Midweek Review

Brecht’s Chalk Circle Again and Again

Published

4 years ago

2022/08/17

Sahan Weerasooriya

Azdak’s Judgments:

by Laleen Jayamanne

Soldier: Your Honour, we meant no harm. Your Honour, what do you wish?

Azdak: Nothing, fellow dogs. Or just an occasional boot to lick!

[…]

Fetch me wine, red wine, sweet red wine.

‘In a faraway and long-ago, dark and bloody epoch, in a sunburnt and cursed city, there lived a Duke…’ sang the storyteller. In the mid-’60s when Brecht’s Caucasian Chalk Circle was first performed there, Colombo had ceased being dark and bloody. April ‘71 was yet a few years away. But the effects of the Sinhala Only Act of ‘56 were taking root in educational institutions, like the National School of Art and Crafts, creating a myopic, monolingual culture. In this context, Henry Jayasena and others in the Sinhala theatre who were interested in developing contemporary drama, began to translate modern European plays, originally written in German, Russian and Italian. Crucially, these Sinhala versions were drawn from English translations of the original languages of the plays. So English worked as the essential ‘link’ language without which we would not have had any access to world theatre and much else. Henry had a good command of English, learnt in high school and at Teachers’ College. Like his similarly brilliant contemporary Sugathapala de Silva, he was not a University educated artist. But Jayasena’s superb theatrical imagination allowed him to translate from English the Chalk Circle into a most wonderful colloquial poetic Sinhala idiom. So much so that it feels like the play was written originally in Sinhala! Reading the Sinhala script was a pleasure in itself and sections have remained in my old brain, as good poetry does. The epic techniques of supple shifts from the songs of the narrator, to the every-day racy, bawdy dialogue of the soldiers, to the lyrical love passages between Grusha and Simon Shashava, to the absurdist folk utterances of Azdak, are all memorably crafted and differentiated.

Bertolt Brecht’s Epic play written in 1944 while he was in exile in the US, fleeing Hitler’s fascist Germany, continues to be a vibrant part of Lanka’s living ‘theatrical epic-memory’. Also, as a text for the O’Level, a large number of Lankans must have become familiar with it. The play has a ‘play-within-a-play’ double structure but in scene 4, Azdak’s story, there is a further third level. That is, a ‘play-within-a play-within-a play’. The first play is set in the present postwar Soviet Republic of Georgia in 1945, where workers of two Collective Farms meet with a State official to decide, through discussion, as to who should have the stewardship of a particular valley. The Farmers who have been in the valley since birth claim it as their own for their goats to graze in, while the other group say that through irrigation they can make the valley more productive of fruit and wine. Its key question is, ‘who is good for the land?’

The play-within the play, set in the Imperial past of a fictional Georgia or Grusinia, at war with Persia. The folk parable of the Chalk Circle is performed as entertainment after the debate about the valley has been reasonably decided. The key question there becomes, ‘who is the good mother for the child?’ – (hadu mavada, vadu mavada? The third level of a play-within a play-within a play is a mock trial between a prince who wants to be the Judge and Azdak pretending to be the deposed Grand Duke, as the defendant. In all there are six or seven judgments that involve Azdak in one way or another. The intricacies of each of these legal cases and their differences from each other, make scene 4 a most fascinating aspect of the episodic structure of the play itself. In contrast, scenes 1-3 involving Grusha the kitchen-hand and her dilemma are expressed memorably and clearly by the narrator: “Terrible is the temptation to be good.” This is Grusha’s decision to save and nurture the Governor’s abandoned infant, without counting the terrible cost to herself. Her scenes, engaging as they are, do not have the kind of intricacy and complexity of the six or so episodes where Azdak plays with several ideas of Law and of Justice.

Animals’ Rights and the Folk Imagination

An Epic Contest is staged in the play, between the idea of The Law as a written code by absolutist rulers, and ideas of Social Justice, which include a sense of fairness towards the poor and powerless. This ample human feeling of fairness is encoded in folk tales of peoples across Eurasia where animals also have a claim on Justice from humans. For example, the Mahavamsa tells us of the remarkable sense of justice embodied by the Tamil King Elara when he ruled Anuradhapura. He had a bell hung at his palace gate, which anyone could ring to make a claim when an injustice had been committed. So, when a cow complained to Elara that his son in his chariot had run over and killed her calf, he did not hesitate to put his son to death. We are told that taking pity on them, both lives were restored by a god. According to my friend Amrit MacIntyre who is a lawyer and legal scholar that story is found in various forms in the Middle East to Europe. Each version of the story is about a king from the distant past who is known for his justice. Critically, in each version the person seeking justice was an animal, a serpent in Italy seeking justice from Charlemagne, and an ass in the Middle East seeking justice from an Iranian Emperor (Khusro I). What is intriguing in all of this is a common conception of justice equally applying to all, including animals, that forms part of the mental landscape across Eurasia from very early on. Interestingly, a 2017 decision of the Supreme Court of India referred to the story of Elara as part of its reasoning! The folk tale of the Chalk Circle is found in an ancient Chinese play, as well as in the Judgment of Solomon in the Old Testament, and both were points of reference for Brecht in radically rewriting the tale as a modern epic parable influenced by Marxist ideas.

Azdak, the town scribe and rogue judge, was played memorably by Winston Serasinghe in Ernest MacIntyre’s English production. Henry Jayasena played the same in his own production, also in the mid-60s. And MacIntyre also acted as the priest in Henry’s production – one of the earliest exchanges between English and Sinhala Theatre in the ‘60s. That is to say, between the Lionel Wendt and Lumbini theatres, respectively. Azdak was the village scribe who, when the State collapsed and the official judge hanged by the rebellious carpet weavers, was forcibly roped in to act as a judge by the illiterate soldiers. But it turned out that he had his own eccentric ideas of Justice and fair play and was a bit drunk, sexist and openly took money from plaintiffs. Though Azdak appears only in the last 2 scenes, he leaves a powerful impression in one’s memory as a character like Shakespeare’s Falstaff. But he is unlike Falstaff whose fall from grace, after rejection by his former buddy Prince Hal, is full of tragic pathos. Azdak is a creature of the folk imagination.

Epic-Character Azdak

Sumathy Sivamohan concludes her recent article on the links between the two Republican Constitutions of Sri Lanka (‘72 & ‘78), by invoking Azdak as a figure relevant to this moment of the People’s Aragalaya, (The Island 8/8). Azdak is a Brechtian Epic-Character through whom the very ideas of Law and Justice are examined, played with, debated and put into crisis, theatrically. He is also a great comic figure introducing laughter into the court where it is thought to be unseemly. In this way Brecht’s Epic Theatrical practice offers us several unusual angles on the process of making Judgements, the reasoning behind them. Through these scenes, the idea of Justice appears paradoxical, not altogether just in one case, but also both reasonable and yet ‘unlawful’, if judged according to the letter of the Law, in another. And some downright absurd. This complexity, of plot lines and intricacy of comic procedural ‘legal’ detail, is significant in demonstrating the class basis of judgements and how they are reached. The hilarious comic absurdity of some of Azdak’s arguments and rulings parody seemingly rational, legalistic linguistic power-play in regular courts. ‘Demonstrability’ is a strong concept in Brechtian theatrical theory and is linked to the idea of the pedagogical function of Epic Theatre.

A Brechtian Parable for the Aragalaya?

The comedic demonstration of the interplay between the Law and Justice, appears to be relevant to Lankans now, poised in their struggle to make politicians accountable for their actions which have plunged the country into economic, political and existential chaos. Azdak is an epic construct and as such we don’t quite empathise with him or like or dislike him. Rather, we observe this comic figure with enjoyment, as he plays with a variety of judgments, with no rule book as guide. He excites our curiosity about the mechanics of the Law, its different avatars, (Totalitarian Law, People’s Law, a judgment without a precedent), which, in an Imperial regime, as in the world of the play within the play, seems invincible and arbitrary. The two lawyers of the Governor’s wife Natella Abashvili are, however, immediately recognisable social types aligned with social power, contrasting with Azdak’s Epic singularity. They argue for the right of the blood-line to obtain the child from Grusha, to return to his biological but callous and predatory mother, only so that she can claim the property bequeathed to the child.

A Palace Revolution

The Chalk Circle opens on a seemingly normal Easter Sunday, with the wealthy Governor and family attending church to great fanfare that soon turns violent – palace revolution creates chaos and soldiers go to war against distant Persia. The Governor is beheaded, his head impaled on a lance and displayed, nailed to a wall, while his wife flees forgetting to take their baby. The Grand Duke has also gone into hiding. The Carpet Weavers, taking advantage of the revolt, hang the Judge. So it comes to pass that the village scribe Azdak becomes the accidental Judge, under a state of emergency. Not knowing the Law is no impediment to Azdak. Some of these events and scenes of the play have an uncanny resemblance to the farcical misrule seen in the Lankan Parliament not too long ago. Before we look at Azdak’s celebrated Judgments it’s worth looking at Brecht’s original theatrical structure, which is Epic rather than Dramatic.

Epic Theatre vs Tragic Drama

Brecht’s play is not a tragedy, a genre he rejected as an Aristotelian Greek notion driven by an idea of Destiny and causality and heroic action. The presence of a singer-narrator who introduces us to the play is an epic device in that, as the story-teller, he conducts the action. He stops characters in their tracks and sings of what they feel, but cannot say. He explains the action when necessary and advances the story. The famous singer who knows twenty-one thousand lines of verse becomes the story-teller. He announces that the play consists of ‘two stories and will take two hours to perform’. The Soviet expert from the city is impatient and asks him, (after the disagreement between the two collective farmers is resolved), “can’t you make it shorter?” The singer responds with a firm ‘No’. Brecht offers a play, which is profoundly episodic in its construction. Each episode is autonomous, has a relative freedom from a tight causally driven dramatic structure. What Brecht wanted was a theatrical structure which didn’t have any inevitable causal links propelling events as in the case of, say, Oedipus Rex. In this way he demonstrates how History and its presentation in the Epic, hold alternative possibilities. The Epic form can reveal in its episodic structure ‘the many roads not taken’. Some academics in the Aragalaya have begun to examine Lanka’s post independent history and the many roads not taken in structuring the economy, in race relations and education and development policy, for instance.

Azdak’s Judgements

Why do I think that a ‘close reading’ of Azdak’s judgements matter, especially now? Because he has a window of opportunity during a palace revolution, to play with and interrogate ideas of Law and Justice. It is quite by chance that he is made a judge because the official judge has been hanged, the Governor executed and the Duke has fled during the civil war. Now is a time when a large number of people in Lanka are feeling that the Laws that govern them and their sense of Justice are at variance. And Azdak’s idiosyncratic process of judging and his rulings offer several unusual angles on both. He is unprincipled and we can’t tell which way his Judgment will fall, regardless of his own precedent. He is inconsistent but not amoral, he shows feelings on the bench, he is not ‘Blind Justice’. He has a strong conscience. Guilt-ridden, he has himself arrested and shackled by Sauwa the cop, for having unwittingly given the fugitive Grand Duke refuge in his hut and helped him escape, during the palace revolution.

In the mock trial Azdak impersonates the Grand Duke. The soldiers who call the shots say they want to test if the Nephew is fit and proper to be a judge as recommended by his uncle Prince Kazbeki. So they create a legal play within the play by making Azdak play the role of the Grand Duke as the defendant and the Nephew the acting judge. Azdak as the Grand Duke is accused of losing the war and in his comic defense he demonstrates how the Princes actually won by war-profiteering and enabling the Persians victory. All this is done in a brilliant quick-witted, punchy question and answer session where Azdak twists words and wins the argument with relish. Proven guilty of embezzlement, the soldiers arrest the acting judge and Prince Kazbeki and plonk Azdak on the throne, unceremoniously throwing the cloak of the dead judge across his shoulders. It’s high farce with linguistic fireworks in court.

A judgement Azdak makes from the bench deals with a farmer’s complaint against his farmhand who is accused of raping his daughter-in-law, Ludovica. By contemporary feminist standards Azdak’s judgment that Ludovica by virtue of her seductive walk, seduced and thereby ‘raped’ the man, is idiotic and sexist. But the scene is more ambiguous. It might be the case that what was called rape by the father-in-law may have been consensual sex, which he happened to stumble in on. We are told by the narrator that the Ludovica’s speech was well rehearsed. The scene remains ambiguous, open to several readings especially because Azdak orders Ludovica to accompany him to examine the scene of the crime after the verdict has found her guilty! The narrator has called him, ‘Good judge, bad judge, Azdak.’

Another judgment shows that Azdak is indeed a ‘people’s judge,’ ruling in favour of a grandmotherly old woman, against the three farmers who accuse her of theft. The old woman wins the case by virtue of being poor, despite the fact that the items were stolen on her behalf by a relative who is a Bandit. The plea she offers in her defense is her belief in miracles. So, taking up her cue Azdak reprimands the Farmers for not believing in miracles! To save time, Azdak decides to hear two similar cases of professional negligence and blackmail, together!

The judgment of the Chalk Circle is what Azdak is most famous for. But the previous ones, with their pileup of parodic absurdity, are crucial for Brecht’s politics in Demonstrating how social class, wealth and power determine legal ritual. Once the normality of the Grand Duke’s authoritarian rule is restored, Prince Kazbeki is beheaded as a traitor. The chaos of the revolutionary moment (‘a Golden age’?) that saw Azdak become a judge, with his own unique sense of justice, is reversed with the return of the Grand Duke. He is now attacked by the illiterate soldiers, bloodied and humiliated, soon to be hanged. But at the last moment a messenger from the Grand Duke arrives with a document ordering Azdak to be exonerated and made judge for having saved the Duke’s life. It is jarring to register that the Grand Duke does have a sense of aristocratic honour (unlike Lanka’s rulers) despite his reputation as a swindler and butcher.

Azdak wipes the blood from his eyes as he finds himself plonked on the judges’ chair yet again, and makes the celebrated progressive modern judgment of the Chalk Circle. It is reached through an ingenious process based on an ancient wordless contest. Grusha repeatedly refuses to pull the child out of the circle lest he be injured and so she is deemed the ‘true’ mother and given custody of the child, against the predatory biological mother who pulls him out. The singer then concludes the epic parable with a poetic summary of how Azdak aligned a feeling of Justice with eminently reasonable new rules. In that legal thinking, human emotion becomes the sister of rational thought.

Singer:

“The people of Georgia

Remembered him, and remembered

For a long time,

The times when he was judge

As a short, golden age

When there was justice – nearly.

Take to heart,

All you who’ve heard

The Tale of the Chalk Circle

And what that ancient song means.

What there is should belong

To those who are good at it.

Children to true mothers,

That they may thrive.

Carts to the good drivers,

That they may be driven well,

And the valley to the waterers,

So that it bears fruit.”

Sri Lanka is a country in which Chalk Circle has been seen and enjoyed for generations. Doing a close reading of the play, while following the non-violent political uprising and struggle of the people from afar, gives one hope that changes good for Lanka are imaginable so that the land may bear fruit.

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Midweek Review

NPP drowning in sea of scams

Published

4 days ago

2026/04/29

Sahan Weerasooriya

Outgoing Treasury Chief Mahinda Siriwardena congratulates his successor Harshana Suriyapperuma in late June 2025 at the Finance Ministry

The Opposition is pressing for a one-day debate on USD 2.5 mn Treasury theft, which is more like a daylight robbery that had been kept under wraps by Treasury mandarins till ‘Free Lawyers’ made it public. However, the government is strongly opposed to the Opposition proposal. The Opposition is seeking consensus among

different parties to intensify the campaign against the government, struggling to cope up with a spate of controversies. Against the backdrop of the devastating debate on the coal scam, the NPP seems reluctant to face another over the theft of Treasury funds.

By Shamindra Ferdinando

USD 2.5 mn brazen heist at the Treasury several months ago and the bigwigs there obviously dragging their feet over the matter till it was brought to light recently, thanks to the Free Lawyers movement, which has dampened the NPP’s enthusiasm for May Day. The Treasury fiasco humiliated the cocky NPP leadership against the backdrop of damning report issued by the National Audit Office (NAO) that found fault with the government for awarding the coal tender for 2025/2026 period to Trident Champhar Limited of India in violation of tender procedures. The NAO emphasised that the Indian company shouldn’t have even been considered for the tender.

Even after the exposure of the scandalous handling of the coal tender, the NPP, in spite of some rumblings within the party, remained confident of overcoming the growing accusations regarding governance issues. But, the sudden revelation of the loss suffered by the Treasury, and pathetic efforts made by the NPP to suppress the truth, has caused irreparable harm to the ruling party. The arrogant NPP will have to use May Day to defend the government. Instead of preaching to the masses ad nauseum the corruption allegations against previous administrations, the NPP would have to explain such massive failures/corruption, particularly the loss of USD 2.5 mn.

There hadn’t been a previous instance of such an incident at the Treasury. The NPP will have to answer questions posed by ‘Free Lawyers,’ a civil society group that first raised the Treasury issue. On behalf of ‘Free Lawyers,’ its President Maithri Gunaratne, PC, former Governor of several provinces Rajith Keerthi Tennakoon, and Attorney-at-Law Shiral Lakthikala, targeted the government over the unprecedented Treasury heist. The Opposition, too, censured the NPP, with SJB leader Sajith Premadasa, MP, Chairman of Public Finance Committee (CoPF) Dr. Harsha de Silva, MP, and United Republican Front (URF) taking the lead.

The NPP’s excuses, based on claimed raids carried out by hacker/hackers targeting the Treasury, are untenable. The NPP’s position cannot be defended or supported against growing criticism. The coal scam and Treasury fiasco dominated social media, with the Opposition, as well as ordinary citizens, having a field day at the expense of the NPP, a political party that accused its opponents of waste, corruption, irregularities and mismanagement. Its successful propaganda campaigns, at the presidential and parliamentary polls, in September and November, 2024, respectively, were centered on fighting corruption.

Their anti-corruption platform appealed to the people for obvious reasons. Against the backdrop of bankruptcy, declared in May, 2022, after failing to meet debt commitments, the electorate rallied around the NPP that thrived on waste, corruption, irregularities and mismanagement, perpetrated by previous governments. Having bagged the executive presidency in September, 2024, the NPP assured the electorate that the Parliament would be cleansed of evils at the general election. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake declared that the people have been vested with the responsibility of cleansing the Parliament. Dissanayake went a step further when he addressed a public gathering at the 18th mile post on the Negombo-Colombo road. The NPP leader, who also leads the JVP, asserted that there was no need for an Opposition in Parliament and the House should be filled with NPPers.

Dissanayake based his assertion essentially on two failed No-Confidence Motions (NCMs) moved against Ravi Karunanayake and Keheliya Rambukwella in 2016 and 2023, respectively. The NPP/JVP leader found fault with Yahapalanaya and the Wickremesinghe-Rajapaksa government for protecting the two wrongdoers, hence the call to cleanse Parliament.

The results of the parliamentary election proved that the electorate responded very favourably to Dissanayake’s call. Of the 225-seat Parliament, the NPP secured 159 seats, including 18 National List slots. Having accused previous governments of shielding wrongdoers, Dissanayake easily directed the NPP’s steamroller parliamentary group to defeat the NCM moved against Energy Minister Punyakumara Dissanayake (National List) on 10 April, just a few days after the NAO report exposed the coal scam.

First ex-MP as Treasury Secy.

If its own hands are clean, there is no doubt that the NPP now deeply regrets the appointment of ex-NPP National List MP Harshana Suriyapperuma as the Secretary to the Treasury and the Finance Ministry. That appointment was made in June 2025 to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Mahinda Siriwardana who, along with Governor of the Central Bank Dr. Nandalal Weerasinghe, played a significant role in the country’s post-Aragalaya recovery programme.

Suriyapperuma, who had served as Deputy Minister of Finance and Planning for just seven months, before being appointed the Treasury Secretary/Finance Ministry Secretary, is under heavy fire for suppressing the truth. No less a person than CoPF Chairman Dr. de Silva publicly accused Suriyapperuma of trying to undermine his committee. The SJB has demanded Suriyapperuma’s immediate resignation. Dr. Anil Jayantha succeeded as Deputy Minister of Finance and Planning.

Those who inquired into the crisis-hit Treasury are of the belief that 53-year-old Suriyapperuma lacked the much required experience to fill the shoes of Mahinda Siriwardana. Perhaps, the breach at the Treasury could have been averted if an outsider was not brought in place of Siriwardena. The recent reportage of the incident revealed that Suriyapperuma had been aware of the breach and sought to avoid appearing before the CoPF. The NPP could have responded to the developing situation differently if an ex-MP hadn’t been entrusted with the task of steering the Treasury/Finance Ministry. To make matters worse, President Dissanayake holds the Finance portfolio.

Although the government declared that the theft of USD 2.5 mn had been reported to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) after initial detection made in January this year, controversy surrounds the failure on the part of law enforcement authorities to bring it to the notice of the courts. Maithri Gunaratne, appearing in Hiru last Saturday (25), questioned why the police failed to inform the relevant Magistrate if the government lodged a complaint in that regard.

Australia has confirmed irregularities in payments owed to their government. Regardless of NPP efforts to blame it on hacker/hackers, the truth is clear. Payments have been made to an account that hadn’t been in the original agreement between the governments of Sri Lanka and Australia. That is the undeniable truth that the NPP cannot suppress by propaganda.

The NPP should be ashamed that such a fraud had been perpetrated on a country still struggling to cope up with the economic destruction caused by the UNP- and the SLFP-led governments with the help of “mission impossible” type roles played by outside interests, especially during Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s tenure using the JVP/Aragalaya.

The world knows how the UNP perpetrated the Treasury bond scams with the direct involvement of the then Governor of the Central Bank Arjuna Mahendran, in February 2015 and March 2016. Regardless of that intolerable scam, the UNP made a desperate attempt to retain the services of the Singaporean as the Governor of the Central Bank. Party leader and the then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe demanded the re-appointment of Mahendran. That despicable move had to be dropped due to massive Opposition protests and growing public discontent over the Treasury bond scams.

The first Treasury bond scam carried out on 27 February, 2015 caused a direct loss of approximately Rs. 2 billion. On the instructions of Mahendran, the Treasury suddenly and arbitrarily changed the process of issuing Treasury Bonds. According to media reports at that time, higher interest payments, over the next 30 years, caused a further loss of around Rs. 145 billion.

Then Mahendran struck again. Caused further direct losses of more than Rs. 4 billion to the government through the fraudulent increase in interest rates as a result of the Treasury Bond issues on 27th March, 2016 ,and 29th March, 2016, in order to provide an undue advantage to connected primary dealers by indulging in further pre-meditated bond scams.

NPP on back foot

The ruling party put on a brave face with lawmakers and various others trying to play down the incident at the Treasury. Some pathetically tried to compare various accusations directed at the Rajapaksas with the incident at the Treasury which they conveniently blamed on hacker/hackers.

The NPP is facing an explosive mixture of issues. Both the coal and Treasury scams have brought immense pressure on the national economy and caused automatic deterioration. The resignation of Punyakumara aka Kumara Jayakody over the coal scam indicated that defeating the NCM moved against him was a strategic political blunder. Had the NPP asked the tainted first time Minister to step down and appoint a Presidential Commission to go into the coal scam, the NPP could have averted a major disaster. However, the Energy Minister and the Energy Secretary Udayanga Hemapala had to resign before the Parliament took up the NCM. Had the top NPP leadership bothered to peruse the executive summary of the NAO presented to Parliament on 7 April, the Party wouldn’t have tried to defend the minister.

Having championed a corruption-free political party system and then won both the presidential and parliamentary polls on that platform, the NPP executed the shocking move to move 323 containers out of the Colombo Port, in January 2025, without even any cursory checks. Those who perpetrated that operation used continuing port congestion as an excuse to clear red-flagged containers without mandatory physical checking. The NPP recently thwarted a bid by Opposition lawmakers, representing a parliamentary committee inquiring into the illegal release of containers, to summon President Dissanayake.

That committee, headed by Justice Minister Attorney-at-Law Harshana Nanayakkara, owed an explanation as to why President Dissanayake, in his capacity as the Finance Minister, shouldn’t appear before a House committee. President Dissanayake very often addresses Parliament on crucial issues. As the Minister in charge of Finance, the President should offer an explanation regarding the high profile container issue that tarnished the NPP’s image.

Three major issues in hand, namely the release of 323 containers, coal scam and theft at the Treasury, regardless of what various apologists say on mainstream and social media, have caused irrevocable damage to the party, let alone escapades involving the likes of Speaker Jagath Wickramaratne, Minister Lal Kantha, etc. The impact on the NPP can be ascertained only at an election. With the public increasingly aware of the growing accusations against it, the ruling party will do whatever possible to put off long delayed Provincial Council elections. Facing the electorate against deepening discontent among the public seems to be a frightening situation. It would be interesting to observe how a House committee, headed by Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath, appointed to explore ways and means to conduct Provincial Council polls, address the issue at hand.

When compared with the three major issues, the resignation of Asoka Ranwala, as the Speaker, in December, 2024, over his failure to produce the much-touted educational qualifications, seems unnecessary. Of course, Ranwala’s case attracted tremendous public attention at that time as the public really believed the NPP wouldn’t deceive them. Ranwala’s lie shocked the public. NPP theoretician Prof. Ranjith Nirmal Dewasiri had no qualms in publicly attacking Ranwala in the wake of the NPP defending the Speaker. But, subsequent NPP actions revealed massive manipulations that shamed the first post-Aragalaya government.

Having accused Ranil Wickremesinghe of squandering as much as Rs 16 mn to join his wife Prof. Maithree in the UK in September, 2023, the NPP has ended up facing far more serious accusations. The incident at the Treasury should be sufficient for the Opposition to move NCM against the government. Of course, the NPP got the numbers in Parliament to easily defeat the NCM but the consequences would be devastating. Those who still talk of recovering the missing USD 2.5 mn must be living in a dreamland. The UNP is labelled with Treasury bond scams (2015 and 2016) and the SLPP faulted with tax cuts (2019) and sugar tax scam (2020). The NPP will have to live with the coal scam and Treasury theft. The NPP will no longer be able to parade on political platforms as paragons of virtue. It would be pertinent to mention that the Presidential Commission appointed to probe the procurement of coal, since 2009, would be able to produce a report to meet the NPP’s expectations. All indications point to that and 2026 is going to be far more challenging, both in and outside Parliament, than the previous year.

NDB fraud

Examined together, the massive fraud at the National Development Bank (NDB), perpetrated during the 2024-2026 period, and the Treasury incident, they underscore the vulnerability of the entire banking system. The 13.2 bn NDB fraud and theft of USD 2.5 mn from the Treasury exposed the regulator, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, in respect of the NDB. The situation at the NDB cannot be examined without taking into consideration that Ernst & Young is the external auditors of the NDB and its Managing Partner Duminda Hulangamuwa functions as Senior Economic Adviser to President Dissanayake. People haven’t forgotten that Hulangamuwa had been mentioned as the possible successor of Mahinda Siriwardena before the NPP brought in Suriyapperuma. The Central Bank and Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) come under the purview of the Finance Ministry now embroiled in the expanding Treasury fiasco.

The Board of Directors at the NDB consists of Sriyan Cooray (Chairman), Kelum Edirisinghe (Director / Chief Executive Officer (Executive), Bernard Sinniah (Director /Non-Independent), Sujeewa Mudalige (Director /Independent), Kushan D’Alwis (Director/Independent), Kasturi Chellaraja (Director/Independent), Shweta Pandey (Director /Independent), Hasitha Premaratne (Director/Independent), Sanjaya Mohottala (Director (Non-Independent) and Shanil Fernando Director (Independent).

The issue at hand is how such a fraud went unnoticed for a considerable period of time and whether the top management simply ignored warning signs and the failure on the part of the regulator to intervene. Those who have read Mahinda Siriwardana’s ‘Sri Lanka’s Economic Revival: Reflections on the Journey from Crisis to Recovery’ would know the circumstances leading to the 2022 economic collapse. Soft spoken Siriwardana meticulously discussed how the then Central Bank leadership as well as the so-called economic leadership of the Pohottuwa party deliberately deceived President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Siriwardena’s narrative is explosive. The book, launched before his retirement, with the participation of President Dissanayake, underscored the responsibility on the part of the political leadership and those running the banking system. Obviously Siriwardena’s work had no impact on the current dispensation as well as the top banking management.

The Opposition sees an apparent opportunity to heap pressure on the NPP as it contemplates counter measures. Their challenge is how to take remedial measures without jeopardizing the government. The IMF declaration that it is closely watching the theft of USD 2.5 mn from the Treasury must have added pressure on the government, ripped apart by the situation at the Treasury. Let us hope the government and the Opposition reach consensus on ways and means to improve financial discipline. Overall, the Parliament cannot absolve itself of the responsibility for enactment of laws and ensuring financial discipline and the fact that Sri Lanka needs to start repayment of debt in 2028.

Midweek Review

Is language social or psychological phenomenon?

Published

4 days ago

2026/04/29

Sahan Weerasooriya

This essay was presented at The Philosophy Group of the University of London about 20 years ago. The thought provoking essay published in The Island on 22 April by Usvwatte-aratchi- Some languages confine you; some languages free you prompted me to try to get this essay published if possible. It may help the readers to further their ideas about the importance of usage of language.

Personally, I have firsthand experience in this subject. I was exposed to two different cultures and two languages. In my formative years I was brought up in a certain culture and spoke the language pertaining to that culture/language (Sinhalese -Sri Lanka). I spent all my studying and working life (55 years) using a different language in a different culture (English -England). I must mention that this was not recently. It was the early 1960’s. I can claim that I have enough knowledge and experience to justify this essay topic. In this essay I shall be investigating some of the social aspects of language with the aid of some opinions put forward by some philosophers. Then I shall be making an attempt to see what psychology has to offer before I draw my own conclusions. I am treating social aspects as part and parcel of the culture. In my view these are inseparable entities, unless one chooses to forget his or her cultural upbringing to suit a particular society.

Adoption of different culture

Socially, learning a different language and adopting a different culture is quite possible. In this case what dominates is one’s attitude or the circumstances. Attitude is psychological. I am convinced that circumstances may lead to a change of attitudes. Having said that, we must not forget that there are individuals who have not taken the trouble to learn the language of the culture in which they live. This has created a lot of socio-psychological problems in the community in which they live. It is obvious that the problem is one of communication. The main tool of communication is language. Philosophers and psychologists have spent many years investigating how language helps us to communicate and also how it may lead us to misunderstand our own fellow human beings. Understanding others (family members, members of the community in which we live, and the strangers we meet) is one of the most important aspects of living.

An awareness of the problem of language goes back to the early Greek philosophers. Parmenides gave us the first example of an argument from language to the world, saying that if we speak of a thing it must exist, since we speak of a thing at various times, it must continue to exist in a particular form. It is recently that language itself has come to be studied in a systematic way. The two landmarks in this respect were the development of Linguistics and the philosophy of language in the 20th century. The great philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) has admitted that until he became a middle-aged man, he did not think about language per se, but regarded it as ‘transparent’. I am sure this is true with most of us although we are not of Russell’s caliber when it comes to philosophy. And one may not have to wait until one reaches one’s middle age.

Linguistics and philosophy of language

It will help us if we understand the difference between Linguistics and philosophy of Language. What linguists discover may be applied to philosophy, sociology, psychology, anthropology or physiology. But as a discipline of study, it remains independent of them. The philosophy of language is different. One of the modern philosophers John Searle (1932-2025) thought, by contrast to linguistics, philosophy tries to solve philosophical problems by analyzing the ordinary use, meaning and relations of words in a particular language. Searle goes on to say that language is crucial to understand human experience. In my opinion this is a very valid comment. At a very practical level we spend a lot of time sharing our experiences. Verbal communication is vital in this area. According to Canadian philosopher Ian Hacking(1936-2023) the influence of language on philosophy has been profound and almost unrecognized. He indicates, if we are not to be misled by this influence, it is necessary to become conscious of it, and to ask ourselves deliberately how far it is legitimate.

It is appropriate to bring in Ludwig Wittgenstein(1889-1951) at this point. He brought in the subject predicate theory of language. For example, if we say “John is king”. Where John is the subject and king is the predicate. Here existence requires substance. For Aristotle, forms do not exist independently of things—every form is the form of something. A “substantial” form is a kind that is attributed to a thing, without which that thing would be of a different kind or would cease to exist altogether. Wittgenstein supports Saint Augustine’s view that words are names of objects and that combinations of words have the sole function of describing reality. For example, if we point at a certain object, say a table and try to say to a child “this is a table”, the child will be confused as to what we are pointing at. Is it the colour, the tabletop or one or more of its legs This is called the ostensive definition method of teaching. Ostensive definitions lead to a variety of interpretations. The child may understand a particular case of this definition but there is no guarantee that she will be able to make a transition from one case to others like it.

Plato’s theory

J G Herder (1744-1803) pointed out the object to which we make reference may be defined by numerous different terms. How then can we justify direct, one to one correspondence-either of so many to one, or of one to so many? How are we going to deal with situations where a term describes something non-existent or only possible? Plato’s “Forms” theory cannot be applied here as anything that we can speak of already exists as a Form. Critics of this theory ask the question: “how can the world be crowded with so many imaginary objects?” We use words to describe and define. Is there any room for slang language? This comes in handy in our day to day social communication. Ostensive definition raises the questions that require a constant selection of what counts as relevant. In Aldous Huxley’s novel Chrome Yellow, the character Old Rowley is confused as to: Does ‘pig’ refer to the quality of having a curly tail? Or standing in rows to eat? Or being pink skinned and fat? Or wearing no clothes? When we use the word “piggishness” is it something inherent to pigs, or simply, a matter of how we choose to describe them?

How can we relate the above ideas and theories of language to our daily living? Daily living is a psychosocial activity.

Perceptions

The nature of language reflects the nature of our perceptions, and these are far from straight forward. Franz Brentano (1838-1917) developed his theory of intentionality: that every mental phenomenon has a relation of direction to its object, i.e. perceptions, desires, imagination etc. are related to what is perceived, desired or imagined. I presume this can be applied to any language irrespective of the culture (our social conditioning). Say for instance the images of art and the writings are given the ability to represent objects by imposing the intentionality on the object. Thus, when we assert that we see or believe something, we impose, by convention and intention, (that is true if and only if it is the case) on the statement, and these conditions are not contained intrinsically in the sounds that make it up, but in our perception of belief about the fact. I begin to wonder how this can be applied to non-physical and unseen situations. Sometimes our feelings and attitudes are unknown to the observer. A person may shout because he is angry but you cannot see the anger, only its physical expression. We will not be able to see the prior event that has led to the anger and the utterance. This shows that there is a limit to how much is revealed simply by observing a word and its context; there is often more than that can be said.

How can we account for unexpected linguistic behaviour? This has both social and psychological implications.

For a long time behavioural theorists believed that every development of the human being was controlled by environmental and social factors. This is similar to an ostensive explanation of meaning. It implied that everything was learnt through training and association. But Noam Chomsky (b.1928) was not happy with this idea. He thought language is a complex phenomenon and which is not taught bit by bit or systematically to infants. It is successfully acquired by (almost) everybody. From my own experience it is true to say that the difficulty in learning a second language is a very different process from that experienced with the first language. Chomsky argued that the first language is not in fact learned, but rather acquired through exposure to a particular language. According to him all languages share the same basic structure, and he called this “deep structure”, which may be expressed as surface structures through a process called ‘transformation’. Chomsky’s theory helps us to assume a universal system of grammar, which may generate an infinite number of particular sentences within a language. This explains how we may create sentences within a language we have never encountered before from a limited set of grammatical rules and this appears to be a rational scientific approach.

Social or psychological phenomenon

The argument/discussion whether language is a social or a psychological phenomenon requires much more investigation than this essay warrants. I have briefly brought in various philosophers’ work, which are invaluable to this topic in terms of philosophy of language. In conclusion I am tempted to state my own experiences as a bi-lingual person. When it comes to my first language, which is Sinhalese I don’t think I learned it. I heard my parents speaking it and I picked up a few words and I constructed my own sentences and gradually became proficient by accumulating more words. Of course, the proper grammatical use of even my own language was taught in school and not by my parents. Learning my second language i.e. English took a different form. I was taught to speak, read, and write English at school and I had to work harder at this than my first language, because my English was confined to the classroom situation only, i. e. I learnt English in a non- English environment. First language came naturally and the second one I had to learn to fit into the social and the education structure that prevailed at that time. Compulsion can motivate us to learn!I had no choice but to adopt myself culturally and linguistically as a university student in England and then as a university teacher in England. Apart from the native English students, I have taught students from different countries. European, African and Asian. I had the opportunity to intermingle with them and learned various different cultural and linguistic aspects. After almost a half a century in England, I am back to my own culture (language, customs, food etc) where I was born and started my life. I am still proficient in my own language Sinhalese. No conscious effort needed.

After all the foregoing arguments and philosophy that I have put forward, my own conclusion is Chomsky’s theories are more plausible to me than other theories on this issue. It is difficult to be exact and say whether language is a social or psychological phenomenon. From the above arguments, we can see that culture and language of a given society are tightly bound. This leads us to psychological adjustments in order to fit into a society. Who can deny that even the philosophers mentioned above have not been subjected to their own cultural environment?

by Prof. Sampath
Anson Fernando
Formerly University of
The Arts London