By Uditha Devapriya

In his tract on the ethnic conflict, written on the eve of the second insurrection, Rohana Wijeweera framed Indian intervention in Sri Lanka as part of a wider historical process, underscoring the island’s long history of occupation by foreign forces. Neither Wijeweera nor the top brass of the party advocated for or justified violence against the Sri Lankan Tamil community, even those who were wrongly viewed as “fifth columns.” Yet in making such observations, Wijeweera trivialised both the structural causes of the civil war and the geopolitics of Indian intervention in the region.

The JVP is currently the dominant party in the NPP alliance, which a fortnight ago hosted the Indian Prime Minister, bestowed on him an award described as the “highest honour” reserved for foreign leaders, took him around Colombo and then Anuradhapura, and signed around, if not more than, six agreements, one of them to do with defence and another on power and energy. (On the day of his arrival, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya was in Paris, participating at a conference on the preservation of the “Sacred City of Anuradhapura.”) The visit transpired against the backdrop of rising global tensions, and if the press releases are right, the JVP appears to have turned pragmatist. Certainly, the irony of an Indian Prime Minister being taken to Anuradhapura by the NPP should not be lost sight of: in his tract, Wijeweera traced the origins of Indian intervention in the country to the invasion of the Anuradhapura kingdom in the 11th century AD.

For Sri Lanka, India remains a mixed bag. Some advocate for closer integration, economic and even physical, others caution against it, and still others – including the JVP of 30 years ago, and countless nationalist outfits today – perceive it as an imperialist power. As Krishantha Cooray has put it in a recent op-ed, while India-Sri Lanka relations have been described as one of “irreversible excellence”, under certain administrations “they have been neither irreversible nor excellent.”

Not surprisingly, what gets lost in the discussion are the nuances, and the complexities. As Shelton Kodikara has correctly pointed out, since independence Sri Lanka Lanka India relations have never followed a predictable trajectory. One could say this is inevitable, given Sri Lanka’s position in the Indian Ocean and the ruptures in foreign policy that such geographic placements bring with them. However, despite this unpredictability, certain patterns can be discerned – longstanding issues, like the Katchatheevu dispute and the position of the Indian Tamil population – which have conditioned and determined the trajectory of bilateral ties, and continues to do so.

One need not be a pessimist, or even a cynic, to claim that these disputes may never get resolved. If the recent resolution on Katchatheevu, by the Tamil Nadu government, should tell us anything, it is that bilateral wrangles never go away. (This explains why SAARC has never fulfilled the historical role it was meant to play.) That is not to say that geography conditions everything and that nothing will change. Of course, things have changed, somewhat fundamentally: world order is shifting every day, the patterns of trade are being ruptured every hour, stock markets have come down, countries are struggling to stay afloat and band together. India and Sri Lanka will sooner or later have to come to terms with each other. The question is, given that we have very little time and weight to negotiate for better terms – for instance, with the US over the tariffs – what course can we chart?

Integration is often cited as a way forward. But facilitating closer integration without considering its domestic implications would be difficult. India itself views integration and free trade as a sine qua non of sorts for bilateral ties: at forums and discussions, and in diplomatic circles, it is invoked time and time again. But the disparities in resources and skills between the two countries, the perceptions of such agreements by locals, and the bad press that trade agreements have received at the hands of nationalist and chauvinist elements, will make this a difficult if not rocky road. It has not helped that the Indian government itself views free trade agreements and initiatives for integration as a means to a higher geopolitical end. What that end is, we do not know, but for nationalists in Sri Lanka, it can only mean near-total capitulation to Indian political interests.

While this may not be so in reality, the fact that after close to 50 years Sri Lankan nationalist parties and movements – just like the JVP decades ago – can disseminate narratives of Indian domination, shows how successful such narratives have been and how Delhi has failed to counter them. That India has neglected to address in any meaningful, constructive way the bilateral wrangles that have defined its ties with its tiny neighbour – including Katchatheevu – has not helped at all. If India and Sri Lanka are to move forward sensibly, both sides must acknowledge these issues and, even if they cannot be resolved completely, at least agree to disagree and leave it at that.

Time is not on our side. As the world gets ready for Trump’s tariffs, it waits with bated breath to see whether the international liberal order which, in the eyes of its advocates, delivered prosperity for all for more than half a century will crumble down. It is not difficult to bring down the status quo. But once brought down, it is difficult to restore it to what it once was. The next few months are crucial, and if India and Sri Lanka are to avoid the aftereffects of Trump’s actions, these two countries should define the way forward. The JVP is perhaps the best example we have for how a movement or party that saw India negatively can turn around and embrace a politics of pragmatism. When charting our way forward, there should certainly be safeguards in place, especially over security. But there should also be a gradual thawing of the fears that have, for too long, defined these ties.

The transformation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from a puritanical theocracy to an aspiring architect of global peace is one of the most paradoxical and politically engineered evolutions of the modern era. Far from the deserts where Wahhabism first struck its austere roots, the Kingdom now positions itself as a mediator between global powers, a patron of modernity, and a crucible of cross-cultural aspiration. Yet beneath the glistening architecture of NEOM and the diplomatic smiles of peace summits lies a stratified narrative—one obscured by revisionist theatre and gilded silence.

Saudi Arabia’s foundation in 1932 under King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud was not merely a unification of tribal territories; it was a theological consolidation. The strategic pact with Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, brokered generations earlier, transformed Islam into an instrument of statecraft. As the CIA Handbook observed in 1972, “The Saudi Government is a monarchy based on a fusion of secular and religious authority, with the King at its apex.” The same report stated, “The royal family dominates both the political and economic life of the country,” a candid admission of dynastic monopolization. Governance was less institutional than charismatic, mediated through familial bonds, tribal allegiances, and theocratic endorsement.”

The Kingdom’s export of Wahhabism, particularly from the 1960s onward, became one of the most under-scrutinized forms of ideological colonization. Flushed with petrodollars after the 1973 oil embargo—an embargo that King Faisal declared in defence of Arab dignity, stating, “Our oil is our weapon, and we will use it to protect our Arab rights”—Saudi Arabia embarked on a global proselytisation project. Mosques, madrassas, and clerical scholarships were funded from Islamabad to Jakarta, Sarajevo to Khartoum, shaping generations in an image that often diametrically opposed indigenous Islamic traditions. A lesser-known revelation from a declassified 1981 US State Department cable noted: “Saudi financial support to Islamic institutions in Southeast Asia has significantly altered the religious landscape, prioritizing doctrinal rigidity over cultural synthesis.”

The domestic reality, too, remained draconian under the veneer of religiosity. The 1979 Grand Mosque seizure by a fundamentalist group paradoxically catalyzed a more regressive clampdown, as the royal family tightened its alliance with the religious establishment to legitimize its authority. It is telling that King Fahd, who in the 1980s declared, “We will build the future without abandoning our past,” presided over an era where ministries functioned as courtiers rather than administrators. As noted in a 1972 CIA internal report, “Much of the bureaucracy remains inefficient, with key decisions often bypassing formal channels and handled by royal intermediaries.”

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS)

The paradox deepens when juxtaposing Saudi Arabia’s financing of foreign conflicts with its self-portrayal as a stabilizer. The Kingdom, directly or through proxies, has been implicated in the fomentation of conflict zones including Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Libya. In Yemen, particularly, its military intervention since 2015 has left an indelible humanitarian scar. UN estimates suggest over 375,000 deaths, mostly from indirect causes. Despite this, Riyadh now courts global opinion as a peace-broker, hosting summits that purport to end the very conflicts it helped perpetuate. This performative peacemaking is a diplomatic palimpsest, rewriting its culpability in real-time.

Yet perhaps nowhere is the ideological volte-face more pronounced than under the stewardship of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). A man who rose to prominence not through military conquest or scholarly erudition but via internal court calculus and the invocation of modernist necessity, MBS has become the emblem of Saudi Arabia’s Neo-nationalist re-branding. His statement in 2017 that, “We will not waste 30 years of our lives dealing with extremist ideologies. We will destroy them now and immediately” serves as both mea culpa and strategic distancing. It is a rhetorical exfoliation of the kingdom’s historical role in incubating the very ideologies it now condemns.

What makes this transformation most paradoxical is the simultaneous consolidation of autocracy. The same MBS who champions futuristic cities and cultural liberalization also orchestrated the arrest of dissenting clerics, feminists, and businessmen—a campaign sanitized by the euphemism of anti-corruption. The chilling assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul became a gruesome watermark of the state’s coercive architecture. This contradiction was prophetically foreshadowed by King Faisal decades earlier, who once mused, “Injustice cannot be concealed, and one day it will speak.”

In the global diplomacy, Saudi Arabia is no longer content with petrodollar influence; it now seeks epistemic legitimacy. The launch of NEOM, a city touted as the world’s first cognitive metropolis, symbolizes this ambition—yet, emblematic of the new Saudi state, it is erected upon contested land and enforced silence. Beyond NEOM, the Kingdom’s financial outreach has extended to international media, sports, universities, and even Hollywood, buying not just partnerships but narratives. This is cultural laundering masquerading as soft power.

Saudi Arabia’s overtures toward mediating the Russia-Ukraine conflict, brokering rapprochement between Iran and Arab states, and its increasing engagement with China and Israel signify not merely regional aspiration, but a superpower mimicry. In February 2023, Riyadh hosted talks aimed at easing tensions in Sudan, while simultaneously continuing arms imports that fuel its own military-industrial complex. As a 2022 report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute noted, “Saudi Arabia remains one of the top five global arms importers, despite its increasing involvement in peace dialogues.”

This dualism is not new but now consciously choreographed. The kingdom no longer hides its contradictions; it flaunts them as strengths. It wishes to be judged not by the tenets of liberal democracy, but by a self-fashioned rubric of efficacy, vision, and global brokerage. And in this, it has found unlikely endorsements. Elon Musk, after touring Saudi ventures, declared them “an exciting vision for civilization”. Goldman Sachs and SoftBank speak of “unprecedented opportunities”. Even skeptics are drawn to the economic gravity Riyadh exerts.

But can a state undergo ontological transformation without historical accountability? Can it broker peace while archives of complicity remain sealed? The Kingdom’s diplomatic epistles, such as the declassified 1973 letter from the US President to King Faisal praising him as “a voice of wisdom and reason,” read today as documents of strategic appeasement, not genuine admiration. The phrase, “Your personal efforts to bring moderation and stability to the region are of great significance,” thinly veils the realpolitik that underpinned Western support for autocracy.

Indeed, what Saudi Arabia seeks now is not reinvention but redemption. It seeks to transmute petrodollar moral hazard into soft power prestige. In doing so, it exploits the cognitive dissonance of the global order: that authoritarianism, when efficient and well-funded, can be tolerated, even admired. And perhaps this is the Kingdom’s most radical export yet—a model where ideological elasticity replaces democratic legitimacy.

by Nilantha Ilangamuwa

As a knowing friend pronounced, the usual way we judge parity of sexes in politics is percentage presence in Parliament which is definitely not an accurate judgment bar. After the recent general election in our country the number of women MPs increased to 10%. I googled and found that currently 263 female MPs in the House of Commons makes for 40% female representation and in the House of Lords 238 female members. Across the Atlantic, as of January 2025, Congress has 26 women, 16 Democrats and 10 Republicans. Some 125 women sit in the House of Representatives making 28.7% of the total.

Lately to be seen is an increase in women at the pinnacle of power, in the political sphere, globally. I have made my choice of those who appealed to me and are recently in power.

I start in Sri Lanka and of course top of the list is Prime Minster Dr Harini Amarasuriya. We boast a woman Chief Justice, more than one Vice Chancellor and ambassadors in considered to be vital foreign postings. Tried to get a recent popularity rating for our PM, but found only that Verete Research gave a rating in February of 62% to the government. Thus her personal rating would be above this figure and most significantly rising, I am sure.

Harini Nireka Amarasuriya

(b March 6,1970), is listed as sociologist, academic, activist and politician who serves as our country’s 17^th PM. She was engaged with academic associations and trade unions. Her personal victory in the elections was spectacular, receiving as she did the second highest ever majority of preferences obtained by a candidate in our general elections. She was nominated to Parliament as a national list member from the NPP in 2020.

Born in Galle to the prestigious Amarasuriya family of landowners and business managers, she is younger to two siblings. Schooling was at Bishop’s College and then, as an AFS Exchange Student, she spent a year in the US. Winning a scholarship she received her honours BA degree in sociology from the University of Delhi. On her return home she worked with tsunami affected children and five years later earned a Master of Arts in Applied and Development Anthropology from Macquarie University, Australia, and PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Edinburgh (2011). She joined the teaching faculty as senior lecturer at the Open University. She completed research funded by the European Research Council in human rights and ethics in SL; and the influence of radical Christians on dissent in SL, funded by the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh.

She comes across as dignified and friendly with no airs about her at all. She is a true academic and intellectual, but with not a trace of condescension, she seems to be free and easy with the hoi polloi and her image is certainly is not put on, nor a veneer worn for political popularity. She feels for people, more so the disadvantaged. Her appeal to people was obvious in a meeting she had in Mannar (or Batticaloa) on April 12 where she spoke with (not to) the vast mixed-race crowd. Their happy faces showed appreciation, approval and belief in her.

We move overseas since other women in the island in positions of power are known.

Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo,

born June 24, 1962 to a chemist father and biologist mother, was elected in 2024 as the 66^th President of Mexico – first woman over there to rise to the top. Forbes has ranked her the fourth most powerful woman in the world. She is an academic, scientist and politician. She came to world prominence after a letter she wrote to Prez Trump went viral. In it she reminded Trump that he builds walls to keep out Mexicans and other immigrants but he also keeps out millions of would-be consumers of American goods.

She received her Doctor of Philosophy in energy engineering from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. She has written articles and books on the environment, energy and sustainable development; and was on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In 2018, Claudia Sheinbaum was named one of BBCs 100 Women.

Her political career spanned being a mayor of a Borough from 2015 and elected head of the government of Mexico City in the 2018 election. She was elected President in 2024.”With her calm demeanor and academic background, she has quickly become one of the most talked about political figures worldwide.” She has impressed all Mexicans and much of the world population that she knows how to deal with Trump and now his tariffs, so much so her political style has been dubbed the ‘Sheinbaum method’ by Mexican media. She has strongly contested Trump’s substitution of Mexico by the name America in the name of the gulf that lies between the two countries and condemns Israel’s genocide in Gaza. It is known that Trump is wary of her; recognizes her strength and diplomatic finesses; and surprised there is a woman to reckon with.

She has national difficulties to cope with: disappearances, violence, the economy. “Through her social media presence, she offers a personal glimpse into her daily life, fostering a sense of connection with her followers.” One act she undertook to ease congestion on roads was to pave each large one with a lane for bicycles, gifted many and encouraged others to buy two wheelers.

Rachel Jane Reeves (b Feb 13, 1979) has been in the international news recently as she presented the budget for the Labour government in Britain and justified its policies. She is the second highest official in the UK government, positioned just below the prime minister, Keir Starmer, and even lives next to him in No 11, Downing Street, London. She is very young at 46 to hold the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer from June 2024. She held various shadow ministerial and cabinet portfolios since 2010.

Born in Lewisham to parents who were teachers, she and her sister were influenced in politics, particularly democratic politics, by their father. Her parents divorced when she was seven. Reeves attended Cator Park School for Girls in Beckonham and studied politics, philosophy and economics at the University of Oxford, and got her BA in 2000. Three years later, she obtained a master’s degree in economics from the LSE.

She joined the Labour Part at age 16, and we suppose no one called it precocious! Later she worked in the Bank of England. After two unsuccessful attempts at winning a general election, she was elected to the House of Commons as MP for Leeds West at the 2010 general election. She endorsed Ed Miliband in the 2010 Labour Leadership election in 2010 and was selected to be shadow Pensions Minister. Re-elected again in 2015, she left the shadow cabinet and returned to the backbenches, but served in various committees. In 2020, under Keir Starmer, she was elected to his shadow cabinet as chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. She was promoted to be shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer in a shadow cabinet reshuffle in 2021. Labour won the general election in 2024 and thus she shed the shadow part in her official title, becoming the first woman to hold that prestigious position in the 800 year history of Britain. Also remarkable is that she is so comparatively young to hold such a high post,

I remember listening to BBC which gave news she did not sail through the budget she presented, nor thereafter, at its debating. “Reeves established the National Wealth Fund, scrapped certain winter fuel payments, cancelled several infrastructure projects and announced numerous public sector pay rises. In her October 2024 budget she introduced the largest tax rises since 1993, which is forecast to set the tax burden to its highest level in recorded history.” Her Prime Minister stands by her.

We move to the international arena for my fourth recent internationally powerful woman. She was elected 10^th President of the International Olympic Committee in March 2025. Thus the first woman and African to be so honoured. I think it is an accepted fact that if a woman is elected/selected to hold the highest position wherever, she has to be extra smart; extra noteworthy. Competition from men is strong and unfairly slanted too.

Kirsty Leigh Coventry Seward,

born September 16, 1983, is a Zimbabwean politician, sports administrator and former competitive swimmer and holder of world records. She is also the most decorated Olympian from Africa. She was in the Cabinet of Zimbabwe from 2018 to March 2025 as Minister of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation.

Kirsty Coventry was born in Harare and introduced to swimming by her mother and grandfather at age two. She joined a swimming club at age six. She was an all-round sports woman, but after a knee injury while playing hockey, she decided to concentrate on swimming. Watching an early Olympic Games on TV she vowed to win golds in swimming.

As a high school-goer she was selected when 16-years old to participate in the Olympic Games in Sydney in 2000. Won no medals; her greatest joy was seeing Cassius Clay. She attended and swam for Auburn University in Alabama, USA. Her breakthrough was in Athens in 2004 when she won three medals; in Beijing – 2008 – four. Honours were showered on her on her triumphant return to Harare: the Head of the country’s Olympic Committee dubbed her ‘Our national treasure ‘ and President Robert Mugabe called her ‘A golden girl’ and gifted her US$100,000. Success followed in the London and Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games in 2012 and 2016. Retiring from competitive swimming she moved to administration and was elected Chairperson of the IOC Athletes’ Commission, the body representing all Olympic athletes. Next as a committee member of the IOC and now, its President.

Two women of Christ’s time

We are in the Easter Weekend. Our thoughts are with our Christian friends. My mind goes back to Scripture classes in the Methodist Missionary School I attended. Two women were the most important persons in Jesus Christ’s life: his mother Mary and a good friend – Mary Magdalene – whose brother Lazarus he raised from the dead. These two simple, yet wonderful women kept vigil as he suffered on the cross. One disciple had betrayed him; another denied him, others of the 12 were not present. These two Marys suffered with him. On the Sunday following, Mary Magdalene rushed to where he had been entombed. She found the boulder at its entrance pushed aside. And then the resurrected Jesus appeared unto her.