Midweek Review

Religion, politics, morality

Published

5 years ago

2021/07/14

Sahan Weerasooriya

By Prof. Charles Sarvan, Germany

Epigraph: The
highest expression
of religion
is in the practising
of morality
(Gandhi

Writing is sometimes an attempt at righting, but the intention here is only to share some thoughts on the inter-relation between religion, politics and morality in (non-private) life. In an earlier article, I suggested a slogan: “Religious doctrine is divine; religion is human.” More clearly but less neatly, religious doctrine is either divine (Jesus Christ) or from a very special human being: neither the saintly Buddha nor the Prophet Mohammed claimed divine status. Since religion with its hierarchy and rituals, ceremonies and myths is an edifice erected and elaborated over time by humans, is it surprising that it is deployed to serve human ends – secular, political and economic? Is it surprising that religion, supposed to be ‘other-worldly’, is used as a fig-leaf by humans to hide their very ‘this-worldly’ wishes and ambitions? Is it strange that religion as practised often (most certainly not always) contradicts, indeed is in conflict with, religious doctrine? The memoir of Bloke Modisane (banned in apartheid South Africa) is titled Blame Me on History. Borrowing that title, some who follow religion, rather than religious doctrine, implicitly say: “Blame me on God. It’s the wish and will, if not the command, of God. I have no choice but to obey. My obedience proves my piety”: one definition of ‘religiosity’ is, “an intense, excessive, or fervent religiousness”.

God’s wish

For centuries, the West claimed their conquest of other peoples was in order to carry out God’s wish that they be civilized. Kipling in his poem, ‘The white man’s burden’, urged the USA to conquer the Philippines – for the sake of the latter! The “natives” were, in Kipling’s words, but half devils and half children. Often, to be civilized meant that one was Christian; to be a Christian was to be civilized. Religion was the cloak under which imperialism hid its real nature and purpose. As for the civilizing mission, I turn to Mark Twain’s Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World (Chapter XX1): “In many countries we have chained the savage and starved him to death; and this we do not care for, because custom has inured us to it; yet a quick death by poison is loving-kindness [compared] to it. In many countries we have burned the savage at the stake; and this we do not care for, because custom has inured us to it; yet a quick death is loving-kindness to it. In more than one country we have hunted the savage and his little children and their mother with dogs and guns through the woods and swamps for an afternoon’s sport, and filled the region with happy laughter over their sprawling and stumbling flight, and their wild supplications for mercy; but this method we do not mind, because custom has inured us to it; yet a quick death by poison is loving-kindness to it. In many countries we have taken the savage’s land from him, and made him our slave, and lashed him every day, and broken his pride, and made death his only friend, and overworked him till he dropped in his tracks; and this we do not care for, because custom has inured us to it; yet a quick death by poison is loving-kindness to it […] There are many humorous things in the world; among them the white man’s notion that he is less savage than the other savages” (end of quote).

Sri Lankan Buddhists

In the days of the British Raj, Richard Congreve, Bishop of Oxford, declared: “God has entrusted India to us to hold it for Him, and we have no right to give it up”: see, Ashis Nandy, The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism, Oxford University Press, 1983. It’s as if the British wished to bestow freedom on India but were prevented by the will of the Almighty. Similarly, Prime Minister Golda Meir asserted that Israel “exists as the fulfilment of a promise made by God Himself”. God made a promise and, after centuries and much suffering, fulfilled it. Such using of heavenly sanction for earthly ends is not uncommon. The popular religious belief among many Sri Lankan Buddhists is that the Buddha miraculously visited the Island thrice, and decreed that it should in its entirety become the land where his doctrine would be preserved in its pristine purity. Therefore, Sri Lankan Buddhists have no choice but to turn this wish into reality: the wishes of the immortal become convenient commands for mortals. Blame us on the Buddha. Unfortunately, in Sri Lanka, Buddhism is not a universal religion, available to all, but associated with one particular group, the Sinhalese. Religious doctrine turned into religion has been racialized. In a personal message to me Graham E. Fuller, author of A World Without Islam, says that despite his Christian upbringing, “it is ultimately Buddhism which has contributed to my personal, most basic world and spiritual views today”. However, he now finds that Buddhists are not “an exception to the bloody link between religion and violence”.

Lofty ideals

All religious doctrines teach and uphold lofty ideals such as love, compassion, kindness, generosity. They enjoin inclusion, rather than exclusion and subordination. Far more than the beauties of nature, what makes a country truly beautiful is the degree to which religious doctrine is practised; the nature and state of its political and civic society: see, among others, Israeli Avishai Margalit’s book titled ‘The Decent Society’. Since all religious doctrines teach a moral life, those who follow and practice religious doctrine lead good and decent lives. On the other hand, those who practise ‘religion’ rather than living by religious doctrine, can lead immoral, even cruel and destructive, lives. In all religious doctrines, crimes are also sins but, ironically and unfortunately, in religion itself crimes such as expropriation and expulsion, assault and murder – even rape – can become signs of one’s righteousness. The religiose interpret, distort and pervert religious doctrine to suit their attitudes and actions.

What the Buddha preached was the product of intense thought and analysis, leading to understanding. That which is now practised and expressed as a religion was originally taught as a behavioural code: lucid and rational; moral, ethical and philosophic. In simple and simplistic terms, the Buddha worked back from effect to cause, and then forward to the eradication or amelioration of (negative) effects. Christ, in his Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere, stressed mercy and the making of peace. A Hadith of the Prophet Mohammed is: You will not enter paradise until you believe. And you will not believe until you love one another. In other words, salvation is through love. Of the Five Pillars of Islam, the Third is Zakat, the giving of alms. The compassion and generosity of Islamic doctrine also urges men to marry widows, thus extending to them protection and support in a difficult and dangerous world. To Gandhi, religion and morality are inseparably bound up with each other: “God is Truth and Love. God is Ethics and Morality”. All religious doctrines stress morality but morality and ethics are often absent in religion. In the folk tale ‘Monkey’ by Wu Ch’eng-en (CE 1500-1580), the Buddha deplores: “greed, slaughter, lust and lying have long prevailed. There is no respect for Buddha’s teaching, no striving towards good works” (translated into English by Arthur Walley, Grove Press, New York, 1970, page 283). The Buddha also admonishes that it’s better to save one life than to build a seven-storeyed temple in his honour: pages 194 and 256. But why turn to a folk tale when the Buddha himself said: “Many who wear the saffron robe have evil traits and lack restraint” (The Dhammapada)?

Religiosity

One definition of ‘religiosity’ is that it’s “an intense, excessive or fervent religiousness”. This kind of religiousness creates convictions and feelings which can lead to intolerance, even to violence, and so to the contradiction between ‘divine’ religious doctrine and (human-created) religion. The religiose can violate the doctrines of their own religion. For example, yet another Hadith of the Prophet says that he is not a believer who eats his fill while his neighbour remains hungry by his side. Yet extreme Islamic groups are filled not with mercy and compassion but with anger and hatred, leading to injury and death. Their main concern is not with those who suffer but with “infidels” and with Muslims who think and believe differently.

The ostensible and ostentatious glorification of god can be nothing more than a vaunting of one’s own wealth and power. I was once shown a temple in India built by a wealthy family. It was entirely of marble, and stood surrounded by mass, abject, poverty – a poverty so ubiquitous in some countries that one no longer sees, much less reacts to, it. In a poem titled ‘Inside of King’s College Chapel’, William Wordsworth, radical turned arch-conservative, urged we must not reproach the architect with “vain expense” because God rejects those offerings made after careful financial calculation. Here one sees the alliance between religion, and the powerful and the wealthy. Pope John fought against Communism in Eastern Europe but turned away from people’s liberation movements in South and Central America. Earlier in time, there are pictures of nuns and priests giving the Nazi salute at parades. To ask whether Jesus Christ who lived in the first century, CE, was a socialist is to fall into anachronism but his greatest love and concern were for the poor, the disadvantaged, the marginalised. Indeed, he saw material wealth as a hindrance to spiritual salvation. Feed the starving, clothe those in rags, give shelter to the homeless.

Dhammapada

The Buddha too in ‘The Dhammapada’ advises us to lighten our boat of material things and desires so that it travels better. From my reading, it would appear that many (I do not say all) extreme Christian groups in the USA have no objection to excessive wealth. The Christian-right supports ‘big business’; is against the termination of pregnancy, gun-control and measures to protect the environment. They object to the state stepping in to help the disadvantaged in spheres such as medical-care, schooling, housing and transport, seeing in such measures the bogey of “socialism”. Christ was a radical, and that is why the Jewish establishment, led by the priests, had him crucified. But those on the religious-right turn him into a conservative and a capitalist. (The Stoic philosopher and emperor, Marcus Aurelius, noted that what was bad for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees, but selfishness and the greed for immediate gain override such consideration.) In Sri Lanka, the clergy urge the crowning of Buddhism: power and prestige for the religion means power and prestige for its clergy. I cite from my article, ‘Waving the flag’: “In a certain context Karl Marx said: If this is Marxism, then I’m not a Marxist. Similarly, one can imagine Christ saying that of Christianity or the Buddha, ‘the Soul of Utmost Compassion’, sadly saying, if this is Buddhism, then I’m not a Buddhist.”

Since it’s mentioned above, I turn to the environment and quote from Laudato Si’: On Care For Our Common Home by Pope Francis. The earth is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor (page 7). To commit crimes against the natural world is a sin against ourselves and God (page 10). We no longer speak the language of fraternity with the world but one of masters, consumers, ruthless exploiters, unable to set limits on our needs (pages 11-12). “Never have we so hurt and mistreated our common home as we have in the last two hundred years” (page 28). My article on it appeared on 6 September 2015 both in ‘Colombo Telegraph’ and in the Sunday Times, and I quote from it:

“Pope Francis is the head of the largest religious denomination, numbering about 1.2 billion people, and this appeal has been translated into several of the world’s languages. His wish and attempt is “to enter into dialogue with all people about our common home” (italics added). The violence in our hearts is “reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life” (p. 7). What the Pope attempts is a conversion, an ecological conversion though, as I will attempt to show later, the Pope implicitly argues that a truly religious life, whatever the religion, is one in harmony with nature and the environment. He defines ecology as the study of the relationship between living organisms and the environment in which they develop (p. 69). With characteristic modesty, he does not claim to dispose of questions here ‘once and for all’ but accepts they will be “reframed and enriched again and again” (p. 14). I see Pope Francis as coming within a noble tradition, one which goes back to the Buddha and to Christ; to Gandhi and the Dalai Lama. (I am not a Catholic.)”

The religiose (again, as distinct from those who follow religious doctrine) tend to think that atheists, having no hope of reward; fearing no damnation or unfortunate rebirth, are immoral.

This, of course, is naïve and incorrect: the highly religious can be very immoral while some atheists have led noble, exemplary lives. (The Buddha believed in nobility but this ‘nobility’ was not by birth and caste but one that was earned through character, conduct and contribution.) Professor Louise Antony has published statements by some leading thinkers who happen to be atheists under the title Philosophers Without Gods, Oxford University Press. One definition of “humanist” is that it’s “an adjective relating to a philosophy asserting human dignity and man’s capacity for fulfilment through reason and scientific method”. It has been noted that countries which are not overtly religious – Scandinavia, Holland, New Zealand, etc. – have a far better humanist record than those which loudly proclaim their religious piety. They are superior in human rights, in care for their citizens, in providing health and social care, public transport, in minority rights and others that enable a decent and good life. In the USA white supremacists crudely and violently proclaim that they are Christians, followers of Gentle Jesus. In Sri Lanka, what incenses and mobilises Buddhist monks is not widespread poverty and misery; not domestic and state violence; alcoholism; the degradation of the environment; crime and corruption but non-Buddhist, non-Sinhalese population-groups.

Epilogue

. If the highest expression of religion is in the practising of morality (Gandhi), the best form of worship of God or the gods is to try to live by religious doctrine, actively caring for our only home, the planet.

Sri Lanka’s national anthem was composed by Ananda Samarakoon who had been a student of Rabindranath Tagore at Santhiniketan, ‘The Abode of Peace’. Born in 1911, Mr Samarakoon committed suicide in 1962. One recalls with deep regret and sorrow (not to mention irony) the following lines from his anthem

In wisdom and strength renewed,

Ill-will, hatred, strife all ended,

In love enfolded…

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Midweek Review

Squeaky clean image of JVP in tatters

Published

11 hours ago

2026/04/22

Sahan Weerasooriya

During the recent debate on the No-Confidence Motion (NCM) against Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody, Illankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK) Batticaloa District lawmaker, Shanakiyan Rajaputhiran Rasamanickam, warned that the next NCM would be moved against Fisheries Minister Ramalingham Chandrasekaran. Rasamanickam accused the National List member of corruption, a charge vehemently denied by the NPPer. The NPP/JVP needs to initiate an internal inquiry before corruption allegations overwhelm the party that received the full advantage of Aragalaya to transform the outfit from just a three-member parliamentary group, in 2024, to a staggering 159, a year later. The UNP and SLFP led alliances were dealt harshly by the electorates for want of action to curb corruption. Today, the UNP and SLFP are not represented in Parliament, while the SLPP, that secured 145 seats at the 2020 general election, was reduced to just three with its parliamentary group leader Namal Rajapaksa entering Parliament through the National List. Rajapaksa junior obviously feared to face the Hambantota electorate at the last general election. That is the undeniable truth.

By Shamindra Ferdinando

The ongoing controversy over Agriculture, Lands, Irrigation and Livestock Minister K.D. Lal Kantha’s three-storeyed luxury house has intensified pressure on the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)-led National People’s Power (NPP) government struggling to cope-up with the devastating coal scam, blamed on Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody forcing him to resign.

Jayakody, one of those who financed the NPP/JVP campaign in the run-up to the 2024 national polls ,resigned on 17 April, along with Prof. Udayanga Hemapala, Secretary to the Energy Ministry. Their resignations happened eight months after the Frontline Socialist Party (FSP), a breakaway faction of the JVP, revealed the alleged coal scam. The Lal Kantha affair received significant public attention though the primary issue at hand is the massive coal scam that ripped through the government.

Jayakody will continue as a National List member of the ruling party. The NPP/JVP won an unprecedented 159 seats, including 18 National List slots at the November 2024 parliamentary elections.

The Opposition dismissed government claims that the resignations were meant to facilitate the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the procurement of coal, since the commissioning of the country’s only coal-fired power plant during the onset of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s second term. In the wake of the much delayed resignations, NPP/JVP heavyweight Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath, addressing the media at the Information Department, pathetically vouched for Jayakody’s integrity.

Let us discuss the accusations directed at Lal Kantha who had served the SLFP-led Cabinet for a short period, years ago, in terms of an agreement between the SLFP and the JVP. Lal Kantha had never been accused of corruption and was, in fact, one of those lawmakers who raised the issue both in and outside Parliament. Political parties may have forgotten that the UNP got rid of Lacille de Silva, Director General of Administration, Parliament, during Ranil Wickremesinghe’s premiership, in the 2001-2003 period, alleging he passed on information to Lal Kantha to attack the government.

The NPP Executive Committee member, as well as JVP politburo and Central Committee heavyweight, has publicly defended his right to own a luxury house amidst a section of the social media pushing for police investigation into the lawmaker’s wealth.

Unlike the owner/owners of the mysterious Malwana mansion, built on a 16-acre land overlooking the Kelani river, Lal Kantha didn’t try to disclaim the house ownership at Jusse Road, Welivita, in the Kaduwela area. The Malwana house was built towards the end of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s second term as the President. The hullabaloo over the ownership of the Malwana mansion, and construction costs, dominated the 2015 presidential election campaign. On the basis of the Malwana mansion, the UNP and the JVP built a strong case against the Rajapaksas, accusing the family of corruption.

It would be of pivotal importance that the JVP backed Maithripala Sirisena’s 2015 presidential polls candidature. The campaign was built on an anti-corruption platform that earned the appreciation of the public who disregarded the unprecedented development work successfully carried out by the Rajapaksas, while also fighting a war to defeat the most ruthless terrorist organisation that was out to break up the country.

During a US-India backed violent protest campaign, in March-July 2022, an organised gang set the stately Malwana mansion ablaze. The general consensus was that the Malwana mansion belonged to Basil Rajapakasa, though he vehemently denied having anything to do with it.

Yahapalana Justice Minister Dr. Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, PC, is on record as having declared that the Malwana mansion would be renovated and used to accommodate a state institution. Lal Kantha’s newly acquired wealth has to be examined and discussed, taking into consideration his long standing claim that as a fulltime member of the JVP he entirely depended on his wife’s monthly salary and help provided by friends and associates. If that was the case, Lal Kantha couldn’t have ended up among the richest group of politicians, within less than two years after the last presidential election, held in September 2024.

Lal Kantha couldn’t have been unaware of the possibility of the Opposition, particularly the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), attacking him and the NPP/JVP over his Kaduwela house. Responding to critics, the Anuradhapura District lawmaker has claimed, on YouTube, that he sold a property he owned in Anuradhapura and used that money to acquire the Jusse Road land.

The outspoken Minister is also on record as having said that the existence of his new house, to which he moved in late 2024, was disclosed by him. However, incisive Youtuber Dharma Sri Kariyawasam has claimed that he made the revelation on 01 October, 2025, while another You-Tuber, Abeetha Edirisinghe, rammed up pressure on the NPP by lodging a complaint with the police, via the special number 1818. Edirisinghe’s SL Leaders YouTube posted a video of him lodging the complaint.

What made the complaint really interesting was Edirisinghe’s declaration based on ‘Dark Room’ YouTube allegations that wealthy businessman Nissanka Senadhipathi, who had been one of the closest associates of the Rajapaksas, provided the wherewithal required to acquire land, build and then furnish the Jusse Road mansion. Defending his position, Lal Kantha claimed that he acquired a piano for his daughter, about 15 years ago, while declaring he enjoyed the capacity to raise large sums of funds if necessary. A smiling Lal Kantha explained how he could effortlessly collect Rs 500,000 each from 100 associates/friends. Programmes posted by Dharma Sri Kariyawasam and Abeetha Edirisinghe are must-watch for those genuinely interested in knowing the explosive story, from different angles.

Close on the heels of debates on Lal Kantha’s mansion, the media reported the Minister’s last available asset declaration, sent to the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC), dealt with over Rs 80 mn worth of property, vehicles and gold, etc. The JVP heavyweight’s annual income has stunned even the staunchest supporters of the ruling party. Lal Kantha, through his lawyer, demanded Rs 10 bn in damages from ‘Hiru’ for wrongly estimating his properties, etc., at Rs 460 mn.

Both Dharma Sri Kariyawasam and Abeetha Edirisinghe propagated that police wanted the public to complain to special the number 1818, created to accept such complaints in case they felt suspicious about newly acquired property, regardless of who owned them.

Unexpected disclosure of Lal Kantha’s unprecedented wealth obviously stunned the public who genuinely believed in the unshakable NPP/JVP stand on corruption. Lal Kantha, who had joined the JVP in 1982, before becoming a full time member, in 1987, had no qualms in defending his new lifestyle, having repeatedly and bitterly complained about the difficulties experienced by him and his family.

In his defence, Lal Kantha emphasised that he hadn’t been accused of robbing the taxpayer or public sector corruption. However, the NPP/JVP all-out attack on all previous governments, over waste, corruption, irregularities and mismanagement, and branding all their MPs corrupt, cannot adopt such a stance. The Kaduwela mansion has sent shockwaves through the electorate. Dharma Sri Kariyawasam, in his response to Lal Kantha, repeatedly stressed that his wealth was being questioned by those who exercised their franchise in support of the NPP/JVP at the national elections and Local Government polls, in 2025.

Growing public resentment over what various interested parties, including the NPP/JVP called ill-gotten wealth of members and henchmen of previous governments fuelled Aragalaya (31 March-14 July 2022). Those who set houses and other property, belonging to various then government politicians and their associates ablaze, operated on the presumption that they were beneficiaries of ill-gotten wealth. The NPP/JVP powered the campaign, alongside the breakaway JVP faction, styled as Peratugami Pakshaya (Frontline Socialist Party) as well as the UNP.

Ranwala and others

Against the backdrop of Auditor General Samudrika Jayarathne’s devastating report on coal procurement for the 2025/2026 period and Lal Kantha’s declaration that he owned a three-storeyed house, the resignation of Asoka Ranwala, as the Speaker of Parliament, over his failure to prove his declared academic qualifications seemed uncalled for. Jayarathne signed that report on behalf of the National Audit Office (NAO).

The Gampaha District MP resigned on 13 December, 2024, just 22 days after being appointed the Speaker. The main Opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) relentlessly attacked Ranwala over his fabricated or unverified educational qualifications, specifically a Ph.D. from a Japanese university and a degree from the University of Moratuwa.

The NPP/JVP tried to defend Ranwala but quickly succumbed to SJB pressure. We never managed to establish whether Ranwala resigned on his own accord or the NPP/JVP asked him to resign to save the party. Similarly, the resignations of Energy Minister Jayakody and Prof. Hemapala, who cut a sorry figure before the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) recently, must have been demanded by the ruling party. Had the NPP bosses acted prudently, much earlier, after he was indicted before the Colombo High Court on a previous corruption case, they could have easily asked Jayakody to resign his ministerial portfolio before the Parliament debated the no-confidence motion against him.

Another case that really embarrassed the ruling party was accusations directed at Dr. Jagath Wickremeratne, who succeeded Ranwala as House Speaker. The Polonnaruwa District MP was the next to face fire, following a dispute with the Deputy Secretary General of Parliament Chaminda Kularatne who is also the Chief of Staff of the House. Kularatne hit back hard after Parliament sacked him over alleged irregularities. In a petition, dated 2 February, 2026, sent to CIABOC, Kularatne disclosed the circumstances the Speaker reacted angrily after he brought to the NPPer’s notice illegal actions and corruption, as well as his (Kularatne) recommendation in his capacity as the Right to Information (RTI) officer, to release certain information sought by civil society activists. Kularatne further claimed that the situation deteriorated further over an incident that happened on 18 June, 2025, or a date closer to that date, in the room where Speaker Wickremeratne had his lunch. Kularatne refrained from revealing the incident.

There hadn’t been a previous instance of a senior parliamentary official moving the CIABOC against the Speaker. The allegations directed at the Speaker, in respect of abuse of vehicles, taking two fuel allowances, misuse of equipment belonging to the Media Unit of Parliament, inadequate payment for lunch obtained for Chameera Gallage, Speaker’s private secretary, who had lunch with him, illegal payments made to retired Ministry Additional Secretary S.K. Liyanage, who was appointed to inquire into Kularatne’s conduct, suppression of release of information in terms of RTI, and uncalled for interventions in administration.

Kularatne’s complaint to the CIABOC failed to result in an expeditious inquiry, though a complaint lodged against a sacked parliamentary official appeared to have received much more attention. The NPP has responded cautiously to Kularatne vs Wickremeratne battle as pressure mounted on the ruling party over the coal scam that threatened to cause further increase in already unbearable electricity tariffs. The Auditor General’s report, in no uncertain terms, has implicated the Energy Ministry and Lanka Coal Company in the sordid operation that resulted in low-grade coal ending up at the Lakvijaya coal-fired power plant that earlier met about 30 to 40% percent of the country’s power requirements at essentially low cost, barring hydroelectricity.

The report declared that the term tender for the supply of coal was awarded to Trident Champhar, an Indian company that hadn’t been registered at the time it bid for Sri Lanka’s largest tender and procedures in respect of loading and unloading the cargo. To make matters worse, Minister Jayakody, who had been implicated in the coal scam, was recently indicted on corruption charges in the High Court of Colombo. There hadn’t been a previous instance of a sitting member of the Cabinet being indicted for corruption. Therefore, the NPP government cannot be happy over its steamroller majority in Parliament having defeated the no-confidence motion moved against Jayakody who remained confident in the parliamentary group’s support at the behest of the top party leadership.

The NPP/JVP finds itself in an extremely embarrassing and pitiful situation over the coal scam. The damning report issued by the Auditor General pertaining to the coal scam has to be examined taking into consideration the failure on the part of the government and the Constitutional Council to reach a consensus on filling the vacant Auditor General’s post in 2025. The post of Auditor General remained vacant from early April 2025 to early February 2026.

Role of NAO

The NAO functions as an independent body answerable to Parliament. The recent NAO report that dealt with coal procurement exposed the utterly corrupt system in place, regardless of assurances given by the government. The report proved that irregularities can be perpetrated and corrupt practices continued, regardless of assurances given by the current dispensation.

Over the past several years, tangible measures were taken to strengthen the NAO. Parliament certified the National Audit (Amendment) Act, No. 19 of 2025 on 22 September, 2025. That act introduced reforms meant to enhance public sector accountability, enforce audit findings, and streamline the surcharge process. The no nonsense report proved that in spite of interference and undue influence exerted on the NAO, those responsible did their job without fear or favour.

SJB lawmaker Mujibur Rahman, during the debate on the no-confidence motion against Minister Jayakody, alleged in Parliament that COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises) Chairman Dr. Nishantha Samaraweera directly intervened when the NAO was in the process of finalising the report. The former UNPer called for an investigation to establish whether the Galle District NPP MP visited the NAO on several days to meet those handling the investigation.

We are not aware whether the COPE Chief, who called for the NAO to inquire into allegations in respect of coal procurement, visited the NAO.

However, the NAO report on the coal scam, now available online for all to study, underscores the pivotal importance of the anti-corruption fight.

In September 2025, the SJB asked the CIABOC to probe how some NPP/JVP Ministers amassed so much property. The SJB raised the issue with the focus on Trade, Commerce, Food Security and Cooperative Development Minister Wasantha Samarasinghe (like Lal Kantha, he, too, represents the Anuradhapura District) amassed Rs 275 mn. The SJB’s complaint to CIABOC sought investigations on Ministers Sunil Handunetti, Bimal Rathnayake, Dr. Nalinda Jayathissa and Kumara Jayakody, and Deputy Minister Sunil Watagala.

Lal Kantha, who has now acknowledged having as much as Rs 80 mn worth property, was not among the lawmakers targeted by the SJB. Having falsely propagated an anti-corruption campaign to deceive the public, the NPP/JVP stand literally exposed before the public. The coal scam and Lal Kantha fiasco have caused irreparable damage to such an extent, their anti-corruption campaigns may not carry any weight with the public at future elections.

Midweek Review

Some languages confine you; some languages free you

Published

11 hours ago

2026/04/22

Sahan Weerasooriya

‘… where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; ….

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward….into ever-widening thought and action…’

With wide apologies, I am going to put snatches of that poem into more dreary uses, though not quite desert sand.

What are those narrow domestic walls which break up the world into fragments? Languages.

Amiya reads the Gitanjali but does not read the Tirukkural. Hong Li reads Kong Fut Ze’s Analects but not Plato’s Republic. Paul reads Miton’s Paradise Lost but not Njal Saga. Sarath Kumara reads Wickremasinghe’s satva santatitya but not Darwin’s Origin of the Species. Ngidi does not read Thomas Picketty’s Capital in the 20th Century or Anthony Atkinson’s Inequality at all. Hirono uses Large Language Models to do homework but Rasolomanana has not seen a computer. And so on and so forth. The world is broken into fragments by languages, but not by languages alone. The daughter of a rich black man living in Howard County in Maryland goes to Stanford but a brown dweller in Dharavi cannot enter Jawaharlal Nehru University. The lesson is that it is not only languages or orthodoxies that break up the world into ‘fragments’ but also many other barriers, about one of which Tagore sang.

Language is a marvellous ‘invention’ of nature well cultivated by humans. No other species has the faculty to use language to know. Ludwig Wittgenstein expressed it epigrammatically, ‘whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.’ It is language that carries forth knowledge. It is not only language that carries forth knowledge: mathematics, in its own right, is a powerful carrier of knowledge. One can write something simple like if x-y=0, then x=y, as well as whole pages of complex and complicated arguments using mathematical notations. Mathematics may and often does write nature and about nature; it also writes about things that exist only in the mind. That is not different from languages: heaven and Vishnu exist in some minds but not in others or elsewhere. Galileo Galilei learnt ‘Nature is an open book but it is written in mathematics’. Much of nature is a closed book to those to whom mathematics is alien territory. But today, I am interested in how some languages ‘break the world into fragments by domestic walls’, while a few others fly about regardless. When a team from India played cricket with a team from Pakistan a few weeks back, the commentary was broadcast in India in 14 languages and in Nigeria national news is read in several languages. That same game of cricket also was broadcast to the rest of the world in one language: English.

When and how do some languages come to ‘lead the mind forward into ever widening thought and action’? The transformation occurs when users of one language become conquerors and rulers of peoples using other languages and when the users of a language become generators of new knowledge which are eagerly sought after by users of other languages. Greek, Latin and Arabic contributed mightily to the vocabulary of modern Western European languages. When new ideas in law, government, philosophy, medicine and science had to be expressed, they went to Greek, Latin or Arabic. Consequently, you will bump into Greek terms the moment you begin thinking about those disciplines. The serious study of Greek was introduced to England by Erasmus (of Rotterdam) about 1500 AC. The use of Latin began with the Roman Empire but took on new functions when Latin became the vehicle carrying Christianity east and north (of Europe) and elsewhere later. Until about the 18th century AC Latin was the language of learning in most of Europe. At its inception, Manchester Grammar School was a Latin school and the Boston Latin School which started in 1635 still thrives in that name. The two medieval universities in England were mostly seminaries teaching in Latin well into the 19th century. A wide swathe of languages is written with the Latin alphabet: European languages from the Black Sea to the Atlantic and from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, America from Canada to Chile, sub-Saharan Africa including Togo, and Indonesian, Malaysian and several others. The exodus of Jewish, Arabic and other scholars, after the fall of Constantinople (1453) to the Ottomans, brought Greek and Arabic to Western Europe including England. From about the 14 to the 18th century, European indigenous vernaculars grew to be carriers of new knowledge, especially in sciences. Luther’s reformation and the development of German had much in common. Gutenberg’s new printing press (1450 AC) helped the growth of European vernaculars and the spread of reformed Christianity.

Four western European languages stood out as both conquerors and carriers of new knowledge: Portuguese, Spanish, French and English. Arabic performed the same function from about 800 AC to the 13 AC when that language carried a new religion and new knowledge in mathematics, astronomy and medicine. Arabic replaced the indigenous languages in the entire Maghreb. The language of governance and learning from Mexico south to Chile is Spanish with Brazil using Portuguese and are collectively called Latin America, because Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian and Romanian are Romance or Latin Languages. French is the language of governance and learning in several parts of West Africa. English was a phenomenon in itself. It destroyed the use of hundreds of languages in North America. It conquered almost half the world and English is the language of governance and higher education in a good part of the land it once ruled. As a language carrying new knowledge, English excels all others. As the collapse of four European empires, including the Ottoman, went on from about 1915 to about 1960, English, which produced new knowledge faster than any other, began to break ‘domestic walls’, the world over. China, which had little love for the English-speaking world, had millions of its citizens schooled in the US, the UK, Canada and Australia during the last 30 years and continues to do so, to date. In contrast, during that time how many rushed to Niger to learn Fulfulde or to Lanka to study Sinhala? The prominence of English was promoted by two other processes: one was translation into English of major works in other languages and the other the growth of a class of indigenous writers and readers in the conqueror’s language. One reads Oblomov, Gilgamesh and, indeed, Gitanjali translated into English. India now probably has more readers in English than any other single country. Persons in Western African countries have crafted in French and English, masterpieces in fiction, poetry and drama. Modern European languages have been both conquerors’ languages and carriers of new knowledge.

Several people recently have written in The Island and in Lankadeepa about the importance of using the ‘mother tongue’. They have stressed the importance of the ‘mother tongue’ in creative writing. As with observations regarding empirical phenomena, it is necessary to test those generalisations against reality. Samskrt is a language not entirely unfamiliar to many in this land. Samskrt was nobody’s mother tongue. (After all, it is deva bhaashitam.) There is not a shred of evidence that Kalidasa’s mother talked to him in Samskrt. But Kalidasa wrote rtusmahara and shakuntalam.. The vedas and upanishads were first spoken and later written in samskrt. Pali is nobody’s mother tongue but Theravada writings are almost entirely in that language. Isaac Newton wrote Principia Mathematica in Latin; we have no evidence that baby Isaac babbled in Latin. Paul Dirac wrote about particle physics in mathematics rather than in his father’s beloved French. Leopold Senghor’s mother tongue was not French nor Chinua Achebe’s English. More casually, check your own libraries. I had a collection of about 2,300 books until last year. There weren’t even 200 written in Sinhala and that 200 included editions of works from the 13th century. Check how many books written in Sinhala and English you bought in the last two years. There were far too many writers and scientists who brought forth highly acclaimed work in languages other than their mother tongue, contradicting the argument that the mother tongue was essential or even desirable for original work, in science or in literature.

Most languages ‘break the world into narrow fragments’. A few coagulate them into large masses: 900 million people speak Mandarin and 325 million, Bengali. A half dozen bind themselves together speaking a conqueror’s language. Four languages stand out as having ‘led the ‘mind forward into ever-widening thought and action’: Greek, Latin, Arabic and English. English, so far, is unrivalled.

by Usvatte-aratchi