Robert Knox, then and now

Ravi PERERA

“At their leisure when their affairs will permit, they commonly meet at places built for strangers and way-faring men to lodge in, in their language called Ambalama where they sit chewing betel, and looking one upon the other very gravely, solidly discoursing concerning the affairs of the court, between the King and the great men...” - Robert Knox

HISTORY: We are indebted to Robert Knox for recording his observations of 17 Century Sri Lanka, the land in which he spent nearly 20 years as a prisoner of the Kandyan King.

The first European to have recorded details of the prevailing social life from firsthand experience of the beleaguered kingdom, his “An Historical Relation of Ceylon” is essential reading for a student of our pre-colonial society.

Knox wrote his book after escaping from the island and therefore was free of any need to please his former captors.

Nevertheless right through the narration there is a discernible sympathy and understanding for the inhabitants of the island among whom circumstances compelled him to make home for a good part of his adult life.

As our opening quote bears out, the people of this land even then were political animals. The doings of the King and his court obviously held their interest very much.

Given that in a small kingdom the subjects were affected almost on a daily basis by the capricious moods of the King and his high officials. This was only natural. But their interest in matters political was evidently passive.

The democratic impulses, which by this time had begun to stir in Europe, were conspicuously absent in our public life. The reasons and imperatives behind their King’s actions were not matters that they could ever comprehend. Their deeds in births past had determined the universe they inhabited now.

In fact our rigid feudal political order appears to have remained more or less unchanged from the time of King Vijaya right up to 1815 when we went under the venturesome British.

Knox also noted the extremely Spartan existence of the average subject in the Kingdom. “Their dyet and ordinary fare, is but very mean, as to our account. If they have but rice and salt in their house they reckon they want for nothing. For with a few green leaves and the juice of a lemon with pepper and salt they will make a hearty meal”.

And their dwelling places “their houses are small, low, thatched cottages built with stick, daubed with clay...” As to the furniture “ their furniture is but small. A few earthen pots...a stool or two without backs. For none but the King may sit upon a stool with a back”.

The impression is of an indigent people vulnerable to the whim of both nature and their despotic rulers. They led to a kind of existence that held out only minimal expectations and then required infinite patience in attaining even those.

It was a situation, which obviously bred a helpless fatalism, dark superstitions and abject resignation. This bleak image repeatedly comes through in several passages in the book where Knox describes the nature and habits of the people he observed during his enforced stay.

Knox did not think much of the industry or diligence of the native people. “For the Chingulays are naturally, a people given to sloth and laziness; if they can but any ways live, they abhor to work; only what their necessities force them to, they do, that is to get food and raiment. Yet in this I must little vindicate them. For what indeed should they do with more food and raiment, seeing as their estates encrease, so do their taxes also?”

The imprisoned sailor was a clear-eyed observer of the causal inter-play between taxes and economic prosperity. The existing system was such that more production and the consequential increase in wealth invited such high taxes that the extra effort was counter productive. The system trapped the people in to a vicious cycle of poverty.

It is now more than three hundred years since Robert Knox lived in and subsequently wrote about what turned out to be the dying stages of the Kandyan Kingdom. Much water has flowed down the river Thames as well as the Mahaweli since then.

Britain, from where Knox came, went on to build a world empire on which it was said the sun never set. Today it has lost much of the empire but remains a prosperous democratic country.

Sri Lanka of course had a very different evolution. A few decades after Knox published his book the Kandyan Kingdom ceased to be and we lost our sovereignty to a far away European King.

Internal dissention and the inner corruption of his court had made the situation untenable for our last Monarch. Our strengths and capabilities, stuck determinedly in the ancient times, were no match to the burgeoning commercial strength and military prowess of Europe.

After living under the British rule for more than a century, in 1948 we became independent and had the responsibility of running our affairs given to us once again. But we now faced a vastly different world from 1815.

In this new order there were regular elections, parliaments, political parties, newspapers, general literacy and a host of other new institutions. Obviously these novel concepts demand a vastly different approach to the art of governing. How we have managed our affairs since is recent history.

While we can see the obvious changes in the form and methodology of government there are also features that seem to have not changed much since the times of Knox.

The people in this land are still very much fascinated by matters political although it is now not necessary to find Ambalams for meetings. The number of persons who are occupied exclusively in activities, which can be generally described as politics, is amazingly high here.

Our small island has in addition to the national parliament several provincial level governments, which again create more vacancies for politicians of different hues and shapes. Add to this the large following that each politician invariably has, we seem to have almost half the population in politics.

The poverty that Knox observed among the common folk of the land has undoubtedly now improved. In a democracy there is tremendous pressure on the rulers to ameliorate the living conditions of the voters.

The world is much smaller today and we are well aware of the living standards of other nations, particularly in the Developed world, and their path to prosperity.

According to the 2005 Annual Report of the Central Bank in the Human Development Index we are at a mid-point ranking of 96 (among 177 countries), 45.4 per cent of our population earn less than US $ 2 a day, while just 39 per cent have access to pipe borne water.

These figures while acceptable in comparison to the poor nations in our neighbourhood is really no reason for pride for a country with the potential we possess.

For Knox also made the perceptive observations “they are a people proper and very well favoured, beyond all people that I have seen in India...” and “in short, in carriage and behaviour they are very grave and stately like unto the Portugal, in understanding quick and apprehensive, in design subtle and crafty, in discourse courteous...” But potential to be realised needs dedication, discipline and hard work.

Knox thought we were given to sloth and laziness, which he attributed to a tax regime which discouraged industry. But certain national traits may flourish with or without a tax!