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Drink – the curse of the working classes

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2 years ago

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By ACB Pethiyagoda

There are chronic adherents to the habit who however consider work as the curse of the drinking classes! Whichever way it is looked at, continued, indiscriminate and habitual intake of alcohol finally leads to alcoholism.

“Manifestations of alcoholism vary with the individual. Intoxication may be followed by the relatively mild syndrome known as a hangover; extreme symptoms of withdrawal my include delirium tremens, hallucinations, and other acute brain disorders. Polyneuropathy, a degenerative disease of the nervous system, and acute hepatitis are common. Alcoholics also suffer the consequences of a deficient diet.

“Cirrhosis of the liver is associated with chronic alcoholism, as are numerous forms of brain damage. Alcoholics also suffer high accident rates, lowered resistance to infection, loss of employment and family life, and a reduction of life span of 10 to 12 years”. A very serious and pitiable situation indeed which is voluntarily acquired over a period of time.

An alcoholic beverage is any fermented liquor such as wine, beer, toddy etc., derived from sugars in fruits, grains, and plant saps which when distilled and reduced in volume result in greater alcoholic strength. Beers contain between two to eight percent alcohol while grape wines contain about eight to 14. Fortified wines such as sherry and port are those to which brandy or more alcohol has been added and thereby contain between 18 to 21 percent alcohol, while distilled liquors such as whiskey, vodka or our own arrack etc., contain between 40 to 50.

The intoxicating agent in any alcoholic beverage, be it wine, beer, toddy (coconut, palmyrah or kitul) or distilled liquors such as whiskey, gin, vodka, rum, brandy or arrack is ethyl alcohol or ethanol.

In the ingestion of an alcoholic drink the alcohol is absorbed by the stomach and intestines by-passing the normal process of digestion and results in high levels of it in the blood stream in a short time. It gets distributed to all parts of the body and creates a very significant effect on the brain acting as a depressant similar in effect to a barbiturate and thereby causing a confused state of mind.

Thus, the more complex functions of the brain such as judgment, or critical analysis of a situation are adversely affected although a feeling of well being is felt to begin with. It is for this reason that alcohol is incorrectly considered a stimulant. With greater intakes the drinker becomes less alert, a false sense of bravado takes over and indiscriminate actions and speech result with the possibility of causing physical harm and mental anguish to himself and often to others as well.

Many countries have their own national drinks – sake in Japan, beer in England and many European countries, wines in France and Italy, vodka in Russia and so on. In ancient Sri Lanka it was toddy from the sap of kitul, coconut or palmyrah, and it was not a highly commercialized venture. Today its place as an alcoholic drink has given way and being replaced by arrack distilled from coconut toddy to become one of the major industries of the country.

The manufacture takes place mostly in the Southern coastal belt from around Moratuwa to Kalutara as far back as the Dutch times, and remains that way to date, generating revenue to the then rulers and the state today by way of taxes and rentals imposed on distillers, wholesalers, retailers and tavern owners. In the Kandyan areas authorized distillation and organized distribution was not known until after the Kandyan Convention in 1815 when the British annexed that part of Ceylon having already been in control of the rest of the country.

Their first customers were their soldiers in the many garrisons set up all over the previous Kandyan Kingdom such as in Badulla, Nuwara Eliya, Kandy, Matale, Ratnapura etc., and thereafter our people who came in contact with the new ruler’s officials.

This position is amplified by Kumari Jayawardena, in her book ‘Nobodies to Somebodies’ where she states that “in 1820 the system of arrack renting prevalent in the maritime provinces was extended to the Kandyan provinces, thereby establishing a legal trade in liquor in place of the illicit trade that had previously existed. Taverns were established in the main towns and other important centers and were auctioned to the highest bidder by the Board of Commissioners in Kandy or by agents of the Government in each region.

In the early years of the British occupation, before the establishment of coffee plantations, the customers for liquor were mainly workers (on the roads) and local peasantry among whom the liquor habit grew rapidly during those years. Thus an organized and efficient liquor trade became an essential part of the new pattern of economic and social life that was imposed on traditional society by the British.”

Some of the big names in the business in the Dutch times were Labrooy and de Vos who were Burghers. Sinhala names such as P J Rodrigo, V.A. de Mel, S.N. Fernando, P.N. Dias and few others came into prominence in the 1800’s.

After 1815 Kandy became in important distribution centre in the hill country for arrack, food, clothing and other requirements of the troops, South Indian labour, Sinhala contractors and their men clearing land for the rapidly expanding plantations, merchants from the South and numerous others playing their own roles in the development of the plantation industry.

Once the British were fully in control of the country the numbers of their troops dwindled and their Police Force was responsible for law and order while the administration was in the hands of Government Agents, their assistants and local officials. By then the plantation Raj had also established itself.

For their social and recreational needs Planter’s Clubs sprang up in practically every plantation district; these being demarcated mainly on the basis of agro-climatic conditions and were many more in number than government’s administrative districts. In these clubs arrack was not served till as late as the early 1960’s, by when Ceylonese plantation executives had out numbered the Europeans. The alcoholic drinks available to members then were beer, whiskey, wines and gin; in some clubs the local variety being accepted.

It was however known that many a European planter relished his arrack and dry ginger ale or bitter lemon or soda in the privacy of his bungalow. The method of procurement was somewhat secretive; through the ‘Beef Box’ – a cabin trunk like padlocked wooden box with an inner galvanised iron lining. This the estate’s transporter delivered to the regular and reputed supplier of provisions in the nearest big town for purchase and return with food stuffs, other household requirements and, if ordered, arrack as well.

A Scottish planter in the 1950’s instead of naming his preferred drink, arrack, indicated it in his order book by code as one or more ‘monkeys’ which the provisioner supplied and entered the prevailing price in the book. All went well until one day the supplier entered the price of the arrack and added ‘- /50cts.- plantains for the monkeys’. The astonished planter on his next visit to town questioned the supplier and was told that from then on empty bottles were required for arrack and if not provided a charge of -/25 cts. an empty was levied. Hence, the plantains he said were an appropriate code, under the circumstances, for empty bottles! The story ran through the planting community like wildfire, partly for lack of any other sensational news in those quiet and placid days in the hill country plantations and also because a lurking cat was out of the bag.

While that was the position with the planters, large numbers of their manual workers spent and do spend disproportionately on alcohol. The consequent damage in practically every respect to the drinker and his family was obvious in the close knit society as in the plantation. To prevent destruction in extreme cases the family’s earnings were sometimes paid to the wife where the husband was known to squander it on drink, although it was not quite legal to hand over one person’s wages to another.

It is not known whether the law still prohibits the transport by a person of more than two bottles of arrack without a permit. It did once and some workers on estates made pocket money by transporting two bottles each from the closest tavern to the unauthorized bar keeper in the worker’s quarters.

Crew in buses also collected some ‘gravy’ in addition to salary and pickings from a days collection in the days gone by with the transport of two bottles each from a ‘wet’ town to a ‘dry’ town as taverns were few and far apart then unlike today.

In the Northern and Eastern Provinces distribution of arrack in the years around 1870 and for sometime thereafter too was not a lucrative business as in those and areas palymyrah grew well without any inputs and toddy was plentiful with practically every drinker finding his drink in his own backyard as it were. Further, since fermenting fresh toddy, which required only an inexpensive additive and sunshine with transport costing nothing, the people in those parts had no need for expensive arrack particularly as they considered toddy a health drink!

Still further, since policing and collection of taxes from thousands of village toddy tappers and retailers was a logistical impossibility the toddy drinking habit and industry thrived. Even as late as 1998 only 164 instances of unlawful tapping, sale and manufacture of toddy had been detected in the country that year but that must probably have been outside the Northern Province.

The arrack trade continued to flourish for about a hundred years with the Dutch followed by the British controlling the trade and collecting vast sums in the form of rentals and taxes, until a short time before the so-called anti-Muslim riots in 1915. It was about that time that some prominent Buddhist land owners, industrialists, plumbago mine owners, Buddhist priests etc realized the wilful and calculated damage caused to the people by the liberal distribution of arrack and they commenced the Temperance Movement.

Of the many such were Don Carolis and his wife Mallika Hewavitharana who were pillars of the Buddhist Theosophical Society. Their son, the Anagarika Dharmapala, who founded the Maha Bodhi Society in Colombo with branches in India followed their footsteps. These founder members of the movement were later supported by the Senanayake brothers of Botale, Perhaps DS’s entry into the political life of this country commenced with this social activity which finally ended with his being elected the first Prime Minister of Independent Ceylon and popularly accepted as the ‘Father of the Nation’.

However in 1998 around 30 million proof litres of arrack was produced legally with just one of the market leaders paying about Rs. 8 billion to government’s coffers as taxes for the financial year ended March 31, 2000. In the same year just under 40 million litres of beer was produced.

Production in the illegal market of kasippu (in its early days known as Dudleyge Sudiya for some elusive reason), is thought to be more in volume than the legal production. It is injurious to health due to the many impurities in it but production continues to increase unabated due to its cheapness when compared with legally produced arrack which is regularly and heavily taxed to fill Government’s coffers with no inputs or efforts on its part placing the legal product beyond the reach of the poorer drinker.

It is believed that these illicit distillers and their distributors receive the backing of powerful persons in their areas of operation. This is quite obvious, as there were less than 3,500 cases of unlawful manufacture, possession, transport and sale of kasippu in the country in 1998. In that year only about 180 legal toddy taverns and about 2,400 of all other outlets such hotels, restaurants, clubs etc., were registered islandwide.

A word about Alcoholics Anonymous World Services Inc. which started in New York in 1935 is not out of place here. It has over 2,000,000 members in 114 countries and its main objective is voluntary fellowship of alcoholic persons who desire to give up the habit through self help and assisted by recovered alcoholics. These numbers are only a minute fraction the world over of those needing help but, do not want it or do not have the courage to face the fact that they are ill and require treatment.

Bertrand Russell in his ‘Conquest of Happiness’ wrote ‘Drunkeness is temporary suicide; the happiness that it brings is merely negative, a monetary cessation of unhappiness’. Centuries earlier Aristotle said, ‘It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty or drunken’. Hence, indiscriminate ‘elbow exercise needs to be abhorred while moderation may be considered where abstinence is not desired’.

(The late ACB Pethiyagoda was a career planter who after retirement from the plantation sector handled agricultural development projects for the Ceylon Tobbaco Co. Ltd.)


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Features

Tusker Kavantissa’s death exposes Sri Lanka’s wildlife conservation crisis

Published

19 hours ago

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2026/10/20

By

Kavantissa

by Prof. Ranjith Bandara,
Emeritus Professor, University of Colombo

This article examines why community exclusion, excessive bureaucratic control, unequal distribution of conservation benefits, weak institutional accountability, and short-sighted political leadership continue to undermine wildlife conservation in Sri Lanka.

The death of Tusker Kavantissa is more than the loss of one of Sri Lanka’s most remarkable wild elephants. It exposes uncomfortable questions about how we protect our natural heritage, how conservation decisions are made, and why repeated warnings have failed to produce meaningful reforms. His death should compel us to examine not only what happened to one extraordinary animal, but also the deeper weaknesses in our wildlife conservation system.

Tusker Kavantissa, one of Sri Lanka’s most prominent wild tuskers, died on 16 October, 2026, after receiving veterinary treatment for an injury, reportedly caused by gunfire. Although the wound had shown some improvement, his health subsequently deteriorated. The precise cause of death requires confirmation through a proper post-mortem examination. Nevertheless, the circumstances raise serious questions about preventive protection, wildlife management, and institutional preparedness.

The wider picture is equally disturbing. According to recently reported figures, Sri Lanka has lost an average of approximately 402 elephants and 138 people annually, since 2019, due to human–elephant conflict. These figures reflect a continuing national tragedy affecting both wildlife and rural communities.

What Sri Lanka faces today is not merely a wildlife conservation problem. It is also a crisis of environmental governance, shaped by institutional weaknesses, political decisions, and the failure to recognise the economic and social realities of conservation.

Conservation without communities

One of the fundamental weaknesses of our conservation approach is that local communities are often treated as subjects of regulation rather than partners in conservation. They are expected to bear the risks, respect restrictions, and cooperate with government programmes, yet their influence over decisions affecting their lives remains limited.

For rural families living alongside wild elephants, conservation is not an abstract environmental objective. It directly affects their safety, agricultural income, property, and everyday lives.

Farmers frequently possess valuable knowledge about elephant movements, vulnerable locations, seasonal changes, and practical protection measures. Yet conservation interventions are sometimes designed without adequately considering this experience.

When decisions are imposed from above, communities may feel excluded from programmes they are expected to support. This weakens trust, reduces cooperation, and ultimately undermines conservation outcomes.

We must recognise that protecting elephants and protecting farmers are not conflicting objectives. Both are essential. A conservation policy that safeguards wildlife while neglecting human security cannot be considered successful.

The real challenge is to replace conservation imposed on communities with conservation undertaken alongside them. Meaningful participation requires more than consultation meetings. Communities must have a genuine role in planning, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating conservation activities.

Bureaucratic authority versus public accountability

Wildlife conservation requires strong institutions, professional expertise, and effective regulations. However, excessive bureaucratic control can become an obstacle when administrative authority takes precedence over practical outcomes.

Decision-making in Sri Lanka’s conservation system remains heavily dependent on central institutions. Administrative procedures, overlapping responsibilities, and limited coordination can delay responses to urgent problems.

More importantly, excessive centralisation can discourage local innovation and prevent communities from contributing practical solutions.

When administrative authority becomes more important than results, conservation risks becoming an exercise in controlling people rather than protecting nature.

This criticism should not be confused with questioning the dedication of frontline wildlife officers and veterinarians. Many work under difficult conditions with limited resources. The efforts undertaken to save Tusker Kavantissa deserve recognition.

However, individual commitment cannot compensate indefinitely for institutional weaknesses.

We must ask whether our conservation institutions have the capacity to identify risks early, protect vulnerable animals, coordinate emergency responses, and evaluate the effectiveness of their interventions.

Public accountability should, therefore, extend beyond compliance with administrative procedures to measurable conservation outcomes.

Who bears costs, and who receives benefits?

Perhaps the most neglected dimension of wildlife conservation in Sri Lanka is the unequal distribution of its economic costs and benefits.

Wild elephants contribute substantially to tourism, biodiversity, cultural heritage, and the country’s international image. Their conservation generates benefits enjoyed by society as a whole.

Yet the financial and personal costs are concentrated among rural communities living within elephant habitats.

A study published in 2023, involving 300 farming households in southern Sri Lanka, revealed a striking imbalance. Although these households lived near two national parks, none received economic benefits from tourism. Meanwhile, 57 percent had experienced elephant-related crop damage.

The findings raise a fundamental economic question: if the entire country benefits from elephant conservation, why should a relatively small and vulnerable section of society bear a disproportionate share of its costs?

Conservation cannot remain economically sustainable when its benefits are widely enjoyed but its costs are concentrated among those least able to bear them.

A separate study, published in 2024, involving 439 affected farming households, examined the possibility of financing compensation through tourism revenue. It demonstrated the potential for tourism-based financial mechanisms to support human–elephant coexistence.

The policy implications are significant

A proportion of wildlife tourism revenue could be directed towards affected communities through transparent benefit-sharing arrangements. Such measures could support compensation, village protection, local employment, community enterprises, and agricultural improvements.

However, financial compensation alone is insufficient. The 2023 study also indicated that fear of elephants and concerns about crop damage strongly influenced community attitudes. People must feel safe in their homes and farms, not merely receive payment after suffering losses.

Equitable benefit-sharing is, therefore, more than an act of generosity. It is an economic and social requirement for sustainable conservation.

Political decisions and absence of long-term vision

The weaknesses in wildlife conservation cannot be attributed solely to public officials. Political leadership must accept its share of responsibility.

Poor land-use planning, habitat fragmentation, obstruction of elephant movement corridors, and development decisions that inadequately consider environmental consequences have contributed to human–elephant conflict.

Political decisions made for immediate gains can create environmental and economic costs lasting for decades.

Another weakness is the preference for visible, short-term interventions.

Constructing electric fences, relocating elephants, and launching emergency operations can attract considerable publicity. However, such interventions should be evaluated according to their effectiveness, not their visibility.

Political leadership should be judged not by the number of conservation programmes announced, but by the lives protected, conflicts prevented, and long-term improvements achieved.

There is also a serious problem of policy continuity. Conservation cannot be governed according to electoral cycles or changing political priorities.

Elephant habitats, migration patterns, and ecological processes do not change with governments. Successful conservation, therefore, requires consistent national commitments extending beyond individual political administrations.

Without such continuity, public investment may be wasted while the underlying problems remain unresolved.

Problem is not always a lack of policy

Sri Lanka’s conservation crisis cannot be explained simply by a shortage of scientific knowledge or policy recommendations.

In many instances, the greater challenge lies in translating available knowledge into coordinated, adequately funded, and politically supported action.

The National Action Plan for the Mitigation of Human–Elephant Conflict, prepared in 2020, proposed a science-based approach that emphasised community participation, protection of villages and agricultural land, and more effective conflict-management strategies.

Yet an important question remains: how much of this plan has been implemented successfully?

Have implementation difficulties arisen from inadequate resources, weak institutional coordination, administrative resistance, or insufficient political commitment?

An independent assessment of the plan’s implementation would help identify these obstacles and establish clear responsibilities.

We must also recognise that a substantial proportion of Sri Lanka’s wild elephants live outside protected areas. Attempting to confine all elephants within national parks and forest reserves is, therefore, neither realistic nor sustainable.

Effective conservation requires land-use policies informed by elephant ecology, settlement patterns, agricultural needs, and the practical realities of human–wildlife coexistence.

A sound policy that remains largely unimplemented offers little protection to either elephants or people.

Towards more responsible conservation system

Sri Lanka needs a fundamental change in how wildlife conservation is governed.

Four priorities deserve immediate attention.

First, local communities must become genuine partners in conservation management, with meaningful responsibilities and decision-making opportunities.

Second, conservation benefits must be distributed more fairly. Wildlife tourism should contribute directly to protecting the livelihoods and safety of communities that bear conservation costs.

Third, existing national conservation plans should be independently reviewed to identify implementation gaps and establish a realistic timetable for corrective action.

Fourth, conservation institutions must become more accountable for measurable outcomes, including reductions in human deaths, elephant mortality, crop losses, and property damage.

These reforms require cooperation among wildlife, forestry, agriculture, land, irrigation, and local government institutions.

They also demand political leadership willing to prioritise long-term results over short-term publicity.

For exceptional animals, such as Tusker Kavantissa, improved risk monitoring, preventive protection, and timely veterinary responses are particularly important. However, conservation should not be limited to protecting a few well-known animals.

Every wild elephant has ecological value, just as every person living alongside elephants has an equal right to safety.

The objective must be a system that protects both.

Lesson tusker Kavantissa leaves behind

The death of Tusker Kavantissa should not become another moment of national sorrow that gradually fades from public memory. It should mark a turning point in how Sri Lanka approaches wildlife conservation.

A proper investigation into his death is essential. Equally important is an honest examination of the conservation system within which such tragedies continue to occur.

The real challenge is not choosing between people and elephants. It is creating a system in which both can coexist safely, and where the responsibilities, costs, and benefits of conservation are shared fairly.

This requires more than scientific expertise and stronger regulations. It demands accountable institutions, meaningful community participation, economic fairness, and political leadership guided by a clear long-term vision.

Our greatest failure would not be the loss of Tusker Kavantissa alone. It would be allowing the same weaknesses in our conservation system to claim more lives while we continue to avoid the reforms that could prevent them.

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Features

Equality before the Law as foundation of Sri Lanka’s recovery

Published

19 hours ago

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2026/10/20

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Gnanasara Thera brought to court, dressed in lay attire

by Jehan Perera

The government appears set to overcome the first major challenge to one of its foundational principles. It has faced down demands from sections of the Buddhist clergy and opposition parties to release Ven. Galagodaatte Gnanasara from his prison sentence for contempt of court.

Ven Gnanasara is best known as the general secretary of the Bodu Bala Sena, a nationalist Sinhala grouping. The government seemed unfazed by a protest march organised by Buddhist monks and the opposition parties and its supporters organised an even bigger march to support the government’s position. It is notable that the general population did not get involved in either march in any substantial number. The issue has now become a test of whether the government will uphold its commitment to apply the law equally, irrespective of a person’s position or status, even when doing so brings it into conflict with a powerful constituency.

The case has a specific legal history. Ven. Gnanasara was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment by the Court of Appeal in 2018 for contempt of court in a case involving former military personnel where he disrupted the proceedings. The Supreme Court rejected his appeal in 2018. Former President Maithripala Sirisena subsequently granted him a presidential pardon in 2019. Last month, the Supreme Court invalidated that pardon. The initial demand by Buddhist monks and their lay supporters was that Ven. Gnanasara should be permitted to wear his Buddhist robes when appearing in public before the courts. The government has indicated its willingness to examine the procedures governing the treatment of Buddhist monks in prison, in consultation with the relevant religious authorities. However, the initial demand has now been escalated into a demand for a presidential pardon.

One of the central promises of the National People’s Power (NPP) during its election campaign two years ago was to apply the law equally to all. This commitment has shaped the government’s approach to allegations of corruption and criminality involving individuals who previously wielded political power. The NPP government was swept into power on a wave of antipathy towards those in previous governments who were perceived to have abused their positions for private gain. The economic collapse Sri Lanka experienced in 2022, and the hardships endured across society, remain vivid in the public memory. The past two years have seen the government pursuing those accused of corruption and other offences. Several high-ranking members of previous governments have faced arrest and legal proceedings and been sentenced to jail.

Religious Concerns

The ability of opposition parties to mobilise widespread resistance against proceedings involving their leaders has been limited, as much of the general population continues to favour accountability for past financial crimes. However, the case of Ven. Gnanasara is different. It does not concern allegations of financial corruption, but the relationship between religious authority, the courts and the law of the land. This is where the distinction between respecting religious traditions and upholding the law becomes crucial. There is a sense among sections of the general population that Buddhist monks should not be treated on a par with others and that requiring Ven. Gnanasara to appear in court without his robes was unjust and contrary to the national ethos. Such sentiments reflect the special place Buddhism occupies in Sri Lanka’s history and society. Sinhala Buddhist nationalism has been a potent political force throughout the country’s history, drawing on a heritage that extends back more than two millennia. The question is whether respect for Buddhism needs to also entail the exemption of individual monks from the ordinary requirements of the law and thereby treat them differently.

The challenge would be to accommodate legitimate religious concerns through rational and lawful procedures without allowing religious status to become a source of legal privilege. The government has been amenable to addressing the issue of monastic robes, but has so far resisted the demand to release Ven. Gnanasara through a new pardon. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and government members have made it clear that the government would not bend the law to accommodate any individual. They have taken the position that any shortcomings in existing rules should be addressed by changing the rules through proper procedures, rather than by making an exception for a particular individual. If the government holds its position, it will demonstrate that its commitment to the rule of law extends even to constituencies that have historically enjoyed considerable political influence.

This is important not only for the country’s democratic institutions but also for its economic future. Sri Lanka is seeking to recover from its economic collapse and establish the foundations for sustained growth. The International Monetary Fund’s analysis of Sri Lanka’s governance weaknesses has repeatedly emphasised the economic costs of corruption and institutional deficiencies. Its 2024 analysis of governance and growth concluded that comprehensive and coherent reforms could bring significant macroeconomic benefits. The IMF’s 2025 assessment also highlighted the importance of sustained governance reforms in unlocking the country’s growth potential. Investors, both domestic and foreign, need confidence that public institutions function according to predictable rules, that contracts and property rights are protected, and that political connections or social status will not determine how the law is applied.

Sensitive Issue

Sri Lanka has long sought the leap towards prosperity that has proved elusive under successive governments. Economic reform alone will not achieve it. The connection between the rule of law and economic prosperity is direct. Businesses are more likely to invest when they can expect disputes to be resolved fairly, public resources to be managed transparently and regulatory decisions to be made on rational grounds. No country can achieve a durable economic take-off if its institutions are perceived to operate according to political favour, inherited privilege or communal pressure. Sri Lanka cannot afford to return to a political culture in which powerful interests are shielded from accountability while ordinary citizens bear the costs.

Changing a political culture that has evolved over the decades if not centuries is a difficult undertaking, particularly in a country where political leaders have long relied on religious and communal identities to consolidate their support. It requires not only firmness but also sensitivity, dialogue and a willingness to reform laws and institutions where genuine deficiencies exist. The present controversy offers an opportunity to demonstrate that these objectives need not be in conflict. The government can respect the Buddhist clergy’s concerns about the treatment of monks in prison while refusing to grant an individual an exemption from a judicial sentence. It can recognise the importance of Buddhism to the country while maintaining that no religious or political authority stands above the law.

The question is whether national traditions and ethos are interpreted in ways that strengthen justice, responsibility and social harmony, or invoked to defend privileges that undermine them. The country needs a transformation in public expectations from privilege to accountability, from communal claims to equal citizenship, and from personal discretion to institutions governed by law.

The government’s handling of the case involving Ven. Gnanasara is therefore about more than one monk or one sentence. This particular case will determine whether the government can build a system in which no government, religious authority or politically influential individuals can place themselves beyond the law. A just society must be able to honour both its traditions and its commitment to equality before the law.

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Features

Lure of old hometown too hard to resist

Published

19 hours ago

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2026/10/20

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Highly adaptive one-man band / At Broadway Dehiwela on 24th October

Lanka was his homeland, and now it’s Australia, based in Sydney. But for legendary performer Roger Menezes, the lure of his old hometown is just too hard to resist — and he keeps coming this way, ever so often!

Roger is in town at the moment — his fourth trip for this year alone! In fact, for the last few years, he has been checking out Sri Lanka on a very frequent basis.

This time, he says, he will be here for just two weeks, as he has heavy commitments, Down Under, as a performer.

On the 24th of this month, he will be seen in action at Broadway Dehiwela, celebrating their second anniversary. It’s a homecoming of sorts, as he was the very first artiste to perform live at this venue, on their opening night!

He goes back to Sydney in November for an early Christmas party, and will be back, in Colombo, in December, for more performances, with a pre-New Year’s Eve party at the Broadway, on 30th December.

Roger says he also takes the opportunity, whenever he visits Sri Lanka, to soak in the beauty of our country, especially the serene scenes away from the hustle and bustle of Colombo!

Roger Menezes: Fourth trip for this year

Roger Menezes is truly a remarkable talent, and it is always a sheer pleasure to look into the careers of musicians who have left such a lasting, indelible mark on Sri Lanka’s rich musical heritage.

Known for his signature “hits and memories” performance style — a nostalgic, heart-warming blend of jazz, pop, and classic rock — he remains a foundational figure of Sri Lanka’s golden era of music.

He was deeply integrated into Colombo’s swinging 1960s and 70s music scene.

He played drums for iconic groups like The Savages, Thunderbirds, and Fireflies, played guitar for Sam the Man, and joined the legendary band The Jetliners as their keyboardist, saxophonist, and guitarist (additionally recording bass guitar tracks). He also fronted his own much-loved ensemble, Roger and the Webs.

He migrated to Sydney, Australia, in the early ’70s and the legend only grew.

In Australia, he founded the highly successful corporate and event bands Eastern Spice and Stay Tuned (alongside his wife Cheryl and family). Under his leadership, Stay Tuned was heavily involved in providing entertainment for corporate functions, organised by the Sydney 2000 Olympic Committee. The group also headlined the New Year’s Eve festivities at Sydney’s iconic Centrepoint Tower for five consecutive years!

Today, he is widely celebrated as a highly adaptive one-man band, simultaneously navigating vocals, keyboards, guitar, saxophone, and drums — a one-man orchestra who truly does it all!

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