A Study on the Contribution of Radio Song Lyrics to the Implementation of Development Projects in Sri Lanka (Focusing on the “Cultivation Campaign and Cultivation War”)

Historically, the Sri Lankan government used radio songs to promote its development projects. Radio Songs held a special place in programming since radio’s introduction in Sri Lanka in 1925. Those songs, known as ‘Light Songs’, were also employed by ruling parties to promote state development projects. The purpose of this paper is to study the radio songs used for such a development project, the ‘Cultivation Campaign’ and the ‘Cultivation War’.
This study analyses how radio song lyrics were used to support two important projects: the "Cultivation Campaign" and the "Cultivation War". This is grounded on the period from 1965 to 1977. During that period, the ruling power was the National Government headed by Mr. Dudley Senanayake and the Samagi Peramuna (United Front) Government led by Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike. They used radio song lyrics to make their development project, cultivation campaign, and cultivation war meaningful. Also, the radio intervened to play the role of educating people about development projects on behalf of the government. This was implemented on the concept that radio should be used for national development. For that, the lyrics of the radio song were used. The purpose of the lyrics created in this way was to direct the people to cultivation. That is, persuading society through literature. Therefore, the collection of lyrics is also significant here. Accordingly, these lyrics are analyzed using the concept of ‘Hegemony’ of the Marxist Antonio Gramsci. Representing the field of sociology in literature, this study identified the use of song to communicate outside of common moods such as love and aesthetics. Also, lyrics can be introduced as a literary category that depicts the lives of the people of the 60s and 70s and the past social and political environment of Sri Lanka.

Radio Song, Lyrics, Cultivation Campaign, Development Projects, Hegemony

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