Features

An untold history of Sri Lanka’s Independence

Published

5 years ago

2022/02/5

By Uditha Devapriya

In Sri Lank, as in every other colonial outpost, resistance to foreign domination predated Western intervention by well more than two centuries. Surviving numerous onslaughts of South Indian conquest, the Anuradhapura kingdom gave way to the Polonnaruwa kingdom in the 11th century AD. The latter’s demise 200 years later led to a shift from the country’s north to the north-west, and from there to the south-west. It was in the south-west that the Sinhalese first confronted European colonialism, a confrontation that pushed the Kotte and the Sitava kingdoms to the last bastion of Sinhalese rule, Kandy.

The shift to Kandy coincided with the commencement of Portuguese rule in the island. Both Portuguese and Dutch officials emphasised, and sharpened, the line between the Maritime Provinces and the kanda uda rata. The Sitavaka rulers, in particular Rajasinghe I, had fought both Portuguese suzerainty and Kotte domination. These encounters more or less breathed new life into the country’s long history of resistance to foreign rule.

The Kandyan kings inherited this legacy and imbibed this streak. But under them resistance to colonial subjugation acquired a new logic and a fresh vigour. That was to define the island’s struggle against imperialism for well more than three centuries.

Sri Lanka’s confrontations with European colonialism took place in the early part of what historians call the modern period. The social, political, and economic transformations inherent in this period had a considerable impact on the trajectory of European imperialism and anti-imperialism. For that reason, any examination of Sri Lanka’s fight against colonial rule and its eventual independence must evaluate a broad array of historical trends. While the island’s lunge into statehood in 1948 followed a long period of peasant, elite, and radical struggles against foreign domination, the analysis would be incomplete without reference to how European colonialism itself influenced the course of such struggles.

The period between the British annexation of the island and the declaration of independence (1815-1948) unfolded in four successive but interrelated stages. In the first stage between 1815 and 1848, British colonialism was compelled to reckon with the reality of an unending series of peasant uprisings, beginning in Uva-Wellassa in 1817 and culiminating in Matale three decades later. In keeping with similar insurrections in other colonial societies, these were essentially Janus-faced: on the one hand, they sought liberation for a repressed group, the Kandyan peasantry, while on the other they envisaged a return to a pre-colonial polity. Yet, whatever their motives, they wanted to free the country of foreign rule.

The British government realised too late, the folly of assuming that its political-military grip over the island would weaken, and prevail over, peasant resistance. Since the annexation of 1815, the colonial government had drawn and redrawn the country’s borders, breaking up the former Kandyan kingdom into Central and North-Western provinces and separating the Kandyan kingdom from its Sabaragamuwa and Wayamba peripheries. With these measures, officials hoped for the breakup of Kandyan unity. The aim of these processes, notes K. M. de Silva, was “to weaken the national feeling of the Kandyans”.

However, for obvious reasons, none of these reforms could quieten or dispel the spirit of resistance among the peasantry. The Kandyan peasantry never accepted the notion of Sri Lanka as a unitary and united administration overseen by the colonial government. Indeed, when the subject of constitutional reform came up in the 1920s, the Kandyan delegation demanded federal autonomy, predating Tamil nationalist claims for a separate homeland by three decades. This showed very clearly that the British policy of amalgamating the Kandyan provinces with the rest of the country had not really worked out.

To complicate matters further, while dealing with peasant rebellions colonial officials had to put up with the growth of an assertive, and often radical, middle-class. To give one example, the Matala Uprising was never limited to Matale and Kurunegala: it erupted in Colombo as well, where Sinhalese, Tamil, and Burgher middle-classes protested the government’s tax policies. K. M. de Silva observes that attempts by these middle-classes to influence Kandyan agitation “achieved little impact.” Yet that such an attempt was made at all showed that the colonial government had to reckon with two distinct dissenting groups.

The middle-classes may not have been revolutionaries, but as their interventions during the Matale Uprising showed, they could combine their dissatisfaction with the way things were with popular hatred of the government, to make their own demands. As a way of resolving this issue, between 1848 and 1870 – the second of the four periods pertinent to this essay – the colonial government began hiring and empowering a subservient elite, drawn from “the second echelon of the Kandyan nobility” as well as a low country bourgeoisie.

Newton Gunasinghe has noted the paradox underlying these reforms. While putting an end to the monopoly of the Kandyan aristocracy, the British government reactivated the very social relations that had undergirded traditional Kandyan society. By reviving rajakariya in modified form, feudal production relations in temple lands, and a network of gamsabhas, colonial authorities grafted archaic social customs and practices on what was, essentially, a capitalist mode of production. This had the effect of building up a class of subservient elites and reducing the revolutionary potential of the peasantry.

For a while, the strategy worked. However, while it kept the Kandyan peasantry in check and in control, it backfired when the same intermediate elite the government had employed to their ranks began demanding further reforms.

Here it’s important to clarify exactly what these elites wanted. In rebelling against the government, neither the newly co-opted aristocracy nor the middle-classes promoted the overthrow of the British government. They did not want a radical transformation of colonial society, largely because by then they had grown too dependent on that society to envisage, or desire, a Ceylon falling outside the British orbit. This is why, while clamouring for greater representation for themselves, they very carefully, and consistently, opposed the extension of the franchise. As Regi Siriwardena has noted, none of those celebrated as national heroes today – with the important exception of A. E. Goonesinha – wanted universal suffrage vis-à-vis the Donoughmore Commission. Such reforms had to be imposed on them.

Despite this, though, the British government’s policy of engaging with local elites worked fairly well. Colonial officials now had local emissaries through whom they could mediate potential peasant uprisings. Yet the policy necessitated the retention of archaic and quasi-feudal social relations, which in the long term stunted capitalist development. On the other hand, the new strategy paved the way for the revival of various art forms, most prominently the Dalada perahera. As scholars like Senake Bandaranayake have noted, the government defined the perimeters and the contours of cultural artefacts and objets d’art, ensuring that they were in line with the broader aim of legitimising colonial rule.

These reforms led, in the third period (1870-1915), to a Buddhist revival whose exponents alternated between championing opposing to and cooperation with colonial officials. These two lines were promoted, respectively, by the two Buddhist institutions of higher learning established in the late 19th century, Vidyalankara and Vidyodaya. While it’s rather difficult to draw a line between these two universities and their representatives, it is true, as H. L. Seneviratne suggests in The Work of Kings, that significant disagreements prevailed within the Buddhist clergy over the issue of British domination.

From their side, colonial authorities, especially governors like Henry Ward, William Gregory, and Arthur Gordon, sought closer cooperation with a conservative Buddhist bourgeoisie, legitimising British rule while implementing cultural and political reforms. Very often these reforms antagonised groups like Evangelical missionaries. Yet colonial officials ignored their concerns; endearing themselves to revivalists, orientalists, and moderate nationalist opinion to maintain the colonial administrative structure became the bigger priority.

The effect of these developments was to turn the Buddhist elite to the forefront of the reforms being supported by the British government. Towards the end of this period, the bourgeoisie, who were too entrenched economically in colonial rule to advocate radical change, yet too underrepresented politically to be content with the way things were, began to take the lead in these reforms through the Temperance Movement.

The Temperance Movement provided an impetus for a number of other organisations. K. M. de Silva has argued that none of them – not even the ambitious Ceylon National Association – fulfilled the aims for which they had been set up. Ranging from communal outfits like the Dutch Burgher Union to commercial groups like the Plumbago Merchants Union, these organisations, for the most, preferred gradual to radical change, dispensing with the sort of agitation politics that would come to define the Indian National Congress.

Moreover, Hector Abhayavardhana has noted that the bulk of the Sinhalese elite leadership consisted of “small men with narrow vision” who wanted to bring religion into politics. Any hopes for a multicultural alliance faded away with the establishment of Mahajana Sabhas, which campaigned for Buddhist candidates. However highly one may have thought of outfits like the Jaffna Youth Congress, the lack of enthusiasm for such alliances, among the colonial bourgeoisie, paved the way for their inevitable and tragic demise.

Meanwhile, the colonial bourgeoisie faced a more formidable foe, or competitor, in the form of nationalist firebrands like Anagarika Dharmapala. In a bid to blunt the fervour of such firebrands, who they viewed with much distaste, the Sinhalese bourgeoisie toed the Vidyodaya line, promoting change within the framework of a plantation economy while seeking more representation for themselves. This was necessitated by expedience: by the early 20th century a working class movement had begun to emerge in the country, as the Carters’ Strike of 1906 showed, and though it lacked proper leadership, it nevertheless concerned the bourgeoisie. Their rather ambivalent response to these developments had the unfortunate effect of stunting the rise of a mass struggle in the country.

The comprador bourgeoisie shot to fame, so to speak, with the 1915 riots. A point often forgotten in contemporary reconstructions of the riots is that none of the elites arrested by the British government posed a direct threat to colonial rule. As Kumari Jayawardena has pointed out, it was a case of official overreaction to the faintest threat of an anti-colonial uprising. Much like the J. R. Jayewardene government proscribing the Left after the 1983 riots, there was no link between the riots and the causes attributed to it, be it the supposed agitation of Buddhist elites or the politics of the Temperance Movement.

Kumari Jayawardena and K. M. de Silva point out that the period after the 1915 riots – the fourth period relevant to our discussion – witnessed the dulling down and fading away of the Buddhist revival. This is indeed what happened. In the person of Anagarika Dharmapala, the revival had brought together both reformist and radical streams. The Sinhalese elites, obviously cooperating with British authorities, marginalised him to the extent of excluding him from political activity. Yet Dharmapala’s departure from the island gave rise to newer parties and forms of struggle, many of them inspired by his vision. Among these, the most prominent was the Labour Party, founded in 1928 by A. E. Goonesinha.

Naturally enough, working class unrest dominated much of the post-1915 period, leading to the formation of a broad, radical Left. The newly formed Left identified the limitations of Goonesinha’s politics and sought to transcend them. To this end the establishment of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP), in 1935, marked a pivotal turning point in the country’s lunge towards independent statehood. Envisioning a complete, radical transformation of society, its representatives and ideologues broke with the dominant political outfit of the day, the Ceylon National Congress, charting their own course.

The LSSP’s original objectives, as radical in their time as in ours, included the socialisation of the means of production, the attainment of complete independence, and the abolition of all forms of inequality, including caste. Given the state of the economy at the time – it was a plantation enclave heavily dependent on a few sectors – no other programme would have sufficed for an organisation calling for a mass struggle against colonial rule. It goes without saying that it was the stalwarts of the Marxist Left – specifically Philip Gunawardena – who first advocated complete independence for Ceylon.

In the meantime, the colonial bourgeoisie managed, rather dismally, to turn the Ceylon National Congress into a pale echo of what it had once aspired to. With the departure of Ponnambalam Arunachalam in 1921, there came an end to an era where, as K. M. de Silva and Hector Abhayavardhana have observed, Sinhala and Tamil communities constituted in unison the majority of the country. In the hands of a predominantly Sinhalese bourgeoisie the Congress became a little more than a communal organisation, a point reinforced by the decision of its leaders to disenfranchise estate Tamils. In this they were occupied more than anything else with the preservation of their economic interests.

All these developments led to a situation where the Left could claim, very validly, that the ruling elite had not won independence, but had secured it on a platter from Whitehall. The elite themselves were not unaware of the inadequacy of their campaign for freedom: when the masses reacted vociferously against the cosmetic reforms they had obtained from the British government, the Congress bourgeoisie quickly went back and pressed for what was being demanded. Yet tied to three agreements which made the defence, foreign policy, and civil service blanks of the government subservient to British interests, Ceylon could become free only through a radical transformation of its political structures.

In breaking off all remaining ties with the colonial government, the 1972 Constitution sought to give effect to such a transformation. By then even the Sinhalese bourgeoisie had come to realise the folly of maintaining the status quo and the inevitability of change: whereas John Kotelawala could support Ceylon remaining a Dominion, Dudley Senanayake could a decade later support the idea of it becoming a Republic within the Commonwealth.

I believe we need a new account of our country’s emergence as an independent state. The accounts we have at present, barring very few, glorify one set of leaders over all others, marginalising and excluding everyone else. Conventional narratives depict the colonial elite as national heroes. This was not always so, though important differences did exist within the bourgeoisie. What we have learnt about our own independence is hardly adequate to the task of helping us understand our past. We badly need a new history.

The writer can be reached at udakdev1@gmail.com

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Features

Civilizational dialogue proving a remote possibility as realpolitik rages

Published

15 hours ago

2026/09/3

Sahan Weerasooriya

Political leaders at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit 2026. (Photo by PROKOFYEV / POOL / AFP)

Looking back over the years since the 9/11 catastrophe, it could be said that barring former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami no world political leader of note has made an earnest effort to change the nature of global political discourse for the better. Khatami won world acclaim for his pronouncement that the time is right to launch and sustain a ‘Dialogue among Civilizations’.

This was in marked contrast to US political scientist Samuel P. Huntingdon’s epochal theses, formulated in the wake of 9/11 and other global political tumults that the Post Cold War era is essentially one of conflicts among civilizations. That is, people’s identity markers, such as culture and religion, are the prime shaping forces of international conflicts.

From a Political Realism standpoint, Huntingdon’s theory may seem to have gained in credibility over the years but it is Khatami’s pronouncement that has evoked an empathetic response in the hearts and minds of publics world wide. So much so, 2001 was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly as the ‘Year of Dialogue among Civilizations’.

It could be said that the latter proclamation was an endeavour to give back to humans their essential identity of peace-makers. It was an eschewing of the position that war and conflict are central to the human condition and amounted to upholding constructive dialogue among peoples and civilizations as a path to peace.

That things have not worked out in the world in keeping with the expectations of peace makers does not in any way invalidate the thesis that peace is the essential propensity of humans.

If peace-making is seemingly ineffective it is primarily because the path to peace is narrow, tortuous and time-consuming. On the other hand, violence usually misleadingly recommends itself to the human as the more expedient, cost-effective way out of a conflictual situation. However, the ultimate cost of the latter approach is prohibitive because it brutalizes the human beyond recognition.

Some of the evidence is before our eyes. The Trump administration, for example, has, minus much forethought, unleashed what may be described as a ‘quick-fix’ war against Iran but is now finding that it is in a veritable military quagmire in West Asia. The priority for the administration now seems to be a face-saving escape strategy. Such are the costs of the war option.

However, there is no denying that much remains to be done by the world community to bring peoples and cultures together with a view to enabling them to work as one for the cause of a less dangerous world.

Meanwhile, the broad divisions in international politics continue and past political polarities are lingering to the detriment of enhanced international understanding. The East and the West and the South and the North, for instance, are continuing to work in separate collectives, more or less, and no notable efforts are being made by the international community to bring these sides together for the purpose of united constructive action that could usher greater international well being.

The recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit, 2026, held in Kyrgyztan was a replication of the above broad trends but there were some statements at the forum by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that deserve special scrutiny and comment.

Modi was quoted saying among other things: ‘The land of Gandhi and the land of Buddha share a single message: the path to peace!..We must move away from endless war towards an end to the war. This is essentially for the well being of humanity. A peaceful resolution to all issues at the earliest is the call of humanity, and this is India’s message.’

The above is the language of international peace and unity. It is such language that will help in building bridges among civilizations and advance the cause of world peace. Besides, it will help bring a measure of understanding between North and South.

In this regard, the Trump administration could take a leaf or more from the Modi government. Unless it makes a ‘U turn’, as it were, in the direction of peace and reconciliation it is very unlikely that the US and the world would experience any stability worth speaking of.

Right now the US is savaging the sovereignty of Venezuela. It is a question of the ‘Empire striking back’ but Venezuela is a far cry from Iran. Iran has outsmarted the US on the battle field and is in a position to influence broad trends in the world economy since it still has control over the Hormuz Straits. That is, Iran could exercise a determining influence over world oil, gas and energy prices. In short, the US consumer’s future peace of mind is very much in the hands of Iran.

Given the above backdrop it should have dawned on the US political leadership that working towards cordial relations with Iran is the most advisable option. The US, simply, has too much to lose otherwise.

Likewise, Russia too needs to take a leaf from India. It is plain to see that its invasion of Ukraine is proving totally ineffective. It has not brought any measure of peace for the Russian people. Russia is right now experiencing a rerun of its military misadventure in Afghanistan. On the other hand, sections of the peoples concerned have been victimized and even brutalized.

Accordingly, there needs to be a coming together of democratic opinion worldwide for a fresh consideration of the options facing humanity. There is a dire need for value-based politics to take the place of Realpolitik. Besides, the language of peace and humanity needs to replace current divisive discourse with its stress on polarities and antagonisms.

International organizations of the stature of the UN need to take the lead in spearheading the above initiatives. Right now the UN gives the impression of being a spent force. This columnist hopes that he would be proved wrong on this score because the UN remains the only hope of the poor and victimized. It will be in the interests of all peoples for the UN to rejuvenate itself and dedicate itself increasingly enthusiastically to the cause of international peace.

Whether it be the South or North, dynamic, visionary political leadership and direction emerges as essential. The need is for voices that would espouse peace and accord across boundaries and divisions. For South Asia, India and Pakistan have the potential to fill this lacuna.

Features

Sri Lanka’s constitutional test: Judicial independence beyond immediate political moment

Published

15 hours ago

2026/09/3

Sahan Weerasooriya

Superior Court Complex, Colombo

by Shelton Dharmaratne

Sri Lanka has reached an important constitutional moment.

The proposed 22nd Amendment has moved beyond political debate and into the constitutional process through which its validity will be examined. That development should change the character of the national discussion.

That is understandable in a politically contested environment. But Sri Lanka should now resist reducing a question of constitutional design to a contest over political positions.

The deeper issue concerns the relationship between constitutional reform, judicial independence and public confidence in the institutions of the State.

The Supreme Court will determine the constitutional questions before it. Public commentators should therefore exercise restraint in predicting, interpreting or seeking to influence that determination. But restraint does not require silence. It requires a more rigorous discussion of the institutional principles at stake.

A narrower constitutional question than the political debate suggests

The proposed amendment principally concerns the retirement ages of judges of the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal, together with an increase in the maximum number of judges permitted on the Court of Appeal.

Under the proposal, the retirement age of Supreme Court judges would rise from 65 to 67 and that of Court of Appeal judges from 63 to 65. The maximum number of Court of Appeal judges would also increase from 19 to 24.

Other proposed changes concerning the retirement ages of judges in the lower courts arise under separate legislation. This distinction matters because the public debate has sometimes treated the wider package of judicial reform as though it formed a single constitutional proposal.

Nor should the central issue be reduced to whether retaining experienced judges is inherently good or inherently dangerous. Both propositions are too simplistic.

Sri Lanka faces a substantial burden of pending litigation, and delays in the administration of justice impose significant costs on citizens, businesses and the State. Experienced judges represent an institutional resource. Continuity, accumulated knowledge and familiarity with complex areas of law cannot always be replaced immediately.

Those are legitimate policy considerations.

But the opposing concern is equally important: judicial tenure is not merely an employment condition. It is a structural component of judicial independence.

The real question is institutional

The critical question is not whether an individual judge is capable of acting impartially. It is whether the constitutional structure provides adequate protection against circumstances in which judicial tenure could become connected, directly or indirectly, with political authority.

That is an institutional question, not an accusation against individual judges.

A judge may be entirely conscientious and independent while the institutional arrangements surrounding the judiciary nevertheless create public doubts about independence. Constitutional democracies therefore cannot depend solely on the personal integrity of office-holders. They must construct institutions capable of preserving independence even when governments, individuals and political circumstances change.

This is particularly relevant when constitutional reform concerns the tenure of serving members of the superior judiciary.

The institutional sensitivity of such a proposal should neither be exaggerated into an allegation of improper motive nor dismissed as irrelevant. The appropriate response is transparency, procedural fairness and confidence in constitutional safeguards.

Legitimate objectives do not settle constitutional questions

The government has stated that its objectives include strengthening the administration of justice, addressing delays, retaining judicial experience and increasing institutional capacity.

Those objectives deserve serious consideration. Sri Lanka needs judicial reform. Citizens waiting years for their cases to be concluded experience the justice system very differently from those discussing it in Parliament, courtrooms or universities.

A government is therefore entitled to propose reforms designed to improve judicial efficiency.

But legitimate objectives do not automatically resolve constitutional objections. The relevant question is whether the means chosen are compatible with the constitutional structure and whether sufficient safeguards exist against unintended institutional consequences.

That is precisely why constitutional scrutiny matters.

The concerns of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) should likewise be examined without political labelling. Opposition to the proposed changes should not automatically be characterised as opposition to judicial reform or an attempt to obstruct the government. At the same time, invoking judicial independence does not place any argument beyond scrutiny.

The appropriate questions are straightforward:

Does extending judicial tenure strengthen the administration of justice?

What risks, if any, could it create for judicial independence?

Are adequate institutional safeguards in place?

Does the proposal operate prospectively, or does it affect judges already serving?

Could the same objectives be achieved by filling vacancies, increasing judicial capacity, improving court administration and strengthening case management?

These questions can be examined rationally without attributing improper motives to either side.

Judicial vacancies and institutional confidence

Recent concerns raised by the BASL regarding judicial vacancies add another dimension to the debate. The BASL has argued that vacancies in the Supreme Court contributed to the retirement of a senior Court of Appeal judge without promotion to the Supreme Court, despite vacancies having existed. It has also raised concerns regarding forthcoming judicial retirements and the need for timely consideration of appointments.

Such matters should not be treated as evidence of the motives behind the proposed amendment. They do, however, illustrate a broader principle.

Judicial independence is shaped not only by the retirement age written into the Constitution. It is also influenced by how vacancies are filled, how promotions are determined, how seniority and merit are assessed, and whether judicial officers and the public believe that institutional decisions are made according to transparent and defensible criteria.

The government has an opportunity to address these concerns constructively.

Prompt appointments based on publicly defensible principles would strengthen confidence in the judiciary irrespective of the eventual outcome of the constitutional debate.

Seniority, merit and transparent criteria

The controversy also exposes a longstanding question concerning judicial appointments.

Seniority has traditionally carried considerable weight in judicial advancement. Yet seniority alone need not be the sole measure of merit. Conversely, replacing established practices with undefined assessments of “merit” could create another institutional problem.

If governments or appointing authorities can determine which judges are sufficiently meritorious without clear and objective criteria, uncertainty itself may become a source of institutional anxiety.

Sri Lanka would therefore benefit from clearer, objective and defensible standards governing judicial appointments and promotions.

Such standards would protect judges as well as appointing authorities. They would reduce opportunities for favouritism, strengthen institutional confidence and make it harder for political actors to portray every appointment as politically motivated.

Institutional rules are stronger safeguards than assurances of good intentions.

The State is larger than any government

One principle deserves particular emphasis: a government is not the State.

Governments are temporary. The constitutional State is continuing. Political parties change, parliamentary majorities change and political priorities change. The judiciary, however, must continue to function independently of whoever occupies the government benches.

The judiciary is neither a government institution in the political sense nor an Opposition institution. It is an institution of the State whose legitimacy depends upon its independence from both.

For that reason, governments should exercise particular caution when proposing constitutional changes affecting the judiciary, even where the policy objectives are legitimate.

The stronger a government is politically, the greater its responsibility to demonstrate institutional restraint.

That is not political weakness. It is constitutional maturity.

Public confidence is a constitutional asset

The most consequential issue may ultimately be neither retirement age nor judicial capacity, but public confidence.

Courts do not possess political power in the conventional sense. Their authority rests substantially on the acceptance of their decisions as legitimate.

Citizens will sometimes disagree with judicial decisions. But where the judiciary is perceived as independent, even unpopular decisions can command respect. If judicial institutions are perceived as being shaped by political convenience, even legally sound decisions may become vulnerable to suspicion.

Constitutional reform affecting judicial tenure must therefore be evaluated not only by its immediate administrative benefits but also by its effect on institutional credibility.

A reform that produces short-term efficiency while weakening confidence in judicial independence could impose a greater long-term cost. Conversely, reform that improves efficiency while preserving independence can strengthen both justice and public trust.

The challenge is not to choose between judicial efficiency and judicial independence. It is to achieve both.

If a referendum arises …

If the constitutional process ultimately requires approval by the people at a referendum, the debate should rise above the conventional government versus Opposition contest.

The electorate should be given a clear constitutional question and sufficient information to assess it.

Citizens should understand what problem the amendment seeks to address, why the proposed mechanism is considered necessary, what institutional risks have been identified, what safeguards exist and whether alternative measures could achieve the same objectives.

A constitutional referendum deserves a higher standard of public discussion than an ordinary election campaign.

The people would not merely be choosing a political side. They would be deciding the institutional framework within which political power and judicial authority operate.

Beyond who wins

The most important question arising from the proposed Twenty-Second Amendment is therefore not simply whether the government succeeds or whether the Opposition and BASL prevail.

Nor is it ultimately whether judicial retirement ages become 67 and 65 or remain unchanged.

Those are immediate constitutional questions. The deeper issue is what Sri Lanka learns from the controversy.

If the government seeks to modernise and strengthen the justice system, that objective deserves serious consideration. If the BASL and others warn that particular reforms may affect judicial independence, those concerns deserve equally serious examination.

Neither side strengthens the country by assuming that the other is acting in bad faith.

The constitutional system is strongest when legitimate disagreements are resolved through institutions rather than political pressure.

Whatever the eventual constitutional outcome, Sri Lanka will still face the underlying challenges of judicial vacancies, case delays, institutional capacity, judicial appointments and public confidence. Those problems will not disappear with a judicial determination, nor should the national conversation end there.

Sri Lanka should instead seek a broader consensus around a fundamental proposition:

Judicial reform and judicial independence are not competing objectives.

The real challenge is to pursue reform in a manner that strengthens the judiciary without placing its independence under suspicion.

That requires sound legislation, transparent appointments, adequate resources, efficient court administration, responsible political conduct and safeguards capable of surviving changes of government.

The present controversy will eventually pass. Political arguments surrounding it will fade.

But constitutional arrangements can endure for decades.

That is why Sri Lanka must look beyond the immediate political contest.

The ultimate test is not who wins today’s constitutional argument. It is whether, when the political moment has passed, Sri Lanka has a judiciary that is more efficient, more accessible and more trusted—while remaining sufficiently independent to hold every government, including future governments, within the boundaries of the Constitution.

Features

Farewell to a Fashion Icon

Published

15 hours ago

2026/09/3

Sahan Weerasooriya

Chula was very fond of The Island newspaper and kept in touch with us on a regular basis (L) / Chula: Sent us this photo for Glam Scene, just a couple of weeks ago (R)

Sri Lanka’s fashion world lost one of its brightest stars Monday morning – veteran model, actress, and elite pageant trainer Chulpadmendra “Chula” Kumarapathirana.

Her sudden demise has certainly come as a shock to many.

Chula had just completed a major event on Sunday (30th August), and was no more in the land of the living the following day (31st August).

Born in Colombo, she was an old girl of Buddhist Ladies’ College and later studied at the National Institute of Business Management, and has many awesome achievements to her credit.

In 2006, she won the “Miss Tourism Model of the World Press Award” in Tanzania.

She entered the entertainment industry, as an actress, and gained popularity through the teledrama “Wahinna Muthu Wessak.”

Chulpadmendra has been on TV, and many Sri Lankan hip-hop music videos, including “Hanthane” and “Heena Hirimal”, and has had several other minor acting jobs since then.

She hosted the Derana Miss Sri Lanka for Miss World 2008 and even participated in the reality TV show Sirasa Dancing Star.

For over 25 years Chula was active in local and international fashion and founded the Chulpadmendra Catwalk Studio to train young newcomers

She trained hundreds of models for runway, photoshoots, auditions, and international pageants.

She was known as a fierce mentor who believed in “not just learning to walk, but learning to command the runway”.

Many young models called graduating from her studio their “happiest moment.”

Chulpadmendra “Chula” Kumarapathirana: Many young models called graduating
from her studio their “happiest moment.” (L)/ Won the “Miss Tourism Model of the World Press Award” in Tanzania (R)

Chula was very fond of The Island newspaper and kept in touch with us on a regular basis.

Her last message to The Island was a ‘thank you’ note for the article ‘New benchmark in pageant industry’:

“Thank you, Ivan, for writing such a beautiful article about me. Your unwavering support, encouragement, and belief in me throughout my career mean more than words can express. I am truly grateful for your kindness and generosity.

“My heartfelt thanks also go to The Island newspaper for featuring the article. It is a great honour, and I sincerely appreciate the recognition and support.

“Thank you once again.”

In fact, just a couple weeks ago, she sent a photo of herself for our Glam Scene and that picture I publish today, as part of this story.

May she rest in peace. Our deepest condolences to her family, students, and all who loved her.