Midweek Review

Are we now moving towards a new Sri Lankan political culture?

Published

6 years ago

2020/08/12

Rev. Fr. Vimal Tirimanna, CSsR

The general election of 2020 has become historical for many reasons. The Sri Lankan voters have overwhelmingly voted for the SLPP for the second time in just nine months, knowing well that in the process, they were freely approving the holding of the two most important public offices in Sri Lanka – the posts of President and Prime Minister – by two Rajapaksa brothers. Not only have they given an unprecedented mandate to them, but they have also decisively voted to send the oldest active political party in Sri Lanka – the UNP – into political oblivion. This particular election has many other salient features. To begin with, it is the election that was declared in April and took some four months before it could be really held. This was partly due to the Covid-19 threat and partly due to the alleged Constitutional blocks to holding an election (propelled by the understandable election phobia of most of the Opposition political parties). It’s also reported to be the most expensive Sri Lankan election thus far. It also will go down in history as the one that had so much of medical precautions surrounding the process of voting and counting the votes in view of the Covid-19 threat at a time when thousands of people are killed daily all over the world by the deadly virus. But one also needs to note that this was the election with least amount of violence in recent history in our country, a fact which is corroborated by all the election monitoring groups. As a matter of fact, no killing linked to elections was reported which is surely a major positive development. By conducting a peaceful general election under very strict health precautions (even though this cost so much of money) Sri Lanka has become a model to the entire world under the present trying conditions of health and economy all over the world. To those pessimist Sri Lankans (both within the country and outside of it) who always tend to see only what is negative in Sri Lankan ethos, the 2020 General Election is a clear indication that even with regard to local politics, there are quite a number of positive points that should never be ignored. As a matter of fact, this election could well be the moment of transition which marks the beginning of a new political culture in the country.

The massive mandate

No reasonable political pundit could ever imagine the ultimate result of this election, especially the margin of victory with which the SLPP won. Ever since J. R. Jayewardene master-minded the present proportionate system of electing members to parliament, and that too, under the preferential system of voting, at every General Election (except in 2010 when Mahinda Rajapaksa’s UPFA won immediately after the historical military defeat of the LTTE) it was hard for a single political party to muster even a workable majority to rule the country. Consequently, after each General Election, the winning political parties had to dilute their own manifestos and agendas to please those of the other parties with whom they were forced to form coalition governments. The fact that it was within such a crippling system of elections (which rarely reflected the overall will of the voters) that the SLPP won not just a simple majority but a nearly two-thirds majority, is surely a record. Only a massive wave of popularity could do this. Of course, during the election campaign, the SLPP clearly appealed to the voters to grant them a two-thirds mandate to right the wrongs and to untie the legal knots of the haphazardly formulated 19th amendment by the previous “Yahapalana” government. However, one wonders whether even the SLPP itself ever dreamt of coming closer to that target, realistically speaking. The fact that a vast majority of the voters as one block (so to say) have responded collectively to this call single-mindedly is itself a sign that they themselves freely chose to give a workable mandate to realize the agenda which the SLPP placed before them. This overwhelming voter response is also a flat refutation of the fears and phobias expressed continuously in the media and the Opposition political stages that granting such a two thirds majority would be unhealthy to democracy. It appears as if, a vast majority of voters en bloc had instead concluded that they rather need to give such a majority to the SLPP to correct those constitutional clauses of the 19th amendment which held the country at ransom during the last couple of years. As a matter of fact, the Sri Lankan masses were first hand witnesses to the glaring reality as to how the hands of the Executive President they elected with such a thumping majority hardly nine months ago were tied, thanks to the notorious 19th amendment. In short, this massive mandate is not only the Sri Lankan polity’s reaffirmation of the benevolent, well-intentioned policies of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa but it is also their clearing all potential obstacles for him to realize his dreams for the country. Now the President and his SLPP government will surely have no excuses not to realize the agenda they themselves had put before the voters.

The high voter turnout

True to its firm belief in democracy, the Sri Lankan citizenry also kept to its usual high percentage of voter-turn-out, thanks this time to the Election Commission and the Health authorities who defied all prophets of doom with regard to the threat of Covid-19, and assured the voters of their safety and that of the others. Sure, as usual in Sri Lanka, at this general election too, there has been a noticeable drop in the percentage of voters using their right to vote, compared to the Presidential elections (except the one in 1988 under the JVP insurrection when it dropped to less than 30%). Yet a 71% of overall voter-turn-out at this election is something very commendable, especially when one considers the trying conditions under which the recent election was held. Not even in those so-called “Western democracies” (some of whom habitually try to give lectures on democracy to nations such as Sri Lanka) does one notice such a high percentage of voting even under normal conditions. Thus, in the USA, the voter turn-out at Presidential Elections remains around 60% while in Britain it has been less than 68% at all the recent General Elections. Perhaps, this high voter turn-out in Sri Lanka could be attributed to the important value our voters assign to elections based on the long tradition of exercising the franchise in Sri Lanka which goes back to 1930’s. However, as already mentioned, since 1978 Sri Lanka has had one of the complicated voting systems in the world. Yet thanks to the high literacy rate, as well as the experience in democratic traditions, the vast majority of voters seem to have not got lost in the polling booth in choosing their candidates so far.

The massive mandate given at this election has demonstrated once again that a winning political party need not always depend on minority political parties even when it means sabotaging their own agenda for the country for which the people had voted them. The unjustified clout which the minority political parties in our country (most of which are based on ethnic or religious foundations) had been enjoying since 1994 (a clout that usually held at ransom the will of the majority of voters in the last parliaments for nearly 26 years), had been neutralized by the voters at this election just as they did in the November Presidential elections. The winning party now need not depend on the minority parties and dance according to their tunes. While there is no denying that keeping to the best of democratic traditions the voices of both majorities and minorities ought to be represented and heard in parliament, in no way should this mean that using the political clout (in the form of the number of seats they have in parliament) the minority parties should dictate terms to the whole country as it has often happened in Sri Lanka during the last few decades. Lest this writer be misunderstood or misinterpreted, it needs to be repeated that minority representation in parliament and their involvement in the country’s decision-making are non-negotiable but in no way should it mean that they can suffocate the legitimate collective aspirations of the Sri Lankan voters as expressed at an election.

Unrealistic election promises

Promises by political parties during election campaigning is normal in any democracy. As a matter of fact, the voters need to know what the respective political parties would do if they were to be elected. A positive point of the recent General Election that should not escape the attention of any political analyst is the way the ordinary Sri Lankan voter (however poor and miserable his/her socio-economic condition may had been) has flatly refused to be hoodwinked by the unrealistic election promises of various political parties. Gone are the days when they would vote for two measures of rice or eight kilos of grain, as promised by political leaders of the caliber of the late Sirimavo Bandaranaika and the late J.R. Jayawardena, respectively. Just as at the last Presidential elections, at this election too, the voters have refused to be taken for rides by such cheap promises. If not, they ought to have elected with a thumping majority the newly formed SJB of Sajith Premadasa who continued to make bizarre election promises which could not be realistically maintained with our weak economy. The promise to give each person 20,000 rupees is an example in this regard. There were also others who were trying to keep pace with him but to a lesser degree. The promise of the UNP leader, Ranil Wickremasinghe to give “money in the hand” of every citizen, was one such example. The very high cost of living and the dwindling of job opportunities due mainly to the Covid-19 epidemic did not tempt the voters (especially those in the lower rungs of the socio-economic ladder who form the bulk of the voters in Sri Lanka) to be hoodwinked by such enticing promises. Rather, they seemed to have been more interested in long-term, realistic programs aimed at promoting the common good of the country, first of all, by eliminating corruption and poverty. This surely is a mature sign of a nation in transition towards a new political culture.

New faces in Parliament

In spite of the great trust the Sri Lankan citizens have consistently placed in democracy, especially in elections (of which the Opposition parties had a phobia), they have been continuously disappointed by the type of persons they themselves had elected. Not only did those members of parliament fail to keep what they had promised, but more so, their uncivilized, arrogant behaviour and highly corrupt practices in enriching themselves (such as the robbing of the Central Bank in broad day-light), and their other glaring abuses of power (such as letting free the real culprits of the Easter bomb attacks) had been disgusting to the majority of Sri Lankans, so much so that quite a number of them even opting never to vote again! Things in this regard had deteriorated so much that many citizens have come to believe

that the easiest way to enjoy power and status, and at the same time mint money at one’s will (and that too, often, without any professional qualification or hard work) is to become a member of parliament. In short, people had come to perceive that to be elected to parliament was the easiest way for ‘nobodies’ to become ‘somebodies’. It is in this sense that a vast number of Sri Lankans, both rural and urban, had been longing to see a new political culture, especially among their elected representatives. As is well-known, there has been a clamour in the country for some time now for new faces in our parliament, replacing the hackneyed corrupt and unruly political lot, and thank God, at this election a good number of new faces have been elected who hopefully will not disappoint their electors. At the same time, more than 70 members of the last parliament have been defeated. Another gratifying aspect is the amount of professionals that have been elected. Although the mere fact of being a new face or a professional is no guarantee of decent and ethically respectful politics, at least the voters have placed their trust in the new faces and professionals they had elected, hoping that they would not rob our national assets in aggrandizing themselves as it had been happening in recent decades, thanks to some hooligans and uneducated riff raff entering parliament. The new faces and the professionals, together with two newly formed political parties, the SLPP and the SJB as the main political parties (though both of them still have some corrupt and useless members of the bygone years) in this new parliament, we Sri Lankans now have a good opportunity to re-kindle our hopes for a new political culture in Sri Lanka.

A Mandate to change the 19th Amendment/ the Constitution

One of the main mandates asked by the winning SLPP from their General Election platforms had been the request to grant them a two-thirds mandate to change the Constitution, especially to change the disastrous 19th amendment which was hurriedly enacted immediately after the general election in 2015, mainly to keep Mahinda Rajapaksa from coming to office again.

It was so haphazardly drafted with this single intention that even the noble democratic elements that were used to camouflage it (such as the establishment of Independent Commissions) paled into an insignificant horizon. Moreover, the 19th amendment crippled the functioning of that very “yahaplana government” itself, especially in the latter part of that government. The many unprecedented legal knots and riddles with regard to the constitutional matters during the past few years sprang forth mainly from that notorious 19th amendment. Now that the people have given a resounding mandate to change it, the new government should not hesitate to do so as early as possible, but at the same time taking precautions to safeguard those positive aspects of it, such as the establishment of Independent Commissions, and making sure that under the new Constitution, the members appointed to those Commissions be really “independent”.

One of the main factors that paved the way towards the deterioration of the well-establisehd democratic political culture in our country was the introduction of the proportionate system of voting and electing members to parliament in 1978. The preferential system of voting which came along with it had been mainly responsible for the in-fighting even within the same political party, thus, paving the way to a violent political culture in our country since then. It is high time to put an end to this root cause of political violence at elections, which the country had suffered for more than four decades. Also it would be imperative for any new Constitution first of all to respect the will of the voters that is normally expressed through their franchise. As such, the recent phenomenon of MP’s getting elected from one political party and then crossing over to another after the elections should be stopped at any cost because this is a brutal betrayal of the voters, especially under the present system of elections. If this is not checked through some provisions to the Constitution, it could lead to a serious erosion of people’s confidence in democracy and in elections.

Sri Lanka is a multi-ethnic and multi-religious country, a fact which no Constitution can afford to ignore. Fair representation for the ethnic and religious minorities in the country’s decision-making is a must. It is in this sense that the new Constitution should assure that those ethnic and religious minorities be given seats in parliament through what is now known as “the National List” or some other list similar to it, so that those minority ethnic and religious groups (who cannot get their representatives elected at the elections) would have their representation in parliament. Under the first Constitution of Sri Lanka (Ceylon) there was a list of reserved seats for this purpose under the title “Appointed MP’s”. The 1972 and the 1978 Constitutions also wished to continue this practice through what came to be known as the “National List”. But unfortunately, for the past four decades or so, instead of giving representation to those minorities of our country through that list, what we have witnessed is the shameless practice of filling this list with the cronies who are supporters of the respective political parties, or still worse, with those defeated candidates. We witnessed this shameless act at the last parliament, when the ruling UPFA appointed six of its defeated candidates to fill their National list, while the UNP and the JVP, too, did the same. This is nothing but a thundering slap on the face of the Sri Lankan voters (and eventually on democracy) – namely, to bring in the very persons whom they had rejected at elections! The new Constitution ought to prevent such shameless, undemocratic practices.

The Need for a Benevolent “Dictator”

To get out of the messy political culture we had been in, we, the Sri Lankan citizens need a political leadership with a firm and resolute will. This is what most of the citizens in ordinary parlance intend when they say “We need a benevolent dictator”. Of course, we need a “dictator” in Sri Lanka, but not a dictator with the true literal sense of the word, but someone who acts like a dictator using his/her legitimate authority but always well within the Constitution. Such qualifications may sound as a tautology, but what is meant is that we need someone who can take decisions for the common good of the country, with firm and resolute will, ignoring all political party affiliations and favouritisms. He/she ought to be someone who upholds law and order, irrespective of the status or political affiliations of persons. Ever since his election in November 2019, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has shown many signs of such resolute and impartial leadership for the good of the country. His commendable way of coordinating the available persons and resources in our country in the fight against the world-wide threat of Covid-19 is a case in point. The unprecedented mandate given to him at this General election is a clear endorsement of the style of leadership he has been exercising during the past nine months. Now that he is given what he wanted, namely – a parliament that would cooperate with him in implementing his programs for the common good – one hopes that he would continue this style in exercising his role as President of our country (as the head of State) in the coming years too so that at last we as a nation could now begin our journey realistically towards a new political culture in our beloved motherland. We as a nation that believes in democracy and elections cannot afford to be disappointed again!

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Midweek Review

Gotabaya’s escape from Aragalaya mob in RTI spotlight

Published

24 hours ago

2026/03/25

Sahan Weerasooriya

Crowds throng Janandhipathi Mandiraya after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa vacated the building on 9 July , 2022.

The Court of Appeal declared on 09 March, 2026: “On the facts currently before us, the application of the exemption contained in Section 5 (1) (b) (i) of the Act is unsustainable. There is a little logical connection between the requested statistics in this information request (that do not pertain to the personal details of individuals) and national security. We see that asserting that national security is at peril, is not a “blanket or unreviewable justification” for withholding information. It should be noted that any restriction must be strictly necessary, proportionate, and supported by a “demonstrable risk of serious harm to the State.” In the case in hand, the Petitioner failed to establish a clear nexus between the disclosure of naval voyage expenditures and any genuine prejudice to national security under Section 5(1)(a) of the Right to Information Act. In the absence of specific evidence, the reliance on security is characterised as a “generalised assertion or mere assertion” cannot be a panacea, we hold it is insufficient to meet the statutory threshold.”

By Shamindra Ferdinando

The deployment of SLNS Gajabahu (P 626), an Advanced Offshore Patrol Vessel (AOPV), on the afternoon of 09 July, 2022, to move the then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, being pursued by a violent aragalaya mob, to safety, from Colombo to Trincomalee, is in the news again.

The issue at hand is how much the deployment of the vessel cost the taxpayer. In response to the Right to Information (RTI) query, the Navy has declined to reveal the cost of the AOPV deployment, or those who were given safe passage to Trincomalee, on the basis of national security.

SLNS Gajabahu, formerly USCGC Sherman (WHEC-720), a United States Coast Guard Hamilton-class high endurance cutter, was transferred to the Sri Lanka Navy on 27 August, 2018, at Honolulu. The vessel was recommissioned 06 June, 2019, as SLNS Gajabahu (P626) during Maithripala Sirisena’s tenure as the President. (Last week, US Special Envoy for South and Central Asia, Sergio Gor, who was here to deliver a message to President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, in the company of Navy Chief of Staff Rear Admiral Damian Fernando, visited SLNS Gajabahu, at the Colombo port.)

What would have happened if the then Navy Chief, Vice Admiral Nishantha Ulugetenne (15 July, 2020, to 18 December, 2022) failed to swiftly respond to the threat on the President? Those who spearheaded the violent campaign may not have expected the President to flee Janadhipathi Mandiraya, as protestors breached its main gates, or believed the Navy would intervene amidst total collapse of the ‘ground defences.’ Ulugetenne accompanied the President to Trincomalee. Among the group were the then Brigadiers Mahinda Ranasinghe and Madura Wickramaratne (incumbent Commanding Officer of the Commando Regiment) as well as the President’s doctor.

The circumstances leading to the President and First Lady Ayoma Rajapaksa boarding SLNS Gajabahu should be examined taking into consideration (1) the killing of SLPP lawmaker Amarakeerthi Atukorale and his police bodyguard Jayantha Gunawardena by an Aragalaya mob, at Nittambuwa, on the afternoon of 09 May, 2022 (2) the Army, deployed to protect Janadhipathi Mandiraya, quite rightly refrained from firing at the violent mob (3) efforts made by the top Aragalaya leadership to compel the then Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe to quit. Subsequently, it emerged that pressure was brought on the President to remove Wickremesinghe to pave the way for Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena to become the President and lastly (4) arrest of Kegalle SSP K.B. Keerthirathna and three police constables over the killing of a protester at Rambukkana on 19 April, 2022. The police alleged that they opened fire to prevent a violent mob from setting a petrol bowser, barricaded across the railway line there, ablaze.

Now, swift action taken by the Navy, under extraordinary circumstances to prevent possible threat on the lives of the President and the First Lady, had been challenged. The writer felt the need to examine the evacuation of the President against the backdrop of an attempt to compare it with President Wickremesinghe’s visit to the University of Wolverhampton in September, 2023, to attend the awarding of an honorary professorship to his wife Prof. Maithri Wickremesinghe.

The 09 July intervention made by the Navy cannot be, in any way, compared with the public funds spent on any other President. It would be pertinent to mention that the President, fleeing Janadhipathi Mandiraya, and the withdrawal of the armed forces deployed there, happened almost simultaneously. Once a collective decision was made to vacate Janadhipathi Mandiraya, they didn’t have any other option than rushing to the Colombo harbor where SLNS Gajabahu was anchored.

Overall defences in and around Janadhipathi Mandiraya crumbled as crowds surged in the absence of an effective strategy to thwart them. As we recall the law enforcers (both military and police) simply did nothing to halt the advance of the mob right into Janadhipathi Mandiraya, as people, like the then US Ambassador Julie Chung, openly prevailed on the hapless administration not to act against, what she repeatedly termed, ‘peaceful protesters’, even after they, in a pre-planned operation, meticulously burnt down more than hundred properties of government politicos and loyalists, across the country, on 9/10 May, 2022. So they were, on the whole, the proverbial wolves in sheep’s clothing working with the Western regime change project here as was previously done in places like Libya and Iraq and more recently in neighbouring countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal to install pliant governments.

After the 9/10 incidents, President Rajapaksa replaced the Commander of the Army, General Shavendra Silva, with Lt. Gen. Vikum Liyanage.

RTI query

M. R. Ali of Kalmuinai, in terms of Section 34 of the Right to Information Act No. 12 of 2016 (read with Article 138), has sought information, in September 2022, regarding the deployment of SLNS Gajabahu. The Navy rejected the request in November 2022, citing Section 5(1)(b)(i) of the RTI Act, which relates to information that could harm national security or defence. Obviously, the release of information, sought by that particular RTI, couldn’t undermine national security. No one can find fault with Ali’s decision to appeal to the RTI Commission against the position taken up by the Navy.

Following hearings in 2023, the Commission issued a split decision on 29 August, 2023. The RTI Commission upheld the Navy’s refusal to disclose items 1 through 5 and item 8, but directed the Navy to release the information for items 6 and 7, specifically, the cost of the travel and who paid for it.

However, the Navy has moved the Court of Appeal against the RTI directive to release the cost of the travel and who paid for it. Having examined the case in its entirety, the Court of Appeal held that the Navy, being the Public Authority responsible for the deployment of the vessel, had failed to prove how they could receive protection under 5(1)(b)(i) of the Right to Information Act. The Court of Appeal affirmed the order dated 29/08/2023 of the Right to Information Commission. The Court dismissed the appeal without costs. The bench consisted of R. Gurusinghe J and Dr. Sumudu Premachandra J.

There hadn’t been a similar case previously. The Navy, for some strange reason, failed to highlight that the failure on their part to act swiftly and decisively during the 09 July, 2022, violence that directly threatened the lives of the President and the First Lady, thwarted a possible catastrophic situation.

The action taken by the Navy should be discussed, taking into consideration the failure on the part of the Army and Police to save the lives of MP Atukorale and his police bodyguard. No less a person than retired Rear Admiral and former Public Security Minister Sarath Weerasekera alleged, both in and outside Parliament, that the Army failed to respond, though troops were present in Nittambuwa at the time of the incident. Had the Navy hesitated to evacuate the President and the First Lady the country may have ended up with another case similar to that of lawmaker Atukorale’s killing.

The Gampaha High Court, on 11 February, 2026, sentenced 12 persons to death for the killing of Atukorale and his security officer Gunawardena.

Let me stress that the costs of presidential travel have been released in terms of the RTI Act. The deployment of SLNS Gajabahu, at that time, has to be examined, taking into account the eruption of Aragalaya outside President Rajapaksa’s private residence at Pangiriwatte, Mirihana, on the night of 31 March, 2022, evacuation of the resigned Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa from Temple Trees, after protesters breached the main gate on 10 May, 2010, and the JVP/JBB-led attempt to storm Parliament on 13 July, 2022. Mahinda Rajapaksa and wife Shiranthi took refuge at the Trincomalee Navy base, chosen by Gotabaya Rajapaksa as sanctuary a few months later.

US Ambassador Julie Chung tweeted that Washington condemned “the violence against peaceful protestors” and called on the Sri Lankan “government to conduct a full investigation, including the arrest and prosecution of anyone who incited violence.”

The US fully backed the violent protest campaign while the direct involvement of India in the regime change project later transpired. As far as the writer is aware, this particular request is the only RTI query pertaining to Aragalaya. Evacuation of Mahinda Rajapaksa took place in the wake of a foolish decision taken at Temple Trees to unleash violence on Galle Face protesters, who were also besieging Temple Trees.

Defence Secretary retired General Kamal Gunaratne told a hastily arranged media conference that the former Prime Minister was at the Naval Dockyard in Trincomalee. The media quoted him as having said: “He will be there for a few more days. We will provide him with whatever security he needs and for as long as he wants.” Mahinda Rajapaksa remained in Trincomalee for over a week before attending Parliament.

Navy’s dilemma

Gotabaya

At the time information was sought under the RTI Act, Ulugetenne served as the Commander of the Navy. Vice Admiral Priyantha Perera succeeded Ulugetenne on 18 December, 2022. Following VA Perera’s retirement on 31 December, 2024, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake brought in the incumbent Kanchana Banagoda, as the 26th Commander of the Navy.

On the basis of the RTI query that dealt with the deployment of SLNS Gajabahu to evacuate President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and First Lady Ayoma, one can seek information regarding the expenditure incurred by Air Force in flying Mahinda Rajapaksa and his wife from Colombo to Trincomalee and back, as well, as Gotabaya Rajapaksa, his wife and two bodyguards leaving the country on Air Force AN 32 on 13 July, 2022. On the following day, they flew to Singapore on a Saudi flight.

Ali, in his representations, stressed that his objective hadn’t been to determine the legality of the Navy’s actions but to exercise his right as a citizen and taxpayer to oversee public spending. He questioned the failure on the part of the Navy to explain as to how revelation of specific information would “directly and reasonably” harm national security. In spite of the RTI Commission directive, the Navy refrained from answering two specific questions as mentioned by justice Dr. Sumudu Premachandra. Question number (6) How much money did the Sri Lanka Navy spent for the travel of former President Gotabhaya Rajapaksha in this ship? And (Question 7) Who paid this money? When did they pay?

Both the RTI Commission and Court of Appeal quite rightly rejected the Navy’s position that the revelation of cost of the deployment of vessels poses a significant threat to national security. That claim was based on the assertion that such financial data could allow third parties to calculate sensitive operational details, such as a ship’s speed, fuel consumption, and operational range. The Navy claimed that the disclosure of sensitive information could reveal supply dependencies, logistics constraints, and fueling locations, making the vessels vulnerable to sabotage or economic warfare.

The Navy sought protection of RTI Act’s section 5(1)(b)(i). Following is the relevant section: “(b) disclosure of such information– (i) would undermine the defence of the State or its territorial integrity or national security;”

The Navy appears to be in a bind over the RTI move for obvious reasons. With the ultimate beneficiary of Aragalaya at the helm, the Navy would find it extremely difficult to explain the circumstances SLNS Gajabahu was deployed against the backdrop of direct threat on the lives of the then incumbent President and the First Lady. The truth is desperate action taken by the Navy saved the life of the President and his wife. That is the undeniable truth. But, the current political environment may not be conducive to say so. What a pathetic situation in which the powers that be lacked the courage to lucidly explain a particular situation. As stressed in the Supreme Court judgment of November 2023, the Rajapaksa brothers – including two ex-Presidents – were guilty of triggering the country’s worst financial crisis by mishandling the economy.

In a majority verdict on petitions filed by academics and civil rights activists, a five-judge bench ruled that the respondents, who all later resigned or were sacked, had violated public trust. The regime change project took advantage of the attack ordered by Temple Trees on 09 May, 2009, on Galle Face protesters, to unleash pre-planned violence on ruling party politicians and loyalists.

If not for the courageous decision taken by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, in spite of his private residence, at Kollupitiya, being set ablaze by protesters on the night of 09 July, 2022, to order the military to thwart the JVP/JJB march on Parliament, two days later, and evict protesters from Galle Face soon after Parliament elected him the President on 20 July, 2022, saved the country from anarchy. Although Wickremesinghe, without restraints, encouraged Aragalaya, he quickly became the bulwark against the anti-State project that threatened to overwhelm the political party system.

Obviously, during Wickremesinghe’s tenure as the President, the SLPP, that accommodated the UNP leader as the Head of State, appeared to have turned a blind eye to the RTI query. Had the SLPP done so, it could have captured public attention, thereby making an attempt to influence all involved. In fact, the case never received media attention until journalist and Attorney-at-Law Nayana Tharanga Gamage, in his regular online programme, dealt with the issues at hand.

Before leaving Janadhipathi Mandiraya, the President has warned the military top brass, and the IGP, to prevent the destruction of the historic building. However, no sooner, the President left, the military top brass vacated the building leaving protesters an easy opportunity to take control. They held Janadhipathi Mandiraya until Gotabaya Rajapaksa resigned on 14 July 2022 to pave the way for Ranil Wickremesinghe to become the President.

It would be pertinent to mention that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa only moved into the Presidential Palace (Janadhipathi Mandiraya) after massive protest outside his Pangiriwatte private residence on 31 March, 2022, underscored his vulnerability for an attack.

Midweek Review

Village tank cascades, great river quartet and Cyclone Ditwah

Published

24 hours ago

2026/03/25

Sahan Weerasooriya

This past November and December Ditwah showed us how dark, eerie and haunting catastrophes cyclones can be. Past generations have suffered as shown in 1911, the Canberra Times reporting the great flood of Ceylon on December 30 of that year. It killed 200 people and left over 300,000 homeless. Half century later, on December 25, 1957, a nameless cyclone brought severe rain to the North Central Province (NCP), and the Nachchaduwa reservoir breached, unloading its full power of volume into Malwatu Oya, a mid-level river flowing through the city of Anuradhapura, nearly washing away its colonial-era bridge near the Lion Tower. A cyclone paid a visit to the Eastern Coast of Sri Lanka on November 17-23, 1978.

Half a century later, Ditwah came with swagger.

Quartet of Rivers

Cyclone Ditwah unleashed disaster and tragedy, terrorising every breath of hundreds of thousands of people. These cyclones come spaced by a generation or two. How the Great River Quartet of Mahaweli, Kelani, Kalu, and Walawe, and their attendant mid-level streams, behaved before Ditwah masks the reality that they are not the loving and smiling beauties poets claim them to be. During the Ditwah visit, our river Quartet showed its true colours in plain sight when wave after wave of chocolate rage pushed uprooted forests creasing islands of floating debris and crashed onto bridges, shattering their potency into pieces. These rivers are nothing more than a bunch of evil reincarnations cloaked in ruinous intentions.

The River Quartet and its mates woke up to the first thunder of Ditwah. They carried away villages, people, property, herds of cattle, and wild elephants to the depths of the Indian Ocean. While we continue to dig out the dead buried in muddy mountainsides, dislodged from their moorings during this flood of biblical proportions, how our rivers, streams, and, particularly, the village tanks handled the pressure on their own will be the core of many future discussions.

The destruction and tragedy caused by this water hurt all of us in many ways. But we all wish they were only a fleeting dream. Sadly, though, the real-life sight of the pulverised railway bridge at Peradeniya is not a dream. This section of the rail line was stripped of its modesty and laid bare. It hung in the air, literally, like strands of an abandoned spider’s web on a wet Kandyan morning. It was a reminder to us that running water is a masked devil and should not be considered inviting. It can unleash the misery with a chilling ending no one wants to experience in a lifetime.

Tank Cascade Systems (TCS)

Although the Ditwah cyclone covered Sri Lanka from top to bottom with equal fury, the mountainous areas and floodplains of our River Quartet surrendered soon. However, the village tanks in the Dry Zone – Northern, North Central, Northeast, and Eastern provinces – weathered that onslaught, sustaining only manageable damage. They collectively mitigated the damage caused by over 200 mm of rain that fell across the catchment areas they represented. Thus, the tank, the precious possession of the village, deserves to be titled as a real beauty.

Let me introduce the village tanks systems our engineering ancestors built with sophistication and ingenuity, a force like Ditwah hardly made a dent in groups of these tanks called Tank Cascade Systems (TDS). Many of the village tanks in the Dry Zone, covering 60% of Sri Lanka’s land area, stand in groups of TDS, separated as individual bodies of water but sharing water from one or more dedicated ephemeral streams. R.W. Ievers, the Government agent for North Central Province in the 1890s, noted that these tanks were the result of “one thousand years of experiment and experience,” and “ancient tank builders took advantage of the flat and undulating topography of the NCP to make chains of tanks in the valleys.” Colonial Irrigation Engineers of the early 20th century also recognised this uniqueness. Still, they could not connect the dots to provide a comprehensive definition for this major appurtenance of the village.

Although these tanks appear to be segregated ecosystems, a closer look at the peneplain topographic map of Sri Lanka shows that each stream feeding them ultimately flows into a larger reservoir or river, jointly or independently influencing the mechanics of regional water use and debouching patterns. This character is the spirit of the dictum of King Parakramabahu centuries earlier: “let not a single drop of water go to waste into the sea without being used by people.” Villagers knew that each tank in their meso-catchment area was related to other tanks on the stream it was in ensuring maximised use of water.

With their embodied wisdom, our ancestors centuries ago configured the placement of individual tanks that shared water from a catchment area. But not until 1985, following a careful autopsy of the pattern of these small tanks in the Dry Zone, Professor Madduma Bandara noticed a distinctive intrinsic relationship within each group of tanks. He called a group of such tanks a Cascade of Tanks. He wrote, “a (tank) cascade is a connected series of tanks organized within a micro-catchment of the Dry Zone landscape, storing, conveying, and utilising water from an ephemeral rivulet.” In short, it is a “series of tanks located in succession one below the other.” Dr. M.U.A. Tennakoon shared the names of the villagers in Nuwarakalaviya used for this configuration of tanks: Ellangawa. On a map, these tanks appear as hanging on a string. Thus, Ellangawa can be a portmanteau, a blend, of these two words.

There are over 475 such cascading tank groups in the Dry Zone. On average, each cascade typically supports four tanks. One cascade, Toruwewa, near Kekirawa, has 12 tanks. According to Professor Madduma Bandara, a cascade of tanks held about 20-30% of the water falling on its catchment area. As I will show later in this essay, the tank cascades behave like buddies in good times and bad times. By undertaking to build a vascular structure to collect, conserve, and share water with communities along the stream path, our ancestors forewarned of the consequences of failing to undertake such micro-projects where they chose to live. The following are a villager’s thoughts on how to retool this concept to mitigate the potential for damage from excess water flow in a larger river system.

To villagers, their tank is royalty. Its water is their lapis lazuli. Therefore, they often embroidered the title of the village with the suffix wewa (tank) or kulam (tank, in Tamil), indicating the close connection between the two. It is the village’s foremost provider and is interdependent. That is why we have the saying, “the village is the tank, and the tank is the village.”

A study in 1954/55 found that there were 16,000 tanks in Sri Lanka, of which over 12,500 were operational. Out-of-commission tanks were those that fell into disuse after the original settlers abandoned them for a host of reasons, such as a breach in the bund, fear of plague or disease, or superstition. Collectively, they supply water to an area larger than the combined area of the fields served by the major irrigation reservoirs in the country at the time.

In some villages, an additional tank called olagama, with its own acreage of fields, receives water from the same stream or from another feeder stream which joins the principal stream above or below the main tank. In the event the main tank is disabled, often the olagama tank can serve as the alternate water source for their fields.

Cultural and Engineering

A graphical representation of the tank cascade system. Image courtesy of IUCN Sri Lanka.

A tank cascade is also an engineering undertaking. But village tank builders were not engineers with gold-trimmed diplomas. They were ordinary folks, endowed with generations of collective wisdom, including titbits on the physics of water, its speed, and its cruelty. Village pioneers responsible for starting the construction of the tank bund, gam bendeema, placed the first lump of earth after marking off home sites, not immediately below the future bund, but slightly towards one end of it, in the area called gammedda, or the elevated area the bund links to, gamgoda.

Engineering of a tank cascade has a cultural underpinning. It is founded on the feeling of solidarity among the villages along an ephemeral stream. In practice, it was a wholesome area with small communities of kin below each tank sorting out their own affairs without much intervention of the ruling class. For example, during heavy rains, each village in the chain communicated with the villages below the volume in its tank and the projected flow of the stream. When the tank reached its capacity and water began to spill over the spillway, the village below must take measures to protect its tank bund. If it breached, villagers up and down the cascade helped each other repair it.

They were aware that an earthen dam was susceptible to failure, so they used their own town-planning ideas. They avoided building residential zones directly under the stream’s path, generally at the midpoint of the dam. Instead, they built their triumvirate of life – tank, field, and dagoba (stupa) – keeping safety and practicality in mind. Dagoba was always on a higher ground, never supported by beams on a stream bank like what Ditwah revealed recently. We now know what happens to dagobas built on sagging beams by deceptively serenading riverbanks when thunder waters and unworldly debris came down hand in hand.

From top to bottom, the Tank Cascade showed the engineering instinct of the builders and accessory parts that helped its smooth functioning. There was the Olagama and Kulu Wewa associated with a system. Tank builders had an idea of the volume of water a given stream would bring in a year. In conjunction with this, the bunds of the Olagama and Kulu Wewa are built small. In contrast, the bunds of the tanks that formed the lower rung of the cascade are relatively larger. The idea behind this was that, in the event of a breach in an upstream tank, the downstream tanks could withstand an unexpected influx of water.

During the Ditwah’s death dance, the Mahaweli River did not have this luxury as it marched downstream from Kotmale dam. There were not enough dams to tame this river, and its beastly nature was allowed to run wild until it was too late for many.

The embodied imprints of experience inherited from their ancestors’ helped villagers design the tank’s physical attributes. In general, a tank supplied by this stream had a dam of a size proportional to the amount of water it could store for the fields. Later, as the village added families and field acreage increased, villagers raised the bund and the spillway to meet increased storage capacity. This simple practice guarded against eventualities like uncontrollable floods between villages. Excess water was allowed to flow through the sluice gate and the spillway, reducing the pressure on the bund. Had we applied this fundamental practice on a proportional scale to a large stream, i.e., oya or river, it would have lessened the destruction during a major rainstorm, ilk of which Ditwah brought.

With my experience living in a village with its tank, part of a TCS of five tanks, I wish large rivers like the Mahaweli had a few small-scale dams or partial diversions mimicking a rudimentary TCS so that the Railway Bridge at Peradeniya could have avoided the wrath of hell and high-water bringing muck and debris along its 46 km descent from Kotmale, where its lone dam is. I am glad I have company here. Professor Madduma Bandara noted 40 years ago, “much water flows through drainage lines due mainly to the absence of a village tank-type storage system.” Mahaweli turned out to be that drainage line this past November, holding hands, sadly, though, jubilantly, with the designs of Ditwah. Recently, former Head of Geo-Engineering at Peradeniya University, Udeni Bandara Amarasinghe, highlighted the importance of building reservoirs on other rivers to control floods like those we experienced recently.

Check Dams & Macroscopic Control

Within the TCS, the check dams, Kulu Wewa or Kele Wewa – forest tanks above a working tank held back sediments generated by upstream denudation. They controlled the volume and water entering the main tank. Kulu Wewa provided water for wild animals and checked their tendency to raid crops below the main tank. The difference between Kulu Wewa and Olagama was that, because of its topographical location, Kulu Wewa was occasionally used as a source of water for crops when the main tank below it became inoperable due to a breach or was undergoing repairs or used up its water early.

Based on these definitions, each working tank in the TCS also acted like a check dam for the one below it. Furthermore, if a tank in the cascade ran out of water, other tanks in the cascade stepped in. They linked up with the tanks above through temporary canals made by extending an existing minor canal, wella, or the wagala, excess water pan, of an upstream field.

The tank bund tamed and kept in check the three attributes of a stream – water velocity, volume, and its destructive power. By damming the stream, the villagers broke fueling momentum of it. They rerouted it via the spillway at the end of the bund, a form of recycling. Water from some spillways is diverted along a large niyara-like (field ridge) lesser dam, built along the wanatha (flanks) of the field, until it empties into the atrophied stream below the field.

Simultaneously, by controlling the release of water through two sluice gates on the bund, goda and mada horowwa, and directing it to the two flanks of the field, ihala and pahala wanatha, villagers succeeded in tamping down the pressure on the bund. Water from the neutered stream is thus redirected from all three exit points. It must now continue its journey along the wagala, to which field units (liyadi) also empty their excess water. This water is called wel pahu wathura.

After going through this process, the momentum of the ephemeral stream water is passive by the time it reaches the tanks in the lower parts of the cascade, often a kilometer or two downstream. This way, a line of tanks along the stream’s axis now shares the responsibility of holding back its full potential, limiting its ability to cause damage.

Such a break of momentum was lacking in the Four Great River Quartet and their lesser cousins. For the long-term solution to prevent damage from future cousins of Ditwah, we must consider this ingenious water-control method for rivers on a macroscopical scale.

Reservoirs

1957 and 2025 Cyclones Flood Marks written above window and below on the wall of a house by the banks of the Malwatu Oya in Anuradhapura.

As Ditwah-type floods occurred in 1911, 1957, 1978, and 2025, with a bit of luck, we can expect to have a few more decades of recess to work on cascading edifices along rivers, such as dams or diversions, before the next flood comes with roguish intentions. The Accelerated Mahaweli Diversion Program (AMDP), started in 1978, took 30 years to complete and now has over a dozen reservoirs between Kandy and the Dry Zone coastal belt, holding back its might. These reservoirs held their ground while Ditwah rained hell, so consulting the TCS’s ingenuity, though seems antiquated, is a good investment.

As soon as Cyclone Ditwah began to make noise, word spread that releasing water from a few of them on the Mahaweli and Kelani rivers could have made a difference. The problem with the Kelani River basin in Western Province and the Mahaweli basin in Central Province above Kandy is that, despite their combined population being nine times that of the NCP, they only have six reservoirs. On the contrary, the NCP has twice as much in the lower Mahaweli River basin, built under the AMDP. Furthermore, the NCP also has many ancient reservoirs it inherited from our ancestors. A string (cascade) of large reservoirs or minor dams in the hill country could have helped break the river’s energy which it accumulated along the way. G.T. Dharmasena, an irrigation engineer, had already raised the idea of “reorienting the operational approach of major reservoirs operators under extreme events, where flood control becomes a vital function.”

Unique Epitaphs for the Cyclones

The processes discussed above could have prevented the destruction of the railway track at the Peradeniya bridge, the image of which now stands like a pictorial epitaph to the malicious visit of the Ditwah and a reminder to us, “what if…?” or “what next…?”

As mentioned at the beginning of this essay, when the 1957 Cyclone dropped heavy rain on the NCP, a Railway Department employee at Anuradhapura made an exceptional effort to keep the memory of that saga for posterity with an epitaph still visible 70 years later. This person memorialised his near escape from the Malwatu Oya flood. As the river roared past over the railing of the bridge near the Lion Pillar roundabout, this employee, probably trapped in his two-storied house near the roundabout, day-stamped the visit of the flood with a red line on the wall of his house to mark the height it reached to trap him.

Three meters from the ground, right between two archtop windows facing the road to Sri Maha Bodhi, he wrote, “Flood level” in Sinhala, Tamil, and English. Right below it, at the end of the faded line, he added, “1957-12-25.”

As Cyclone Ditwah came along, the current resident of the house was not going to break this seven-decade-old tradition. After the flood receded this time, this duty-bound resident drew a line in blue ink and wrote at its end, ‘2025-11-28’, his contributing epitaph reminding us of infamous day Ditwah showed her might by driving the river off its banks. (See picture)

He added a coda to his epitaph – the numeral “8” in 28 is written in bold!

Lokubanda Tillakaratne is the author of Rata Sabhawa of Nuwarakalaviya: Judicature in a Princely Province – An Ethnographical and Historical Reading (2023).

by LOKUBANDA
TILLAKARATNE