Introduction

While the focus of this book is on the period after independence, this chapter has an overview of the period prior to independence – that is, the colonial period – and specifically the era of the British Raj and the legacy the British left by way of an export-oriented economy together with a politico-juridical system and the attendant infrastructure. In particular, the focus is on the impact of the plantation economy and the changes and configurations it brought to the people, as well as its effects on the country's broader socio-political milieu and economic development. The aim of this chapter is to present the ways in which existing social processes in the pre-colonial past were redefined and re-created during the colonial experience. The post-independent experience is in many ways a continuation of the transformations that took place in the colonial period.

But before laying down the different socioeconomic and political aggregates that interacted and took root in the colonial period, it is necessary to present a contemporary view of the land and the people who inhabit it at present.

The Land and the People

Sri Lanka is an island situated off the southernmost point of the Indian subcontinent. The island is about 270 miles long from the southern tip at Dondra Head to the northernmost point at Point Pedro. It is 140 miles wide, and covers an area of 25,332 square miles.