Women in Sri Lankan State Universities – III

An adapted version of the keynote
delivered by Prof. Dinesha Samararatne
at the International Women’s Day celebration
organised by the Centre for Gender Equity and Equality for the University Grants Commission,
15 March, 2024.

(The second part this article appeared on 27 March, 2024)

Substantive equality means equality of opportunity, not only equality of access. In our context, having access to higher education is equality of access and being able to make informed and free choices based on your university education about your life and being able to enjoy the opportunities that come with such qualifications, would be substantive equality. I would like to make 3 specific points about substantive equality here. They relate to inclusion and progress for women within university, beyond university and in relation to our different disciplines.

On substantive representation within universities, consider the participation of women in student union activities in different faculties. I do not have the overall data for this but common experience suggests that this is an area that tends to be dominated by male undergraduates at the leadership level. At my own Faculty, men are approximately 10-12% in the student body but are more than 90% in the student union and it has been this way for more than two decades.

On substantive representation beyond university CHART 9 reminds us of the notable gap not just between men and women in the labour force, but how the data seems to change overall when we compare the number of women within university with women in the labour force. As we know, if we look at women in politics, the problem is much more serious. In my own field, law, this issue is quite pressing.

Women far outnumber men as law students but are rare to find in positions of leadership in the profession or in the judiciary. The data on enrolment to the legal profession in CHART 10n show that women enter in much greater numbers. However, research has shown that women become less and less visible in positions of leadership and authority.

On having a substantive impact within a discipline, let me draw examples from my own discipline. One of the notable gains made in the last few years is that the Sri Lankan Supreme Court has recognised that sexual harassment in the workplace violates a woman’s right to equality (Manohari Pelaketiya v Secretary, Ministry of Education SC/FR 76/2012, SC Minutes 28 Sept 2016 and Corea v Sri Lankan Airlines SC Appeal No 91/2017, SC Minutes 2 Feb 2024).

It is interesting to note that even though Sri Lanka accepted CEDAW in 1981, it is only in 2016 that our Supreme Court relied on CEDAW to interpret our right to be free from discrimination. In contrast, academic research, policy intervention and state appointed committees have, for a while, revealed the need to reform Sri Lanka’s personal laws, vagrancy laws and other aspects of criminal law, public law, land law and family law to ensure that the law protects women’s substantive equality. However, that research and evidence-based call has not yet resulted in substantive law reform. Although proposals have been made for over two decades, to date, we do not have an enabling law to give effect to CEDAW in our domestic law.

The reasons for some these gaps are not unknown. Surveys and studies have shown that perceptions about gendered expectations in the family is a key factor that influences women to stay away from certain types of work or to stay away from work altogether. But what are the factors that prevent women from enjoying substantive equality within university and how can we advance the opportunities to advance substantive equality within our disciplines? It is time that these questions concern all of us and we work towards addressing the problem in a more systematic way.

If we take the view that respect for human dignity is essential and that society must be committed to advancing human flourishing, we have to respect the right of all persons to enjoy substantive equality and ensure that higher education in Sri Lanka offers substantive equality in terms of opportunity. Of course, such commitment must be accompanied with the openness to critically reflect and question these concepts. It is only when we engage with the question of substantive opportunity in this way, that we can consider the question of substantive equality of outcomes.

The commitment to realising substantive equality is essential for thinking about investment and accelerated progress for women in higher education. Today we concern ourselves with women, but this obligation extends to any person or group that is being left behind, is excluded or is being discriminated against, intentionally or unintentionally.

Let me turn finally to what we can do to address this grand puzzle. I would like to suggest that if we are to think about Investment and Accelerated Progress during Crises for women in Sri Lankan universities, we cannot but prioritise the substantive inclusion of women in higher education. I will speak to four areas that could concern us.

These four areas require the adoption of an orientation of respect for human dignity, commitment to human flourishing and therefore to the substantive inclusion of women. You may note here that cultivating this dispensation is not a question about allocation or availability of funds, but rather about the value commitments that we chose to make as a community.

Administrators can review and revise their day-to-day practices and policies on this basis so that decisions, whether they relate to student admission, infrastructure development or policies on workplace conduct, will be undertaken on the basis of this commitment. Here, I think it is time to systematically review the policy on admission of undergraduates with disabilities to our streams of study. As per the UGC Handbook students with disabilities are admitted to state universities to study Arts, Commerce, Biological Science and Physical Science under special provisions.

The number of students admitted under this scheme 2010 to 2022 is provided in CHART 11. But for streams such as Law, Medicine or Engineering students with disabilities are required to compete along with everyone else for admission. I cannot go into this today but I do think there is a strong link between ensuring inclusion for persons with disabilities to these Faculties on a special basis and about ensuring representation of the lived experience and needs of persons with disabilities in these fields.

We know that even ensuring physical access for persons with disabilities to built environments in Sri Lanka has been a serious challenge. But when we remind ourselves that students with disabilities are not present in places where we study engineering or architecture, we perhaps begin to see why this is such a challenge.

Therefore, I do think that it is past time we revisit this policy and engage in a robust review, taking all views and needs into consideration along with Sri Lanka’s responsibilities to respect the dignity and rights of persons with disabilities. Let me note here that Sri Lanka has ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and that our Supreme Court, in 2011 and in 2019 strongly affirmed the obligation on state actors to ensure respect for the rights of persons with disabilities.

Sexual harassment in higher education whether in the classroom, canteen or in the staff common room is another area in which we have made some progress, but where we still have a long way to go. Our energies should focus both on prevention of sexual harassment and on offering meaningful remedies and closure for victims of sexual harassment among us.

Academics can reflect their commitment to investment and accelerated progress for women in several ways. If we agree with the approach to investment and accelerated progress that I laid out today, it should affect our disciplinary engagements. How will the way we teach plant science or forensic medicine or history or Artificial Intelligence change if we consider women and women’s lived experiences as substantive and significant? In my own field, taking account of lived experiences of women led to significant changes in the law.

One example is the recognition of a battered woman’s syndrome in criminal law and another is the compulsory legal provision of maternity leave. However, there is much more work to be done at the normative, doctrinal levels and at the level of practice in advancing substantive equality for women in my own discipline. In my view, respect for human dignity, commitment to human flourishing are substantive concerns and should not be seen as limited to ‘soft skills’ or confined to the diversity and inclusion push that we see in many parts of the world today.

Academics and administrators should further utilise engagement as means for advancing the university’s commitment to investment and accelerated progress for women. Over the years and across the disciplines we have had inspiring examples of robust engagement by academics with communities including with communities of practice. In the legal field, Emeritus Prof Savitri Goonesekere easily comes to mind as a law academic who was able to bring together legal norms and doctrine in conversation with lived experiences of women to routinely offer robust critiques of the law – nationally but also at the international level.

Emeritus Prof Kumari Jayawardena is a similar example from Political Science. Her academic work is steeped in practice and lived experience all the while paying close attention to the politics of positionality and the academic disciplinary demands of objectivity. Dr Rajini Thiranagama is an example of an academic who paid the highest prize for living the life of a public intellectual, fearlessly critiquing those who abused power.

There are many other similar examples. It is through this synthesis of firm commitment to one’s discipline that is matched with openness to and engagement with different communities within and outside the university, that we can meaningfully think about investment and accelerated progress, particularly in a society where crises are normalised. I think we should avoid the trap of limiting engagement to partnerships and collaborations with other institutions, private sector, professional bodies etc and think more broadly about the university as an open space for engagement across the spectrum of society – from the CEO to the farmer to the unemployed and the homeless.

Time does not permit me to go into detail about the general conditions that are necessary for the approach that I have advocated thus far. If we are to meaningfully consider investment and accelerated progress for women in higher education, I think respect for academic freedom and institutional autonomy is a prerequisite. The right to dissent must be respected in the classroom and all levels of decision making in higher education. A journey towards the truth cannot be made, if we cannot question the status quo, whether it be in relation to teaching, research, administration or engagement.

Let me conclude by revisiting the individual stories I shared with you at the beginning. How would the lives of these women have changed if they could benefit from the kind of vision that I have suggested for investment and accelerated growth? Recall that in each of those stories, the women had access to higher education and completed their studies. Let me suggest some alternative outcomes for them, if they had the opportunity to enjoy substantive equality. Geetha who had an illegal abortion, would have had access to health care services in a society which did not criminalize abortion.

Sarala who was born with a physical disability and acquired more disabilities due to the war would have thrived at university because it was an accessible environment and she would have found suitable employment beyond university. Savitri who left academia in Sri Lanka – may have remained and persevered because she felt supported by institutional policies and governance.

Jeya, who regrets not being able to ensure accountability for the sexual harassment she experienced would have been able to seek remedies for the same and had closure. Jayani would have flourished in her work as a cleaner at university and enjoyed dignity of labour. Rani would feel supported at university to continue her studies and not feel guilt about not conforming to gender stereotypes about motherhood.

The alternative life outcomes I have suggested reminds us that for meaningful investment choices and for planning for inclusive accelerated progress for women in Sri Lanka’s universities, there is a fair amount of work yet to be done.

I acknowledge feedback I received from some of my colleagues on a draft of this talk and thank Ishan Kuruwita Arachchi for assistance in collating the data. The charts were developed for the limited purpose of presenting overall trends. The views expressed are solely of the author.

Dinesha Samararatne, Professor, Department of Public & International Law, Faculty of Law, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka.

By Uditha Devapriya

Until the 1940s and 1950s, much of the arts in Sri Lanka, then Ceylon, remained the preserve of an English-speaking elite. They were very much moulded by colonial attitudes: the two most representative institutions of this period, the University Dramatic Society (Dramsoc) and the Ceylon Society of Arts, had been modelled along the lines of British institutions, including the Royal Academy. Restricted to a Westernised elite and circumscribed by their narrow vision, they became anachronistic long before their demise.

Maname and Rekava are typically described as the artistic high points of the 1950s, and both are seen as having facilitated a rupture with the colonial setup. Correct as this view may be, however, it is important to note that by 1956 theatre and cinema had become dominated by another social class: a Sinhala petty bourgeoisie, who saw plays and films as entertainments. There was no difference between these art forms: between, for instance, the plays of John de Silva and the films of B. A. W. Jayamanne. Both replicated each other, both amplified one another, and both responded to just about the same crowd.

What this means is that, by the 1950s, Ceylon’s cultural landscape had bifurcated between two diametrically opposed ideological streams: an Anglicised colonial elite on the one hand, and a Sinhala petty bourgeoisie on the other. The colonial elite had their own institutions, well-funded and well recognised at official levels. The petty bourgeoisie lacked that kind of institutional support, but the emergence of political forces sympathetic to their demands compensated for such limitations. Before we go any further with this trajectory, however, we need to take stock of some crucial developments in 20th century Ceylon.

Ironically – or perhaps not so ironically – it was the sons and daughters of the colonial elite who first went against the grain, questioned accepted artistic conventions, and opened the arts to indigenous elements. In this they found themselves occupying the best of both worlds: access to money and capital, and the freedom to rebel against the same class that had provided them with that capital. The example of Lionel Wendt is the best there is: hailing from a prominent legal family, he spurned a legal career and took to photography and music, emerging as a patron of Sinhala culture and Kandyan dance.

The formation of the 43 Group only reinforced these trends. None of the founding artists of the 43 Group – with the prominent exception of Manjusri, the ex-Buddhist monk – were conversant, still less fluent, in Sinhala. Yet they patronised Sinhala dance, painting, literature, and other cultural forms, going back to Sinhala villages, outside Colombo, talking to locals, forming seminal friendships, broadening their horizons, helping them take their art to the world beyond their homes. To be sure, the elite’s conception of traditional art could be narrow, one could say even orientalist – as Qadri Ismail has noted in his critique of the 43 Group. But to local artists, their intervention proved to be pivotal.

The plays of John de Silva and the films of the Minerva Players – of Rukmani Devi and the Jayamanne brothers – pandered to a completely different milieu, as far removed from the Anglicised elite as they could be. Art forms like literature and dance could be revived: they could be salvaged and “redeemed” in the eyes of the elite. The sons of traditional dancers thus found themselves teaching Colombo’s upper-classes, in schools like Trinity and Ladies’ College, paving the way for that transition – which Sarath Amunugama dwells on in his study of kohomba kankariya – from art-as-ritual to art-as-performance.

These transitions more or less made it easier for the elite to absorb, immerse themselves in, and rejuvenate such art forms. Theatre and cinema, however, proved to be somewhat challenging here. For elite audiences, they remained, at best, mere entertainments. There was thus hardly any push to elevate these art forms: theatre and film producers merely pandered to the audiences who typically went to see Sinhala plays and Sinhala films. When Lester Peries, Titus Thotawatte, and Willie Blake visited Sir Chittampalam Gardiner, of Ceylon Theatres, for instance, the following exchange unfolded.

“I have just seen the finest Sinhalese film ever made.”

Our hearts fluttered for a moment.

Could it be – was it possible – that he was alluding to Rekava?

“Do you know that Seda Sulang will be an all-time great? I have seen it in Madras.”

Gardiner hailed from one of the most established families in Jaffna. His response to Seda Sulang – which today’s critics would put down as puerile and peechan, a typical song-and-dance medley that contains nothing to redeem it – was conditioned by the context of his times. The elite did not view film or theatre seriously, in part because these had already been taken up by a different crowd. That crowd had neither the money nor the political clout that the elite did. But as a class – formed mostly of merchants and mudalalis – they were influential in their own right, and they patronised these art forms. The colonial elite, for the most, accepted that state of affairs and played along.

Lester’s and Sarachchandra’s interventions were thus pivotal. They faced a dual challenge. On the one hand, they strived to use these art forms – theatre and cinema – to revive traditional culture, to represent that culture to the world outside. On the other hand, they had to emancipate them from the colonial petty bourgeoisie to which they had been confined until then. To put it crudely, Sarachchandra had to rescue Sinhala theatre from Tower Hall, while Lester had to rescue Sinhala film from the Madras studios.

This was a challenge that the colonial elite, especially the founding members of the 43 Group, did not face and did not have to resolve. The likes of Lionel Wendt, George Keyt, and Ivan Peries did not discover the traditional Sinhala village; the Sinhala village existed well before their time. Yet when they arrived on the scene, it was entirely up to them to depict it for everyone else. They did not have to contend with other social classes in this task because they were the first to arrive, the first to become patrons and financiers.

Lester James Peries and Ediriweera Sarachchandra did not have this luxury, because theatre and cinema had already been discovered, and dominated, by another class. That both succeeded in taking these art forms in a different direction, away from the confines of that class, is a tribute and a credit to them. In later years a completely different generation – more bilingual and more sensitive to cultural nuances – took up the challenge of going beyond even Sarachchandra and Lester. In doing so, they established these art forms as more than entertainments, fulfilling a task – a historical task, no less – which had originally fallen on the colonial elite, in early 20th century Ceylon.

Uditha Devapriya is a writer, researcher, and analyst based in Sri Lanka who contributes to a number of publications on topics such as history, art and culture, politics, and foreign policy. He can be reached at udakdev1@gmail.com.

BY Rev. Fr. Leopold Ratnasekera OMI.

While the first-ever Good Friday in the Christian Calendar registers the condemnation, crucifixion and the death of Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter’s son of Galilee, the itinerant preacher and healer, by contrast the first-ever Easter Sunday hails the triumph of the Risen Christ who rose from the darkness of the tomb thus defeating death which is the common lot of every human being and indeed of every living thing in the world. Life and death happen to be the daily drama being enacted everywhere around us.

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is an unprecedented event in the history of religions where a founder of a religion ever rose from the tomb. From the many tombs, just one solitary person came forth alive back to life. For twenty long centuries of the Christian era, the Resurrection continues to be the touchstone and decisive factor of the Christian believer’s religious faith and indeed of Christianity itself as a religious tradition.

The biblical scriptures of the New Testament are replete with the radicalism of this Easter faith which shaped the way of life instilled the courage of the earliest Christians indelibly. It anchored as an ingrained conviction which made them stand resolute and unwavering in the face of rejection, persecution, imprisonment and even martyrdom for its sake.

The Resurrection is a historical event

The incarnation of the gods, their dying and rising formed indeed a paradigm in early myths and religious legends. They were rampant in the mythologies of early Greeks and Romans. But the Resurrection of Jesus Christ was by its very nature unique as challenging the polytheistic mythology of the pre-Christian eras. While all those myths and legends have disappeared, the story of Christ crucified and risen remains to this day an imposing and incisive faith-tradition having seen its transition from the time of the Apostles who were the first disciples of Jesus of Nazareth, through early Greek and Western fathers battling with heresies to medieval romanticism and renaissance that inspired art and architecture and finally into modern and post-modern era which is hell-bent on questioning the very idea of religion as an illusion unworthy of modernity studded with radical rationalism, subjectivism and a pervasive dictatorship of relativism. Pure and simple scientism and modern high-tech too are antagonistic towards religion in principle drawn as they are to anchor heavily and solely on empirical and verifiable data.

There has been the radical atheistic communism which considered all religion as the opium of the masses condemning it as a sad obstacle for the development of man and his society. However, in recent times the world has witnessed the catastrophic downfall and extinction of communism through its utter rejection by those who fell victims to it for decades in some parts of the world. The history of civilization is replete with manifestation of religion and we see it as an anthropological fact that could hardly be denied or denigrated. It has been shown that nearly more than 90% of world’s humanity professes some form of religious belief.

Resurrection however defies any scientific enquiry based on empirical or scientific evidence. It is a spiritual reality and though historical, is a matter of faith and experience. Sometimes profounder and deepest of truths are attained through intuition and experience where scientific investigation may be incapable of. Jesus is not a myth or an imposing legend. He was a historical person.

The Jesus of history is identical with the Christ of Christian faith with both being inter-dependent. St. Paul declares at Corinth that if Christ was not risen, his preaching would be of no use, the people’s faith would be in vain and they would be the most to be pitied (1 Cor 15: 17:-18). St. John a more contemplative gospel writer says that they preach about the Word of Life, something they have seen and heard and touched with their own hands (1 John 1: 1-6). St. Peter recalls their ecstatic experience of the Christ of glory and light at the transfiguration event on Mount Tabor: “We saw him and were asked to listen to Him” (2 Peter 1: 18). The Risen Lord manifested his presence to the disciples gathered in fear within locked doors.

He became a companion to the two distraught disciples moving away from Jerusalem after the shocking events of Friday. He was seen walking on the sea providing a miraculous draught of fish and having a meal with his dear disciples on the beach of Galilee. He commanded his disciples to change location to Galilee where he would be seen for the last time commissioning them to go and teach all nations to observe what He taught them.

The celebration of the Breaking of Bread, the earliest ritual of the Church would make the Risen Lord truly present again as they share the bread and wine. These assemblies became the privileged places and moments of profound unity, fellowship and solidarity among the believers. Today in various churches this celebration is given immense prominence and in the higher churches more solemn ritual adorns this celebration.

This meal continues the miraculous feeding of the five thousand by Jesus up in the Galilean mountains and is the drama we see re-enacted in the centers of great Christian and catholic pilgrimages, festivals and on ordinary Sundays. The hidden presence of Jesus Christ in those whom He considers as the least of his brothers such as those who hunger and thirst, the strangers, those who are naked, sick and the imprisoned is proved by the fact that when we see to their needs, it is Him alone that we serve (Matthew 25: 35-40).

This teaching on compassionate charity has inspired many saints even of the present time as Mother Teresa of Calcutta known for her care of the destitute and the dying. Christ also raised children as symbols of his kingdom calling the adult world to a life of childlike-ness. Children invariably teach us about life’s inviolable dignity becoming thereby evangelizers of life and prophets of a culture of life and love.

Today’s Mega-Drama of Life and Death

The era we live in is truly witnessing the mega drama of life and death. Modern life both in urban, sub-urban and rural areas is threatened by multiple forces of death, destruction and decay. They may be natural disasters that are beyond our control while others are man-made including disruption of the environment due to relentless abuse of modern technology. Melting of the ice-glaciers in the poles, the rising of ocean temperatures and emission of fossil fuels which poison the environment and the spread of viral deceases are some of them which make the earth our common home less safe and healthy a place to live.

Then there are the crucial moral issues directly infringing on the sacredness of human life such as direct abortion and euthanasia and the harvesting of embryos for scientific experimentation of various kinds. Nature has decreed that the dignity of marriage which is the way of spousal love and the door to new life through motherhood not be infringed upon through donor insemination or surrogate motherhood which amount to alienation of the persons involved.

Marriage, motherhood and new life are intimately linked in the human context. To divorce them would be a serious travesty of human relations so basic to the life of society and civilization. Both the global world-economic system run in favor of the rich and the weapons industry prevent funds being channeled to feed the world’s hungry masses. Wars can never be paths to justice and peace. What is important are the structures of dialogue needed for building bridges instead of walls of separation. Death-dealing factors are to be eradicated with life-giving resources explored to the full.

Easter is restoration of Life

Building a new world-order that fosters life in its richness and diversity requires as a condition-sine-qua-non the elimination of the culture of death and all that is a threat to life. Peace, goodwill and efforts at mutual understanding among nations and peoples are absolutely needed in providing an atmosphere of fraternity and solidarity that facilitate ensuring safety and security of life. It is only in a world at peace that joy of life can prevail as well as tranquility of order. Easter reversed all that led to the darkness, despair and fear following the death and burial of Jesus Christ.

Once risen with power and glory from the tomb, a radiant springtime of joy and peace dawned which made all hasten to share it with one another. Following the Easter paradigm, death has to be destroyed and life is to be restored. The battle for life and its victory, includes the struggle against evil and all its forces. It should not be forgotten that sound morality and preservation of wholesome ethical behavior are of great importance for raising a healthy society where people can experience their human dignity. There are so many factors today that denigrate society such as the drug trade, many-fold mafia and abuse of social media.

It has brought tragedy to the lives of individuals and even families. These modern pathways of evil and moral corruption have to be dealt with since it eats into the moral fiber of society in general. The immense good that social media can accrue for those who use them is to be appreciated. May Easter that saw the destruction of death and the rising of new life, inspire all to walk the paths of life, love and peace which ensure a safer and more secure journey for humanity.