Features

From Pettah to Cotta

Published

4 years ago

2022/07/22

By Uditha Devapriya

Historically, the city of Colombo always faced a conflict, or contradiction, between an almost endless set of high-rise buildings and largely poorly constructed streets. As far back as 1907, for instance, it was observed that “large improvements would have to be carried out in the direction of widening such streets, while legislation by the Municipal Council should be enacted to “fix the line of streets and prevent encroachment thereon”, which would have saved money spent on buying buildings, “the erection of which ought never have been allowed.” The gap between the affluent and depressed wards not surprisingly became a cause for worry: the “native wards” were all “deficient”, with the exception of the European and chief residential quarters, which appeared “well provided.”.

There was, of course, a Colombo that existed before all this. The Rajavaliya referred to it as “Kalan Thota” or “Kelani Ferry.” Emerson Tennent has noted that the Moors, who took over the coast and harbour in the 12th and 13th centuries, renamed it as “Kalambu” or “a good harbour.” It gained prominence gradually thereafter: Ibn Batuta would describe it as “the finest town in Serendib.” The town remained under the control of a Muslim Vizier named Jalestie. Tennent observed that this was because the Sinhalese were uninterested in trade, which is somewhat true: as K. M. de Silva notes in A History of Sri Lanka, the principal source of royal income in Kotte was not trade, but rather land revenue.

Kotte would, of course, bear witness to two wars of succession, both compounded by Portuguese presence in the island. The latter were concerned with two priorities: gaining a monopoly over the cinnamon trade, and establishing commerce in Colombo.

According to de Silva, the first objective was generally considered less important than the first, but it nevertheless was crucial for the ambitious imperialists to gain control over the area; to this end they established an unfortified fort in Colombo for trading purposes. It is with the advent of the Portuguese, moreover, that Kalambu became Colombo: a name that more or less “approached that of Columbus”. But it was more than a change of name: as the Census of 1946 notes, under the Portuguese the city transformed from “a small stockade of wood” to “a gallant city fortified with a dozen bastions.”

But the Portuguese and the Dutch after them had to contend with two seemingly never-ending conflicts in the country: between the Kotte Kingdom and colonial authorities on the one hand and the Kotte Kingdom and pretenders from Sitawaka and Kandy on the other. The wars of succession weakened Kotte, and the Sinhalese monarchs, whose interest in trade depleted, in effect handed over commercial matters to colonial authorities. Despite this, however, authorities were never able to expand the city beyond Pettah, “between the lake at one side and the rocks, which form the harbour, on the other.” It was left to British officials to develop Colombo into more than just a military enclave.

To begin with, the British made use of what the Portuguese and the Dutch had left behind. The former especially had turned Colombo into a fortress. After the conquest of Kandy in 1815, the British began tapping into the region’s commercial potential in a way their predecessors had not. Once again it was the port which facilitated this shift in policy; by 1907 it had become “one of the principal ports of call of the world”, and was described as “the Clapham Junction of the East.” The British added a railway system to the shipping line; here too Colombo became the centre. Over the years the Fort area changed: it became a hub for government establishments, banking houses, and European businesses.

Interestingly, despite its veneer of sophistication and grace, British officials were not impressed with the new capital. “Colombo presents little to attract a stranger,” noted Tennent in 1859, and he had much to complain about: “the prevalence of damp”, “the nightly serenade of frogs”, and worst of all, “the tormenting profusion of mosquitoes” which had lead to outbreaks of dengue that had never visited the better developed areas of the municipality. Through all this, incidentally, a gap emerged between the centre and the periphery, in effect between the affluent and the indigent wards.

At first it was the areas developed by the Portuguese and Dutch which became hotspots for the colonial officials and the native elite. The area from Fort to Hulftsdorp, which James Cordiner had once described as “a more comfortable residence for a garrison than any other military station in India”, would in 40 years turn into what Prince Alexey Saltykov described as “a botanical garden on a gigantic scale.” This was facilitated by several factors: the breakdown of the old order, the shift from the interior to the littoral, and the emergence of a plantation economy. Moreover, Prince Saltykov made his remark about Colombo at a time when the old elite was yielding place to a new bourgeoisie.

The transition from a mercantilist to a semi-feudal economy in the first half of the 19th century was accompanied by the rise of a new colonial bourgeoisie. While the traditional elite had depended on the patronage of the British officials in terms of land bequests and perpetuation of familial dynasties (which led to the concentration of power within the Bandaranaike-Obeyesekere clique), the bourgeoisie took advantage of favourable economic conditions and prospered through capitalist-rentier enterprises.

Arrack renting became the main avenue of growth for the nouveau riche; by 1876 the annual rents from this trade amounted to £ 218,600 (£ 28,035,560 or Rs. 12,093,260,379 when adjusted for inflation). Profits from the arrack trade, however, were never invested in productive enterprises (as they were in other colonies) and were instead invested in coffee, coconut, graphite, and plumbago on the one hand and items of conspicuous consumption which helped distinguish them from the rest of the country on the other. Property in this regard was seen as paramount; it had a say in how the “posh neighbourhoods” shifted from Pettah, Hulftsdorp, and Maradana to Cotta, Colpetty, and Cinnamon Gardens.

Initially, the elite purchased land in the Pettah-Maradana-Kotahena-Mutwal area. Even in the last few decades of the century these places were at the forefront of British colonial activity in terms of commerce and education: all the major credit institutions were in the Pettah, while the two biggest schools in the country (one public, the other private) were established there: the Colombo Academy in Hill Street (the first batch of which consisted of 21 students from elite Burgher families within the neighbourhood, among them Richard Morgan, Charles Loos, and Christoffel de Saram) in 1836, and S. Thomas’ College in Mutwal 17 years later. This is certainly not to forget the Medical College and the Law College, built respectively in 1870 and 1874.

These trends were reflected in the lands purchased and palatial residences built during the period: Solomon Dias Bandaranaike, S. C. Obeyesekere, and G. G. Ponnambalam all built their manors in Hulftsdorp. Vinod Moonesinghe contends that long before Cinnamon Gardens became a plush neighbourhood, “the prime residential areas were Mutwal (for Europeans) and Kotahena (for locals), plus Grandpass for ‘country homes’.”

According to Moonesinghe, land values in Cinnamon Gardens rose after the Race Course moved from Galle Face, and the “process of gentrification” in the area culminated when Royal College shifted to its current location in 1912. But even then, this process was not fully complete: as Denham notes in Ceylon at the Census of 1911, while land in Cinnamon Gardens fetched Rs. 5,000 per acre, land near the Slave Island, Maradana, and Pettah stations fetched more than four times that amount. In other words, it would take another 30 years for the shift from one part of Colombo to another to complete.

The writer is an international relations analyst, researcher, and columnist who can be reached at udakdev1@gmail.com

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Features

Misinterpreting President Dissanayake on National Reconciliation

Published

22 hours ago

2026/02/10

Sahan Weerasooriya

President Dissanayake

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has been investing his political capital in going to the public to explain some of the most politically sensitive and controversial issues. At a time when easier political choices are available, the president is choosing the harder path of confronting ethnic suspicion and communal fears. There are three issues in particular on which the president’s words have generated strong reactions. These are first with regard to Buddhist pilgrims going to the north of the country with nationalist motivations. Second is the controversy relating to the expansion of the Tissa Raja Maha Viharaya, a recently constructed Buddhist temple in Kankesanturai which has become a flashpoint between local Tamil residents and Sinhala nationalist groups. Third is the decision not to give the war victory a central place in the Independence Day celebrations.

Even in the opposition, when his party held only three seats in parliament, Anura Kumara Dissanayake took his role as a public educator seriously. He used to deliver lengthy, well researched and easily digestible speeches in parliament. He continues this practice as president. It can be seen that his statements are primarily meant to elevate the thinking of the people and not to win votes the easy way. The easy way to win votes whether in Sri Lanka or elsewhere in the world is to rouse nationalist and racist sentiments and ride that wave. Sri Lanka’s post independence political history shows that narrow ethnic mobilisation has often produced short term electoral gains but long term national damage.

Sections of the opposition and segments of the general public have been critical of the president for taking these positions. They have claimed that the president is taking these positions in order to obtain more Tamil votes or to appease minority communities. The same may be said in reverse of those others who take contrary positions that they seek the Sinhala votes. These political actors who thrive on nationalist mobilisation have attempted to portray the president’s statements as an abandonment of the majority community. The president’s actions need to be understood within the larger framework of national reconciliation and long term national stability.

Reconciler’s Duty

When the president referred to Buddhist pilgrims from the south going to the north, he was not speaking about pilgrims visiting long established Buddhist heritage sites such as Nagadeepa or Kandarodai. His remarks were directed at a specific and highly contentious development, the recently built Buddhist temple in Kankesanturai and those built elsewhere in the recent past in the north and east. The temple in Kankesanturai did not emerge from the religious needs of a local Buddhist community as there is none in that area. It has been constructed on land that was formerly owned and used by Tamil civilians and which came under military occupation as a high security zone. What has made the issue of the temple particularly controversial is that it was established with the support of the security forces.

The controversy has deepened because the temple authorities have sought to expand the site from approximately one acre to nearly fourteen acres on the basis that there was a historic Buddhist temple in that area up to the colonial period. However, the Tamil residents of the area fear that expansion would further displace surrounding residents and consolidate a permanent Buddhist religious presence in the present period in an area where the local population is overwhelmingly Hindu. For many Tamils in Kankesanturai, the issue is not Buddhism as a religion but the use of religion as a vehicle for territorial assertion and demographic changes in a region that bore the brunt of the war. Likewise, there are other parts of the north and east where other temples or places of worship have been established by the military personnel in their camps during their war-time occupation and questions arise regarding the future when these camps are finally closed.

There are those who have actively organised large scale pilgrimages from the south to make the Tissa temple another important religious site. These pilgrimages are framed publicly as acts of devotion but are widely perceived locally as demonstrations of dominance. Each such visit heightens tension, provokes protest by Tamil residents, and risks confrontation. For communities that experienced mass displacement, military occupation and land loss, the symbolism of a state backed religious structure on contested land with the backing of the security forces is impossible to separate from memories of war and destruction. A president committed to reconciliation cannot remain silent in the face of such provocations, however uncomfortable it may be to challenge sections of the majority community.

High-minded leadership

The controversy regarding the president’s Independence Day speech has also generated strong debate. In that speech the president did not refer to the military victory over the LTTE and also did not use the term “war heroes” to describe soldiers. For many Sinhala nationalist groups, the absence of these references was seen as an attempt to diminish the sacrifices of the armed forces. The reality is that Independence Day means very different things to different communities. In the north and east the same day is marked by protest events and mourning and as a “Black Day”, symbolising the consolidation of a state they continue to experience as excluding them and not empathizing with the full extent of their losses.

By way of contrast, the president’s objective was to ensure that Independence Day could be observed as a day that belonged to all communities in the country. It is not correct to assume that the president takes these positions in order to appease minorities or secure electoral advantage. The president is only one year into his term and does not need to take politically risky positions for short term electoral gains. Indeed, the positions he has taken involve confronting powerful nationalist political forces that can mobilise significant opposition. He risks losing majority support for his statements. This itself indicates that the motivation is not electoral calculation.

President Dissanayake has recognized that Sri Lanka’s long term political stability and economic recovery depend on building trust among communities that once peacefully coexisted and then lived through decades of war. Political leadership is ultimately tested by the willingness to say what is necessary rather than what is politically expedient. The president’s recent interventions demonstrate rare national leadership and constitute an attempt to shift public discourse away from ethnic triumphalism and toward a more inclusive conception of nationhood. Reconciliation cannot take root if national ceremonies reinforce the perception of victory for one community and defeat for another especially in an internal conflict.

BY Jehan Perera

Features

Recovery of LTTE weapons

Published

22 hours ago

2026/02/10

Sahan Weerasooriya

Sri Lanka Navy in action

I have read a newspaper report that the Special Task Force of Sri Lanka Police, with help of Military Intelligence, recovered three buried yet well-preserved 84mm Carl Gustaf recoilless rocket launchers used by the LTTE, in the Kudumbimalai area, Batticaloa.

These deadly weapons were used by the LTTE SEA TIGER WING to attack the Sri Lanka Navy ships and craft in 1990s. The first incident was in February 1997, off Iranativu island, in the Gulf of Mannar.

Admiral Cecil Tissera took over as Commander of the Navy on 27 January, 1997, from Admiral Mohan Samarasekara.

The fight against the LTTE was intensified from 1996 and the SLN was using her Vanguard of the Navy, Fast Attack Craft Squadron, to destroy the LTTE’s littoral fighting capabilities. Frequent confrontations against the LTTE Sea Tiger boats were reported off Mullaitivu, Point Pedro and Velvetiturai areas, where SLN units became victorious in most of these sea battles, except in a few incidents where the SLN lost Fast Attack Craft.

Carl Gustaf recoilless rocket launchers

The intelligence reports confirmed that the LTTE Sea Tigers was using new recoilless rocket launchers against aluminium-hull FACs, and they were deadly at close quarter sea battles, but the exact type of this weapon was not disclosed.

The following incident, which occurred in February 1997, helped confirm the weapon was Carl Gustaf 84 mm Recoilless gun!

DATE: 09TH FEBRUARY, 1997, morning 0600 hrs.

LOCATION: OFF IRANATHIVE.

FACs: P 460 ISRAEL BUILT, COMMANDED BY CDR MANOJ JAYESOORIYA

P 452 CDL BUILT, COMMANDED BY LCDR PM WICKRAMASINGHE (ON TEMPORARY COMMAND. PROPER OIC LCDR N HEENATIGALA)

OPERATED FROM KKS.

CONFRONTED WITH LTTE ATTACK CRAFT POWERED WITH FOUR 250 HP OUT BOARD MOTORS.

TARGET WAS DESTROYED AND ONE LTTE MEMBER WAS CAPTURED.

LEADING MARINE ENGINEERING MECHANIC OF THE FAC CAME UP TO THE BRIDGE CARRYING A PROJECTILE WHICH WAS FIRED BY THE LTTE BOAT, DURING CONFRONTATION, WHICH PENETRATED THROUGH THE FAC’s HULL, AND ENTERED THE OICs CABIN (BETWEEN THE TWO BUNKS) AND HIT THE AUXILIARY ENGINE ROOM DOOR AND HAD FALLEN DOWN WITHOUT EXPLODING. THE ENGINE ROOM DOOR WAS HEAVILY DAMAGED LOOSING THE WATER TIGHT INTEGRITY OF THE FAC.

THE PROJECTILE WAS LATER HANDED OVER TO THE NAVAL WEAPONS EXPERTS WHEN THE FACs RETURNED TO KKS. INVESTIGATIONS REVEALED THE WEAPON USED BY THE ENEMY WAS 84 mm CARL GUSTAF SHOULDER-FIRED RECOILLESS GUN AND THIS PROJECTILE WAS AN ILLUMINATER BOMB OF ONE MILLION CANDLE POWER. BUT THE ATTACKERS HAS FAILED TO REMOVE THE SAFETY PIN, THEREFORE THE BOMB WAS NOT ACTIVATED.

Sea Tigers

Carl Gustaf 84 mm recoilless gun was named after Carl Gustaf Stads Gevärsfaktori, which, initially, produced it. Sweden later developed the 84mm shoulder-fired recoilless gun by the Royal Swedish Army Materiel Administration during the second half of 1940s as a crew served man- portable infantry support gun for close range multi-role anti-armour, anti-personnel, battle field illumination, smoke screening and marking fire.

It is confirmed in Wikipedia that Carl Gustaf Recoilless shoulder-fired guns were used by the only non-state actor in the world – the LTTE – during the final Eelam War.

It is extremely important to check the batch numbers of the recently recovered three launchers to find out where they were produced and other details like how they ended up in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka?

By Admiral Ravindra C. Wijegunaratne
WV, RWP and Bar, RSP, VSV, USP, NI (M) (Pakistan), ndc, psn, Bsc (Hons) (War Studies) (Karachi) MPhil (Madras)
Former Navy Commander and Former Chief of Defence Staff
Former Chairman, Trincomalee Petroleum Terminals Ltd
Former Managing Director Ceylon Petroleum Corporation
Former High Commissioner to Pakistan

Features

Yellow Beatz … a style similar to K-pop!

Published

22 hours ago

2026/02/10

Sahan Weerasooriya

Yes, get ready to vibe with Yellow Beatz, Sri Lanka’s awesome girl group, keen to take Sri Lankan music to the world with a style similar to K-pop!

With high-energy beats and infectious hooks, these talented ladies are here to shake up the music scene.

Think bold moves, catchy hooks, and, of course, spicy versions of old Sinhala hits, and Yellow Beatz is the package you won’t want to miss!

According to a spokesman for the group, Yellow Beatz became a reality during the Covid period … when everyone was stuck at home, in lockdown.

“First we interviewed girls, online, and selected a team that blended well, as four voices, and then started rehearsals. One of the cover songs we recorded, during those early rehearsals, unexpectedly went viral on Facebook. From that moment onward, we continued doing cover songs, and we received a huge response. Through that, we were able to bring back some beautiful Sri Lankan musical creations that were being forgotten, and introduce them to the new generation.”

The team members, I am told, have strong musical skills and with proper training their goal is to become a vocal group recognised around the world.

Believe me, their goal, they say, is not only to take Sri Lanka’s name forward, in the music scene, but to bring home a Grammy Award, as well.

“We truly believe we can achieve this with the love and support of everyone in Sri Lanka.”

The year 2026 is very special for Yellow Beatz as they have received an exceptional opportunity to represent Sri Lanka at the World Championships of Performing Arts in the USA.

Under the guidance of Chris Raththara, the Director for Sri Lanka, and with the blessings of all Sri Lankans, the girls have a great hope that they can win this milestone.

“We believe this will be a moment of great value for us as Yellow Beatz, and also for all Sri Lankans, and it will be an important inspiration for the future of our country.”

Along with all the preparation for the event in the USA, they went on to say they also need to manage their performances, original song recordings, and everything related.

The year 2026 is very special for Yellow Beatz

“We have strong confidence in ourselves and in our sincere intentions, because we are a team that studies music deeply, researches within the field, and works to take the uniqueness of Sri Lankan identity to the world.”

At present, they gather at the Voices Lab Academy, twice a week, for new creations and concert rehearsals.

This project was created by Buddhika Dayarathne who is currently working as a Pop Vocal lecturer at SLTC Campus. Voice Lab Academy is also his own private music academy and Yellow Beatz was formed through that platform.

Buddhika is keen to take Sri Lankan music to the world with a style similar to K-Pop and Yellow Beatz began as a result of that vision. With that same aim, we all work together as one team.

“Although it was a little challenging for the four of us girls to work together at first, we have united for our goal and continue to work very flexibly and with dedication. Our parents and families also give their continuous blessings and support for this project,” Rameesha, Dinushi, Newansa and Risuri said.

Last year, Yellow Beatz released their first original song, ‘Ihirila’ , and with everything happening this year, they are also preparing for their first album.