Miscellaneous - This Day That Age

dated 2nd May, 1952: Ceylon Indians' struggle

There had been an unhappy turn of affairs in Colombo. The Ceylon Indian Congress had started Satyagraha to regain citizenship and franchise for the lakhs of Ceylon Indians who were deprived of these by a stroke of the pen. The Council of Action was also planning to intensify the campaign. The Satyagraha Campaign was intended to focus public attention on the confiscation of the civic rights of an entire community and to induce the authorities to take immediate steps to restore them.

Explaining the reasons which had impelled it to launch the peaceful struggle, the Ceylon Indian Congress took the opportunity of clearing one or two misapprehensions. It did not object to the concept of citizenship nor the principle that only citizens should be entitled to vote. But it insisted that the processes laid down by law or regulation for the acquisition and franchise should be equitable and fair _ particularly to that large mass of people, who had, for the most part, been born and bred and lived in Ceylon for generations.

"But the response from the Government of Ceylon has been curiously disappointing. Apparently they cannot think of other than mere police measures to deal with the Satyagrahis. Not only that, the Prime Minister of Ceylon is clearly angry and has permitted himself at an election meeting to speak of Ceylon Congress leaders as "outsiders". The Home Minister of Ceylon is reported to have exerted himself to get the Indian Mercantile Chamber to dissociate itself from the CIC's activities...

"The Home Minister is also reported to have warned the Indians in Ceylon of the threat to their safety that would develop from anything that inflamed Sinhalese passions while his police force was busy putting down the Satyagrahis. It is gratifying to note that the Government of India, have lost no time in bringing home to Government of Ceylon the latter's responsibility for the safety of the Indians in the island. "The way to deal with this trying situation is not to use force but to conciliate and win over the people who are so patently determined to suffer than to acquiesce in humiliating injustice" observed the second Editorial of the day.

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