UPPER CASTE CHRISTIANS

Christians form 2.3 percent of India's population and 2 percent of Pakistan's, while they account for 7.6 percent of Sri Lanka. But unlike in Pakistan, where Christians have been under siege due to the country's blasphemy laws or in India, where they have recently been targetted for attacks by Hindu extremists, the relatively well-off Christians of Sri Lanka have managed to achieve a state of equilibrium with the islands Buddhists and Hindus.

Sri Lanka's Christians are not an elite community but nor are they from the socially deprived groups of tribals and 'lower' castes as are the bulk of Christians in India and Pakistan. Upper crust Christians have played a prominent role in Sri Lankan society and politics ever since the 1920s and 1930s when the landed gentry was used as a favoured instrument by the British for the gradual devolution of power to local elites. A disproportionately high percentage of the landed gentry and commercial class was from wealthy Christian clans. The Senanayakes, the Kotelawalas, the Bandaranaikes and the Jayewardenes—all practising a tactical mix of Christian and Buddhist beliefs were among the dominant, anglicised, upper class families to whom the British handed over power on 4 February 1948 when Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) became an independent country.