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Into the Unknown – from Scotland to the Central Hill of Ceylon: the Story of the Early Planters

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5 years ago

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Today, May 2, 2021 marks the 129th death anniversary of James Taylor, the Scotsman popularly known as the father of tea in Sri Lanka. Hailing from Kincardineshire in Scotland, Taylor arrived on the island of Ceylon as a 17-years old youth to take up coffee planting and settled in the Loolecondera (Loolkandura) Estate in Galaha, Hewaheta. Taylor pioneered the growing of tea in the ailing coffee plantations. His achievements in growing and processing tea were the beginning of a lucrative industry.

The result was an unimaginable, impressive transformation of the landscape of the hill country. Two years after arriving on the island, Taylor wrote to an acquaintance in Scotland and said that those were the most uncomfortable two years of his life. What sort of life these pioneer youngsters endured! The following notes are on the harrowing life experiences of those pioneers that ventured into the unknown with little or no thoughts of whether their pioneering efforts would ever lead to a profitable industry that would change the lives of a nation.

The credit for introducing coffee to India and Ceylon goes to Arab traders. Following its introduction to the island, the coffee plant grew almost wild in home gardens, its snow-white flowers giving an exquisite fragrance to the surrounding area.

The Portuguese, in the maritime areas of the island, concentrated their attention on cinnamon. Coffee was not on their agenda. The Dutch, nevertheless, had ideas of cultivating coffee besides cinnamon and spices but hardly had the expertise. Their first attempt was to plant coffee in the southwestern part of the island in Baddegama area around the Ginganga basin. The soil conditions were unsuitable. Soon sugar cane and later coconut replaced the crop.

The British thought that coffee was growing wild in the Kandyan hills. They surmised that the climate was ideal for commercial cultivation. Pristine tropical forest-clad Kandyan hills were now called crown land. New entrepreneurs bought these lands that flocked to grab the virgin mountains and valleys. These lands were cheap, some going as cheap as five shillings per acre. Within a short period, the rate went up to reach one pound per acre. The expanding empire required large numbers of young and energetic English people. Coffee planting in Ceylon attracted the adventurous young, prepared to face the unknown future many miles away from their homes. Scots were the most prolific adventurers to arrive in Ceylon. Large numbers were from and around Aberdeen. Many were from the same village or the adjoining districts and were often related. Word of mouth spread far and wide. The British trading ships brought young, iron-hearted men to Galle and Colombo. At first, those who grabbed the opportunity of acquiring crown land were the military and the British administrative officers stationed in Colombo. The Ceylon coffee boom started in 1825. It has been compared to the gold rush in California and Australia around about the same period.

A typical story of a coffee prospector described by John Weatherstone is as follows. A proprietor would hire a newly arrived young Scot as superintendent and a few coolies in Colombo. They will start collecting planting utensils, knives, machetes, mammoties, ropes, lamp oil, candles, and boxes of matches in addition to large quantities of rice and other foodstuffs. The most important purchase of the young recruit would be some coffee seeds for the nursery. Setting up a nursery was the first task to be started almost immediately on reaching the designated land. Their journey to Kandy would now take only a day or two by bullock cart and walking, compared to their compatriot military men.

On reaching Kandy, the group would relax for a day or two while buying little things that would come in handy and to replenish the larder. They also acquired a rudimentary first aid box. They would then move on horseback and on foot to the hills, where a surveyor would show the owner his designated land. Surveying was a lucrative profession and was often almost impossible to carry on due to impassable mountainous terrain and colossal trees that would interfere with the ‘sight lines’. Some of the surveys were way off when scrutinized years later.

The proprietor would return to Colombo after handing over the estate to the young pioneer. Thus the young man, uninitiated (often in his late teens), was left in the unknown, unfamiliar tropical mountain forest. While sheltering in a makeshift primitive talipot palm leaf-covered hut, the recruit would get a patch of land cleared for the nursery. This chore was the first task, and the massive effort towards clearing the virgin jungle came next. By the time land was cleared, maybe 50 – 100 acres, it was hoped, the coffee plants in the nursery would have grown to a size suitable for transplanting.

Clearing of virgin forests accelerated to a new level as the coffee prospectors pushed their way through Pussellawa and then to the Kotmale valley and the hills up the Ramboda area. Jungle clearing was the domain of the Sinhalese. John Capper left a dramatic account of jungle felling while visiting a coffee plantation in the hills above Kandy. About 40 ax-men took part in the chore. Small and medium-sized trees were selected to be axed first, leaving small stumps still keeping the trunks up. The large trees above would receive the axe similarly. A conch shell signal dispersed the crowd of noisy ax-men below, leaving those who managed the large trees above. The next conch shell signal alerted those above manning the large trees to sever the bit of trunk that kept the tree upright. With a thunderous noise, the colossal trees with their spreading branches landed on the smaller trees which succumbed to the same fate. Complete clearing the ground was not essential for coffee. Elephants were often used to clear the area, and what is left was burnt.

One of the earliest coffee planters of Ceylon was George Bird (son changed the spelling of the name to Byrde), known as the father of coffee in Ceylon. He started the first coffee estate in 1821, close to Gampola in Sinhapitiya. Sir Edward Barnes, the Governor, was so impressed with this pioneer tropical agriculturist he awarded Bird a tax-free loan of 4000 Rx dollars to start a much bigger venture. He was the first planter to employ the first consignment of Indian labor to work the coffee estates of Ceylon.

Without the gang of Indian coolies the survival of the early coffee and tea planters would have been impossible. According to John Weatherstone, the whole plantation industry benefited, so did the country. Without the Indian coolies the estates also could never have been worked. Many of the brave pioneers that pushed their way through the hostile, unfamiliar tropical rain forests were soon replaced by a new breed of coffee prospectors when officers of the British India Company and many with their capital started arriving on the island. ‘King Coffee’ of Ceylon reached its climax in 1854. Calamitously the coffee prices fell in 1847. This phenomenon led some of the original coffee prospectors to bankruptcy. Large tracts of coffee were abandoned and allowed to turn into scrublands. Fortunately, coffee was not doomed. Coffee prices gradually started to take off, and soon Ceylon coffee regained its kingship. Twenty-odd years later, around 1867, the coffee rust (Hamileia vastatrix) appeared among the plantations that slowly pushed the entire coffee industry to the bottom, never to raise its head again. The enterprising planters soon took over the new craze of replacing coffee plantations with tea boosted by the pioneers such as James Taylor of Loolcondera (Loolkandura) Estate. People used to say that the re-planting of tea was on the graveyard of old coffee estates of Ceylon. By the 1900s, there were more than half a million Indian coolies working in the plantation sectors. They arrived from south India as ‘unberthed’ paying deck passengers in British India Steam Navigation Company vessels. Their trek to the hills was by foot and, many succumbed without ever reaching their destinations.

The talipot palm-leaved shacks were gone. Estate bungalows with granite walls, wood-burning fireplaces, and chimneys, typically English, estate-bungalows came to be. Generally, an estate-bungalow was run by the ‘Appu’ who was the cook and the caretaker. A ‘boy’ would see to the comforts of the master acting as a valet. The garden and the vegetable plot would be in charge of a coolie who was non-resident. There would be a cowshed, a poultry run, and a stable for the horses. The ‘Master Sir’ was the lord of the estate. It was a lonely job. So young and yearning for company, the Master-Sir had to endure untold hardships.

Nevertheless, the early planters took great pains to continue the English way of living despite being almost isolated in their estate bungalows. The great naturalist and marine biologist Ernest Haeckel, while traveling through the plantations, was hosted by a planter who insisted that he appear for dinner in a black jacket and white tie! Of course, Haeckel did not have such formal attire in his traveling kit. But at dinner, his host was formally dressed while the lady wore a formal dinner gown.

John Weatherstone refers to J. P. Lewis’s note on the tragic death of a young planter of Nillambe, Mr. E.A. Morgan. He was riding back from Kandy with cash to pay his coolies. A Sinhalese emptied both barrels of his shotgun that struck the young planter squarely and the assailant made away with the money. The stricken-planter who was not dismounted, made his way to the estate but succumbed to his injury the same evening.

Dysentery, jungle fever (malaria) and, other tropical diseases were rampant. Many succumbed while still being in the prime of their lives. Many were cared for by their staff and friends. A number of them were taken to hotels or boarding houses in Kandy. Many of them died, away from their loved ones, unlamented and unsung in an alien land. There have been instances where the close kinship between the master, appu, and the boy broke. Weatherstone records the curious murders of two young planters by their appus.

The nearest English or Scottish neighbor being 12 to 15 miles away, the early young planters were suffering from isolation. The feminine company being almost non-existent, almost all took Tamil or Sinhalese girls as concubines. James Taylor had a Tamil concubine. At the time of his demise, there was a grieving Sinhala woman.

In a scenario when all creature comforts of good living are at the touch of a button, it is not easy to imagine the hardships those early planters endured. A recent drive up to the Nagrak Bungalow of Nonpareil estate in Belihuloya along a narrow track made us gaze in awe at the marvel these young pioneers had engineered. The passage involves thirty-three sharp hairpin bends. While driving up this crumbling track, we left our lives in the hands of our expert drivers.

What tremendous effort would have gone in the planning and executing this zigzagging track close up to the Horton Plains? No wonder that this mountain track is called ‘Devil’s Staircase’. Sri Lanka reaped the benefits of tea, boosting our island economy, for more than a 150 years. We are indeed indebted to the pioneer, young brave-hearts who paved the way.

A tremendous transformation took place in the tea industry of Sri Lanka since James Taylor’s time. The following statistic exemplifies this statement. The first-ever export of tea to London was a mere 23 pounds (by James Taylor) compared to the 278.5 million kilograms exported in 2020 despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. On the 129th death anniversary of the ‘Father of Tea’ let us spend a moment remembering this 17-year old Scot who never returned to Scotland but spent the next 40 years in the central hills of our resplendent island.


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Features

Eshan Malinga keeps getting them in the second half

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8 hours ago

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2026/05/12

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Malinga took 4 for 32 against Delhi Capitals, his best bowling figures of the season so far [BCCI]

Life keeps throwing hurdles in his way, but Eshan Malinga keeps vaulting over them. Take his February from hell. For several months, Malinga had been building up to his first ever World Cup, a dream for pretty much anyone who ever picks up a cricket ball. But a week before that World Cup, Malinga dislocated his non bowling shoulder while bowling, which the team’s medical staff have since described as a freak injury they had never seen before.

“I was devastated,” Malinga says. “On top of it being my first World Cup, it was also at home and I didn’t know when I would get that chance again. There were a few days there where I did absolutely nothing.”

And yet in mid-May, here he is grinning from atop a pile of 16 IPL wickets,  having developed a serious reputation as a reverse-swing operator. Sunrisers  Hyderabad’s  explosive batters may have seized the spotlight in this frenetic IPL, but on the bowling front, no SRH bowler has neared Malinga’s wicket haul, which is fifth best in the season overall.  In a year in which they have not had Pat Cummins for seven of their 11 matches, it is Malinga who has held down the fort,  particularly in the second half of the innings.

But trading difficulty for success is just what Malinga does. What he has long been doing. Go back eight years and Malinga had never played a hard-ball cricket match. On top of which his home district of Ratnapura – at the base of Sri Lanka’s central hills – was better known for its gems and waterfalls than cricket, never having produced a men’s international. Malinga, additionally, was not even actively trying to be a cricketer. He had moved from his first school in a village called Opanayake to Ratnapura’s Sivali Central College due to strong academic results, and found, almost by accident, that his new school had a hard-ball cricket team.

But what Malinga knew at that point was that he could bowl fast. That much had been obvious growing up in Opanayaka, where despite his mother’s occasional misgivings, Malinga was highly sought after by the organisers of the village softball team (Sri Lanka has a thriving village-level softball cricket ecosystem). And as had been the case with the better-known Malinga, this one was also aware he possessed a killer yorker – a prized asset in every form of cricket, with any kind of ball.

If he’d been on track to be a softball legend, Malinga found his horizons began to expand at a spectacular rate the moment he got a hard ball in his hands. First, his yorker and his pace began to reap big wickets in the Division Three schools competition for Sivali Central, whose coach had immediately hoisted him into the team upon seeing Malinga bowl at practice one day. Then in mid-2019, about a year into playing hard-ball cricket, came the day he still reflects on as the one that changed his cricketing life. Having missed a fast-bowling competition in Ratnapura because he had been playing for his school that day, Malinga travelled to the hill town of Badulla to bowl in the competition there, and clocked 127kph on the gun, which was enough to win him first place.

This was when he first became a blip, however faint and distant, on Sri Lanka Cricket’s radar. Visions of a cricketing life began to appear as wisps of opportunity began to materialise. The next few years, Covid-riddled though they were, became a crash course into the sport for Malinga. There were coaching camps in Colombo in which the best of the rural talent was trained up and funnelled into a programme at the next level up. There were trials for first-class teams, and eventually a fledgling domestic career.

“I don’t know how many times I came to Colombo from Ratnapura during those times,” he laughs now. “It was a lot! I would leave home at about 3am, and the bus journey to Colombo took about three-and-a-half hours. Then I’d train or play the match, and the bus back home always took longer because of traffic. So every day, I was on the road for more than seven hours.”

The Malinga who made these exhausting daily commutes was, as far as the Sri Lankan cricket system was concerned, a bowler of decent rather than blinding promise. His pace had propelled him to the top of the regional pool, but at the first-class level he was still adapting his yorker and slower ball (another weapon he had developed in his softball days). If he needed another gear, Malinga found it – again almost by accident – sometime in 2022.

“I was playing an Under-23 three-day tournament, and I remember that being the first time I really started reverse-swinging the ball,” he says. “Coaches had anyway told me that with my action and my pace, it should be possible. But it started almost automatically. It’s not something I had to learn.

“But it wasn’t that easy, because it was a long process to learn how to control it. To get reverse swing, you have to release the ball at a different point than a straight ball, because you want it to still hit the stumps when it is swinging. So I scuffed up a lot of balls and trained hard to get that line right.”

And so, the Malinga that emerged at the end of 2022 had sharp enough pace, an excellent yorker, a developing slower ball, mountains of homespun tenacity, and had also discovered that he can naturally reverse-swing the ball earlier in an innings than most. You could have seen where this is going, right? All the ingredients of an ace white-ball bowler were there. And Malinga was already a master of turning wisps of opportunities into tangible advances. Over the next three years, he’d land a spot in the national fast-bowling academy, use that as a trampoline to impress in an Emerging Teams three-dayer against Bangladesh, and from there bounce into a stint at the MRF Pace Academy in 2024, before on the franchise side of things parlaying a trial at Rajasthan Royals at Kumar Sangakkara’s invitation into a decent run at the SA20 for Paarl Royals.

Having leapt up to the fringes of the Sri Lanka team over the past 18 months, Malinga has at this IPL now seized another unusual chance. The square at SRH’s home stadium is among the barest and most abrasive in the league, and Malinga’s reverse swing has prospered upon it. Of his 16 wickets this season, 11 have come at home. In the second half of the innings, when the ball is most likely to reverse, Malinga’s economy rate is 8.37 at a venue where runs have been scored at 9.38 in that period this season.

Malinga had put in a robust 2025 season for SRH as well, so there is a body of work emerging there. Perhaps this is why this year, SRH’s bowling plans have tended to follow the contours of Malinga’s own game.

“After six overs the ball gets damaged here, so we needed to make use of that. When I bowled at practice, the ball reversed, so I think a plan emerged where we were going to use the scuffed up ball and take advantage of that.

“In the first powerplay the ball comes on to the bat nicely here. After that we try to get the advantage of having an older ball. We’ve got bowlers who bowl 140kph-plus, and we have Pat Cummins, who also reverses the ball. So we make sure to look after the ball in a way that will give us reverse.”

At 25, eight years into a serious cricket career, Malinga sees himself as a work in progress. He wants to work on his powerplay bowling. His variations, he thinks, still need some work. He’d like to play Tests, where his reverse swing could really stretch its legs. And, oh, he is still waiting to play that first World Cup.

Even here, his keen nose for opportunity leads him. He points out through the course of our conversation that where the three previous World Cups had been played with a new ball at either end being used right through the innings, the next World Cup, in 2027, will feature rules that seem at least partially designed to enhance reverse swing, an older ball more suited to the craft now available towards the end of the innings.

He isn’t even a sure-fire pick in Sri Lanka’s ODI XI just yet, so this is just a flicker of an opportunity for now. But having made the journey from the village of Opanayaka to the most raucous cricketing showpiece on the planet, Malinga knows just what to do with those.

[Cricinfo]

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Features

High Stakes in Pursuing corruption cases

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24 hours ago

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2026/05/12

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Kapila Chandrasena

The death of the most important suspect in the Sri Lankan Airlines Airbus deal has drawn intense public speculation. Kapila Chandrasena the former CEO of the heavily loss-making national airline was found dead under circumstances that the police are still investigating.

He had recently been arrested by the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption in connection with the controversial Airbus aircraft purchase agreement signed in 2013. Police investigations are continuing into the cause of death and whether or not he committed suicide. The unresolved death brings to light the high stakes involved in accountability efforts of this nature.

The uncertainty surrounding Chandrasena’s death has revived public memories of other mysterious deaths linked to corruption investigations and public scandals. Among them is the death of Rajeewa Jayaweera, a former SriLankan Airlines executive and outspoken critic of the Airbus transaction. He was following in the tradition of his father, the late foreign service officer and public servant Stanley Jayaweera who mentored the younger generation in good governance practices and formed the group “Avadhi Lanka” along with icons such as Prof Siri Hettige. Rajeewa had written a series of articles exposing irregularities in the deal before he was found dead near Independence Square in Colombo in 2020. The CCTV cameras in that high security area were turned off. Questions raised at that time whether or not he had committed suicide were not satisfactorily resolved.

The controversy about the cause of Chandrasena’s death is diverting attention away from the massive damage done to the country by the SriLankan Airlines deal itself. The value of the aircraft agreement was close to the size of the International Monetary Fund bailout package that Sri Lanka desperately needed by 2023 in order to stabilise the economy after bankruptcy. Sri Lanka’s IMF Extended Fund Facility amounted to about USD 3 billion spread over four years. The comparison shows the scale of the losses and liabilities that irresponsible and corrupt decisions have imposed on the country and which must never happen again.

Wider Pattern

The corruption linked to the Airbus transaction came fully into the open only because of investigations conducted outside Sri Lanka. In 2020 Airbus agreed to pay record penalties of more than EUR 3.6 billion to authorities in Britain, France and the United States to settle global corruption investigations. Sri Lanka was identified as one of the countries where bribes had allegedly been paid in order to secure contracts. The Airbus deal involved the purchase of six A330 aircraft and four A350 aircraft valued at approximately USD 2.3 billion. Investigations showed that Airbus paid bribes amounting to nearly USD 16 million in order to secure the contract. According to court submissions, at least part of this money amounting to USD 2 million was transferred through a shell company registered in Brunei and routed through Singapore bank accounts linked to the late airline CEO and his wife.

The commissions involved in this deal may seem comparatively small compared to the overall value of the contracts but devastating in their consequences. But they also show that a few million dollars paid secretly to decision makers could lead to the country assuming liabilities worth hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars over decades. This is why corruption is not simply a moral issue. It is a direct economic assault on the living standards of ordinary people. Money lost through corruption is money unavailable for schools, hospitals, rural development and job creation. In the end the burden falls on ordinary citizens who are left to repay debts incurred in their name without receiving commensurate benefits in return.

The SriLankan Airlines transaction gives an indication of the wider pattern of corruption and misuse of national resources that has taken place over many years. This was not an isolated incident. There were numerous large scale infrastructure and procurement projects that imposed heavy debts on the country while enriching politically connected individuals and their associates. Other projects such as the Colombo Port City, Hambantota Harbour and highway construction reveal a similar pattern.

Less publicised but equally damaging scandals have involved fertiliser medicine and energy contracts. Investigations into medicine procurement in recent years uncovered allegations that substandard pharmaceuticals had been imported at inflated prices causing both financial losses and risks to public health.

Moral Renewal

The present government appears determined to investigate major corruption cases in a manner that no previous government has attempted. Those who ransacked and bankrupted the treasury need to be dealt with according to the law. There is considerable public support for efforts to recover stolen assets and ensure accountability.

In his May Day speech President Anura Kumara Dissanayake stated that around 14 corruption cases were nearing completion in the courts this very month and called upon the public to applaud when verdicts are delivered. Political opponents of the government claim that such comments could place pressure on the judiciary and blur the separation between political leadership and the courts. But the deeper public frustration that underlies the president’s remarks also needs to be understood.

The challenge facing Sri Lanka is twofold. The country must ensure that justice is done through due process and independent institutions. If anti corruption campaigns become politicised they can lose legitimacy. But if corruption and abuse of power continue without consequences the country will remain trapped in a cycle of economic decline and moral decay. Sri Lanka also needs to confront past abuses linked to the war period. There are allegations of kidnapping, extortion, disappearances and criminal activity in which members of the security forces have been implicated. Vulnerable sections of the population suffered greatly during those years. If political leaders turned a blind eye or actively connived in such crimes they too need to be held accountable under the law. Selective justice will not heal the country. Accountability must apply across the board regardless of political position, ethnicity or institutional power.

Sri Lanka has paid a very heavy price for corruption and impunity. The economic collapse of 2022 did not occur overnight. It was the result of years of bad governance, reckless decision making, abuse of power and the misuse of public wealth. If the country is to move forward the focus cannot be diverted by sensational speculation alone. Suspicious deaths and political intrigue may dominate headlines for a few days. But the larger issue is the system that enabled corruption to flourish without accountability for so long. The real national task is to end that system. Sri Lanka cannot build a prosperous future on a foundation of corruption and impunity. Unless those who looted public wealth are held accountable and the systems that enabled them are dismantled, the country risks repeating the same cycle again.

Jehan Perera

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When University systems fail:Supreme Court’s landmark intervention in sexual harassment case

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2026/05/12

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Over seven years after making an initial complaint of sexual harassment against her research supervisor, Dr. Udari Abeyasinghe, then a temporary lecturer and now a senior lecturer at the University of Peradeniya, has been finally served justice. On May 8, 2026, the Supreme Court made the following directions regarding Udari’s fundamental rights case: “1) The 1st Respondent [her research supervisor] is prohibited from accepting any post, whether paid or not or honorary, in any university, educational institute or other academic institution; 2) The UGC to issue a direction to all universities and other institutions, coming under its purview, to abstain from giving any appointment, whether paid or not, or honorary, to the 1st Respondent; and 3) The University of Peradeniya, including the Council and respective Respondent [sic], are directed to take appropriate measures to enforce and raise awareness of the University of Peradeniya’s policy on Sexual or Gender-Based Harassment and Sexual Violence for staff and students, including conducting mandatory annual seminars for all academics, staff and students.” I recently spoke with Udari to learn about her experience battling the University’s sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) procedures.

Violence and injustice

Udari was a temporary lecturer when she began working on her MPhil degree. Her research supervisor was a Senior Professor and Dean of her faculty. The harassment began in 2017.

When Udari reached out for support to the SGBV Committee of the University of Peradeniya, the Chair explained the complaint procedure, including how a third party could make a complaint on her behalf. In July 2018, Udari’s mother made a written complaint to the Vice Chancellor (VC). “The very next day [my supervisor] called me … and asked me to withdraw the complaint because it would look bad for me … the university should have taken measures to separate the complainant from the perpetrator … but nothing like that happened.”

Before making the formal complaint, Udari reached out to other academic staff at her Faculty. She shared her experience with a few close colleagues. Many advised her to leave the Faculty. “No one in the Faculty supported me publicly, although some sympathised privately … I was a temporary lecturer … no one really cared.” Some of her colleagues and non-academic staff who knew about the harassments, asked her to avoid involving them because they feared retaliation from higher powers.

Udari faced a preliminary inquiry and then a formal inquiry. The preliminary inquiry took place about four months after her complaint, and the inquiry committee recommended proceeding to a formal inquiry. The latter was held about a year after the initial complaint. “I got to know unofficially that [my supervisor] had got hold of all the statements made at the preliminary inquiry and pressured some colleagues to change their statements before the formal inquiry.” During the time of the formal inquiry, an anonymous letter (“kala paththaraya”) was circulated among staff: “It was a character assassination … the same kala paththaraya would get circulated from time to time.” After the formal inquiry committee submitted its report and recommendations, Udari was informed, in writing, that the University Council had dismissed the report.

“Neither the preliminary inquiry report nor the formal inquiry report were shared with me … I had to make a formal request to the VC and only then did I get a copy of the preliminary inquiry report… I had to get the formal inquiry report through an RTI (a request under the Right to Information Act). What I understand is that [my supervisor] had influenced the Council … that’s why they rejected the report…saying there had been a delay of six months to make a complaint ….” (N. B. there are no time limitations for submitting a complaint in the SGBV by-laws of the University of Peradeniya, although such time bars exist at other universities).

Udari then submitted formal complaints to the University Grants Commission (August 2020) and the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (December 2020), and finally filed a fundamental rights case at the Supreme Court in March 2021. Five years later, on May 8th 2026, Udari’s complaint was vindicated.

University procedures and inquiries

When her mother submitted the complaint against her supervisor, Udari was a temporary lecturer. She had given up her dream of pursuing an academic career because she did not think she would be recruited to a permanent position after making a complaint against a faculty member. It is encouraging that Udari was recruited, but in most instances, students and junior staff endure and stay silent to avoid jeopardising their academic careers. We currently have no procedures in place at universities to protect victims and witnesses from backlash.

According to Udari, the former Chair of the SGBV Committee and the members of her preliminary inquiry panel played a crucial role in her case, and, in her words, “could not be influenced.” But SGBV by-laws at state universities place inordinate power in the hands of the Council and VC. According to the SGBV by-laws of the University of Peradeniya, the Council appoints the 15-member SGBV Committee comprising “[t]wo (02) persons from among the members of the Council; [t]en (10) persons drawn from the permanent and senior members of the academic community; and [t]hree (03) persons external to the University, from among the retired academic or administrative staff of the University” (Section 2.1). While the by-laws recommend appointing persons who have demonstrated “gender-sensitivity, proven interest in working on issues of gender equality and equity, and trained to investigate and inquire into cases of sexual or gender-based harassment and sexual violence” (Section 2.1), we know this is often not the case. In many universities, VCs control which cases are taken up and end up in an inquiry. Most students and staff at state universities have little faith in the existing SGBV complaint procedures.

As Udari experienced, the decisions of inquiry committees can be overruled and dismissed by University Councils, indicating the importance of appointing appropriate members to the Councils. The Deans of faculties, who are Ex-officio members, usually collude to protect their own interests and fiefdoms, while the appointment of external members to Councils is deeply politicised. At present, there is no application process or vetting of candidates before they are appointed. They are usually persons who are seen to be sympathetic to the incumbent political dispensation. Furthermore, external members are dependent on the university hierarchy for information on the issues being discussed, the details of which are often hidden from them. It is not surprising then that University Councils would adjudicate on the side of power.

Final recommendation

Beyond barring Udari’s former research supervisor from holding positions in the university system, the Supreme Court has directed the University of Peradeniya to raise awareness on SGBV among staff and students. While SGBV is addressed in the induction courses and orientation programmes at universities, staff and students must be made aware of the nitty-gritties of complaint procedures, including time bars, which were crucial to the outcome of Udari’s case. But is raising awareness sufficient? Do we have ways to hold university authorities accountable for arbitrary and/or prejudicial decision-making and other abuses of power?

For Udari, life continues to be difficult, with constant surveillance of her activities.

“In November 2024 , I shared a post about my case.. it was a newspaper article stating that the Supreme Court had granted leave to proceed… I just took a photograph of it and posted it on my Facebook without any captions… a few weeks later I was summoned by higher authorities…I was informed that several academics had verbally complained about me using my social media to tarnish the name of the faculty and the university and, if that’s the case, that I should know that the University Council has the authority to take action against me … we also spoke briefly about the case and at one point I was told that this incident (harassment) happened to me because I showed some positivity towards (the perpetrator) …”

Let’s hope that university administrations pause before victimising and revictimising SGBV survivors in future. As a community, we have to rethink the hierarchical ways in which universities function and create a meaningful mechanism that supports students and staff to complain without fear of repercussion.

Thank you, Udari, for taking this step forward. University administrations will have to stop, listen and change their ways.

(Ramya Kumar is attached to the Department of Community and Family Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Jaffna, and is an alumna of the University of Peradeniya).

Kuppi is a politics and pedagogy happening on the margins of the lecture hall that parodies, subverts, and simultaneously reaffirms social hierarchies.

By Ramya Kumar

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