Features

Sri Lanka’s ancient hydraulic civilisation and birth of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism

Published

5 years ago

2022/03/4

by Satyajith Andradi

Sri Lanka continues to be in the grips of many high profile crises of recent origin such as the COVID–19 pandemic, chronic difficulties in servicing foreign debts, shortages of essential items such as food and fuel, skyrocketing cost of living, and crop failures due to the ban of chemical fertilisers, to name a few . However, the national question, which has tormented the country for decades, continues to be one of her biggest problems, if not the greatest.

Sinhala Buddhist nationalism features prominently in any discourse on Sri Lanka’s national question. Its detractors often derogatorily call it by terms such as Sinhala Buddhist imperialism, Sinhala Buddhist chauvinism, and Sinhala Buddhist racism, whilst its protagonists call it Sinhala Buddhist patriotism or simply patriotism. Meanwhile, somewhat esoteric and ephemeral terms such as Sinhala Buddhist majoritarianism, kinguistic nationalism, and ethnocracy are used for it in learned discourse. Further, Sinhala Buddhist nationalism is very often discussed with reference to personages of Sri Lanka’s ancient history such as Dutugemunu and Elara. Hence, it is useful to trace the genesis and early phases of development of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism during Sri Lanka’s ancient past, in order to enhance our understanding of the subject.

Sri Lanka’s ancient agrarian revolution powered by irrigation engineering

As in our own age, in the distant past too, various races migrated from one land to another for various reasons such as the search for greener pastures and the forced eviction by intruding tribes. From about the sixth century BC, Sri Lanka too, which until then was thinly populated by primitive hunter gatherers, experienced an influx of migrants from overseas. Some of them, who had a knack for agriculture, settled in the arid north central plains of the island, which were covered with wooded forests and shrub jungles, as those one could still see in places such as Wilpattu. As direct rain water was often inadequate and undependable for growing paddy, these pioneer settlers cultivated the art of conserving water by building small artificial reservoirs called tanks, and convert the hostile arid terrain into paddy fields with the water thus conserved. Thereby they were able to establish a firm foothold in pre-historic Sri Lanka. These rough, tough, and enterprising pioneer settlers came to be known as ‘Sihala’ or Sinhalese, whose founding fathers were, according to legends, Vijaya and his band of seven hundred followers, who came to Sri Lanka from northern India. Other migrant tribes, either perished in this hostile physical environment, like the traders devoured by Kuveni, or got suppressed and assimilated by the dominant Sinhalese. This was a social process, which had some affinity to the process of natural selection in the biological world – a case of social Darwinism, so to speak. The Sinhalese went on to build progressively bigger tanks, weirs, canals, and complex irrigation systems connecting all such innovative creations with rivers which flowed from the distant wet mountains. As a result, the erstwhile wild and hostile terrain of Sri Lanka’s north central plains were converted into a vast blue and green tapestry of thousands of artificial lakes and lush paddy fields studded with dagobas of immaculate white. The formidable physical challenges posed by the nature were surmounted with an audacious human response. This monumental transformation, which took place more than thousand years ago, inspired many people of modern times. A notable person amongst them was the British planter, archaeologist, and author John Still ( 1880 – 1941 ) of Jungle Tide fame, who in turn drew the insightful attention of Arnold Toynbee, the eminent scholar of comparative history and civilizations ( Arnold J Toynbee; A study of history ; abridgement by D C Somervell ). The agrarian revolution powered by advanced irrigation systems was the bedrock, the backbone, and the material basis of the fully-fledged hydraulic civilization of ancient Sri Lanka. The elaborate social, political, cultural and religious institutions of that civilisation constituted, as Marx would say, its superstructure.

The birth of the ancient agrarian revolution based on irrigation engineering pre-dates the arrival of Buddhism in the island in the third century BC. The medium sized tank ‘Abhaya Wewa’, which is also known as Basawak Kulama, in Anuradhapura, built in the fourth century BC by king Pandukabhaya, proves the point. The next important tank, Tissa Wewa, was built in Anuradhapura during the reign of Devanampiyatissa ( 250 BC – 210 BC ). Irrigation engineering witnessed a quantum leap during the reign of the great Vasabha ( 67 AD – 111 AD ). During his reign, in addition to many large tanks, the Elahera canal was built. This canal diverted the waters of the Ambanganga, a tributary of the Mahaweli river originating from the Matale hills, to the tanks in the arid north central plains. The next great period of tank building was the reign of Mahasena ( 274 AD – 301 AD ), during which many tanks including the giant Minneriya Wewa was constructed. Mahasena’s achievements were equaled or surpassed during the reign of Dhatusena ( 455 AD – 473 AD ), during which huge tanks such as the Kalawewa and the Yoda Wewa were constructed, damming the Kala Oya and the Malwathu Oya respectively. However, the greatest irrigation engineering feat during the reign of Dhatusena was the construction of the Yoda Ela, also known as Jayaganga, a fifty four mile long canal which carried water from the Kalawewa to the Tissawewa in Anuradhapura. Further significant additions to the irrigation infrastructure were made during the reigns of Moggallana II ( 531 AD – 551 AD ) and Aggabodhi II ( AD 604 – AD 614 ). The former constructed the huge Nachchaduwa Wewa near Anuradhapura, augmented the Nuwara Wewa in Anuradhapura ( History of Ceylon, University of Ceylon: editor; S. Paranavitana ) and built the Padaviya tank by damming the Ma Oya (K M De Silva; A History of Sri Lanka ), whist the latter constructed the Kantale, Giritale, and Kaudulla tanks. Thereafter, the expansion of the irrigation systems seems to have subsided for several centuries till the time of Parakramabahu the Great ( 1153 – 1186 ). This king is considered to be the greatest tank builder of Sri Lanka (ibid ). The massive Parakrama Samudraya in Polonnaruwa, which was created by combining three tanks including the Topawewa, is undoubtedly his finest achievement in the field of tank building. It has to be been noted no other king after him built major tanks.

The ancient agrarian revolution powered by irrigation engineering had many important economic, social, political, religious, and cultural implications and outcome. On the economic sphere, it phenomenally increased the extent of arable land by making it possible to bring vast swathes of erstwhile arid forest land under the plough through irrigation. Further, it would have, most probably, facilitated a significant migration from small scale peasant subsistence farming to more productive large scale farming. Anyway, the obvious economic outcome of the ancient agrarian revolution was the generation of ever increasing agricultural surpluses over and about what was needed to feed the peasants and other agricultural labourers. These massive economic surpluses enabled the kings and their ruling elites to invest enormous resources in the expansion of the irrigation infrastructure, in maintaining the irrigation technocracy and the royal bureaucracy, in building impressive Buddhist monuments such as the great stupas, in patronizing outstanding Buddhist scholarship of international repute, and in constructing awe inspiring secular monuments such as Kasyapa’s Sigiriya rock fortress and royal palace.

On the social and political spheres, the elaborate irrigation systems stretching across vast swathes of farmlands, inexorably led to centralized control of agriculture through irrigation management. The technocrat who controlled the spills and the sluices of the tanks and weirs came to dominate the peasant who ploughed the fields, sowed the seeds, and harvested the crops. This entailed the ascendency of the state bureaucracy including the irrigation engineering technocracy, which in turn called for a unified and highly centralized state.

Pandukabhaya and birth of Sinhala state

It was mentioned earlier that the first significant tank was built by Pandukabhaya in the fourth century BC. It is interesting to note that he was also the first ruler of the Anuradhapura kingdom. Prior to him, the main Sinhala presence in Sri Lanka constituted a conglomerate of Sinhala settlements situated between the Kala Oya and the Malvattu Oya, loosely connected by tribal and family ties. It is evident that Pandukabhaya forcefully subjugated these semi-autonomous settlements and united them under his leadership. Thus the first Sinhala state was born. No doubt, this was in response to a historical necessity of the agrarian revolution, which called for an efficient centralized state. Certainly, this nascent state had nothing to do with Sinhala Buddhist nationalism or patriotism. In the first place, Buddhism was yet to be introduced to Sri Lanka. Further, the Sinhala state was yet to perceive a real threat from non – Sinhalese. It was young, vibrant and self- confident. It was, in modern parlance, an absolute monarchy.

Devamanpiyatissa and the birth of the Sinhala- Buddhist state

Buddhism was introduced to Sri Lanka by the great Mauryan emperor Asoka during the reign of Devamanpiyatissa ( 250 – 210 ) at a time when the ancient agrarian revolution was in full swing. As already mentioned, it was during this period that the Tissa Wewa was built. The peaceful conversion of the country to Buddhism received unreserved royal patronage. The nascent Sinhala state became a Sinhala Buddhist state. Numerous lands and viharas were gifted to the Maha Sanga. These included the Thuparama dagoba, and the spacious Mahamegha park in Anuradhapura, in which the sacred Bodhi tree Sri Maha Bodhi was planted. This signaled the establishment of the Mahaviharaya, the centre of Theravada Buddhist Church in Sri Lanka. No doubt, the doctrine of the Buddha, which laid down a well –structured spiritual path to freedom from existential suffering through the taming of the senses, struck a chord with the well-structured thinking of the Sinhalese irrigation engineers, which provided a path to freedom from material want by taming wild and hostile nature, with technological innovations.

Like Pandukabhaya’s Sinhala state, the nascent Sinhala Buddhist state during Devanampiyatissa’s had nothing to do with Sinhala Buddhist nationalism or patriotism. It did not perceive a real threat from non – Sinhalese or non-Buddhists. Like Pandukabhaya’s state, it was young, vibrant and self- confident.

The Sinhala Buddhist state under siege

Devanampiyatissa’s Sinhala Buddhist kingdom was in state of blissful harmony, arguably unparalled in Sri Lanka’s long history. However, this state of affairs was to be dramatically disrupted after a short period of time due to game-changing external and internal interventions. The major external challenge came from Tamil adventurers from south India bent on plundering the growing wealth of Sri Lanka’s hydraulic civilization. The main internal challenge came from the growing Mahayana tendencies amongst sections Sri Lanka’s Maha Sangha, which had traditionally been the custodian and standard bearer of Theravada Buddhism in Sri Lanka and abroad. Sinhala Buddhist Nationalism was born as a response to these challenges from within and without.

The first major challenge to the young Sinhala Buddhist state emerged thirty years after the death of Devanampiyatissa. Sena and Guttika, two Tamil brothers engaged in horse trading, captured the Anuradhapura kingdom and reigned for twenty two years. A few years after the Sinhalese regained the kingdom, the second successful invasion from South India was launched. This was led by the Chola prince Elara, who reigned in Anuradhapura for forty four years. The Sinhalese under Dutugemunu vanquished Elara and regained the kingdom. Dutugemunu’s reign ( 161 BC – 137 BC ) was a watershed in the Sri Lanka’s history. The island, which hitherto consisted of several kingdoms, was unified under his leadership. The Sinhala Buddhist state became, in present day parlance, a unitary state. However, less than four decades after Dutugemunu’s death, Anuradhapura was captured and occupied again by south Indian Tamils from 103 BC to 89 BC. They were expelled by Vattagamini ( Valagamba ) , who reigned from 89 BC to 77 BC. Thereafter, for more than five hundred years, Sri Lanka was free from foreign occupation. It was during this period that her ancient irrigation witnessed its first great flowering. However, it was during this period that the serious internal threats to the Sinhala Buddhist state emerged. They came in the form of Mahayana challenges to the uncontested supremacy of the Mahavihara led Theravada Buddhist Church, which was a main pillar of the Sinhala Buddhist state. The initial threat came in the first century BC with the establishment of the rival Abhayagiri monastery by Valagamba, which harboured dissenters. The immediate response of the Theravada Buddhist Church to this was the writing down of the Tripitaka at Aluvihara during that king’s reign. The next threat, which was of a much greater magnitude, was the intrusion of Mahayana thinking in the form of Vaitulyavada in the third century AD, during the reign of Mahasena ( 274 AD – 301 AD ), with the fanatical support of that monarch. This was somewhat contemporaneous with the rise of Mahayana in south India under the guidance of great masters such as Nagarjuna. Anyway, the Theravada Buddhist Church eventually prevailed by winning back the king to its side with great difficulty.

The long peace of half a millennium, which commenced with the reign of Valagamba, ended with the invasion from south India in 429 AD. This resulted in the reign of six Tamils kings in Anuradhapura for twenty seven years, until Dhatusena liberated the country from the foreign yoke. Thereafter, the country did not experience invasions from abroad for about four centuries. Ancient Sri Lankan irrigation witnessed its second great flowering. However, during ninth and tenth centuries, Sri Lanka got caught up in the geo-political rivalries amongst south Indian Tamil kingdoms of Pallavas, Pandyas and Cholas. At that time the Hindu Tamil civilization of south India was in its ascendency, whilst the aging Sinhala Buddhist civilization was in a state of stagnation, if not decay. The end result was the conquest of Anuradhapura and the north central plains of Sri Lanka by the Cholas in the closing decade of the tenth century. This dealt a crippling blow to Sri Lanka’s ancient hydraulic civilization. The Sinhalese were, under Vijayabahu I, able to expel the Cholas from the Island in 1070, and under Parakramabahu the Great, revive the ancient hydraulic civilization. Sri Lanka’s ancient irrigation witnessed its third and last flowering. However, the revival was short lived. The invasion by the marauding Kerala army of Magha of Kalinga in 1215 dealt the death blow to the ancient hydraulic civilization. The Sinhalese, who had populated the north central plains since sixth century BC, migrated en masse to the south west and the central hills. The irrigation works were abandoned and went into disrepair. The hostile arid jungles, which were banished by Sinhalese pioneers, returned to the north central plains with a vengeance. The ancient hydraulic civilization of the Sinhalese, which had flourished for more than one thousand five hundred years, came to an end.

The ancient hydraulic civilization and Sinhala Buddhist Nationalism

Sinhala Buddhist Nationalism, like many other –isms, constitute an ideology; an outlook. As already mentioned, it was born as a response to the external and internal challenges to the ancient Sinhala Buddhist state, which was an integrate part of the ancient hydraulic civilization. But, how do we conceptualise this ideology of Sri Lanka’s distant past? Fortunately, the ancient chronicles – Dipavamsa, Mahavamsa, and Chulavamsa, and the last two chapters of the Pujavaliya, come to our assistance. However, it should be cautioned that the ideologies contained in these ancient documents represent , more likely, the views held by their respective authors and their contemporary societies than by the personages of their narratives.

It seems that the internal threat to the Theravada Buddhism by Mahasena’s aggressive promotion of Vaitulyavada prompted the writing of the two oldest exiting chronicles of Sri Lanka – the Dipavamsa, written in the fourth century AD, and the Mahavamsa, composed in the sixth century AD. The fact that the narratives of both works end with the death of Mahasena points in that direction. Anyway, both emphasize that the island was freed from the Yakkas by the Buddha to make way for the Sinhalese settlers and the establishment of the Buddhist doctrine. This amounts to an imprimatur for Sinhala Buddhist exclusivity in Sri Lanka, which goes back, at least, as far as the fourth and sixth centuries. However, the treatment of the Sinhala king Dutugemunu and the Tamil king Elara by the two authors differ significantly. For instance, whilst the Dipavamsa devotes a mere twelve verses to Dutugemunu, the Mahavansa devotes eleven out of its thirty two chapters to him. Clearly, Dutugemunu is the favourite king of the author of the Mahavamsa. Further, whilst both chronicles admire Elara as an incomparably just king, the Dipavamsa, unlike the Mahavamsa, takes note of his outstanding spiritual qualities. More strikingly, the Mahavamsa, in chapter twenty five seeks to lend a Buddhist imprimatur to Dutugemunu’s war with Elara. This is certainly inconsistent with the letter and spirit of the Metta Sutta, as much as the crusades of medieval Christendom authorized by the papacy was inconsistent with the letter and spirit of Jesus’ utterance ” Put your sword in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword” ( Matthew 26; 52 ). In fact, the Mahavamsa’s stance on the Dutugemunu- Elara war is reminiscent of the ideas on ‘just war’ advocated by St. Augustine and the Bhagavad Gita. Most probably, the south Indian invasions of the fifth century prompted the sixth century author of Mahavamsa to take a more militant Sinhala Buddhist stance than the fourth century author of the Dipavamsa.

The first part of the Chulavamsa, which was most probably composed in the early part of the thirteenth century, provides useful information about the period from the death of Mahasena to the end of the ancient hydraulic civilization. The last two chapters ( chapters 33 and 34 ) of the Pujavaliya briefly covers this period in addition to history up to the death of Mahasena. The Pujavaliya was composed in the mid thirteenth century, shortly after the collapse of the hydraulic civilization. Whilst the three chronicles were composed in Pali, the Pujavaliya was written in Sinhala.

The Chulavamsa and the Pujavaliya, in comparison with the Dipavamsa and the Mahavamsa, take a more hostile approach towards non – Sinhala Buddhist actors. For instance, unlike the Dipavamsa and the Mahavamsa, the Pujavaliya perceives Elara merely as a malevolent personage bent on destroying the Buddhist Church. The more virulent Tamil invasions from the ninth century onwards, would have contributed towards this more aggressive Sinhala Buddhist nationalism.

We have seen how the dynamics of the ancient hydraulic civilization gave birth Sinhala Buddhist Nationalism. The hydraulic civilization itself perished as a result of the devastating invasion of Magha of Kalinga. However, Sinhala Buddhist Nationalism did not perish with that civilization. On the contrary, it has continued to live as a potent ideology of Sri Lanka, right up to the present day.

All News Advertisement

Features

The Great AI Schism: When the Titans of Tech tell us to slow down

Published

4 hours ago

2026/10/7

Sahan Weerasooriya

by Prof. C. A. Saliya

Something extraordinary happened in September 2026. The very people who have spent the last decade pouring tens of billions of dollars into building artificial intelligence, the visionaries, the investors, the CEOs, suddenly started telling the world to hit the brakes. It’s a bit like the captain of a speeding train leaning out of the window and shouting, “Actually, maybe we should slow down a bit!” The public, understandably, is confused. We’ve been told AI will cure cancer, solve climate change, and give us all free time. Now we’re being told it might kill us all. Welcome to the great AI schism.

To understand what’s happening, you have to listen to the people in the room. These are not wild-eyed doomsayers on the internet. They are the titans of the industry. And they are starting to argue with each other.

Dario Amodei: The Insider Who Wants to Hit Pause

Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic (Claude AI), is the man who kicked the hornet’s nest. In a 3,800-word essay, posted on his website in mid-September 2026, he didn’t just suggest caution, he demanded a slowdown. “We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models,” he wrote. His reasoning is simple and terrifying: the technology is moving faster than our ability to control it. He warned that AI could be misused for cyberattacks, bioterrorism, and serious economic disruption.

What makes Amodei’s warning so chilling is that it comes from a man whose company, Anthropic, builds one of the most powerful AI models in the world, Claude. He’s not a critic on the sidelines. He’s in the driver’s seat, and he’s telling us the car might not have brakes. In an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, he said he agreed with a departing Anthropic researcher who claimed AI could “kill us all” by the end of the decade. That researcher, 27-year-old Jacob Coxon, resigned in protest, saying the people building AI “earnestly believe that it could kill us all”. When the people building the technology start resigning because they’re afraid of it, you should pay attention.

Bill Gates: The Elder Statesman with a Warning

Bill Gates has been around long enough to know a paradigm shift when he sees one. The Microsoft co-founder, who spent decades warning the world about pandemics and climate change, has now turned his attention to AI. And he’s not mincing words. In September 2026, Gates warned that AI is “powerful enough to drive events that, you know, cause a billion deaths”.

Gates is not worried about Terminator-style robots. He’s worried about people. “There’s never been a weapon as powerful as the combination of people with ill intent using the latest AI tools,” he said. His solution is simple: regulation. “No one thinks self-regulation is enough,” he told NBC’s Meet the Press. He even offered to be the man to convince President Trump to regulate AI. Gates is a pragmatist. He knows the technology is coming. He just wants to make sure it doesn’t get us first.

Sam Altman: The Showman with a Conscience (Maybe)

Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI (Chat GPT), has always been the industry’s greatest showman. He’s the man who told us AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) is “just around the corner” and that AI will soon be a “genie that can grant any wish”. But even Altman is now singing a different tune. In September 2026, he ruled out an OpenAI IPO in 2026, citing safety concerns. He called even a 10% risk of AI causing human extinction “unacceptable”.

“I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier,” Altman posted on X. This is a remarkable shift. Altman has spent years being criticised for moving too fast, for prioritising profit over safety. Now, facing mounting evidence that AI models can cause real harm, from cyberattacks to mental health crises, he’s suddenly the voice of caution. Is it genuine? Or is it a PR move? The cynics will tell you it’s the latter. But the fact remains: when Sam Altman says we need to slow down, the world listens.

Elon Musk: The Provocateur Who Saw It Coming

Elon Musk has been warning about AI for over a decade. He’s the man who called AI “more dangerous than nuclear weapons” long before it was fashionable. So it’s no surprise that he joined the chorus of slowdown calls in September 2026. But Musk being Musk, he couldn’t resist a bit of dark humour. When asked if we’re all going to die within 10 years, he replied, “I don’t want to disappoint you, but we’re all going to die someday anyway”.

But behind the joke is a serious point. Musk believes AI models could escape their constraints, take control of military systems, and even launch nuclear weapons. His solution is mutual oversight: leading AI companies should test each other’s systems for safety before release, and he even suggested a deal with China to make it happen. Musk is a provocateur, but he’s also a visionary. And his vision is one where AI is a weapon that we might not be able to control.

Satya Nadella: The Quiet Strategist

While the others are shouting about doom, Satya Nadella is quietly building an empire. The Microsoft CEO doesn’t talk about extinction risks. He talks about “agentic AI”, AI that can act autonomously, which he calls “a new paradigm”. Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, which powers these AI agents, grew 43% in the last quarter, surpassing $100 billion in annual revenue.

Nadella’s view is simple: don’t compete to build the most powerful model; compete to control the “orchestration layer”, the systems that connect different AI models. He wants to build the infrastructure that everyone else relies on. It’s a smart play, and it’s making Microsoft a fortune. But Nadella’s silence on safety is deafening. While Amodei and Altman wrestle with their consciences, Nadella is counting the money. It’s not that he doesn’t care; it’s that his business model depends on AI being adopted, not regulated.

Jacob Coxon: The Whistleblower Who Lit the Fuse

You may not have heard of Jacob Coxon. He’s not a billionaire. He’s not a CEO. He’s a 27-year-old researcher who worked at both OpenAI and Anthropic. And in September 2026, he resigned from Anthropic with a warning that shook the industry. “Neither company is acting responsibly,” he wrote on X. “They are launching themselves directly toward a superintelligence capable of self-improvement, and gambling with our lives”.

Coxon’s warning was remarkable because it came from inside the machine. He said the people building AI “earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade”. He called for a temporary freeze on advanced AI training. His resignation triggered a wave of concern, and even Dario Amodei admitted he agreed with Coxon more than he disagreed. Coxon is the canary in the coal mine. And the canary is not looking well.

Donald Trump: The Wildcard

And then there’s Donald Trump. The US President has consistently downplayed AI fears, calling them a “hoax” and a “sick conspiracy”. But even Trump is starting to change his tune, sort of. In September 2026, he announced plans to create an “AI Force” and appoint an AI “Czar”. He said the government would look for “bad” uses of AI through the existing criminal and civil justice systems.

But Trump’s priority is clear: winning the AI race against China. “We will not in any way hinder or stifle the growth of this incredible industry,” he said. He wants AI to account for 25% of US GDP. Trump is not a technologist. He’s a businessman and a nationalist. He sees AI as a tool for economic dominance, not an existential threat. Whether he’s right or wrong, his stance puts him at odds with almost every expert in the field.

The Bottom Line: A House Divided

So where does this leave us? We have the CEOs of the world’s leading AI companies, Amodei, Altman, and Musk, all calling for a slowdown. We have Bill Gates, the elder statesman of tech, warning of a billion deaths. We have a whistleblower who says the industry is gambling with our lives. And then we have Satya Nadella, quietly building the infrastructure that powers it all, and Donald Trump, who wants to speed up.

The irony is hard to miss. The people who built the AI train are now telling us to slow down. The people who profit from the AI economy are the ones building the tracks. And the public is caught in the middle, trying to figure out who to believe.

Maybe the most honest thing anyone said came from Jacob Coxon, the 27-year-old researcher who quit. “The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade,” he wrote. “This is not a marketing stunt”.

If the people building the technology believe it could kill us, perhaps we should listen. Before it’s too late.

(Prof. C. A. Saliya, is a charted accountant, academic, researcher and former banker. He is the author of SAMAJA GAVESHAKAYA and Springer Publication DOING SOCIAL RESEARCH. He can be contacted at saliya.ca@gmail.com. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not necessarily represent those of the organisations with which he is affiliated.)

Features

Preventing grievances from becoming communal

Published

1 day ago

2026/10/6

Sahan Weerasooriya

Police removing the Thileepan statue

by Jehan Perera

The death sentence on Sivarasa Anojan, a Sri Lankan citizen convicted of blasphemy in Saudi Arabia has taken a central place in national consciousness for the past several weeks. It has been in the headline news since it was first reported last month. There have been many initiatives taken locally to get a more lenient sentencing by the Saudi authorities. There is also an undercurrent that is critical of both the culture and religion from which this sentencing emanates. This also sustains the widespread publicity being given nationally to the issue. By way of contrast, the controversy caused by the forcible removal of the Thileepan statue in Jaffna has not significantly impacted upon the national consciousness. There was only passing mention of the incident in the national media which has been overtaken by other events.

However, in the north and east of the country, and in the diaspora, the removal of the Thileepan statue has become a major issue. It has led to protest marches led by university students and widespread condemnation by civil society and political groups. The issues underlying the Thileepan statue have deep undercurrents in the Tamil consciousness particularly in the north and east which time is unlikely to dispel. The real test of harmony in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society like Sri Lanka is not whether communities coexist peacefully when nothing controversial is at stake. Rather, the test is how they respond when an event touches their identities and grievances. The death sentence imposed on Anojan in Saudi Arabia and the removal of the Thileepan statue in Jaffna carry the risk of becoming grievances to entire communities.

In the case of Anojan, a young Tamil migrant worker, he was first sentenced to five years imprisonment and a fine of three million Saudi riyals over a Facebook comment. Both he and the Saudi prosecution appealed, with the appeal court raising the sentence to death. This has led to public sympathy for him in Sri Lanka.

Appeals for clemency have come from the President, government and opposition leaders, clergy of all faiths and Muslim political leaders. At the same time there is a need to reject attempts to turn the case into a source of anti-Muslim sentiment or collective blame. Peacebuilding therefore has to be within Sri Lanka as well as diplomatic. Religious leaders and civil society in the country should be ready to quell rumour, even as Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu and Christian leaders stand together publicly.

Thileepan Statue

The Thileepan controversy has had a different trajectory. Many Tamils admire Thileepan, the LTTE name of Rasaiah Parthipan, who died on 26 September 1987 after a twelve-day fast. His demands were addressed to India but included matters pertaining to the Sri Lankan government including the release of detainees held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. The statue put up during this year’s commemoration was removed by police in the early hours of 27 September, a day after the commemoration ended. The government’s legal concern, as articulated by its spokesperson, was the LTTE remains a proscribed organisation and before removing the statue, police had presented facts to the court. But law and memory answer different questions and the depth of Tamil anguish cannot be disregarded.

For many Tamils, remembrance of Thileepan is connected to their sense of loss and historical memory. The memorial has been destroyed and rebuilt more than once, and each destruction has added to the meaning it carries. Many who mourn Thileepan are grieving a young man who died without violence and by his own fast. They also grieve an era of loss of the struggle for Tamil rights and self-determination for which Thileepan has become a symbol. The Office for Reparations Act, No. 34 of 2018, provides for collective reparations and gives the Office for Reparations a role in policies on memorialisation. This does not automatically permit any particular statue, nor does it override laws on public places or proscribed organisations. But it shows that memorialisation is recognised within Sri Lanka’s framework for reparations and reconciliation. There is also a wider question of equality.

The JVP that now leads the NPP government was itself once proscribed when it took up arms against the state in which tens of thousands died, later entered democratic politics, and now for many years has publicly commemorated its own fallen. The opportunity to remember those who died should not belong to one community alone.

A commitment to peacebuilding requires that the same trust that has been given to former militants of one community needs to be given to members of other communities if equal citizenship and equal rights are to have meaning. Further, the Office for Reparations Act provides for reparations through livelihood. It is today a fact that those former LTTE members who went through the government’s rehabilitation process find it difficult to get jobs in the private sector.

Private sector employers are reluctant to come under surveillance for employing former LTTE members. There needs to be equal access to employment and removal of unjustified barriers to reintegration, with targeted public programmes where necessary. Until this situation is realized on the ground, the government needs to consider employing those who went through the government’s rehabilitation process and still unable to find suitable employment.

Continuing Peace

The challenge that post-war Sri Lanka faces, a full 17 years after the end of war, is to strengthen the foundations of trust between communities rather than deepen existing suspicions. Anojan is an individual Sri Lankan citizen facing a severe sentence in another country. His case should not become a reason to blame Sri Lankan Muslims. Thileepan is remembered differently by different communities, but the dispute over his memorial should not become a reason to revive the communal divisions of the past. The cases are also mirror images in an important respect. In the Anojan case, the state is an advocate pleading before another government. In the Thileepan case, the state is the actor whose decision is being judged. The first calls for quiet diplomacy and restraint in public language. The second calls for fairness and explanation, and the burden on the state is heavier.

The common roots of the two cases lie in mistrust that does not belong to one community alone. It has been produced by experiences of discrimination, violence, insecurity and loss that have been interpreted differently by different communities. Grievances turn communal when an individual is seen as a representative of a community, when institutions seem to treat communities unequally, and when people feel their pain goes unacknowledged. Each of these can be addressed. The system change that the Sri Lankan people voted for in 2024 would need to include a government that rejects collective blame, acknowledges grief and explains its decisions openly. It also requires state institutions to act transparently and consistently, so that no citizen feels that the law protects some communities more than others.

This peacebuilding imperative requires enlightened leadership as much as legal authority. It requires leaders who will speak to their own communities against prejudice, even when this is politically inconvenient. It requires religious leaders who will demonstrate solidarity across religious boundaries. And it requires civil society to recognise that peacebuilding is not simply preventing violence after tensions have risen, but is addressing the mistrust and grievances that allow tensions to rise in the first place. Sri Lanka has learned, at great cost, that communal divisions can become much larger than the events that initially give rise to them. The Anojan and Thileepan cases give Sri Lanka an opportunity to demonstrate that it has learned from its past. The test of Sri Lanka’s continuing peace is whether we can address difficult grievances without turning them into communal ones.

Features

Sri Lanka Cricket Bill: Governance reform is not yet a cricket strategy – Part II

Published

1 day ago

2026/10/6

Sahan Weerasooriya

By Sarath S. Kodithuwakku

President, Institute of Management of Sri Lanka; Senior Professor, University of Peradeniya

(Continued from yesterday)

Representation, Independence and Decision-Making

The membership-based electoral structure should provide representation without becoming a substitute for executive management. The seven Elected Directors would bring the perspectives of the SLC membership into the Board, while the seven Independent Directors would provide additional professional expertise and independence. The model’s effectiveness will, therefore, depend on whether the Board can integrate these perspectives into coherent strategic decisions while maintaining a clear boundary between governance and day-to-day management.

The equal division between Elected and Independent Directors also raises a governance-design question. An even-numbered Board can create a tie. The Bill addresses this directly: in the event of equality, the Chairperson has a casting vote; in the Chairperson’s absence, the Deputy Chairperson has a casting vote; and if both are absent, an Independent Director, elected to preside, has the casting vote. The issue is, therefore, not whether a tie can be resolved, but how this mechanism affects the balance between representation, independence and accountability.

The leadership structure reinforces this balance: the Chairperson is elected from among the Independent Directors and the Deputy Chairperson from among the Elected Directors. The casting-vote arrangement makes the Chairperson’s role and perceived independence particularly important, especially when a major strategic decision divides the two components of the Board.

The Bill’s committee provisions could support a disciplined model of delegation, but implementation will depend heavily on the terms of reference adopted by the new Board. The framework could be strengthened by requiring a published cricket-development strategy, a clear division of powers among the Board, executives and selection committees, transparent principles for major development allocations, and periodic reporting on outcomes across men’s, women’s, schools and domestic cricket. These measures would strengthen accountability without legislating the details of team selection or tournament scheduling.

From Measurement to Strategic Accountability

If the Board is to hold management accountable for strategy rather than simply for short-term results, it needs a performance framework that captures both outcomes and the capabilities that produce them.

SLC should consider requiring an explicit multi-year cricket-development strategy, supported by measurable objectives and an annual strategy review. Such a strategy should identify the development pathway from schools and grassroots cricket through domestic competitions to high performance; define major capability priorities such as coaching, sports science, data and analytics; set resource-allocation principles; and establish indicators against which progress can be assessed.

The purpose would not be to turn cricket into a bureaucratic exercise. Strategic accountability simply creates a disciplined basis for asking whether the organisation is doing what it said it would do, whether its assumptions remain valid, and whether resources are producing the intended results.

From Measurement to Organisational Learning

SLC should, therefore, consider adopting a formal Balanced Scorecard. Rather than measuring success solely through international match results or annual financial audits, the framework could track four interdependent perspectives:

Financial Sustainability:

commercial growth, financial discipline and compliance.

Internal Processes:

domestic tournament quality, development pathways and selector-process integrity.

Stakeholder Value:

grassroots development, school cricket and women’s cricket expansion.

Strategic Capability:

coaching quality, sports science, talent development, data and analytics capability, and the organisation’s ability to convert investment into sustainable performance.

The purpose of such a framework would not be to reduce cricket development to a collection of numbers. Rather, it would create a disciplined process for asking four fundamental management questions:

What did we expect to achieve?

What actually happened?

Why was there a difference?

What should we change as a result?

Evaluating these dimensions periodically would help SLC move beyond performance reporting towards genuine organisational learning.

ICC as a Stakeholder in Governance Reform

The ICC is another important stakeholder whose interests should be recognised in the reform process. SLC’s governance arrangements do not operate solely within Sri Lankan law; they also have to be compatible with the governance obligations associated with ICC membership. The ICC’s Articles of Association require each Member to provide for free and democratic elections (or nominees from outside its members) and to manage its affairs autonomously, without government or other public-body interference in the governance, regulation or administration of cricket.

International experience demonstrates that ICC engagement in member governance restructuring is not unusual. In the United States, after the ICC expelled the old national association for chronic governance failures, the ICC directly oversaw a multi-year project to design a new governance model. The ICC Board formally approved the constitution for a replacement body (USA Cricket) before it was adopted. The resulting structure combined elected constituent directors with independent directors, showing that an ICC-backed framework can accommodate both forms of representation.

In Nepal, the ICC established a Nepal Advisory Group comprising stakeholders from across the game to recommend constitutional amendments, with adoption of the revised constitution and subsequent elections forming part of the conditions for reinstatement of ICC membership.[8] The ICC subsequently facilitated an independent panel that included ICC nominees together with representatives of Nepal’s National Sports Council and the existing cricket administration to map the election process, guidelines and timelines.[9] More recently, in 2026, an ICC delegation visited Bangladesh to engage with stakeholders on governance and electoral matters.[10] The ICC has also reported that its Deputy Chair and another ICC Board representative visited Sri Lanka and met relevant stakeholders to assess ongoing developments, while the ICC Board reiterated the need for elections to be held as soon as possible.

These precedents make the ICC a legitimate stakeholder in considering the governance implications of the proposed Bill. This does not mean that the ICC should determine Sri Lanka’s domestic legislation, nor that every feature of the Bill requires prior ICC approval. It does, however, suggest that early and formal engagement with the ICC would be prudent, particularly where the proposed arrangements concern Board independence, elections, government involvement and the transition to the new governance structure.

This is particularly relevant because the Bill creates two institutional arrangements that deserve careful scrutiny from an autonomy perspective. The Transformation Committee is responsible for managing the transition until the First Board is constituted, while the Nomination Committee, although structurally independent of the SLC Board, includes representatives connected with the Sports Ministry and the National Sports Council. Neither arrangement, by itself, establishes government interference. However, taken together, they make it important that the independence of the incoming Board is demonstrable through transparent procedures rather than assumed from the structure alone.

Given the professional calibre and international exposure of the members of the Transformation Committee, it would be reasonable to expect that the importance of ICC engagement would have been recognised. Although any such consultation has not been evident in the public domain, it is therefore reasonable to expect that the ICC has either already been consulted or will be consulted before the Bill is enacted. Such engagement would allow potential incompatibilities to be identified before the new structure is enacted and implemented, rather than after the fact.

The Transition Is Itself a Governance Challenge

The transition provisions introduce a significant organisational-change challenge. Replacing the existing club- and association-based governance structure with a new hybrid Board and governance architecture is not simply a legal exercise; it is an organisational change programme. The Sri Lanka Cricket Transformation Committee is required to manage the transition until the First Board is constituted and, during that period, to establish rules covering matters including tournament structure, domestic governance, selection committee appointments, committee terms of reference, the Nomination Committee process and the election of the Elected Directors.

Structural reform on paper can encounter resistance from established interests, institutional habits and existing routines. The implementation phase will therefore require a clear change-management framework, including stakeholder engagement, transparent onboarding for Independent Directors, clarification of decision rights, alignment of legacy committees, and careful transfer of information and responsibilities.

Without attention to these organisational factors, cultural friction could undermine the intended administrative improvements. The success of the reform will therefore depend not only on the text of the legislation but also on the quality of the rules, appointments, delegation arrangements and organisational behaviours that follow it.

From Governance Reform to a Cricket Strategy

The Bill deserves credit for addressing how SLC is constituted and for creating places for specialist advice. It should not be dismissed simply because it does not prescribe a batting order or a domestic fixture list. Those are not appropriate tasks for legislation.

Its limitation is more precise: the proposed governance arrangements do not, by themselves, assure the strategic capability of the Board or the quality, independence and accountability of the decisions made beneath it. They establish the architecture. The future Board and management must supply the strategy, capabilities, discipline and learning mechanisms that make the architecture work.

A stronger reform would connect four elements: a Board selected for collective strategic capability; professional cricket management with clear delegated authority; transparent but non-mechanical selection and investment processes; and systematic evaluation of development outcomes. Within the first of these, information technology and computer science should be recognised as distinct from the broader capability to understand and govern data science, analytics and emerging AI-enabled decision support.

Ultimately, the governing question is not only who gets a seat at the SLC Board table. It is whether that Board can build, fund, execute and learn from a credible strategy for Sri Lankan cricket.

References

1. Department of Government Printing, Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka Cricket Bill, Gazette Supplement, Part II of September 25, 2026, issued on 28 September 2026.

2. International Cricket Council. Media release, 15 July 2026, reporting the ICC Board discussion of Sri Lanka Cricket and the need for elections to be held as soon as possible.

3. Sport New Zealand – Ihi Aotearoa. Nine Steps to Effective Governance, particularly Step 1: Define and Agree the Board’s Role; Step 4: Provide Strategic Leadership; Step 5: Employ and Support a Chief Executive; and Step 8: Get the Right People on Board.

4. Cricket South Africa. Governance and management frameworks, including the delegation-of-authority framework, Board committees, Cricket Committee, Cricket Pipeline Committee and CEO accountability.

5. International Cricket Council. ICC Articles of Association, provisions requiring free and democratic elections and autonomous administration without government or other public-body interference. ICC. https://images.icc-cricket.com/image/upload/prd/f7vm88yw1933dc38cgtg.pdf

6. International Cricket Council. “ICC outlines proposed USACA constitution.” ICC, 2017. https://www.icc-cricket.com/news/icc-outlines-proposed-usaca-constitution

7. International Cricket Council. “Approved constitution marks historic landmark for cricket in USA.” ICC, 2017. https://www.icc-cricket.com/media-releases/approved-constitution-marks-historic-landmark-for-cricket-in-usa

8. International Cricket Council. “ICC welcomes Nepal Special General Meeting to adopt revised constitution.” ICC, 2018. https://www.icc-cricket.com/media-releases/icc-welcomes-nepal-special-general-meeting-to-adopt-revised-constitution

9. International Cricket Council. “Independent Panel meet to progress Nepal elections under revised constitution.” ICC, 2018. https://www.icc-cricket.com/media-releases/independent-panel-meet-to-progress-nepal-elections-under-revised-constitution

10. International Cricket Council. “ICC delegation visits Bangladesh to engage with stakeholders on governance and electoral matters.” ICC, 2026. https://www.icc-cricket.com/media-releases/icc-delegation-visits-bangladesh-to-engage-with-stakeholders-on-governance-and-electoral-matters

11. International Cricket Council. “ICC Board approves governance, membership and member support decisions.” ICC, 2026; see also “ICC Board Meeting,” 2026, reporting ICC representatives’ meetings with stakeholders in Sri Lanka. https://www.icc-cricket.com/media-releases/icc-board-approves-governance-membership-and-member-support-decisions

(Concluded)