Features

A Policy Science Analysis

Published

5 years ago

2021/04/19

Sahan Weerasooriya

President’s Gama Samaga Pilisandarak

By Dr D. Chandraratna

Trying to place President’s Gama Samaga Pilisandarak (PGSP) in a scientific perspective of public policy making is timely. One of the stated objectives of the Presidents election manifesto, ‘Vistas of Prosperity’ is to create a village-centered development of our predominantly agriculture-based rural economy. The President has pledged to achieve a four-fold objective: a productive citizen, a happy family, a virtuous, disciplined and just society and ultimately a prosperous country. A laudable project worthy of comment and analysis.

President Rajapaksa believes that to achieve this broad objective, he must clearly identify the problems faced by the rural population, which constitutes about 70% of the population in Sri Lanka. It is well known that people in rural areas have suffered for far too long as national development goals are stymied. Given the fact Sri Lanka has an executive presidential system of government it must be understood that decisions that the executive President makes supersede all other decision centres. It is no secret however, that political decisions are tied up with ideology, party politics, group interests, vote banks and the survival of regimes. But in this paper we will leave the ideology and rhetoric aside and examine only the facts, evidence, ends and means only.

Ideal methods of policy making; the end points of a continuum

At the outset it is necessary to contextualise the exercise within the science of policy making in public affairs. Policies are a web of executive decisions made to overcome problems that people in society face in their day-to-day lives. These can be arranged on a continuum from the complex to the simple. At the complex end lies the oldest model, based on the theory of decisions expounded by the management guru Herbert Simon; it is called the Root Method or Comprehensive Rational model, where policy decisions are made after a laborious weighing of all alternative courses in terms of optimum results, costs, and many other value positions. Obviously, this is absolutely necessary in national issues and problems which consume a vast amount of national resources and are costly in nature. Infrastructure projects such as transport systems, communication systems, river and waterways, energy supplies etc., fit in with the comprehensive method of policy making. Governments issue white papers and appoint commissions, task forces and professional consultant bodies before such are undertaken because of the vastness in costs and liabilities. The most important fact is that the country as a whole must realise the value and necessity of such vital state projects. In Sri Lanka, it is a matter of regret that some costly projects such as the Mattala airport and the Hambantota Port have come under criticism because the national implications have not been professionally argued. The author is of the view that both were valuable projects in their own right and if only the relevant Ministry at the time had followed though the correct professional procedure in public policy-making, the projects may have had a different outcome.

In other countries, projects of that magnitude go though extensive weighing of alternatives, open professional debates and university research centres arguing about costs, benefits and opportunity costs of the nation’s limited resources. Science has to be put before ideology because haphazard interventions in national policy or grids or systems can be deleterious.

The opposite method at the other end is called incremental policy making, for as the name suggests it is limited in scope and applicable to small time projects with little or limited national implications. These appear solutions to residual ills, minor dysfunctions of national policies, which need remedial outcomes. Hence, such measures are called disjointed, piecemeal and also having incremental outcomes, benefitting a few at the margins. The fact that they are disjointed invites numerous criticisms. But their positives will be explored first.

This is the method of policy making that the President has taken up as a speedy solution to the numerous problems faced by the rural peasantry in Sri Lanka and his entourage has selected the most backward of villages as the points to touch on.

In fairness to the President, it must be stated at the outset that we do not consider this as a ploy on the part of the President to escape the political overload that he has inherited from years gone past. Ever since the gradual dissipation of efforts by governments since Independence, to kick-start the village economy as the mainstay of the national development strategy, the dividends have been sub-optimal. The colonisation schemes, village expansion schemes, financial assistance to tenants were only partially successful. We do remember the 10-year plans, five-year plans, Operations rooms, Planning Ministries but the results have been poor. The President will succeed to the extent that his advisors keep him informed of the successes, and especially failures of the efforts in the past. The President’s officials must not be a bunch of ‘yes men’ leading the President up the garden path.

Transparency in respect of both means and ends is the path to success. People are not unaware of the fact that politicians are in the habit of recommending such incremental stop-gap policies as a way out to avoid political embarrassment, hoping for a temporary respite. Bottom-up policy making has its positives but its limits and usefulness must be properly grasped.

President’s Gama Samaga Pilisandarak –– the context

Before we evaluate what the President has so far addressed, we must note the following facts about our broad policy field. Sri Lanka has nine provinces, 25 districts, 318 divisions and 14,022 Grama Niladari areas or villages. The country, consisting of 14,022 villages, is demarcated into 196 electorates. For 196 electorates there are 225 Members of Parliament to advance the welfare of all 14022 villages. Given the electoral system these members of Parliament represent not electorates, but districts. They are elected on the proportional representation system of voting. Hence no one at the Centre is responsible, theoretically at least, for any of the problems in any particular village.

Having identified that the PGSP is located at the incremental end of public policymaking we need to put it in an analytical perspective.

It is fair to surmise thus far the President has in his encounters identified and sometimes attended to some of the following major issues identified by the President inter alia: shortage of lands and water for agriculture and houses, unavailability of deeds for lands, inadequate health and transportation facilities, shortages affecting school and other educational issues, inaccessibility to drinking water, elephant-human conflicts and difficulties in marketing.

We are also aware that around 30 precent of the total households in rural societies in Sri Lanka live below the poverty line. Moreover, nutrition surveys conducted in the recent reveal a high prevalence of malnutrition among those in rural areas, which may have been caused by chronic poverty.

There are particular issues in some villages, which we will leave out in this paper.

The Analysis: Plusses and Minuses

I will use a famous textbook in policy making by Hogg and Gunn (1984) to follow through with the Presidential initiative. Let us start with the positives of the PGSP.

This move in the President’s opinion is for the top policy maker to ascertain the real situation in the village, which any text will title as an issue search. The pertinent question to ask is why these concerns do not come up on any agenda paper. Basically, it may be that those affected have no voice because organised interest groups with power and influence drive the issues that get priority. In a poor country, this should come as no surprise. The electronic media of late have had a number of programmes as an agenda-setting exercise with limited success but their main objective was to embarrass the local politicians and bureaucrats. The president also has an interest in attending to their immediate concerns before they could intensify in the future creating more headaches for him. Seeing the problem first hand gives the first policy maker in the country a view of the issue plus the complexities and need for ameliorative action.

The other positive from the perspective of the villager is the immediacy of solution, as resources can be mustered straight away by the President, which otherwise takes long years noting the plethora of departments and other bodies that are involved.

Sri Lanka is one of the highly bureaucratised countries with a public service ‘surplus to requirements’ and running the gauntlet is beyond the capacity of villagers. For example, to regularise a land permit, I was told by a one-time Land Commissioner, one has to have approvals from 23 odd government and semi government organisations. Things are unbelievably complicated by the number of authorising bodies. It took me 12 years after occupation to obtain the deed to my apartment from a government department in Colombo, and that too after two costly court cases. Bureaucratic corruption and inefficiency! Let us not talk about it. No wonder that the people awaiting the arrival of the President were sadly disappointed last week by the cancellation of his visit at the last minute.

In this bottom-up policy initiative there are many pitfalls that we can list straightaway. The President can visit only a few villages and those that are neglected can be politically ‘not with him’. Secondly, the problems are the same in most villages and it will be pointless wasting the time of the President because he will reach the saturation point very soon. He will realise that there are better and efficient mechanisms, given the resources, which can attend to these problems. What the information tells the President is that the issues, being common to many of the fourteen thousand villages are crying out for a national plan of action. Hence we wonder whether it is it the enormity of the issues that strained the limits of those who had power before, causing this neglect? Was it lack of insight, proper understanding, ministerial inexperience or the fear of realising the complexity of the interrelationships between issues or sheer lack of resources that caused this oversight?

The President cannot visit all villages and the solutions he instantaneously gives can be counterproductive. The furore over the environment and forests is a classic case where the Presidents instant solutions have become the weapon in the hands of an environmentally conscious middle class youth on whose bandwagon the opponents of the government are taking a joy ride.

The President will face similar catch-22 situations, which adversely affect his popularity. Incremental policies at the margins by themselves do not achieve much.

Conclusion

Sri Lanka failed in the bottom-up policy development due to many reasons and I can only highlight briefly a few for lack of space. The inefficient and lethargic conduct of the public institutions, the way our peoples representatives are elected without responsibility for particular localities, over 8000 politicians, the haphazard manner in which ministries are created for politicians (Foreign Affairs coupled with Lotteries!), the total lack of coordination between departments, the corruption of public officials, the inability of law to punish those who flout the law, the misuse of power and influence, the non-use or decay of coordination mechanisms such as Divisional, District and Provincial coordinating committees, and the lack of nexus between Provincial Councils and local authorities and many more. The political solution proposed by way of Provincial Councils has become a dead weight. Generally, we are an over governed society and as such the use of modern scientific management for policy implementation is non-existent.

An article appeared in your paper the other day by our colleague Ranjith Soysa from Australia about the successes of China in eradicating poverty in a matter of decades by comprehensive social policy planning which Sri Lanka can learn from. A white paper on poverty alleviation, which outlines the success of policies implemented, the methods employed and her desire to share the unique social experiment with other developing countries was mentioned therein. ‘Sri Lanka should make use of this opportunity to study the programme and follow its guidelines if a national comprehensive policy is to be implemented.

China achieved the largest scale battle against extreme poverty, as 98.99 million people had been lifted out of absolute poverty––a miracle in human history. But China achieves success because it is a planned centrally and the ideology is driven with strict, rigidly enforced rules, but whether we, being overly democratic, can enforce such discipline in a country noted for a poor work ethic is any one’s guess.

References

Hogwood,B.W & L.A.Gunn (1984) Policy Analysis for the Real World, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

D.Chandraratna, Making Social Policy in Modern Sri Lanka (2003), Vijitha Yapa, Colombo.

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Features

Defend civic space upon which peace is built

Published

10 hours ago

2026/09/22

Sahan Weerasooriya

by Jehan Perera

International Peace Day was observed on 21 September. It finds Sri Lanka with a genuine achievement to record and a demanding test to meet. The UN’s theme this year was “Invest in Peace: For Everyone, Everywhere, Every Day.” It also honoured the “everyday architects of peace”—people driving local action and building a lasting peace from the ground up. In the 2026 Global Peace Index, Sri Lanka rose 30 places, from 97th to 67th among 163 countries. Over the same period, global peacefulness declined for the twelfth consecutive year to its lowest level since the index began, and South Asia suffered the sharpest regional deterioration. The test is whether the government will protect the civic space in which those architects of peace work.

Sri Lanka’s improvement is real and deserves acknowledgement. In this year’s review, issued a few weeks ago, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights acknowledged progress in the form of action against corruption, arrests and investigations linked to political killings, enforced disappearances and the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks, and continued official denunciation of racism. A ranking, however, records conditions at a particular moment. It does not guarantee that they will last. Sustainable peace will depend on three factors. These are whether the government addresses the unresolved causes of conflict, whether it strengthens accountability for past and present abuses, and whether it protects the civic space in which peace is built from below. On the first two the record is incomplete. On the third, the draft NGO law threatens to weaken the very organisations that press for the other two.

What holds Sri Lanka back from a higher place are the same things that fed the war at home and also feed international conflict that rages elsewhere in the world. These are racism or ethnic nationalism that is narrow-focused, corruption and lawlessness. Equality, accountability and the rule of law are their remedies. The present government has committed itself to these, and is a significant improvement over governments of the recent past. But these pillars are not held up by governments alone. Peace is made in villages, workplaces and university campuses. It is made by families who insist on the truth about their disappeared, by journalists and lawyers who expose abuse, and by community organisations that bring Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese into practical cooperation.

Unfinished Work

The UN High Commissioner’s report to the current Human Rights Council session, covering October 2025 to July 2026, shows how much remains to be done. The Prevention of Terrorism Act is still being applied, producing arbitrary arrests and long detention without charge. The report calls for a moratorium pending repeal and for the release of long-term detainees. Military-occupied land has not been released, memorialisation lacks support, and tensions over land and religious sites persist. The Batticaloa district illustrates how such problems endure. In the past three years, two Presidents, Ranil Wickremesinghe and Anura Kumara Dissanayake, have visited and instructed that the dispute over grazing land in Mailaththamadu and Mathavanai be resolved. It is a dispute between Tamil cattle farmers and outside Sinhala cultivators, and it has not been resolved. When two Presidents issue instructions and nothing changes, the fault lies in the machinery of State. An unresolved dispute does not stand still. It hardens into the next grievance.

Accountability shows the same pattern. The report documents torture and deaths in custody, and surveillance and intimidation of activists, journalists and civil society. Serious cases remain stalled for years, among them the killing of seventeen aid workers of Action Contre la Faim in Muttur two decades ago. Sharper still is the case of the Eastern University refugee camp at Vantharamoolai, where in 1990 the army took away 158 persons in a single day. They were never seen again. The camp’s officer-in-charge, Dr T. Jayasingam, later Vice Chancellor of the university, identified the officers responsible. More than three decades on, those officers have not been questioned. These cases are still remembered because families, survivors and independent witnesses have refused to let them be forgotten. Meanwhile several commissions of inquiry have completed their investigations but nothing further has happened.

What South Africa, Argentina and other post-conflict societies have found indispensable are four pillars of what is called “Transitional Justice” which are truth, accountability, reparations and non-recurrence. In Sri Lanka’s circumstances, truth means credible, independent investigation of what happened to the disappeared, and support for memorialisation. Accountability means prosecuting Muttur, Vantharamoolai and comparable cases, and removing credibly accused persons from senior office. Reparations mean compensation for victims and the return of military-held land. Non-recurrence means repealing the Prevention of Terrorism Act, releasing those held under it in the meantime, and resolving local disputes such as Mailaththamadu before delay hardens them. A country that buries its past does not escape it. The past returns in the next generation.

Civil Society

It is against this background that the draft NGO law is most troubling. The proposed legislation contains sweeping provisions for State oversight and control of civil society organisations. Among these are enforcing a licensing requirement on NGOs, which is to be renewed every three years, and severe penalties for not submitting reports on time, or for spending on emergency flood relief (for instance) when the NGOs mandate is peacebuilding (as an example) with possible sanctions including deregistration and having to shut down. Civil society groups have warned that it would confer excessive discretion over their registration and operations. Officials in Sri Lanka have abused such powers in the past. Additional power without effective checks invites further abuse. Sound regulation would have clear criteria for registration, an independent registrar and a right of appeal to the courts. What cannot be justified is a regime in which registration becomes a licence to be withheld from organisations that scrutinise policy, expose abuses or advocate for the rights of citizens.

Democracy is based on checks and balances. Those who press for accountability are part of those checks. The contradiction is plain. A government that has pledged accountability, equality and the rule of law ought not to be preparing to weaken the very organisations that press for their fulfilment. The organisations most exposed are those working on disappearances, land, memorialisation and reconciliation in the North and East, where the State’s record is weakest and the need for independent witnesses greatest. Silencing them would not remove the grievances they document. It would remove the channel through which those grievances are addressed peacefully. The government appears to be relenting, which is welcome, but a pause is not a withdrawal. The bill should be withdrawn and any replacement drafted in genuine consultation with those it would govern.

Investment in peace as called for by the UN in its International Peace Day theme implies commitment over time, with returns that come slowly. Sri Lanka’s 30-place rise on the Global Peace Index is a first dividend and nothing more. It can be built upon only if the government matches its commitments with action: withdrawing or fundamentally redrafting the NGO law, repealing or suspending the Prevention of Terrorism Act, and bringing Muttur, Vantharamoolai and Mailaththamadu to resolution. A higher place in a global index is not a certificate of success. Sri Lanka’s higher ranking is an encouraging start, but it will endure only if the space in which citizens speak, question and organise is protected. Peace is built from below, and a government that is serious about it will treat civil society as a partner rather than a threat.

Features

Africa is buying: Sri Lanka must start selling

Published

10 hours ago

2026/09/22

Sahan Weerasooriya

A call to Sri Lankan exporters and agencies: Can Sri Lanka compete with China and India in Africa?

By Kana V. Kananathan
Former Ambassador

Sri Lanka has spent decades concentrating its exports on traditional markets in Europe, North America and Asia. Yet across the Indian Ocean lies a rapidly expanding market that remains significantly underdeveloped by Sri Lankan exporters: Africa.

The opportunity is not theoretical. Sri Lanka already exports packaging, textiles, rubber products, pharmaceuticals, paper, machinery and electrical goods to African markets. The question is whether these modest beginnings can be transformed into a serious export strategy—and whether Sri Lanka can compete against the enormous commercial presence of China and India.

The answer is yes—but Sri Lanka must compete differently.

Kenya: Gateway to East Africa

Kenya should be the starting point.

Sri Lanka exported approximately US$32.08 million to Kenya in 2025, while importing US$11.41 million. But US$32 million is tiny compared with the opportunity: Kenya imported more than US$24 billion in 2025. Even a 1% share of that market would represent nearly US$240 million in annual exports.

And the commercial base already exists. Sri Lanka’s 2025 exports to Kenya included approximately US$9.99 million in paper and paperboard products, US$9.73 million in knitted fabrics, US$3.64 million in pharmaceuticals, US$1.24 million in rubber products and US$1.20 million in machinery.

Kenya’s import structure is equally revealing. In the third quarter of 2025, industrial supplies represented 34.4% of imports, machinery and capital equipment 19.2%, food and beverages 9.0%, and consumer goods 7.3%. The opportunity for Sri Lanka, therefore, extends well beyond consumer goods—we can become a supplier to African industry.

But competition is fierce. Asia supplied around 70% of Kenya’s imports in 2025, with imports from China rising 16.5% and those from India 11.3%.

Sri Lanka cannot challenge China and India across every product category. Nor should it try. We must target sectors where quality, specialisation, reliability, technical capability, smaller production runs and flexibility matter more than simply offering the lowest price.

Where Can Sri Lanka Compete?

Packaging is an obvious starting point. Cartons, boxes, bags and labels are already among Sri Lanka’s exports to Kenya. Importantly, some Sri Lankan companies operating in Kenya are themselves importing these products from Sri Lanka. The market already exists; the challenge is to scale it.

As Africa’s food-processing, pharmaceutical, apparel and consumer-goods industries expand, demand for sophisticated packaging will grow with them. Sri Lanka already possesses the manufacturing capability and industry experience to capture a larger share.

Industrial rubber products, tyres, gloves and specialised rubber components offer another opportunity where Sri Lanka has established manufacturing expertise.

The apparel supply chain is equally promising. Rather than competing directly with African garment factories, Sri Lanka can supply fabrics, elastics, labels, packaging and specialised textile inputs.

Some Sri Lankan apparel manufacturing and export companies already established in Kenya, Togo, Ghana and Ethiopia are importing several of these inputs from Sri Lanka. The supply chain, therefore, already exists. The next step is to move beyond supplying Sri Lankan-owned factories and become a competitive input supplier to the wider African apparel industry.

Other sectors deserving systematic market development include pharmaceuticals and medical consumables, processed foods, biscuits and confectionery, coconut products, cinnamon and spices, electrical products and cables, industrial chemicals, ceramics, light engineering, agricultural equipment and food-processing machinery.

Sri Lanka should also look beyond physical goods. IT, fintech, banking technology, engineering, healthcare, hospitality management and professional services largely escape the freight disadvantage confronting merchandise exports.

The Tariff Problem Can Become an Opportunity

Market access cannot be discussed without tariffs.The East African Community applies a Common External Tariff with bands of 0%, 10%, 25% and 35%, while certain sensitive products attract still higher protection. Simply filling containers in Colombo with finished consumer goods will therefore not always be commercially competitive.

But that obstacle points towards a bigger opportunity: manufacture in Africa.

Sri Lankan businesses could export intermediate materials while undertaking final assembly, manufacturing, processing or packaging in Kenya. Packaging companies could establish converting plants; electrical manufacturers could assemble locally; pharmaceutical companies could explore manufacturing or packaging partnerships; and food companies could undertake final processing closer to consumers.

Kenya would then become more than an export destination. It could become Sri Lanka’s manufacturing and distribution gateway into East and Central Africa.

With the East African Community now comprising eight partner states and extending geographically from the Indian Ocean towards the Atlantic, establishing a regional presence is increasingly more important than viewing each African country in isolation.

West Africa Cannot Be Ignored

Sri Lanka simultaneously needs a West African strategy.

Ghana offers potential as an English-speaking commercial gateway and host of the AfCFTA Secretariat. Nigeria, with its enormous population and consumer economy, should be approached as a major market in its own right, despite its greater regulatory, currency and operational complexity.

ECOWAS tariff bands of 0%, 5%, 10%, 20% and 35% again make product selection critical. Sri Lanka should concentrate on products with sufficient differentiation and margins to absorb freight, tariffs and distributor costs.

Pharmaceuticals demonstrate both the opportunity and the challenge. Nigeria imported approximately US$766 million in pharmaceuticals in 2025, with India supplying roughly US$394 million and China US$131 million. Ghana imported approximately US$301 million, with India supplying about US$140 million.

Sri Lanka cannot simply offer another generic product and expect to beat India on price. We must identify specialised products, reliable supply arrangements, partnerships and, where commercially justified, local production or packaging.

Stop Promoting Sectors—Identify Products

Sri Lanka now needs an Africa Export Opportunity Study based on individual products, not broad sectors.

The Export Development Board, Foreign Ministry, chambers and private sector should jointly identify 15–20 priority products. For each product, Sri Lanka should calculate the HS code, African annual import demand, principal suppliers, Chinese and Indian market shares, applicable duties, freight from Colombo, regulatory requirements, distributor margins and final landed price.

That will tell us where Sri Lanka genuinely has a competitive advantage.

The Commercial Test

Before spending resources promoting a product, apply one simple test:

African import demand + Sri Lankan production capability + tariff + freight + distributor margin + regulatory cost = final landed competitiveness against China, India and local African production.

Only products that pass this test should receive concentrated export-promotion resources.

This would move Sri Lanka away from exhibitions, delegations and general discussions towards what ultimately matters: specific products, specific buyers, specific distributors and actual export orders.

Give Our Missions Targets

Commercial diplomacy must become results-driven. The Government should set clear annual trade and investment targets for every Sri Lankan mission in Africa.

Missions should be evaluated not merely on diplomatic activity, but on buyers and distributors identified, business introductions made, investments facilitated, market barriers resolved and measurable exports generated.

In a competitive Africa, our missions must become active economic frontlines not merely diplomatic outposts.

A practical strategy could operate through three commercial gateways: Nairobi for East and Central Africa, Accra for selected West African markets and Lagos for Nigeria.

Sri Lanka’s total exports of goods and services reached approximately US$17.25 billion in 2025. Capturing even a small additional share of Africa’s enormous import market could, therefore, make a meaningful contribution to export earnings, investment and foreign-exchange generation.

Africa Will Not Wait

Sri Lankan exporters must stop looking at Africa as a distant or difficult market and start treating it as a strategic growth market.

We cannot compete with China and India on scale, but we can compete on quality, specialisation, flexibility and reliability. Exporters must identify country-specific opportunities, establish strong local distributors, build partnerships with African businesses and use Sri Lankan companies already operating on the continent as gateways into regional supply chains.

Where freight and tariffs weaken competitiveness, businesses must be prepared to move towards local assembly, joint ventures and manufacturing in Africa. Exporters cannot do it alone. They need aggressive, measurable and results-driven commercial diplomacy from Sri Lanka’s missions.

Africa is buying. Its markets are being captured now. Sri Lanka must stop watching from the sidelines. We must enter, compete, build our presence and secure our share.

(Ambassador Kana Kananathan is a businessman, Diplomat, lobbyist and an expert in African affairs, with over four decades of experience on the African continent. A long-time resident of Africa, he served as Sri Lanka’s envoy to Uganda and Kenya, with concurrent accreditation to 22 African Nations, and was the permanent representative to UN Habitat and UN environmental Programme. Over the years, he has been the Elections Monitor across the continent, working closely with African governments, and built enduring partnerships with African leaders. He also served as Economic and Investments Advisor to former President Professor Alpha Condé of the Republic of Guinea)

Features

Memories and Midnight Magic: Recipe for a perfect 31st Night dance

Published

10 hours ago

2026/09/22

Sahan Weerasooriya

The heart of a great 31st Night dance is memory, and memories come rushing back when those 70s, 80s and 90s golden oldies begin to play — those timeless tunes that make revellers, young and old, rush to the floor and dance the night away.

A perfect 31st Night is not just a party. It is a journey. A journey through time.

The music should flow like a love story. Start slow, start soft. Let couples glide into a waltz for romance. Let the floor come alive with a twist, a rock ‘n’ roll, a jive. Let nostalgia build with beautiful sing-along oldies generally associated with a New Year’s Eve dance.

This is the art that many of our entertainers seem to have forgotten.

The final hour, before midnight, is sacred. It should be collective energy at its peak. The entire crowd, on the dance floor, linking arms, swaying together, singing, at the top of their voices, those sing-along favourites.

Yes, I’m referring to those immortal, nostalgic favourites that unite the world: ‘This Land Is Your Land,’ ‘You Are My Sunshine,’ ‘When The Saints Go Marching In,’ ‘Roll Out The Barrel,’ ‘Celebration,’ ‘She’ll Be Coming Round The Mountain,’ ‘Happy Days Are Here Again,’ and so many more.

One wonders if some of our modern entertainers have even heard of these nostalgia anthems that traditionally lead up to the dawning of the New Year! This is not just music; this is ritual.

Then comes THE moment: Lights dim. Music pauses. A hush falls. The countdown begins — 10, 9, 8… — hugs, wishes, tears of joy, and then … ‘Auld Lang Syne.’ Hands crossed, voices united, bidding farewell to the old and welcoming the new. That moment makes or breaks the night.

Here is the truth that many genuine 31st Night revellers feel but hesitate to say — an overdose of baila music at New Year’s Eve events is NOT welcome.

Of course, baila is required. Baila is our Sri Lankan heartbeat! But a 31st Night dance is for everyone.

When it’s ONLY baila, the twist and rock n’ roll lovers, the waltz kings and queens feel left out. And they are the very people who MADE nostalgia! They are the die-hard revellers who have kept the 31st Night spirit alive for decades.

A family mentioned to me that they went along with friends for a 31st Night dance, in the city, to usher in 2026, and were thoroughly disappointed with the setup.

The bands in attendance, they said, failed to generate the excitement generally associated with a 31st Night event.

If given a free hand, the music at certain Colombo venues will be mostly baila, and that is going to disappoint many. Some are already worried that it will be just a baila scene this year, as well.

A memorable 31st Night respects all rhythms … yes, a waltz for romance, a twist and rock n’ roll for that 60s magic, a cha-cha, a slow foxtrot, and then the baila, after the countdown anthem.

That balance is what makes it inclusive, classy, and truly fun-filled.

Organisers, especially in Colombo, should keep this in mind: let it be 70% nostalgia – Western, and 30% baila, with the last hour left for pure baila madness, after the New Year is in!

Organisers must work out the programme for their 31st Night and instruct the entertainers to follow those instructions. The band should not dictate the night; the spirit of nostalgia should.

This New Year, let’s give Colombo what it truly wants — memories, midnight magic, and music for every soul on the floor.

Let’s dance into 2027 with class.