Features
Rituals in a village community at Paiyagala 75 years ago
by Jayantha Perera
St. Joseph church in Paiyagala has a beautiful façade and a belfry. Its nave is broad, with stunning floor designs. A magnificent painting of the creation of the universe covers the vault. Two short rows of colonnades support the two aisles, broadening the space in the nave. A short, narrow gravel road connects the church compound with Colombo-Matara road, and the church’s backyard is only about 200 yards from the Colombo-Matara railway line and the beach. The feast of St. Joseph is the main annual event in Paiyagala.
In the late 1950s, the Church Committee discussed with the Italian parish priest, who ruled the catholic community, the desirability of celebrating the church’s feast on May 1, Labour Day. Several parishioners opined that celebrating the feast on Labour Day might drag the church into national politics. Some others worried that parishioners might go to Colombo to celebrate Labour Day instead of the church feast. A few threatened to become parishioners of Kuda Paiyagala church, which was only half a kilometre from St. Joseph’s. In his Sunday sermon, the parish priest advised the ‘rebels’ not to harm the village solidarity. Ultimately, the warring parties buried their hatchets and aligned with the Committee’s decision to celebrate the church feast on May 1.
In 1962, Nihal, my brother, and I reached Paiyagala ten days before the day of church feast. At the Kalutara main bus stand, we bought two packets of inguru dosi (ginger fudge) for Aachcho (maternal grandmother) as Amma (my mother) instructed. We met Aachcho at the bus stand. She was in a long-sleeved white embroidered jacket and a floral cloth. She wore no slippers. Her graying hair added more charm to her face. She kissed and took us to the dining table, where she kept our favourite walithalapa (steamed rice pudding) and a bunch of kolikuttu bananas. She told us that we should spend time with her at the church and explained the importance of ‘confession’ before the vespers (evening prayers on the eve of the church feast).
Aachcho had arranged with a coconut toddy tapper to deliver a large bowl of mee raa (unfermented toddy) to her daily. She added crushed black pepper, sliced red onions, and green chillie to the toddy bowl. One hour later, she gave us a glass of mildly fermented toddy. She treated toddy as a medicinal tonic for children which kills harmful worms and improves appetite.
The Church Committee painted the church walls, polished the wooden pews and the floral floor, and repaired the church roof, expecting the monsoon rains. It collected donations from catholic families in the parish and discussed with them how to decorate the sorole (procession) path of the statue of St Joseph. Those who had colorful banners washed them a week before the feast and tied them to poles across roads. The Committee hoisted a flagstaff with many bright flag lines in front of the church. The parish priest blessed the flagstaff, and nuns from a nearby convent distributed sweetmeat to the participants.
The Church Committee invited about 25 women to the church compound on the eve of the church feast to cook rice and fish for the grand almsgiving on the following day. The Committee got cooking utensils from the convent. Local businessmen donated rice, thunapaha (spices), cooking oil, firewood, and small brown paper bags. One fisherman donated a large Maduwa (stingray) fish. Several women cleaned and cut the fish into large pieces. Another group of women prepared fresh thunapaha for the fish curry while young women washed and de-stoned the rice.
A woman who was known for her culinary prowess supervised the cooking gangs. She directed several young girls to mix spices, tamarind paste, and salt in large clay pot. She also checked the heaps of fish pieces and decided how many pots were needed to cook them. Then, she studied the spice mixture – color and taste – before pouring it into each fish pot in different proportions. She controlled the heat of the firewood under each pot by pulling out or adding pieces of firewood. (Many years before, Aachcho’s mother supervised the cooking of fish and rice at the church compound. She had never tasted the mixture of thunapaha before adding it to fish pots, Aachcho declared proudly.)
The cooking of rice had its own rituals. The supervisor recited a short prayer that ended with “Jesus, Mary, Joseph” before putting a handful of destoned and washed rice into each large cooking pots. After that the girls filled the pots with rice and water as the supervisor directed. Before the rice was cooked, a handful of rice was thrown out with water from each rice pot. The thrown rice was the food for hobgoblins and other harmless spirits hovering around in the cooking space. Devotees considered them as community members who celebrate the feast.
The parishioners worried that the monsoons might spoil the feast. When dark clouds appeared on the horizon, the parish priest brought the statue of St Joseph from its glass box on the top of the altar to a temporary altar next to the cooking station. With the statue overlooking the cooking area, women did their work without worrying about the weather.
While women cooked food, vendors descended on the gravel road with goodies. They sold sweetmeat, toys, laminated pictures of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, plastic balls and bats, prayer books, and rosaries. On the eve of the feast, Aachcho broke her clay coin jug, counted the money and bought toys for her grandsons. She bought me a small toy boat. The vendor poured water into a basin and filled the tiny detachable capsule in the boat with paraffin. The boat moved on the water when he lit the wicker connected to the capsule.
The ice cream man was the most popular person among the vendors. Young boys and girls lined up to buy popsicles, each costing five cents. A woman sold Buundi aluwa (halva) claiming that the aluwa was from the Maldives Islands. The Achchar (pickle) woman had a profitable business and sold a small packet of veralu achchar (wild olive pickle) for three cents.
Before the vespers, Aachcho took Nihal and me to a nearby well, pulled several buckets of water, and bathed us. She had a special soap for the occasion. It was an expensive, imported cake of Goya soap. Afterwards, she dressed us in clean clothes. Just before we went to the church, thaththa (my father) and Amma with two younger brothers arrived.
Vespers were at eight in the evening and a musical show preceded it. A band played popular English and Sinhala songs and hymns. The chief of the band played a piano accordion while dancing. Once he fell off the stage creating chaos and cutting off the nearby noisy generator’s power supply. It took about ten minutes to restore electricity.
At a corner of the church compound, two fishermen auctioned fish. They invited the school principal to bid first. After bidding he put five-rupee note to a tin box. Afterwards, each bidder put one rupee into the box. The last bidder took the fish home, and the fishermen donated the money to the church.
Although liquor and smoking were not allowed in church premises, a few men gathered after sunset behind the church to consume alcohol. The priest and the Church Committee knew what was going on behind the church, but did not intervene. Thaththa explained that the vespers night was for all parishioners—sinners and saints— to enjoy life.
When the church bells rang at 8 pm, the band took a break. Through loudspeakers, the sacristan announced that vespers would start soon. Ten priests who had come to help the parish priest conduct vespers entered the church in procession from the church front door. The parish priest followed them with the statue of St Joseph collected from the open-air altar and re-installed it on the church altar. Devotees occupied pews, and some waited in the church compound. The highlight of the service was the twin sermon delivered by two priests on family values and the lessons to be learned from St. Joseph.
Soon after the vespers, devotees remained in the churchyard to watch fireworks. The parish priest blessed heaps of fireworks. Two men pushed the crowd away from the firework station. Chakra (revolving crackers) appeared first, shooting stars, flower blasts, and rockets followed. A rocket rose as high as 60 meters or more before blasting into different floral designs. Onlookers compared the quality of fireworks with that of the previous year. Someone whispered to thaththa that the Committee might have pocketed a part of parishioners’ donations.
Aachcho threw a sumptuous dinner for the family. Fried pork, chicken curry, deviled prawns, dhal curry, papadam and several vegetable curries were on the table. Thaththa and Amma did not join the children and spent time in the verandah (foyer) of the house talking with friends and enjoying drinks. Women, too, drank liquor with their menfolk.
Soon after dinner, Aachcho lowered the chicken pen that was hanging from two ropes tied to two coconut trees in the compound. There were three chickens in the pen. A visitor killed the chickens, and Aachcho cooked the meat for the following day’s lunch. She was lucky to save her chicken from thieves. During the church feast and the Christmas, local thieves had the habit of stealing chickens and pigs to raise money to buy liquor and to gamble.
Aachcho decided on our sleeping arrangements. The only bed at Aachcho’s house, where Nihal and I had slept for eight days, was given to Thaththa and Amma. Aachcho spread several mats on the sitting room floor. She got a few hard pillows from a cupboard. Nihal told us ghost stories and warned us that at midnight, a ghost in white might visit us. We demanded Amma to sleep with us on the floor, and she did. We liked the smell of the floor – a mix of cow dung and clay. We competed with each other to sleep next to Amma. I liked her body smell mixed with talcum powder and sweat.
Aachcho and Amma knelt down and prayed with their rosaries for 15 minutes. Then Aachcho prayed to St Joseph to protect us from committing maraneeya papa (mortal sins) that night. She and Amma recited this prayer three times. I wondered what mortal sins they could commit during that night. I was not brave enough to question Aachcho or Amma about mortal sins. Still, it bothered me for several years, until I talked to my spiritual mentor – a Jesuit priest, at school, who told me that some sins, if not pardoned by a priest at a confession, could condemn the sinner to eternal hell after his death.
Overnight fasting was mandatory to receive the Eucharist in the morning. We all got up early on the feast day to attend church. We had to go out in the darkness to wash our faces. Aachcho kept water in two large clay pots. There was no flushing toilet. A small shed covered with cadjan leaves had two flat stones to squat on. A toilet user had to take water in a small container. When the toilet was not in use, pigs visited it and cleaned it up in a few seconds!
On the feast day, everyone, including children, had breakfast after the sorole. Aachcho laid the breakfast table before going to the church. She prepared a great variety of food: milk rice, kavum (oil cake), athiraha, kokis, bibikkan, fish curry, and several bunches of kolikuttu.
Church bells reminded us that we were in the middle of the church feast. When we went to the church, several women had already begun a prayer session led by the church sacristan. He with his soft voice led women in a full rosary and several hymns and prayers. Amma had told me that the sacristan had been interested in marrying her and had, in fact, sent a marriage proposal through his aunt. But my granduncle refused the request because he was unemployed.
After the prayers, Amma took me to the sacristan and introduced me to him. She was shy and did not look at his face. He, too, hesitated for a few seconds before talking to me. He wore an expensive collarless cream-coloured jacket with a light tweed cloth and a thick silver belt. He sported a ponytail, and his face was well-shaven, except for the moustache, which made him look majestic.
A visiting priest delivered a boring sermon that lasted about 30 minutes. Humidity inside the church became unbearable. Many men started conversations without listening to the sermon. Although women suffered more (with veils over their heads) than men, they bore the unpleasantness as good devotees. The feast service took about 90 minutes.
Brown paper bags with rice and fish were already laid on several tables in the church compound to distribute. Those who lined up to join the sorole got food parcels from the parish priest. People who got the food bags shared rice and fish with family members and friends. I got a mouthful of rice and a piece of fish from thaththa. I thought the food was stale, but I did not complain because such food was considered sacred.
Church bells rang again, informing the scouts of the sorole to get ready. They were dressed like ancient Portuguese soldiers, in colored costumes with large round headgear. They carried banners with emblems of various church associations. The parish priest brought the statue of St Joseph to the churchyard again. A carriage decorated with garlands, flower bouquets, and veils awaited the statute. Ten men were poised to pull it around the village. The priest installed the statue in the small casket on the carriage. He blessed it, collected the burning incense bowl from an altar boy, and offered scented fumes to the statue and the carriage.
The bandmaster and his group led the sorole. The procession stopped at each wayside altar in neighbourhoods, where small groups of residents waited for the sorole to pass and got a close glimpse of St Joseph’s statue. In some localities, residents lit firecrackers. Most devotees who were in the sorole dropped out of it, when it passed their homes. Those who could not attend the church in the morning, joined the sorole at various locations.
The traffic on the main road built up rapidly, and the police had to control vehicle movement. The church choir sang hymns non-stop, and loud loudspeakers broadcast them. After moving about one mile on the main road, the sorole turned to a by-road and went to the beach, where several fishermen garlanded the statue and lit firecrackers.
When the procession passed the fishermen’s huts, two middle-aged women began to sing and dance while cooking. They wore floral gowns and danced around a large pork pot on fire in front of their houses. The pork curry looked very dark but smelt fabulous. Several old women sang kaffirhinna (Portuguese songs). A woman started dancing around the pot of pork while holding the hem of her long gown in one hand and a large spoon in the other.
The procession returned to the church after passing fishermen’s huts on the beach. Soon after breakfast, thaththa served liquor, and from the kitchen, the children brought bites (snacks) for visitors. Nihal, Gamini, and I ate deviled pork, eggs slices, and cashew nuts as much as we could hold before serving the adults. Men’s voices got louder. Often, they argued on silly topics and got worked up in proportion to the arrack they had consumed.
Thaththa told Nihal to sing a song and Gamini (younger brother) to deliver a sermon or demonstrate how to play ‘China footing’ – a martial art form. I recited the poem that he had taught me – The Ice Cream Man. Lunch was served at three in the afternoon, and only a few visitors had waited for it. Aachcho was unhappy that only a few stayed. Those who had lunch left around 4pm, thanking Aachcho for her generosity and tasty food. She was happy, especially when Nihal declared that her food was delicious. We all clapped, and Aachcho could not hold back her laughter, and kissed Nihal.
It is also different from all past governments as it faces new and different challenges
No one knows whether the already broken ceasefire between the US and Iran, with Israel as a reluctant adjunct, will last the full 10 days, or what will come thereafter. The world’s economic woes are not over and the markets are yo-yoing in response to Trump’s twitches and Iran’s gate keeping at the Strait of Hormuz. The gloomy expert foretelling is that full economic normalcy will not return until the year is over even if the war were to end with the ceasefire. That means continuing challenges for Sri Lanka and more of the tough learning in the art of governing for the NPP.
The NPP government has been doing what most governments in Asia have been doing to cope with the current global crisis, which is also an Asian crisis insofar as oil supplies and other supply chains are concerned. What the government can and must do additionally is to be totally candid with the people and keep them informed of everything that it is doing – from monitoring import prices to the timely arranging of supplies, all the details of tender, the tracking of arrivals, and keeping the distribution flow through the market without bottlenecks. That way the government can eliminate upstream tender rackets and downstream hoarding swindles. People do not expect miracles from their government, only honest, sincere and serious effort in difficult circumstances. Backed up by clear communication and constant public engagement.
But nothing is going to stop the flow of criticisms against the NPP government. That is a fact of Sri Lankan politics. Even though the opposition forces are weak and have little traction and even less credibility, there has not been any drought in the criticisms levelled against the still fledgling government. These criticisms can be categorized as ideological, institutional and oppositional criticisms, with each category having its own constituency and/or commentators. The three categories invariably overlap and there are instances of criticisms that excite only the pundits but have no political resonance.
April 5 anniversary nostalgia
There is also a new line of criticism that might be inspired by the April 5 anniversary nostalgia for the 1971 JVP insurrection. This new line traces the NPP government to the distant roots of the JVP – its April 1965 founding “in a working-class home in Akmeemana, Galle” by a 22-year old Rohana Wijeweera and seven others; the short lived 1971 insurrection that was easily defeated; and the much longer and more devastating second (1987 to 1989) insurrection that led to the elimination of the JVP’s frontline leaders including Wijeweera, and brought about a change in the JVP’s political direction with commitment to parliamentary democracy. So far, so good, as history goes.
But where the nostalgic narrative starts to bend is in attempting a straight line connection from the 1965 Akmeemana origins of the JVP to the national electoral victories of the NPP in 2024. And the bend gets broken in trying to bridge the gap between the “founding anti-imperialist economics” of the JVP and the practical imperatives of the NPP government in “governing a debt-laden small open economy.” Yet this line of criticism differs from the other lines of criticism that I have alluded to, but more so for its moral purpose than for its analytical clarity. The search for clarity could begin with question – why is the NPP government more than a JVP offspring? The answer is not so simple, but it is also not too complicated.
For starters, the JVP was a political response to the national and global conditions of the 1960s and 1970s, piggybacking socialism on the bandwagon of ethno-nationalism in a bi-polar world that was ideologically split between status quo capitalism and the alternative of socialism. The NPP government, on the other hand, is not only a response to, but is also a product of the conditions of the 2010s and 2020s. The twain cannot be more different. Nothing is the same between then and now, locally and globally.
A pragmatic way to look at the differences between the origins of the JVP and the circumstances of the NPP government is to look at the very range of criticisms that are levelled against the NPP government. What I categorize as ideological criticisms include criticisms of the government’s pro-IMF and allegedly neo-liberal economic policies, as well as the government’s foreign policy stances – on Israel, on the current US-Israel war against Iran, the geopolitics of the Indian Ocean, and the apparent closeness to the Modi government in India. These criticisms emanate from the non-JVP left and Sinhala Buddhist nationalists.
Strands of nationalism
To digress briefly, there are several strands in the overall bundle of Sri Lankan nationalism. There is the liberal inclusive strand, the left-progressive strand, the exclusive Sinhala Buddhist Nationalist (SBN) strand, and the defensive strands of minority nationalisms. Given Sri Lanka’s historical political formations and alliances, much overlapping goes on between the different strands. The overlapping gets selective on an issue by issue basis, which in itself is not unwelcome insofar as it promotes plurality in place of exclusivity.
Historically as well, and certainly after 1956, the SBN strand has been the dominant strand of nationalism in Sri Lanka and has had the most influential say in every government until now. Past versions of the JVP frequently straddled the dominant SBN space. Currently, however, the dominant SBN strand is in one of its more dormant phases and the NPP government could be a reason for the current dormancy. This is an obvious difference between the old JVP and the new NPP.
A second set of criticisms, or institutional criticisms, emanate from political liberals and human rights activists and these are about the NPP government’s actions or non-actions in regard to constitutional changes, the future of the elected executive presidency, the status of provincial devolution and the timing of provincial council elections, progress on human rights issues, the resolution of unfinished postwar businesses including the amnesia over mass graves. These criticisms and the issues they represent are also in varying ways the primary concerns of the island’s Tamils, Muslims and the Malaiyaka (planntationn) Tamils. As with the overlapping between the left and the non-minority nationalists, there is also overlapping between the liberal activists and minority representatives.
A third category includes what might be called oppositional criticisms and they counterpose the JVP’s past against the NPP’s present, call into question the JVP’s commitment to multi-party democracy and raise alarms about a creeping constitutional dictatorship. This category also includes criticisms of the NPP government’s lack of governmental experience and competence; alleged instances of abuse of power, mismanagement and even corruption; alleged harassment of past politicians; and the failure to find the alleged mastermind behind the 2019 Easter bombings. At a policy and implementational level, there have been criticisms of the government’s educational reforms and electricity reforms, the responses to cyclone Ditwah, and the current global oil and economic crises. The purveyors of oppositional criticisms are drawn from the general political class which includes political parties, current and past parliamentarians, as well as media pundits.
Criticisms as expectations
What is common to all three categories of criticisms is that they collectively represent what were understood to be promises by the NPP before the elections, and have become expectations of the NPP government after the elections. It is the range and nature of these criticisms and the corresponding expectations that make the NPP government a lot more than a mere JVP offspring, and significantly differentiate it from every previous government.
The deliverables that are expected of the NPP government were never a part of the vocabulary of the original JVP platform and programs. The very mode of parliamentary politics was ideologically anathema to the JVP of Akmeemana. And there was no mention of or concern for minority rights, or constitutional reforms. On foreign policy, it was all India phobia without Anglo mania – a halfway variation of Sri Lanka’s mainstream foreign policy of Anglo mania and India phobia. For a party of the rural proletariat, the JVP was virulently opposed to the plantation proletariat. The JVP’s version of anti-imperialist economics would hardly have excited the Sri Lankan electorate at any time, and certainly not at the present time.
At the same time, the NPP government is also the only government that has genealogical antecedents to a political movement or organization like the JVP. That in itself makes the NPP government unique among Sri Lanka’s other governments. The formation of the NPP is the culmination of the evolution of the JVP that began after the second insurrection with the shedding of political violence, acceptance of political plurality and commitment to electoral democracy.
But the evolution was not entirely a process of internal transformation. It was also a response to a rapidly and radically changing circumstances both within Sri Lanka and beyond. This evolution has not been a rejection of the founding socialist purposes of the JVP in 1968, but their adaptation in the endless political search, under constantly changing conditions, for a non-violent, socialist and democratic framework that would facilitate the full development of the human potential of all Sri Lankans.
The burden of expectations is unmistakable, but what is also remarkable is their comprehensiveness and the NPP’s formal commitment to all of them at the same time. No previous government shouldered such an extensive burden or showed such a willing commitment to each and every one of the expectations. In the brewing global economic crisis, the criticisms, expectations and the priorities of the government will invariably be focussed on keeping the economy alive and alleviating the day-to-day difficulties of millions of Sri Lankan families. While what the NPP government can and must do may not differ much from what other Asian governments – from Pakistan to Vietnam – are doing, it could and should do better than what any and all past Sri Lankan governments did when facing economic challenges.
by Rajan Philips
After threatening to annihilate one of the planet’s oldest civilizations, TACO* Trump chickened out again by grasping the ceasefire lifeline that Pakistan had assiduously prepared. Trump needed the ceasefire badly to stem the mounting opposition to the war in America. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu wanted the war to continue because he needed it badly for his political survival. So, he contrived a fiction and convinced Trump that Lebanon is not included in the ceasefire. Trump as usual may not have noticed that Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Shariff had clearly indicated Lebanon’s inclusion in his announcement of the ceasefire at 7:50 PM, Tuesday, on X. Ten minutes before Donald Trump’s fake deadline.
True to form on Wednesday, Israel unleashed the heaviest assault by far on Lebanon, reportedly killing over 300 people, the highest single-day death toll in the current war. Iran responded by re-closing the Strait of Hormuz and questioning the need for talks in Islamabad over the weekend. There were other incidents as well, with an oil refinery attacked in Iran, and Iranian drones and missiles slamming oil and gas infrastructure in UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar.
The US tried to insist that Lebanon is not part of the ceasefire, with the argumentative US Vice President JD Vance, who was in Budapest, Hungary, campaigning for Viktor Orban, calling the whole thing a matter of “bad faith negotiation” as well as “legitimate misunderstanding” on the part of Iran, and warning Iran that “it would be dumb to jeopardise its ceasefire with Washington over Israel’s attacks in Lebanon.”
But as the attack in Lebanon drew international condemnation – from Pope Leo to UN Secretary General António Guterres, and several world leaders, and amidst fears of Lebanon becoming another Gaza with 1,500 people including 130 children killed and more than a million people displaced, Washington got Israel to stop its “lawn mowing” in southern Lebanon.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to “open direct negotiations with Lebanon as soon as possible,”. Lebanese President Joeseph Aoun has also called for “a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, followed by direct negotiations between them.” Israel’s involvement in Lebanon remains a wild card that threatens the ceasefire and could scuttle the talks between the US and Iran scheduled for Saturday in Islamabad.
Losers and Winners
After the ceasefire, both the Trump Administration and Iran have claimed total victories while the Israeli government wants the war to continue. The truth is that after more than a month into nonstop bombing of Iran, America and Israel have won nothing. Only Iran has won something it did not have when Trump and Netanyahu started their war. Iran now has not only a say over but control of the Strait of Hormuz. The ceasefire acknowledges this. Both Trump and Netanyahu are under fire in their respective countries and have no allies in the world except one another.
The real diplomatic winner is Pakistan. Salman Rushdie’s palimpsest-country has emerged as a key player in global politics and an influential mediator in a volatile region. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief of Defence Field Marshal Asim Munir have both been praised by President Trump and credited for achieving the current ceasefire. The Iranian regime has also been effusive in its praise of Pakistan’s efforts.
It is Pakistan that persisted with the effort after initial attempts at backdoor diplomacy by Egypt, Pakistan and Türkiye started floundering. Sharing a 900 km border and deep cultural history with Iran, and having a skirmish of its own on the eastern front with Afghanistan, Pakistan has all the reason to contain and potentially resolve the current conflict in Iran. Although a majority Sunni Muslim country, Pakistan is home to the second largest Shia Muslim population after Iran, and is the easterly terminus of the Shia Arc that stretches from Lebanon. The country also has a mutual defense pact with Saudi Arabia that includes Pakistan’s nuclear cover for the Kingdom. An open conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia would have put Pakistan in a dangerously awkward position.
It is now known and Trump has acknowledged that China had a hand in helping Iran get to the diplomatic table. Pakistan used its connections well to get Chinese diplomatic reinforcement. Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar flew to Beijing to brief his Chinese counterpart and secured China’s public support for the diplomatic efforts. The visit produced a Five-Point Plan that became a sequel to America’s 15-point proposal and the eventual ten-point offer by Iran.
There is no consensus between parties as to which points are where and who is agreeing to what. The chaos is par for the course the way Donald Trumps conducts global affairs. So, all kudos to Pakistan for quietly persisting with old school toing and froing and producing a semblance of an agreement on a tweet without a parchment.
It is also noteworthy that Israel has been excluded from all the diplomatic efforts so far. And it is remarkable, but should not be surprising, the way Trump has sidelined Isreal from the talks. Prime Minister Netanyahu has been enjoying overwhelming support of Israelis for starting the war of his life against Iran and getting the US to spearhead it. But now the country is getting confused and is exposed to Iranian missiles and drones far more than ever before. The Israeli opposition is finally coming alive realizing what little has Netanyahu’s wars have achieved and at what cost. Israel has alienated a majority of Americans and has no ally anywhere else.
It will be a busy Saturday in Islamabad, where the US and Iranian delegations are set to meet. Iran would seem to have insisted and secured the assurance that the US delegation will be led by Vice President Vance, while including Trump’s personal diplomats – Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner. Iran has not announced its team but it is expected to be led, for protocol parity, by Iran’s Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and will likely include its suave Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. Vice President Vance’s attendance will be the most senior US engagement with Iran since Secretary of State John Kerry negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal under President Obama.
The physical arrangements for the talks are still not public although Islamabad has been turned into a security fortress given the stakes and risks involved. The talks are expected to be ‘indirect’, with the two delegations in separate rooms and Pakistani officials shuttling between them. The status of Iran’s enriched uranium and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz will be the major points of contention. After Netanyahu’s overreach on Wednesday, Lebanon is also on the short list
The 2015 nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Action Plan) took months of negotiations and involved multiple parties besides the US and Iran, including China, France, Germany, UK, Russia and the EU. That served the cause of regional and world peace well until Trump tore up the deal to spite Obama. It would be too much to expect anything similar after a weekend encounter in Islamabad. But if the talks could lead to at least a permanent ceasefire and the return to diplomacy that would be a huge achievement.
(*As of 2025–2026, Donald Trump is nicknamed “TACO Trump” by Wall Street traders and investors as an acronym for “”. This term highlights a perceived pattern of him making strong tariff threats that cause market panic, only to later retreat or weaken them, causing a rebound.)
by Rajan Philips
We are passing through the ten-day interregnum called a ceasefire over the War on Iran. The world may breathe briefly, but this pause is not reassurance—it is a deliberate interlude, a vacuum in which every actor positions for the next escalation. Iran is far from secure. Behind the veneer of calm, external powers and local forces are preparing, arming, and coordinating. The United States is unlikely to deploy conventional ground troops; the next moves will be executed through proxies whose behaviour will defy expectation. These insurgents are shaped, guided, and amplified by intelligence and technology, capable of moving silently, striking precisely, and vanishing before retaliation. The ceasefire is not peace—it is the prelude to disruption.
The Kurds, historically instruments of Tehran against Baghdad, are now vectors for the next insurgency inside Iran. This movement is neither organic nor local. It is externally orchestrated, with the CIA as the principal architect. History provides the blueprint: under Mohammad-Reza Shah Pahlavi, Kurdish uprisings were manipulated, never supported out of sympathy. They were instruments of leverage against Iraq, a way to weaken a rival while projecting influence beyond Iran’s borders. Colonel Isa Pejman, Iranian military intelligence officer who played a role in Kurdish affairs, recalled proposing support for a military insurgency in Iraq, only for the Shah to respond coldly: “[Mustafa] Barzani killed my Army soldiers… please forget it. The zeitgeist and regional context have been completely transformed.” The Kurds were pawns, but pawns with strategic weight. Pejman later noted: “When the Shah wrote on the back of the letter ‘Accepted’ to General Pakravan, I felt I was the true leader of the Kurdish movement.” The seeds planted then are now being activated under new, technologically empowered auspices.
Iran’s geographic vulnerabilities make this possible. The Shah understood the trap: a vast territory with porous borders, squeezed by Soviet pressure from the north and radical Arab states from the west. “We are in a really terrible situation since Moscow’s twin pincers coming down through Kabul and Baghdad surround us,” he warned Asadollah Alam. From Soviet support for the Mahabad Republic to Barzani’s dream of a unified Kurdistan, Tehran knew an autonomous Kurdish bloc could destabilize both Iraq and Iran. “Since the formation of the Soviet-backed Mahabad Republic, the Shah had been considerably worried about the Kurdish threat,” a US assessment concluded.
Today, the Kurds’ significance is operational, not symbolic. The CIA’s recent rescue of a downed F-15 airman using Ghost Murmur, a quantum magnetometry system, demonstrated the reach of technology in intelligence operations. The airman survived two days on Iranian soil before extraction. This was not a simple rescue; it was proof that highly mobile, technologically augmented operations can penetrate Iranian territory with surgical precision. The same logic applies to insurgency preparation: when individuals can be tracked through electromagnetic signatures, AI-enhanced surveillance, and drones, proxy forces can be armed, guided, and coordinated with unprecedented efficiency. The Kurds are no longer pawns—they are a living network capable of fracturing Iranian cohesion while providing deniability to foreign powers.
Iran’s engagement with Iraqi Kurds was always containment, not empowerment. The Shah’s goal was never Kurdish independence. “We do not approve an independent [Iraqi] Kurdistan,” he stated explicitly. Yet their utility as instruments of regional strategy was undeniable. The CIA’s revival of these networks continues a long-standing pattern: insurgent groups integrated into the wider calculus of international power. Israel, Iran, and the Kurds formed a triangular strategic relationship that terrified Baghdad. “For Baghdad, an Iranian-Israeli-Kurdish triangular alliance was an existential threat,” contemporary reports noted. This is the template for modern manipulation: a networked insurgency, externally supported, capable of destabilizing regimes from within while giving foreign powers plausible deniability.
Iran today faces fragility. Years of sanctions, repression, and targeted strikes have weakened educational and scientific hubs; Sharif University in Tehran, one of the country’s leading scientific centres, was bombed. Leaders, scholars, and innovators have been eliminated. Military readiness is compromised. Generations-long setbacks leave Iran exposed. Against this backdrop, a Kurdish insurgency armed with drones, AI-supported surveillance, and precision munitions could do more than disrupt—it could fracture the state internally. The current ten-day ceasefire is a mirage; the next wave of revolt is already being orchestrated.
CIA involvement is deliberate. Operations are coordinated with allied intelligence agencies, leveraging Kurdish grievances, mobility, and ethnolinguistic networks. The Kurds’ spread across Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Syria provides operational depth—allowing insurgents to strike, vanish, and regroup with impunity. Barzani understood leverage decades ago: “We could be useful to the United States… Look at our strategic location on the flank of any possible Soviet advance into the Middle East.” Today, the calculation is inverted: Kurds are no longer instruments against Baghdad; they are potential disruptors inside Tehran itself.
Technology is central. Ghost Murmur’s ability to detect a single heartbeat remotely exemplifies how intelligence can underpin insurgent networks. Drones, satellite communications, AI predictive modeling, and battlefield sensors create an infrastructure that can transform a dispersed Kurdish insurgency into a high-precision operation. Iran can no longer rely on fortifications or loyalty alone; the external environment has been recalibrated by technology.
History provides the roadmap. The Shah’s betrayal of Barzani after the 1975 Algiers Agreement demonstrated that external actors can manipulate both Iranian ambitions and Kurdish loyalties. “The Shah sold out the Kurds,” Yitzhak Rabin told Kissinger. “We could not station our troops there and keep fighting forever,” the Shah explained to Alam. The Kurds are a pivot, not a cause. Networks once acting under Tehran’s influence are now being repurposed against it.
The insurgency exploits societal fissures. Kurdish discontent in Iran, suppressed for decades, provides fertile ground. Historical betrayal fuels modern narratives: “Barzani claimed that ‘Isa Pejman sold us out to the Shah and the Shah sold us out to the US.’” Intelligence agencies weaponize these grievances, pairing them with training, technological augmentation, and covert support.
Geopolitically, the stakes are immense. The Shah’s defensive-offensive doctrine projected Iranian influence outward to neutralize threats. Today, the logic is inverted: the same networks used to contain Iraq are being readied to contain Iran. A technologically augmented Kurdish insurgency, covertly backed, could achieve in months what decades of sanctions, diplomacy, or repression have failed to accomplish.
The operation will be asymmetric, high-tech, and dispersed. UAVs, quantum-enhanced surveillance, encrypted communications, and AI-directed logistics will dominate. Conventional Iranian forces are vulnerable to this type of warfare. As Pejman reflected decades ago, “Our Army was fighting there, rather than the Kurds who were harshly defeated… How could we keep such a place?” Today, the challenge is magnified by intelligence superiority on the insurgents’ side.
This is not a temporary flare-up. The CIA and its allies are constructing a generational network of influence. Experience from Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon proves these networks endure once operationalised. The Shah recognized this: “Iran’s non-state foreign policy under the Shah’s reign left a lasting legacy for the post-Revolution era.” Today, those instruments are being remade as vectors of foreign influence inside Iran.
The future is stark. Iran faces not simply external threats, but a carefully engineered insurgency exploiting historical grievances, technological superiority, and precise intelligence. The Kurds are central. History, technology, and geopolitical calculation converge to create a transformative threat. Tehran’s miscalculations, betrayals, and suppressed grievances now form the lattice for this insurgency. The Kurds are positioned not just as an ethnic minority, but as a vector of international strategy—Tehran may be powerless to stop it.
Iran’s containment strategies have been weaponized, fused with technology, and inverted against it. The ghosts of Barzani’s Peshmerga, the shadows of Algiers, and the Shah’s strategic vision now converge with Ghost Murmur, drones, and AI. Tehran faces a paradox: the instruments it once controlled are now calibrated to undermine its authority. The next Kurdish revolt will not only fight in the mountains but in the electromagnetic shadows where intelligence operates, consequences are lethal, and visibility is scarce.
by Nilantha Ilangamuwa
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