Chapter 1

Beginning of the 'Swabhsh' Movement

Language policy in any country of the globe has been assigned a prominent place. Language policy of one country may differ from that of another. Even though a single language may be declared as the official language of a country with only one nation, the same policy cannot be applied to a multicultural context. For such countries make it difficult to decide upon a single language as the official language given the multiplicity of the language used. Sri Lanka which is a multicultural state has also been experiencing the same situation for decades. All the Asian and African former colonies have been encountering the issue of choosing an official language. owever, few countries such as !ndia, "urma and !ndonesia have been able to successfully resolve this issue. #evertheless, it is clear that the ma$ority of former colonies have still failed to come up with proper solutions. Sri Lanka in particular has not been able to resolve the problem in a successful manner. %hus it is timely important to in&uire into the reasons behind this failure. Such an in&uiry re&uires the nature of Sri Lankan language policy issue. 1.1 Dominance of the British Empire and the Ignorance of Local Languages !n '()) * several years after Sri Lanka became a "ritish colony * a new constitution was formed based on the recommendations of the +olebrook,+ameron commission in order to -stabili.e- their rule in the island. %his constitution resulted in a number of social, economic and political changes in the country. /ne important recommendation of the +olebrook, +ameron commission was the educational reformations indented to regulari.e English education in Sri Lanka'. A characteristic feature of "ritish colonial policy was the tendency to conduct all administrative activities in the colonies in English alone.

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