Features

My Decision to Leave Home, 1970 A fateful decision

Published

2 years ago

2022/11/6

By Nimal Wikremanayeke
(Excerpted from A Life In The Law)

I will now turn to the events that made me leave my wonderful country, my beautiful home and my large practice at the Ceylon Bar in order to emigrate to Australia, a land where I knew no one. Today, looking back, I cannot understand what fit of insanity must have overtaken me to make such a stunning, life-changing decision.

It was May 27, 1970, the day when our prime minister, Dudley Senanayake, decided to fight an election against the combined might of Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party, Dr Colvin R De Silva’s Trotskyite Lanka Sama Samaja Party, Mr Pieter Keuneman’s Communist Party and several other miscellaneous parties. We were all extremely confident that Mr Senanayake would triumph and we would have stability in our country for another five years.

My father decided to hold a card party on election night so that we could have an enjoyable night while listening to the election results. Dad was an extremely generous host and he was to provide dinner – a gourmet’s dinner – yellow rice with numerous curries washed down with large quantities of French wines.I woke early that morning, shaved, showered, had my breakfast and went off to vote. The polling booths were filled with supporters of the various parties loudly touting their wares. I took my place in the queue and when it came for my turn to vote, the electoral officer brushed the first joint of my right thumb with indelible ink to prevent me from voting again, took my particulars and gave me my ballot papers. I returned home after voting, confident that our party would be returned to power.

Shortly after 12 noon I left with my wife to go to my club the Twentieth Century Club in Dawson Road, Havelock Town, Colombo. This was a ritual we followed every Saturday morning. When we arrived there, a group of my friends had already commenced their usual Saturday afternoon drinking session. They were seated in a semi-circle outside on the club house lawn and my wife and I joined them.

Life in those days was gracious and we were attended to by solicitous, subservient attendants. After many rounds of fairly heavy drinking, we left for home. We arrived at our well-appointed air-conditioned three-bedroom apartment, with a sitting cum dining room which had French windows opening out onto a covered veranda, and an impressive courtyard. We had two servants, a female cook and a houseboy.

Shortly after three o’clock the cook warmed up our lunch which the houseboy laid out on the dining table. We had our lunch and retired to bed where we were joined by our German shepherd, Sweetheart.We got up later that afternoon, made ourselves ready and went to my parents’ home. My father was one of the leading Queen’s Counsel at the Ceylon Bar. He had a large and spacious home which was built on a quarter of an acre of land over 11,000 square feet together with a quarter-acre of garden.

In addition to his study, the house had five well-appointed bedrooms, with en suite bathrooms in four of them. The home had a large entrance hall, a sitting room, an open-air patio in the middle of the home, a fountain filled with goldfish, an exceptionally large dining room, and attached to it was the billiard room, with a full-sized billiard table and sufficient room to accommodate a large card table.By 7 pm all my father’s guests had arrived and we indulged ourselves in a rousing game of Down the River. This was seven-card stud poker, together with as many jokers as there were players -eleven of us. At about 8.30 pm we sat down to dinner, which we finished by 10 pm. We returned to the card room and sat down to resume playing cards when someone turned on the radio to listen to the election results.

It was customary in Ceylon for the election results to start flooding in at about 10 pm. We did not hear any election results for several hours; all we heard from the local radio station was music, and this went on till about 1 am. We were all extremely puzzled as to why no election results were being declared. Our suspicions should have been aroused by the fact that every half hour, the local radio station kept playing Roger Whittaker’s “New World in the Morning.”

This should have been a warning, a portent of things to come. The local radio station kept repeating this piece of music every half hour until around 1 am, when the election results started flooding in. It was not a defeat, it was not a rout – it was a massacre. As I recall, the Ceylon Parliament consisted of 160 seats in 1970 prior to the election, with the UNP (United National Party) holding 90 seats and the other parties 70 among them. This time, the UNP lost 65 seats and the other parties won 65 seats.The poker game came to an end by 1.30 am and all of us, save for my parents, left for our respective homes. We were shattered. We were completely unaware of the extent to which our lives would change dramatically in the next 12 months as a result of this election.

Astrology

An interesting feature of this election was that Mr Dudley Senanayake’s astrologer was horribly wrong when he predicted that the prime minister would win the election if it was held on May 27, 1970. As a result of the prediction, the prime minister held the election and lost. Some Westerners may scoff at such primitive superstitions, but then why are whole pages devoted in their daily newspapers to astrological predictions?

Regrettably, I too have had my fair share of astrological predictions. In 1960 when I returned to Ceylon and went to the Bar, things were extremely difficult for me. Although my father was chairman of the Associated Motorways Group and a large insurance company, he had sent the secretaries of these companies a directive that I should not be given work.

I knew the secretary, Salman, who told me that there was a brilliant astrologer working as a clerk in the Associated Motorways Group. Salman suggested that I go and see him to obtain an astrological prediction about my future. I went to see him wearing dishevelled clothes and a pair of slippers. I told him what my date and time of birth was and he told me to come a week later. I turned up a week later to see him with Salman. This man looked at me sadly and said, “You poor man. You have no future at all. You are poor and you will always be poor. You have a Kemathrama Yoga.” Salman looked at him and said, “You idiot. This is the chairman’s son!”

One day in the middle of 1964, I was in the Law Library where the advocates normally congregated when they were not in court. I was chatting with two friends of mine, Satyendra and Navaratnarajah, when Satyendra told us that he knew a brilliant astrologer in Jaffna who could read horoscopes and accurately predict the future.

A few days later Nava and I gave Satyendra our respective birth details etc. to pass on to the astrologer who would make up our horoscopes and predict our futures. A couple of weeks later Satyendra turned up with our horoscopes. Satyendra told Nava that the astrologer had predicted a brilliant future for him. Saty then looked at me sadly and said that my horoscope predicted that I had no future. Although it terrified me at the time, this story had both a sad and a happy ending. A month later Nava, contracted hepatitis and died. The happy ending was that I believe the astrologer mixed up our dates of birth, for Nava now had no future and I ended up with a good future.

In fairness to astrology, I must relate an incident that occurred during the middle of 1971. The die was cast and I had crossed the Rubicon. There was a venerable old gentleman at the Ceylon Bar, a Mr M. Somasunderam. He was a contemporary of Dad’s. Someone at the Bar told me that Soma was excellent at reading palms and was an exceptional palmist. I buttonholed him in the Law Library and asked him whether I could speak to him on a personal matter. I told him that I was going to live out my days in Australia so could he please read my palm and tell me what my future was.

He took my palm in his hand and studied it for quite some time. He smiled a gentle smile, then said, “Wikramanayake, you have nothing to worry about. You will have a brilliant future in Australia” I was flabbergasted. I told him that this was impossible as I knew no one in Australia. He patted me on the shoulder smiled, saying, “Remember me when you are famous.” So, Soma, I am having a glass of Blue Label Scotch whisky in remembrance of you while I type this memoir.

Post-election horror

Elections in Ceylon were gory events. As one of the leaders of the Gauls said, when addressing the Roman Senate well over 2,000 years ago, “Vae ago, ae victis – woe to the conquered” The supporters of the successful winning party always exacted their revenge on the supporters of the losing party. A large number of supporters of the losing party were usually viciously beaten up while the police watched on without interfering, and houses belonging to members of the United National Party were torched.

The country was quiet on Sunday, but on Monday, the assaults and beatings started. I remember what happened to a cousin of mine, Michael Wikramanayake. He was the manager of a large government cooperative store. Michael had been known for the fact being a UNP sympathiser. He was seated in his office on Monday morning when the workers stormed in. They tied him to his chair and poured blue and red paint over him. Blue paint symbolised the Sri Lankan Freedom Party (SLFP), the red paint the Communist Party. Michael was badly beaten and lost an eye. The poor man was devastated; he not only lost his job but received no help from the police.

Yet this was only the beginning. Mrs Bandaranaike had more than a two-thirds majority in Parliament, and she amended the constitution. She announced that Sinhalese was to be the national language, and that cases in the law courts would shortly be conducted in the Sinhalese language and not in English, as had been done for over 150 years. Court documents were also to be written in the Sinhalese language. Up to that time, the work in the courts was conducted in English. The government created a High Court, a new court midway between the District Court and the Supreme Court. The government appointed seventeen new judges from lawyers who were members of Mrs Bandaranaike’s party, the SLFP. Lawyers from her party who were competent in Sinhalese were tasked with translating the Civil Procedure Code and the laws of the country into Sinhalese.

My attempt at coping

I took on two extremely competent young Sinhalese-educated lawyers as my readers to help me cope with conducting my cases in Sinhalese. Regrettably, I must confess that although I could speak my mother tongue, I could scarcely read or write it. I would now have to learn to think in Sinhalese. How was I to do this? I was thirty-seven years old.

My father had been a classics scholar before he studied law. He had introduced me to The Iliad, The Odyssey, Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides and the like when I was ten years old. English was the language we spoke at home and Sinhalese was used only to speak to the servants. I am not proud of this fact. While I was growing up, the British were in power and my language was suppressed by the British, who called it “the vernacular” This continued until I was fifteen years old.

In school, we had one period a week in Sinhalese before Ceylon received independence. I excelled in all the other subjects, save for my mother tongue. In 1948, when we received our independence the scene changed dramatically. From this time, we had a period of two hours of Sinhalese every day and I just could not cope with it. I was slapped regularly by my Sinhalese master, Mr Jayasekere, for not knowing Sinhalese. I excelled in Latin but failed miserably in Sinhalese. I never received less than 190 marks out of 200 in Latin but no more than 40 out of 200 in Sinhalese. This went on for several years until I went off to England to study, to widen my repertoire and broaden my horizons.

My lack of knowledge of my mother tongue had now returned to haunt me. After the election in May 1970, I mentioned my displeasure at this new turn of events in the Law Library to a Sinhalese-educated advocate. He sniggered and said sarcastically, “The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on” Yes, the caravan was moving on and leaving me behind barking madly.

I thought to myself, how the hell am I going to think and address the court in Sinhalese? I was at my wits’ end wondering what to do. As the situation continued like this for a few months I was beginning to despair. The two new Sinhala-educated lawyers I had employed tried to help me cope with my lack of knowledge of the Sinhalese language but to no avail.

I happened to go to the Magistrates’ Court in Colombo South in August 1970 and met a friend of mine, Clarence Fernando. We were discussing our situation and pondering what we were to do. Clarence told me that all was not lost. A friend of his, Frank Pereira, had recently migrated to Australia. He told me that Frank was in the legal profession and was doing extremely well. Heartened by this little titbit, I decided to emigrate to Australia. Had I known the truth about Frank Pereira, I certainly would not have abandoned my large practice at the Ceylon Bar and migrated to Australia. I could still have conquered the Sinhalese language and have had a gracious life in Ceylon.

I returned home and asked my dear wife Anna Maria, “Shall we go to Australia?” Anna Maria, bless her, was always game for anything I wanted to do. It was only many years later that she told me she was terrified when I had asked her whether we should go to Australia.When I came to Australia I learned that Frank Pereira was a law clerk earning a relatively small income of $30 a week. In 1970, secretaries in Australia were earning $60 a week.

Napoleon Bonaparte

In desperation I turned for guidance to my Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon had been a great source of inspiration to me ever since my school days. One of my classmates, Ralph Deraniyagala, was an avid disciple of Napoleon. He suffered from a bad case of Napoleonitis and was an eccentric young boy. When we were young lads in our early teens, he had selected most of us, in class, to be Napoleon’s marshals and I was fortunate to be chosen as Marshal Ney.

Ralph was not only eccentric but also extremely impulsive. He would disrupt our lessons in class by springing up from his seat and shouting out to one of his marshals to charge. He would seriously upset the equilibrium in the class but the masters tolerated his bizarre behaviour. As a result of Ralph, I started devouring whatever books I could read on the life of Napoleon Bonaparte, starting with Abbott’s magnificent treatise on the life of Napoleon. Napoleon was of the view that there was always a “Career open to talent” He proclaimed that he was “a Corsican by birth, a Frenchman by adoption and an Emperor by conquest”. It was his belief that if one had ability, one could succeed anywhere in the world. So I decided to take up the challenge and emigrate to Australia.

Ronnie de Kretser

One of my father’s readers, Ivor Misso, had left for Australia in the 1950s. Misso had a substantial practice in the District Court of Colombo but had left for what he thought would be greener pastures. Dad wrote to him to ask him whether he could help me in my new adventure. Ivor Misso wrote back, suggesting that Dad write to Ronnie de Kretser, a partner in the solicitors’ firm of Weigall & Crowther in Melbourne. Ronnie had qualified as a proctor of the Ceylon Supreme Court in 1948 and left for Australia at the same time as Ivor Misso in 1956. Dad then wrote to Ronnie who advised me to put in my application for immigration and send him a copy, as the Minister for Immigration, Mr Phillip Lynch, was a good friend of his.

We duly made our application for immigration in November and we were successful due to the efforts of Ronnie de Kretser. I received a warm letter from Phillip Lynch congratulating me on my application and wishing me all the best in my new country. We were passed for immigration in December and it was only then I began to have second thoughts about migrating to Australia.However, Melbourne, my intended destination, was not unfamiliar to me as Dad had brought us out to Australia on a one-month holiday in 1952.1 had liked it then.

Distribution of work

Late in 1970, all the government corporation work was given to friends of the SLFP, Mrs Bandaranaike’s party. This was nothing new. Each successive government in Ceylon repaid its loyal supporters by giving them government legal work. (I was to be unpleasantly surprised many years later to also find that some work in Australia is handed out on patronage and privilege.)

One of the privileged few was P Herat who did work on the “motion roll”, which consisted of the list of summary matter applications to be heard in the Motion Court. That was the extent of his practice. The five District Courts had an hour’s work on the motion roll every morning before the trials for the day were heard. These summary matters were determined by the judge. Herat had never conducted a trial prior to Mrs Bandaranaike coming to power in 1970, and did not know how a trial should be conducted.

As I mentioned earlier, I had a large and a lucrative commercial practice. I was briefed for the defendant in a “mortgage bond” case. In Ceylon, a mortgage under Roman-Dutch law could only be enforced by court proceedings, unlike in Australia, where proceedings for possession could be issued after the mortgage had been terminated by appropriate notice. I had no defence to the action as my client was seriously in default of his obligations under the mortgage.

Herat was briefed to appear for the plaintiff, the State Mortgage Bank, a government institution. When we went to court, he was gloating and told me that the days of the English-speaking advocates were over for it was now the turn of the Sinhala-educated lawyers.

The case was called on for hearing before Judge Vaitialingam. Herat opened his case with bravado and then led his evidence. He kept smirking as he knew my client had no defence. The evidence he led was short and sweet. He led evidence that the mortgage had not been paid, then sat down. He did not lead any evidence that my client was in default. He did not lead any evidence that a demand had been paid for the arrears. Nor did he lead any evidence that my client had failed to cure his default. He then closed his case.

I asked him whether he had finished. He said “yes” I asked him several times whether he had finished and he kept getting angrier and angrier. The judge then asked him whether he had finished and he again replied “yes” I then made a No Case submission upon which Herat sought to re-open his case. The judge refused his application, saying that I had asked him sever-at times whether he had finished to which Herat had replied “yes” The judge had also asked him the same question and got an answer in the affirmative. He refused Herat’s application and dismissed his case.

It cost the bank Rs 150,000 or the equivalent of $30,000, a substantial sum of money in 1970.1 gave Herat the two-finger salute which Henry V’s longbowman gave the French at the Battle of Agincourt and walked out of court.Suffice it to say that Herat did not get another government brief. This case was not included here for the purpose of skiting about my forensic ability, but for the purpose of illustrating that patronage can occasionally go wrong.

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Features

The Great and Little Traditions and Sri Lankan Historiography

Published

1 hour ago

2025/04/2

Sahan Weerasooriya

Prof. Obeyesekere

Power, Culture, and Historical Memory:

History, broadly defined, is the study of the past. It is a crucial component of the production and reproduction of culture. Studying every past event is neither feasible nor useful. Therefore, it is necessary to be selective about what to study from the countless events in the past. Deciding what to study, what to ignore, how to study, and how deeply to go into the past is a conscious choices shaped by various forms of power and authority. If studying the past is a main element of the production and reproduction of culture and History is its product, can a socially and culturally divided society truly have a common/shared History? To what extent does ‘established’ or ‘authentic’ History reflect the experiences of those remained outside the political, economic, social, and cultural power structures? Do marginalized groups have their own histories, distinct from dominant narratives? If so, how do these histories relate to ‘established’ History? Historiography today cannot ignore these questions, as they challenge the very notion of truth in History. Due to methodological shifts driven by post-positivist critiques of previously accepted assumptions, the discipline of history—particularly historiography—has moved into a new epistemological terrain.

The post-structuralism and related philosophical discourses have necessitated a critical reexamination of the established epistemological core of various social science disciplines, including history. This intellectual shift has led to a blurring of traditional disciplinary boundaries among the social sciences and the humanities. Consequently, concepts, theories, and heuristic frames developed in one discipline are increasingly being incorporated into others, fostering a process of cross-fertilization that enriches and transforms scholarly inquiry

In recent decades, the discipline of History has broadened its scope and methodologies through interactions with perspectives from the Social Sciences and Humanities. Among the many analytical tools adopted from other disciplines, the Great Tradition and Little Tradition have had a significant impact on historical methodology. This article examines how these concepts, originally developed in social anthropology, have been integrated into Sri Lankan historiography and assesses their role in deepening our understanding of the past.

The heuristic construct of the Great and Little Traditions first emerged in the context of US Social Anthropology as a tool/framework for identifying and classifying cultures. In his seminal work Peasant society and culture: an anthropological approach to civilization, (1956), Robert Redfield introduced the idea of Great and Little Traditions to explain the dual structure of cultural expression in societies, particularly in peasant communities that exist within larger civilizations. His main arguments can be summarized as follows:

a) An agrarian society cannot exist as a fully autonomous entity; rather, it is just one dimension of the broader culture in which it is embedded. Therefore, studying an agrarian society in isolation from its surrounding cultural context is neither possible nor meaningful.

b) Agrarian society, when views in isolation, is a ‘half society’, representing a partial aspect/ one dimension of the broader civilization in which it exits. In that sense, agrarian civilization is a half civilization. To fully understand agrarian society—and by extension, agrarian civilization—it is essential to examine the other half that contribute to the whole.

c) Agrarian society was shaped by the interplay of two cultural traditions within a single framework: the Great Tradition and the Little Tradition. These traditions together provided the unity that defined the civilization embedded in agrarian society.

d) The social dimensions of these cultural traditions would be the Great Society and the Little Society.

e) The Great Culture encompasses the cultural framework of the Great Society, shaped by those who establish its norms. This group includes the educated elite, clergy, theologians, and literati, whose discourse is often regarded as erudite and whose language is considered classical.

f) The social groups excluded from the “Great Society”—referred to as the “Little Society”—have their own distinct traditions and culture. The “Great Tradition” represents those who appropriate society’s surplus production, and its cultural expressions reflect this dominance. In contrast, the “Little Tradition” belongs to those who generate surplus production. While the “Great Tradition” is inherently tied to power and authority, the “Little Tradition” is not directly connected to them.

g) According to Robert Redfield, the Great and Little Traditions are not contradictory but rather distinct cultural elements within a society. The cultural totality of peasant society encompasses both traditions. As Redfield describes, they are “two currents of thought and action, distinguishable, yet overflowing into and out of each other.” (Redfield, 1956).

At the time Redfield published his book Peasant Society and Culture: an Anthropological Approach to Civilization (1956), the dominant analytical framework for studying non-Western societies was modernization theory. This perspective, which gained prominence in the post-World War II era, was deeply influenced by the US geopolitical concerns. Modernization theory became a guiding paradigm shaping research agendas in anthropology, sociology, political science, and development studies in US institutions of higher learning,

Modernization theory viewed societies as existing along a continuum between “traditional” and “modern” stages, with Western industrialized nations positioned near the modern end. Scholars working within this framework argued that economic growth, technological advancement, urbanization, and the rationalization of social structures drive traditional societies toward modernization. The theory often emphasized Western-style education, democratic institutions, and capitalist economies as essential components of this transition.

While engaging with aspects of modernization theory, Redfield offered a more nuanced perspective on non-Western societies. His concept of the “folk-urban continuum” challenged rigid dichotomies between tradition and modernity, proposing that social change occurs through complex interactions between rural and urban ways of life rather than through the simple replacement of one by the other.

The concepts of the Great and Little Traditions gained prominence in Sri Lankan social science discourse through the works of Gananath Obeyesekere, the renowned sociologist who recently passed away. In his seminal research essay, The Great Tradition and the Little in the Perspective of Sinhalese Buddhism (Journal of Asian Studies, 22, 1963), Gananath Obeyesekere applied and adapted this framework to examine key aspects of Sinhalese Buddhism in Sri Lanka. While Robert Redfield originally developed the concept in the context of agrarian societies, Obeyesekere employed it specifically to analyze Sinhala Buddhist culture, highlighting significant distinctions between the two approaches.

He identifies a phenomenon called ‘Sinhala Buddhism’, which represents a unique fusion of religious and cultural traditions: the Great Tradition (Maha Sampradaya) and the Little Traditions (Chuula Sampradaya). To fully grasp the essence of Sinhala Buddhism, it is essential to understand both of these dimensions and their interplay within society.

The Great Tradition represents the formal, institutionalized aspect of Buddhism, centered on the Three Pitakas and other classical doctrinal texts and commentaries of Theravāda Buddhism. It embodies the orthodoxy of Sinhala Buddhism, emphasizing textual authority, philosophical depth, and ethical conduct. Alongside this exists another dimension of Sinhala Buddhism known as the Little (Chuula) Tradition. This tradition reflects the popular, localized, and ritualistic expressions of Buddhism practiced by laypeople. It encompasses folk beliefs, devotional practices (Bali, Thovil), deity veneration, astrology, and rituals (Hadi and Huunium) aimed at securing worldly benefits. Unlike the doctrinally rigid Great Tradition, the Little Tradition is fluid, adaptive, and shaped by indigenous customs, ancestral practices, and even elements of Hinduism. These Sinhala Buddhist cultural practices are identified as ‘Lay-Buddhism’. Gananath Obeyesekera’s concepts and perspectives on Buddhist culture and society contributed to fostering an active intellectual discourse in society. However, the discussion on the concept of Great and Little Traditions remained largely within the domain of social anthropology.

The scholarly discourse on the concepts of Great and Little Tradition gained new socio-political depth through the work of Newton Gunasinghe, a distinguished Sri Lankan sociologist. He applied these concepts to the study of culture and socio-economic structures in the Kandyan countryside, reframing them in terms of production relations. Through his extensive writings and public lectures, Gunasinghe reinterpreted the Great and Little Tradition framework to explore the interconnections between economy, society, and culture.

Blending conventional social anthropology approach with Marxist analyses of production relations and Gramscian perspectives on culture and politics, he offered a nuanced understanding of these dynamics. In the context of our discussion, his key insights on culture, society, and modes of production can be summarized as follows.

a. The social and economic relations of the central highlands under the Kandyan Kingdom, the immediate pre-colonial social and economic order, were his focus. His analysis did not cover to the hydraulic Civilization of Sri Lanka.

b. He explored the organic and dialectical relationship between culture, forces of production, and modes of production. Drawing on the concepts of Antonio Gramsci and Louis Althusser, he examined how culture, politics, and the economy interact, identifying the relationship between cultural formations and production relations

c. Newton Gunasinghe’s unique approach to the concepts of Great Culture and Little Culture lies in his connection of cultural formations to forces and relations of production. He argues that the relationship between a society’s structures and its superstructures is both dialectical and interpenetrative.

d. He observed that during the Kandyan period, the culture associated with the Little Tradition prevailed, rather than the culture linked to the Great Tradition.

e. The limitations of productive forces led to minimal surplus generation, with a significant portion allocated to defense. The constrained resources sustained only the Little Tradition. Consequently, the predominant cultural mode in the Kandyan Kingdom was, broadly speaking, the Little Tradition.

(To be continued)

by Gamini Keerawella

Features

Celebrating 25 Years of Excellence: The Silver Jubilee of SLIIT – II

Published

1 hour ago

2025/04/2

Sahan Weerasooriya

Founded in 1999, with its main campus in Malabe and multiple centres across the country—including Metro Campus (Colombo), Matara, Kurunegala, Kandy (Pallekele), and Jaffna (Northern Uni)—SLIIT provides state-of-the-art facilities for students, now celebrating 25 years of excellence in 2025.

Kandy Campus

SLIIT is a degree-awarding higher education institute authorised and approved by the University Grants Commission (UGC) and Ministry of Higher Education under the University Act of the Government of Sri Lanka. SLIIT is also the first Sri Lankan institute accredited by the Institution of Engineering & Technology, UK. Further, SLIIT is also a member of the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) and the International Association of Universities (IAU).

Since its inception, SLIIT has played a pivotal role in shaping the technological and educational landscape of Sri Lanka, producing graduates who have excelled in both local and global arenas. This milestone is a testament to the institution’s unwavering commitment to academic excellence, research, and industry collaboration.

Summary of SLIIT’s

History and Status

Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology (SLIIT) operates as a company limited by guarantee, meaning it has no shareholders and reinvests all surpluses into academic and institutional development.

* Independence from Government: SLIIT was established in 1999 as an independent entity without government ownership or funding, apart from an initial industry promotion grant from the Board of Investment (BOI).

* Mahapola Trust Fund Involvement & Malabe Campus: In 2000, the Mahapola Trust Fund (MTF) agreed to support SLIIT with funding and land for the Malabe Campus. In 2015, SLIIT fully repaid MTF with interest, ending financial ties.

* True Independence (2017-Present): In 2017, SLIIT was officially delisted from any government ministry, reaffirming its status as a self-sustaining, non-state higher education institution.

Today, SLIIT is recognised for academic excellence, global collaborations, and its role in producing IT professionals in Sri Lanka

.A Journey of Growth and Innovation

SLIIT began as a pioneering institution dedicated to advancing information technology education in Sri Lanka. Over the past two and a half decades, it has expanded its academic offerings, establishing itself as a multidisciplinary university with programmess in engineering, business, architecture, and humanities, in addition to IT. The growth of SLIIT has been marked by continuous improvement in infrastructure, faculty development, and curriculum enhancement, ensuring that students receive world-class education aligned with industry needs.

Looking Ahead: The Next 25 Years

As SLIIT celebrates its Silver Jubilee, the institution looks forward to the future with a renewed commitment to excellence. With advancements in technology, the rise of artificial intelligence, and the increasing demand for skilled professionals, SLIIT aims to further expand its academic offerings, enhance research capabilities, and continue fostering a culture of innovation. The next 25 years promise to be even more transformative, as the university aspires to make greater contributions to national and global progress.

Sports Achievements:

A Legacy of Excellence

SLIIT has not only excelled in academics but has also built a strong reputation in sports. Over the years, the university has actively promoted athletics and competitive sports by organising inter-university and inter-school competitions, fostering a culture of teamwork, discipline, and resilience. SLIIT teams have secured victories in national and inter-university competitions across various sports, including cricket, basketball, badminton, rugby, football, swimming, and athletics. SLIIT’s sports achievements reflect its dedication to holistic student development, encouraging students to excel beyond the classroom.

Kings of the pool!

Once again, our swimmers have brought glory to SLIIT by emerging as champions at the Asia Pacific Institute of Information and Technology Extravaganza Swimming Championship 2024. They won the Men’s, Women’s, and Overall Championships. Congratulations to all swimmers for their dedication and hard work in the pool, bringing honour to SLIIT.

Winning International Competitions

SLIIT students have participated in and excelled in various international competitions, including Robofest, Codefest, and the University of Queensland – Design Solution for Impact Competition, showcasing their skills and talent on a global stage.

Here’s a more detailed look at SLIIT’s involvement in international competitions:

Robofest:

SLIIT’s Faculty of Engineering organises the annual Robofest competition, which aims to empower students with skills in electronics, robotics, critical thinking, and problem-solving, preparing them to compete internationally and bring recognition to Sri Lankan talent.

Codefest:

CODEFEST is a nationwide Software Competition organized by the Faculty of Computing of Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology (SLIIT) geared towards exhibiting the software application design and developing talents of students island-wide. It is an effort of SLIIT to elevate the entire nation’s ICT knowledge to achieve its aspiration of being the knowledge hub in Asia. CODEFEST was first organised in 2012 and this year it will be held for the 8th consecutive time in parallel with the 20th anniversary celebrations of SLIIT.

University of Queensland – Design Solution for Impact Competition:

SLIIT hosted the first-ever University of Queensland – Design Solution for Impact Competition in Sri Lanka, with 16 school teams from across the country participating.

International Open Day:

SLIIT organises an International Open Day where students can connect with distinguished lecturers and university representatives from prestigious institutions like the University of Queensland, Liverpool John Moores University, and Manchester Metropolitan University.

Brain Busters:

SLIIT Brain Busters is a quiz competition organised by SLIIT. The competition is open to students of National, Private and International Schools Island wide. The programme is broadcast on TV1 television as a series.

Inter-University Dance Competition:

SLIIT Team Diamonds for being selected as finalists and advancing to the Grand Finale of Tantalize 2024, the inter-university dance competition organised by APIIT Sri Lanka. The 14 talented team members from various SLIIT faculties have showcased their skills in Team Diamonds and earned their spot as finalists, competing among over 30 teams from state universities, private universities, and higher education institutes.

Softskills+

For the 11th consecutive year, Softskills+ returns with an exciting lineup of events aimed at honing essential soft skills among students. The program encompasses an interschool quiz contest and a comprehensive workshop focused on developing teamwork, problem-solving abilities, leadership qualities, and fostering creative thinking.

Recently, the Faculty of Business at SLIIT organised its annual Inter-school Quiz Competition and Soft Skills Workshop, marking its fifth successive year. Targeting students in grades 11 to 13 from Commerce streams across State, Private, and International schools, the workshop sought to ignite a passion for soft skills development, emphasising teamwork, problem-solving, creativity, and innovative thinking. Recognising the increasing importance of these soft skills in today’s workforce, the programme aims to fill the gap often left unaddressed in the school curriculum.”

The winners of the soft skill competition with Professor Lakshman Rathnayake: Chairman/Chancellor, Vice Chancellor/MD Professor Lalith Gamage, Professor Nimal Rajapakse: Senior Deputy Vice – Chancellor & Provost, Deputy Vice Chancellor – Research and International Affairs Professor Samantha Thelijjagoda, and Veteran Film Director Somarathna Dissanayake.

VogueFest 2024:

SLIIT Business School organised VogueFest 2024, a platform for emerging fashion designers under 30 to showcase their work and win prizes.

T-shirt Design Competition with Sheffield Hallam University:

SLIIT and Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) UK collaborated on a T-shirt designing competition, with a voting procedure to select the best design.

SLIIT’s Got Talent

: The annual talent show, SLIIT’s Got Talent 2024, was held for the 10th consecutive year at the Nelum Pokuna Mahinda Rajapaksa Theatre on 27th September 2024. SLIIT’s Got Talent had the audience energised with amazing performances, showcasing mind-blowing talent by the orchestra and the talented undergraduates from all faculties.

Other events:

* SLIIT also participates in events like the EDUVision Exhibition organised by the Richmond College Old Boys’ Association.

* They hosted the first-ever University of Queensland – Design Solution for Impact Competition in Sri Lanka.

* SLIIT Business School also organised the Business Proposal Competition.

SLIIT Academy:

SLIIT Academy (Pvt.) Ltd. provides industrial-oriented learning experiences for students.

International Partnerships:

SLIIT has strong international partnerships with universities like Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU), The University of Queensland (UQ), Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU), and Curtin University Australia, providing opportunities for students to study and participate in international events.

(The writer, a senior Chartered Accountant and professional banker, is Professor at SLIIT University, Malabe. He is also the author of the “Doing Social Research and Publishing Results”, a Springer publication (Singapore), and “Samaja Gaveshakaya (in Sinhala).

Features

Inescapable need to deal with the past

Published

1 day ago

2025/04/1

Sahan Weerasooriya

The sudden reemergence of two major incidents from the past, that had become peripheral to the concerns of people today, has jolted the national polity and come to its centre stage. These are the interview by former president Ranil Wickremesinghe with the Al Jazeera television station that elicited the Batalanda issue and now the sanctioning of three former military commanders of the Sri Lankan armed forces and an LTTE commander, who switched sides and joined the government. The key lesson that these two incidents give is that allegations of mass crimes, whether they arise nationally or internationally, have to be dealt with at some time or the other. If they are not, they continue to fester beneath the surface until they rise again in a most unexpected way and when they may be more difficult to deal with.

In the case of the Batalanda interrogation site, the sudden reemergence of issues that seemed buried in the past has given rise to conjecture. The Batalanda issue, which goes back 37 years, was never totally off the radar. But after the last of the commission reports of the JVP period had been published over two decades ago, this matter was no longer at the forefront of public consciousness. Most of those in the younger generations who were too young to know what happened at that time, or born afterwards, would scarcely have any idea of what happened at Batalanda. But once the issue of human rights violations surfaced on Al Jazeera television they have come to occupy centre stage. From the day the former president gave his fateful interview there are commentaries on it both in the mainstream media and on social media.

There seems to be a sustained effort to keep the issue alive. The issues of Batalanda provide good fodder to politicians who are campaigning for election at the forthcoming Local Government elections on May 6. It is notable that the publicity on what transpired at Batalanda provides a way in which the outcome of the forthcoming local government elections in the worst affected parts of the country may be swayed. The problem is that the main contesting political parties are liable to be accused of participation in the JVP insurrection or its suppression or both. This may account for the widening of the scope of the allegations to include other sites such as Matale.

POLITICAL IMPERATIVES

The emergence at this time of the human rights violations and war crimes that took place during the LTTE war have their own political reasons, though these are external. The pursuit of truth and accountability must be universal and free from political motivations. Justice cannot be applied selectively. While human rights violations and war crimes call for universal standards that are applicable to all including those being committed at this time in Gaza and Ukraine, political imperatives influence what is surfaced. The sanctioning of the four military commanders by the UK government has been justified by the UK government minister concerned as being the fulfilment of an election pledge that he had made to his constituents. It is notable that the countries at the forefront of justice for Sri Lanka have large Tamil Diasporas that act as vote banks. It usually takes long time to prosecute human rights violations internationally whether it be in South America or East Timor and diasporas have the staying power and resources to keep going on.

In its response to the sanctions placed on the military commanders, the government’s position is that such unilateral decisions by foreign government are not helpful and complicate the task of national reconciliation. It has faced criticism for its restrained response, with some expecting a more forceful rebuttal against the international community. However, the NPP government is not the first to have had to face such problems. The sanctioning of military commanders and even of former presidents has taken place during the periods of previous governments. One of the former commanders who has been sanctioned by the UK government at this time was also sanctioned by the US government in 2020. This was followed by the Canadian government which sanctioned two former presidents in 2023. Neither of the two governments in power at that time took visibly stronger stands.

In addition, resolutions on Sri Lanka have been a regular occurrence and have been passed over the Sri Lankan government’s opposition since 2012. Apart from the very first vote that took place in 2009 when the government promised to take necessary action to deal with the human rights violations of the past, and won that vote, the government has lost every succeeding vote with the margins of defeat becoming bigger and bigger. This process has now culminated in an evidence gathering unit being set up in Geneva to collect evidence of human rights violations in Sri Lanka that is on offer to international governments to use. This is not a safe situation for Sri Lankan leaders to be in as they can be taken before international courts in foreign countries. It is important for Sri Lanka’s sovereignty and dignity as a country that this trend comes to an end.

COMPREHENSIVE SOLUTION

A peaceful future for Sri Lanka requires a multi-dimensional approach that addresses the root causes of conflict while fostering reconciliation, justice, and inclusive development. So far the government’s response to the international pressures is to indicate that it will strengthen the internal mechanisms already in place like the Office on Missing Persons and in addition to set up a truth and reconciliation commission. The difficulty that the government will face is to obtain a national consensus behind this truth and reconciliation commission. Tamil parties and victims’ groups in particular have voiced scepticism about the value of this mechanism. They have seen commissions come and commissions go. Sinhalese nationalist parties are also highly critical of the need for such commissions. As the Nawaz Commission appointed to identify the recommendations of previous commissions observed, “Our island nation has had a surfeit of commissions. Many witnesses who testified before this commission narrated their disappointment of going before previous commissions and achieving nothing in return.”

Former minister Prof G L Peiris has written a detailed critique of the proposed truth and reconciliation law that the previous government prepared but did not present to parliament.

In his critique, Prof Peiris had drawn from the South African truth and reconciliation commission which is the best known and most thoroughly implemented one in the world. He points out that the South African commission had a mandate to cover the entire country and not only some parts of it like the Sri Lankan law proposes. The need for a Sri Lankan truth and reconciliation commission to cover the entire country and not only the north and east is clear in the reemergence of the Batalanda issue. Serious human rights violations have occurred in all parts of the country, and to those from all ethnic and religious communities, and not only in the north and east.

Dealing with the past can only be successful in the context of a “system change” in which there is mutual agreement about the future. The longer this is delayed, the more scepticism will grow among victims and the broader public about the government’s commitment to a solution. The important feature of the South African commission was that it was part of a larger political process aimed to build national consensus through a long and strenuous process of consultations. The ultimate goal of the South African reconciliation process was a comprehensive political settlement that included power-sharing between racial groups and accountability measures that facilitated healing for all sides. If Sri Lanka is to achieve genuine reconciliation, it is necessary to learn from these experiences and take decisive steps to address past injustices in a manner that fosters lasting national unity. A peaceful Sri Lanka is possible if the government, opposition and people commit to truth, justice and inclusivity.

by Jehan Perera