Midweek Review

An epic history of reason

Published

4 years ago

2022/09/7

Sahan Weerasooriya

Steven Skybell and F. Murray Abraham in Classic Stage’s ‘Galileo.’ Photo courtesy Joan Marcus

Brecht’s Life of Galileo:

By Laleen Jayamanne

Andrea: Unhappy the land
hat breeds no hero.
Galileo: No! Unhappy the land
that needs a hero.

Brecht in Sri Lanka

It is interesting that while three of Brecht’s plays were translated into Sinhala and successfully performed, The Life of Galileo (as far as I know), has not been translated. It was directed by Percy Colin-Thomé in English, with the Aquinas University College theatre workshop, in 1969. A Professor of Physics, Arthur Weerakoon, played Galileo with unabiding interest. The unusual back projections of text and the lively Italian Carnevale scene are still vivid in my memory. I remember revellers in masks and a figure dressed as the sun around which a child dressed as green earth, danced to the cheers of the crowd who well understood what the skit meant. The telescope, an invention Galileo modified and trained on the stars, was sold cheaply as an optical toy in the city streets. The Carnevale scene showed that the astronomer Galileo Galilei’s momentous discovery that the earth moved around the sun had reached the marketplace. Popular pamphlets about it were distributed, songs sung. A new age, they thought, had arrived.

I am now wondering why this play about the struggle between scientific reason, ethics, religious myth and superstition promoted by the all-powerful Catholic Church, failed to interest progressive Sinhala theatre folk of the 1960s. Might it interest Lankan theatre folk and students now, as they struggle to grapple with the current political, economic and ethical turmoil in the country and the role an ethnoreligious state ideology plays in it?

The Second World War – 1939

Brecht wrote his four major Epic plays in exile in Denmark and the US, after he fled Germany when Hitler came to power in 1933. The first of these was The Life of Galileo written in three weeks in late 1938 in Denmark where Niels Bohr was working on the problem of splitting the atom. Unlike his other plays, which were based on parables, Galileo was based on a famous historical figure. Bohr’s assistants advised Brecht on Ptolemaic cosmology which presented the universe as a ‘crystal sphere.’ A model of it became an important prop in the play. It is this ancient static model of the universe (accepted by the church of Rome), which Galileo challenged with his dynamic theory of a heliocentric universe. The history of writing, translating and revising the play is linked to major world historical events. In 1940 when Hitler invaded Denmark, Brecht and family escaped, via Finland, Moscow and Vladivostok to California.

Hiroshima – 6 August 1945

Later, while Brecht worked on the play with the brilliant English actor Charles Laughton in LA in 1945, the US dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In his diary Brecht writes of the horror and mourning expressed by ordinary Americans on the streets, though it meant the end of the war and return of their husbands and sons, victorious. Brecht’s play, which shows the birth of the ‘New Scientific Age’, carried a dark premonition. It also demonstrated the way Galileo betrayed his own rational discovery, by recanting his ideas so as to escape torture and death as a heretic.

Death of Stalin – 1953

After the war Brecht went to live in East Berlin under Soviet rule, where he created his famous Berliner Ensemble with his wife, the great Brechtian actress, Helena Weigel. Brecht reworked Galileo while living in East Berlin when Stalin died in 1953. He would have had a keen understanding of the Stalinist Soviet bureaucracy that ‘purged’ artistes, some of them close friends, including Tretyakov the playwright, who he considered his teacher. Born in 1898, Brecht died in 1956 relatively young, without being able to direct Galileo with his ensemble as he had planned.

The Holy Inquisition of Rome

The 17th Century papal court in Rome was a vast bureaucracy, which controlled knowledge, wealth and the people in a hierarchical pre-ordained structure, just as they imagined the universe to be. In fact Brecht referred to that Church, not entirely ironically, as a ‘secular institution’ in its comprehensive pursuit of power and policing of thought. Pope Urban VIII (who summoned Galileo to the Inquisition), was himself a mathematician. They agreed that Galileo’s math was correct but not the radical conclusions he drew from it, which contradicted church dogma of the earth’s centrality in the universe. Still, for the Church, Galileo alive (as the preeminent and famous astronomer and physicist of Europe) was more useful than burnt-alive as a heretic. This way Italian merchants could use his star charts to navigate the seas. If he was burnt as a heretic all of his knowledge would be proscribed, unable to be put to practical commercial use. The church was a political organisation that kept the peasantry in their impoverished place, as it was preordained in the Bible. Galileo, according to the play, did not join the new mercantile bourgeois class even when he had an opportunity to help form a resisting power block, but instead bowed to Church power and Princely feudal social relations through fear of physical torture.

Brecht in America

California is where a large number of German Jewish refugees went to flee Fascism, hoping to find work in the Hollywood film industry. Many of the highly trained technicians from the sophisticated German Weimar film industry did get employed, enriching Hollywood cinema, as did a few directors. But ironically, some of the Jewish actors had to play bit-roles as German Nazis in Hollywood anti-war films, because of their German accents and poor English! Charlie Chaplin befriended some of these artistes and was deeply concerned about what was happening in Europe, which is what prompted him to make The Great Dictator (1940).

In 1947 Brecht himself was called to appear at the Senate hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee held against people suspected of being Communists. He left the States soon after. Chaplin, suspected of being a communist, was also called before this committee after he made Monsieur Verdoux (1947), when American audiences turned against him for playing the role of a benevolent murderer. When he requested a visa to leave and return to the US after a promotional tour to Europe, the State Dept. refused it. Then, quite astutely had his considerable wealth transferred to a Swiss bank and left the US for good. The most popular and loved star-director had become box-office and political ‘poison’ in an America driven by the anti-Communist witch-hunt. Many Hollywood directors, script-writers and actors lost their jobs either because they were or were suspected of being communists. Many progressive American artistes had joined the Communist Party during the 1930s Depression.

An Epic History of Reason

“June twenty-second sixteen thirty-three,

A momentous days for you and me,

Of all the days that was the one

An age of reason could have begun

“

The play explores how a ‘new age of reason’ became a ‘new dark age’ when the church suppressed the truth. The creation of scientific reason and ethics, and their accessibility to ordinary people, are major themes of the play. Brecht demonstrates how and why the authoritarian institution of the church controlled both the people and new knowledge. He does so through his newly formulated idea of epic theatre. He wanted theatre not only to be a place where emotions such as empathy and catharsis are experienced (as in the Greek tragedy), but also a forum for thought. He thought that epic devices such as a narrator or interruptions with song or projection of text and images would stimulate sensory thought.

Brecht’s Galileo was first performed in a small theatre in Los Angeles in 1947 with Charles Laughton in the lead and directed by Joseph Losey who had socialist sympathies and had also visited the Soviet Union in the 1930s. There is a very intricate account of their collaboration, in Brecht’s diary, gold for those interested in Brechtian acting and staging, and his thinking on the new Epic mode.

The play is about several aspects of the life of the great scientist. He is presented as a man who has a robust enjoyment of eating, drinking, teaching, observing, thinking and writing. The play opens with him enjoying his bath and talking about astronomy with his maid’s son, Andrea, who is only nine. He is teaching him the new astronomy that ‘the earth moves’ around the sun through a playful demonstration. The play concludes with Andrea (now a physicist himself), confronting his teacher.

Reason in Buddhist Philosophy

Within the history of Indian philosophy Buddhism offered an interrogation and understanding of the human mind, its processes of thinking and of reason. The Buddha rejected traditional Hindu ideas of animal sacrifice, elaborate priestly ritual and faith in revealed sacred texts. He promoted debate and introspective, yet detached examination of mental processes. He spoke to the people in the vernacular Pali, rather than in the language of learning and power, Sanskrit. But when the Buddha’s teaching became a popular religion over many centuries and received political patronage as in Sri Lanka, it became also a source of superstition and myths, used by rulers to propagate their authoritarian power.

Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government created an ideology of the ‘war hero’ (ranawiru), in order to win the war against the LTTE. It was promoted as a war to save Lanka as an exclusive Sinhala-Buddhist nation, headed by a leader who was likened to the celebrated ancient King Dutugemunu who defeated the Tamil king Elara. Through this legend, reinforced by a genre of historical epic films, the heavy militarisation of an authoritarian ethno-religious state was normalised, consolidated and enthusiastically embraced by a large majority of Sinhala folk.

Tisaranee Gunasekara issues a timely warning in her article, Prelude to the Elections (GroundViews, 8/21/22). At first she gives a global historical perspective on religious violence.

“When Pope Francis visited Greece, a Greek Orthodox priest called him a heretic. That charge would have led to a gruesome death by fire in most of Europe just a few hundred years ago. If that past seems not just another time but another universe, it was thanks to the work of Christians who struggled for religious reforms and the secularisation of politics, often at the risk of their lives. It is the inadequacy of such struggles or their failure that creates spaces for fatwas against authors and their brutal implementation”.

Then she focuses on Sri Lanka’s recent ethno-religious politics and offers a reasonable suggestion for the next elections in the context of the ongoing Aragalaya.

“Religion and race played a decisive role in the 2019 and 2020 elections and here we are. Minimising these deadly influences is necessary to ensure that the next election produces a parliament that is more moderate and more rational […] the more moderate parties should form an understanding about not giving nominations to clergy of any religion and keeping religious symbols out of politics in general and electoral politics in particular.”

Galileo Betrays Science

Shown the instruments of torture, fearing death by fire, Galileo recants. He denies the scientific knowledge he arrived at by empirically studying the sky through a telescope for the very first time in history and through his mathematical calculations. Saved from death, he lives in relative comfort, under house arrest in Florence and writes his Discorsi in Italian rather than in Latin, the language of scholarship. While he dictated his book to his daughter, a monk would take away each page of the manuscript daily. But each night he would secretly make a copy and hide it inside a large globe!

Guru and Shishya

In the penultimate scene Galileo’s former student Andrea arrives (on route to Amsterdam to take up work as a physicist), to say farewell. The exchange between the great master and student who felt bitterly betrayed, is emotionally wrenching and crystal clear in conception. It is all of the following; a discourse, a debate, a lament, a lesson, on the betrayal of reason and of its consequences for humanity in the field of science. It is in every sense a brilliant ‘Epic Pedagogic Demonstration’ of what happens when reason is betrayed by unreason, and the irrational rules. Here, Brecht presents science (with its immense destructive modern technology and the atom bomb), as a matter of interest to all of humanity, not just to a clique of rulers and scientists. An epic articulation of this historical event is what is important here.

The full force of Galileo’s clear-eyed response to Andrea’s rebuke, ‘unhappy the land that breeds no hero,’ is felt here. When Andrea is ready to hail him as hero because Galileo has secretly completed the Discorsi, ‘the first important work of modern physics’, the master categorically refuses the exalted status even as he entrusts his manuscript to Andrea for safe delivery to an enlightened Europe. Galileo warns Andrea to be extra careful when he crosses Germany – as though it were now Europa 1940!

Then, Brecht’s Galileo delivers his infamous speech of self-disgust and trenchant critique in response to Andrea’s high praise:

Andrea: Science has only one commandment; contribution. And you have contributed more than any man for a hundred years.

Galileo: Have I? Then welcome to my gutter, dear colleague in science and brother in treason: I sold out, you are a buyer. The first sight of the book! His mouth watered and scoldings were drowned. Blessed be our bargaining, white-washing, death fearing community!”

Note the brilliant shift of pronouns, modes of address and use of idiomatic cliché as epic devices.

In recanting Galileo says he betrayed the people who believed that a new age had begun. He knew, he said, that for a short while he was as strong as the church and could have, as a single individual, challenged its immense power but didn’t. He was famous across Europe and scientists were awaiting his latest research. But he adds that no single man can do science, that it is a collective enterprise and should concern everyone. It’s this collective social mission of scientific reason and its capacity to alleviate suffering that he thought he had betrayed. The great secrecy of the process of creating the hydrogen bomb in the Manhattan Project and its links to the US military machine were events with great immediacy for Brecht when writing Galileo. Brecht’s Galileo telescopes 17th Century Enlightenment Reason and 20th Century Instrumental Reason; State Violence and Mass-Destruction.

Christian Witch Burning

The final scene focuses on Andrea who leaves an old and blind Galileo behind settling down to eat a roast goose for dinner. He has refused to give his sullied hand to Andrea who he sees as the future of science. At a border crossing while an Italian customs officer checks Andreas’ box of books for contraband, he openly and avidly reads the Discorsi when shouts from a gang of boys distracts him. They point to a little hut nearby saying there is a witch living there. Andrea lifts a boy up to the window and asks him what he sees. He replies, ‘an old girl cooking porridge at a stove’. But as Andrea clears customs and is about to leave he sees the boys pointing to a shadow cast on the house and yelling, ‘Marina’s a witch, she rides a broom at night!’ A new age indeed! Brecht ends Galileo on this disquieting irrational cry, reminding us of a time when women healers, midwives and just any old woman living alone were burnt as witches by Christian Europe, for not fitting into a patriarchal order, not that long ago.

Neither Hero nor Villain

In Brecht’s modern epic presentation of Galileo, he is neither a hero nor a villain. Heroes pitted against pitiless Destiny defined Greek Tragedy. Instead of heroes and villains or more recently goodies and baddies who we can cheer or boo, Brecht offers something quite rare and mighty strange. He offers scene after scene where the relations between the following dyadic terms are so finely calibrated that we really have to learn the irresistible joy of thinking for ourselves in the theatre.

Here are the dyadic terms:
senses and intellect,
gestures and speech,
subjects and objects,
costumes and movements
time and space,
body and mind,
feeling and thought

The terms on the left are rather more sensory and immediate, while those on the right tend to be more abstract, mediated. They are dyads not opposites, so the relays among them are intricate and complex, keeping us engaged. The mise-en-scène of the play is expansive, both terrestrial and cosmic. There is no longer an unmoving centre to the universe nor within the human brain, according to Galileo. Brecht’s Galileo presents both the cosmos and the human brain as dynamic systems. And Brecht’s modern epic theatrical idiom is the necessarily de-centred formal means adequate to demonstrating this new reality.

New Translations?

On October 31st 1992 (after 359 years) Pope John Paul II formally apologised for the ‘Galileo Case.’ It was the first of many apologies during his papacy. Is such a gesture by a ruler even thinkable in the Lankan context? I feel that Brecht’s Life of Galileo may resonate now with some Lankans engaged in the Aragalaya in the long term, as a process critically evaluating many spheres of Lankan life. I hope some folk reading this piece might think the time is ripe for a Sinhala and Tamil translation of Galileo some time soon.

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Related Topics:Brecht’s Life of Galileo:F. Murray Abraham Joan Marcus Steven Skybell

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Midweek Review

Opp. caught up in CIABOC offensive

Published

5 days ago

2026/06/24

Sahan Weerasooriya

Mahinda Rajapaksa leaving CIABOC on 12 June, 2026

The Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) on 12 June questioned former President Mahinda Rajapaksa regarding the USD 2 Mn bribe allegation directed at the late SriLankan CEO Kapila Chandrasena, whose body was found on 8 May in a close relative’s home in Kollupitiya. Chandrasena’s alleged suicide sent shock waves through political circles and interested parties questioned the circumstances leading to him being granted bail on 6 May on cash bail of Rs. 500,000 with three sureties of Rs. 10 million each. The Colombo Magistrate court also imposed a travel ban. The issue at hand is as to how Mohamed Riswan and Mohamed Irshan stood as sureties for Chandrasekera. Of all the investigations undertaken by the CIABOC, the USD 2 Mn bribe case is the most politically charged probe.

Of the Rajapaksas, former State Minister Shasheendra Rajapaksa is so far the last to be indicted. CIABOC on 19 June filed indictments before the Colombo High Court against him and two others Sepalika Saman Kumari and Keerthi Bandara Kotagama. According to the charges, the accused are alleged to have committed the offence of corruption and aided and abetted the commission of the offence by using official influence to pressure certain government officials, attached to the Office for Reparations, to obtain compensation amounting to Rs. 8.85 million for a property built on a state land by Shasheendra and destroyed by marauding Aragalaya mobs.

By Shamindra Ferdinando

The ruling National People’s Power (NPP) government last week emphasised, in no uncertain terms, that it wouldn’t tolerate the growing Opposition challenge.

Amidst the growing controversy over the continuing detention of retired Maj. Gen. Suresh Sallay. in terms of the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), under humiliating conditions, in connection with the ongoing investigations into the 2019 Easter Sunday carnage, police arrested Sugeeshwara Bandara, leader of the New People’s Front (NPF). The Central Crime Investigation Bureau (CCIB) apprehended him on 18 June and the Fort Magistrate’s Court remended him till 1 July..

The CCIB also apprehended Binoy Hettiarachchi who was accompanying Bandara. Hettiarachchi served as a media coordinator at the former President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s Flower Road Office. Police intercepted their vehicle at Kollupitiya where the arrests were made like in an action-packed movie. Hettiarachchi was freed four hours later.

But, it would be better to identify Bandara as the former private secretary to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa as well as the Director General of Special Projects at the Presidential Secretariat in the wake of Ranil Wickremesinghe taking over the presidency.

Accused of receiving two salaries simultaneously, under the President’s Expenditure Head, Bandara who managed the media for Gotabaya Rajapaksa, in the run-up to the 2019 presidential election, is under investigation for abuse of government vehicles and employing government workers for political work.

Having launched his political career as the Colombo District organiser of the alliance New People’s Front, a breakaway faction of the UPFA, in February, 2024, Bandara contested the November, 2024, parliamentary polls on the New Democratic Front (NDF) ticket. But, of late, Bandara, as the leader of NPF, became one of the most active opposition activists, aligned with the political grouping, dubbed People’s United Opposition, operating from Ranil Wickremesinghe’s Flower Road Office.

Bandara drew the wrath of the government when he launched a noisy protest outside Finance Secretary Dr. Harshana Suriyapperuma’s residence at Akuregoda, Pelawatta, on 26 April, where he and his protesting supporters were given a shower of excreta. The group, led by Bandara, demanded the Finance Secretary’s resignation over the theft of USD 2.5 mn from the Treasury. No less a person than President Anura Kumara Dissanayake reacted angrily to Bandara’s actions.

Acknowledging the right for legitimate protests, the President warned against protests directed at residences of officials. On 18 April, Bandara led a protest outside Agriculture Minister K.D. Lal Kantha’s recently built luxury residence at Weliwita, Kaduwela, where he questioned how the JVPer managed to build such a home as he was on record as having repeatedly said that he lived a difficult life.

The police apprehended Bandara as he was returning from a meeting between senior representatives of the People’s United Opposition and the IMF Colombo at the Tiki Bar, Shangri-La. In spite of negligible parliamentary presence, with those elected on the NDF ticket at the last parliamentary election not really speaking in one voice, the Flower Road project has become a headache for the government.

In fact, the Flower Road operation has been causing continuous harassment to the NPP, while the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) struggled to play its anticipated role as the main Opposition. Instead of conducting a cohesive campaign against the cocky NPP government, members of the SJB seem to be pulling in different directions at the expense of the common opposition front.

Regardless of the Wickremesinghe-led grouping vowing to press ahead with its campaign, the arrest of Bandara is obviously meant to have a detrimental impact on the activities of the Opposition.

It would be pertinent to mention that Bandara had been among those who stayed with President Gotabaya Rajapaksa at the President’s House, in Colombo, as a massive protest erupted on 9 July, 2022. Bandara was among the last to flee the President’s House as the military withdrew, amidst mounting pressure on their positions.

The police arrested Bandara as former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa moved the Court of Appeal in terms of Article 140 of the Constitution to prevent him being arrested under the PTA. The wartime Defence Secretary sought the court intervention in the wake of police probing the 2019 Easter Sunday carnage and obtaining a travel ban against him.

The court heard Romesh de Silva PC’s submissions on behalf of the ex-President on 18 June. The court deferred the hearing to 24 June. The crux of the matter is that the ex-President fears that the CID is about to arrest him on the basis of a statement made by fugitive Azad Moulana, in Paris, linking Sallay directly with the Easter Sunday carnage.

NPP intensifies pressure

The NPP seems confident of its current course of action meant to pin down the Opposition. In spite of unbridled corruption being the major issue on the post-war election platform, no political party succeeded in going flat-out against the political opposition.

However, the NPP allowed the judicial process to continue. The first major sentencing was announced on 2 April, 2025, just six months after the parliamentary polls, handsomely won by the NPP. The Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) moved the Colombo High Court successfully against the former Chief Minister of the North Central Province S.M. Ranjith Samarakoon.

Colombo High Court No. 01 Judge Adithya Patabendige sentenced him in terms of Section 70 of the Bribery Act. The HC declared the former CM perpetrated malpractices by ordering fuel to his personal secretary’s vehicle. The personal secretary happened to be Shanthi Chandrasena, wife of his brother S.M. Chandrasena, a former Cabinet Minister and one of the most powerful Ministers to represent the North Central province.

The ex- Chief Minister and the second accused, his personal secretary, were convicted guilty of two charges. Both were sentenced to 16 years rigorous imprisonment and were also ordered to pay a fine of Rs. 200,000/- with an additional two-year prison term in case of default.

Deputy Director General Asitha Anthoney appeared on behalf of the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption.

There had never been any really coordinated CIABOC campaign against corruption. No political party, or a particular family, felt threatened by CIABOC. Both those in and outside Parliament acted with impunity. They feared no one. There was no need to be because the powerful and the influential operated above the law.

Just a couple of weeks after sentencing of S.M. Ranjith Samarakoon and Shanthini Chandrasena, the CIABOC arrested the latter’s husband, one-time Deputy Economic Development Minister and Special Projects Minister, S.M. Chandrasena. The CIABOC took him into custody on 4 July, 2025.

The CIABOC accused the former Minister of causing loss to the government by distributing seed corn, imported at a cost of Rs 25 mn, in 2024, among the farmer community in the Anuradhapura district, at a subsidised price. The distribution had taken place ahead of the 2015 presidential election contested by Mahinda Rajapaksa and estranged former SLFP General Secretary Maithripala Sirisena. The CIABOC alleged that Chandrasena exerted undue influence on the Director (Planning) and other officers of the District Secretariat and distributed seeds through his political allies to gain an advantage in the 2015 presidential election and incurred a loss to the government.

Chandrasena was granted bail on 1 August, 2025. He was indicted on 12 June before the Colombo High Court.

Before further discussing the ongoing anti-corruption campaign, let me introduce the top leadership of CIABOC. The Commission consists of Justice W.M.N.P. Iddawela (Chairman), K.B. Rajapakse and Chethiya Goonesekera P.C, with High Court judge R.S.A. Dissanayake as its Director General.

The sentencing of the S. M. Ranjith Samarakoon didn’t really bother his side. The arrest of his brother S.M. Chandrasena, too, didn’t really upset those facing charges. But, sentencing of former Minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage and former Sathosa Chairman and former Trade Minister Nalin Fernando on 29 May, 2025, sent shock waves through the Opposition.

The Colombo High Court Trial-at-Bar sentenced Aluthgamage and Fernando for committing the offence of corruption by purchasing 14,000 carrom boards and 11,000 checkers boards through Sathosa, allegedly to distribute to schools and sports clubs selected by the Sports Ministry, and distributing them to party offices of the government, during the 2015 presidential election campaign thereby, causing a loss of over 53 million rupees to the government, stunned the Opposition.

Aluthgamage was sentenced to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment, Fernando received a sentence of 25 years of rigorous imprisonment. Additionally, a fine of Rs. 100,000 (hundred thousand) was imposed for each count.

The CIABOC’s Assistant Director General Mrs. Anuththara Jayasinghe and Assistant Director General Mrs. Thushari Dayaratne conducted the prosecution.

During the Yahapalana government Aluthgamage spearheaded a high profile anti-corruption campaign, dubbed ‘Yahapalana Top 10 kamba horu’. The then Joint Opposition (JO) group, led in Parliament by Dinesh Gunawardena, published a 750-page book, targeting the Yahapalana ministers. Mahindananda, who spearheaded that campaign, is now serving a long sentence.

The JO group consists of UPFA lawmakers who declined to throw their weight behind the then President Sirisena aligned with the UNP.

Let me mention the names of those against whom the accusations were made by the JO.

Yahapalana corruption

The JO dealt with 10 major cases. (1) The Treasury bond scams perpetrated in 2015 and 2016. Accusations were directed at Ranil Wickremesinghe, Ravi Karunanayake and Governor Central Bank Arjuna Mahendran. The losses were estimated at Rs 26 bn. (2) causing losses amounting to Rs 10 bn through the fraudulent import of vehicles. Ravi Karunanayake was named the chief culprit (3) Misappropriation of Mahapola funds to the tune of Rs. 1 bn. Allegations were directed at Malik Samarawickrema (4) Stealing from an insurance scheme implemented for the benefit of those going for employment in West Asia. The JO accused Thalatha Atukarale of misappropriating funds amounting Rs 1.5 bn (5) Receiving Rs 1.5 bn through the leasing of Hambantota port to China on a 99-year lease. Ranil Wickremesinghe, Malik Samarawickrema and R. Paskaralingam were named the offenders (6) Kabir Hashim was accused of causing a loss of Rs 54 bn by cancelling aircraft ordered from Airbus Industries for the national carrier (7) fraudulent activities pertaining to the release of paddy stocks held by the government. The JO estimated the losses caused to the government at Rs 10 bn. (8) Scam in vehicle parts. Ravil Karunanayake was accused of causing losses amounting to Rs. 6.5 bn, (9 A) Dr. Rajitha Senaratne was accused of leasing of the Modera fisheries harbor and procurement of eight vessels to catch fish, fraudulently, and thereby causing losses up to Rs 1 bn, (9B) The JO also found fault with Dr. Senaratne for perpetrating Rs 1.5 bn fraud in the procurement of medicine and lastly (10) Ranil Wickremesinghe, Malik Samarawickrema, R. Paskaralingam and Charitha Ratwatte were blamed for a massive fraud in the procurement of coal for the Norochcholai coal-fired power plant. That particular fraud was estimated at Rs 5 bn.

Although the JO transformed itself to Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) later, to successfully contested the 2019 presidential election, none of the above-mentioned cases were investigated. As far as we know, none of those cases had been dealt with during the SLPP rule, from November, 2019, to July, 2022. Faced with an externally backed regime change operation, the SLPP invited Wickremesinghe, who had been named by them in three major corruption cases, to accept the premiership in May, 2022, and presidency in July same year.

So far, there is no indication whether the mentioned JO allegations had received the attention of the CIABOC or the Attorney General of the government. As far as we know of all the politicians and officials, Wickremesinghe is the only one facing imminent threat due to the ongoing case pertaining to him visiting the UK in September, 2023, to join his wife Prof. Maithree at the University of Wolverhampton at her graduation ceremony.

Wickremesinghe has been accused of squandering nearly 17 mn rupees at a time the country was in deep economic turmoil. The Fort Magistrate’s court is scheduled to take up the case on 8 July.

SLPP parliamentary group leader Namal Rajapaksa is also facing a major legal challenge. The former Minister has been indicted on charges of criminal misappropriation of Rs. 70 mn in connection with the controversial Krrish project. The indictments have been forwarded to the Colombo High Court by the Attorney General, alleging that Namal Rajapaksa misappropriated funds by receiving Rs. 70 million from the Indian real estate company for the development of rugby in Sri Lanka.

Yoshitha Rajapaksa, too, has been dealt with by the CIABOC. The Rajapaksas have been accused of lowering qualifications required to join the executive branch of the Navy and then sending him to the Royal Naval Academy in the United Kingdom at taxpayers’ expense. Produced before the Colombo Additional Magistrate, Yoshitha was released on three personal bail bonds of Rs. 5 million each.

Producing Yoshitha before court on 17 June, Deputy Director General of the Bribery Commission, Ruvini Wickramasinghe declared: “”Your Honour, the complaint regarding this incident was received on June 25, 2016. Accordingly, the Commission initiated investigations. The complaint states that the suspect had participated in naval training programmes held in England and Ukraine by misusing government funds, while depriving qualified applicants of such opportunities. At that time, this individual, who is a civilian in the dock today, was also a civilian in 2006 when he was deemed eligible for the Royal Navy Young Officer training at the Royal Naval Academy in the United Kingdom. The opportunities to receive this training are extremely limited. Your Honour, selection to this prestigious course is usually based on being the most outstanding cadet officer during a two-year training period or based on performance during training. However, this suspect, although a civilian in 2006, was proposed and included in the list and was sent for the course in haste.”

The Deputy Director General also stated that Yoshitha Rajapaksa had undergone medical examinations required for overseas training even before being officially recruited into the Navy.

The court was also told that though Sri Lanka previously received scholarships from the UK the Rajapaksa government funded Yoshitha to the tune of Rs 6.2 mn.

Opp. attacks CIABOC

The Opposition has repeatedly attacked the CIABOC with its Director General Ranga Dissanayake being the primary target. Accusing Dissanayake of being a JVPer, the Opposition has repeatedly questioned the conduct of the High Court judge demanding that the CIABOC inquired into the top official’s conduct, especially with regard to the alleged suicide of former Sri Lankan CEO Kapila Chandrasena who had been under investigation pertaining to the receiving of USD 2 mn bribe to facilitate procurement aircraft from Airbus Industrie during Mahinda Rajapaksa’s second term.

Former Foreign Minister Prof. G. L. Peiris, a regular speaker at Flower Road media briefings, alleged that the CIABOC was a political tool in the NPP’s hands.

A section of the Opposition to question the circumstances one-time JVP heavyweight Nandana Gunatilleke died in January this year at the Ragama Teaching Hospital after accusing Dissanayake of pursuing an agenda beneficial to the JVP, a charge denied by the High Court judge. When the writer raised the allegations with Dissanayake, he emphatically denied any wrongdoing on his part https://island.lk/ciaboc-dg-denies-jvp-link/.

The CIABOC has simply ignored accusations directed at its DG who proved through his actions that he really meant high profile public pronouncements against corruption.

Former Deputy Minister and ex-MP Sarana Gunawardena was sentenced to a total of 16 years rigorous imprisonment by the Colombo High Court on June 8, 2026.

During the Yahapalana administration many cases, filed by the CIABOC as well as the Attorney General, were either dismissed or dropped due to lapses on their part. The accused in such cases were ex-MP Sajin Vass Gunawardena, ex-EP Chief Minister Sivanesathurei Chandrakanthan alias Pilleyan, ex-Ministers Johnston Fernando, Rohitha Abeygunawardena, Basil Rajapaksha, Mahindananda Aluthgamage and Janaka Bandara Tennakoon and former AG and CJ Mohan Peiris.

Regardless of Opposition protests, the public appreciate tangible action against corruption. However, the NPP has not been free from serious allegations against it since the last general elections. The release of suspicious 323 containers, plus two containers filled with ice, in January, 2025, followed by the massive coal scam perpetrated in September 2025, loss of over USD 2.5 mn from the Treasury and controversial Aswesuma payments, as well as wealth, accumulated by NPP Ministers as revealed by declarations made to CIABOC, shocked the electorate.

The NPP has failed to counter allegations. The circumstances under which Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody resigned, along with Energy Secretary Udayanga Hemapala, on 17 April, just a week after the NPP defeated the no-confidence motion moved by the Opposition against the Energy Minister. dealt a devastating blow to the NPP’s much touted integrity. The NPP couldn’t explain as to why a person under investigation by the CIABOC for an alleged fraud perpetrated during the Yahapalana government was accommodated in President Dissanayake’s first Cabinet. Indicted before the Colombo High Court, Jayakody’s case commenced last week.

Asset declarations of some NPP Ministers have shocked the country. The SJB has called for CIABOC to investigate them without delay and prove that CIABOC was not only going after the Opposition. Ministers Lal Kantha and Wasantha Samarasinghe are two of the top JVPers who have attracted attention as the Opposition hits back at the government.

SJB MP Mujibur Rahuman said that the JVP/NPP owed an explanation as to how their members amassed so much wealth since 2024 as they repeatedly claimed their inability to meet even their basic needs. But, their asset declarations exposed their blatant lies.

Midweek Review

Geopolitics of the Indian Ocean

Published

5 days ago

2026/06/24

Sahan Weerasooriya

Listening to the Winds, Reading the Waves:

Prof. Gamini Keerawella’s latest publication, Winds and Waves: Geopolitical Currents in the Indian Ocean since 1945 will be launched on 5 August at the Auditorium of the Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies (BCIS). The keynote address will be delivered by Prof. T. V. Paul, James, McGill Professor of Political Science at McGill University, Canada and the former President of the International Studies Association (ISA).

Prof. Keerawella, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Peradeniya, has dedicated hisbook to the memory of Dr. Newton Gunasinghe, the eminent sociologist and Marxist theoretician who encouraged him to venture beyond disciplinary frontiers. In many respects, this work represents a successful realization of that intellectual endeavour. In her testimonial to back cover of the book, Dr. Radhika Coomaraswamy observes that “Gamini Keerawella offers a nuanced and layered account of the Indian Ocean region’s strategic evolution from the era of decolonization to the contemporary phase of intensifying great-power rivalry. Its distinctive analytical perspective makes it an important contribution to the study of international relations, maritime geopolitics, and regional strategic dynamics.” This assessment accurately captures the significance of the work, and I fully endorse her judgement.

This volume constitutes the final publication of a trilogy that explores the evolving dynamics of international relations from a distinctly Sri Lankan perspective. The first study examined the trajectory of Sri Lanka’s defence and foreign policy, while the second revisited the origins, evolution, and principal constituent elements of international relations as an academic discipline from a Global South perspective. The present work broadens the analytical canvas by tracing the shifting geopolitical contours of the Indian Ocean since 1945 and examining the evolving interplay between great-power competition and regional agency.

Indian Ocean not merely maritime transit space

At the heart of Prof. Keerawella’s analysis is the argument that the Indian Ocean is not merely a maritime space of transit but a living archive whose language is inscribed in tides, trade, and collective memory. To uncover the deeper structures that have shaped the region, he draws on Michel Foucault’s concept of the archaeology of knowledge, probing beneath the visible layers of historical experience to reveal successive strata of thought, exchange, and power. This approach enables him to trace the multiple origins of the Indian Ocean’s geopolitical significance through the sedimented traces of how the ocean has been known, governed, and imagined across time. Complementing this perspective is Fernand Braudel’s concept of the longue durée, which provides the framework for understanding the long-term evolution of Indian Ocean geopolitics. As Keerawella notes, for Braudel, history unfolds not as a single linear sequence but as a layered field of continuity and change, revealing the deeper architecture of the past—the slow yet powerful currents that shape political and economic developments beneath the surface of events (Keerawella 2026: xxiii).Prof. Keerawella further notes that later historians such as K. N. Chaudhuri and M. N. Pearson drew on Braudel’s insights and adapted them to understand the Indian Ocean as a polycentric world.

Prof. Keerawella argues that the terms employed in the title of this work—Winds, Waves, and Currents—evoke the ocean’s dual language of surface movement and underlying structure. In his reading, winds and waves signify motion: the visible and often turbulent forces that carry ships, peoples, commodities, and ideas across shifting maritime frontiers. Currents, by contrast, refer to the deeper and less visible forces that shape historical trajectories and connect coasts and continents through enduring patterns of interaction. As he observes, while winds and waves represent the restless dynamics of the ocean’s surface, currents embody the slower yet more consequential energies that operate beneath it, binding disparate regions into a larger maritime system (2026: xx).

Metaphors and Conceptual Foundation

Building on this conceptual foundation, the author employs winds, waves, and currents not merely as metaphors but also as analytical categories. Winds represent changing strategic directions and geopolitical realignments; waves denote recurring cycles of commerce, conflict, and interaction; and currents symbolize the deep structural forces that connect societies across space and time. Viewed from a distinctly Sri Lankan perspective, the volume demonstrates how a strategically located small state at the centre of the Indian Ocean perceives and navigates this maritime space through its own strategic lens. The book opens by situating Sri Lanka within the intersecting forces of history, geography, and power that have shaped the Indian Ocean world. It advances the notion of a dual strategic consciousness that has informed Sri Lanka’s external engagements: a persistent sense of vulnerability, rooted in colonial experience and geographical exposure, coexisting with a cosmopolitan outlook forged through centuries of maritime exchange. Prof. Keerawella contends that this dual consciousness constitutes the underlying framework through which Sri Lanka has historically interpreted and responded to developments in its external environment.

Winds and Waves is a comprehensive study comprising eleven chapters and an extensive introduction that establishes the analytical foundations of the work by treating the ocean simultaneously as text and method. The opening chapter situates Sri Lanka within the wider Indian Ocean system, tracing the island’s navigation through shifting configurations of power while emphasising the agency of small states. The Indian Ocean is presented not merely as a strategic arena but also as a moral and political space, linking Sri Lanka’s historical experience to the broader aspirations and consciousness of the Global South.

Revisiting British withdrawal

The book revisits Britain’s withdrawal from the Indian Ocean, arguing that it was not simply a consequence of post-war decline but the culmination of deeper structural transformations in the international system. Decolonisation, Afro-Asian nationalism, and the emergence of bipolarity fundamentally altered the regional order and created the conditions for Britain’s retreat. In turn, this withdrawal opened the way for superpower competition, particularly between the United States and the Soviet Union, transforming the Indian Ocean into major theatre of Cold War geopolitics.

A substantial portion of the volume is devoted to examining the policies and strategic trajectories of the major powers. The author traces American engagement from Cold War containment through post-Cold War maritime predominance to contemporary Indo-Pacific formulations, demonstrating that U.S. strategy has evolved through the interaction of structural imperatives and changing strategic discourses. Particular attention is paid to the 2026 U.S.–Iran War, which is interpreted as a transformative event that exposed the limits of military hegemony and accelerated patterns of strategic hedging and multi-alignment among regional actors. The book also explores the Soviet Union’s entry into the Indian Ocean in 1968 and the subsequent re-emergence of Russia under Vladimir Putin through selective naval deployments, arms transfers, and strategic partnerships, illustrating what the author characterises as the recurrent rhythms of great-power engagement in the region.

The rise of China receives extensive treatment as one of the most significant structural developments of the twenty-first century. Through the Belt and Road Initiative, port development projects, and naval modernisation, China has translated growing economic power into expanding strategic influence. The author contrasts Beijing’s assertive posture in the South China Sea with its relatively restrained approach in the Indian Ocean, where economic diplomacy and cooperative security initiatives have assumed greater prominence. Equally significant is the discussion of India’s transformation from a regional power into an emerging global strategic actor. The evolution of Indian maritime strategy—from Nehruvian custodianship to contemporary blue-water ambitions—demonstrates how a rising power navigates structural constraints while expanding its strategic reach. Initiatives such as SAGAR, naval modernization, and deepening partnerships with the United States, Japan, and Australia have positioned India as a central actor in the evolving Indo-Pacific order.

Roles of Japan and EU examined

The volume also examines the roles of Japan and the European Union in shaping the contemporary maritime order. Japan’s transition from post-war restraint to proactive strategic engagement, embodied in the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) vision, illustrates how middle powers adapt to changing geopolitical realities through coalition-building and maritime capacity enhancement. The European Union’s engagement is portrayed through less visible but nevertheless significant mechanisms, including trade, development cooperation, maritime governance, and norm diffusion, contributing to what the author terms a form of “quiet-making multipolarity” that encourages restraint, stability, and pragmatic cooperation.

Moving beyond conventional geopolitics, the book broadens the analytical framework to address a range of non-traditional security challenges confronting South Asia in general and Sri Lanka in particular. Climate change, piracy, illegal fishing, maritime terrorism, public health vulnerabilities, and digital insecurity are examined as transnational challenges that transcend the capabilities of individual states. The author argues that these issues reveal the limits of unilateral action and underscore the growing importance of cooperation, collective action, institutional innovation, and middle-power leadership in maritime governance.

Prof. Keerawella further situates the Indian Ocean within the wider context of the emerging Asian Century. Asia’s resurgence—driven principally by China and India and reinforced by the dynamism of Southeast Asia—is presented as a major reconfiguration of global power. In this transformation, the Indian Ocean functions as a vital maritime artery connecting energy resources, manufacturing centres, and consumer markets. At the same time, the author cautions against deterministic interpretations, emphasising that the realisation of the Asian Century remains contingent upon how the region responds to persistent inequalities, environmental challenges, governance deficits, and intensifying strategic competition.

Assessing how SL has navigated shifts

The book concludes by returning to Sri Lanka and assessing how the country has navigated contemporary shifts in the regional and global balance of power under the National People’s Power (NPP) government that emerged in the aftermath of the Aragalaya of 2022. The author demonstrates how economic crisis, demands for accountability, and aspirations for a new political culture have reshaped the domestic context within which foreign policy is conducted. Under President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, Sri Lanka is portrayed as pursuing a carefully calibrated strategy that combines engagement with international financial institutions, enhanced cooperation with India in defence and energy sectors, continued economic engagement with China, and functional security relations with the United States. The government’s response to the 2026 U.S.–Iran War—rejecting military access requests from all parties while extending humanitarian assistance—serves as an illustration of the author’s broader argument that strategic flexibility, principled neutrality, and diplomatic agility remain essential for small states navigating an increasingly complex Indian Ocean order.

Taken together, the book advances several interconnected propositions. First, the Indian Ocean is entering an increasingly multipolar era in which power is exercised through complex networks of cooperation, competition, and interdependence rather than rigid alliance structures. Second, small states are neither passive spectators nor mere proxies of great powers; they possess strategic agency and navigate competing pressures through hedging, diversification, and calibrated diplomacy. Third, Sri Lanka’s strategic behaviour—characterised by navigating asymmetry through flexibility and ambiguity—reflects a historically rooted dual consciousness that combines vulnerability with cosmopolitan engagement. Fourth, non-traditional security challenges and environmental governance are no longer peripheral concerns but central components of the evolving regional order.

Need for adaptive navigation

Prof. Keerawella argues that contemporary statecraft in the Indian Ocean requires adaptive navigation rather than rigid alignment. In a fluid and contested maritime environment, survival and influence depend less on resisting structural change than on understanding and responding to it with prudence, flexibility, and strategic clarity. The book therefore offers important insights into how small states can transform structural vulnerability into strategic agency and convert exposure into opportunities for engagement within a changing regional order.

Combining historical depth with contemporary analysis, it provides a nuanced understanding of the interaction between great-power competition, regional transformation, and the strategic choices of smaller states. The book will be of considerable value to students and scholars of international relations, political science, strategic studies, and maritime affairs, while also offering useful perspectives to policymakers, diplomats, and practitioners. Equally important, it opens several promising avenues for future research on the Indian Ocean and the emerging Indo-Pacific order.

Hermeneutic approachs

Methodologically, the study draws upon hermeneutic approaches to examine the geopolitical and maritime environments that shape relationships among states, societies, and historical processes. The result is a work that is both analytically rigorous and intellectually engaging. This review has sought less to evaluate the book in a conventional sense than to introduce its central themes and encourage a wider readership to engage with its arguments. Having highlighted the many merits of the volume, it is worth noting one technical shortcoming: the absence of an index. Given the book’s wide thematic scope and rich empirical content, the inclusion of an index would have significantly enhanced its value as a reference tool for researchers and students alike.

In sum, Prof. Keerawella listens attentively to the winds, reads the waves with analytical precision, and traces the deeper currents that shape the Indian Ocean world. The outcome is Winds and Waves: Geopolitical Currents in the Indian Ocean since 1945, a timely and thought-provoking contribution published by the Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies.

Reviewed by
Dr. Ramesh Ramasamy
Department of Political Science, University
of Peradeniya