(Online Course) English Grammar & Comprehension: Practice Exercises Multiple Choice - Passage 6
English Grammar & Comprehension
Practice Exercises Multiple Choice
Passage 6
Political independence came to Ceylon in a totally different manner than it did to Burma. In the case of Ceylon there was no Japanese occupation, no revolutionary fervent and no sudden break with the past. The colony did not even experience the sort of liberation struggle the Indian National Congress organised. There was no civil disobedience or non-cooperation and no imprisonment of national leaders.
As there was no struggle in Ceylon, neither was there the usual concomitant of a struggle, the hardening of national solidarity through national sacrifice. Ceylon emerged from colonial rule through a process of peaceful negotiations, but thiswas not an altogether unmixed blessing. An essential element in the explanation of the unique way in which Ceylon achieved political independence is the fact that the process of Westernisation had gone further there than in other colonial territories. To start with, Ceylon had experienced nearly four hundred and fifty years of colonial rule, first under the Portuguese, then the Dutch, and finally the British. From schools founded and run by Christian missions - and in the British era more and more modelled on British lines, even to the extent in some cases of emulating English public schools - there emerged a thoroughly Anglicised upper class with generally conservative political leanings. These Ceylonese were so much like their colonial masters in outlook, manners, and social habits that they were often called “brown sahibs”, and negotiations between them and the Britishwere almost in the nature of dealings between gentlemen of the same club.
After the First WorldWar, this elite group formed a Ceylonese National Congress, which it hoped would grow in strength like its Indian prototype. But it collapsed a few years before the country achieved independence. During the period of British rule, Ceylonese leaders felt no inclination to make any radical or egalitarian appeals for public support and nationalism struck no roots among the masses. It is no wonder, then, that the British felt that suchmen could safely be entrusted with even larger instalments of political responsibility.
1. The character of liberation struggle of the
Ceylonese people for achieving political independence from the colonial masters
resembled that of
(a) Burma
(b) India
(c) Vietnam
(d) None of these
2. The Ceylonese struggle for freedom was
characterised by
(a) civil disobedience
(b) revolutionary fervent
(c) terroristic activities on the part of the nationalists
(d) peaceful negotiations
3. What, according to the author, is the usual
concomitant of a liberation struggle?
(a) National solidarity is strengthened through national
sacrifice.
(b) It leaves much bitterness behind between the rulers and the ruled.
(c) It accentuates divisive forces in the polity that emerges after the
grant of independence.
(d) People receive practical training in governance.
4. Political independence came to Burma after
this country had experienced
(a) Japanese occupation during Second World War
(b) revolutionary fervent
(c) both of these
(d) neither of these
5. Before achieving political independence,
Ceylon had experienced colonial rule for
(a) nearly one hundred and fifty years
(b) nearly four hundred and fifty years
(c) exactly three hundred years
(d) nearly a century
