Midweek Review

20th Valdai Discussions in Russia signal emergence of a New Global Order

Published

3 years ago

2023/10/11

Sahan Weerasooriya

President Putin speaking at the Valdai Discussion

By Sanja de Silva Jayatilleka

The public address system at the airport in Sochi, a famous resort on the shores of the Black Sea in the Russian Federation, where the 20th anniversary of the Valdai Discussion Club was held in the first week of October, announced repeatedly that there was an emergency, could the passengers please take the emergency exit-gates?

The delegates to the conference were just leaving after a very busy schedule, ending with the plenary session with President Putin who made a substantive statement and took the time to answer delegates’ questions at length. There were over a hundred delegates from 42 countries attending the conference despite the on-going hostilities between the Russian Federation and Ukraine. The Black Sea area had recently experienced drone strikes from the Ukrainian side which moved outside the limits of the previous theatre of confrontation into the territory of Russia itself. The ‘Collective West’ as the Russians call the coalition of the willing comprised the US, the UK, the EU and other western countries supportive of Ukraine in the on-going conflict, had just announced the decision to send long range missiles to Ukraine, an escalation and a provocation without a doubt.

In this context, while there was the real and present danger of an actual strike on the city of Sochi, officials and experts from around the world came to attend the conference which ended successfully with many important and significant discussions taking place during it, furthering the theme of the conference, “Fair Multipolarity: How to ensure Security and Development for Everyone”.

The wish to attend the Valdai Discussions, where at an earlier meeting the very idea of the BRICS currency was first mooted and where it is now seriously engaged with laying the conceptual foundations of a more equitable global order, clearly took precedence over other considerations in the minds of the attendees.

The airport announcement turned out to be a mistake, someone had pressed a wrong button. My husband Dayan (who had been invited to chair a panel at the event) and I returned to Colombo safely.

Multipolarity in a ‘Hierarchy- Free Future’

An impressive list of participants ranged from a former Executive Director of the IMF and former Vice President of the New Development Bank from Brazil, ; Acting President of the diplomatic Academy of Vietnam; Former UN Assistant Secretary General and Special Envoy for Syria from Egypt; Deputy Foreign Minister of Iran; Vice Foreign Minister of Venezuela; a former Prime Minister of Burkina Faso and Nuclear Science diplomat and a geophysicist; a former National Security Advisor to the government of India; Advisor to a former Lebanese President; Members of Parliament from Mongolia and Moldova; numerous Professors of Political Science, Social Sciences and Development, Economists, researchers and Heads of Institutions; columnists for prestigious publications and others from across the global South as well as academics based in Universities in the US, Canada, France, UK and Germany and Israel.

They discussed a number of topics from A Fair Multipolarity; BRICS Plus and the New International Architecture; the BRICS currency; Role of Nuclear Weapons and the danger of a Nuclear War; Food Security; A World without Currency Monopoly and Punitive Measures; Energy Markets amidst Military and Political Tensions; Science and Education in the age of confrontation; Russian Economy, Civilization, and Society; and the Post-Soviet Society and the lessons of the past, among others.

While there were several closed sessions with high officials, several at Deputy PM level, of the Russian government, most of the sessions were live-streamed.

Multipolarity being theme of the conference, it was analysed in all its aspects, also with reference to the Annual Valdai Report that a panel of 5 Russian academics had produced – this included Professor Fydor Lukyanov, who also conducts the extended interview every year with President Putin which closes the conference.

The strap of the 2023 Report’s title, “Fantasy of a Hierarchy- Free Future” indicated the aspiration of the conference to overturn the existing hierarchical structure of international relations although the conference itself seems to prove it had already moved beyond the realm of mere fantasy. The moderator of the panel on the subject, Professor Emeritus of Politics from the University of Kent, Richard Sakwa proposed the term ‘Heterarchy’ to describe the new order of multipolarity, suggesting that no country will be hegemonic within that order. This new order would pursue a ‘positive peace’ and be driven by a ‘developmental agenda’.

The Report asserts, in accordance with Russia’s 2023 Foreign Policy Concept, that while multipolarity continues to take shape, it has “definitely become irreversible”. It sees the emerging new order as an “Asynchronous Multipolarity”, where international relations are evolving in different segments at different speeds and times, undermining the stable structure required by a hierarchical system.

It acknowledges that the International Order is governed by the distribution of power, recognizing however that there is more than just military power that determines it. The report declares that there are other powers that can be ‘weaponized’, reflecting the complexity of international relations, where for one, the US dollar overwhelmingly dominates the global financial system.

A response of the major powers of the global South is the present tendency towards de-dollarisation pursuant to the unilateral sanctions regime imposed on Russia. While the US $ continues to dominate and will do so for the foreseeable future, those countries especially of the BRICS wished not to limit their options in global trade and to pursue their economic and foreign policy guided by their own national interest and developmental compulsions.

It indicates that the digital sphere as another area of competition where the West dominates, although China, earlier than Russia, had found it necessary to develop their own digital platforms to mitigate their vulnerability to strategic shocks, as has Russia which also developed its own digital platforms. It hopes that China and Russia could become exporters of “digital sovereignty” in the future.

BRICS

“BRICS has arrived” declared Dr. Matab, part of the Indian delegation. The intention of the BRICS Plus group is not to replace one version of domination by another, he said, adding that instead, it sees it as evolving into a truly representative global economic system of governance. “BRICS is a vision not an organization” he said, one which takes responsibility for shaping a new world order.

Another Indian perspective was that BRICS plus emerged to rebalance the world order, and as part of that, it should go beyond State level engagement to connectivity of youth, think-tanks, and BRICS games. Indian currency is being used in 22 countries at present he said, while China’s is used in 120. However, he thought that a new world order was still premature.

Brazil’s Dr. Nogueira, formerly the Vice President of the BRICS’ New Development Bank said that progress is slow due to the resistance of Central Banks. Not all members of the BRICS are in a rush to create a BRICS currency, with some such as India preferring to take time to make a final decision. The new currency, if created, is not intended to replace local currencies, and the US$ would remain the dominant reserve currency.

Russia will take over the presidency of the BRICS bank in two years, when Brazil’s ex-President Dilma Rousseff completes her two years as President of the Bank. Russia will also host the BRICS Plus summit in 2024, where 200 events have already been planned, including BRICS games.

The Chinese vision for BRICS was not to topple nor overhaul but only to restructure the current global financial and economic architecture; to gradually modify the global system to represent the more than 50% of the world’s population.

The South African delegate, Dr. Maharajh asserted that one cannot solve the world’s problem with a homogenous group such as the G7. The BRICS Plus shows the embrace of complexity in international relations but there was a need for the increase of regional voices to understand regional dynamics within which the world’s problems take place. This would make for a more stable international system, he said. He noted that South Africa which hosted this year’s successful BRICS summit, invited members of the African Union which were not BRICS members, to the summit to hear their views.

Valdai goes nuclear

A slightly surreal moment at the conference occurred when Russia’s preeminent strategic studies intellectual, Emeritus Prof Sergei Karaganov who has been described as the Russia’s Kissinger (and is a real-life friend of Henry K) reiterated his recent writings, widely criticized in academic and policy circles in the country, recommending a change to Russia’s nuclear policy to lower its threshold of the use of nuclear weapons to include the first use of tactical nuclear weapons.

The logic of his argument was that it was now clear that the deterrent capacity of nuclear weapons was no longer effective, as evidenced by the West’s enthusiastic military support to Ukraine against a fellow nuclear power, Russia. It was time to make deterrence credible by using tactical nukes against a third non-nuclear country openly supplying Ukraine with weapons. This would be a reasonable choice in the circumstances, indeed its historic mission, he said, motivated by the fervent desire to stop the escalation towards the Third World War by the irresponsible behavior of the Western coalition which didn’t seem to care that millions could die in such an eventuality.

Sri Lanka’s Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka promptly stood up to intervene saying that as a country which had contributed so much to humanity, more than most countries, Russia should not let it be said that it initiated its very destruction. He warned that any use of tactical nukes would invite a western response and could lead to an escalation, with retaliatory tac-nuke strikes carried out against Crimea or the Donbas. He exhorted that what the on-going situation needed instead was to have new Marshals Zhukov, Timoshenko and Rokossovsky, heroes of the Red Army’s counteroffensive against the Nazis, while the very suggestion of tactical nuclear weapons would indicate Russian weakness, not strength.

The loud round of approving applause for his intervention from the mainly Russian audience indicated that Emeritus Prof Karaganov’s view on this was not widely popular and was regarded with as much consternation by his compatriots as by most of the foreign delegates.

The Chinese delegate said that a first strike went against China’s nuclear policy and would be viewed unfavorably by China, although they would be interested in seeing the results of such a policy if it were to be adopted, in order to evaluate their own stand. The Indian panelist, a former Ambassador and a fellow representative to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva at the same time as Dayan, firmly asserted that such a policy would not be supported by India which was very concerned at its suggestion.

The same question was posed by Professor Karaganov to President Putin on the last day, and President Putin was unambiguous in his response that Russia does not need to change its nuclear policy, as they had stationed thousands of missiles and any strike on Russia would trigger a massive automatic retaliation that could reach anywhere in the world, no matter where it originated, thus thankfully retaining that particular proposal in the realm of the surreal, at least for now.

The very notion of such a suggestion by an eminent scholarly personality, even though not by any means shared by the intellectual elite of Russia, however invites thoughtful examination. The deliberate derailment of a credible opportunity for a peaceful settlement between the parties to the Ukraine conflict by then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson who reportedly flew to Kiev to successfully urge President Zelensky to reject the deal, and according to Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s revelation at Valdai this time, personally advised president Zelensky not to negotiate, is a morality tale in international relations. Mr. Johnson’s sliding domestic popularity was ultimately not helped by this cynical intervention and his own career came to an end sooner than expected. As a result of that irresponsible move by a third country, the conflict escalated to the point of the possibility of a direct confrontation, however unlikely, between powerful, nuclear armed former adversaries.

Turning East

The ‘Sanctions War’ forced a transition, according to an aide to President Putin, “from the sick economy of the West to the healthy economy of the East”. President Putin asserted that Europe had lost its sovereignty. “Why do we need this partner? We have found new markets in Asia.” He said that China’s economic growth is over 6% and India’s is at 7%. He declared that the relationship between China and Russia is a stabilizing factor in international relations. Russia supports China’s Belt and Road initiative, which President Putin said was a “promising project”.

Russia’s economy, as reported, has now overcome the shock effect of sanctions and is self-sufficient in agricultural products with its GDP growing at 5%, showing progress in all aspects of its economy with an enviable level of unemployment at 3% this year, and real income growing at 12%. President Putin said that Russia spends 6% of their GDP for military expenditure.

He said this was a defining phase in history. The arrogance of the West he said was “off the scale”, adding ruefully “We thought we were one of them!”. He said the West needs an enemy, and it could easily be India or China next. He commended the Indian leadership which he said “is acting independently”.

He said that Russia is a distinctive “civilizational state”, drawing its ideals and values from its own history and culture. It is working with numerous other civilizations “which are equal in their rights”. The main features of such a state are diversity and self-sufficiency, choosing its own developmental path, rooted in its own experience. He said that the world is moving towards a synergy of civilisational states. “We want to live in an open, interconnected world” he said, with diversity being a fundamental feature of universal development, “free from a ‘bloc’ approach”, with access to modern development for everyone.

There was a palpable sense of an irrevocable shift in global politics, a sense of an inevitable transition to a better mode of operations in global governance with a new and visible confidence among emerging powers.

India was seen to be assertively undertaking its global responsibilities as befits its rapid rise in status as the fastest growing economy in the world and widely respected, especially in Russia as it partners them in on-going and proposed global initiatives. China showed itself to be superbly self-assured, taking note of the obvious geopolitical challenges while sharing its vision of development.

In Sochi, optimism about the future seemed predominant. With Russia having recovered from the sanctions shock, providing the platform and framework for shaping a more equitable global order together with their partners, the 20th Valdai conference seemed thoughtfully determined.

[Sanja de Silva Jayatilleka was a participant by invitation at the 20th annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club, October 2-5, 2023, Sochi, Russia.]

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Midweek Review

Squeaky clean image of JVP in tatters

Published

4 days ago

2026/04/22

Sahan Weerasooriya

During the recent debate on the No-Confidence Motion (NCM) against Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody, Illankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK) Batticaloa District lawmaker, Shanakiyan Rajaputhiran Rasamanickam, warned that the next NCM would be moved against Fisheries Minister Ramalingham Chandrasekaran. Rasamanickam accused the National List member of corruption, a charge vehemently denied by the NPPer. The NPP/JVP needs to initiate an internal inquiry before corruption allegations overwhelm the party that received the full advantage of Aragalaya to transform the outfit from just a three-member parliamentary group, in 2024, to a staggering 159, a year later. The UNP and SLFP led alliances were dealt harshly by the electorates for want of action to curb corruption. Today, the UNP and SLFP are not represented in Parliament, while the SLPP, that secured 145 seats at the 2020 general election, was reduced to just three with its parliamentary group leader Namal Rajapaksa entering Parliament through the National List. Rajapaksa junior obviously feared to face the Hambantota electorate at the last general election. That is the undeniable truth.

By Shamindra Ferdinando

The ongoing controversy over Agriculture, Lands, Irrigation and Livestock Minister K.D. Lal Kantha’s three-storeyed luxury house has intensified pressure on the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)-led National People’s Power (NPP) government struggling to cope-up with the devastating coal scam, blamed on Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody forcing him to resign.

Jayakody, one of those who financed the NPP/JVP campaign in the run-up to the 2024 national polls ,resigned on 17 April, along with Prof. Udayanga Hemapala, Secretary to the Energy Ministry. Their resignations happened eight months after the Frontline Socialist Party (FSP), a breakaway faction of the JVP, revealed the alleged coal scam. The Lal Kantha affair received significant public attention though the primary issue at hand is the massive coal scam that ripped through the government.

Jayakody will continue as a National List member of the ruling party. The NPP/JVP won an unprecedented 159 seats, including 18 National List slots at the November 2024 parliamentary elections.

The Opposition dismissed government claims that the resignations were meant to facilitate the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the procurement of coal, since the commissioning of the country’s only coal-fired power plant during the onset of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s second term. In the wake of the much delayed resignations, NPP/JVP heavyweight Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath, addressing the media at the Information Department, pathetically vouched for Jayakody’s integrity.

Let us discuss the accusations directed at Lal Kantha who had served the SLFP-led Cabinet for a short period, years ago, in terms of an agreement between the SLFP and the JVP. Lal Kantha had never been accused of corruption and was, in fact, one of those lawmakers who raised the issue both in and outside Parliament. Political parties may have forgotten that the UNP got rid of Lacille de Silva, Director General of Administration, Parliament, during Ranil Wickremesinghe’s premiership, in the 2001-2003 period, alleging he passed on information to Lal Kantha to attack the government.

The NPP Executive Committee member, as well as JVP politburo and Central Committee heavyweight, has publicly defended his right to own a luxury house amidst a section of the social media pushing for police investigation into the lawmaker’s wealth.

Unlike the owner/owners of the mysterious Malwana mansion, built on a 16-acre land overlooking the Kelani river, Lal Kantha didn’t try to disclaim the house ownership at Jusse Road, Welivita, in the Kaduwela area. The Malwana house was built towards the end of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s second term as the President. The hullabaloo over the ownership of the Malwana mansion, and construction costs, dominated the 2015 presidential election campaign. On the basis of the Malwana mansion, the UNP and the JVP built a strong case against the Rajapaksas, accusing the family of corruption.

It would be of pivotal importance that the JVP backed Maithripala Sirisena’s 2015 presidential polls candidature. The campaign was built on an anti-corruption platform that earned the appreciation of the public who disregarded the unprecedented development work successfully carried out by the Rajapaksas, while also fighting a war to defeat the most ruthless terrorist organisation that was out to break up the country.

During a US-India backed violent protest campaign, in March-July 2022, an organised gang set the stately Malwana mansion ablaze. The general consensus was that the Malwana mansion belonged to Basil Rajapakasa, though he vehemently denied having anything to do with it.

Yahapalana Justice Minister Dr. Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, PC, is on record as having declared that the Malwana mansion would be renovated and used to accommodate a state institution. Lal Kantha’s newly acquired wealth has to be examined and discussed, taking into consideration his long standing claim that as a fulltime member of the JVP he entirely depended on his wife’s monthly salary and help provided by friends and associates. If that was the case, Lal Kantha couldn’t have ended up among the richest group of politicians, within less than two years after the last presidential election, held in September 2024.

Lal Kantha couldn’t have been unaware of the possibility of the Opposition, particularly the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), attacking him and the NPP/JVP over his Kaduwela house. Responding to critics, the Anuradhapura District lawmaker has claimed, on YouTube, that he sold a property he owned in Anuradhapura and used that money to acquire the Jusse Road land.

The outspoken Minister is also on record as having said that the existence of his new house, to which he moved in late 2024, was disclosed by him. However, incisive Youtuber Dharma Sri Kariyawasam has claimed that he made the revelation on 01 October, 2025, while another You-Tuber, Abeetha Edirisinghe, rammed up pressure on the NPP by lodging a complaint with the police, via the special number 1818. Edirisinghe’s SL Leaders YouTube posted a video of him lodging the complaint.

What made the complaint really interesting was Edirisinghe’s declaration based on ‘Dark Room’ YouTube allegations that wealthy businessman Nissanka Senadhipathi, who had been one of the closest associates of the Rajapaksas, provided the wherewithal required to acquire land, build and then furnish the Jusse Road mansion. Defending his position, Lal Kantha claimed that he acquired a piano for his daughter, about 15 years ago, while declaring he enjoyed the capacity to raise large sums of funds if necessary. A smiling Lal Kantha explained how he could effortlessly collect Rs 500,000 each from 100 associates/friends. Programmes posted by Dharma Sri Kariyawasam and Abeetha Edirisinghe are must-watch for those genuinely interested in knowing the explosive story, from different angles.

Close on the heels of debates on Lal Kantha’s mansion, the media reported the Minister’s last available asset declaration, sent to the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC), dealt with over Rs 80 mn worth of property, vehicles and gold, etc. The JVP heavyweight’s annual income has stunned even the staunchest supporters of the ruling party. Lal Kantha, through his lawyer, demanded Rs 10 bn in damages from ‘Hiru’ for wrongly estimating his properties, etc., at Rs 460 mn.

Both Dharma Sri Kariyawasam and Abeetha Edirisinghe propagated that police wanted the public to complain to special the number 1818, created to accept such complaints in case they felt suspicious about newly acquired property, regardless of who owned them.

Unexpected disclosure of Lal Kantha’s unprecedented wealth obviously stunned the public who genuinely believed in the unshakable NPP/JVP stand on corruption. Lal Kantha, who had joined the JVP in 1982, before becoming a full time member, in 1987, had no qualms in defending his new lifestyle, having repeatedly and bitterly complained about the difficulties experienced by him and his family.

In his defence, Lal Kantha emphasised that he hadn’t been accused of robbing the taxpayer or public sector corruption. However, the NPP/JVP all-out attack on all previous governments, over waste, corruption, irregularities and mismanagement, and branding all their MPs corrupt, cannot adopt such a stance. The Kaduwela mansion has sent shockwaves through the electorate. Dharma Sri Kariyawasam, in his response to Lal Kantha, repeatedly stressed that his wealth was being questioned by those who exercised their franchise in support of the NPP/JVP at the national elections and Local Government polls, in 2025.

Growing public resentment over what various interested parties, including the NPP/JVP called ill-gotten wealth of members and henchmen of previous governments fuelled Aragalaya (31 March-14 July 2022). Those who set houses and other property, belonging to various then government politicians and their associates ablaze, operated on the presumption that they were beneficiaries of ill-gotten wealth. The NPP/JVP powered the campaign, alongside the breakaway JVP faction, styled as Peratugami Pakshaya (Frontline Socialist Party) as well as the UNP.

Ranwala and others

Against the backdrop of Auditor General Samudrika Jayarathne’s devastating report on coal procurement for the 2025/2026 period and Lal Kantha’s declaration that he owned a three-storeyed house, the resignation of Asoka Ranwala, as the Speaker of Parliament, over his failure to prove his declared academic qualifications seemed uncalled for. Jayarathne signed that report on behalf of the National Audit Office (NAO).

The Gampaha District MP resigned on 13 December, 2024, just 22 days after being appointed the Speaker. The main Opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) relentlessly attacked Ranwala over his fabricated or unverified educational qualifications, specifically a Ph.D. from a Japanese university and a degree from the University of Moratuwa.

The NPP/JVP tried to defend Ranwala but quickly succumbed to SJB pressure. We never managed to establish whether Ranwala resigned on his own accord or the NPP/JVP asked him to resign to save the party. Similarly, the resignations of Energy Minister Jayakody and Prof. Hemapala, who cut a sorry figure before the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) recently, must have been demanded by the ruling party. Had the NPP bosses acted prudently, much earlier, after he was indicted before the Colombo High Court on a previous corruption case, they could have easily asked Jayakody to resign his ministerial portfolio before the Parliament debated the no-confidence motion against him.

Another case that really embarrassed the ruling party was accusations directed at Dr. Jagath Wickremeratne, who succeeded Ranwala as House Speaker. The Polonnaruwa District MP was the next to face fire, following a dispute with the Deputy Secretary General of Parliament Chaminda Kularatne who is also the Chief of Staff of the House. Kularatne hit back hard after Parliament sacked him over alleged irregularities. In a petition, dated 2 February, 2026, sent to CIABOC, Kularatne disclosed the circumstances the Speaker reacted angrily after he brought to the NPPer’s notice illegal actions and corruption, as well as his (Kularatne) recommendation in his capacity as the Right to Information (RTI) officer, to release certain information sought by civil society activists. Kularatne further claimed that the situation deteriorated further over an incident that happened on 18 June, 2025, or a date closer to that date, in the room where Speaker Wickremeratne had his lunch. Kularatne refrained from revealing the incident.

There hadn’t been a previous instance of a senior parliamentary official moving the CIABOC against the Speaker. The allegations directed at the Speaker, in respect of abuse of vehicles, taking two fuel allowances, misuse of equipment belonging to the Media Unit of Parliament, inadequate payment for lunch obtained for Chameera Gallage, Speaker’s private secretary, who had lunch with him, illegal payments made to retired Ministry Additional Secretary S.K. Liyanage, who was appointed to inquire into Kularatne’s conduct, suppression of release of information in terms of RTI, and uncalled for interventions in administration.

Kularatne’s complaint to the CIABOC failed to result in an expeditious inquiry, though a complaint lodged against a sacked parliamentary official appeared to have received much more attention. The NPP has responded cautiously to Kularatne vs Wickremeratne battle as pressure mounted on the ruling party over the coal scam that threatened to cause further increase in already unbearable electricity tariffs. The Auditor General’s report, in no uncertain terms, has implicated the Energy Ministry and Lanka Coal Company in the sordid operation that resulted in low-grade coal ending up at the Lakvijaya coal-fired power plant that earlier met about 30 to 40% percent of the country’s power requirements at essentially low cost, barring hydroelectricity.

The report declared that the term tender for the supply of coal was awarded to Trident Champhar, an Indian company that hadn’t been registered at the time it bid for Sri Lanka’s largest tender and procedures in respect of loading and unloading the cargo. To make matters worse, Minister Jayakody, who had been implicated in the coal scam, was recently indicted on corruption charges in the High Court of Colombo. There hadn’t been a previous instance of a sitting member of the Cabinet being indicted for corruption. Therefore, the NPP government cannot be happy over its steamroller majority in Parliament having defeated the no-confidence motion moved against Jayakody who remained confident in the parliamentary group’s support at the behest of the top party leadership.

The NPP/JVP finds itself in an extremely embarrassing and pitiful situation over the coal scam. The damning report issued by the Auditor General pertaining to the coal scam has to be examined taking into consideration the failure on the part of the government and the Constitutional Council to reach a consensus on filling the vacant Auditor General’s post in 2025. The post of Auditor General remained vacant from early April 2025 to early February 2026.

Role of NAO

The NAO functions as an independent body answerable to Parliament. The recent NAO report that dealt with coal procurement exposed the utterly corrupt system in place, regardless of assurances given by the government. The report proved that irregularities can be perpetrated and corrupt practices continued, regardless of assurances given by the current dispensation.

Over the past several years, tangible measures were taken to strengthen the NAO. Parliament certified the National Audit (Amendment) Act, No. 19 of 2025 on 22 September, 2025. That act introduced reforms meant to enhance public sector accountability, enforce audit findings, and streamline the surcharge process. The no nonsense report proved that in spite of interference and undue influence exerted on the NAO, those responsible did their job without fear or favour.

SJB lawmaker Mujibur Rahman, during the debate on the no-confidence motion against Minister Jayakody, alleged in Parliament that COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises) Chairman Dr. Nishantha Samaraweera directly intervened when the NAO was in the process of finalising the report. The former UNPer called for an investigation to establish whether the Galle District NPP MP visited the NAO on several days to meet those handling the investigation.

We are not aware whether the COPE Chief, who called for the NAO to inquire into allegations in respect of coal procurement, visited the NAO.

However, the NAO report on the coal scam, now available online for all to study, underscores the pivotal importance of the anti-corruption fight.

In September 2025, the SJB asked the CIABOC to probe how some NPP/JVP Ministers amassed so much property. The SJB raised the issue with the focus on Trade, Commerce, Food Security and Cooperative Development Minister Wasantha Samarasinghe (like Lal Kantha, he, too, represents the Anuradhapura District) amassed Rs 275 mn. The SJB’s complaint to CIABOC sought investigations on Ministers Sunil Handunetti, Bimal Rathnayake, Dr. Nalinda Jayathissa and Kumara Jayakody, and Deputy Minister Sunil Watagala.

Lal Kantha, who has now acknowledged having as much as Rs 80 mn worth property, was not among the lawmakers targeted by the SJB. Having falsely propagated an anti-corruption campaign to deceive the public, the NPP/JVP stand literally exposed before the public. The coal scam and Lal Kantha fiasco have caused irreparable damage to such an extent, their anti-corruption campaigns may not carry any weight with the public at future elections.

Midweek Review

Some languages confine you; some languages free you

Published

4 days ago

2026/04/22

Sahan Weerasooriya

‘… where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; ….

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward….into ever-widening thought and action…’

With wide apologies, I am going to put snatches of that poem into more dreary uses, though not quite desert sand.

What are those narrow domestic walls which break up the world into fragments? Languages.

Amiya reads the Gitanjali but does not read the Tirukkural. Hong Li reads Kong Fut Ze’s Analects but not Plato’s Republic. Paul reads Miton’s Paradise Lost but not Njal Saga. Sarath Kumara reads Wickremasinghe’s satva santatitya but not Darwin’s Origin of the Species. Ngidi does not read Thomas Picketty’s Capital in the 20th Century or Anthony Atkinson’s Inequality at all. Hirono uses Large Language Models to do homework but Rasolomanana has not seen a computer. And so on and so forth. The world is broken into fragments by languages, but not by languages alone. The daughter of a rich black man living in Howard County in Maryland goes to Stanford but a brown dweller in Dharavi cannot enter Jawaharlal Nehru University. The lesson is that it is not only languages or orthodoxies that break up the world into ‘fragments’ but also many other barriers, about one of which Tagore sang.

Language is a marvellous ‘invention’ of nature well cultivated by humans. No other species has the faculty to use language to know. Ludwig Wittgenstein expressed it epigrammatically, ‘whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.’ It is language that carries forth knowledge. It is not only language that carries forth knowledge: mathematics, in its own right, is a powerful carrier of knowledge. One can write something simple like if x-y=0, then x=y, as well as whole pages of complex and complicated arguments using mathematical notations. Mathematics may and often does write nature and about nature; it also writes about things that exist only in the mind. That is not different from languages: heaven and Vishnu exist in some minds but not in others or elsewhere. Galileo Galilei learnt ‘Nature is an open book but it is written in mathematics’. Much of nature is a closed book to those to whom mathematics is alien territory. But today, I am interested in how some languages ‘break the world into fragments by domestic walls’, while a few others fly about regardless. When a team from India played cricket with a team from Pakistan a few weeks back, the commentary was broadcast in India in 14 languages and in Nigeria national news is read in several languages. That same game of cricket also was broadcast to the rest of the world in one language: English.

When and how do some languages come to ‘lead the mind forward into ever widening thought and action’? The transformation occurs when users of one language become conquerors and rulers of peoples using other languages and when the users of a language become generators of new knowledge which are eagerly sought after by users of other languages. Greek, Latin and Arabic contributed mightily to the vocabulary of modern Western European languages. When new ideas in law, government, philosophy, medicine and science had to be expressed, they went to Greek, Latin or Arabic. Consequently, you will bump into Greek terms the moment you begin thinking about those disciplines. The serious study of Greek was introduced to England by Erasmus (of Rotterdam) about 1500 AC. The use of Latin began with the Roman Empire but took on new functions when Latin became the vehicle carrying Christianity east and north (of Europe) and elsewhere later. Until about the 18th century AC Latin was the language of learning in most of Europe. At its inception, Manchester Grammar School was a Latin school and the Boston Latin School which started in 1635 still thrives in that name. The two medieval universities in England were mostly seminaries teaching in Latin well into the 19th century. A wide swathe of languages is written with the Latin alphabet: European languages from the Black Sea to the Atlantic and from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, America from Canada to Chile, sub-Saharan Africa including Togo, and Indonesian, Malaysian and several others. The exodus of Jewish, Arabic and other scholars, after the fall of Constantinople (1453) to the Ottomans, brought Greek and Arabic to Western Europe including England. From about the 14 to the 18th century, European indigenous vernaculars grew to be carriers of new knowledge, especially in sciences. Luther’s reformation and the development of German had much in common. Gutenberg’s new printing press (1450 AC) helped the growth of European vernaculars and the spread of reformed Christianity.

Four western European languages stood out as both conquerors and carriers of new knowledge: Portuguese, Spanish, French and English. Arabic performed the same function from about 800 AC to the 13 AC when that language carried a new religion and new knowledge in mathematics, astronomy and medicine. Arabic replaced the indigenous languages in the entire Maghreb. The language of governance and learning from Mexico south to Chile is Spanish with Brazil using Portuguese and are collectively called Latin America, because Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian and Romanian are Romance or Latin Languages. French is the language of governance and learning in several parts of West Africa. English was a phenomenon in itself. It destroyed the use of hundreds of languages in North America. It conquered almost half the world and English is the language of governance and higher education in a good part of the land it once ruled. As a language carrying new knowledge, English excels all others. As the collapse of four European empires, including the Ottoman, went on from about 1915 to about 1960, English, which produced new knowledge faster than any other, began to break ‘domestic walls’, the world over. China, which had little love for the English-speaking world, had millions of its citizens schooled in the US, the UK, Canada and Australia during the last 30 years and continues to do so, to date. In contrast, during that time how many rushed to Niger to learn Fulfulde or to Lanka to study Sinhala? The prominence of English was promoted by two other processes: one was translation into English of major works in other languages and the other the growth of a class of indigenous writers and readers in the conqueror’s language. One reads Oblomov, Gilgamesh and, indeed, Gitanjali translated into English. India now probably has more readers in English than any other single country. Persons in Western African countries have crafted in French and English, masterpieces in fiction, poetry and drama. Modern European languages have been both conquerors’ languages and carriers of new knowledge.

Several people recently have written in The Island and in Lankadeepa about the importance of using the ‘mother tongue’. They have stressed the importance of the ‘mother tongue’ in creative writing. As with observations regarding empirical phenomena, it is necessary to test those generalisations against reality. Samskrt is a language not entirely unfamiliar to many in this land. Samskrt was nobody’s mother tongue. (After all, it is deva bhaashitam.) There is not a shred of evidence that Kalidasa’s mother talked to him in Samskrt. But Kalidasa wrote rtusmahara and shakuntalam.. The vedas and upanishads were first spoken and later written in samskrt. Pali is nobody’s mother tongue but Theravada writings are almost entirely in that language. Isaac Newton wrote Principia Mathematica in Latin; we have no evidence that baby Isaac babbled in Latin. Paul Dirac wrote about particle physics in mathematics rather than in his father’s beloved French. Leopold Senghor’s mother tongue was not French nor Chinua Achebe’s English. More casually, check your own libraries. I had a collection of about 2,300 books until last year. There weren’t even 200 written in Sinhala and that 200 included editions of works from the 13th century. Check how many books written in Sinhala and English you bought in the last two years. There were far too many writers and scientists who brought forth highly acclaimed work in languages other than their mother tongue, contradicting the argument that the mother tongue was essential or even desirable for original work, in science or in literature.

Most languages ‘break the world into narrow fragments’. A few coagulate them into large masses: 900 million people speak Mandarin and 325 million, Bengali. A half dozen bind themselves together speaking a conqueror’s language. Four languages stand out as having ‘led the ‘mind forward into ever-widening thought and action’: Greek, Latin, Arabic and English. English, so far, is unrivalled.

by Usvatte-aratchi