Ninety Years of Samasamajism

The Lanka Samasamaja Party was born on the 18th of December 1935.

- BY LAL WIJENAYAKE

It was more than the birth of a party. It was the birth of a movement. Whatever has happened to the party today, the Samasamajist movement is still very much alive. It was not just another party with a manifesto or a program that was formed 90 years ago, but a movement with an ideology. It was that ideology of Samasamajism that has survived for ninety years and will live on for many more years.Samasamajism was born and evolved during the time the country, then known as Ceylon, was under colonial rule. At that time, there were nationalist movements emerging in India and Ceylon committed to national liberation not only politically, but also culturally. These movements were genuinely anti-colonial movements aimed at the perspective of pulling the country back to where it was before the advent of colonialism. The limitations and backwardness of these anti-colonial struggles and movements were apparent as they were merely fighting for something they lost culturally and socially after the colonial power entered into their country.