Features

Inside the Shadows of China: My Talk with Jasper Becker

Published

3 months ago

2025/11/23

Jasper Becker

That was one of the most concealed nightmares humanity was forced to endure. “In one village a mother was discovered boiling her two-year-old to eat its flesh. In another case, a father was charged with strangling his two sons to consume them; his defence was that they were already dead,” Jasper recounted in his book Hungry Ghosts. The famine of Mao’s era, though China had long been known as a land prone to scarcity, was of an unprecedented magnitude; this man-made calamity claimed at least 30 million lives.

I spoke to Jasper this week, and our hours-long discussion unearthed his profound insights on China—its history, economy, and the deep, often invisible mechanisms that have shaped its trajectory. “I was not an academic,” he told me, “and most of the academic books written in American universities and British universities got the whole picture of China completely wrong.” It was this outsider’s perspective, unencumbered by institutional loyalty, that allowed him to travel freely across rural China and speak directly with peasants, capturing truths that the state sought to conceal.

Jasper Becker is a British journalist, historian, and author whose career has spanned several decades across Asia, with a particular focus on China. Fluent in Chinese, French, and German, Jasper began his career reporting for the Associated Press in Geneva and Frankfurt, before joining The Guardian, where he covered pivotal events across East Asia, including the pro-democracy movements in South Korea and Taiwan, the first pro-independence riots in Lhasa, and developments in North Korea.

From 1995 to 2002, he served as Beijing Bureau Chief for Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, later becoming China correspondent for The Independent. Jasper has authored nine books on Asia, most notably Hungry Ghosts, the first comprehensive account of China’s Great Leap Forward famine, and Rogue Regime, a study of Kim Jong Il’s North Korea, along with numerous privately published family histories.

Jasper explained that the systemic failures leading to the Great Famine were not merely historical accidents but predictable consequences of authoritarian centralisation and obfuscation. “Because one of the things about China is that it’s very secretive, it’s very authoritarian, and the statistics are unreliable,” he said. During Mao’s era, reporting lines were constructed on fear: “People were given targets. And if you didn’t meet the targets, you were punished. So people told lies to the people above them in the hierarchy, and they then doubled those lies. So you got these inflated reports, which went to the centre.”

This compounding of falsehoods created the terrifying conditions in which policy, divorced from reality, resulted in catastrophe. As Jasper noted, “Eventually then everybody starved, because you couldn’t eat these lies, and you had to import food from abroad. Nobody dared tell the great leader Mao that actually all this was lies and his policies didn’t work. And people who tried to do it were then severely punished.”

China’s long history of famine contextualises the Great Famine within a recurring pattern of environmental stress, social upheaval, and bureaucratic failure. Jasper elaborated on the historical mechanisms: “China was known as the land of famine… the responsibility of the state in Chinese history had been to collect grain in surplus years, hold that in storage, and release it during famine years. That system worked quite well.”

Yet environmental pressures, population expansion, and infrastructure challenges often disrupted these mechanisms. “The geography of China makes it very difficult to move grain around in large quantities, so what China did was they built a grand canal to bring food from the centre of China—from the Yangtze Valley—up to the north on barges.” The north, perpetually threatened by horse-riding invaders, relied on this logistical system to protect both population and state. However, Jasper stressed that, over centuries, human intervention exacerbated vulnerabilities: “People began to move out of the valleys into the mountains and cut down the trees, and that silted up the rivers, and when the rivers silted up there were more and more floods. So there were a succession of rebellions because there wasn’t enough food; the food wasn’t keeping up with the population growth.”

The twentieth century layered additional calamities atop these historical vulnerabilities. Civil wars between the Communists and the Nationalists, Japanese invasion, and regional conflicts created a persistent cycle of destruction. Jasper explained, “Despite the fact that the Chinese were benefiting from all these Western inventions and better crops and better transport, that was negated by all these people moving armies across the country and fighting each other.”

These repeated disruptions meant that, by the time the Great Famine struck under Mao, China’s population was extraordinarily vulnerable. Yet, while the famine itself was catastrophic, Jasper noted that the Communist Party later claimed to have eradicated extreme poverty—a claim he views through a critical lens: “The claim doesn’t really make any sense to me because people were poor when the Chinese Communist Party took over, because the Chinese Party had waged a civil war in order to impose a communist system, which made people worse off.”

The political economy that underpinned the famine and subsequent reforms is complex and, Jasper argued, distinct from other socialist experiments. In the early years of Deng Xiaoping’s reforms, the challenge was to transition from a militarized, state-controlled economy to a consumer-driven one. “When I went there, everybody was dressed in military uniforms… and the military ran everything… So people moved things out of the military into the civilian consumer market.” Jasper emphasized the incremental, step-by-step liberalisation as central to understanding China’s economic evolution.

“Communist countries had a choice between freeing all the prices and privatizing everything in one go, which is what a country like Poland did. Or they could do what China did, which was to do this one commodity at a time.” The initial price liberalizations led to rampant inflation and social frustration, culminating in the student protests of 1989: “Even though living standards were going up, the people wanted to get rid of the Communist Party, because they believed, well, if we’re going to go into a market economy, why do we need a Communist Party?”

Jasper recounted his own experiences reporting during those turbulent times. “I was in Tiananmen, and in Beijing when they sent the army in to suppress the student protest.” The episode revealed the Party’s prioritization of political control over economic reform, a principle that continued to define China’s subsequent trajectory. Upon returning to China in the mid-1990s, Jasper observed the divergence from the Soviet experience: “In the Soviet Union, the Communist Party had been banned. But the Chinese said, well, we’re staying in power. Our children, the children of the revolutionary leaders, are going to stay in control. We are not going to sell off the state factories… But we are going to get foreign investment in.” This hybrid model, combining controlled liberalization with political continuity, underpinned China’s rapid industrial ascent.

Yet Jasper stressed that the extraordinary industrial expansion carries its own contradictions. “China has done everything to excess… which leads to actually a lot of damage.” Overcapacity in housing, steel, and emerging sectors like electric vehicles exemplifies this pattern. “You get a car and the speed limit should be 50 miles an hour. And you say, ‘Oh no, we’re the Chinese Communist Party. We can do things faster.’ And then you drive the car at 100 miles an hour. And then you crash the car. That’s kind of what they do.” This metaphor captures the structural tensions within China’s economic model: rapid production without the corrective mechanisms provided by a truly functioning market.

The modern manifestation of this over-investment is striking. China’s steel production now exceeds one billion tonnes annually, eclipsing the combined output of the next ten countries. Jasper explained, “China produces more than India, Japan, Korea, America, Europe all put together. And now they’re flooding the world with cheap steel. So steel companies all over the world are going bankrupt, because they can’t match the steel prices.”

Similarly, overbuilt housing and infrastructure, while creating employment and stimulating local economies, represent sunk costs unlikely to yield sustainable returns. “You built all this housing, but way too much housing—nobody wants this housing. And so that means the banks, which kind of own the housing because they lend people mortgages, are essentially bankrupt. And lots of industries are like that.”

The structural opacity of the Chinese system exacerbates these issues. Jasper highlighted that “even to this day, the Chinese currency, the renminbi, is not a convertible currency. We don’t know what it’s worth. And they were very fortunate that a lot of foreign companies came into China… but people in the leadership also don’t know the true data.” The reliance on falsified statistics and controlled information channels creates persistent uncertainty in both domestic and global economic planning. “Most of the data coming out of China is fraudulent… the problem we still have today is that most of the data coming out of China is fraudulent; it’s inflated and doesn’t give you a true picture because the political system is still the same.”

This combination of over-centralization, state-directed investment, and opaque governance presents distinct challenges for contemporary analysts and journalists. Jasper lamented the shrinking space for independent reporting: “There are almost no foreign journalists there now… and the Chinese journalists obviously can’t do anything because everything is censored.” Digital technologies, once presumed to guarantee transparency, have been co-opted into mechanisms of control. “You can’t even use a VPN safely in China… that technology story didn’t pan out at all.”

In our discussions, Jasper repeatedly emphasized that the patterns observed historically continue to shape China’s present. The “stimulus programmes” of 2008 and subsequent over-investment, the lack of a convertible currency, and state-directed malinvestment reflect enduring features of a highly centralized system. “One steel mill is a good idea, but ten steel mills is a bad idea… you basically have to write that off.”

Similarly, the economic and demographic legacies of the Great Famine reverberate in persistent rural–urban inequalities. The Hukou system, controlling mobility and access to services, reproduces centuries-old hierarchies: “If you are from a rural area you have no right to live in the city and therefore enjoy better schools or better health care… the difference between the status of an urban resident and a rural resident didn’t change.”

Jasper also offered trenchant observations on China’s geopolitical posture and trade strategies. Overcapacity and export-led industrial growth create structural pressures on other nations, inducing trade tensions. “European and American countries are now moving to basically putting up barriers to Chinese products… because if you’re dumping all this stuff on the market, other people can’t develop their own factories and industries.” He detailed the complex interplay of tariffs, smuggling, and regional industrial relocation: “China has been using countries in Southeast Asia to move factories out of China and try and get round these tariff barriers, and to smuggle these advanced chips through third countries.”

Throughout our conversations, Jasper returned consistently to the historical continuities linking famine, war, and economic mismanagement. Centralized decision-making, secrecy, and excessive intervention created vulnerabilities in the past and continue to shape the present. “Over-centralization is a mistake, having fixed exchange rates is a mistake, having too many subsidies and too much government-directed investment is a mistake, and you’re better relying on market signals than government central planning… They promised everyone they were going to abolish money, abolish markets and abolish private property and they all starved to death.”

His reflections also extended to China’s military–industrial nexus. “It’s certainly building up its military because that’s a way of using up all this steel and all these people… it becomes really difficult to compete.” The intersection of industrial overcapacity, strategic posturing, and centralized planning illustrates how historical patterns of overreach persist into contemporary policy making. Similarly, tensions regarding Taiwan exemplify the political uncertainties that permeate the upper echelons of the Party. “Ever since I’ve been dealing with China, people have been talking about this… I don’t think it’s physically possible for China to invade Taiwan; they would suffer a huge defeat.”

Jasper offered a sobering assessment of the prospects for journalism and historical research in the digital age. The capacity to collect reliable information has been severely curtailed, creating significant blind spots in global understanding: “We certainly know less about China than we used to do… because what China does affects everybody’s economy now, whereas what China did in those days mostly just affected China.” He warned that the combination of over-investment, opaque governance, and restricted information channels will continue to produce systemic challenges, echoing lessons from history.

Reflecting on the entirety of our hours-long dialogue, it becomes evident that the Great Famine, China’s economic trajectory, and its current global positioning are inseparable from the patterns Jasper elucidates. From man-made famine to overcapacity in steel, to censored information and over-centralized planning, the through-line is a system that amplifies both achievement and risk. “Although you get these incredible achievements,” he noted, “you also actually bankrupt yourself doing this… You make lots of electric vehicles, but you lose money when you make them.”

China’s trajectory, as Jasper portrays it, is one of extraordinary paradox: immense industrial and technological prowess coexists with structural fragility; economic growth is accompanied by unsustainable debts and overproduction; centralization ensures both speed and opacity; and censorship preserves the Party’s narrative while masking underlying dysfunctions. In his words, “The manufacturing is real, but underneath things are not very healthy at all… that reversal will be very painful… a lot of the investment will go bad.”

As Jasper reminded me repeatedly, “This is the characteristic of the Chinese system… they do everything to excess, incredibly organized and good at organizing large numbers of people, and getting them to do something very, very quickly, because nobody can oppose it. But this leads to actually a lot of damage.” The tragedy of the famine was not merely the deaths themselves, but the fact that they were preventable. The tragedy of modern China, as Jasper sees it, may lie not in dramatic collapse but in an extended period of stagnation, tension, and dislocation—a slow grinding down of dynamism under the weight of centralized control. The past is not repeating; it is rhyming in ways that are easy to overlook and dangerous to ignore.

by Nilantha Ilangamuwa ✍️

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Features

More state support needed for marginalised communities

Published

2 days ago

2026/02/13

Thilina Walpola

A landslide in the Central Province

Message from Malaiyaha Tamil community to govt:

Insights from SSA Cyclone Ditwah Survey

When climate disasters strike, they don’t affect everyone equally. Marginalised communities typically face worse outcomes, and Cyclone Ditwah is no exception. Especially in a context where normalcy is far from “normal”, the idea of returning to normalcy or restoring a life of normalcy makes very little sense.

The island-wide survey (https://ssalanka.org/reports/) conducted by the Social Scientists’ Association (SSA), between early to mid-January on Cyclone Ditwah shows stark regional disparities in how satisfied or dissatisfied people were with the government’s response. While national satisfaction levels were relatively high in most provinces, the Central Province tells a different story.

Only 35.2% of Central Province residents reported that they were satisfied with early warning and evacuation measures, compared to 52.2% nationally. The gap continues across every measure: just 52.9% were satisfied with immediate rescue and emergency response, compared with the national figure of 74.6%. Satisfaction with relief distribution in the Central Province is 51.9% while the national figure stands at 73.1%. The figures for restoration of water, electricity, and roads are at a low 45.9% in the central province compared to the 70.9% in national figures. Similarly, the satisfaction level for recovery and rebuilding support is 48.7% in the Central Province, while the national figure is 67.0%.

A deeper analysis of the SSA data on public perceptions reveals something important: these lower satisfaction rates came primarily from the Malaiyaha Tamil population. Their experience differed not just from other provinces, but also from other ethnic groups living in the Central Province itself.

The Malaiyaha Tamil community’s vulnerability didn’t start with the cyclone. Their vulnerability is a historically and structurally pre-determined process of exclusion and marginalisation. Brought to Sri Lanka during British rule to work for the empire’s plantation economies, they have faced long-term economic exploitation and have repeatedly been denied access to state support and social welfare systems. Most estate residents still live in ‘line rooms’ and have no rights to the land they cultivate and live on. The community continues to be governed by an outdated estate management system that acts as a barrier to accessing public and municipal services such as road repair, water, electricity and other basic infrastructures available to other citizens.

As far as access to improved water sources is concerned, the Sri Lanka Demographic Health Survey (2016) shows that 57% of estate sector households don’t have access to improved water sources, while more than 90% of households in urban and rural areas do. With regard to the level of poverty, as the Department of Census and Statistics (2019) data reveals, the estate sector where most Malaiyaha Tamils live had a poverty headcount index of 33.8%; more than double the national rate of 14.3%. These statistics highlight key indicators of the systemic discrimination faced by the Malaiyaha Tamil community.

Some crucial observations from the SSA data collectors who enumerated responses from estate residents in the survey reveal the specific challenges faced by the Malaiyaha Tamils, particularly in their efforts to seek state support for compensation and reconstruction.

First, the Central Province experienced not just flooding but also the highest number of landslides in the island. As a result, some residents in the region lost entire homes, access roadways, and other basic infrastructures. The loss of lives, livelihoods and land was at a higher intensity compared to the provinces not located in the hills. Most importantly, the Malaiyaha Tamil community’s pre-existing grievances made them even more vulnerable and the government’s job of reparation and restitution more complex.

Early warnings hadn’t reached many areas. Some data collectors said they themselves never heard any warnings in estate areas, while others mentioned that early warnings were issued but didn’t reach some segments of the community. According to the resident data collectors, the police announcements reached only as far as the sections where they were able to drive their vehicles to, and there were many estate roads that were not motorable. When warnings did filter through to remote locations, they often came by word of mouth and information was distorted along the way. Once the disaster hit, things got worse: roads were blocked, electricity went out, mobile networks failed and people were cut off completely.

Emergency response was slow. Blocked roads meant people could not get to hospitals when they needed urgent care, including pregnant mothers. The difficult terrain and poor road conditions meant rescue teams took much longer to reach affected areas than in other regions.

Relief supplies didn’t reach everyone. The Grama Niladhari divisions in these areas are huge and hard to navigate, making it difficult for Grama Niladharis to reach all places as urgently as needed. Relief workers distributed supplies where vehicles could go, which meant accessible areas got help while remote communities were left out.

Some people didn’t even try to go to safety centres or evacuation shelters set up in local schools because the facilities there were already so poor. The perceptions of people who did go to safety centres, as shown in the provincial data, reveal that satisfaction was low compared to other affected regions of the country. Less than half were satisfied with space and facilities (42.1%) or security and protection (45.0%). Satisfaction was even lower for assistance with lost or damaged documentation (17.9%) and information and support for compensation applications (28.2%). Only 22.5% were satisfied with medical care and health services below most other affected regions.

Restoring services proved nearly impossible in some areas. Road access was the biggest problem. The condition of the roads was already poor even before the cyclone, and some still haven’t been cleared. Recovery is especially difficult because there’s no decent baseline infrastructure to restore, hence you can’t bring roads and other public facilities back to a “good” condition when they were never good, even before the disaster.

Water systems faced their own complications. Many households get water from natural sources or small community projects, and not the centralised state system. These sources are often in the middle of the disaster zone and therefore got contaminated during the floods and landslides.

Long-term recovery remains stalled. Without basic infrastructure, areas that are still hard to reach keep struggling to get the support they need for rebuilding.

Taken together, what do these testaments mean? Disaster response can’t be the same for everyone. The Malaiyaha Tamil community has been double marginalised because they were already living with structural inequalities such as poor infrastructure, geographic isolation, and inadequate services which have been exacerbated by Cyclone Ditwah. An effective and fair disaster response needs to account for these underlying vulnerabilities. It requires interventions tailored to the historical, economic, and infrastructural realities that marginalized communities face every day. On top of that, it highlights the importance of dealing with climate disasters, given the fact that vulnerable communities could face more devastating impacts compared to others.

(Shashik Silva is a researcher with the Social Scientists’ Association of Sri Lanka)

by Shashik Silva ✍️

Features

Crucial test for religious and ethnic harmony in Bangladesh

Published

3 days ago

2026/02/12

Sahan Weerasooriya

A political protest that led to governmental change in Bangladesh mid last year. (photograph: imago)

Will the Bangladesh parliamentary election bring into being a government that will ensure ethnic and religious harmony in the country? This is the poser on the lips of peace-loving sections in Bangladesh and a principal concern of those outside who mean the country well.

The apprehensions are mainly on the part of religious and ethnic minorities. The parliamentary poll of February 12th is expected to bring into existence a government headed by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the Islamist oriented Jamaat-e-Islami party and this is where the rub is. If these parties win, will it be a case of Bangladesh sliding in the direction of a theocracy or a state where majoritarian chauvinism thrives?

Chief of the Jamaat, Shafiqur Rahman, who was interviewed by sections of the international media recently said that there is no need for minority groups in Bangladesh to have the above fears. He assured, essentially, that the state that will come into being will be equable and inclusive. May it be so, is likely to be the wish of those who cherish a tension-free Bangladesh.

The party that could have posed a challenge to the above parties, the Awami League Party of former Prime Minister Hasina Wased, is out of the running on account of a suspension that was imposed on it by the authorities and the mentioned majoritarian-oriented parties are expected to have it easy at the polls.

A positive that has emerged against the backdrop of the poll is that most ordinary people in Bangladesh, be they Muslim or Hindu, are for communal and religious harmony and it is hoped that this sentiment will strongly prevail, going ahead. Interestingly, most of them were of the view, when interviewed, that it was the politicians who sowed the seeds of discord in the country and this viewpoint is widely shared by publics all over the region in respect of the politicians of their countries.

Some sections of the Jamaat party were of the view that matters with regard to the orientation of governance are best left to the incoming parliament to decide on but such opinions will be cold comfort for minority groups. If the parliamentary majority comes to consist of hard line Islamists, for instance, there is nothing to prevent the country from going in for theocratic governance. Consequently, minority group fears over their safety and protection cannot be prevented from spreading.

Therefore, we come back to the question of just and fair governance and whether Bangladesh’s future rulers could ensure these essential conditions of democratic rule. The latter, it is hoped, will be sufficiently perceptive to ascertain that a Bangladesh rife with religious and ethnic tensions, and therefore unstable, would not be in the interests of Bangladesh and those of the region’s countries.

Unfortunately, politicians region-wide fall for the lure of ethnic, religious and linguistic chauvinism. This happens even in the case of politicians who claim to be democratic in orientation. This fate even befell Bangladesh’s Awami League Party, which claims to be democratic and socialist in general outlook.

We have it on the authority of Taslima Nasrin in her ground-breaking novel, ‘Lajja’, that the Awami Party was not of any substantial help to Bangladesh’s Hindus, for example, when violence was unleashed on them by sections of the majority community. In fact some elements in the Awami Party were found to be siding with the Hindus’ murderous persecutors. Such are the temptations of hard line majoritarianism.

In Sri Lanka’s past numerous have been the occasions when even self-professed Leftists and their parties have conveniently fallen in line with Southern nationalist groups with self-interest in mind. The present NPP government in Sri Lanka has been waxing lyrical about fostering national reconciliation and harmony but it is yet to prove its worthiness on this score in practice. The NPP government remains untested material.

As a first step towards national reconciliation it is hoped that Sri Lanka’s present rulers would learn the Tamil language and address the people of the North and East of the country in Tamil and not Sinhala, which most Tamil-speaking people do not understand. We earnestly await official language reforms which afford to Tamil the dignity it deserves.

An acid test awaits Bangladesh as well on the nation-building front. Not only must all forms of chauvinism be shunned by the incoming rulers but a secular, truly democratic Bangladesh awaits being licked into shape. All identity barriers among people need to be abolished and it is this process that is referred to as nation-building.

On the foreign policy frontier, a task of foremost importance for Bangladesh is the need to build bridges of amity with India. If pragmatism is to rule the roost in foreign policy formulation, Bangladesh would place priority to the overcoming of this challenge. The repatriation to Bangladesh of ex-Prime Minister Hasina could emerge as a steep hurdle to bilateral accord but sagacious diplomacy must be used by Bangladesh to get over the problem.

A reply to N.A. de S. Amaratunga

A response has been penned by N.A. de S. Amaratunga (please see p5 of ‘The Island’ of February 6th) to a previous column by me on ‘ India shaping-up as a Swing State’, published in this newspaper on January 29th , but I remain firmly convinced that India remains a foremost democracy and a Swing State in the making.

If the countries of South Asia are to effectively manage ‘murderous terrorism’, particularly of the separatist kind, then they would do well to adopt to the best of their ability a system of government that provides for power decentralization from the centre to the provinces or periphery, as the case may be. This system has stood India in good stead and ought to prove effective in all other states that have fears of disintegration.

Moreover, power decentralization ensures that all communities within a country enjoy some self-governing rights within an overall unitary governance framework. Such power-sharing is a hallmark of democratic governance.

Features

Celebrating Valentine’s Day …

Published

3 days ago

2026/02/12

Sahan Weerasooriya

Valentine’s Day is all about celebrating love, romance, and affection, and this is how some of our well-known personalities plan to celebrate Valentine’s Day – 14th February:

Merlina Fernando (Singer)

Yes, it’s a special day for lovers all over the world and it’s even more special to me because 14th February is the birthday of my husband Suresh, who’s the lead guitarist of my band Mission.

We have planned to celebrate Valentine’s Day and his Birthday together and it will be a wonderful night as always.

We will be having our fans and close friends, on that night, with their loved ones at Highso – City Max hotel Dubai, from 9.00 pm onwards.

Lorensz Francke (Elvis Tribute Artiste)

On Valentine’s Day I will be performing a live concert at a Wealthy Senior Home for Men and Women, and their families will be attending, as well.

I will be performing live with romantic, iconic love songs and my song list would include ‘Can’t Help falling in Love’, ‘Love Me Tender’, ‘Burning Love’, ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight’, ‘The Wonder of You’ and ‘’It’s Now or Never’ to name a few.

To make Valentine’s Day extra special I will give the Home folks red satin scarfs.

Emma Shanaya (Singer)

I plan on spending the day of love with my girls, especially my best friend. I don’t have a romantic Valentine this year but I am thrilled to spend it with the girl that loves me through and through. I’ll be in Colombo and look forward to go to a cute cafe and spend some quality time with my childhood best friend Zulha.

JAYASRI

Emma-and-Maneeka

This Valentine’s Day the band JAYASRI we will be really busy; in the morning we will be landing in Sri Lanka, after our Oman Tour; then in the afternoon we are invited as Chief Guests at our Maris Stella College Sports Meet, Negombo, and late night we will be with LineOne band live in Karandeniya Open Air Down South. Everywhere we will be sharing LOVE with the mass crowds.

Kay Jay (Singer)

I will stay at home and cook a lovely meal for lunch, watch some movies, together with Sanjaya, and, maybe we go out for dinner and have a lovely time. Come to think of it, every day is Valentine’s Day for me with Sanjaya Alles.

Maneka Liyanage (Beauty Tips)

On this special day, I celebrate love by spending meaningful time with the people I cherish. I prepare food with love and share meals together, because food made with love brings hearts closer. I enjoy my leisure time with them — talking, laughing, sharing stories, understanding each other, and creating beautiful memories. My wish for this Valentine’s Day is a world without fighting — a world where we love one another like our own beloved, where we do not hurt others, even through a single word or action. Let us choose kindness, patience, and understanding in everything we do.

Janaka Palapathwala (Singer)

Janaka

Valentine’s Day should not be the only day we speak about love.

From the moment we are born into this world, we seek love, first through the very drop of our mother’s milk, then through the boundless care of our Mother and Father, and the embrace of family.

Love is everywhere. All living beings, even plants, respond in affection when they are loved.

As we grow, we learn to love, and to be loved. One day, that love inspires us to build a new family of our own.

Love has no beginning and no end. It flows through every stage of life, timeless, endless, and eternal.

Natasha Rathnayake (Singer)

We don’t have any special plans for Valentine’s Day. When you’ve been in love with the same person for over 25 years, you realise that love isn’t a performance reserved for one calendar date. My husband and I have never been big on public displays, or grand gestures, on 14th February. Our love is expressed quietly and consistently, in ordinary, uncelebrated moments.

With time, you learn that love isn’t about proving anything to the world or buying into a commercialised idea of romance—flowers that wilt, sweets that spike blood sugar, and gifts that impress briefly but add little real value. In today’s society, marketing often pushes the idea that love is proven by how much money you spend, and that buying things is treated as a sign of commitment.

Real love doesn’t need reminders or price tags. It lives in showing up every day, choosing each other on unromantic days, and nurturing the relationship intentionally and without an audience.

This isn’t a judgment on those who enjoy celebrating Valentine’s Day. It’s simply a personal choice.

Melloney Dassanayake (Miss Universe Sri Lanka 2024)

I truly believe it’s beautiful to have a day specially dedicated to love. But, for me, Valentine’s Day goes far beyond romantic love alone. It celebrates every form of love we hold close to our hearts: the love for family, friends, and that one special person who makes life brighter. While 14th February gives us a moment to pause and celebrate, I always remind myself that love should never be limited to just one day. Every single day should feel like Valentine’s Day – constant reminder to the people we love that they are never alone, that they are valued, and that they matter.

I’m incredibly blessed because, for me, every day feels like Valentine’s Day. My special person makes sure of that through the smallest gestures, the quiet moments, and the simple reminders that love lives in the details. He shows me that it’s the little things that count, and that love doesn’t need grand stages to feel extraordinary. This Valentine’s Day, perfection would be something intimate and meaningful: a cozy picnic in our home garden, surrounded by nature, laughter, and warmth, followed by an abstract drawing session where we let our creativity flow freely. To me, that’s what love is – simple, soulful, expressive, and deeply personal. When love is real, every ordinary moment becomes magical.

Noshin De Silva (Actress)

Valentine’s Day is one of my favourite holidays! I love the décor, the hearts everywhere, the pinks and reds, heart-shaped chocolates, and roses all around. But honestly, I believe every day can be Valentine’s Day.

It doesn’t have to be just about romantic love. It’s a chance to celebrate love in all its forms with friends, family, or even by taking a little time for yourself.

Whether you’re spending the day with someone special or enjoying your own company, it’s a reminder to appreciate meaningful connections, show kindness, and lead with love every day.

And yes, I’m fully on theme this year with heart nail art and heart mehendi design!

Wishing everyone a very happy Valentine’s Day, but, remember, love yourself first, and don’t forget to treat yourself.

Sending my love to all of you.