Midweek Review

The Making of Modern Ceylon

Published

5 years ago

2020/09/9

Sahan Weerasooriya

Author: S A Meegama

Reviewed By
Gamini Seneviratne

The title given above is one of two on the cover of this book by Dr. Ananda Meegama. The other is GUNS, TAVERNS and TEA SHOPS. He has left out the principal feature of British incursions into other people’s territories: PERFIDY. Perhaps he took that as a given.

In what is clearly a work that has taken much labour over a long period of time to accomplish, Dr. Meegama gives ‘academics’ everywhere, and professional historians in particular, a lesson in what true scholarship not just involves but literally means.

It is a matter for surprise that any of them would confess the conditioning that underpins their representation of ‘histories’ – as Dr. Michael Roberts recently did. The following remarks may be taken as a pointer to how ‘history’ comes to be constructed.

In Michael’s own account, the reports of ‘VE-Day’ had so affected him that they had brought tears to his eyes. But as he goes on it becomes evident that his is not just a childhood love for the Brits who controlled Koggala, it involved a reconstruction of the major events of that war. “The main reason”, he says, “for the collapse of the Hitler regime, was probably the disasters they faced in the east, in battling the USSR, though one must also note the weight brought to bear in both fronts by the entry of the USA –inclusive of its supplies to Russia”.

Well, that’s the first I have heard of the role of the USA in the decisive battles of Stalingrad in 1942 (shortly after the Japanese attack on the American Pacific fleet in Hawaii) – an extended encounter that signalled the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Naturally he does not attempt a reconstruction of atrocities, perpetrated by his heroes and he makes no mention of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – which happened 75 years ago. A new take on that horrendous crime was tried out last week: Truman’s grandson piped up with the notion that “grandpa had felt he had to do it”. But why Japan and why at a moment when it was ready to surrender? As was noted in Michael Ondaatje’s ‘The English Patient’, “they” ‘would not have dropped those atomic bombs on the primary enemies of ‘the Allies’ – Germany and Italy. The Japanese, after all, were mere “orientals”.

As his ‘findings’ on the Brits’ theft of our prosperous highlands (“waste lands”) would show, Dr. Roberts’ afore-mentioned bias extends to his ‘histories’ of atrocities committed by the Brits here. He has also ‘found’ around the time the Brits were intent on jailing the national leaders, D B Jayatilaka and others, that the Sinhalese were guilty of carrying out a “pogrom” on the Muslims. Such prejudice runs in the teeth of the judgement on the matter given by Dr. P E Peiris, a true historian cum judge. A brief account of that op by Jayantha Gunasekera, PC, appeared in a Sunday newspaper last month. Dr. Roberts is welcome to comment on that.

In the context of on-going exertions by the USA, to occupy Sri Lanka, it would be well at this point to recall the words of Franz Fanon: ” And, – this would serve to underline another fundamental truth articulated by him. It relates not only to the rationale given for “economic theory” that has long served the corporate appropriation of resources everywhere but more immediately to the rip-off being sought right here through the MCC and SOFA’s “in-your-throat” betrayals – “ With ‘the MCC the government of the robbed is required to make possible, approve and protect the robbery.

In that note on “VE Day” Michael also sketches some of his antecedents but they are such as would not quite fit a “Galle Burgher” such as Professor Lyn Ludowyk. Ludowyk retired to England (where he produced, on invitation, a standard text on “Understanding Shakespeare” as well as the definitive Cambridge editions of several plays by Shakespeare). What is relevant here however are his histories of his native land, beginning with ‘The Footprint of the Buddha’ and ‘The Story of Ceylon’ – accounts that have passed our professional history-writers by.

Among the latter were the Jesuit Priest, Fr. S G Perera’s purported “History of Ceylon for Schools” designed to plant versions of his choice in the mind of schoolchildren. The primary object of such work was a continuation of the account

I had a kind of encounter with what I think was his final work, “Ceylon Today and Yesterday” by Dr.G C Mendis a historian, highly regarded by the fraternity who covered ‘Ceylon’ from its early days through to British times. Barely out of school and recruited to the publishing department of Lake House as a proof-reader my duties soon came to include ancillary tasks such as checking translations Sinhala-English / English-Sinhala. The head of that department was E P Mendis, the author’s brother and he paid me the high complement of asking me for my comments on that work. I pointed out several instances of Dr. Mendis’s Anglo-Christian bias in his account of both our yesterday’ and ‘today’ which he came to amend before publication.

Dr. Meegama specialized in statistics and in its applications in economics and econometrics. This work retains a bit of the overlay of the shibboleths that govern those fields of a bankrupt academia and have served the pervasive project of ‘capitalist’ exploitation of the resources of the world.

Another of Dr. Meegama’s books had covered Famine, Fevers and Fears: The State and Disease in British Colonial Sri Lanka – a subject that receives due attention in the present work as well.

As this book makes clear, ‘the making of modern Ceylon’ involved the destruction of peasant agriculture, the plunder of the temples, the denudation of our forests and the spread of a general culture of lawlessness. Sound familiar? Today we have the monstrous intrusion mis-named ‘tourism’ which is provably as rapacious and destructive of native life and well-being as the colonialism of the years covered in this book contrived to impose on us. The following poem by David Craig, who was on the staff at Peradeniya and was not long after to become Professor of Creative Writing at Lancaster, outlines that process. It appeared in the Heinemann collection of ‘Poems from India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Singapore’, under ‘Sri Lanka’.

‘The Country’

And such a beautiful country – not too hot,

Not too big, not like India.

You hardly see a beggar – are there any?’

And the beaches (unspoilt) and the palm trees –

Paddy fields run round the contours,

Water shines on the terraces.

Or climb to the cool resort where rich Victorians clipped

A perfectly British golf course out of the scrub,

Carving the joint on Sunday and watering the rose-garden.

How did they pay for it all? The country paid for it,

The red soil bled for it, the wounds

Still glare among the tea bushes.

The top-soil ebbs away to the sea,

Rivers that sparkled in the chronicles

Skulk in their pools like coffee-dregs.

Speaking of the ruthless rise of the British East India Company William Dalrymple outlines it thus: “The East India Company was established in London in the time of Shakespeare and from the 1700s it created the greatest corporate takeover of all time. Seeking to dominate the global trade in spices, textiles and eventually opium, a group of white men eventually became the military and political rulers of India. They ruled over hundreds of millions of people, and because they were a public company, they felt no responsibility to the people they ‘governed’, only to their London shareholders.

Eventually they created famine, chaos and bled the country dry.”

‘The ‘historical record’ is fed by many voices, some of which are used by those who write them up. While Dalrymple is accepted as a historian by persons who claim such accreditation for themselves, Mark Tully, another long-time resident in India is evidently not. Of Tully’s No Full Stops in India’, The Independent, UK, took recourse to 19^th century notions of ‘orientalism’, thus: “Tully’s profound knowledge and sympathy – unravels a few of the more bewildering and enchanting mysteries of the subcontinent”.

Dr. Meegama’s commentary joins the work of such a distinguished scholar as Ralph Peiris (“Asian Development Styles” et al), the narratives of such as P E Pieris, Tennakone Vimalananda, and the analyses advanced by S B D de Silva and Gerald Peiris.

Above all, Dr. Meegama has brought to our attention (that of lay persons and scholars alike) the primary records in the language of administration in ‘Modern Ceylon’, English. I was also pleased to find in it mention of The C. L. Wickremasinghe Collection of Manuscripts Relating to the Traditionary Customs of Nuwara Kalāviya. Those manuscripts were of accounts of traditional customs and oral histories gathered through Village Headmen, Vel Vidanes and the like by the then Government Agent (and the first such native CCS officer) of the North Central Province.

All in all, one would be grateful to Dr. Meegama for pointing the way to the making of a People’s History of ‘Modern’ Ceylon of the quality and orientation of Howard Zinn’s ‘People’s History of the United States’.

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Midweek Review

Year ends with the NPP govt. on the back foot

Published

3 days ago

2025/12/24

Sahan Weerasooriya

President Dissanayake addresses Parliament as PM Dr. Harini Amarasuriya looks on. Dissanayake is the leader of both the JVP and NPP

The failure on the part of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)-led National People’s Power (NPP) government to fulfil a plethora of promises given in the run up to the last presidential election, in September, 2024, and a series of incidents, including cases of corruption, and embarrassing failure to act on a specific weather alert, ahead of Cyclone Ditwah, had undermined the administration beyond measure.

Ditwah dealt a knockout blow to the arrogant and cocky NPP. If the ruling party consented to the Opposition proposal for a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) to probe the events leading to the November 27 cyclone, the disclosure would be catastrophic, even for the all-powerful Executive President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, as responsible government bodies, like the Disaster Management Centre that horribly failed in its duty, and the Met Department that alerted about the developing storm, but the government did not heed its timely warnings, directly come under his purview.

The NPP is on the back foot and struggling to cope up with the rapidly developing situation. In spite of having both executive presidency and an overwhelming 2/3 majority in Parliament, the government seems to be weak and in total disarray.

The regular appearance of President Dissanayake in Parliament, who usually respond deftly to criticism, thereby defending his parliamentary group, obviously failed to make an impression. Overall, the top NPP leadership appeared to have caused irreparable damage to the NPP and taken the shine out of two glorious electoral victories at the last presidential and parliamentary polls held in September and November 2024 respectively.

The NPP has deteriorated, both in and out of Parliament. The performance of the 159-member NPP parliamentary group, led by Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya, doesn’t reflect the actual situation on the ground or the developing political environment.

Having repeatedly boasted of its commitment to bring about good governance and accountability, the current dispensation proved in style that it is definitely not different from the previous lots or even worse. (The recent arrest of a policeman who claimed of being assaulted by a gang, led by an NPP MP, emphasised that so-called system change is nothing but a farce) In the run-up to the November, 2024, parliamentary polls, President Dissanayake, who is the leader of both the JVP and NPP, declared that the House should be filled with only NPPers as other political parties were corrupt. Dissanayake cited the Parliament defeating the no-confidence motions filed against Ravi Karunanayake (2016/over Treasury Bond scams) and Keheliya Rambukwella (2023/against health sector corruption) to promote his argument. However, recently the ongoing controversy over patient deaths, allegedly blamed on the administration of Ondansetron injections, exposed the government.

Mounting concerns over drug safety and regulatory oversight triggered strong calls from medical professionals, and trade unions, for the resignation of senior officials at the National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA) and the State Pharmaceutical Corporation (SPC).

Medical and civil rights groups declared that the incident exposed deep systemic failures in Sri Lanka’s drug regulatory framework, with critics warning that the collapse of quality assurance mechanisms is placing patients’ lives at grave risk.

The Medical and Civil Rights Professional Association of Doctors (MCRPA), and allied trade unions, accused health authorities of gross negligence and demanded the immediate resignation of senior NMRA and SPC officials.

MCRPA President Dr. Chamal Sanjeewa is on record as having said that the Health Ministry, NMRA and SPC had collectively failed to ensure patient safety, citing, what he described as, a failed drug regulatory system.

The controversy has taken an unexpected turn with some alleging that the NPP government, on behalf of Sri Lanka and India, in April this year, entered into an agreement whereby the former agreed to lower quality/standards of medicine imports.

Trouble begins with Ranwala’s resignation

The NPP suffered a humiliating setback when its National List MP Asoka Ranwala had to resign from the post of Speaker on 13 December, 2024, following intense controversy over his educational qualification. The petroleum sector trade union leader served as the Speaker for a period of three weeks and his resignation shook the party. Ranwala, first time entrant to Parliament was one of the 18 NPP National List appointees out of a total of 29. The Parliament consists of 196 elected and 29 appointed members. Since the introduction of the National List, in 1989, there had never been an occasion where one party secured 18 slots.

The JVP/NPP made an initial bid to defend Ranwala but quickly gave it up and got him to resign amidst media furor. Ranwala dominated the social media as political rivals exploited the controversy over his claimed doctorate from the Waseda University of Japan, which he has failed to prove to this day. But, the JVP/NPP had to suffer a second time as a result of Ranwala’s antics when he caused injuries to three persons, including a child, on 11 December, in the Sapugaskanda police area.

The NPP made a pathetic, UNP and SLFP style effort to save the parliamentarian by blaming the Sapugaskanda police for not promptly subjecting him for a drunk driving test. The declaration made by the Government Analyst Department that the parliamentarian hadn’t been drunk at the time of the accident, several days after the accident, does not make any difference. Having experienced the wrongdoing of successive previous governments, the public, regardless of what various interested parties propagated on social media, realise that the government is making a disgraceful bid to cover-up.

No less a person than President Dissanayake is on record as having said that their members do not consume liquor. Let us wait for the outcome of the internal investigation into the lapses on the part of the Sapugaskanda police with regard to the accident that happened near Denimulla Junction, in Sapugaskanda.

JVP/NPP bigwigs obviously hadn’t learnt from the Weligama W 15 hotel attack in December, 2023, that ruined President Ranil Wickremeinghe’s administration. That incident exposed the direct nexus between the government and the police in carrying out Mafia-style operations. Although the two incidents cannot be compared as the circumstances differ, there is a similarity. Initially, police headquarters represented the interests of the wrongdoers, while President Wickremesinghe bent over backwards to retain the man who dispatched the CCD (Colombo Crime Division) team to Weligama, as the IGP. The UNP leader went to the extent of speaking to Chief Justice Jayantha Jayasuriya, PC, and Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena to push his agenda. There is no dispute the then Public Security Minister Tiran Alles wanted Deshabandu Tennakoon as IGP, regardless of a spate of accusations against him, in addition to him being faulted by the Supreme Court in a high-profile fundamental rights application.

The JVP/NPP must have realised that though the Opposition remained disorganised and ineffective, thanks to the media, particularly social media, a case of transgression, if not addressed swiftly and properly, can develop into a crisis. Action taken by the government to protect Ranwala is a case in point. Government leaders must have heaved a sigh of relief as Ranwala is no longer the Speaker when he drove a jeep recklessly and collided with a motorcycle and a car.

Major cases, key developments

Instead of addressing public concerns, the government sought to suppress the truth by manipulating and exploiting developments

* The release of 323 containers from the Colombo Port, in January 2025, is a case in point. The issue at hand is whether the powers that be took advantage of the port congestion to clear ‘red-flagged’ containers.

Although the Customs repeatedly declared that they did nothing wrong and such releases were resorted even during Ranil Wickremesinghe’s presidency (July 2022 to September 2024), the public won’t buy that. Container issue remains a mystery. That controversy eroded public confidence in the NPP that vowed 100 percent transparency in all its dealings. But the way the current dispensation handled the Port congestion proved that transparency must be the last thing in the minds of the JVPers/NPPers holding office.

* The JVP/NPP’s much touted all-out anti-corruption stand suffered a debilitating blow over their failure to finalise the appointment of a new Auditor General. In spite of the Opposition, the civil society, and the media, vigorously taking up this issue, the government continued to hold up the appointment by irresponsibly pushing for an appointment acceptable to President Dissanayake. The JVP/NPP is certainly pursuing a strategy contrary to what it preached while in the Opposition and found fault with successive governments for trying to manipulate the AG. It would be pertinent to mention that President Dissanayake should accept the responsibility for the inordinate delay in proposing a suitable person to that position. The government failed to get the approval of the Constitutional Council more than once to install a favourite of theirs in it, thanks to the forthright position taken by its civil society representatives.

The government should be ashamed of its disgraceful effort to bring the Office of the Auditor General under its thumb:

* The JVP/NPP government’s hotly disputed decision to procure 1,775 brand-new double cab pickup trucks, at a staggering cost exceeding Rs. 12,500 mn, under controversial circumstances, exposed the duplicity of that party that painted all other political parties black. Would the government rethink the double cab deal, especially in the wake of economic ruination caused by Cyclone Ditwah? The top leadership seems to be determined to proceed with their original plans, regardless of immeasurable losses caused by Cyclone Ditwah. Post-cyclone efforts still remain at a nascent stage with the government putting on a brave face. The top leadership has turned a blind eye to the overwhelming challenge in getting the country back on track especially against the backdrop of its agreement with the IMF.

Post-Cyclone Ditwah recovery process is going to be slow and extremely painful. Unfortunately, both the government and the Opposition are hell-bent on exploiting the miserable conditions experienced by its hapless victims. The government is yet to acknowledge that it could have faced the crisis much better if it acted on the warning issued by Met Department Chief Athula Karunanayake on 12 November, two weeks before the cyclone struck.

Foreign policy dilemma

Sri Lanka moved further closer to India and the US this year as President Dissanayake entered into several new agreements with them. In spite of criticism, seven Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs), including one on defence, remains confidential. What are they hiding?

Within weeks after signing of the seven MoUs, India bought the controlling interests in the Colombo Dockyard Limited for USD 52 mn.

Although some Opposition members, representing the SJB, raised the issue, their leader Sajith Premadasa, during a subsequent visit to New Delhi, indicated he wouldn’t, under any circumstances, raise such a contentious issue.

Premadasa went a step further. The SJB leader assured his unwavering commitment to the full implementation of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution that was forced on Sri Lanka during President JRJ’s administration, under the highly questionable Indo-Lanka Accord of July, 1987, after the infamous parippu drop by Indian military aircraft over Jaffna, their version of the old gunboat diplomacy practiced by the West.

Both India and the US consolidated their position here further in the post-Aragalaya period. Those who felt that the JVP would be in a collision course with them must have been quite surprised by the turn of events and the way post-Aragalaya Sri Lanka leaned towards the US-India combine with not a hum from our carboard revolutionaries now installed in power. They certainly know which side of the bread is buttered. Sri Lanka’s economic deterioration, and the 2023 agreement with the IMF, had tied up the country with the US-led bloc.

In spite of India still procuring large quantities of Russian crude oil and its refusal to condemn Russia over the conflict in Ukraine, New Delhi has obviously reached consensus with the US on a long-term partnership to meet the formidable Chinese challenge. Both countries feel each other’s support is incalculably vital and indispensable.

Sri Lanka, India, and Japan, in May 2019, signed a Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) to jointly develop the East Container Terminal (ECT) at the Colombo Port. That was during the tail end of the Yahapalana administration. The Gotabaya Rajapaksa administration wanted to take that project forward. But trade unions, spearheaded by the JVP/NPP combine, thwarted a tripartite agreement on the basis that they opposed privatisation of the Colombo Port at any level.

But, the Colombo West International Terminal (CWIT) project, that was launched in November, 2022, during Ranil Wickremesinghe’s presidency, became fully operational in April this year. The JVP revolutionary tiger has completely changed its stripes regarding foreign investments and privatisation. If the JVP remained committed to its previous strategies, India taking over CDL or CWIT would have been unrealistic.

The failure on the part of the government to reveal its stand on visits by foreign research vessels to ports here underscored the intensity of US and Indian pressure. Hope our readers remember how US and India compelled the then President Wickremesinghe to announce a one-year moratorium on such visits. In line with that decision Sri Lanka declared research vessels wouldn’t be allowed here during 2024. The NPP that succeeded Wickremesinghe’s administration in September, 2024, is yet to take a decision on foreign research vessels. What a pity?

The NPP ends the year on the back foot, struggling to cope up with daunting challenges, both domestic and external. The recent revelation of direct Indian intervention in the 2022 regime change project here along with the US underscored the gravity of the situation and developing challenges. Post-cyclone period will facilitate further Indian and US interventions for obvious reasons.

****

Perhaps one of the most debated events in 2025 was the opening of ‘City of Dreams Sri Lanka’ that included, what the investors called, a world-class casino. In spite of mega Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan’s unexpected decision to pull out of the grand opening on 02 August, the investors went ahead with the restricted event. The Chief Guest was President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who is also the Finance Minister, in addition to being the Defence Minister. Among the other notable invitees were Dissanayake’s predecessor Ranil Wickremesinghe, whose administration gave critical support to the high-profile project, worth over USD 1.2 bn. John Keells Holdings PLC (JKH) and Melco Resorts & Entertainment (Melco) invested in the project that also consist of the luxurious Nüwa hotel and a premium shopping mall. Who would have thought President Dissanayake’s participation, even remotely, possible, against the backdrop of his strong past public opposition to gambling of any kind?

Don’t forget ‘City of Dreams’ received a license to operate for a period of 20 years. Definitely an unprecedented situation. Although that license had been issued by the Wickremesinghe administration, the NPP, or any other political party represented in Parliament, didn’t speak publicly about that matter. Interesting, isn’t it, coming from people, still referred by influential sections of the Western media, as avowed Marxists?

By Shamindra Ferdinando

Midweek Review

The Aesthetics and the Visual Politics of an Artisanal Community

Published

3 days ago

2025/12/24

Sahan Weerasooriya

Through the Eyes of the Patua:

Organised by the Colombo Institute for Human Sciences in collaboration with Millennium Art Contemporary, an interesting and unique exhibition got underway in the latter’s gallery in Millennium City, Oruwala on 21 December 2025. The exhibition is titled, ‘Through the Eyes of the Patua: Ramayana Paintings of an Artisanal Community’ and was organized in parallel with the conference that was held on 20 December 2025 under the theme, ‘Move Your Shadow: Rediscovering Ravana, Forms of Resistance and Alternative Universes in the Tellings of the Ramayana.’ The scrolls on display at the gallery are part of the over 100 scrolls in the collection of Colombo Institute’s ‘Roma Chatterji Patua Scroll Collection.’ Prof Chatterji, who taught Sociology at University of Delhi and at present teaches at Shiv Nadar University donated the scrolls to the Colombo Institute in 2024.

The paintings on display are what might be called narrative scrolls that are often over ten feet long. Each scroll narrates a story, with separate panels pictorially depicting one component of a story. The Patuas or the Chitrakars, as they are also known, are traditionally bards. A bard will sing the story that is depicted by each scroll which is simultaneously unfurled. For Sri Lankan viewers for whom the paintings and their contexts of production and use would be unusual and unfamiliar, the best way to understand them is to consider them as a comic strip. In the case of the ongoing exhibition, since the bards or the live songs are not a part of it, the word and voice elements are missing. However, the curators have endeavoured to address this gap by displaying a series of video presentations of the songs, how they are performed and the history of the Patuas as part of the exhibition itself.

The unfamiliarity of the art on display and their histories, necessitates broader explanation. The Patua hail from Medinipur District of West Bengal in India. Essentially, this community of artisans are traditional painters and singers who compose stories based on sacred texts such as the Ramayana or Mahabharata as well as secular events that can vary from the bombing of the Twin Towers in New York in 2001 to the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004. Even though painted storytelling is done by a number of traditional artisan groups in India, the Patua is the only community where performers and artists belong to the same group. Hence, Professor Chatterji, in her curatorial note for the exhibition calls them “the original multi-media performers in Bengal.”

‘The story of the Patuas’ also is an account of what happens to such artisanal communities in contemporary times in South Asia more broadly even though this specific story is from India. There was a time before the 21st century when such communities were living and working across a large part of eastern India – each group with a claim to their recognizably unique style of painting. However, at the present time, this community and their vocation is limited to areas such as Medinipur, Birbhum, Purulia in West Bengal and Dumka in Jharkhand.

A pertinent question is how the scroll painters from Medinipur have survived the vagaries of time when others have not. Professor Chatterji provides an important clue when she notes that these painters, “unlike their counterparts elsewhere, are also extremely responsive to political events.” As such, “apart from a rich repertoire of stories based on myth and folklore, including the Ramayana and other epics, they have, over many years, also composed on themes that range from events of local or national significance such as boat accidents and communal violence to global events such as the tsunami and the attack on the World Trade Centre.”

There is another interesting aspect that becomes evident when one looks into the socio-cultural background of this community. As Professor Chatterji writes, “one significant feature that gives a distinct flavour to their stories is the fact that a majority of Chitrakars consider themselves to be Muslims but perform stories based largely on Hindu myths.” In this sense, their story complicates the tension-ridden dichotomies between ethno-cultural and religious groups typical of relations between groups in India as well as more broadly in South Asia, including in Sri Lanka. Prof Chatterji suggests this positionality allows the Patua to have “a truly secular voice so vital in the world that we live in today.”

As a result, she notes, contemporary Patuas “have propagated the message of communal harmony in their compositions in the context of the recent riots in India and the Gulf War. Their commentaries couched in the language of myth are profoundly symbolic and draw on a rich oral tradition of storytelling.” What is even more important is their “engagement with contemporary issues also inflects their aesthetics” because many of these painters also “experiment with novel painterly values inspired by recent interaction with new media such as comic books and with folk art forms from other parts of the country.”

From this varied repertoire of the Patuas’ painterly tradition, this exhibition focusses on scrolls portraying different aspects of the Ramayana. In North Indian and the more dominant renditions of the Ramayana, the focus is on Rama while in many alternate renditions this shifts to Ravana as typified by versions popular among the Sinhalas and Tamils in Sri Lanka as well as in some areas in several Indian states. Compared to this, the Patua renditions in the exhibition mostly illustrate the abduction of Sita with a pronounced focus on Sita and not on Ravana, the conventional antagonist or on Rama, the conventional protagonist. As a result, these two traditional male colossuses are distant. Moreover, with the focus on Sita, these folk renditions also bring to the fore other figures directly associated with her such as her sons Luv and Kush in the act of capturing Rama’s victory horse as well as Lakshmana.

Interestingly, almost as a counter narrative, which also serves as a comparison to these Ramayana scrolls, the exhibition also presents three scrolls known as ‘bin-Laden Patas’ depicting different renditions on the attack on New York’s Twin Towers.

While the painted scrolls in this collection have been exhibited thrice in India, this is the first time they are being exhibited in Sri Lanka, and it is quite likely such paintings from any community beyond Sri Lanka’s shores were not available for viewing in the country before this. Organised with no diplomatic or political affiliation and purely as a Sri Lankan cultural effort with broader South Asian interest, it is definitely worth a visit. The exhibition will run until 10 January 2026.