Introduction

The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Ruhuna, Matara, Sri Lanka is in the process of organizing a forum for scholars of colonial and post colonial studies throughout the globe to share their research, remarks, observations, ideas, views, opinions, arguments, positions, theories, models, and discoveries about various subjects in a wide spectrum of related disciplines. It is said that research confined to nation states and new nation states is a bygone social, cultural, political and economic phenomenon in the postmodern, late capitalist or global world order being experienced today. Therefore, the topic of the conference, formulated so as to mark the 200 years of Sri Lanka’s British colonial heritage which is to culminate on the 2nd of March, 2015, has a great deal of currency. The geo-space known as the island of Sri Lanka has been under many different foreign influences right from the very beginning of its human habitation. The British captured the island in its entirety on the 2nd of March, 1815 and vigorously propagated on it their system of values in culture, economic, politics, religion, administration, technology, industry, health, education, etc. Colonialism has made similar impacts throughout the world wherever it had its vested interests. Nations in the colonized world experience both positive and negative conditions engendered by their respective colonial regimes. In this context the moment at which Sri Lanka completes 200 years of colonial legacy provides an appropriate occasion to reflect on colonialism with a view to obtaining critical assessment of the experience, developing new strategies and models for the former colonial societies to follow while facing the challenges of future, and defining the possible contributions such societies could make to the betterment of life on the planet earth.