討論殖民議題時，有學者指出，殖民者利用多族群的對立，採取「分而治之」的政策，以達到殖民目的;也有學者以「雙重使命」的角度，認為殖民者在殖民地不僅從事破壞，也執行建設，不該遺漏或偏頗其中一項。筆者認為，這兩種對殖民政策的分析方式，容易陷入殖民論述中常見的二分法困境，將殖民者採用「分而治之」的策略，認為是殖民者掌握殖民地的族群對立之後的理性計算，或是無法加以治理族群對立而不得不的退讓，而「雙重使命」則可能合理化殖民政策與忽略不同殖民地的特性。因此，本文質疑以「分而治之」與「雙重使命」為架構的殖民議題分析，是否符合當時的殖民脈絡?以及這樣的分析是否能呈現殖民經驗與殖民的治理性?本文在這樣的問題意識下，以英國殖民印度與斯里蘭卡為例，於殖民脈絡下，以地緣政治、族群、宗教、空間、語言、階級、全球化資本主義等因素，進行「多元衝突分析」，做為進一步探討殖民的起點。

Of colonial topics, a lot of scholars indicate that colonizers exploited the opposition in different races and enforced the tactics of Divide-and-Rule for the colonial purposes. Another school of scholars, based on the Dual Mandate approach, indicates that colonizers not just destroy but construct the colony as well. The article considers two approaches that led to the dilemma of colonial discourses especially on dichotomy - Divide-and-Rule, which leads to either colonizers controlling the characteristic of conflicts between ethicities, or conceding the powerless with conflicts between ethnicities and Dual Mandate, which rationalizes the colonial policy and neglects the characteristics of different colonies. Therefore, the article queries the analytic frames of Divide-and-Rule and Dual Mandate in the colonial context, as whether the two approaches can explain the colonial experiences and the governmentality of colonialism. The article focuses on the conflict in India and Sri Lanka during the last phase of British colonization with multi- conflict analysis, including political geography, ethnicity, religion, space, language, class, and global capitalism. The article hopes to be a new start in the study of colonialism.