Midweek Review

A philosopher emperor

Published

6 years ago

2020/12/2

by Charles Ponnuthurai Sarvan

The titles of books can be misleading. I recall the surprise of a colleague when she saw me carrying a work titled ‘Why is Sex Fun?’ In that book, biologist Jared Diamond explores why human sexual behaviour is so very different from that of animals, even though we are descended from them and still retain some of their behavioural characteristics. The book’s subtitle is ‘The Evolution of Human Sexuality’. The title of Professor Ronald Dworkin’s work, ‘Religion Without God’ (Harvard University Press), seems to be a contradiction, if not an absurdity. Can an atheistic doctrine (the negating particle ‘a’ + theo) be called a religion? But then atheist Einstein said he was religious: “To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty … this knowledge, this feeling, is at the centre of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong in the ranks of devoutly religious men.” Some have argued that in true Buddhism, that is, as it was preached, there are no gods; even that Buddhism is not a religion but a set of moral precepts and wise, compassionate guidance. So much depends on our definition and concept of terms.

The title of the work that occupies us here, ‘How to Think like a Roman Emperor’ by Donald Robertson (New York, 2019), can initially be misleading. Did all Roman emperors think alike? Not being a Roman emperor, how can I possibly think like one? Again, the book’s subtitle clarifies: ‘The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius’. This brings us to Aurelius (121 – 180 CE) and to Stoicism. Admittedly, I have long admired Marcus Aurelius and, to alter words from Ben Jonson, have honoured him “this side of idolatry”. As a note has it, “Marcus Aurelius was the first prominent example of a philosopher king. His Stoic tome ‘Meditations’, written in Greek while on campaign between 170 and 180, is still revered as a literary monument to a philosophy of service and duty, describing how to find and preserve equanimity in the midst of conflict by following nature as a source of guidance and inspiration.”

Socrates, at his trial at which he chose death, said that an unexamined life was not worth living. Aurelius began each morning by thinking about, planning and preparing for the day. The second phase was when he, as emperor, had to act. Finally, at night he reviewed the day and his conduct during it. The ‘Meditations’ was not written for others: it was a kind of “stock taking” of himself, his reactions and behaviour. Aurelius warns himself not to become a Caesar, that is, a dictator. He tried, as far as custom and circumstances permitted, to reduce the pomp which surrounded him (Pope Francis comes to mind) preferring a simple, unpretentious life. As the Greeks knew, we can never see our own face, except by reflection in a mirror. A true friend can act as a mirror, showing us as we really are. Aurelius, therefore, welcomed criticism. Severe on himself, he was patient and kind towards others. As history shows, this extended even to those who had rebelled against him. I wonder if Forster’s comment in his novel, ‘A Passage to India’, that truth is not truth unless spoken gently, derives from the words and example of Marcus Aurelius. Truth, if spoken unkindly, serves only to alienate and antagonise. It may silence the other but does not convince or persuade. In his ‘Meditations’, Aurelius records and rebukes himself when he falls short of the standards he has set himself. The emperor wondered how he could estimate the worth of an individual, and decided it was by seeing to what things that person gave value. In modern terms, it doesn’t mean we must not take an interest in cricket, fashion or food but how much importance and value do we place on such things? Aurelius as emperor couldn’t retreat to his library but had to act. When war broke out on the frontier, he left the safety and comfort of Rome and placed himself at the front with his soldiers. Nor was he solemn and humourless. He is reported to have been good-humoured, affectionate, and close to his family and friends. Before age and responsibilities burdened him, he had hobbies and, as was expected of Roman youths and young men, was active in sports.

At the end, knowing that he was dying; that doctors and medicines couldn’t help, the Emperor calmly and courageously declined food and drink so as not to engage in a futile prolongation of the inevitable. Such an attitude and action are the result of long and serious thought, and preparation: in Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’ (Act 1, Scene 4) it’s said of a man that he faced his own execution as one who had “studied” how to die. Aurelius must have known the Latin saying that someone who is not afraid of death cannot be enslaved. Changing time and place, John Donne in a sonnet that begins “Death be not proud” argues that since a person can die only once, having killed him, it’s Death that dies. And in Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’ (Act 2, Scene 2) Caesar says: “Cowards die many times before their deaths”. As he was dying, Seamus Heaney, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, managed to send a text message to his wife in the language he loved, Latin. It consisted of two words: Noli timere (Don’t fear).

Though I am in no way a specialist in either, I am struck by important similarities between Stoicism and Buddhism. For a start, the cornerstone of both is rationality. The Buddha lived from 563 – 483 BCE and Zeno, credited with being the founder of Stoicism, from 334 – 262 BCE. And long before Alexander the Great reached India in 326 BCE, there were links between India and the West. Did Asian Buddhism play a role in the development of Western Stoicism? If research has been done in this area, it has not received publicity: the most effective way of “sinking” a book is to ignore it. Take, for example, Martin Bernal’s thesis in his ‘Black Athena’ that the roots of Western Classical civilization were Afro-Asian. So too, many a male must have been outraged by Martin Stone when he argued in ‘When God was a Woman’ that the first divinities before whom we bowed our heads or prostrated ourselves were female, particularly the ‘mother goddess’. In Sri Lanka, that lucid and refreshing, if radical, work by Dr K S Palihakkara, ‘Buddhism Sans Myths & Miracles’ (Stamford Lake publishers, Pannipitiya) has not excited much, if any, public discussion. Dr Palihakkara’s declared effort was to rescue and cleanse Buddhism from the accretion over time of “myths and miracles and metaphysics”: these took away what was unique to Buddhism, making it more like other religions.

So much of our attitude to life and death depends on our eschatology, our ideas and beliefs about death and the afterlife. The Stoics were atheists believing that at death we disintegrate into and merge with the material, a material which is itself constantly changing. Whether there’s a similarity here with Buddhism, I leave to the reader. The cardinal virtues of Greek philosophy, as of Buddhism, include wisdom (the product of reason and thought), moderation and justice. With Buddhism, it’s not mere verbal and public protestation but actual practice, and so it was with the Stoics. Stoicism was a way of life, assiduously trained in; exemplified by character and conduct.

While in Islam representations of the Prophet are forbidden, Christianity has many paintings and sculptures of Jesus; Jesus with different expression, including pain, even agony. In contrast, the Buddha is almost invariably depicted as being serene. When we lived in Bonn, I used to admire the swans on the Rhine, their sedateness and dignity but, looking more carefully, one saw that these were the result of their feet working constantly, often against the current. So too, the serenity of the Buddha is the result of thought and effort: as is the calm associated with the Stoic.

Anger is temporary madness. Because a deranged person is not controlled by reason, it follows that someone who is angry, someone whose anger is not under control is, for the duration, mad. True Buddhists and Stoics do not give in to anger; they remain detached; free and above this “madness”.

Stoic calmness, the result of mental control, must not be mistaken for emotionlessness. To feel pain and sorrow is human: what counts is our reaction to them. The operative word here is “acceptance”. Sorrow, while it has its impact on us, must be met with wisdom; pain, with acceptance. (Related to acceptance is the key term and concept of relinquishment.) Thorns hurt, and the Bible advises us not to increase the pain by kicking against them. The Stoic image was of a dog tied to a cart: the dog can either walk along or make things worse for itself by struggling, futilely and painfully. A 20th century philosopher asked for the courage to change those things which can be changed; the serenity to accept what can’t be altered, and the wisdom to know the difference. Donald Robertson, a cognitive-behavioural psychotherapist, brings in modern terms and concepts to an understanding of Marcus Aurelius, among them the Stoic reserve-clause. Our expectations are ‘reserved’ for what is within our sphere of control: the rest is up to chance or, as believers would say, “Deo volente” or “Deo gratis”. (When I asked a friend why he often said “Inshallah” though he had never been a Muslim and was in fact a thorough atheist, he replied that it was in a philosophical and not in a religious sense: “If my effort and chance will it”.) As with emotions, so with our desires: of importance to the Stoics was (a) what we desired; (b) to what degree, and (c) how we set about achieving these desires.

Central to Buddhism and Stoicism is an awareness of transience, known in the former as “Anicca”. Heraclitus (500 BCE) famously declared that all is flux. We cannot step into the same river twice because fresh waters are ever flowing in. For better or worse, we are not the same as we were several, or even a few, years ago. We change, others change, relationships change, the world around us changes. All is flux. And as T S Eliot, borrowing from Hinduism, writes in ‘Murder in the Cathedral’, only a fool fixed in his folly thinks he can turn the wheel on which he turns.

I read that there’s a tribe which mourns birth and celebrates death, and Shakespeare in his major tragedy ‘King Lear’ suggests with ironic wit that all infants cry when they are born because they have come to this world! Freud suggested that in as much as we have an instinct for preservation and survival, there can also be a wish for death, for a return to a previous state of non-existence: see terms such as ‘Todestriebe’ and ‘Thanatos’. James Thomson in his poem, ‘City of Dreadful Night’ writes:

This little life is all we must endure,

The grave’s most holy peace is ever sure,

We fall asleep and never wake again;

Nothing is of us but the mouldering flesh,

Whose elements dissolve and merge afresh…

“And the cessation / of life’s peacock scream / will be relief” (Liebetraut Sarvan).

In Book 1 of his ‘Histories’, Herodotus relates the story of a mother who, full of love for and pride in her two sons, prays in the evening to the goddess Hera that she bestows on them “the greatest blessing” that can fall on mortals. The goddess answers the prayer, and the young men are found in the morning – dead. Diagones (412 – 323 BCE) who had a sharp sense of ‘humour’ requested that his dead body be thrown over the city walls so that the wild animals could have a meal: no longer having consciousness, what was done to his body didn’t matter. Respect for a corpse; gravestones and monuments; memorial services, prayers and rituals are for the living, and not for the dead. Buddhist nirvana means the final deliverance from suffering and sorrow: an escape into freedom effected by ceasing to be.

Given these conceptions of life and death, it is not surprising that suicide (not on impulse; not in despair or in a state of temporary madness) was accepted; indeed, in certain situations it was admired and highly honoured. Shakespeare’s Hamlet contemplating suicide and the “sleep” that follows it, saw death as a “consummation” devoutly to be wished for. Each individual must decide, with utmost clarity and calmness “whether the time is come to take leave of life” (‘Meditations’, Book 3). Or as Aurelius expresses it elsewhere, the chimney smokes and I leave the room (Book 5). To the Stoics, lamentation at death was for the loss that the living experienced, and not for the departed:

No motion has she now, no force

She neither hears nor sees;

Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course With rocks, and stones, and trees

(William Wordsworth)

Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970) wrote: “I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting. Many a man has borne himself proudly on the scaffold; surely the same pride should teach us to think truly about man’s place in the world.” And so I return to the serenity of the Buddha and to the calm of Stoicism: the aim of both was (through rational thought and conscious, controlled, behaviour) to minimise pain and to increase peace and happiness. Both Buddhism and Stoicism are positive and life-enhancing.

Addendum.

I draw attention to what I wrote in ‘Colombo Telegraph’ (1 February 2018) under the caption ‘Religious doctrine and religion’. If we say that Christianity is a gentle, or Buddhism a compassionate, religion what we mean is these faiths as they were taught – most certainly, not as they are practiced in private and public life. I suggested a distinction between religious doctrine and religion with its rituals, paraphernalia, hierarchy, myths and superstitions. Religious doctrine has a divine or semi-divine origin or is from an exalted, exceptional, individual. Simplifying, one could say: “Religious doctrine is ‘divine’ but religion is a human construct”.

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Midweek Review

Legacy of enforced disappearances: Vital facts conveniently forgotten to whitewash LTTE and India

Published

20 hours ago

2026/09/9

Sahan Weerasooriya

One-time child soldier Jesuthasan Antonythasan poses with actresses Claudine Vinasithamby and Kalieaswari Srinivasan during a photocall for the film "Dheepan" at the 68th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes. The movie won the Palme d'Or in 2015. Antonythasan fought for the LTTE terrorist group before fleeing Sri Lanka and reached France in 1993. Of those categorised as missing, perhaps he is the most famous.

Those demanding accountability from Sri Lanka for war crimes allegations are strangely silent on atrocities committed by the LTTE. On the orders of its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, the LTTE killed hundreds of members belonging to rival terrorist groups. It assassinated President Ranasinghe Premadsasa, almost succeeded in assassinating President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga and made attempts on President Mahinda Rajapaksa. But, the indiscriminate use of children as cannon fodder went unnoticed. How many children, forcibly recruited into their ranks, perished in fighting? And, lastly, shouldn’t the Tamil community hold the Illankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK)-led now defunct Tamil National Alliance, that recognised the LTTE in 2001 as the sole representative of the Tamil speaking people, responsible for death and destruction caused since 2001?

By Shamindra Ferdinando

Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) representative Ana Lorena Delgadillo Pérez, and head of the Association of Relatives of Enforced Disappearances (ARED) Yogarasa Kanagaranjini, on 30 August, opened an exhibition at the Thanthai Selva Auditorium in Jaffna. The exhibition, appropriately named ‘Long Road for Justice,’ coincided with the International Day for Victims of Enforced Disappearances.

Pérez later addressed a conference held therein where the responsibility on the part of Sri Lanka was stressed.

Civil society activist Sunanda Deshapriya, in an article titled ‘Sri Lanka’s Disappeared: Where Do We Go from Here?’ carried in Jaffna Monitor, dealt with missing persons issue. Deshapriya focused on the North-East war (https://www.jaffnamonitor.com/sri-lankas-disappeared-where-do-we-go-from-here/)

The ICRC, Colombo, issued a statement regarding the International Day of the Disappeared. When the writer sought the number of missing persons in the country, Ruwanthi Jayasundare, Head of Communications, said that they had a caseload of 15,000 registered tracing requests (1983-2009) but she asserted that the actual number of missing was far bigger (https://island.lk/icrs-sustained-and-collective-efforts-critical-to-address-issue-of-missing-persons/)

Perhaps, many people wouldn’t know that the ICRC arrived here in 1989 during the second Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) terror campaign in the wake of Indian military intervention here. The much discussed issue of disappearances must be appropriately dealt with, taking into consideration the relevant factors. At the time of their deployment here, President Ranasinghe Premadasa had been engaged in direct talks with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Geneva-headquartered body never expected a gruesome outbreak of violence. It would be pertinent to mention that within weeks after the ICRC’s arrival here, the JVP was crushed with brute force as it, too, resorted to senseless violence. The counter violence unleashed by the state apparatus was such that the then Marxist group’s top leadership was killed, except for Somawansa Amarasinghe, who escaped, with Indian help, in February 1990, and remained in exile till late 2001.

The ICRC deployment took place in mid October, 1989, and JVP leader Rohana Wijeweera was captured in the second week of November, at Ulapone, and shot in custody, and was allegedly cremated alive at the Borella cemetery.

In fact, at the time the ICRC arrived here, the JVP was on its last legs. The UNP government never bothered to hand over the bodies of slain JVP cadres to their families. Those who had been listed missing at that time were no longer in the land of the living, by the time the ICRC brought its operation in the South to an end.

What the country never expected was a fresh flare-up in the northern and eastern regions. The LTTE resumed large-scale hostilities, in June, after the Indian Army pulled out from Sri Lanka in late March 1990. Interestingly, some of those demanding justice for the missing/disappeared are conveniently silent about the disappearances during the Indian Army deployment here (July 1987 to March 1990).

Soon after hostilities erupted in the northern and eastern regions, following a 14-month truce between President Ranasinghe Premadasa and LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran (May 1989 to June 1990), the ICRC was invited to open offices in that region. There had been excesses on the part of the military and law enforcement authorities as the government battled the LTTE, the world’s most ruthless terrorist organisation as assessed by none other than the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Yet Sri Lanka must earnestly address accountability issues and take meaningful measures to compensate the families of the innocents.

However, the Tamil community must come to terms with the reality that the vast majority of dead were members of the LTTE. The LTTE enjoyed considerable firepower as it literally wielded a conventional fighting capability, which even included a fledgling air force and directly challenged the government, and the armed forces had no option but to fight back. Obviously, the LTTE, that achieved significant battlefield successes over the years, never expected the almost non-stop three-year-long offensive that brought the war to an end in May 2009. Disappearances became exceptionally an important issue in the overall agenda pursued by the Tamil Diaspora and Tamil speaking political parties here only after the LTTE’s eradication.

Multiple reasons

In September 1990, several months after the Indian Army was literally forced to pull out from Sri Lanka as Tigers fought back the mighty IPKF to a standstill, while President Premadasa, too, made it clear that they were no longer welcome here, Amnesty International (AI) documented 43 cases of disappearances. According to the London headquartered AI, the majority of these disappearances happened in the Jaffna peninsula, following the outbreak of fighting in October 1989. The Indian Army launched ‘Operation Pawan’ meant to disarm the LTTE in line with the Indo-Lanka Accord, signed on 29 July, 1987.

During the Indian Army deployment here (1987 July to 1990 March), the Sri Lankan armed forces were confined to their barracks in the North and East. The AI accused the Indian Army of torture, extrajudicial executions and disappearances. The deaths of nearly 1,500 Indian officers and men, and injuries to approximately 3,000 others during the Indian deployment here, underscored the ferocity of the situation.

The Indian Army carried out reprisals, following LTTE attacks in both provinces. The Indian Army was also accused of sexual violence. Perhaps, the August 1989 Valvettithurai orgy of violence, during which Indian soldiers killed civilians, tortured detainees, committed sexual violence, and systematically destroyed homes and businesses, while the town was under curfew, was the worst case.

In October, 2025, the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) presented a detailed reparations claim, in association with the Valvettithurai Citizens’ Committee, to the Sri Lankan Office for Reparations, requesting USD $15 million (LKR 4.5 billion) for victims of a 1989 orgy of violence committed by the IPKF where at least 66 civilians were killed and 34 injured.

There hadn’t been a previous instance of a comprehensive compensation claim for such a wartime crime. Thousands of LTTE cadres, some of them trained in India, and civilians, perished in Indian Army action. The Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) earned such a bad reputation it came to be dubbed the Indian People Killing Force.

The war in Sri Lanka, or whatever one chooses to call it, should be examined in the context of a high profile Indian destabilisation project ordered by Premier Indira Gandhi. Over a year after the Indian Army pullout, the LTTE assassinated Rajiv Gandhi, by then out of power, but he was the person Velupillai Prabhakaran held responsible for the Indian Army deployment in Sri Lanka. Following Gandhi’s assassination, India hunted down the LTTE team, involved in the operation, carried out by a female suicide cadre.

The LTTE forgot the Indian role in the transformation of the Tamil separatist terrorist movement to a deadly conventional threat. If not for the despicable Indian action, Sri Lanka wouldn’t have been hauled up before the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). That is the unpalatable truth.

How many Sri Lankan Tamils disappeared during weapons training in India? Did India investigate such disappearances as well as deaths caused by fighting among rival Tamil terrorist groups operating in India at that time? Among the groups that had been armed by India were PLOTE (People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam), EPRLF (Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front) and TELO (Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation) responsible for quite a significant number of killings and human rights violations.

India never accepted responsibility for the PLOTE raid on the Maldives on a contract to topple the then Maldivian PM Gayoom’s government given by a domestic rival in early November, 1988. Shouldn’t New Delhi at least apologise for the sea borne raid on the Maldives that resulted in deaths of Maldivians, as well as raiders? The Indian Navy sank a ship commandeered by the attackers fleeing the Maldives after air borne Indian troops brought the situation under control.

The Indian and global media praised swift Indian intervention but ignored two key factors, namely (i) the operation targeting Maldivian President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom was mounted by one of the groups trained, armed and deployed by India and (ii) two trawlers carrying the raiding party left the northern part of Sri Lanka, at that time held by the Indian Army.

The writer had the opportunity, in November, 2011, to interview the Maldivian businessman, Abdullah Luthufee, who convinced the PLOTE leader Uma Maheswaran to carry out the operation. (Male plot leader speaks out 3 November, 2011, Rajiv saved us from Gayoom-Male coup leader 4 November 2011 and How Luthufee moved SAARC venue from Male to Addu 11 Nov 2011) dealt with the operation that should have drawn international attention to the Indian destabilisation project. Let me stress that some PLOTE cadres perished when the Indian Navy sank the vessel commandeered by the fleeing PLOTE cadres. They were among those who had been listed missing during the conflict.

Australian and US interventions

One-time top JVPer Kumar Gunaratnam secret arrival in Sri Lanka as an Australian Citizen Noel Mudalige, in early September, 2011, emphasised the issuance of foreign passports in assumed names to Sri Lankans under controversial circumstances. The writer exclusively reported how the head of the breakaway JVP faction, known as the Frontline Socialist Party (FSP), arrived here. The Australian High Commission in Sri Lanka acted swiftly and decisively when Gunaratnam disappeared after entering the country, using Australian passport bearing number N 1016123 on September 4, 2011 (https://dbsjeyaraj.com/dbsj/?p=43914). The writer dealt with the same issue again in August 2016 (https://dbsjeyaraj.com/dbsj/?p=47936).

Among thousands of Sri Lankans, now having foreign citizenship, there can be many people listed here as “missing/forcibly” disappeared. Western governments never helped Sri Lanka to establish the real identities of Sri Lankans living abroad, under assumed names. If Gunaratnam never acted in a manner inimical to the JVP, he could have easily lived a comfortable life in Australia as Sinhala Buddhist Noel Mudalige.

There had been many interesting stories of those categorised as missing/dead turning up in the West, under new identities. One of the most intriguing ones, is about an ex-LTTE terrorist turned Frenchman Antonythasan Jesuthasan, the lead actor in Dheepen that won the prestigious Palme d’Or at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.

Internationally acclaimed Jacques Audiard directed the movie about three Sri Lankans who formed a fake family to escape the war and to secure asylum in France. Antonythasan Jesuthasan’s performance in Dheepan earned him a Best Actor nomination at the 2016 César Awards (the French equivalent of the Oscars). Jesuthasan is the only ex-LTTE terrorist to receive international acclaim as an actor.

In an interview with Tom Seymour (Dheepan’s Antonythasan Jesuthasan: from Tamil Tiger to star of a Palme d’Or winner in The Guardian) posted online on March 31, 2016, transformed Frenchman Jesuthasan, unwittingly revealed how he deceived the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to secure political asylum. Seymour reported that Jesuthasan, after having shown him a dense lattice of scars on his forearm, declared: “I did those to myself. I was 22, and I had spent years trying to come to the west. I wanted to get a fake French passport, but I had to be accepted as a refugee. I went to the UNHCR [the UN High Commissioner for Refugees], but they wouldn’t believe my story. So I cut myself, and held up my arm, and said to them: ‘Look at my blood. This is my word.”

Jesuthasan is just one among thousands who obtained political asylum on false claims. Jesuthasan ended up as the star of Dheepan, directed by Jacques Audiard, possibly France’s most celebrated modern director. There cannot be a better example than Jesuthasan to highlight the web of deceit pertaining to the vast majority of those who successfully secured political asylum. But, the Sri Lanka Foreign Ministry never bothered to set the record straight. Born in Allaipiddy, on the Velanaitivu islet, Jesuthasan claimed he fought the Sri Lanka Army in August 1990 and subsequently fled the country and managed to reach France.

But, the case of Kathiravel Thayapararajah is one of the most controversial cases. Thayapararajah had been involved in a Tamil Diaspora funded project in Kilinochchi during Eelam war IV. He couldn’t have secured the Diaspora assignment without the approval of the LTTE and remained in the Vanni during the war. He disappeared in September 2009.

His disappearance prompted a section of the media, as well as some international NGOs, to accuse the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) of executing him. No less a person than the then US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs and one-time US Ambassador in Colombo, Robert O. Blake, inquired about the missing person.

The University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), the Australian Government Refugee Review Tribunal, Tamilnet and the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights among others blamed the Sri Lankan intelligence for the disappearance. However, the Indian media, in May, 2014, revealed Thayapararajah’s arrest though they didn’t know at the time that he was the person who was supposed to have been killed by the Sri Lankan Intelligence. At the time Indian police apprehended Thayapararajah, at Arichamunai off Dhanuskodi, after arriving there in a boat from Sri Lanka, he had been with notorious female human smuggler Uthayakala. She claimed Thayapararajah was her second husband.

That chance detection exposed a blatant lie propagated over the years. The then Head of Missing Persons Commission, retired High Court Judge Maxwell Paranagama, is also on record as having called for international cooperation to trace persons living overseas under new identities. Paranagama told the writer that at that time both the international community, including the ICRC, had declined to help Sri Lanka identify those taking cover behind new identities.

Chemmani mass graves

Sri Lanka needs to investigate war crimes allegations, particularly the high profile Chemmani mass grave. The country cannot ignore the continuing accusations with the international media taking advantage of the situation to tarnish the country, especially the Rajapaksa rule. It must be a way of the West taking revenge from the Rajapaksas for going against their wish to save the bold thirsty Tigers. It is like their logic that Israel can do no wrong!

The CNN dealt with the Chemmani issue while the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), in July last year, called for what it claimed as victim-centred investigation into the alleged mass graves in compliance with international law and standards.

Tamil political parties, too, repeatedly demanded tangible action against the perpetrators. The Chemmani mass grave site drew national and international attention in 1998 following the confession of a soldier implicated in the rape and murder of schoolgirl Krishanthy Kumaraswamy. Chemmani has become a powerful and painful symbol of the country’s war-torn past.

Krishanthy Kumaraswamy was raped and killed by soldiers on the 7th of September, 1996. The same group of soldiers later killed her mother, her younger brother and a family friend who went out searching for the teenager.

An excavation, in 1999, led to the recovery of 15 sets of remains, and then the matter was allowed to rest for about a quarter of a century. On the orders of the Jaffna Magistrate’s court, a fresh excavation was ordered last year, following the chance recovery of some skeletal remains and so far nearly 600 sets of human remains have been found, among them children and infants. Tamil media have declared Chemmani as the largest mass grave found in Sri Lanka.

It would be pertinent to mention that some time back the Army was accused of the Mannar mass graves but investigations undertaken by the Office of Missing Persons (OMP), with international expertise, proved the claims false. Bone fragment samples were submitted to Beta Analytic, a specialised US radiocarbon-dating laboratory. This happened during the Yahapalana administration (2015-2019) Later, the lab indicated that the tested bone samples dated back to the period between 1499 and 1719 AD (the 15th to 18th century). That brought an end to the Mannar mass graves hoax.

Whatever the circumstances, the government cannot remain silent regarding the Chemmani mass graves. The area that had been under Security Forces Headquarters, Jaffna continues to receive public attention, both here and abroad. The Army will have to address the issue without further delay. Let me stress the importance of investigating the atrocities perpetrated by others, namely the Indian Army for which the responsibility lies with the government of India as well as the LTTE, and over half a dozen other terrorist groups that subsequently entered the political mainstream.

The formation of Tamil National Army (TNA) by India before the Indian Army pullout by March 1990, too, must receive the attention of Sri Lanka as well the concerned international community. Having totally destabilised the smaller neighbouring county by arming scores of terrorist groups, New Delhi went a step further by the formation of the TNA meant to protect Varatharaja Perumal’s North-East provincial administration.

In spite of President Ranasinghe Premadasa drawing strong criticism for arming the LTTE against the Indian Army, in hindsight, if not for his controversial decision, India’s proxy, TNA may have taken root. Whatever various parties say today, the TNA had been formed to ensure the continuation of the deeply unpopular Perumal’s administration that went to the extent of forcible conscription. India can never absolve itself of responsibility for what it did in Sri Lanka. The destabilisation project, largely influenced by the then Premier Indira Gandhi’s concerns over the developing situation in Tamil Nadu, caused massive death and destruction. No less a person than J.N. Dixit, who served as their High Commissioner in Colombo (1985 to 1989), and later appointed National Security Advisor (2004 to 2005) disclosed in his memoirs ‘Makers of India’s Foreign Policy: Raja Ram Mohun to Yashwant Sinha’, Indira’s Gandhi’s intervention. The late Dixit in no uncertain terms blamed her for Indian intervention in Sri Lanka.

Midweek Review

A street where Sri Lankan stories found their readers

Published

21 hours ago

2026/09/9

Sahan Weerasooriya

Margaret Richardson and Asanka de Mel / Ashok Ferrey

By Ifham Nizam

Pictures by Nishan S Priyantha and Kamal Bogoda

Ashok Ferrey took readers into an older Colombo through Colpetty People. Vivimarie Vanderpoorten opened the door to the personal stories behind her poetry. Andrew Fidel Fernando brought cricket, culture and the distinctive world of Sri Lankan school cricket into the conversation, while Ramya Jirasinghe spoke candidly about the long and often difficult road from writing a manuscript to seeing it published.

Then came Margaret Richardson and Asanka de Mel, whose conversation moved from literature to the question of where Sri Lanka should be by 2048.

These were among the voices that gave life to Fairway Street of Stories, a new initiative that sought to bring Sri Lankan English-language writers closer to their readers.

But behind the gathering of authors, readers, books, children, book clubs and aspiring writers was a bigger idea—the brainchild of Amendra Haputhanthri, Director of Sarasavi Bookshop (Pvt) Ltd.

For Haputhanthri, Fairway Street of Stories is not merely another literary event. It is part of a much larger attempt to create a marketplace for Sri Lankan talent and to persuade readers to discover stories that are unmistakably their own.

“Usually, when we have exhibitions, such as the Colombo Book Fair, we always think about what sells the most. Here, we wanted to create a niche market for people who want to read Sri Lankan writing,” she said.

And the first event demonstrated just how wide that literary world can be.

Stories from a Sri Lanka we know

Haputhanthri believes one of the greatest strengths of Sri Lankan English writing is its sense of place.

A thriller set in an unfamiliar foreign city may be entertaining. But a thriller unfolding at the Galle Face Hotel or Mount Lavinia Hotel carries another kind of intimacy for a Sri Lankan reader.

“You have familiar words and actual real-world places that we have been to. There will be a connection with the book,” she said.

That connection can be even more powerful when the story takes readers into places and experiences that are disappearing.

This is one reason she admires Ferrey’s work.

During his Fairway session, Ferrey, together with Tanya de Mel, offered readers an engaging glimpse into the world behind Colpetty People and the Colombo it captures.

Amendra Haputhanthri (extreme left) with winners

For Haputhanthri, Ferrey’s writing is also a record of a rapidly changing city.

“Even Sri Lanka is changing very rapidly. Within Colombo also, the environment is rapidly changing, and that is being addressed nicely in the books of Ashok Ferrey,” she said.

Literature, in that sense, becomes more than entertainment.

It becomes memory.

The stories behind the poems

Vivimarie Vanderpoorten offered a very different literary experience.

Haputhanthri describes her as one of the country’s outstanding contemporary talents, particularly because of the personal histories embedded in her poetry.

A poem on a page may be only a few lines long. But behind those lines can lie an entire life.

Vanderpoorten spoke about those experiences at Fairway, including deeply disturbing events she had witnessed during her university years.

For Haputhanthri, hearing those stories transformed the poems.

“All her stories, there is a back story. All her poems, there is a back story,” she said.

She believes such conversations are precisely what literary events should create—a space where readers can move beyond the printed page and understand the human experience that produced it.

She also encouraged people to read poetry, even if only one poetry collection a year.

Poetry, she believes, forces readers to think beyond what is immediately presented.

“It gives you the ability to think out of the box,” she said.

Cricket is more than a score

Andrew Fidel Fernando brought yet another dimension to the event.

For someone who writes and comments on international cricket, his work naturally takes readers into the world of the game. But Haputhanthri noted that Fernando’s writing also captures the culture surrounding cricket in different countries.

And Sri Lanka has a particularly richstory to tell.

Andrew Fidel Fernando / Dr. Vivimarie Vanderpoorten

For Haputhanthri, the island’s school-cricket culture is something the world should know more about.

“We are the best in the world when it comes to having a culture for school cricket. It is something very unique to our country,” she said.

She even suggested that writers interested in Sri Lankan cricket should explore this largely distinctive phenomenon in greater depth.

Because literature can sometimes reveal what statistics cannot.

A schoolboy walking onto a cricket ground carries with him a school, a city, friendships, rivalries, family expectations and an entire culture.

From manuscript to book

Ramya Jirasinghe’s contribution was particularly relevant to aspiring writers.

She spoke about her own journey and the realities of getting a book published.

Her experience demonstrated that literary success rarely happens overnight.

Winning recognition is one thing. Turning a manuscript into an internationally published book is another.

For emerging writers listening to her, the message was clear: writing requires patience, revision and persistence.

Haputhanthri knows that process well.

Writers, she said, can be rejected repeatedly—even at international level.

And translations create another layer of difficulty.

Sometimes an author reads a translation of his or her work and says: “This doesn’t have my voice.”

That, Haputhanthri acknowledged, illustrates how complex the journey from an original manuscript to another language can be.

A speech from the future

Carmel Miranda

Asanka de Mel and Margaret Richardson brought another perspective to Fairway.

De Mel’s 2048: A Speech from 2048 looks towards the centenary of Sri Lanka’s independence and asks why the country has not yet become a developed nation.

But his message, as Haputhanthri interpreted it, was not one of resignation.

Sri Lanka should not allow its small geographical size to become a psychological limitation.

De Mel’s own journey—from two decades in Silicon Valley to returning to Sri Lanka and embarking on entrepreneurial ventures—was offered as an example of what persistence and confidence can achieve.

For Haputhanthri, it reinforced one of the central lessons of both writing and life.

“There is no shortcut in life,” she said.

Stories that preserve a country

Fairway Street of Stories also reflected Haputhanthri’s belief that literature can preserve aspects of Sri Lankan identity that are increasingly vulnerable.

She spoke about Angampora, Beeralu weaving, traditional culture and historical stories.

Even the country’s royal heritage can become a gateway for a new generation to understand the island’s past.

She recalled seeing foreign visitors browsing books about Sri Lankan kings.

Those books were doing more than recounting history. They were presenting the story of a country with a long and complicated heritage.

Haputhanthri believes Sri Lankan literature can perform a similar role internationally.

“Our stories should also reach people in the same way our food and cultural experiences have reached the world,” she said.

She recalled meeting two foreigners who had visited Sri Lanka around 156 times.

Their extraordinary attachment to the country reminded her that Sri Lanka’s culture has an ability to attract people repeatedly.

The stories of the country, she believes, deserve the same reach.

The problem is not the e-book

Ramya Jirasinghe (third from left)

Yet while Haputhanthri is passionate about books, she is equally concerned about the future of reading.

She does not believe e-books are necessarily the enemy.

“If people are reading an e-version, as long as they are reading something valuable, that will add something to you,” she said.

The bigger threat, in her view, is the endless scrolling culture of the smartphone.

“Scrolling on the phone reduces your attention span and you can’t do any sort of deep work,” she said.

She has observed this challenge among young people entering the workplace and believes sustained concentration is increasingly difficult.

But her answer is not to blame young people.

It is to begin much earlier—with parents and teachers.

“Whatever the parents read, the children also will read,” she said.

‘Readers Are Not Born, They Are Created’

That belief is now developing into another initiative.

Haputhanthri is working on a programme titled ‘Readers Are Not Born, They Are Created’, which she hopes to take from school to school and community to community.

The target will be parents as much as children.

The message is that reading habits are cultivated. They are demonstrated, encouraged and nurtured.

She also hopes to involve children who have themselves developed through reading, allowing them to share their experiences with others.

For Haputhanthri, the issue is deeply personal.

“I would credit everything that I have today, and everything I am today, because of reading,” she said.

She believes avid readers develop empathy, creativity and critical thinking—qualities that are increasingly valuable in a world dominated by information but often short on attention.

Beyond one literary weekend

Fairway Street of Stories, therefore, is not intended to remain a once-a-year literary celebration.

Haputhanthri wants to see activities connected with reading and books continue throughout the year.

A bargain book sale is among the ideas being considered, making use of books from Sarasavi’s extensive network of branches that may have suffered minor damage or discolouration while remaining on shelves.

The next major event will be the book fair, followed by further initiatives.

But the larger ambition goes beyond sales.

It is about discovery.

A reader discovering a Sri Lankan writer.

A child discovering poetry.

An aspiring author discovering that rejection is not the end.

A foreign visitor discovering that Sri Lanka’s stories are as rich as its food, landscapes and traditions.

And a country discovering itself in its own books.

That is perhaps the most significant contribution of Fairway Street of Stories.

Because the authors who gathered there did more than talk about their books.

They demonstrated the many ways in which Sri Lanka can be written, remembered and imagined.

And behind that gathering was Amendra Haputhanthri’s conviction that these stories deserve not only a place on a bookshelf, but a place in the minds of readers—and eventually, a place in the wider world.