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Bradman the captain

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5 years ago

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by Neville Jayaweera

(Continued from last week)

A great deal has been said about Bradman the batting genius and the records and statistics place his prowess beyond cavil and debate. However, there is Bradman the captain and Bradman the man to consider and here it is not to statistics that we turn to so much, as the opinions of men. In order to sketch out the fairest possible profile of the great man I have conflated the views of W.J. O’Reilly and Jack Fingleton, both of whom played with him, of two outstanding cricketing journalists of his time, John Arlott and Arthur Mailey and of one politician connoisseur, Sir Robert Menzies, Prime Minister of Australia .

As a captain, Bradman emerges with some very distinctive characteristics. In an age when computer statistics and video replays were not even a distant dream, Bradman’s extraordinary brain was more than a substitute. Before he took the field he had already retrieved from his prodigious memory the strengths and weaknesses of every player in the opposing side, data which he had stored away for future use. He worked to a strategy and was never ruffled even when his set plan seemed in disarray. He stayed absolutely cool under fire, and even on the rare occasions when he had to retreat, he regrouped quickly and regained the initiative. As a captain he was always taciturn on the field and rarely interfered with his bowlers preferring to let them get on with it. He was also rarely known to reprimand players for errant fielding, but his very presence on the field was such an overpowering influence that every defection soon corrected itself. On the other hand, he also rarely advised or coached his colleagues, overtly. Neil Harvey recalls that when, at the age of 19 he scored a century on debut in England and returned to the dressing room, let alone receiving a pat on the back from the great man, he did not get even a nod of the head in acknowledgement. He merely expected other members of the team to learn by watching him and there was indeed a lot to learn there.

Three driving motives provide keys to understanding the dynamics of Bradman the captain. One was the passion for excellence in every department of the game. There was nothing called second best in his vocabulary. Next, there was the desire to win. Be it a benefit match or even a festival match, he had to win. Thirdly, at least after the ill-fated Jardine tour, he seemed to be driven relentlessly by a dislike for the “Poms”. It was a dislike which developed mainly out of the bodyline series but also partly from final test at the Oval in 1938, where a mediocre Len Hutton broke his record. The bodyline series set the seal on his dislike for the English. He never fully recovered from the trauma of that series and he never forgave Jardine. Bradman post-bodyline was never the same. He no longer danced down the wicket nor improvise in mid-stroke as he used to. The total effect was to produce in him an incurable dislike for the English.

 

Bradman the man

As a man, by all accounts, Bradman emerges as unfriendly, taciturn and a recluse. He rarely fraternized even with members of his team. Upon returning to the dressing room, even on completing a big score, which was often, he would not exchange banter or hang around to receive accolades but would retire to a corner and be by himself. In the hotel where the team lodged, he would dine privately in his room and would rarely join in the fun and the banter downstairs. He hated signing autographs and often left his hotel stealthily by the back door simply to avoid being mobbed by the hundreds who were waiting outside. O’Reilly would explain Bradman’s taciturn and reclusive manner as an aspect of his desire constantly to keep his mind focused on the game. He did not want to let his concentration flag, even off the field, but kept turning over in his mind the flaws of his opponents, the lessons of the day and the plan for the morrow. Bradman neither smoked nor drank, except to propose a toast and socially, at a cocktail party or at a formal dinner. He disliked the press and rarely gave interviews but he was very sensitive to criticism and went to great lengths to clear himself, even on trivial matters, as one can gather from his autobiographical Farewell to Cricket.

 

Critics and detractors

Bradman had several critiques and detractors as well, and principal amongst them were Fingleton and O’Reilly, both of whom played with him. The former is quite adamant that at the first Test at the Gabba in 1946, Ikin caught Bradman at point and that in standing his ground without walking, Bradman cheated. However, in his Farewell to Cricket Bradman denies this vehemently and insists that the ball had bumped. O’Reilly in particular was very severe on Bradman and while conceding without reservation that he was a batting genius who would perhaps never be equaled, also thought that he was pathologically egocentric and played only for himself. On the other hand, others explain O’Reilly’s ill-concealed personal dislike for Bradman as merely a manifestation of an Irish Roman Catholic’s incurable hatred for an English Puritan!

For a more balanced view we may perhaps turn to John Arlott and Arthur Mailey. Arlott’s critique of Bradman might as well have come from the pen of a philosopher. He had this say of the great man,

“Wide-reaching as Bradman’s activities have been, they have all been on one level of consciousness. If I were faced with a task, on a materialistic plane, I would sooner have Don Bradman to work with me than any other man …. I feel he is able to achieve almost anything within his physical compass with utter competence and with an intensity rare in the human race. [However] …. upon what level of mind or soul he argues with himself about his aims I have no means of knowing. I do know however that he is capable of setting himself a semi-tangible target which is not in any record book …. how I wonder would Bradman define happiness.” – (quoted in Fingleton’s Brightly fades the Don).

What Arlott is suggesting here in a somewhat convoluted or mystical language is that Bradman was a one-dimensional man who could excel as no other man could, on a particular plane of his choosing, but that his character lacked complexity and completeness. Which I think is itself somewhat incomplete as a critique, considering that Bradman was also a model family man, a superb after dinner speaker with an ability to speak on almost any subject relevant to the occasion and a very successful administrator and financial manager as well. Admittedly he was a very private person, an introvert, even a recluse, and was clearly out of place among men who measured out their lives, when off the field, with beer mugs and shovels of wearied reminiscences. If anything, that should suggest complexity and a vertical dimension to his character, rather than a lack of it, as Arlott seems to suggest.

Arthur Mailey of the Sydney Telegraph, who had known Bradman from his days in Bowral, had this to say. ” Bradman is an enigma, a paradox; an idol of millions, yet, with a few, the most unpopular cricketer I have ever met. … There are at least two major reason why some dislike him without compromise, forgiveness or tolerance: jealousy and this great cricketer’s independence….Bradman has a very acute brain. But there are some aspects of his mental outlook which lack the benefit of finer thinking. He is dogmatic on subjects or opinions, which even an expert, or a master would treat with great care and discretion….Bradman was brought up

the hard way, the lonely way. That’s why he practised as a boy by hitting a ball up against the a brick wall, and when he felt the cold draught of antagonism within the ranks he kept counsel, remained unperturbed, and knew his greatest weapon was centuries and more centuries” (quoted in Fingleton’s Brightly fades the Don).

Finally let me quote from Robert Menzies, one time Prime Minister of Australia, an ardent admirer but an honest critic. ” Bradman is of course not without critics; he has succeeded too gigantically to escape them. He has his faults, no doubt, but they are merely the defects inherent in those positive qualities which have given him pre-eminence …. He believes in the virtue of concentrating all his mind upon the job in hand. He therefore plays to win. Once or twice I have thought that this ruthless quality might have been tempered with a little mercy; but reflection has almost always brought me back to the recognition that intense concentration IS a cardinal virtue, so rare that for its sake even much might be forgiven” (quoted in Fingleton’s Brightly fades the Don).

 

The complete Bradman

Any true assessment of Don Bradman must go beyond merely harking upon his extraordinary batting statistics and his prowess at the crease, which almost all, admirers as well as critics, consider to be unrivalled yet, and as likely to remain so forever. We may also dispose of, as wanton speculation, the question whether he was as good on wet wickets as he was on hard bouncy wickets, by pointing to his sensational feats on wet summer wickets in England. We may with equal disdain ignore suggestions that he could not cope with fast bowling, by recalling his 50 plus average against the fastest and meanest bowlers of his day. All that we can safely put away as carping, born of envy.

However, there is this other side of Bradman which cricketers, being who they are, tend to miss and which only a discerning few like John Arlott and Robert Menzies seem to have detected. I refer to Bradman the thinker, to Bradman the man with extraordinary powers of concentration, whose inerrancy of eye and co-ordination of limb were only the outworking of a particular level of consciousness. Bradman was more than just a great batsman or a successful captain of cricket. He seems to have had qualities of character, which would have won for him pre-eminence in any walk of life he chose to follow, and by any classical standards of assessing greatness Bradman was also a great man.

I haven’t read many biographies on Bradman but according to Gideon Haigh, whose excellent and well balanced article on Bradman appears in the Picador Book of Cricket, edited by Ramachandra Guha, the best Bradman biography is one written by an Englishman, Irving Rosenwater, titled, “Sir Donald Bradman”. Among other things, Haigh’s article is notable for an exceptional paragraph with which he concludes his article, (with apologies to C. L. R. James, he says) which I would like to quote here, ” What do they know of Bradman who only cricket know? Surely it is possible in writing about someone who has lived for ninety years to do something more than prattle on endlessly about the fifteen or so of them he spent in flannels- recirculating the same stories, the same banal and blinkered visions- and bring some new perspectives and insights?” Haigh goes on, ” Where are the home-grown biographies of Charlie Macartney, Warwick Armstrong, Bill Woodfull, Bill Ponsford, Lindsay Hassett, Keith Miller, Neil Harvey, Alan Davidson, Richie Benaud, Bob Simpson, even Denis Lillee, plus sundry others one could name? Such is the lava flow from the Bradman volcano, they are unlikely to see daylight.”

To wind up my own tribute to the great man, I would like to draw attention to the standards of behaviour and conduct that Bradman set for himself and his team, on and off the field. The latter day culture of sledging, which is perhaps, after Bradman, the single most noteworthy Aussie contribution to the world’s cricketing culture, would have been unthinkable under Bradman. Some of his successors, notably Ian Chappel, Mark Taylor and Steve Waugh, have sought with extraordinary disingenuousness, to justify rowdy, coarse and boorish behaviour on the field by calling it sledging and claiming it as a legitimate strategy for unsettling the opposition. By whatever name they may seek to varnish it, rowdy, coarse and boorish behaviour would never have been countenanced by Bradman, on or off the field. There was no need to have recourse to such weapons to unsettle the opposition. In Bradman’s cricket culture the only way to unsettle the opposition was through recourse to batting and bowling prowess and through intelligent field placing and skill in catching and throwing. Sledging was the invention of mediocre men. It was their way of confessing that true cricketing greatness was beyond them.


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Features

We banned phone; we kept surveillance; teenagers noticed

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14 hours ago

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2026/04/1

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THE GREAT DIGITAL RETHINK : PART III OF V

The Teenage Battleground

Secondary school has always been a battlefield of sorts, competing loyalties, volatile friendships, the daily theatre of adolescent identity. But in the past decade it acquired a new and uniquely modern dimension: the smartphone in the pocket, the social media feed refreshing every few minutes, the group chat that never sleeps.

The numbers, when they arrived, were not subtle. PISA 2022 data, drawn from students in over 80 countries, found that around 65 percent of students reported being distracted by their own digital devices in mathematics lessons, and 59 percent said a classmate’s device had pulled their attention away. Students who reported being distracted by peers’ phones scored, on average, 15 points lower in mathematics than those who said it never happened. Fifteen points is not a rounding error. It is a meaningful, measurable, recurring gap that appears consistently across countries with very different education systems.

Governments took notice of the situation. In a pattern that will be familiar to readers of this series, a number of them reached for the most visible, most politically satisfying tool available – the ban in Finland, Sweden, Australia, and France. The UK, in a characteristically chaotic way, involving years of guidance, and pilots, eventually legalised. One by one, secondary schools across the wealthy world have begun confiscating phones at the gate, storing them in pouches, locking them up in boxes, and discovering, somewhat to their own surprise, that this works.

When the Ban Actually Works

A 2025 survey of nearly a thousand principals in New South Wales found that 87 percent reported students were less distracted after the ban was introduced, and 81 percent said learning had improved. South Australia recorded a 63 percent decline in critical incidents involving social media and a 54 percent reduction in behavioural issues. These are striking figures, and they align with what common sense would predict: if you remove the distraction, concentration improves.

What is also emerging from Australian, Finnish and Swedish schools is something less expected and more interesting: the character of break times has changed. Teachers and principals report that when phones disappear from pockets, something older reappears in their place. Students talk to each other. They play. They argue, resolve disputes, make and lose friendships in the ancient, messy, face-to-face way that adolescence has always demanded but that the smartphone had been quietly crowding out. The playground, it turns out, was not broken. It was just occupied.

Sweden’s nationwide policy, coming into effect in autumn 2026, will require schools to collect phones for the full day, not just during lessons. This is the more ambitious intervention, and the one that addresses what the Australian experience has already demonstrated: that the damage done by constant connectivity is not confined to the classroom. It happens at lunch. It happens between periods. It happens in the 10 minutes before the bell when a group of 14-year-olds are supposedly in the building but are actually, in every meaningful sense, somewhere else entirely.

87% of Australian principals said students were less distracted after the ban. The other 13% presumably hadn’t tried it yet.

But Here Is What Nobody Wants to Talk About

Here is the part that the ministers’ press releases do not mention. While the smartphone, the device the student owns, controls and carries, has been banned from the secondary classroom, the institution’s own digital apparatus has been expanding at an impressive pace throughout the same period. Learning management systems now mediate most of secondary school life in high-income countries. Assignments are distributed digitally. Work is submitted digitally. Attendance is recorded digitally. Grades are published on portals that students, parents and administrators can access in real time. The school that bans your personal phone may simultaneously be recording precisely how long you spent on each page of the online reading assignment last Tuesday.

Learning analytics, the practice of harvesting data from student interactions with digital platforms to inform teaching and school management, has moved from a niche research curiosity to a mainstream tool. PISA 2022 data show that virtually all 15-year-olds in OECD countries attend schools with some form of digital infrastructure. Behind that infrastructure sits a layer of data collection that most students and many parents are only dimly aware of: log-in times, click patterns, quiz scores, time-on-task measures, platform engagement metrics. These are assembled into dashboards, fed into algorithms, and used, with genuinely good intentions, in most cases, to identify struggling students early.

The genuinely good intentions do not resolve the underlying problem. Research on learning analytics raises serious concerns about privacy, about the opacity of algorithmic decision-making, and about what happens when a teenager is quietly flagged as ‘at risk’ by a system they never knew was watching. The irony of secondary de-digitalisation is not lost on those paying attention: we have removed the device the student controls, while expanding the systems that observe and score them.

The AI Proctor in the Room

During the pandemic, when exams moved online, a number of education authorities adopted software that monitored students through their webcams, flagging unusual eye movements, background sounds, or the presence of other people in the room as potential signs of cheating. The systems were sold as efficient, scalable and objective. They were, in practice, frequently absurd.

The software flagged students who looked away from the screen to think. It penalised students whose rooms were small, shared or noisy, disproportionately those from less privileged backgrounds. It struggled with students of colour, whose features were less well-represented in the training data. It was contested, appealed, gamed, and eventually abandoned by a significant number of institutions that had initially adopted it with enthusiasm. By 2024 and 2025, the rollback was visible. Universities and some school systems were returning, with minimal fanfare, to supervised in-person examinations, handwritten, on paper, in a room with a human invigilator, partly to solve the AI cheating problem, partly to solve the AI proctoring problem. The wheel had, somewhat dizzingly, turned full circle.

We banned the student’s phone. We kept the webcam that monitors their eye movements during exams. Progress.

The Equity Problem That Bans Cannot Solve

Beneath the headline politics of phone bans lies a more uncomfortable question about who, exactly, benefits from secondary school de-digitalisation, and who pays a cost that is rarely acknowledged. The argument for phone bans on equity grounds is real: unrestricted phone use in schools amplifies social hierarchies. The student with the latest device, the most followers, the most compelling social media presence occupies a different social universe from the student without. Removing phones during the school day levels that particular playing field.

But the equity argument runs the other way, too, once you look beyond school hours. Secondary schools in high-income systems have steadily increased their dependence on digital platforms for homework, assessment preparation and communication. If a school bans phones during the day and then sends students home to complete digitally-mediated assignments, the burden of that homework falls unequally.

There is also the growing phenomenon of what researchers are beginning to call ‘shadow digital education’: the private online tutoring platforms, AI-powered study tools and exam preparation services that affluent families use to supplement and extend what school provides. While secondary schools debate whether students should be allowed to use AI for essay drafts, some of those students’ wealthier peers are already using it, skillfully, privately and with considerable academic advantage. The phone ban, whatever its merits in the classroom, does not touch this market. It may even quietly accelerate it.

Two Worlds, Still Diverging

In Finland, Sweden and Australia, the policy conversation is about how to manage the excesses of a generation that grew up digitally saturated, how to restore concentration, how to protect wellbeing, how to ensure that institutional platforms serve learning rather than merely monitor it.

Elsewhere, across much of Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and parts of the Middle East, the secondary school conversation remains anchored to a different set of concerns: how to get enough devices into enough classrooms, how to train enough teachers to use them, how to ensure that the smartboard contract does not expire before the teachers learn to turn it on. Vendors are present, helpful and commercially motivated. Development banks are funding rollouts. Government ministers are visiting showrooms. The playbook being followed is the one that Finland and Sweden wrote in 2010 and are now revising.

SERIES ROADMAP:

Part I: From Ed-Tech Enthusiasm to De-Digitalisation | Part II: Phones, Pens & Early Literacy | Part III: Attention, Algorithms & Adolescents (this article) | Part IV: Universities, AI & the Handwritten Exam | Part V: A Critical Theory of Educational De-Digitalisation

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A Buddhist perspective on ageing and decay

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14 hours ago

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2026/04/1

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Buddhism is renowned for its profound insights into ageing and decay, known as jara in Pali. Through its teachings and practices, Buddhism cultivates the wisdom and mental clarity necessary to accept and prepare for the inevitability of ageing. The formula jati paccayaā jaraāmaranaṃ translates to “dependent on birth arise ageing and death,” clearly illustrating that birth inevitably leads to ageing and death, accompanied by sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair. Without birth, there would be no ageing and death. Therefore, ageing is a fundamental aspect of suffering as outlined in the Four Noble Truths.

Buddhism encourages us to confront the realities of ageing, illness, and mortality head-on. Old age is recognised as an unavoidable aspect of dukkha (suffering). Old age is fundamentally and inextricably entwined with the concept of impermanence(annicca), serving as the most visible, undeniable evidence that all conditioned things are in a state of flux and decay. Ageing, illness and death create in us an awareness not only of dukkha but also impermanence. The Buddha taught, “I teach suffering and the way out of suffering.” Here, “suffering” encompasses not only physical pain but also the profound discomfort that arises when our attempts to escape or remedy pain stemming from old age are thwarted. Instead of fearing old age, Buddhists are encouraged to embrace it, release attachments to youth, and cultivate wisdom, gratitude, and inner peace.

Ageing is a complex process shaped by both genetic and environmental factors. From a Buddhist viewpoint, we should perceive the body realistically. Fundamentally, the human body can be seen as a vessel of impurities, subject to old age, disease, decay, and death. The natural process of ageing is gradual, irreversible, and inevitable. Every individual must ultimately come to terms with the reality of growing old, as change is an essential fact of life.

In Buddhism, impermanence (anicca) holds a central position. Everything that exists is unstable and transient; nothing endures forever—including our bodies and all conditioned phenomena. Thus, anicca, dukkha, and anattaā (non-self or selflessness) are the three characteristics common to all conditioned existence. The reality of impermanence can often evoke pain, yet a wise Buddhist fully understands and appreciates this simple yet profound truth.

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus encapsulated this notion when he stated, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river, and he is not the same man.” Old age was one of the four sights that prompted Prince Siddhartha Gautama to seek enlightenment, alongside sickness, death, and the wandering ascetic. Coming to terms with these aspects of existence was pivotal in his transformation into the Buddha.

At Sāvatthi, King Pasenadi of Kosala once asked the Buddha, “Venerable sir, is there anyone who is born who is free from old age and death?” The Buddha replied, “Great King, no one who is born is free from ageing and death. Even those affluent khattiyas—rich in wealth and property, with abundant gold and silver—are not exempt from ageing and death simply because they have been born.” This interaction underscores the universal challenge of ageing, transcending societal divisions of wealth or status.

Ageing presents one of the greatest challenges in human experience. Physically, the body begins to deteriorate; socially, we may find ourselves marginalised or discounted, sometimes subtly and sometimes explicitly. Some may encounter dismissal or condescension. Ageism remains one of the most persistent forms of discrimination. The physical and social difficulties associated with ageism can undermine our self-image and sense of self-worth. Common perceptions often portray old age as a stage where the best years are behind us, reducing the remaining years to a form of “bonus years” frequently presented in sentimental or patronising ways.

The suffering associated with ageing can serve as a powerful motivation to engage in practices that directly address this suffering, allowing us to gradually transform it or, at the very least, make it more bearable and manageable. We must recognise that this principle applies equally to our own bodies. The human body undergoes countless subtle changes every moment from the time you are born, never remaining the same even for two consecutive moments, as it is subject to the universal law of impermanence.

Whatever your age. However young-looking you try to remain through external means, the truth is that you are getting older every minute. Every minute, every second, our lives are getting shorter and closer to death. Since you were conceived in your mother’s womb, your life is getting shorter. We see external things going by rapidly, but never reflect on our own lives. No matter what we do, we cannot fully control what happens in our lives or to our bodies. With time, we all develop lines and wrinkles. We become frail, and our skin becomes thinner and drier. We lose teeth. Our physical strength and sometimes our mental faculties decline. In old age, we are subject to multiple diseases.

Many people live under the illusion that the body remains constant and is inherently attractive and desirable. Modern society, in particular, has become increasingly obsessed with the quest for eternal youth and the reversal of the ageing process. Many women feel inadequate about their physical appearance and constantly think about how to look younger and more attractive. Enormous sums of money are spent on cosmetic procedures, skincare, and grooming products to remain presentable and desirable. The global beauty and cosmetics industries thrive on this ideal, often promoting unrealistic standards of beauty and youthfulness. But no amount of products available in the world can truly restore lost youth, as time inevitably leaves its mark.

Therefore, in Buddhism, mindful reflection on ageing and the human body is considered essential for overall well-being. This contemplation provides insight into impermanence as we navigate life. Reflecting on the nature of the body—its true condition and its delicate, changing state—is a fundamental aspect of the Buddha’s teachings. By understanding the body accurately, we support both wisdom and peace of mind.

Buddhism recognises forty subjects of meditation which can differ according to the temperaments of persons. Contemplation of the human body is one of them. Of all the subjects of meditation, reflection on the human body as a subject is not popular among certain people particularly in the western world as they think such contemplation would lead to a melancholic morbid and pessimistic outlook on life. They regard it as a subject that may be somewhat unpleasant and not conducive to human wellbeing. Normally, people who are infatuated and intoxicated with sensual pleasures develop an aversion towards this subject of meditation. In Buddhism this mode of contemplation is called asuba bhavana or mindfulness of the impurities of the body. It is all about our physiology and individual body parts and organs internal as well as external. This subject of meditation is unique to the Buddhist teachings.

To appreciate the body as it truly is, we must set aside preconceived notions and engage in a calm and honest inquiry: Is this body genuinely attractive or not? What is it composed of? Is it lasting or subject to decay?

In embracing the teachings of Buddhism, we find the wisdom to navigate the journey of ageing with grace, transforming our understanding of this natural process into an opportunity for growth and acceptance.

When our fears centre on ageing, decay, and disease, we cannot overcome them by pretending they do not exist. True relief comes only from facing these realities directly.

Reflecting on the body’s unattractive and impermanent nature can help us gain a realistic perspective. In an age when the mass media constantly bombards people with sensual images, stimulating lust, greed, and attachment, contemplation of the body’s true nature can bring calm and clarity.

All beings that are born must eventually die. Every creature on earth, regardless of status, shares this common fate. After death, the body undergoes a series of biological changes and decomposes, returning to the earth as organic matter. It is part of the earth and ultimately dissolves back into it.

Understanding this, we can meet ageing, decay, and death with greater wisdom, less fear, and a deeper sense of peace.

by Dr. Justice Chandradasa Nanayakkara

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Partnering India without dependence

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2 days ago

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2026/03/31

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President Dissanayake with Indian PM Modi

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi once again signaled the priority India places on Sri Lanka by swiftly dispatching a shipload of petrol following a telephone conversation with President Anura Kumara Dissanayake. The Indian Prime Minister’s gesture came at a cost to India, where there have been periodic supply constraints and regional imbalances in fuel distribution, even if not a countrywide shortage. Under Prime Minister Modi, India has demonstrated to Sri Lanka an abundance of goodwill, whether it be the USD 4 billion it extended in assistance to Sri Lanka when it faced international bankruptcy in 2022 or its support in the aftermath of the Ditwah cyclone disaster that affected large parts of the country four months ago. India’s assistance in 2022 was widely acknowledged as critical in stabilising Sri Lanka at a moment of acute crisis.

This record of assistance suggests that India sees Sri Lanka not merely as a neighbour but as a partner whose stability is in its own interest. In contrast to Sri Lanka’s roughly USD 90 billion economy, India’s USD 4,500 billion economy, growing at over 6 percent, underlines the vast asymmetry in economic scale and the importance of Sri Lanka engaging India. A study by the Germany-based Kiel Institute for the World Economy identifies Sri Lanka as the second most vulnerable country in the world to severe food price surges due to its heavy reliance on imported energy and fertilisers. Income per capita remains around the 2018 level after the economic collapse of 2022. The poverty level has risen sharply and includes a quarter of the population. These indicators underline the urgency of sustained economic recovery and the importance of external partnerships, including with India.

It is, however, important for Sri Lanka not to abdicate its own responsibilities for improving the lives of its people or become dependent and take this Indian assistance for granted. A long unresolved issue that Sri Lanka has been content to leave the burden to India concerns the approximately 90,000 Sri Lankan refugees who continue to live in India, many of them for over three decades. Only recently has a government leader, Minister Bimal Rathnayake, publicly acknowledged their existence and called on them to return. This is a reminder that even as Sri Lanka receives support, it must also take ownership of its own unfinished responsibilities.

Missing Investment

A missing factor in Sri Lanka’s economic development has long been the paucity of foreign investment. In the past this was due to political instability caused by internal conflict, weaknesses in the rule of law, and high levels of corruption. There are now significant improvements in this regard. There is now a window to attract investment from development partners, including India. In his discussions with President Dissanayake, Prime Minister Modi is reported to have referred to the British era oil storage tanks in Trincomalee. These were originally constructed to service the British naval fleet in the Indian Ocean. In 1987, under the Indo Lanka Peace Accord, Sri Lanka agreed to develop these tanks in partnership with India. A further agreement was signed in 2022 involving the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation and the Lanka Indian Oil Corporation to jointly develop the facility.

However, progress has been slow and the project remains only partially implemented. The value of these oil storage tanks has become clearer in the context of global energy uncertainty and tensions in the Middle East. Energy analysts have pointed out that strategic storage facilities can provide countries with greater resilience in times of supply disruption. The Trincomalee tanks could become a significant strategic asset not only for Sri Lanka but also for regional energy security. However, historical baggage continues to stand in the way of Sri Lanka’s deeper economic linkage with India. Both ancient and modern history shape perceptions on both sides.

The asymmetry in size and power between the two countries is a persistent concern within Sri Lanka. India is a regional power, while Sri Lanka is a small country. This imbalance creates both opportunities for partnership and anxieties about overdependence. The present government too has entered into economic and infrastructure agreements with India, but many of these have yet to move beyond initial stages. This has caused frustration to the Indian government, which sees its efforts to support Sri Lanka’s development as not being sufficiently appreciated or effectively utilised. From India’s perspective, delays and hesitation can appear as a lack of commitment. From Sri Lanka’s perspective, caution is often driven by domestic political sensitivities and concerns about sovereignty.

Power Imbalance

At the same time, global developments offer a cautionary lesson. The behaviour of major powers in the contemporary international system shows that states often act in their own interests, sometimes at the expense of smaller partners. What is being seen in the world today is that past friendships and commitments can be abandoned if a bigger and more powerful country can see an opportunity for itself. The plight of Denmark (Greenland) and Canada (51st state) give disturbing messages. Analysts in the field of International Relations frequently point out that power asymmetries shape outcomes in bilateral relations. As one widely cited observation by Lord Parlmeston, a 19th century prime minister of Great Britain is that “nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests.” While this may be an overly stark formulation, it captures an underlying reality that small states must navigate carefully.

For Sri Lanka, this means maintaining a balance. It needs to clearly acknowledge the partnership that India is offering in the area of economic development, as well as in education, connectivity, and technological advancement. India has extended scholarships, supported digital infrastructure, and promoted cross border links that can contribute to Sri Lanka’s long term growth. These are tangible benefits that should not be undervalued. At the same time, Sri Lanka needs to ensure that it does not become overly dependent on Indian largesse or drift into a position where it functions as an appendage of its much larger neighbour. Economic dependence can translate into political vulnerability if not carefully managed. The appropriate response is not to distance itself from India, but to broaden its partnerships. Engaging with a diverse range of countries and institutions can provide Sri Lanka with greater autonomy and resilience.

A hard headed assessment would recognise that India’s support is both genuine and interest driven. India has a clear stake in ensuring that Sri Lanka remains stable, prosperous, and aligned with its broader regional outlook. Sri Lanka needs to move forward with agreed projects such as the Trincomalee oil tanks, improve implementation capacity, and demonstrate reliability as a partner. This does not preclude it from actively seeking investment and cooperation from other partners in Asia and beyond. The path ahead is therefore one of balanced engagement. Sri Lanka can and should welcome India’s partnership while strengthening its own institutions, fulfilling its domestic responsibilities, and diversifying its external relations. This approach can transform a relationship shaped by asymmetry into one defined by mutual benefit and confidence.

by Jehan Perera

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