to aSri Lankan milieu which has supported Cey-lonese social and cultural practices—a pro-cess here termed ‘indigenising the city’.1

Colonial Colombo was a divided city inwhich the former inhabitants were mar-ginalised. In order to create their own city inwhat had been a busy ‘sea junction’ in theIndian Ocean trade network, the Portuguesedivided Colombo along racial lines. Mar-ginalising its Muslim traders and indigenousinhabitants, the Portuguese � rst established awhite, male Christian city.2 Despite thechanges in its size and shape, for three and ahalf centuries until the 1860s, the fort areaserved as the exclusive locus of politicalpower with no comparable social and cul-tural institutions outside it. During this pe-riod, the colonial authorities continually

Nihal Perera is in the Department of Urban Planning , Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana 47306, USA. Fax: 765 285 2648.E-mail: nperera@bsu.edu .

0042-0980 Print/1360-063X On-line/02/091703-19 Ó 2002 The Editors of Urban StudiesDOI: 10.1080/0042098022015173 6

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pushed the Ceylonese out of the city. Divid-ing the city along ethnic lines and transform-ing the fort into their own ethnic enclave, theBritish also kept the descendants of theDutch and the Portuguese in marginal posi-tions. The latter formed a community in thearea immediately outside the fort, the Pettah,where 500 families claiming Portuguese orDutch ancestry lived in the early 19th cen-tury (Brohier, 1984/2000). This pushed the‘native city’ further away. Its address, ‘OuterPettah’—outside the fort—clearly indicatesthat, for the colonial community, the ‘native’area was well outside the city (for placesdiscussed in this paper, see Figure 1).

At the early stages of colonialism, mostLankans refused unfamiliar and disorientingcolonial social structures with a view to re-turning to earlier ways of life. The termsLanka and Lankan are employed strategicallyhere to refer loosely to the island and itsindigenous societies prior to European colon-isation as well as to provide agency to a ‘notfully colonised’ indigenous subject. AsFrantz Fanon (1968) points out, where con-frontation with the colonial order at � rstdisoriented the native, the colonial systemsubsequently became a world of which thenative is envious. This transition from hostil-ity to envy indicates that colonial culture hadbecome hegemonic. At the same time, how-ever, hegemonic colonial culture laid thefoundation for the process of indigenising thecolonial city.

Social space is central to both colonialismand indigenisation. Colonial authorities couldnot govern without incorporating a segmentof the colonised population into the rulingstructures of power, and space was strategicin this regard (Yeoh, 1996). David Harvey(1990b, p. 419) argues that “the assignmentof place within a socio-spatial structure indi-cates distinctive roles, capacities for action,and access to power within the social order”.Such spatial assignment and control are evi-denced in the moulding of the colonisedbody with regard to race, class, gender andother socially constructed categories, but it isalso evidenced in the control over the spaceoccupied by this body, and the way in which

the body—space relationship facilitates thesocial order. Drawing on Michel Foucault,Harvey (1989/1990a, p. 8) points out that“the reorganization of space is always a reor-ganization of the framework through whichsocial power is expressed”.

A key variable in such analyses of space issocial power: the capacity of some subjectsto transform activities, to intervene in a givensituation in order to alter it, or to impose thewill on some subjects by the potential oractual use of violence (Giddens, 1987;Castells, 1989). Yet social power does not gouncontested. Indigenisation is simultaneouslya form of assimilation and resistance: a wayof assuming a colonial subject positionthrough the creation of new and hybridisedcultural practices and spaces. Landscape isintegral to this process. As James Duncan(1989) has argued, landscapes are culturallyproduced models of how the environmentshould look, or what it has transformed intoas people shape them physically or symboli-cally reinterpret them. This paper investi-gates the relevance of these ideas toColombo’s landscape of indigenisation.

The indigenisation of Colombo’s colonialsocial and spatial structures took placethrough the adaptation of its subjects whoconformed to norms and familiarised formswithin the colonial system. Imagination iscentral to this adaptation as indigenes couldonly adapt daily practices within their ownperception of colonial society. As the col-onial order of things is at � rst unfamiliar, theadaptation within such order requires indige-nes to familiarise particular colonial subjectpositions and spaces. Such familiarisationbegins with perceptual frameworks and ‘lan-guages’ which, when employed, essentiallyreinterpret these structures. Furthermore,these frameworks and languages would alsobe modi� ed in this complex and interactiveprocess of indigenisation. Although the indi-genisation of various structures does notnecessarily revamp the entire colonial sys-tem, the reinterpretation of subject positionsprovides new meanings for colonial socialand spatial structures, allowing them to bereappropriated and reinscribed by the indige-

INDIGENISING THE COLONIAL CITY 1705

Figure 1. Colombo: places referred to in the text. Sources: Survey Department, Sri Lanka; Roberts et al.(1989).

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nes. In other words, subjectivity itself pro-vides an opportunity to reinterpret the verysame structures from within.3

The process of indigenisation thereforeconstitutes the transformation of colonial in-stitutions and spaces, particularly of theirmeanings and representations and of thepower relations constituted as coloniser—colonised. Indigenisation can thus be viewedas resistance to colonialism. Despite the con-stitutive role played by social space in theformation and transformation of society andsubjectivity, society and space do not changeas a single monolithic entity; nor do theychange in tandem, at the same rate and in thesame ways. Society and space operate to-gether: they in� uence and affect each other,but one does not determine the other.4

Indigenisation and colonisation are simul-taneously complicit and con� ictual: theseprocesses are neither separate nor direct op-posites—indigenisation does not begin wherecolonisation ends. Adaptation within colonialsocial and spatial structures has been a basicLankan response to colonialism. From thebeginning of colonial rule in the early 16thcentury, under the Portuguese and the Dutch,Lankans served in colonial military and ad-ministrative capacities. This was the princi-pal way in which the Ceylonese advancedtheir political and economic positions withincolonial society. Yet indigenisation at vari-ous stages of colonialism, particularly at theearly stages of colonialism and immediatelybefore independence, varied radically. Thefocus of this paper is on the turning-point ofthis trajectory: the shifting of the principalLankan response to colonial Colombo fromchallenging to indigenising the city in thelate 19th century.

As British colonisation reached its peakbetween the 1860s and the 1880s, the col-onial community and authorities becamecomfortable in Colombo. By the 1860s, theBritish had not only created a plantationeconomy and incorporated the colony intothe larger world economy, but had also es-tablished a high degree of hegemony for theirworld-views in Ceylon (Perera, 1998). Afterkeeping the natives out for seven decades,

the British began to expand their domain.This is apparent in the demolition offorti� cations in 1869 and the construction ofa residential suburb for the colonial com-munity in Cinnamon Gardens (about 2 milesoutside the fort). Concurrently, the Britishauthorities also expanded the of� cialboundary of Colombo and established a mu-nicipal council to administer the city.According to K. M. de Silva (1997), thetraditional ‘nationalism’ guided by theKandy-based aristocratic leadership hadceased to be a serious threat to the stability ofBritish rule by the 1870s.

Concurrently, the process of indigenisationhad become more voluntary and highly vis-ible and had moved from the margins to themainstream of society. The Ceylonese hadbecome familiar with the colonial system,� nding ways to obtain power within politicaland economic structures. Located in theheartland of the island, Kandy was the lastkingdom to fall to the British in 1815. By the1880s, the Colombo—Kandy con� ict (inwhich Kandy challenged Colombo’s auth-ority) had shifted to Colombo, transformingthe city into the principal site of negotiationand contest. If the Lankans were attemptingto escape colonialism until the 1850s, fromthe 1860s they were increasingly focusing onappropriating colonial structures, spaces andsymbols and making a livelihood or strength-ening their positions within the colonial or-der. The 1920s and 1930s saw the rise ofmore direct challenges to colonialism. These,however, fall outside the purview of thispaper.

The principal thrust of studies in colonialurbanism and architecture is on the immensein� uence of colonialism on the subjects.Scholars have strongly argued about the con-tinued impact of colonialism even after inde-pendence. For most, colonialism peaked inthe early 20th century (Christopher, 1988).This study does not share this view. As willbe shown, although the impact of colonialismhas continued beyond independence, the in-digenisation of colonial society and spacetransformed the trajectory of colonialism inthe late 19th century.

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In the literature on colonial urbanism andarchitecture, however, the contested aspectsof social space are largely ignored and pro-cesses of indigenisation are conspicuouslyabsent.5 Building on early work which en-gages in social and cultural analysis (forexample, Red� eld and Singer, 1954; McGee,1971) and approaching colonial urbanismfrom a variety of theoretical perspectives,scholars have begun to expose the politicaland social power involved in the historicalconstruction of social space and the connec-tions between colonial policies and spatialsubjectivity (King, 1976, 1990; Ross andTelkamp, 1985; Saueressig-Schreuder, 1986;Metcalf, 1989; Rabinow, 1989; Mitchell,1991; Wright, 1991; Al-Sayyad, 1992;Crinson, 1996; Home, 1997). Despite theavailability of a rich body of urban-political-economy-based work, studies in both col-onial and post-colonial urbanism stillapproach the subject from a broad but Euro-American vantage-point, rarely providingagency to indigenous populations. Yeoh(1996) points out that these studies havelargely focused on the uncontestedsupremacy of European colonisers, whileSpivak (1999) points to the Eurocentrism ofassuming that imperialism began in Europe.

Anthony King (1992) aptly argues that thisfocus on European colonialism, which occu-pies the historical space of those places andpeople of which the literature speaks, hasmarginalised and silenced resistant and ver-nacular voices. What these studies fail toconsider is that, to quote Arjun Appadurai ina different context,

at least as rapidly as forces from variousmetropolises are brought into new soci-eties they tend to become indigenised inone or another way (Appadurai, 1996/1998, p. 32).

Maintaining the signi� cance of investigatingthe indigenous institutions and their physical-spatial expressions, King (1976) also high-lights the need to develop an acquaintancewith the indigenous language and culture forsuch analysis.

Indigenous responses to colonialism—and

post-colonial developments which may bemoving away from the colonial past—cannotbe effectively identi� ed or addressed withoutshifting the vantage-point of inquiry fromphysical and intellectual stand-points to anindigenous realm that provides for agency.Yeoh and Kong (1994) emphasise that thecolonial landscape, which is a contested ter-rain, does not simply articulate the ideologi-cal intent of the powerful who plan andshape the landscape in particular ways. Italso re� ects the everyday meanings implicitin the daily routines of ordinary people. An-thony Giddens (1987, p. 11) highlights “thecapability even of the most dependent, weakand the most oppressed … to carve outspheres of autonomy of their own”. As op-posed to histories of colonial urbanism whichhave led scholars to analyse imperial andcolonial power, new perspectives could re-veal cultural spaces within which new socialspaces and landscapes were indigenised.

The deconstruction and the decentring ofcolonial discourses have been effectivelycarried out by scholars of subaltern (post-colonial) studies. Yet this paradigm has notyet had much to say about social space andurbanism. Shifting the vantage-point in dif-ferent ways and questioning ‘post-colonial’and ‘nationalist’ constructions of social spaceat different scales, the work of Yeoh andKong (1994), Yeoh (1996), Nalbantoglu andWong (1997), Kusno (2000) and myself(Perera, 1998) has laid a foundation for thestudy of post-colonial urbanism from a ‘sub-altern’ perspective. By approaching the issueof indigenisation as a particular contestationof colonial society and space, and providingagency to indigenous populations, this paperhopes to contribute to these perspectives.

This paper is also concerned with thepower of subordinates to effect changes inColombo’s social space and the impact thatindigenous consciousness, intentionality, ev-eryday practices and collective action hashad on shaping colonial social space and thecity’s landscape (Smith and Tardanico, 1987/1989). With regard to ‘weapons of the weak’,James Scott (1985) stresses that the relativelypowerless typically avoid direct symbolic

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confrontation with authorities, but mostly useordinary weapons such as foot-dragging andfalse compliance which require little or noco-ordination or planning and often representa form of individual self-help. Indigenisationwas, therefore, not a goal of any struggle,like national independence, but a combinedeffect of a variety of local responses tocolonialism.

This paper approaches indigenisation froma perspective of ‘reverse-Orientalism’ (Said,1978) instead of the construction of Britishknowledge of the Ceylonese. It focuses onthe types of knowledge that the Ceylonesedeveloped about the colonial society, thetypes of space they carved out for themselvesand how the landscape of Colombo wastransformed with their entry into the city. Inmapping out the landscape of indigenisationof Colombo, the paper investigates threekinds of response to colonial social and spa-tial structures which transformed indigenisa-tion from a marginal to a mainstream processbetween the 1860s and the 1880s. Theseresponses were variously deployed by emula-tors of British colonial models, by resistancemovements and by marginal groups. In par-ticular, the paper focuses on the emergenceof a national elite, the revival of Buddhismand the demographic changes caused by theresidents and migrants.

The Rise of a Ceylonese Elite

While the Kandyan aristocracy was still re-sisting colonialism and defending their his-torical socio-political system in the early19th century, the Low Country which hadbeen colonised for over three centuries sawthe emergence of an elite who rode the tideof colonialism imagining a (post)-colonialfuture. The British subjugation of Kandy fa-voured the Low Country and some stood upto the occasion, advancing themselves to theposition of a Ceylonese elite. They werelargely from the three main non-Goyigamacastes: Karava, Durava and Salagama (KSD),where Goyigama is viewed as the uppercaste. The Ceylonese elite, the owners ofplantations and mines, political leaders and

administrators, belonging to both Low Coun-try Sinhalese and Colombo-based Tamilcommunities, had become a signi� cantagency within the colonial system by the1860s. The indigenisation of colonial econ-omic, political and administrative structuresand spaces began to be prominent in the nexttwo decades. The rebellion of 1848 was thecrucial turning-point ; it was both the lastmajor political insurrection in Kandy and theinstance of the � rst signi� cant urban move-ment in Colombo which tested the ideas ofEuropean radicalism in Ceylon (de Silva,1997). The rise of a Low Country elite iswell addressed by Michael Roberts (1982),Patrick Peebles (1995) and Kumari Jayawar-dena (2000) and will not be elaborated here,where the focus is on the indigenisation ofColombo and its landscape.

By the 1880s, the economic elite had notonly penetrated into a larger plantation econ-omy dominated by the British, but had alsocreated a signi� cant share for themselveswithin it. According to Roberts (1982, 1997),the foundation for the emergence of a Karavaelite was laid earlier during Portuguese andDutch times, when the primary capital wasgenerated that was later invested in the early19th century. In addition to the advantage theLow Country had due to its commercialisa-tion, monetisation, Westernisation and Chris-tianisation for almost three centuries beforethe fall of Kandy, the British suspicion of theKandyan aristocratic families privileged theemerging elite of the Low Country (Roberts,1982). By the 1880s, the Low Country elitehad surpassed the Kandyan aristocrats withregard to their social position. The LowCountry ‘entrepreneurs’ swarmed over theKandyan districts as labourers, businessmenand teachers (Roberts, 1982). Moreover, theLow Country people in general had themeans to support the much-needed Westerneducation and Westernisation, and theTamils were also outpaced by the Karavaswith respect to the education of women(Roberts, 1982).

As the colony transformed from a militaryoutpost to a plantation economy in the mid19th century (Perera, 1998; Bandarage,

INDIGENISING THE COLONIAL CITY 1709

1983), the Ceylonese administrators, whoserved in the bottom layers of the colonialadministration, advanced themselves into anew elite. This occurred within a contextwhere the role of traditional administratorswas becoming less important than attributesof education, pro� ciency in English,lifestyle, profession and landholding(Peebles, 1995). In the course of the 19thcentury, the outlook of the administrativeelite changed from ‘barefoot chieftains’ incoats patterned after 17th-century Portugueseuniforms to Victorian lawyers with Oxbridgedegrees and fashionable suits. At the topof the hierarchy, the Mudliars added shoesand stockings, but continued to wearcoats (Peebles, 1995). English education dif-ferentiated the elite from the rest. Highereducation not only added an element ofachievement, particularly useful within a sys-tem based on merit as opposed to inherit-ance, but also generated an enthusiasm forhigher education among the rest of thesociety (Peebles, 1995).

Concurrently, the political elite—knownas the constitutionalists—were indigenisingthe colonial political system. Their maingoal was to progress within the politicalsystem, but not radically to change it.Brought up within the colonial system, theydepended on it for their identity. Hence, theCeylonese elite—at large—did not questionthe appropriateness of the centrality ofColombo within Ceylon or the colonial land-scape of the city. Yet the elite familiarisationwithin the colonial system was ambivalent;the elite were almost British, but not quite,and their formation was both incompleteand virtual. Along with the emulation ofBritish colonial models, in effect, the elitewere appropriating colonial structures,spaces and symbols, and were also challeng-ing the larger system within which they weresubjects.

Although the economic elite were not at-tempting to transform the familiar colonialenvironment in Colombo, their adaptation ofthat environment caused substantial changesin it. They were penetrating into the Fort andPettah areas which had been exclusively Eu-

ropean domains. According to H. A. J. Hulu-galle (1965), apart from jewellers, there werefew Ceylonese business premises in the Fortincluding C. Matthew & Co. ship-handlersand stevedores. Among the several Cey-lonese business houses in the Pettah were H.Don Carolis & Sons (founded in 1860), N. S.Fernando (1875), Don Davit & Sons (1875),A. S. F. Wijegoonaratna (1876), W. D. Car-olis (1879), S. L. Naina Marrikar (1888) andArthur J. Fernando & Co. (1891). Colombo,and not Kandy or Galle, was the main attrac-tion for investments during the late 19thcentury. In addition to new ones, Colomboalso attracted already-established businessesfrom other cities. For example, the oldestjeweller in town, Othaman Lebbe MakanMarkar, started his business in Galle in 1860but moved it to Colombo a few years later(Hulugalle, 1965). In locating such busi-nesses, these entrepreneurs gradually devel-oped an environment friendly to Ceylonesebusinesses.

What the British colonial culture achievedin Ceylon was a high degree of hegemonyamong the families of the owners of planta-tions and mines, political leaders and admin-istrators, particularly with their sonseducated in England and being Christian infaith. The elite jealously guarded their cul-ture from further diffusion, perhaps increas-ingly exaggerating the aspects ofmetropolitan culture as a buttress to maintaintheir social and cultural identity, using this tosymbolise their privileged position amongthe Ceylonese (Duncan, 1989). As the col-onial third culture,6 the elite culture was nei-ther British nor Lankan; their identity was aresult of the transformation of indigenouscultural perceptions as they adapted withincolonial society. It was a Ceylonese elitethird culture which was rooted in an upper-class Lankan culture heavily in� uenced bystrong but selected aspects of colonial cultureand constructed in a way that representedthe power of the elite to the averageCeylonese and their worthiness to the col-onial community.

Concurrent to pursuing the British model,the Low Country elite were competing

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against the traditional aristocracy and theGoyigamas who were viewed as the uppercaste. The mobility within the colonialsystem was mostly used by the Burghers, theTamils, the Muslims and the Low CountrySinhalese who did not belong to the upperstrata of ‘traditional society’ (Roberts, 1982).As part of their challenge to Goyigamasupremacy, the Low Country elite tended topursue social prestige in a style that hadbeen formulated by the Goyigama aristoc-racy, favouring the lifestyle of the walawwahamu (lord of the manor house) (Roberts,1982). Hence, the older Sinhalese valuesremained resilient and relevant; the elitewere not ready to discard them in theirentirety (Roberts, 1982). In addition, the elitewere also inventing new traditions; Ponnam-balam Ramanathan, for example, took towearing the traditional long-coat and turbanof the Indian aristocracy (Jayawardena,2000).

At other times, however, the Ceylonesetook their cue from the British gentry(Roberts, 1982). The more opulent and top-bracket Sinhalese gentry, whose forebearershad been lured by honours and emolumentsto serve as sentinels and guardians of theirinterests by the Dutch, had with the departureof their patrons congregated around Wolven-dal, in the vicinity of the Outer Pettah. Theylived with the ladies of rank, lama etens, inspacious walawwas (manor houses) offGreen Street, Kuruwa Street and SilversmithStreet (Brohier, 1984/2000). Even in theDutch times, the Mudliars, whose seat ofpower was distinctly rural, established town-houses for themselves in Colombo. In andaround Wolvendal, the four Maha-Mudliarshad built their walawwas with extensivegroves of trees (Roberts et al., 1989).

The new elite not only followed the Britishto Colombo, but also mimicked the coloniallifestyles and residential house forms. ForHomi Bhabha (1994, p. 86), “mimicryemerges as the representation of a differencethat is itself a process of disavowal”. Thismimicry, which repeats rather thanre-presents, leads to mockery and ambiv-alence (Bhabha, 1994). What the elite pro-

duced was colonial but not quite; also(Lankan) aristocratic but not quite. The out-come was a hybrid; in addition to the designand the names, the palatial houses of the elitewere also located in the liminal space be-tween the colonial community and the in-digenous city.

The early 19th-century expansion ofColombo transformed the outskirts of Wol-vendal to the low-income housing—calledhuts and tenements—of the Malays and theJavanese. After emancipation, the formerslaves also settled in what used to be SlaveIsland, across the Beira Lake off the southern� ank of the fort (Brohier, 1984/2000). Thecolonial residential trend, which was towardsthe north of the fort especially to Mutuwaland Grandpass during early colonial periods,turned towards the south, particularly toKollupitiya and Cinnamon Gardens in the1860s and the 1870s (Hulugalle, 1965). Theelite, who were not allowed membership inBritish clubs, also created their own exclus-ive Oriental Club in the vicinity of the Cin-namon Gardens (Roberts, 1974).

The elite neighbourhoods were patternedafter the colonial model (see Figure 2). Inaddition to clothing fashions, they also fol-lowed the latest European architecturalstyles, absorbing them into the wealth andcompetitive spirit of the Ceylonese elite. Inthe decades following the 1860s

much money was spent on conspicuoushousing; palatial residences were con-structed in Colombo by the wealthy, withmock-Italian decor, large gardens andwedding cake architecture (Jayawardena,2000, p. 258).

Many of the houses had imposing royal-sounding names, for example: Oliver Castle(H. J. Pieris), Deyn Court (Bastian Fer-nando), Hill Castle (S. C. Obeyesekere),Elscourt (Jeronis Pieris) and R. E. S. deSoysa’s Victoria Maligawa (palace)(Jayawardena, 2000). Some had Oriental-type names which followed the colonial pat-tern: Sukhastan (Abode of Happiness) of P.Ramanathan, Ponklaar (Golden Garden) of P.Arunachalam, Tyaga Nivasa (Tyaga’s

1711INDIGENISING THE COLONIAL CITY

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Abode) of N. Tyagarajah and Sirimethipaya(Abode of Prosperity) of A. E. de Silva Jr.Many of the sons of the entrepreneurs andprofessionals emulated the British aristoc-racy in its penchant for dog-breeding andhorse-racing which were considered to be theSport of Kings (Jayawardena, 2000). Theypreferred the areas of the city in which theservices were highly superior, the mainte-nance of which required disproportionateamounts of resources. Establishing theirpresence, the elite also began publishing theirown newspaper, the Ceylon Standard inColombo in 1898 (Roberts, 1984).

In this way, the Ceylonese elite were en-gaged simultaneously both in expanding thecolonial landscape and in indigenising itsmeaning. The palatial houses of the tra-ditional elite, located in the outskirts ofColombo, near Wolvendal, were being re-placed by the new elite houses around thecolonial community. Locating themselvesadjacent to the colonial community and emu-lating the building forms and lifestyles, theywere expanding the colonial residential zoneswithin the city. Concurrently, penetratinginto the Fort and the Pettah, the (economic)elite indigenised the business district as well.The meanings of the fort and the Pettah weredepoliticised as they were identi� ed simplyby the politically neutral terms Fort and Pet-tah. The elite were pleased with colonialvalues and the segregated city, but struggledto be on the privileged side. In so doing, theelite provided legitimacy for Colombo as theseat of (colonial) government and principalsite of political negotiation in Ceylon, a man-date it had not received from its inception(Perera, 1996)

The presence of the Ceylonese elite inColombo was conspicuous; the buildingswere built in high styles; their names werealien; and the landscapes were unfamiliar tothe regular Ceylonese. Yet the landscape wasambivalent. The environment was colonial,but not quite; the residents were Ceylonese,but not quite. What the elite produced werehybrid residential environments located inbetween those of the average Ceylonese andthe colonial community.

The Revival of Buddhism

The late 19th century was a period of culturaland religious regeneration in Ceylon (Bastin1997; Samaraweera, 1997). The Hindu re-vival took place a generation before the Bud-dhist revival and does not constitute thetransformation of Colombo in the late 19thcentury. After a long struggle to survive un-der colonialism—over three centuries in theLow Country—Buddhism revived stronglyduring this period. The broad-based trans-formation which Buddhism underwent in thelate 19th century has been addressed byscholars such as Gombrich and Obeyesekere(1988), Obeyesekere (1970) and Malalgoda(1976) and need not be repeated. Here, weinvestigate the impact of the Buddhist revivalon the landscape of Colombo.

The revival of Buddhism between the1860s and the 1880s made one of the mostsigni� cant impacts on colonial Colombo, butwas not readily re-presented in its landscape.The Buddhist revival marked both the culmi-nation of the long-term process of Ceyloneseadaptation within the colonial system and theemergence of a strong challenge to it. As partof this process, new key institutions werecreated, the old ones adapted within the col-onial system and the protest against colonial-ism was taken to Colombo. This not onlydisplaced, in regard to its signi� cance, thelarger Kandy–Colombo (Lankan–British)con� ict by a process which would indigeniseColombo from within, but also it provided its‘native city’ with a strong cultural institutioncapable of contesting the supremacy of col-onial cultural and political institutions lo-cated within the Fort. Moreover, the revivalblurred the more readable landscape whichthe elite were concurrently producing. Repre-senting irony and ambivalence, it added an-other power dimension which was largelyhidden in the clandestine type of landscape itproduced.

With the eradication of its millennium-long structure of operation, the Buddhist es-tablishment in Ceylon weakened undercolonialism.7 When the Low Country wassubjugated by the Portuguese in the late 16th

INDIGENISING THE COLONIAL CITY 1713

century, the King of Kandy—in the UpCountry—warmly received the Buddhistmonks who had � ed from the Portuguese-ruled areas and endowed them with newtemples and land grants, thus keeping Bud-dhism alive. The British conquest of Kandyin 1815 deprived the order of monks (thesangha) of any royal patronage. In addition,under three colonial regimes, Buddhism wasalso subjected to competition from variousforms of Christianity which received the sup-port of the colonial state (Malalgoda, 1976;Boxer, 1965/1990; Tinker, 1989). Within thisinverted environment, with no patronagefrom the rulers, the laity assumed a leadingrole in the revival of Buddhism.

The Buddhist revival was basically a LowCountry movement (de Silva, 1981) whichboth supported and was supported by the riseof a Low Country elite. The revival becameapparent from the turn of the 19th century,even before the fall of Kandy, when certainmembers of the KSD castes of the LowCountry actively challenged the decision ofthe King of Kandy to restrict ordination toGoyigamas by organising new fraternities(nikayas) (see de Silva, 1981). Changes incolonial state policy and the con� icts be-tween different Christian faiths helped theBuddhists to reorganise and reinvigoratetheir religious activities in the late 19thcentury. The leadership of the movement waslargely in the hands of the emergingLow Country elite (de Silva, 1981). Later,the revival received support from inter-national activists (theosophists) like theAmerican Henry Olcott and the RussianMadam Blavatsy, and some sympathy fromhigh-ranking colonial of� cials (de Silva,1981).

The principal outcome of the collapse ofthe Goyigama monopoly of religious life andthe entry of non-Goyigamas into religiousactivity was the expansion of the religioussphere, including an increase in the numberof fraternities, monks and temples. This de-velopment socialised, reorganised andstrengthened the Buddhist establishment. Thelaity not only became increasingly involvedin religious activities but also, from the

1880s, displaced monks from some of theirtraditional positions of religious leadership(Gombrich and Obeyesekere, 1988; Malal-goda, 1976; de Silva, 1981). This causedBuddhism to spread rapidly across rural vil-lages. The revival of Buddhism profoundlyaffected the urban areas and Colombo aswell. For the greater part of the century,Protestant Buddhism was limited to a smallemerging middle class in Colombo andsmaller cities like Galle (Gombrich andObeyesekere, 1988) which was the leadingcentre of Buddhism in the Low Country inthe late 18th century (Malalgoda, 1976).

Gombrich and Obeyesekere (1988) arguethat Buddhism was transformed in the late19th century (1860–85) into what they call‘Protestant Buddhism’, in regard to its pro-test against British colonialism in generaland Protestant missionaries in particular. Theprotest against colonialism and Christianitywas also the process by which, and forwhich, Buddhism acquired many Protestantmissionary attributes. Adapting and creatingBuddhist organisations and practices withinthe colonial system were strongly character-ised by the ‘oppositional politics’ which, ac-cording to Terry Eagleton (1990, p. 26),move under the sign of irony, following “aterrain already mapped out by [their] antago-nists”. The formation of a Buddhist Theo-sophical Society, the invention of a � ag, theincorporation of songs modelled on Christ-mas carols and the use of English, amongother things, represented this direction ofchange. The new missionary schools spon-sored by the Buddhist Theosophical Societyand the Mahabodhi Society adopted themodel of Christian missionary publicschools, whether in regard to the curriculumor cricket (Gombrich and Obeyesekere,1988; Obeyesekere, 1970). What ProtestantBuddhism produced were hybrid institutions,a prime characteristic of which is ambiv-alence (Malalgoda, 1976). These were princi-pally Buddhist organisations, but not quite.Both hybridity and ambivalence are evidentin the spatial representation of this trans-formation as well. The leaders attempted toreproduce Buddhism but following the

NIHAL PERERA1714

colonial spatial organisation with Colombo atits centre.

Most crucially, Colombo was transformedinto the locale of the most important templesafter Kandy and the monastic schools pro-vided a strong presence for Buddhism in thecity. First, the temples at Kelaniya and Kotte,former Lankan seats of power in the vicinityof Colombo, were reinvigorated. Secondly,these historical temples were supplementedwith newer ones built much closer to orwithin Colombo. The most important ofthese were the residences of the founder ofAmarapura Nikaya, Lamkagoda Dhi-rananda—the Jayasekararamaya at De-matagoda—and of the leading anti-Christianpolemicist of the 1860s and 1870s, Mohotti-vatte Gunananda—the Dipaduttaramaya atKotahena (Malalgoda, 1976). Thirdly, thedominance of Colombo with regard to mon-astic educational institutions (piriven) was� rmly established with the founding ofParama Dhamma Cetiya Pirivena at Rat-malana (1845), Vidyodaya Pirivena in Mali-gakanda (1873) and Vidyalankara Pirivena atPeliyagoda (1875) (Malalgoda, 1976).

In addition, missionary-type institutionsand schools, which involved more lay par-ticipation, were also established in Colombo.New organisations involved in the compe-tition against Christianity—such as the Bud-dhist Theosophical Society, the Society forthe Propagation of Buddhism and the Maha-bodhi Society—were all established inColombo. These were supplemented by layorganisations such as the Young Mens Bud-dhist Association, and missionary schools(Ananda College, 1889). It was also inColombo that the Buddhists established theirmain printing presses and publishing houses(Malalgoda, 1976).

This score of institutions, buildings andrelated activities which sprang up as part ofadopting Colombo as a centre had a profoundimpact on the city and its landscape. Thecoincidence of principal political and re-ligious institutions had been a common fea-ture in the Sinhalese kingdoms. Yet inColombo, Buddhism was not favoured withthe patronage of the political authority.

Hence, with regard to the physical landscape,the presence of these institutions and organi-sations was less conspicuous, not as grand asthose in historical Lankan capitals. For themost part, existing buildings were adaptedfor new uses. For example, the BuddhistTheosophical Society was located in a housein Slave Island (Amarasuriya, 1981).

Most of the Buddhist activities were lo-cated outside the colonial domains within thecity in places like Dematagoda, Maradanaand Slave Island. Sparing the Fort area andthe newly constructed residential suburb andcolonial cultural zone, the Cinnamon Gar-dens, Buddhist activities in� ltrated into thePettah as well. The Buddhist EducationalMovement and its Sunday School, for exam-ple, were located in Maliban Street, Pettah(Amarasuriya, 1981). In contrast, the activi-ties located on the outskirts of the city weremore visible. The Buddhist presence withinthe city was largely dispersed, but not physi-cally conspicuous.

What the Buddhist revival created inColombo was, therefore, a clandestine land-scape. As Buddhism provided strength to theCeylonese, Buddhist organisations spreadlike a web within Colombo, but were differ-entiated by function and level of activityrather than by physical location and form.Nonetheless, the indigenous city becamelarger and, for the � rst time, the locus of aprincipal Ceylonese institution directly chal-lenged the colonial authority.

From a ‘national’ perspective, this culturalregeneration transformed Colombo into theprincipal site of political and cultural nego-tiation in Ceylon, intensifying the contestover space. In this way, the con� ict wasbrought home to Colombo, making it a morepronounced dual city. What this produced inColombo was a hybrid landscape, the princi-pal characteristic of which was ambivalence.The colonial zones of the Fort and culturalinstitutions in the Cinnamon Gardens, builtin high-style colonial architecture, continuedto dominate the landscape of the city. Yetbeyond the intermediate elite residentialareas was the vast hybrid and ambivalent‘indigenous’ city in which the Buddhist

INDIGENISING THE COLONIAL CITY 1715

presence was more apparent towards the pe-riphery, mainly in the outskirts of the city.As it moved towards the centre, the Buddhistlandscape blended in with the environmentbut its activities contested the authorities—quite the opposite of the elite landscape.

Demographic Changes and Expansion

While the upper classes were modifying thelandscape of Colombo and the revival ofBuddhism was inducing changes in its mean-ing, the residents and migrants indigenisedtheir locales and thus the city at large. Thepopulation of Colombo grew from a meagre28 000 in 1800, to about 150 000 in 1900,most of it in the latter part of the century. Bythe 1870s, the Colombo municipal area heldtwice as many people as Galle and Kandy,the next-largest cities (Ferguson, 1903;Turner, 1927). Migration appears to be theprincipal cause of this growth. In additionto migrants, Colombo also received immi-grants from southern India and other Britishcolonies who, in the process of naturalising,indigenised their cultures and spaces. In ad-dition, the expansion of city limits was also areason for the population increase and indi-genisation, but was related to migration sincea signi� cant proportion of migrants settledoutside the early 19th-century city limits.These processes transformed both the formof the city and its meaning between the1860s and the 1880s. The following pagesfocus on the impact of naturalisation, mi-gration and expansion on the landscape ofColombo.

Most immigrants in Colombo had natu-ralised and the population of Colombo hadlargely been indigenised by the end of the19th century. This was a transformation ofthe larger colonial space brought about bythe everyday practices of the subjects. Withregard to the Muslims, in addition to adopt-ing Tamil as the daily language (Arabic forprayers), caste strati� cation also seeped intotheir communities (Azeez, 1986). The Mus-lims who had settled in Colombo temporarilyfor trading purposes became naturalised.Similar patterns of indigenisation can also be

seen among numerous immigrant groupswhich had come to Colombo during the pre-and early colonial periods.

Moreover, the cultural awakenings amongprincipal Ceylonese ethnic and religiousgroups in the 19th century encouraged theconsolidation of European and Eurasiangroups living in Colombo into what becamethe Burgher community, created by genera-tions of adaptation to local culture and theenvironment and mixed marriages. Althoughthe people of Portuguese, Dutch and Englishorigin were privileged at the beginning of theBritish rule, about a third of the Burgherswere in the regular labour pool in 1871(Roberts et al., 1989). Clinging on to Dutchheritage and the Anglophile leanings of thecore group, and within a Ceylonese patriot-ism forged in opposition to British subjec-tion, a ‘comradery’ developed through whichthe Sinhalese and Tamil middle classes, andEuropean and Eurasian people in Ceylon de-veloped a distinctly Ceylonese community(Roberts et al., 1989). As part of this trans-formation, their locales, including the princi-pal domain, the Pettah, were subjected toindigenisation.

In contrast to the Ceylonese adaptation tothe colonial system, the immigrants adjustedtheir cultures and spaces with a view to� nding accommodation within a Ceylonesecultural and environmental context. Sincethey had indigenised over a long period andwithin their own framework, indigenisationwas not re� ected by massive changes in thephysical landscape. The issue had more to dowith how they accommodated new useswhich were closer to Ceylonese uses, inspaces within and outside their dwellings.Concurrently, the spaces they shared with theBritish became contested. In cricket � elds,for example, the Burghers were the � rst ma-jor ethnic group to represent Ceylon againstthe English. Indigenisation is, therefore, mul-tidirectional and cuts across the line thatseparates the cultures that are in contact,destabilising the coloniser—colonised dividein many ways.

Yet physical evidence of the naturalisationof immigrants in the landscape was scarce.

NIHAL PERERA1716

What the naturalised Ceylonese producedthrough their daily practices were liminal andhybrid spaces in between the cultures,overlapping with components of many ofthe cultures involved, but largely based in theculture and environment of Ceylon. Both thecomposition of the population and the typesof space they produced in Colombo were,therefore, radically different from those insurrounding areas and other cities in Ceylon.If the landscapes produced by various col-onial communities were ‘foreign’ at � rst, theindigenisation of the immigrant communitiestransformed Colombo into a unique city inCeylon. Despite migration, early 20th-cen-tury Colombo was very diverse, with theSinhalese constituting only 35–45 per cent ofthe population (Roberts et al., 1989).

The impact on the city’s landscape createdby the migrants was broader. This impactwas, however, related to the expansion of thecity as a large number of people, includinga few particular class and ethnic groups,migrated to the periphery of the larger city.The migrants, in effect, expanded and indi-genised the city. Until the 1860s, Colomboconsisted of three principal zones—thefort, the Pettah and Outer Pettah. Alongwith the establishment of Colombo Munici-pal Council in 1865, the demolition offorti� cations in 1869 and the building of theCinnamon Gardens in the 1870s, the of� cialperception of Colombo and its boundarieschanged dramatically (Perera, 1998). Themunicipal area of the 1880s was about 13times as large as the fort area and included anumber of low-income areas such asMaradana, New Bazaar, Kotahena and SlaveIsland which had a majority of Ceylonese.The population of Colombo in 1881 wasabout 20 times that of the combined Fort andPettah areas (Hulugalle, 1965). The enlarge-ment of the city in the 1860s and the 1870shad, therefore, caused the colonial city itselfto naturalise, by grounding it in the largernative city.

Migration not only escalated in the 1860s,increasing Colombo’s population by over300 per cent between 1824 and 1891 (mostlyin the last few decades), but also changed the

ethnic, religious and class composition of thecity. The introduction and expansion of com-munication networks, which began with theadvent of the railways in the 1860s, facili-tated the rural to urban migration. The princi-pal purpose of the colonial communicationinfrastructure was to organise the political,economic and administrative systems fromColombo. Reversing this directionality, themigrants employed the transport networks tomove to the city. In 1921, 47 per cent ofColombo’s population were already Sin-halese and largely from the Low Country; theSinhalese and Ceylon Tamils and (natu-ralised) Ceylon Moors and Burghers madeup 63 per cent of it (Hulugalle, 1965).

The in� ux of migrants transformed thebasic spatial structure of ethnic and classgroupings in Colombo. Most crucially, theLow Country Sinhalese replaced the Eu-ropeans as the main ethnic group four cen-turies after they had appropriated the cityfrom the Muslims. Hence, the city marked byclock towers and Georgian buildings at itscentre was in� ltrated by Buddhist and ruralforms of building and the ‘huts’ which theBritish were determined to keep out of thecity. The Tamil neighbourhood ofWellawatta, then right outside the municipalboundary, had also appeared by the 1880s(Roberts, 1984). In the 1880s, therefore,the city was far more Ceylonese comparedwith the British Colombo of the early 19thcentury.

The dwellings in low-income areas werenot Sinhalese or English in form, but repre-sented the burgeoning working class withina capitalist city. Most of these dwellingswere produced as part of ‘industrialisation’,particularly the expansion of the harbourand the building of railway workshops, ware-houses and printing presses. These neigh-bourhoods, which spread across areas such asMaradana, New Bazaar, Kotahena and SlaveIsland, housed a large proportion of theworking classes. The expansion of the port in1883, and of its associated industries, wasprimarily instrumental in converting large ar-eas, such as Kochchikade and Gintupitiya,into dockland areas giving rise to a particular

INDIGENISING THE COLONIAL CITY 1717

clustering of working-class tenements andsmall businesses (Roberts, 1984).

There were two types of working-classdwellings, labelled by the municipal authori-ties as ‘slums’ and ‘shanties’. The � rst werethe large houses, left by middle- and upper-class people who lived mainly on the northside of the fort, and also in the Pettah area,later adapted by low-income groups as ‘mul-tifamily’ quarters. Large families werecramped into one or two small rooms, con-tributing to what Roberts and others call the‘decline’ of the Pettah and Colombo Northbetween the 1860s and the 1910s (Roberts etal., 1989). One such residence in SlaveIsland had 32 dwelling rooms. In an article, amedical practitioner of Colombo, LisboaPinto, stressed in the 1890s that

sanitation and hygiene were unknown andimpossible … dozens of our printers livein wretched houses about 15 feet by 8 feet,some of them scarcely of the dimensionsof a stable. I often � nd such room occu-pied by the bread winner of the household(the man) and his wife and children … onedoor to the house and no windows; all thesmoke from the � replace � lling the room(Pinto 1893; quoted in Jayawardena, 1972,p. 11).

These dwellings did not transform the largerphysical landscape, but its meaning and func-tion.

This landscape partly represents the pre-dominance of the males in the city. Both theimmigrants and the migrants, until the 20thcentury, were largely male. Even as late as1921, 61 per cent of Colombo’s populationwere male (Roberts, 1984). Single men livedin small rooms in lodging houses knownamong immigrants from India as kiddangies,sustained by the small shops and other mar-ginal services which were part of the so-called informal economy of the poor(Roberts et al., 1989). The gradual settlementof migrants in Colombo, later joined by theirfamilies, eventually feminised the city bring-ing about a gender balance by the 1960s (seePerera, in press).

The other type of dwelling was self-builthousing which added a new dimension to thelandscape of Colombo. A common solutionto the lack of affordable dwellings had beenthe construction of single-storeyed, mostlydetached, small housing units using less dur-able material found in the urban environ-ments. Building their own houses with thematerials available, and using self-help meth-ods to do so, represents the transfer of ruralhousing methods to the city. With regard to‘Third World cities’, Terence McGee (1971)has argued that characteristics such as highfertility and the persistence of the ‘extendedfamily’ are simply aspects of their ‘rural-ness’. The fact that the British authorities didnot allow what they called ‘huts’ within thefort (Percival, 1803/1990) indicates that therewere rural types of building outside it, inlarger Colombo. While the self-built houseshelped the migrants to familiarise the city bybuilding a familiar environment within it,they also ruralised parts of its landscape. Asbetween urban and rural, this type of housinglandscape represents both a liminal spacewhich is neither urban nor rural, but some-where in between, and a hybrid form whichcombines urban living and building materialswith rural building methods and dwellingforms.

The housing of the lower-income popu-lation thus transformed both the overall land-scape of the city and its meaning for theCeylonese. The dwellings of regular Cey-lonese were not built in high architecturalstyles, nor were they large in size. Yet bythe 1880s, the Ceylonese occupied a verylarge area of the city. They did not over-power the formal landscape in any formalway, but annexed a large indigenous compo-nent to a foreign city. The city was no longerlimited to the Fort and the Pettah areaswhich had become the centre of the city forthe colonials and an ambivalent zone forthe indigenes. It was a part of their city, butnot quite; it was unfamiliar to them andthey were not welcome in most places. Incontrast to the walls and moats which sepa-rated the British from the rest, however,the new boundaries were more permeable.

NIHAL PERERA1718

Although the British still held power in it andthe city was a contested terrain, a large partof Colombo had become familiar territory forthe Ceylonese by the 1880s. This is evidentin subsequent decades in their undertaking,within the larger colonial framework, of ad-ministrative tasks, business ventures and pol-itical roles, and also in their getting involvedin social movements such as the revival ofBuddhism and labour movements.

Conclusions

A major conclusion of the study is that indi-genisation was integral to European colonial-ism. The very success in the establishment ofhegemony for European culture was pre-cisely what provided a primary condition forthe indigenes to emulate the models of thecolonial community. The establishment ofhegemony was carried out through the use ofmilitary and economic forces to blockLankan access to indigenous types of alterna-tive pasts and futures, publicising the successof the colonial administration and economyand providing room for the Ceylonese toparticipate within the colonial system. Indi-genisation was, however, a two-way processwhich simultaneously caused the Westernisa-tion of the subjects and the indigenisation ofthe spatial structures.

In short, social power was contested andresisted in Colombo; it is within this con-tested arena that indigenisation became poss-ible and was carried out. The transition ofindigenous attitudes from confrontation toadaptation of colonial social and spatialstructures was played out through the nego-tiation between larger colonial structuresand Ceylonese cultural practices. Imagin-ation was central to indigenisation as theindigenes could only adapt their daily prac-tices within the colonial society and a spaceof their own imagination. Although thefamiliarisation and reinterpretation of thesestructures did not fully overturn the colonialsystem, they amounted to the appropriationand reinscription of colonial social andspatial structures by the Ceylonese. The

resulting society and landscape were, there-fore, negotiated between the imposing col-onial structures and the adapting Ceylonesepractices.

In different ways, the rise of a Ceyloneseelite, the revival of Buddhism and the natu-ralisation and migration of people toColombo together made indigenisation aprincipal process in Colombo between the1860s and the 1880s. What indigenisationproduced in Colombo was not the antithesisof the colonial landscape. The resulting land-scape was multilayered and was character-ised by irony, mimicry, ambivalence,liminality and hybridity. The Ceyloneseemulation of colonial social and spatial mod-els represented irony, the oppositional poli-tics which followed a terrain already mappedout by their antagonists. This is most appar-ent in the location of Buddhist organisationswhich contested colonialism in Colombo (butnot in Kandy or Galle). The elite not onlyfollowed the British lead to Colombo, butalso mimicked colonial residential prefer-ences and house forms. This mimicry,which repeated rather than re-presented, thusled to mockery and ambivalence. What theelite produced was a hybrid which wouldrepresent their power to the average Cey-lonese and their worthiness to the colonialauthorities.

The larger landscape which the migrantsproduced was varied and largely liminal incharacter. Most of their newer dwellings,characterised by high densities and the use oftheir own labour, were located near the new‘industrial’ areas and represented both theproletarianisation and ruralisation of the city.Within this combined elite and proletarianclass environment, the Buddhist revival pro-duced a clandestine landscape in which in-tense Buddhist activity occurred but couldnot be easily traced from its external form.While it blended in with the larger landscape,the activities contested the authorities.

The indigenisation between the 1860s andthe 1880s did not replace colonialism, butmade it the most signi� cant Ceylonese re-sponse to colonialism. It did not replace thecolonial city, but indigenised the larger city,

INDIGENISING THE COLONIAL CITY 1719

both covertly and overtly, from all sides.Both the Fort area, with its Georgian build-ings and clock towers, and the colonial resi-dential area of Cinnamon Gardens, whichwas added during the same decades withmany cultural institutions and the ColomboTown Hall, stood impressive but unfamiliarto the indigenes. Even the Ceylonese elitewere not entertained in British social sets.Hence, the landscape represented a hierarchyfrom the colonial community to the elite, theaverage Ceylonese and the proletariat. Yetthe contested aspect began to be stampedfrom the outer ends of the city where theBuddhist (and indigenous) presence was con-spicuous. In between were the noticeableelite residential areas which mimicked col-onial residential house forms and a landscapethat camou� aged the Buddhist presence.Colombo was a contested, hybrid and liminalspace.

Notes

1. For an elaboration of this context and thecontext within which the arguments in thispaper have been developed, see Perera(1998).

2. According to Gerrit Knapp (1981), the DutchVOC also managed to preserve a ‘whiteface’ in Colombo, especially in the castle.For gender relations in Colombo, see Perera(in press).

3. Within different contexts, Holston (1989),Yeoh (1996), Perera (1998) and Kusno(2000) demonstrate how the signs of modernand colonial were appropriated by the sub-jects they were supposed to transform.

4. This argument is built on my own study ofsociety and space (see Perera, 1998) andGayathri Spivak’s (2001) position concern-ing the transformation of social structuresand their subjects.

5. The two signi� cant works on ‘indigenisa-tion’ that I have come across are Yamamoto(2000) and Appadurai (1996/1998).

6. The European colonial culture which resultsfrom the transformation of metropolitan cul-tural institutions as they come into contactwith the culture of the indigenous society(King, 1976, p. 58).

7. Buddhist ‘faith’ or Buddha’s teachings(Dhamma)—is a different issue which is notthe subject of this paper.

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