Features

A democracy in debt: Reflections on a documentary

Published

3 weeks ago

2026/05/10

Thilina Walpola

Dutuwewa dawnn

By Uditha Devapriya

Next year, 2027, will mark the fifth anniversary of the economic and political crisis in Sri Lanka, which almost ruptured my country beyond recognition. Five years later, Sri Lanka is

still slouching towards recovery. Though it is buoyed by an optimism which has become a hallmark of its people, it remains one of the most vulnerable countries, easily flailing under global shocks such as the recent US-Iran War. Indeed, one of the catalysts for the 2022 crisis were the many price and supply shocks of the Russia-Ukraine War.

The crisis in Sri Lanka was a long time coming and has a history going back to even before independence. Under British rule, Sri Lanka transformed into a model society, a laboratory in which liberal and radical reforms of the British Empire were enacted and seen through. In 1931 it became the first European colony to receive the unconditional right to vote, for all its citizens. 17 years later, through a long process of negotiation and constitutional reform, it became an independent state, though still a British Dominion.

By 1948, the country had been ranked among the most promising in the post-colonial world. In terms of economic indicators like GDP and indebtedness and social metrics like health and education, it was far ahead of other countries – including two of its neighbors, India and Myanmar. East Asian countries like Korea had yet to industrialize into what it is today, while Europe was still transitioning from World War II to the Cold War.

Moreover, in the early 20th century, the British government, moved by a sense of pragmatic paternalism, had undertaken reforms in Ceylon which helped raise the birth rate and reduce the death rate. Making education more accessible, it laid the foundation for a welfare state. Today, with literacy and health statistics among the highest in the world, and the region, the country is lauded as a success story in social welfare.

But some economists have noted that this was where the problems began. They contend that welfare, though cushioning people against unemployment and the threat of starvation and illness, was not supplemented enough by investment and growth. While the country experienced impressive development in its first few years of independence, by 1960, that growth was stagnating. Social welfare was expanding considerably, but for some it seemed to transform the country too rapidly, putting a strain on its finances.

By 2022 this crisis had become ingrained in the system. In the late 1990s Sri Lanka lost its status as a low-income country. Earlier, it could finance its development with the help of aid from development institutions. With its graduation into middle income status, the country was compelled to resort to commercial borrowings. Between 2007 and 2022, a period of 15 years, it borrowed from various countries and capital markets.

The Easter Sunday attacks of 2019, followed by Covid-19 in 2020, complicated these issues further. In March 2022, the country ran out of foreign exchange to pay for its imports. Sri Lanka was and remains a highly consumerist society. The result was prolonged power cuts and commodity shortages, followed by protests, brutal reprisals by the government – and, eventually, the overthrow of a deeply unpopular president.

Exploring a Village Down Under

All this helps explain the broader context. But it does not unearth the human dimension, or human cost, of the crisis. In April 2022, the country announced its first sovereign debt default. Two years later, under a different president though the same political dispensation, I got the opportunity of working with a renowned filmmaker on a documentary on the aftermath of the economic crisis. Our objective was less to historicize what had happened than how the economic crisis was seen and felt by people on the ground.

The documentary, Democracy in Debt. Sri Lanka Beyond the Headlines, was sponsored in part by the Pulitzer Centre. It was directed by Boston-based, Pakistani-born journalist Beena Sarwar, who already had an impressive line of credits to her name.

From the beginning, Democracy in Debt was planned in two parts, each crisscrossing the other. The first unfolded in a village called Dutuwewa, in Anuradhapura.

Here people lived a secluded, though hardly simple, life. Every other person was a rice cultivator, and they supplemented this with an additional job, as a teacher, clerk, or some other professional. For these people, life was always cut to the bone: “We don’t feel like we are living,” they would think and very often say. “Only surviving.”

They lived in the most basic setup, and diligent researchers and writers that we were, we lived the life they led. We checked ourselves into a rundown house and made the best of what we were given. For three days, we went around interviewing villagers, observing them engaging in rice farming and other activities, and spending sunsets and dusks talking with them casually over a dinner plate and cup of tea. We talked with teachers and principals, including an economics lecturer who contended that although experts were touting that Sri Lanka had recovered, he didn’t see any reason for hope.

That, of course, was the prevailing sentiment on the ground. Some villagers articulated it more eloquently than others. One farmer, in particular, lectured us on the origins of the village – Dutuwewa is associated with Dutugemunu, one of the most revered kings of ancient Lanka – before explaining how contemporary politics had ruined the foundations on which their society had stood for centuries.

Entrance to village temple

He had particular scorn for the president who had been chased away by protesters in 2022. As with most villagers we spoke with, he rationalized what happened in 2022 by resorting to metaphors from his household: “If the parent of the family is not a responsible person, then how can the family survive? if the ruler of a country is not equipped to look after his people, how can we expect him to hold his mandate?” These were simple statements, but for him, and us, they underlay a profound truth: people like him were living on the margins, and they were incensed at the rulers’ inability to do the bare minimum for them.

A Clash of Perspectives

If its first part of the narrative delves into the voices of people on the ground, the second part of Democracy in Debt offers a counterpoint in the form of perspectives from elite policymakers and political officials in Colombo. Among those we interviewed were two economists, the director-general of the Board of Investment of Sri Lanka, and the then Prime Minister. Though we tried to reach out to other politicians, especially Opposition MPs, we were unable to do so. The few we interviewed, however, brought up an interesting contrast with the people we had talked with in Dutuwewa.

The Colombo phase of the documentary helped us gauge a rift, a gulf, between people on the ground who were feeling the effects of the crisis and the reforms that were undertaken to achieve stability, and policy elites who were prescribing these reforms for the “greater good” of the economy. I think this gulf is crucial to the narrative of Democracy in Debt. At various points in the documentary, the booming and sonorous voices of policymakers cut into the plaintive laments of villagers. The contrast could not have been more obvious, and for better or worse, it became the centerpiece of the narrative.

This had to do with a different way of looking at not just the crisis, but also the way reforms were framed: on the one hand, as necessary in the country’s interests, and on the other, as inadequate in the context of poorer communities like farmers. By this point a critique had emerged about the then government’s engagement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and its harshest prescriptions. These prescriptions included cost-reflective pricing for fuel and electricity, which sent utility bills for the most deprived skyrocketing.

Arguably the most significant part of Sri Lanka’s comprehensive social welfare system is its universal assistance program. Known as Samurdhi, the program had been a subject of much critique for decades. But the villagers of Dutuwewa whom we interviewed saw it differently to the policymakers of Colombo. The latter framed it as wasteful, in need of urgent repair, and called for a better coordinated alternative. The villagers, on the other hand, regretted that it had been removed and restructured. For them, Samurdhi was not only a welfare scheme; it was also a program which connected the most marginalized communities to the government of Sri Lanka. It made them feel as though they were a part of the system. Part of the reason for reforming Samurdhi was to depoliticize social welfare. Yet for villagers, this was the antithesis of how they saw welfare: in essence, such programs had made them feel that they were active players, not passive recipients, in the political process.

Such nuances often get lost in the world of economic policymaking. Yet part of the message in Democracy in Debt is that, in electoral democracies in Sri Lanka, the human aspect of economic crises and recovery efforts cannot be sidelined. As I noted several weeks back in this column, Sri Lanka’s ranking in the World Happiness Index underlies a contradiction between its potential and its prospects. Most Sri Lankans feel, to paraphrase what one villager said, that they are “only surviving.” Yet they also believe that there are better days ahead, although these opportunities have been squandered needlessly over the last few decades. One of the biggest electoral rallying cries of the recent past, in Sri Lanka, was the then opposition National People’s Power (NPP) alliance’s harangue about a “75-year-old curse.” The reference was to how long Sri Lanka had been independent, and how political elites of that time had gambled recklessly on Sri Lanka’s future.

Change That Never Ends

As with other countries undergoing painful austerity prescribed by institutions like the IMF, such messaging became widely popular in Sri Lanka. The villagers we talked to aligned themselves with it. They felt a change was necessary. “We can’t say we are stable now,” the economics teacher told us. “It is clear we cannot continue like this.”

It was a sign of things to come. In May we wrapped up shooting on the film. Two months later Democracy in Debt received its first international screening in Colombo. Attended by policymakers, diplomats, think-tank heads, and economists, among other groups, the documentary travelled to numerous other countries, including the US, Pakistan, the UK, and India. Two months later, presidential elections were held in the country.

The winner of the election, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, was a stalwart of the left-populist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), who contested as a member of the wider leftwing NPP alliance. Two further months later, a parliamentary election threw out most of the country’s MPs and brought to power an entirely new generation of politicians.

As I saw these developments, my mind kept going back to Beena Sarwar’s film. One of the many interviews we had in Dutuwewa was with a Buddhist monk. Young, friendly, and deeply philosophical, he spoke on different subjects.

At the time, the US government was arresting university students for protesting US support for, and involvement in, Israel’s military campaigns. The monk was genuinely puzzled. He did not know why this was happening, especially when – he said – Western governments paraded themselves as harbingers of human rights. He could only quote from the teachings of the Buddha, and urge calm, restraint, and compassion.

Our conversation then returned to the economic crisis. Yet he kept dwelling on the protests and student arrests. Though the monk was one of many, many individuals we interviewed, his reflections stood out. They spoke to a society in quiet transition, but also a point which at once distilled that society and connected it to our wider humanity. At the end of the day, Democracy in Debt was about people, how they lived under the most onerous conditions – and how they aspired to not just exist and survive, but also live and thrive.

(Uditha Devapriya is an independent researcher, author, columnist, and analyst whose work spans international relations, history, anthropology, and politics. He holds an LL.B. from the University of London and a Postgraduate Diploma in International Relations from the Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies (BCIS). In 2024 he was a participant in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) conducted by the US State Department. From 2022 to 2025 he served as Chief International Relations Analyst at Factum, an Asia-Pacific focused foreign policy think-tank. In 2025 he did two lecture stints in India, one as a Resident Fellow at the Kautilya School of Public Policy in Hyderabad and another on art and culture at the India International Centre in New Delhi. Since 2023, he has authored books on Sri Lankan institutions and public figures while pursuing research projects spanning art, culture, history, and geopolitics. He can be reached at udakdev1@gmail.com)

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Features

The Division Bell Mystery

Published

1 day ago

2026/05/29

Thilina Walpola

Tales of Mystery and Suspense 3

The murder, in a private dining room in the house, is of a financier with whom the government was negotiating a loan. When this seemed difficult the Minister of Home Affairs agreed to lead discussions, since he had known Mr Oissel the financier when they were young. Hence the private dinner, but when the Minister stepped out for a vote, Oissel was shot just as the Division Bell rang.

The Brahms and Simon detective novels, the first of which I wrote about last week, were amongst several books by the pair that Robert Scoble gave me when I was in Australia towards the end of last year. Amongst them was another thriller of a very different sort, though that too was written and set between the wars.

Called The Division Bell Mystery, it was set in the House of Commons, the first such book I believe, and was by Ellen Wilkinson, a Labour MP who became Minister of Education in Attlee’s government after the war, having served previously as Parliamentary Private Secretary to several ministers. Her hero Robert West is also a PPS, but a conservative, and his Minister, of Home Affairs, is an old style aristocrat, not much loved by the less orthodox Prime Minister, who nevertheless needs his support on many occasions.

The murder, in a private dining room in the house, is of a financier with whom the government was negotiating a loan. When this seemed difficult the Minister of Home Affairs agreed to lead discussions, since he had known Mr Oissel the financier when they were young. Hence the private dinner, but when the Minister stepped out for a vote, Oissel was shot just as the Division Bell rang.

West was just outside the door when the shot was heard, and when he opened it saw only the dead body with a revolver beside it. The assumption that this was suicide was however challenged by Oissel’s grand-daughter Annette, who was his heir, on the grounds that he would never have killed himself. But her view was given greater credence by the Inspector put in charge of the case who said there were no burn marks on the body which would have been the case had Oissel fired the pistol himself.

Matters are complicated by the fact that Oissel’s flat had been burgled while he was at dinner, and Jenks the policeman allocated to him, who had served the Home Secretary and seemed more acceptable to Oissel than someone from the Security Service, had been killed. Matters get even more complicated when Annette says her grand-father’s notebook in which he wrote his secrets in cipher was missing.

That was found in Jenks’ pocket, and then a photographer came to West to say he had been asked by Jenks to photograph this. More worryingly for West, he finds in the Home Secretary’s drawer a few pages from the notebook with what appears to be an interpretation of the cipher.

Ellen

Overwhelmed by all this he confides in a recently created peer who knows all about the business world, who insists that they leave the house party at which they had met over dinner and discuss the matter with the Prime Minister who promptly summons the Home Secretary.

But the Home Secretary had gone to Scotland to launch a ship over the weekend, so the meeting could take place only on the morning of the Monday, when difficult questions were expected on the adjournment motion. He admits at the meeting that he had got Jenks to take the notebook, and also that he knew the code since it had been created by him and Oissel when they were young.

He thought he should resign, and even contemplated suicide, but the Prime Minister told him that that would be even worse for the government, and that he should go home to bed. The Prime Minister said that he himself would handle the question, which he did with aplomb, insisting that confidentiality was needed until the inquest. What had happened would be made clear then, he declared, leaving West and Inspector Blackit and Lord Dalbeattie what seemed the impossible task of solving the murder.

Dalbeattie had suggested that West ask a female Labour MP who was very fond of him to get what information she could from the staff. That there was some involvement there had become clear when West, going back late one night to collect a briefcase he had left in a dining room, found someone lurking in the dark in the corridor outside the private rooms. Room J, where the murder had happened, was meant to be guarded throughout by a policeman, but he had left the room having felt dizzy, and it seemed that his coffee had been drugged. West’s sudden appearance however had prevented anyone else getting into the room.

Dalbeattie decides to recreate the scene of the murder and has a dinner party in Room J on the Tuesday night, inviting West and Annette and the society hostess at whose house he had met, and also Patrick Kinnaird, an MP who was engaged to Annette, as well as the Permanent Secretary to the Home Ministry.

After coffee Inspector Blackit comes in with Grace, the Labour MP who had got the confidence of the staff, and a journalist who had also been helpful, and just as they say they think they are on the track the division bell rings. Grace jumps up and tells the Inspector that that provides the solution and they get a ladder, and sure enough find the revolver in the space where the bell is. Directed at the place where Oissel had sat, it had been primed to go off with the ringing of the bell. The waiter who had helped to set things up made clear who the murderer had been.

The reason for the murder and the confused motives of all those involved made for a fascinatingly intricate mix. But also impressive in the book were the descriptions of the isolation possible in the crowded premises of the house, the forceful characterization of the members – Grace based on the writer, the society hostess based on Nancy Astor, the first female MP – and the laid back nature of senior politicians which West realized had to change in the brave new world of high finance.

Features

The challenge of keeping value-based politics alive

Published

2 days ago

2026/05/28

Sahan Weerasooriya

Anti-migrant protests in Durban, South Africa. BBC

The current outbreak of anti-immigrant protests in Durban, South Africa is bound to have taken many a subscriber to value-based politics or political idealism quite by surprise. After all, this is evidence that despite the historic accomplishments of nation-builders of the stature of the late President Nelson Mandela it cannot be taken for granted that identity politics, including racism in its worst forms, is no more in South Africa.

At the time of this writing details are scarce on the substantive root causes of the protests but it could very well be that economic grievances, particularly on the part of the majority community in South Africa, are contributing considerably to the disaffection. Shrinking employment and material prospects are likely to figure majorly among the factors igniting the unrest.

Fortunately, the local authorities in Durban are losing no time in calling for peaceful co-existence among the relevant communities and are pointing to the vital importance of stepping-up national integration processes. Apparently, immigrants in sizable numbers from neighbouring countries are present in Durban. However, international TV footage of the protests quoted some local authorities as saying that the majority of the immigrants in some centres that housed them were not illegal migrants and had the documents that entitle them to be in Durban.

In the Durban protests the world has fresh proof of the socially divisive consequences of the gathering globe-wide economic disaffection, touched off particularly by the continuing crisis in West Asia. Going ahead, the world would need to brace for increasing identity-based unrest of the kind it is just witnessing in South Africa.

Considering that the material lot of ordinary people everywhere could only aggravate progressively, with the US and Iran showing no signs of negotiating an end to their confrontation any time soon, it will be left to the more democratic and progressive sections of the world community to initiate positive measures collectively to bring a measure of relief to the discontented.

The swiftness with which such relief will be provided would depend crucially on the importance those sections taking up these undertakings attach to value-based politics as opposed to Realpolitik of power politics.

Going by these yardsticks, Italy could be considered to be moving in the right direction. Recently Italy came to the fore in initiating the collective named, ‘Rome Coalition for Food Security and Access to Fertilizer’, which has as one of its aims the swift provision of fertilizer to economically weak African countries.

In a recent statement Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Antonio Tajani, said that a principal aim of the project was to ensure that the farmers of Africa gained easy access to fertilizer, considering that food security is a growing concern among some of Africa’s economically vulnerable countries.

The statement went on to mention that some 30 countries hailing from the Mediterranean region, the Middle East, the Balkans as well as the FAO had been invited to join the coalition. The venture is far-seeing in that food security is main among the reasons for social discontent which in turn could degenerate into endemic political turmoil and bloodshed. Separatist violence and geographical fragmentation of countries wouldn’t be too far behind these developments, as Africa itself has often proved.

It is hoped that more G7 countries would take the cue from Italy and do what they could to ease the hardships of economically distressed countries, particularly of the global South. In these efforts they would need to break rank with the US, which is today brutally indifferent to the consequences of its policy of making ‘America First’, come what may.

Going by current developments, the Trump administration seems to be blithely oblivious to the wider, deleterious effects of its policy course in West Asia. Besides rendering Iran militarily and otherwise impotent nothing else seems to matter to Washington, as regards West Asia. This is policy short-sightedness of an extreme kind. After all, right now West Asia could be said to be sitting on the proverbial powder keg.

On the other hand, Iran is not giving the world the impression that it is doing anything constructive to get out of the policy straitjacket that it wove for itself decades ago. Rather than enter into a policy of ‘live and let live’ in relation to Israel in particular and initiate a process of reconciliation with the latter, it has chosen to operate within policy parameters that continue to damn Israel. This has put Israel always on the ‘defensive’ so to speak and prevented the opening up of space for meaningful dialogue.

That said, Israel is obliged to explore the possibilities of entering into a negotiatory process with the Arab-Islamic world that could lead to a de-escalation of tensions and bloodshed. It cannot continue to look at its neighbours through lenses that distort them as archetypal enemies who should be ‘wiped off completely from the face of the earth.’

In other words, the need is urgent for Realpolitik to give way to value-based politicks. Italy is beginning to prove that the latter approach could be pursued with some success. May be the EU and the UK could throw their weight behind these initiatives as well and establish that international politics could be refashioned on the basis of humane, civilized norms. The UN would need to be fully supportive of these moves and prove an organizational nucleus of the operations that follow.

In fact the time is ripe for people of conscience to collectively stand up on the side of peace and say ‘No’ to war and violence. Organizations such as the ICRC, the WHO and Medicines Sans Frontiers have already taken up this call. Referring to the widespread destruction of health facilities and their dehumanizing results these organizations have said, among other things, that ‘This is not a failure of the law. It is a failure of political will.’

True, ‘failure of political will’ among those powers that matter accounts for the runaway, uncontrollable nature of war and destruction in contemporary times, but more fundamentally it is a failure of the human conscience. It could very well be that the phenomenal levels to which violence and war have been unleashed today have had the effect of deadening consciences. This is a matter for urgent study and wide discussion.

Features

Vesak celebrations … with Cuteefly

Published

2 days ago

2026/05/28

Sahan Weerasooriya

Perfect for celebrations, gifts, and meaningful occasions // Gift pack

I would describe Indunil Kaushalya Dissanayaka as innovative and creative, and she operates under the name of Cuteefly.

Indunil always comes up with something novel to celebrate special occasions, and she does it with candles … and that’s her profession.

She was in the spotlight when she created a happening scene, with candles, for Christmas, Sinhala and Tamil New Year, and Valentine’s Day.

As lanterns light up Sri Lanka for Vesak, the Colombo-based candle maker is quietly turning wax and wick into little pieces of the festival.

Candles reflecting Vesak themes

Her candles reflect Vesak themes – light, peace, remembrance, giving, etc., to enable you to fill your Vesak celebration with devotion and beauty.

Among her Vesak creations is a lotus-shaped soy candle, scented with sandalwood, lavender, etc., meant to burn during this Vesak Poya Day.

Indunil Kaushalya Dissanayaka: Customers
praise her for her creativity

These handcrafted Vesak candles are perfect for offering at the temple, she says.

What makes her creations so novel is that they come in different shapes, scents, themes, and all are handmade.

What’s more, her customers have heaped praise on her for her creativity.

According to Indunil, her creations are perfect as a thoughtful gift … to bring beauty, unity, and light into every moment.

Says Indunil: “Our beautifully handcrafted Unity candles are designed with premium detail and love, making them perfect for celebrations, gifts, and meaningful occasions.”

Cuteefly, says Indunil, is available online.

Readers could contact Indunil on 0778506066 for more details.

He Facebook Page is: Cuteefly.