Features

Dark Clouds on the Horizon

Published

2 months ago

2026/08/16

By Jayantha Perera ✍️

In November 1965, when my paternal grandmother fell seriously ill, my father decided to take her to my maternal grandmother’s house in Paiyagala. He hired a car for the journey. As we left home, a vendor crossed the road with a basin full of vades (savoury, fried lentil cakes), balanced on his head.

My mother immediately said it was a bad omen and that my grandmother might not return home. In our community, such signs were taken seriously. When a family member left home on an important errand, another would often stand at the gate with a glass of water, both to bless the traveller and to watch for ill omens: a fishmonger or vegetable seller with a basket on their head, or the sudden appearance of an old woman. The cry of a gecko was also believed to signal a bad time; my mother would never let us leave home if one called out. That day, we waited about five minutes, heeding her warnings, before starting our journey.

My grandmother never recovered. She died two weeks later.

Two years on, on October 4, 1967, my father and I returned home together from the college where he taught. As usual, we sat on the chairs behind the house for our afternoon tea. He had just bathed and was in a relaxed mood while my mother prepared tea for us.

I asked him the meaning of the Pali phrase “pavedhamana subbanga”, which I had found in my textbook. He began with the second word: “subbanga”, he said, meant “all parts of the body”. Then he explained the first: “pavedhamana” meant “shivering” – in this context, “the body shivering because of hunger”.

I then asked him the meaning of the word “practically” in the sentence: “Full marks are practically never given.” He said an examiner would not normally give full marks for an essay. “I have been a teacher for 20 years,” he added. “I have never given any student more than 60%.”

Before we left our chairs, he told me I should read the Indian history textbook by Sinha and Banerjee carefully, to understand the contribution of the great Mughal emperor Balban to the cultural history of North India. That was the last real conversation I ever had with him.

That night, I woke to a low scream from my parents’ room. My mother rushed to me and said, “Thaththa is ill.” I lit the small oil lamp on the dining table and went to him. “How do you feel?” I asked. “I have acute chest pain,” he replied weakly. “I would like to see a doctor.”

It was 2.30 in the morning. I ran to the house of a taxi owner in our neighbourhood and begged him to take us to the dispensary at Nayakakanda, a small bazaar about half a mile away. My father was in great pain. The doctor arrived within ten minutes, examined him and prescribed some tablets, asking him to return in the morning for a check-up. We went home, thanked the taxi owner and tried to sleep.

Around 5am, my father shouted. I lit the lamp again. He looked at me and said, “Jayantha, I am going to die. If I die, you all will perish, as there will be no one to look after you after me.” His eyes began to roll upwards and his breathing became irregular.

I ran back to the taxi owner’s house and pleaded with him again. He agreed at once. At the dispensary, the doctor examined my unconscious father and said: “Please take him to the General Hospital as fast as you can.” He wrote a note on his letterhead and told me to hand it to the hospital doctor.

The drive to Colombo General Hospital felt like eternity. I sat in the back of the small Morris Minor, my father stretched across my lap, no longer breathing. He was silent, but his body remained warm. I clung to that warmth as proof that he was still alive.

At the hospital’s emergency ward, two staffers helped transfer him to a stretcher. Two doctors examined him for about ten minutes. Then one turned to me and said my father was dead – and that he had died before reaching the hospital. He was 47-years old.

The doctors registered me as the informant and told me to report the death at the small police post inside the hospital. The constable there was kind. He explained that a postmortem would be conducted at the Judicial Medical Office in the morning and that I should attend with an adult. I sat alone on a steel bench in the hospital corridor. The corridor was deserted, and I had no idea what to do next.

After about half an hour, I saw a white trolley coming down the corridor, its wobbly wheels making a strange, uneven noise. The hospital labourer pushing it stopped in front of me and smiled. A smile that felt more like an apology. He was taking my father’s body to the mortuary.

He lifted the thin, off-white sheet covering the body, expecting me to look. I did not want to. The man waited patiently until I did. At first, I did not recognize my father. The body on the trolley seemed fatter, larger. I told myself it must be someone else.

Then my eyes fell on the sarong. It was the one my father had worn the previous night. The sarong was untied and pulled up to cover the body from the chest downward. I checked his chest, as I used to do when he slept after lunch on weekends. I lifted the sarong and looked at his legs. There, on his left leg, was an old scar. I remembered how he had got it in a boating accident on the Hamilton Canal.

The labourer told me we would probably meet again that afternoon at the mortuary and gently reminded me to inform my relatives to give him a small “santoshosama” – a gift – for “respectfully” looking after my father. He pushed the trolley away. I watched it disappear and, strangely, did not follow. I had nothing else to do, but I could not bring myself to go with him.

Suddenly I remembered that I had to go home and tell my mother, my brothers and my father’s principal, Brother Cassian, what had happened. The taxi owner appeared again, as if from nowhere. He had already heard that my father had died. He had waited in his car for hours, ready to take me home. He bought me a large banana, but I could not eat. My stomach felt numb; I wanted to vomit but could not.

When I had last seen this man, my father had still been alive. Now he told me not to be too sad, saying my father had “gone” peacefully. I remembered that not long before, I myself had been rushed to the same hospital after a javelin accident on the playing field. As we drove past its gates, I wished that I had died then.

The taxi owner did not speak during most of the drive. He looked tired and sad. When we passed the college, I saw a friend on the road and asked the driver to stop. I stepped out and told my friend, “Please tell Brother Cassian that my father died this morning.” My friend began to cry, and I could not understand why I was unable to cry with him. The taxi stopped at the driver’s house, about 150 metres from ours. I forgot to thank him and walked home.

Our house looked normal from the outside. My brothers were getting ready for college. My mother was preparing our lunch packets – including one for my father. I said nothing. After about ten minutes, my mother handed me a piece of bread with jam and a cup of tea with a little milk. After eating, I felt stronger and focused. I called my mother and brothers together and told them that Father had died.

They did not ask for details, and I did not offer any. My mother broke into loud sobs and then changed into a black gown. Neighbours, having heard her cries, came over to inquire. I told them my father had died of a heart attack that morning. They said nothing, but several women stayed with my mother. My brother Nihal showed no visible emotion; Gamini cried openly; the youngest, Parakrama, seemed not to understand.

I turned to Nihal. “Let us go to the college to discuss with Brother Cassian what to do next,” I said. He agreed. On the way to the bus stand, we stopped at a few houses to inform the occupants of the news. We did not wait for their responses. We did not want anybody’s sympathy. At the public bathing place, Nihal asked quietly, “What will happen to us now?”

“I do not know,” I replied.

“Who will give us money and look after us?” he asked.

“I do not know,” I said again.

After a pause, he said, “We do not have to worry too much. Eusebius Uncle may look after us.” Then he added: “We do not have any money, and this means we will have to get our father’s pension soon.” In that moment, the weight of my future responsibilities settled heavily on my shoulders.

When we reached the college, classes had not begun. Students and teachers clustered in groups, talking in hushed voices. News of my father’s death had already spread. The Director, Brother Cassian, called Nihal and me into his office. He spoke briefly, then handed me an envelope. On it he had written: “Rs. 970 (Francis Perera – Final Salary).” He explained that although it was only October 5, he had decided to pay my father’s full October salary so that we could meet the funeral expenses. His words, and that envelope, carried a sense of finality: this was my father’s last salary.

Several teachers took us to the staff room. They gave us cutlets and hot milk tea and gently asked how our father had died, where the body was and what arrangements had been made. I told them we had no plans and did not know what to do.

Three teachers accompanied me to the General Hospital. Nihal went home to discuss funeral arrangements with our mother and neighbours. At the hospital reception, a clerk directed us to the Judicial Medical Office Mortuary, where my father’s body lay. There, the judicial medical officer and the coroner had already examined him and certified that he had died of natural causes.

An officer told me he was waiting for a report from the Wattala Police Station. Around 11.45am, a constable arrived from Wattala and stated that no suspicious incident had been reported from our neighbourhood. The death certificate was then issued, allowing us to claim the body for burial.

The teachers left me at the mortuary and went to buy a coffin and arrange for embalming. Nihal joined me later, and we each ate a plain bun from a nearby teashop. He joked, “For many years to come, we may not be able to eat well!” It was dark humour, but it lightened the moment.

Nihal and I went into the mortuary to identify the body. The room was sparse and cold, like the inside of a refrigerator. Rows of stainless-steel drawers (I counted roughly 50) lined the walls. An old electric fan spun slowly overhead, barely disturbing the heavy air. The floor was wet, and the smell of strong disinfectant could not entirely mask the stench.

A labourer, consulting a register protected by a plastic sheet, located the drawer with my father’s body. He opened it, and I touched my father’s chest. It was as hard and cold as stone. A bandage covered his eyes; his thumbs were tied together with gauze. Even the sarong felt stiff and cold. At home, my mother later told me, things had not gone smoothly. The taxi owner and his wife had advised against a Friday burial, saying it was an inauspicious day.

My mother, on my advice, decided to proceed with a Friday funeral. The taxi owner disapproved and left, remarking, “Their father was a stubborn man. But without him, they will have to be humble and depend on others.”

The coffin arrived with my father’s body at 7.30 that evening. Eusebius Uncle reached us from Padiyapelella by 9pm. He was exhausted, having travelled by bus from Kalutara to Padiyapelella and then on to Colombo and Hendala.

He criticized us for not buying a new shirt for the body, though by then it was too late. He was also displeased with the quality of the coffin. An old friend of my father quietly told him that the future of the four children was in his hands. “You should support them,” he said. My uncle said nothing, merely smiled.

Neighbours brought dinner for those who kept vigil through the night. My classmates shared amusing stories about their teachers. Sometimes we all laughed together. I felt strangely light and happy in their company, then would suddenly remember that my father lay dead inside the house, and wonder why I was sitting under a coconut tree, telling jokes after midnight.

By morning, hundreds of people had come to pay their last respects. Some adults cried. Many praised my father, telling us what a kind and dedicated man he had been. His former students took charge of the funeral arrangements. They provided food and organized a band to lead the procession to the church and from there to the cemetery.

After a brief service, my father’s colleagues and old students carried the coffin to the grave, the band playing hymns. I wanted to be a pallbearer, but Eusabius Uncle told me a son should carry his father’s coffin only if there were not enough others to do so.

Several speakers addressed the crowd at the graveside, describing my father’s kindness, his extensive knowledge and his skill as a teacher. Two floral wreaths were sent from the college, one from the college staff, and the other from the College Parliament.

I watched as the coffin slowly disappeared from view. When the band played “Nearer, My God, to Thee”, my mother fainted. A woman revived her and urged her to throw a lump of soil into the grave as a final act of farewell.

On the walk home after the burial, I found myself thinking of how I would tell my father that hundreds of people had attended his funeral. Then it struck me again that he was gone, and that I was returning home without him.

My father’s dog, Conner, had followed the funeral procession to the cemetery. He refused to come back with us and remained by the grave. A few days later, we heard that Conner had died. The next day, Uncle Eusebius came to our house again, bringing a length of black cloth for my mother to sew mourning clothes. When she tried to pay him, he refused with a smile. He promised to give us Rs. 150 every month for our living expenses.

He made the four of us promise never to borrow money from anyone, and to remain united, looking after our mother together. He urged Nihal and me to continue our studies and try to enter university. After he left, my brothers and I sat down with our mother to discuss our future. We finally agreed on one thing: we would never do anything that our father would not have approved.

In a world where omens, geckos and “bad days” were said to shape our fate, it was that simple resolve – to live by the values he had taught us – that became our only real protection against the dark clouds gathering on the horizon.

(End of Part One of My Memoir. To be continued later)
jayantha.perera7@gmail.com

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Features

Closing the Book: Fair regulation of gambling – V

Published

4 hours ago

2026/09/30

Sahan Weerasooriya

by Prof. C. A. Saliya

Over the past four weeks, this column has taken you to a casino floor on the Colombo waterfront, a card game under an awning, a trading app glowing in a teenager’s bedroom, and a racecourse where the numbers on the board are quietly rigged in the house’s favour before the horses even reach the starting gate. Four completely different worlds. Four completely different sets of laws governing them. And, underneath every single one, the exact same machine.

It’s worth stating that machine plainly, one final time, because it’s the thread that has run through this entire series: every form of gambling we’ve examined has a built-in mathematical edge that belongs to the operator, not the player. Every one of them puts real effort into making that edge feel invisible, by calling itself a sport, a tradition, an investment, or simply harmless fun. And every one of them has a shadow version, an informal or offshore tier, that exists specifically to serve the customers the legal, licensed version either can’t reach or won’t touch.

Once you see that pattern, you can’t really unsee it. A casino’s house edge, a bookmaker’s overround, a trading platform’s spread, and the quiet certainty that whoever’s running the neighbourhood’s illegal numbers game isn’t doing it as a charity, they’re all the same idea, wearing different clothes.

Sri Lanka’s moment of choice

Which brings us to the reason this series exists right now, rather than five years ago or five years from now: Sri Lanka is in the middle of the biggest overhaul of its gambling laws in more than a century. A new Bill, gazetted under President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, would scrap three separate, ageing pieces of legislation, the ordinances covering horse racing, general gambling, and casinos, the oldest dating back to 1889, and replace them with a single Gambling Regulatory Authority responsible for the entire industry, from a Colombo casino table to an online betting app.

That’s a genuinely significant moment, and it deserves to be judged fairly, against the three failures we’ve traced through this series rather than against vague hopes or fears. So, let’s do that, one at a time.

Does it close the gap between licensed gambling and everyone else’s gambling? Almost certainly not, and, as we argued in Part 2, it probably shouldn’t try. A modern regulator built to license casinos and tax betting operators has no realistic way of prosecuting a card game at a funeral house. That gap between “gambling the wealthy do” and “gambling everyone else does” is older than the Republic itself, and one new law was never going to close it. The more honest question for policymakers isn’t how to stamp out Buruwa, it’s whether the country should keep spending any enforcement energy at all pretending it might, when that energy could go toward the tier of the industry that actually causes measurable financial harm.

Does it bring trading apps and offshore forex platforms under the same protective umbrella as gambling? No, and this is the new law’s single biggest blind spot, exactly as we laid out in Part 3. A 19-year-old can lose their entire savings to a leveraged CFD trade with none of the protections that would apply if they’d lost the same money at a licensed casino table: no mandatory age verification built for gambling-style harm, no loss limits, no cooling-off period, no self-exclusion register. The new Gambling Regulatory Authority, as currently designed, has no jurisdiction over any of it, because these products are still classified as financial services rather than gambling, a distinction that matters enormously on paper and barely at all to the person who actually loses the money.

Does it strengthen the fight against unlicensed offshore operators? Here, genuine credit is due. The new law’s Digital Gambling License, requiring both local and offshore online operators to hold a Sri Lankan licence before taking bets from Sri Lankan customers, is a real and overdue step, arguably the single most useful thing in the entire Bill. Whether it can actually be enforced against operators sitting on servers in another country, outside Sri Lankan jurisdiction, is a separate and much harder question. But as a statement of intent, it’s the clearest sign yet that the government understands where the real money, and the real modern risk, has moved to.

What the rest of the world is trying

Sri Lanka isn’t figuring any of this out alone, and it’s worth glancing at how others are handling the same puzzle. Britain’s Gambling Commission is one of the world’s most established regulators, and it is currently under real political pressure over gambling advertising and whether operators do enough to check that customers can actually afford their losses, a reminder that even a mature, well-resourced regulator never really finishes the job. Curaçao, a small Caribbean territory, built its reputation on issuing gambling licences fast and cheap, which sounds appealing until you realise it’s also a cautionary tale about what happens when a “race to the bottom” on licensing standards leaves consumers with almost no real protection at all. And the United Arab Emirates offers the opposite lesson: a country that spent decades as one of the strictest gambling-ban states in the world, now in the process of building a licensed casino and betting industry from scratch, precisely because its leaders concluded that a controlled, visible industry was easier to manage, and tax, than an invisible one they could never fully suppress anyway.

Sri Lanka’s new law sits somewhere between those examples: more ambitious than Curaçao’s light-touch approach, less mature than Britain’s decades-old framework, and facing the same fundamental question the UAE has just decided for itself, is it better to chase an activity underground, or bring it into the light where it can at least be taxed, measured, and, where necessary, restrained?

What no law can fix

It’s worth being honest about the limits of regulation, too, because this series has tried throughout not to oversell what any single law can achieve. No Gambling Regulatory Authority, however well designed, is going to stop a family playing Buruwa at a funeral house, and it probably shouldn’t try to. Some forms of gambling are so deeply woven into ordinary social life that treating them as a policing problem wastes effort that would be far better spent where the actual harm is concentrated: online, on trading apps, at unlicensed operators reaching people through their phones at two in the morning, far from any awning or family gathering.

A closing word, not a closing bet

If there’s one thing worth taking away from five weeks of this column, it isn’t a tip for the next race, or a warning to delete your trading app, though there’s a case for both. It’s simply this: understanding how the house edge works, in a casino, at a card table, on a trading screen, or at the bookmaker’s window, doesn’t make you better at winning. Nothing does, reliably, over the long run; that’s what “house edge” means. What it does is make you a harder person to fool, which, in an industry built almost entirely on making its edge feel invisible, might be the only real advantage a player ever gets.

The most dangerous bet in this entire series was never really a bet at all. It was assuming that because a game wears a suit, or a silk shirt, or a family blessing, it doesn’t have a house. It always does. The only real choice any of us has is whether we walk in with our eyes open.

This concludes our five-part Out of the Box series on the business of gambling. If you or someone you know is struggling with gambling-related harm, please seek support from a qualified counsellor or helpline in your area.

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

Features

Why Sri Lanka needs an Inclusive Civic Nationalism – urgently

Published

4 hours ago

2026/09/30

Sahan Weerasooriya

Maitreyi Ramakrishnan

by Sasanka Perera
(The writer is on X as @sasmester)

The frenzied online actions of thousands of Sri Lankans responding to the Canadian actress, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, calling herself an Eelam Tamil and opting not to identify herself with Sri Lanka has gone viral. Many of these were ‘Sinhalas’ from the country and the diaspora. An equal number of people spoke in support of the actress too, most being diasporic and local Tamils. Much of the latter was driven by a sense of online-Eelam nationalism. The liberal-woke types from Lanka claimed the Canadian actress as our own despite Ramakrishnan having made it very clear she does not want to be identified as such. The first two of these expressions are clear examples of ways in which nationalism should not manifest, usually as a divisive and exclusionary force. The liberal third expression is simply silly, irrelevant and sad. This said, I have never considered nationalism as useless or dangerous if it can be intelligently and inclusively fashioned to serve the nation. This is very different from my friends in the Sri Lankan Left, who have generally rejected all forms of nationalism.

However, one must be mindful that across the globe nationalism has long walked a dangerous tightrope. Too often, its supporters in different countries have defined the nation through an exclusionary lens, drawing narrow circles around who ‘truly’ belongs and pushing minority communities to the periphery. Two very dangerous ongoing manifestations are epitomised by the virulent US and Israeli nationalisms espoused by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. Consequences of their toxic rhetoric have gone beyond their national borders to impact the entire world. In Sri Lanka, this global malaise has found a localised anchoring as exemplified by the online explosion of competing ethnic nationalisms referred to at the beginning of this essay.

For decades, dominant political narratives have cast nationalism mostly in majoritarian and ethno-cultural and religious terms, overtly or subtly privileging the Sinhala identity. In doing so, this version has mostly alienated Tamil, Muslim, Burgher, and other communities, transforming a concept that should have ideally unified the people of the nation into a wedge that drives them apart. These other communities also have on their own come up with similarly competitive, exclusionary and at times, virulent forms of ethnoreligious natalisms.

But this is not how Sri Lankan nationalism emerged, at least among the elites, in the early years prior to independence. It was far more inclusive and inclusionary than we can fathom today. Compounding the present exclusionary trend is a more cynical phenomenon. That is the weaponization of identity by woefully unethical political interests. In the hands of many political parties and at present, among the fractured and irrelevant political opposition, nationalism in Sri Lanka has been reduced to crude, emotional rhetoric. Or to put it more clearly, it has been turned into a tool of convenience hauled out during election cycles or in times of existential political crisis to secure votes and support through divisive and chauvinistic mobilization. This phenomenon is clearly visible among Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim-dominated political parties.

This brand of nationalism is both offensive and counterproductive, even though many nationalisms in the world today work precisely like this. Such a negative, virulent and exclusionary nationalism only offers hollow slogans while failing to address the fundamental socio-economic realities and existential crises reaching across international borders that ordinary citizens must face regardless of whether they speak Sinhala or Tamil. It thrives on stoking fear rather than building state capacity or national pride.

To break this cycle, Sri Lanka must self-consciously move toward an inclusive civic nationalism. In my mind, this reimagined identity must necessarily encompass all Sri Lankans across ethnic, linguistic, and religious boundaries. This is the kind of nationalism that did exist among the elites prior to independence and also reemerged decisively during the public protests of the aragalaya. But I am unsure of its continuity, although it is clear the present government has not offered any ammunition to build a divisive and exclusionary nationalism within the country as in the past. Such inclusive civic nationalism however, does not manifest in the government’s dealings with other nations where the more dominant streak is an unfathomable sense of servility.

Crucially, this new civic nationalism must operate purely on behalf of the sovereign state and its national interest, refusing to use ethnicity or religion as filters for patriotism. It should also be a driver for our national interest when dealing with other countries –– big or small. When a citizen contributes to the economy, pays taxes, or defends the rule of law, their right to the nation is absolute. True nationalism respects diversity not as a concession, but as the very bedrock of the nation’s strength.

An inclusive nationalism, however, is not merely a domestic moral imperative; it is a geopolitical necessity as well. In an era where small nations are increasingly caught in the crosshairs of great power competition, Sri Lanka cannot afford to be internally fractured.

We have seen ample evidence of how external pressures can sideline our interests — whether through lopsided economic leverage, geopolitical arm-twisting, or diplomatic overreach by regional and global powers like India and China. Particularly this international dimension of nationalism has not seriously been discussed in Sri Lanka and it is hardly an integral part in our negotiations with other nations.

There has been continuous diplomatic pressure and policy lobbying, driven by long-term Indian security and political interests, to construct a physical road and rail link along with power and energy connections between India and Sri Lanka. While Indian proponents and their many Sri Lankan cohorts pitch this purely through an economic lens of trade and tourism, many Sri Lankans view it with deep apprehension. But this apprehension is hardly articulated in any sensible way in any sensible forum including in national politics. It is almost a whisper, albeit a widespread one. Beyond environmental vulnerabilities in the fragile Palk Strait ecosystem, there is a legitimate fear that an open land corridor would strip away Sri Lanka’s natural island strategic defence as well as its identity itself. It risks opening up the country to asymmetric socio-political pressures more than it endures at present, potential demographic and migration imbalances, and tighter economic subjugation by its massive neighbor, effectively transforming Sri Lanka into an easily accessible periphery of the Indian mainland. Besides, a physical link is not an absolute necessity for connectivity.

The Chinese situation is no different. Over the past two decades, aggressive infrastructure financing by Chinese state-owned banks have led Sri Lanka into high-cost commercial debt, culminating in the 2022 economic collapse and the infamous 99-year lease of the Hambantota Port to a Chinese joint venture. This highlights how a weak, fragmented state can be reduced to the role of a pawn in a ‘debt-trap’ or broader Indo-Pacific great power rivalry. When national leaders prioritise short-term political survival or personal patronage networks and wealth accumulation over national interest, critical sovereign assets are compromised, turning parts of Sri Lankan territory into strategic flashpoints for foreign powers. This has already happened in Sri Lanka.

An inclusive Sri Lankan nationalism ensures that decisions on sovereignty and borders as well as the value of national economic assets are evaluated from the standpoint of all citizens and only in the national interest –– not forced through by a locally powerful government with a compliant international relations outlook susceptible to external lobbying. A unified nation can objectively weigh economic connectivity against strategic vulnerability without internal or regional factions weaponizing the issue for sectarian advantage.

In my mind, an inclusive, civic nationalism establishes a firm, non-negotiable doctrine: no foreign power, whether Eastern or Western, regional or global, is permitted to compromise Sri Lanka’s territorial integrity or economic sovereignty. It ensures the country’s national interest and long-term survival are carefully aligned to the economic independence of the nation, ensuring that future governments maintain transparency, resist predatory lending, and treat national assets as sacred public trusts rather than bargaining chips. This does not mean the closure of opportunities for overseas investments. Rather, it means those investments would be based on transparency, on equal grounds and with equal benefits based on similar rules and conditions as those operational in the very countries we deal with.

When a nation is internally divided along ethnic and religious lines or is submissive in the way it deals with the world, it is inherently weak, vulnerable to external manipulation, and ill-equipped to negotiate fiercely.

A unified, inclusive Sri Lanka, backed by a nationalism rooted in collective strength and an inclusive sense of national pride rather than narrow exclusion, can stand its ground. Only then can we speak with one voice to defend our sovereignty, protect our economic assets, and chart an independent course in the Indian Ocean and the world.

Features

Eastern University and the making of a culture of peace

Published

1 day ago

2026/09/29

Sahan Weerasooriya

by Jehan Perera

There is an important change in the way peace is being understood in Sri Lanka. The notion that peacebuilding is not simply the responsibility of governments, politicians and peace organisations, but is also a responsibility of educational institutions, appears to be permeating the consciousness of at least a section of the academic community. This was visible on International Peace Day at an event held at Eastern University by the Faculty of Health-Care Sciences. The event was unusual not least because the medical and nursing faculty of the university had decided that peacebuilding was relevant to its academic and professional responsibilities.

Peacebuilding has too often been treated as something undertaken after conflict, when the fighting has stopped and the immediate task is to rebuild relationships between communities. But peace cannot be sustained by governments and peace organisations alone. If it is to become long lasting, the values and practices of peace have to become part of the institutions through which a society educates its younger generations. Universities and other educational institutions are therefore important to peacebuilding. They are among the places where the foundations of a culture of peace can either be built or neglected.

The experience of the Faculty of Health-Care Sciences at Eastern University provides a practical example of what this can mean. Led by its Dean, Prof Thillainathan Sathaananthan, the faculty organised an event which went beyond the ordinary academic scope of a medical faculty. University academics are experts in writing project proposals and applying for research grants. On this occasion, the members of the Faculty of Health-Care Sciences used those skills to apply for a UNESCO grant that they won to conduct an International Peace Day event. The significance lies less in the Rs 200,000 grant than in the decision to use the university’s institutional capacity and resources to invest in peacebuilding. The event at Eastern University needs to be understood as more than a successful university programme. It represents a possible paradigm shift in peace thinking.

Institutional Commitment

The Peace Day event obtained the support of the university administration, including Vice Chancellor Prof P Peratheepan, and reached out to secondary schools in the vicinity to mobilise their attendance. The event itself was meticulously organised. There were cultural items including traditional and modern dance and song in the three languages, performed by combinations of solo, duet and multiple singers, dancers and actors drawn in part from nearby secondary schools. There was a panel discussion by senior academics on the general theme of peacebuilding and how to prepare for it. A discussion among the students followed, where each student spoke on behalf of a religion that was not theirs. This is significant because peacebuilding cannot remain an idea discussed by specialists at conferences. It has to become part of the way institutions educate and prepare people for life in a plural society.

The Faculty of Health-Care Sciences at Eastern University has provided a model through its Peace Medicine course modules that were introduced to the curricular as a compulsory core course over 10 years ago. Two senior academics, Dr Kuveriel Eliyas Karunakaran and Dr Thillainathan Sathaananthan, have written a book on “Peace Medicine- A Health Care Concern” that was published five years ago. Its Peace Medicine Module integrates principles of medical ethics, compassion, equity, social justice and community engagement into health education and practice. In his introduction, former Vice Chancellor of Eastern University, Prof T Jayasingam noted “This book is an introduction to a theme which had already been operating in the Faculty of Health Care Sciences as a course.”

Doctors, nurses and health workers know better than anyone the harm that war and violence does. They are the people who treat the wounds and trauma that violence leaves behind. In a hospital, a patient is not asked what their religion or ethnicity is before they are treated. Health care is one of the places where peace is practised every day. The Faculty has therefore found a way of connecting its professional responsibilities with the wider social responsibility of peacebuilding. The question is whether this experience can be replicated throughout the country, at universities and at other educational institutions, so that peacebuilding becomes part of the consciousness of education itself. If that happens on a sufficient scale, it can begin to generate a culture of peace that becomes increasingly difficult to reverse.

Local Action

The Eastern University event corresponded closely to the United Nations theme for this year’s International Day of Peace, “Invest in Peace – For Everyone, Everywhere, Every Day”, which honours the “everyday architects of peace”, people driving local action, laying the groundwork for stability and building lasting peace from the ground up. The emphasis on investment is important. An investment means that something is put in: time, courage and resources. There is no more violent conflict in Sri Lanka today. But the absence of war does not automatically produce a culture of peace. The factors that fed the country’s conflict have not disappeared from the world. Racism, corruption and the violation of laws and human rights are the raw materials of conflict. So too are unresolved grievances, discrimination and the failure to recognise the suffering of others.

A country that does not deal with its past does not escape it. The past can return in the next generation. This is why the experience of Eastern University needs to be replicated countrywide, both at universities and at other educational institutions. The objective should not be to turn every academic discipline into peace studies. Rather, peacebuilding needs to become part of the consciousness of education itself. Eastern University shows that a medical faculty can develop Peace Medicine. A law faculty can examine the relationship between justice, rights and peace. Faculties of education can prepare teachers to work in diverse communities, while the humanities and social sciences can examine the different narratives through which communities understand their histories. Every institution can find its own way of making peacebuilding relevant to what it teaches.

Sri Lanka has had many declarations, pledges and programmes in the past. What matters is whether these produce changes in behaviour and institutional practice. Peacebuilding requires confronting difficult issues rather than avoiding them. It requires respect for different identities, but also engagement across those identities. It requires dealing with grievances in the present while also addressing unresolved issues from the past. It requires truth, accountability, reparations and guarantees of non-recurrence. It requires people to learn that the rights of another community do not diminish their own rights. The International Peace Day event at Eastern University was evidence of a change in the way at least some academics in a part of the country deeply affected by war are thinking about their responsibilities. Peace needs to be invested in and the most important investment will be in the minds of those who will inherit the future.