Features

Development Anthropologist

Published

1 year ago

2025/09/14

VARIETIES OF CASTE CONSCIOUSNESS. Edited with an
Introduction by Kalinga Tudor Silva
and Mark E Balmforth. In CASTE: A
Global Journal on Social Exclusion, Vol 6:
No. 1, April 2025.

Caste is a social reality that structures human relationships. It serves as a framework for managing interactions among individuals and a platform for organising political, social and economic reforms. The caste system, with its complex histories and multifaceted institutions, encompasses social, economic, cultural, and religious aspects of human life. It guides and sometimes forces people to live in a complex social, cultural, political, and religious milieu.

Bundles of rules and values that have emerged from various locations within religious, social, and political traditions and actions sustain them. A caste system, over time, becomes an engulfing culture that helps organise people and their communities into a rigid system of relationships, hierarchically organised, and sometimes, sanctioned by dominant religions, such as Hinduism.

As a rigid hierarchical system, caste thrives on systemic a priori inclusion and exclusion modalities. Ambedkar aptly summarised the roots and the mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion as follows:

The outcaste, a term used to describe those who are considered untouchable and outside the caste system, is a byproduct of the caste system. There will be outcasts as long as there are castes. Nothing can emancipate the outcaste except by the destruction of the caste system. Nothing can ensure their survival except the purging of the Hindu faith of this odious and vicious dogma.

Ambedkar’s tireless advocacy for outcaste (Dalit) communities to adopt his visionary ideals of liberty, social justice, and equality helped to take caste out of parochial village spaces and premise it in a broader public sphere. According to him, national and regional Hindu dominance in India blocks the opportunities that the Dalits also can occupy to achieve a more just society. Ambedkar rejected Gandhi’s Harijan Seva Sangh because it was a paternalistic mechanism that reinforced Hindu dominance rather than empowered the Dalits.

Moreover, the Harijan Seva Sangh denied the lower castes an independent expression of their authentic social identity, thereby tacitly claiming their acquiescence to an inegalitarian social and ethical value set. Ambedkar recognised the embeddedness of the caste system in Hindu society and the economy. He wanted to ‘annihilate’ the caste system because nothing can emancipate the outcaste without first destroying the caste system.

Illustration of Ambedkar’s conversion of Dailts to Buddhism

Caste takes different forms in different countries. In India, Brahmins (priests), Kshatriyas (warriors), Vaishyas (merchants), and Sudras (labourers) form a caste system. It excludes the Dalits (outcastes or untouchables), who are not part of the varna system. The sacred dimension of the caste system enables the Brahmins to become the custodians of Hindu values, beliefs, practices and resources. The binary of ‘sacred’ and ‘polluted’ not only keeps the Dalits out of the hierarchy but also justifies exploitation and violence against them.

In Sri Lanka, on the other hand, the caste system does not have a manifested sacred dimension as found in India. There is no Brahmin caste in Sri Lanka, except for a few Hindu priests who handle Hindu rituals. The allocation of people and communities to various castes based on sacred and polluted criteria is absent in Sri Lanka. Instead, employment and differential ethics of interaction indicate the relative status of a caste in the caste hierarchy.

Although a caste system is a vertically organised system with formidable barriers against upward mobility, several mechanisms facilitate caste mobility. One is Sanskritization. By imitating the value system and general behaviour of the upper caste, a lower caste can, over a long period of time, move upward in the hierarchy, but still create a ‘shadow effect’ on the Dalits. Another way to climb higher, bypassing various rigidities, is to physically move away from the original location and embrace westernisation, primarily through education, mastering new skills, and investments in land and businesses.

The State and non-state sectors provide the most promising way for upward mobility through development programmes aimed at social transformation and land reform. Such programmes empower the lower castes and outcastes by treating them as normal citizens with equal rights to life, who can share in egalitarian state welfare.

The co-editors introduced the four articles (read at a symposium on Caste in Sri Lanka and the Sri Lankan Diaspora), succinctly outlining the main arguments and findings under three main themes. One theme is the legacy of the colonial administration, which attempted to separate caste from class to create the impression that caste is dead and the elite is triumphant. The second is historical mediation, which has shaped the expectations and imaginings of different castes and their coexistence with class identities, without erasing the binary of inclusion and exclusion. The third theme is that the caste system remains alive as a complex social reality influencing political, economic, cultural, and social spaces, refuting the belief that it has succumbed to modernisation and globalisation. The findings underscore the urgent need for further research and policy action to address this persistent issue.

Article 1 – Dynamics between Cinnamon and Salagama People – examines how the domestication of cinnamon production helped consolidate the caste system in southern Sri Lanka. It is premised on a ‘multispecies’ perspective to highlight the roles of human and non-human actors in shaping the Sinhala caste system. Apart from human interlocutors, a particular plant species, cinnamon, is associated with the natural resource base of the Sinhala caste system. Thus, the specificity of and challenges for caste need to be understood not only from the angle of social justice and human rights but also in terms of environmental justice and sustainability of caste occupations. Global marketing challenges, the absence of quality control mechanisms, land scarcity, urbanization, and smallholder farming practices have challenged the coexistence between the plant and the caste. Such factors have encouraged the formation of a subaltern group of low-paid cinnamon workers.

Article 2 – Cultural Ambivalences Towards and Among Drummer Caste Members explores three types of cultural ambivalences. One is the Sinhala society’s attitudes towards the caste; the second is the State’s ambivalence towards the drummer caste; and the third is mixed attitudes towards drumming and rituals within the caste itself. The article highlights how the drummer caste has reacted and coped with such ambivalences. The neoliberal economic framework has enhanced such ambivalences in the context of radical political movements such as the Janatha Vimukti Peramuna (JVP). Some gave up drumming and dancing altogether and transitioned to non-caste employment and businesses. In contrast, others took advantage of the new opportunities opened up by the local tourist economy to earn a living through performing their ritualistic performances.

Article 3 – Recasting the Brahmin: the Epistemic Critique of Caste – discusses how the Sinhala literature has emphasized ethnicity over caste in selecting themes for creative writing, reflecting the public silence on the caste system. Based on Martin Wickramasighe’s Bava Tharanaya (Crossing the Cycle of Existence) and Bamunu Kulaye Bindavatima (Fall of the Brahmin Caste), the article examines the justification and limitations of knowledge and belief, questioning how and why particular claims are accepted or rejected, thereby fostering more rigorous understanding and critical thinking. As allegorical narratives, the two books present stories where characters, events, and settings represent deeper, symbolic meanings that are moral and political in nature. They are useful literary devices, the article argues, to sensitize the Sinhala reading public about the caste at a time when caste has become politically salient.

Article 4 – Caste, Space, and Retail Religiosity in Tamil Toronto demonstrates how the caste system still plays an important role in the Tamil diaspora in Canada, particularly in marriage partner selection at the family level, and temple construction and welfare activities at the community level. The article shows that emigrants from Sri Lanka to Canada think that their community cultural centres, such as Hindu temples, should deploy caste as a part of their cultural heritage that includes temples, the Tamil language, and Tamil music. The emigrant generation believes that preserving such heritage would help them and their children survive in a foreign environment.

The first generation, born in Canada, on the other hand, are reticent about caste, and sees it as an inappropriate transplant that makes it more difficult for them, to assimilate into local communities. The article describes significant differences between diaspora temples in Toronto and Tamil temples in Sri Lanka. Such differences are structural and could impact on the survival of the caste in its current form. Hindu temples in Toronto are often movable entities, frequently located in urban areas within rented warehouses. Local Zoning laws and the ‘light industrial’ retail market limit the sacred rights of Hindu caste groups in owning temple land. Toronto temple custodians move back and forth between describing temples as businesses and as kôvil. Temple managers use mass media to attract devotees in a competitive temple market. Moreover, Toronto temples attract diaspora devotees by offering a shelter from the morally corrosive, identity-eroding influences of urban Canada.

Five general research articles on Indian caste issues follow the four symposium articles. The first research Article – Reimagining Resources: The Politics of Dalit Land Struggles – analyses the history and dynamics of land alienation in Kerala, the representation of land in social reform movements that transcend Brahmin-imposed sub-caste fragmentation, and how social reforms provide a platform to assert the rights of the deprived sections. Although some reform movements have unified the untouchable castes around common concerns such as land ownership and education, the ruling classes, dominated by higher castes, with the support of the Communist Party, have thwarted such movements by employing the strategy of sub-caste fragmentation. The article recognizes the value and usefulness of charismatic leaders who can guide social mobilization, particularly in a caste-ridden society, to build trust and unity among the depressed castes.

The second research article – Struggle for Emancipation and Dalit Consciousness – analyses inter-generational struggles among Dalits to emancipate themselves from high-caste aggression. The article is based on an autobiography ‘My Father Baliah.’ By following one family over three generations, the autobiography examines the rise, fall, and resurgence of the caste system. During the second ascending generation, “untouchability presented itself glaringly just like the sound of a howling steam engine.”

During the British period, the caste system became antithetical to the modernity introduced through colonialism. However, it did not vanish altogether. Instead, it has transformed into subtler forms of aggression by silently infiltrating modern institutions, thereby posing a threat to the struggles for Dalit emancipation. The “upper” caste people and also the Sudras were reluctant to discard their superiority and purity claims, not only within colonial institutions but also in post-independent India. The book reaffirms Ambedkar’s observation that no constitutional safeguards so far had really helped the hapless Dalits; they remained excluded, segregated and untouchable in free India. The mindset of upper-caste Hindus had not changed much despite the relentless efforts of Dr B.R. Ambedkar.

The third research article – From Margins to Mainstream: Caste, Women, and Panchayati Institutions – evaluates the effects of the Haryana Panchayati Raj Amendment Act, 2015, on the empowerment of Scheduled Caste women in Panchayati Raj Institutions. It argues that empowerment of women, particularly in political contexts, is vital for advancing gender equality and enabling them to combat social and economic marginalization and exploitation by higher castes. The article emphasizes the need for targeted educational initiatives to encourage female participation in development discourse.

The fourth research article – Caste Prejudices in Denial: University Students’ Perceptions – points out that caste prejudices are more pronounced among dominant castes than among others, and are more likely to resist caste-oriented reforms, such as reservations and inter-caste marriages, by delegitimizing caste as a category of contemporary discrimination. At the same time, the disadvantaged communities demonstrate their awareness of the structural inequalities that suppress them. The above patterns mirror broader societal trends in India, where dominant caste groups often endorse economic or meritocratic framings to avoid the acknowledgment of caste inequalities. Caste group identification has emerged as a key predictor in shaping the views on reservation policies.

The ‘General’ category people perceive the policies as unfair and discriminatory because they think such policies would shrink their opportunities to gain. Conversely, scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, and other backwards caste categories support reservation policies, as they directly benefit from the affirmative actions. The article also reaffirms the importance of higher education as a potential space for social transformation, as it engages students in meaningful reflection and cross-group interaction.

The fifth Research Article – Consciousness Not Without Dangers – focuses on Dalits’ willingness to abandon Hinduism as a protest against untouchability, assert their rights as citizens, and also to escape from its suppression. The key question is whether the Dalits have the capacity to break free from the caste system and become a new, independent Self. The article cogently points out the risks and dangers that surround such a willingness and actions. The majority of Hindus would consider such converted Dalits as transgressors who have challenged the social stratification of the sacred Hindu caste system. Such actions inevitably invite physical violence and violation of their constitutional rights. In the case of Dalit conversions to non-Indic religions, violence tends to be overt, raw, and physical, often driven by a fear of losing cultural and social control within the Hindu fold. In contrast, conversions to Indic religions, which theoretically reject the caste system, face more covert forms of violence, such as legal and political obstacles.

The absence of a concluding chapter, especially one summarising the five general research articles and providing a general conclusion for the entire collection, leaves the reader with the intellectual task of connecting the dots between the articles. From a stylistic point of view, symposium articles are well structured and edited than the five general research articles. Although the difference between an ‘article’ and a ‘research article’ is known to academic journal readers, the general reader might get confused by the distinction. They might think the distinction reflects the quality or the depth of an article.

The articles cogently deliver a cohesive narrative of how caste is embedded in the South Asian social fabric, reinforcing social hierarchies, maintaining power structures, and ensuring their continuity. The authors have elaborated on covert forms of everyday caste aggression, resistance, and compliance in rural spaces and urban environments. Some articles have shown how school education and the generation of non-caste employment help the privileged and the non-privileged to move upwards in social and economic ladders. The collection highlights the need for further anthropological research on caste systems, caste politics, social and economic transformations, Dalit resistance movements, and the role of the State in actively promoting Dalit emancipation. The articles will also interest those curious about caste and mobility, as they offer a compelling and multifaceted examination of the caste system.

A Review Article

by Jayantha Perera ✍️

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Features

Beyond traditional jobs: Why Sri Lanka needs to facilitate the gig economy

Published

5 hours ago

2026/09/25

Thilina Walpola

Image courtesy Oxford University

by Kapila Chinthaka Premarathne
Head of the Department of Agricultural Systems and a Senior Lecturer in Agricultural Economics at the Faculty of Agriculture,
Rajarata University of Sri Lanka

Beyond the Graduate Unemployment Number

Sri Lanka’s economic recovery has improved macroeconomic stability, but youth unemployment remains a significant labour-market concern. Around 43% of Sri Lankan youth aged 15–24 with postsecondary education are unemployed, the highest among the Asian economies compared in the IMF analysis, compared with about 36% in Bangladesh and 13.2% in Thailand. This reflects a problem of skills mismatches and the difficulty of connecting higher education with changing labour-market demand. The concern goes beyond unemployment itself. Sri Lanka has invested heavily in educating its younger population, yet the conventional labour market is not creating enough opportunities to convert these qualifications into income. Many young people possess degrees, technical knowledge and growing digital familiarity, but remain outside formal employment because suitable jobs may not exist in the right place, at the right time or under conditions compatible with their circumstances. This makes it necessary to think beyond traditional employment models and explore new ways of connecting Sri Lanka’s educated youth with economic opportunities.

This is where Sri Lanka needs to reconsider how it understands employment

Employment has traditionally been viewed through the employer–employee relationship, with qualifications leading to a formal job and regular salary. While this model remains important, digital platforms are creating new ways to generate income, allowing individuals to work for multiple clients across geographical boundaries without permanent employment. Sri Lanka therefore needs to look beyond simply creating conventional jobs and consider whether it is building the conditions for its educated population to participate in the growing global market for digital services.

The Opportunity of the Gig Economy

The gig economy extends far beyond ride-hailing and delivery services. Digital platforms increasingly connect skilled individuals with opportunities in software development, design, accounting, data analysis, digital marketing, translation, online education, research and consultancy. This is particularly relevant to Sri Lanka, where a highly educated population faces a relatively limited domestic market for specialised skills. Digital platforms can overcome geographical constraints by connecting Sri Lankan workers directly with international clients.

As highlighted in my previous LSE South Asia article on women and the gig economy, such work should not replace formal employment but can create additional income opportunities when supported by appropriate skills, digital infrastructure, training and institutional support. A skilled person in Anuradhapura, Jaffna, Batticaloa or Monaragala could potentially serve clients in London, Melbourne or Dubai without first relocating to Colombo. This makes the gig economy relevant not only to employment but also to Sri Lanka’s emerging digital services-export strategy.

A Digitally Familiar Generation

Sri Lanka’s younger generation is growing up with smartphones, social media, online learning, digital applications and digital financial services, giving them a level of digital familiarity that previous generations did not have. However, digital familiarity does not automatically translate into digital employability. The challenge is to transform everyday digital use into productive skills such as data analysis, artificial intelligence, software development, digital marketing, financial analysis and online professional services.

Sri Lanka therefore needs to move young people from being consumers of digital services to producers of digital value. Universities, vocational institutions and training providers can play an important role in converting existing digital familiarity into marketable skills that connect young people with both domestic and international opportunities. This is increasingly important as technological change and AI reshape labour markets and intensify the need for skills that match emerging forms of work.

The Gender Dimension

The gig economy may be particularly relevant to women, who often face barriers to conventional employment arising from childcare, eldercare, mobility, social expectations and rigid working arrangements. For mothers and women living outside major urban centres, fixed working hours and daily commuting can make formal employment difficult even when suitable jobs exist.

Digital gig work can provide greater flexibility, allowing women to undertake professional assignments from home or their communities and potentially serve international clients without relocating. As discussed in my earlier LSE South Asia article, this opportunity is most meaningful when supported by digital infrastructure, skills training, virtual work hubs, mentorship and appropriate institutional support. However, flexibility should expand women’s economic choices rather than simply add paid work to existing unpaid household responsibilities.

Pressure on Labour-Market Opportunity

The value of a job cannot be judged by salary alone, as commuting, working hours and household responsibilities can significantly affect its real economic value. Flexible digital work can potentially reduce some of these costs by allowing people to work from home or nearby digital hubs and participate in employment on a part-time or project basis. While gig work cannot solve all household pressures, a more flexible organisation of work can create additional employment opportunities while helping households manage their limited time and resources more effectively.

A Possible Third Option Between Unemployment and Migration

Sri Lanka’s migration and brain-drain concerns highlight the need to explore employment opportunities beyond the domestic labour market. While overseas migration will remain an important individual and economic choice, digital work can provide another pathway by allowing skilled Sri Lankans to serve international clients without physically leaving the country. Software developers, designers, analysts, researchers, translators and consultants can potentially earn from global markets while remaining in Sri Lanka. Digital gig work cannot eliminate migration or reverse brain drain, but it can create an additional option between domestic unemployment and physical migration—working for the world while remaining in Sri Lanka.

Recognising and Making Digital Work Reputable

A major institutional gap is that conventional systems are designed around salaried employment, while a freelancer may earn from multiple clients without a single employer or salary certificate. This can make legitimate digital workers difficult to recognise when they seek loans, leasing, insurance or business finance. Sri Lanka could address this through a voluntary digital-worker or independent-professional registration mechanism, providing a recognised economic identity based on qualifications, verified skills, platform activity and documented income, without creating unnecessary bureaucracy.

Such recognition should also make digital income bankable. Banks could assess verified platform earnings, bank transactions, contracts, invoices, tax records, savings and repayment history alongside conventional employment documents. A standardised digital income statement could further help workers demonstrate their financial capacity. The key shift is from asking “Who is your employer?” to asking “Can your income be verified and is it sufficiently stable?”. This would allow successful digital workers to build financial credibility and use their earnings to access credit, acquire assets and develop their own businesses.

Digital Payments Are Part of the Labour Market

Access to reliable international payment systems is essential if Sri Lankans are to participate effectively in the global digital economy. Recent developments in PayPal’s local banking arrangements, including its partnerships with Sampath Bank and Commercial Bank, indicate progress in this direction. However, the broader priority should be a regulated and efficient digital-payment ecosystem that allows workers to receive international earnings, transfer them to Sri Lankan bank accounts, document their income and meet relevant financial and tax requirements with minimal friction. International payment infrastructure is therefore not simply a technology issue; it is an essential component of Sri Lanka’s emerging services-export economy.

Building Infrastructure Outside Colombo

Digital familiarity alone is insufficient without reliable internet, electricity, computers, software and suitable working environments, particularly in rural and underserved areas. To ensure that the gig economy supports regional development rather than becoming another Colombo-centred opportunity, Sri Lanka could establish regional digital-work hubs through universities, vocational institutions, libraries and public-private partnerships. These hubs could provide connectivity, equipment, training, mentoring and assistance with platform registration and international payments. If graduates must migrate to Colombo simply to access such infrastructure, the geographical advantage of digital work is significantly reduced.

From Freelancer to Entrepreneur

Gig work should not be viewed as an end in itself. A person may begin with small online assignments, develop regular clients and professional credibility, and eventually establish a small digital enterprise. This creates a potential pathway from graduate to freelancer, professional service provider and entrepreneur, allowing individuals to create markets around their own skills rather than waiting for conventional vacancies. Universities can support this transition by teaching students not only subject knowledge but also portfolio development, market identification, client communication, digital platforms and contract management. A degree demonstrates educational attainment, while a professional portfolio demonstrates what a graduate can offer to the market.

Facilitation Must Be Matched by Protection

Promoting the gig economy without appropriate safeguards could simply transfer employment risks from institutions to individuals. Digital workers may face uncertain incomes, weak bargaining power and limited social protection. Sri Lanka should therefore facilitate digital work while also ensuring opportunities for independent workers to build savings, access insurance and participate in portable social-protection mechanisms. Flexibility should create greater economic choice without compromising long-term financial security, particularly for women.

A regional Example from India: Think Globally and act Locally

India provides a useful regional example of how the gig economy can be approached as a policy issue rather than simply as informal or temporary work. NITI Aayog has estimated the size and future employment potential of India’s gig and platform economy and has developed recommendations covering employment generation, skills, financial inclusion and social protection. More importantly, India has begun creating institutional mechanisms around these workers. Its e-Shram portal provides a national database of unorganised workers, including gig and platform workers, creating a recognised identity through which workers can potentially access employment, skills development and social-security services. India has also explored platform-led skills development through skill certificates, skill passports and on-the-job training, while NITI Aayog has proposed cash-flow-based lending models that could allow platform workers to demonstrate creditworthiness through their earnings rather than conventional employment or collateral.

Social protection has also entered the policy framework. India’s Code on Social Security, 2020 formally recognises gig and platform workers and provides a basis for schemes covering areas such as accident insurance, health, maternity, disability and old-age protection. India is still developing and refining these arrangements, and Sri Lanka need not replicate the Indian model.

However, the experience demonstrates an important policy lesson: the gig economy can be supported through a system that identifies workers, develops their skills, makes their income more visible to financial institutions and extends appropriate social protection. Sri Lanka could develop its own simpler framework suited to its smaller economy, beginning with recognising digital workers and building the institutional conditions that allow their skills and earnings to become part of the formal economy.

Rethinking Employment and the Next Opportunity

The 43 percent figure for educated young Sri Lankans should encourage a wider discussion about the changing nature of work. Sri Lanka will continue to need conventional employment through firms, industries, farms, professional organisations and public institutions, but the changing labour market also requires new opportunities to connect educated Sri Lankans with global digital markets. The gig economy can provide an additional pathway to increase female labour-force participation, reduce the pressure for migration and brain drain, and connect Sri Lankan skills with markets beyond geographical boundaries.

This does not require a complicated bureaucracy. It requires recognising legitimate digital workers, facilitating access to international platforms and payment systems, allowing verified digital income to support credit assessment, developing portable social protection, and strengthening digital infrastructure and skills beyond major urban centres. Better data on digital workers would also help policymakers develop evidence-based interventions.

The future of work is therefore not only about creating more jobs, but about creating more ways for Sri Lankans to work, earn and build livelihoods while continuing to live and contribute in Sri Lanka. The gig economy should be recognised as part of an emerging digital labour market and services-export economy, where workers can build professional identities, earn internationally, access finance and eventually develop their own enterprises.

Features

Are religions getting redundant in the modern world?

Published

6 hours ago

2026/09/25

Thilina Walpola

by Dr Upul Wijayawardhana

We are living in an era of astonishingly rapid scientific advancement. From the time Apple launched the ‘iPhone’ in January 2007, the first targeting the mass market, smartphones have taken over the world, making them indispensable. According to the latest statistics, there are around 8.1 billion mobile phones with 7.4 billion active smartphones, for the world population of 8.25 billion. Except for a tiny minority of the very poor, most people have at least one smartphone.

We are now entering the era of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and smart robots. Recently, a ‘Chinese’ robot ran 100 metres faster than Usain Bolt! Though Alan Turing proposed the idea of ‘Thinking Machines’ way back in 1950, the real AI boom commenced with the release of the generative AI chatbot, ChatGPT, by OpenAI in November 2020. Number of technology firms in the US as well as in China have joined the race, China catching up very fast, quite unexpectedly. There is a frenzy at the moment, raising expectations, as the imminent floating of these companies is likely to value the two leaders, OpenAI and Anthropic, trillion dollars each!

However, trouble is brewing in the AI field. On top of the concerns raised by environmentalists regarding the huge power drain by AI centres, there are recent reports of some AI models hacking independently into other systems, without human input. Worse still, a senior researcher at Anthropic, who has previously worked for OpenAI as well, resigned in early September on ethical grounds stating that the way the two companies are fast-tracking AI poses an existential threat to humanity. Surprisingly, instead of a rebuttal the head of Anthropic supported his view, soon joined by three more heads of leading AI developers. Whilst they agreed on slowing progress, President Trump has claimed that slowing is totally unnecessary as long as a super intelligent President like himself is at the helm! There does not seem to be an end to Trump’s grandiosity! He was joined by Tony Blair. In contrast, King Charles held a summit with representatives of all AI developers to find a way AI could be developed without a threat to humanity. That is how wise leaders act!

Less sophisticated AI tools are already in widespread use and installed in computers, laptops and smartphones. Some of us are using these automatically. However, the more advanced AI tools like ChatGPT can change even reality. For instance, AI can generate videos hardly distinguishable from real ones. What you enjoy watching on YouTube may be just the creations of AI! Some people use AI to write articles; only a few of them admit that they do so. Very soon we may be reading stories AI creates and listening to music, courtesy of AI. Technology seems to be fast becoming the new religion? Or, will the existential threat move us more towards religion?

Religion, perhaps, is as old as humanity itself; various belief systems evolving and disappearing coupled with the fortunes of the associated civilizations. Just like AI, religion is also a creation of the human mind which our ancestors did to explain many phenomena which appeared, at that time, to be supernatural. Starting with Animism, perceiving the divine in the natural world around, humans went on to Polytheism, believing in many gods like in Hinduism, culminating in the concept of Monotheism.

World’s oldest religion, Hinduism, still in wide practice, is devoid of a founder or a single text. The earliest scriptures, Rigveda, is considered to be around 3,500 years old but archaeologists have discovered symbols of importance to Hinduism as far back as 7,000 BCE. Though it is considered to be Polytheistic, it can be argued that it was the precursor of Monotheism, the concept of a creator God, as Brahma was the creator in the triad, Trimurti, Vishnu being the preserver and Shiva being the destroyer. It seems to be a sensible balancing act; create, destroy and repair with improvements.

It is pretty obvious that as science expands, the importance of religion contracts but it is hardly likely religions would be totally redundant. We have no choice as to which family we are born to and that invariably determines what your religion would be, if any. Religion is the first brainwashing a child encounters and most remain in the same faith, often trying to defend even the indefensible, but some change through conviction or conversion due to one of many reasons. Further, religious rituals have social values and religious practices often come to one’s solace at times of distress. Therefore, many will continue with the religion they were born to but with declining enthusiasm, at times. However, some religions seem to be facing problems like falling attendances in places of worship. With education and tech savviness expanding, one would expect the youth to be less enthusiastic about religion but the converse is true in some religions, some youth becoming very militant unfortunately.

While most religions make you subservient to a supernatural power, the Buddha was wise and bold enough to remove those shackles. He proclaimed that one’s destiny is in one’s own hands. However, many Buddhists appear to attach greater significance to rituals than to practising the Dhamma.

Buddhism as a religion may become less relevant as the frontiers of science expands but the Buddha Dhamma, especially Abhidhamma and Vipassana, would receive increasing recognition, the Buddha remaining an authority on consciousness and the mind.

Scientific progress should be for the betterment of society but AI developers are taking huge risks, taking massive loans threatening the world economy, for one aim: profit! Some do not seem to care even if their actions pose an existential threat to humanity.

Perhaps, if the Four Sublime Attitudes (Sathara Brahma Vihara) expounded by the Buddha; loving kindness (Metta), compassion (Karuna), empathetic joy (Muditha) and equanimity (Upekkha) are adopted as universal values, the world would become a safer place to live in, with or without AI.

Features

‘The Bullet that Missed’

Published

6 hours ago

2026/09/25

Thilina Walpola

Tales of Mystery and Suspense 21

by Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha

Another book that is part of a series, today—one that is fun without the brooding concentration on criminality in different forms that marks the Rebus novels. This one about the Thursday Murder Club, is a romp as its two predecessors were interspersed with deaths and what might be deaths.

The Bullet that Missed

begins with a meeting with the presenter of ‘South East Tonight’, a programme about the area, in which Coopers Chase is situated. The meeting is held because the club has decided to look into the murder of the producer’s assistant, Bethany Waites, whose car was found at the bottom of a cliff ten years ago. There was blood in it, but the body was never found.

Or, rather, the book begins with an account of Bethany Waites deciding, on the night she vanished, to meet someone in connection with a case of massive fraud that she had been investigating, after sending the producer, Mike Waghorn, a message that she had found new evidence though he had no idea what it was. The night she died, she sent him another message: “I don’t say this often enough, but thank you.”

CCTV cameras showed her leaving her place, but then the vehicle vanished, before being sighted near the cliff, with two people in it. Investigation of the fraud had led to the imprisonment of a woman, Heather Garbutt, though it proved impossible to pin anything on Jack Mason, the mastermind for whom she had worked.

The Club conducts investigations on several fronts, including through Connie Johnson, the drug dealer they had helped imprison in the earlier book. The psychiatrist Ibrahim, the most respectable member of the Club, interviews her in an attempt to get her to find out more from Heather, who is in the same prison as she. They also investigate the CCTV record of the night Bethany vanished, and deduce that she went to an apartment block and exited from its other side, and that is why she was not seen leaving the town. But some time had elapsed between her being seen in the town and then on the cliff.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth has been kidnapped, along with her husband, and taken to a house in Staffordshire, where she is told by a man called the Viking that she must kill a former KGB agent now in London, who has a profitable career in money laundering. The Viking tells her he will inform Viktor that she was responsible for stealing the diamonds, the story of which is told in the previous Murder Club Mystery, and Viktor will then kill her.

Elizabeth, who has an affair with Viktor, knows he will not kill her, but when the Viking says he will also send Viktor a picture of Joyce, she decides she must act, and goes to see Viktor, and fires when she gets him in the bathroom. But, of course, she fired into the ceiling, and Viktor is then taken to Coopers Chase, to stay with Joyce until they have dealt with the Viking. And Viktor then enjoys the camaraderie of the retirement home so much that he wonders whether he too should settle there.

Elizabeth does trace the Viking, or rather her husband does, for he has noticed rare books on the shelves in his library, and an antiquarian book dealer friend managed to find out who bought them. But before they could confront him, he comes to Coopers Chase, for he has seen the bullet hole in the bathroom of Viktor’s flat and realized he was fooled.

But he cannot bring himself to kill Joyce straight away, and she knocks him out with a drug in a cup of tea. When he meets Viktor, they both decide to fall in with the plans of the Club.

Before this, Heather has been found dead in her cell, with a note saying that ‘they’ were going to kill her, and only Connie could help. Before that she had admitted that she was frightened to name the man behind the fraud. Jack Mason said the same, after Ron had won his confidence. The Club had deduced by then that the body was buried in the garden of Heather’s house which Jack had bought, after she had been jailed, and digging reveals a gun and money, but no body. Jack tells them that the mastermind had said that Bethany was buried with a bullet with his DNA on it.

The Club is now working with the Chief Constable of Kent, Andrew Everton, who writes thrillers himself, but in the form of e-books. He is in search of a publisher, and delighted when Mike Waghorn puts him on his programme, as is Donna, who is substituted at the last minute for Chris.

The Club finds out whom Bethany visited in the apartment block—Mike’s assistant Pauline, who tells them later what she and Bethany had been doing. But this is after the man behind the fraud has been unmasked up in the house in Staffordshire, where he was trying to hire the Viking and Viktor to find the money that he had stashed away, using accounts that he could no longer trace. He has also confessed to murdering Bethany, hoping this will persuade the two money launderers to help him, but it turns out that he did not do this. Nor did he kill Heather, the incriminating note having been placed in her room by Connie, who decided that Heather’s suicide should be treated as murder so that the person who had been blackmailing her should be found out.

It was Jack Mason’s murder that was brought home to the crook. It turns out that Bethany, her appearance altered by Pauline, has vanished, to a new life in Dubai, where she has taken control of the missing millions. She has gone there because the threat, she received through the bullet she was looking at in the preamble, was to Mike and she wanted him out of danger.

Yet another whimsical conclusion to a whimsical book with enough loose ends left hanging for another sequel.