Midweek Review

The Revenge of Power

Published

3 years ago

2022/11/30

by Fr J.C. Pieris

It is vitally important to value our freedom more than anything else, as Patrick Henry did and declared: “Give me liberty or give me death. My humanity diminishes the less I am free; my humanity is enhanced the more I am free.” Moises Naim has written a book that every freedom loving human being must read to become aware of the treacherous dangers to his/her freedom.

The book is about how our freedom won with so much trouble, toil, blood and sacrifice is being corroded today, not from outside forces, like in the past such as tribal chiefs, kings and dictators, but more insidiously from within, subtly and deceptively, with something that looks like truth or democracy.

The mortal enemy of freedom is power. The gradual defeat of power by freedom and democracy we enjoy is being slowly strangulated by power returning to battle in unsuspecting hidden ways and means. That is why the book is titled “The Revenge of Power”.

The book is about the 3-P autocrats who steal our freedom and kill democracy. The three Ps are populism, polarisation and post-truth. The corrosive and corrupting consequence of the trio – populism, polarisation and post-truth – is a criminal and complete takeover of the state.

Populism

Populism is a set of practices and strategies. Through this, the autocrats become not only the sole voice and face of the government but also of the state. It empties the meaning of the authentic exercise of the will of the people as it weakens popular and civic organisations, and eliminates the function of political parties as channels of alternative ideologies.

Mahinda Rajapaksa (MR) perfectly fits the bill for a populist leader. He came to power through democratic and legal means unlike Ranil Wickremesinghe (RW) who became the President through trickery. No autocrat can beat the executive powers of the President of Sri Lanka, thanks to J. R. Jayewardene, who introduced the 1978 Constitution. Slowly, MR began to show traces of an autocrat. Even the few checks and balances that were in existence were disregarded. Self-promoting useless extravaganzas increased. He openly became nepotistic. He began to interfere in the judiciary by removing Chief Justice of Sri Lanka Shirani Bandaranayake, and brought in 18th Amendment in a bid to become the President for life. In the meantime, more and more allegations of huge commissions on mega projects, robberies, scams and crimes of family members, relatives and cronies increase. Pandora Papers disclosures as regards Nirupama Rajapaksa and her husband has revealed only a fraction of what the Rajapaksa family has amassed.

MR’s younger brother, Gotabaya, entered politics in the wake of the Easter Sunday massacre declaring that he alone could protect the country’s national security. He said at the very beginning of his presidency that his word took precedence over government circulars. He banned agrochemicals. His idiotic economic decisions bankrupted the country.

Polarisation

Polarisation is the age-old idea of divide and rule. The autocrats generate intense hatred against the rivals and neutralise them. Since they exploit the atavistic fears and prejudices of and the social cleavages and divisions among people, they have a huge fan-base, and hence emerge as Messiahs.

Creating an enemy, the Other, is the speciality of our politicians. The Tamil minority was the first enemy. JR, the autocrat deliberately organised the 1983 July riots, and the burning of the Jaffna Public Library. Then, we had the 30-year civil war. They demonised the Tamils in the North and the East. GR came to power after Easter Sunday tragedy, promising to ensure national security and making the Muslims, the Other or the enemy.

Creating and accusing the Other, the enemy is part of the political practice in Sri Lanka. Rulers speak of imperialist conspiracy, Tamil separatism, Muslim Wahabism, NGO betrayals, Christian conversions or what not. They make ‘others’ monsters ready to pounce on the hapless majority, destroy them and conquer Sri Lanka.

Divide and rule is the name of the autocrat’s game. RW has called the Aragalaya youth fascists making them The Other. By using the PTA he has made the university students terrorists. Anti-riot police in full gear with tear gas masks, water cannon trucks and hundreds of men and women armed with batons and shields are sent to suppress the fundamental rights of the people to protest of small groups of unarmed non-violent civilians.

Post-truth

Post-truth is the confused conceptualisation and uncontrollable diffusion of fake news that distorts reality. It has such a power that it can systematically block the knowledge and diffusion of the truth. It is not simply spreading lies. It is about muddying the waters to such a point that it is difficult to discern the difference between truth and falsehood. Post-truth is the baby of the modern mass communication media.

“Post-truth has been defined by the Collins English Dictionary as “the disappearance of shared objective standards for truth.” It is a condition that arises in public life when the dividing line between facts and knowledge, on one side, and belief and opinion, on the other, withers away, or at least when they are used interchangeably so often that the dividing line between them is no longer widely agreed upon.” (Quoted from the aforesaid book)

With easy access to millions, social media, like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WhatsApp, etc., we are inundated with facts and messages that can be true, partially true, false or fake. Often contrary facts and news are presented to us and we are confused as to what is right and what is wrong, what is true and what is false. This weakens our democracy. A country of confused citizens is easy prey of the rapacious populist autocrat.

How to protect our freedom

The author has proposed methods of fighting the 3-P autocrats by battling against their five most used tactics.

The battle against the Big Lie

The Big Lie was the slogan given by Trump to his election loss. Here are some of our Big Lies. “Dharmishta Samajaya” sounds so pious and nice but the reality of the JR presidency was just the opposite. Then MR presented the vision of “Suba Anagathayak.” Now, we are in the Rajapakses’ ‘Anagathe’, you can decide whether it is ‘suba’ or ‘kalakanni’. “Yahapalanaya” was another fantastic goal to be achieved, but the UNP and its cronies carried out the Treasury bond scams, and the SJB footnote gang shamelessly tried to protect the culprits. Finally, we have the “Saubagya” of GR, well, the country is bankrupt and economically bogged down and ruined. The sweet dream of ‘Saubagya’ has become for the people a nightmare! These are the Big Lies of Sri Lankan politics. There are many small lies that are brazenly proclaimed in public like when Namal R said that “No Rajapakse has robbed anything. Take us to courts and prove the charges.” Of course, GR had “Nidoskota nidahas” all the cases against the Rakapakses and their crony murderers and thieves. Or take the television channels that promoted the Dammika Peniya as a cure for Covid-19.

Now for the battle. Democracy and freedom can be saved only if the citizens are well informed of how the government works. Ways of educating the youth and even the elderly must be found and implemented. They must be taught to check always the myriads of facts, figures and information they receive and even double check them before using them to make decisions or sharing them with others. The perpetrators of the Big Lie must never be allowed to win an election again. Even the supporters and promoters of the Big Liar must be dealt with similarly. The electorate must be made to feel seriously responsible for the election results.

Battle against criminal regimes

There are countries where criminals are no longer underground but very much above ground and in the highest places of power. Since the 1970s, Sri Lanka has also joined the club or the mafia of such countries. A good example of where it started is when JR made the notorious criminal, Gonawala Sunil, a Justice of the Peace after pardoning and releasing the latter from prison! We have a person convicted of “Kappan” as the Chief Whip of the government and most others are all thieves or at least collaborators of thieves. It is not for nothing that people call them Ali Baba and the 225 thieves.

As every government deal, whether oil, gas, sugar, medicine, vaccines or other essentials, is suspected to be a scam and the allegations are never investigated or admitted, we sure have a kleptocracy consisting of the politicians, top administrative officers and their crony businessmen openly robbing the wealth of the nation. The kleptocrats robbed and bankrupted the country. They have taken out the wealth of the country and stashed it away in black tax havens.

When the people of Aragalaya led by the youth, protest publicly against the criminal government, they are arrested and jailed under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

Saving democracy and freedom from a criminal regime is going to be a war of attrition. Then we must investigate the route of the stolen money and confiscate it. So far, nothing has been done in this regard. All that we know about Nirupama Rajapaksa, Jaliya Wickremasuriya, Udayanga Weeratunga, Air Bus scam, etc., has been revealed by investigations conducted overseas. We cannot expect a criminal government to conduct such investigations. It will have to be the work of NGOs, journalists, detectives and lawyers. Anybody, even charities that receive funds from autocrats who need character laundering must be named and shamed.

The battle against autocracies that seek to undermine democracies

Powerful autocracies and even some democracies competing for global domination have always interfered in the smaller democracies. It is clear how funding for elections is received. It is no secret that China funded Rajapaksas or the US funded some others. There were allegations that North Korea funded the old JVP and India funded the LTTE. Funds apart, now they use the social media on a global scale to disinform, mislead and tarnish the images of politicians who are undesirables, or support their favourites. They have found that Russia has interfered in the Trump election and in the Brexit referendum.

The only defence of the democracies against such onslaughts depends “on three priorities: fighting corruption, defending against authoritarianism, and advancing human rights.”

The battle against political cartels that stifle competition

Democracy is a way of organising political competition. In a democracy, those unhappy with the current state of affairs can change things, but only if they can persuade enough fellow citizens to vote for them. Ensuring fair and lawful political competition is the central purpose of democratic checks and balances. (Quoted from the book)

But political cartels that include the judicial, administrative and military sectors unleash anti-competitive pressures to stifle freedom and democracy. They are rigging the game to stay in power. The autocrats become political monopolists. In Sri Lanka, the practice of bribing MPs to switch sides is part of anti-competition.

“To defeat them, we need a kind of political anti-trust doctrine, one designed to protect the competitive dynamic at the heart of democracy. Whether dealing with campaign finance, redistricting, voter registration, or media regulation, policymakers must squarely confront one question: Do the current rules foster fair and constructive competition? Where the answer is no, a strong prima facie case exists for intervention and reform.” (Quoted from the book)

Battle against illiberal narratives

The autocrats create the Big Lie that they are the saviours of the people harassed by poverty, and the elites are insensitive to the people’s plight. They cater to the people’s gut level feelings and make their adrenalin work. But the democrats find difficult to achieve such results as they will offer only abstract principles of truth and fair play; freedom and competition. Usually, the democrats are always at a disadvantage.

“The populist frame is too powerful to be defeated permanently. Like a virus, it reappears in outbreaks again and again throughout history. But the rhetoric is hollow. And pointing out that hollowness gives us an opening we must exploit to sell people once more on the promise of democratic life.” (Quoted from the book)

In our country, Aragalaya has opened the eyes of people as never before and now many of them can see how they have been deceived and abused by populist autocrats.

“Sobriety is in order. The fact that democracy has survived over the last three centuries in no way guarantees that it will prevail against its enemies once more. But if we can defeat the Big Lies, sideline criminalized governments, parry the attempts at foreign subversion directed at democratic elements, face down the political cartels that stifle competition, and beat back the illiberal narratives that sustain autocratic onslaughts, we’ll have won the war to preserve democracy.” (Quoted from the book)

Conclusion

As I finished reading the book, I realised that we had found the local antidote to the 3-P autocrats. It is our own way of dealing with our own variety of 3-P autocrats. It is what emerged as Aragalaya in April this year, climaxed in July and is still simmering like live coals in the ashes. Proudly, I called it the Beautiful Revolution. However much its detractors howl against it, it is now a historical fact. Aragalaya happened and nobody can deny, delete or forget it. Our youth led it and were responsible for it and all, their mothers, fathers even little children joined them whole heartedly. The world was stunned by its success. Not a drop of blood was shed by the protesters.

I gauged them at the Galle Face Gotagogama. Aragalaya can be defined with the three words they always use, Nirpakshika, Nirprachanda and Aadaraya. Nirpakshika means they are not followers or slaves of anybody, any party or any ism. They are strong free adults; they think for themselves and they decide for themselves. Nirprachanda means non-violence stemming from human solidarity. Aragalaya was an experience of solidarity; not the narrow solidarity of groups of the same race, religion, language, class, caste or political party but the all-inclusive solidarity of the human race. At Gotagogama there was open trust and friendliness among all sorts of people. I remember one incident clearly; when the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu said that he was going to send food-aid to the Tamils in Sri Lanka, a young Tamil took the mike at Gotagogama and sent a message to the Chief Minister; Sir, either send food-aid to Sri Lankans or don’t send at all. Yes, we are Sri Lankans, period. Finally, they called their movement Aadaraye Aragalaya. I suppose it is inevitable; nirpakshika and nirprachanda leads naturally to the peculiar ethos of Aragalaya; an ethos of love, peace, friendship and brotherhood.

Aragalaya led by the new generation revealed what is truly necessary for democracy. It was democratic as it never had a clear leader. All were welcome to come forward and share their opinion. Various individuals were spokespersons for it but Aragalaya went on, a common project of the people. Everybody shared equal responsibility for the spontaneous project, in such a way that all were leaders. Aragalaya formed free citizens fit for true democracy. And this is the best antidote to the 3P autocrats. Democracy, not just in name but in practice, is possible in Sri Lanka. The good news of Nirpakshika, Nirprachanda and Aadaraye Prajatantravadaya must be spread island wide. This is the foundation for the system change we are looking for. And this is what frightens the enemies of Aragalaya, Ali Baba and the 225 thieves. They know their evil system is in its death throes. With PTA, emergency, suppression, new alliances, new parties, fake news and all kinds of crooked deals they are fighting for their survival. They will be vanquished.

Let us keep in mind; the price of sweet freedom is the hard work of eternal vigilance or a sort of permanent Aragalaya.

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Midweek Review

NPP drowning in sea of scams

Published

5 days ago

2026/04/29

Sahan Weerasooriya

Outgoing Treasury Chief Mahinda Siriwardena congratulates his successor Harshana Suriyapperuma in late June 2025 at the Finance Ministry

The Opposition is pressing for a one-day debate on USD 2.5 mn Treasury theft, which is more like a daylight robbery that had been kept under wraps by Treasury mandarins till ‘Free Lawyers’ made it public. However, the government is strongly opposed to the Opposition proposal. The Opposition is seeking consensus among

different parties to intensify the campaign against the government, struggling to cope up with a spate of controversies. Against the backdrop of the devastating debate on the coal scam, the NPP seems reluctant to face another over the theft of Treasury funds.

By Shamindra Ferdinando

USD 2.5 mn brazen heist at the Treasury several months ago and the bigwigs there obviously dragging their feet over the matter till it was brought to light recently, thanks to the Free Lawyers movement, which has dampened the NPP’s enthusiasm for May Day. The Treasury fiasco humiliated the cocky NPP leadership against the backdrop of damning report issued by the National Audit Office (NAO) that found fault with the government for awarding the coal tender for 2025/2026 period to Trident Champhar Limited of India in violation of tender procedures. The NAO emphasised that the Indian company shouldn’t have even been considered for the tender.

Even after the exposure of the scandalous handling of the coal tender, the NPP, in spite of some rumblings within the party, remained confident of overcoming the growing accusations regarding governance issues. But, the sudden revelation of the loss suffered by the Treasury, and pathetic efforts made by the NPP to suppress the truth, has caused irreparable harm to the ruling party. The arrogant NPP will have to use May Day to defend the government. Instead of preaching to the masses ad nauseum the corruption allegations against previous administrations, the NPP would have to explain such massive failures/corruption, particularly the loss of USD 2.5 mn.

There hadn’t been a previous instance of such an incident at the Treasury. The NPP will have to answer questions posed by ‘Free Lawyers,’ a civil society group that first raised the Treasury issue. On behalf of ‘Free Lawyers,’ its President Maithri Gunaratne, PC, former Governor of several provinces Rajith Keerthi Tennakoon, and Attorney-at-Law Shiral Lakthikala, targeted the government over the unprecedented Treasury heist. The Opposition, too, censured the NPP, with SJB leader Sajith Premadasa, MP, Chairman of Public Finance Committee (CoPF) Dr. Harsha de Silva, MP, and United Republican Front (URF) taking the lead.

The NPP’s excuses, based on claimed raids carried out by hacker/hackers targeting the Treasury, are untenable. The NPP’s position cannot be defended or supported against growing criticism. The coal scam and Treasury fiasco dominated social media, with the Opposition, as well as ordinary citizens, having a field day at the expense of the NPP, a political party that accused its opponents of waste, corruption, irregularities and mismanagement. Its successful propaganda campaigns, at the presidential and parliamentary polls, in September and November, 2024, respectively, were centered on fighting corruption.

Their anti-corruption platform appealed to the people for obvious reasons. Against the backdrop of bankruptcy, declared in May, 2022, after failing to meet debt commitments, the electorate rallied around the NPP that thrived on waste, corruption, irregularities and mismanagement, perpetrated by previous governments. Having bagged the executive presidency in September, 2024, the NPP assured the electorate that the Parliament would be cleansed of evils at the general election. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake declared that the people have been vested with the responsibility of cleansing the Parliament. Dissanayake went a step further when he addressed a public gathering at the 18th mile post on the Negombo-Colombo road. The NPP leader, who also leads the JVP, asserted that there was no need for an Opposition in Parliament and the House should be filled with NPPers.

Dissanayake based his assertion essentially on two failed No-Confidence Motions (NCMs) moved against Ravi Karunanayake and Keheliya Rambukwella in 2016 and 2023, respectively. The NPP/JVP leader found fault with Yahapalanaya and the Wickremesinghe-Rajapaksa government for protecting the two wrongdoers, hence the call to cleanse Parliament.

The results of the parliamentary election proved that the electorate responded very favourably to Dissanayake’s call. Of the 225-seat Parliament, the NPP secured 159 seats, including 18 National List slots. Having accused previous governments of shielding wrongdoers, Dissanayake easily directed the NPP’s steamroller parliamentary group to defeat the NCM moved against Energy Minister Punyakumara Dissanayake (National List) on 10 April, just a few days after the NAO report exposed the coal scam.

First ex-MP as Treasury Secy.

If its own hands are clean, there is no doubt that the NPP now deeply regrets the appointment of ex-NPP National List MP Harshana Suriyapperuma as the Secretary to the Treasury and the Finance Ministry. That appointment was made in June 2025 to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Mahinda Siriwardana who, along with Governor of the Central Bank Dr. Nandalal Weerasinghe, played a significant role in the country’s post-Aragalaya recovery programme.

Suriyapperuma, who had served as Deputy Minister of Finance and Planning for just seven months, before being appointed the Treasury Secretary/Finance Ministry Secretary, is under heavy fire for suppressing the truth. No less a person than CoPF Chairman Dr. de Silva publicly accused Suriyapperuma of trying to undermine his committee. The SJB has demanded Suriyapperuma’s immediate resignation. Dr. Anil Jayantha succeeded as Deputy Minister of Finance and Planning.

Those who inquired into the crisis-hit Treasury are of the belief that 53-year-old Suriyapperuma lacked the much required experience to fill the shoes of Mahinda Siriwardana. Perhaps, the breach at the Treasury could have been averted if an outsider was not brought in place of Siriwardena. The recent reportage of the incident revealed that Suriyapperuma had been aware of the breach and sought to avoid appearing before the CoPF. The NPP could have responded to the developing situation differently if an ex-MP hadn’t been entrusted with the task of steering the Treasury/Finance Ministry. To make matters worse, President Dissanayake holds the Finance portfolio.

Although the government declared that the theft of USD 2.5 mn had been reported to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) after initial detection made in January this year, controversy surrounds the failure on the part of law enforcement authorities to bring it to the notice of the courts. Maithri Gunaratne, appearing in Hiru last Saturday (25), questioned why the police failed to inform the relevant Magistrate if the government lodged a complaint in that regard.

Australia has confirmed irregularities in payments owed to their government. Regardless of NPP efforts to blame it on hacker/hackers, the truth is clear. Payments have been made to an account that hadn’t been in the original agreement between the governments of Sri Lanka and Australia. That is the undeniable truth that the NPP cannot suppress by propaganda.

The NPP should be ashamed that such a fraud had been perpetrated on a country still struggling to cope up with the economic destruction caused by the UNP- and the SLFP-led governments with the help of “mission impossible” type roles played by outside interests, especially during Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s tenure using the JVP/Aragalaya.

The world knows how the UNP perpetrated the Treasury bond scams with the direct involvement of the then Governor of the Central Bank Arjuna Mahendran, in February 2015 and March 2016. Regardless of that intolerable scam, the UNP made a desperate attempt to retain the services of the Singaporean as the Governor of the Central Bank. Party leader and the then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe demanded the re-appointment of Mahendran. That despicable move had to be dropped due to massive Opposition protests and growing public discontent over the Treasury bond scams.

The first Treasury bond scam carried out on 27 February, 2015 caused a direct loss of approximately Rs. 2 billion. On the instructions of Mahendran, the Treasury suddenly and arbitrarily changed the process of issuing Treasury Bonds. According to media reports at that time, higher interest payments, over the next 30 years, caused a further loss of around Rs. 145 billion.

Then Mahendran struck again. Caused further direct losses of more than Rs. 4 billion to the government through the fraudulent increase in interest rates as a result of the Treasury Bond issues on 27th March, 2016 ,and 29th March, 2016, in order to provide an undue advantage to connected primary dealers by indulging in further pre-meditated bond scams.

NPP on back foot

The ruling party put on a brave face with lawmakers and various others trying to play down the incident at the Treasury. Some pathetically tried to compare various accusations directed at the Rajapaksas with the incident at the Treasury which they conveniently blamed on hacker/hackers.

The NPP is facing an explosive mixture of issues. Both the coal and Treasury scams have brought immense pressure on the national economy and caused automatic deterioration. The resignation of Punyakumara aka Kumara Jayakody over the coal scam indicated that defeating the NCM moved against him was a strategic political blunder. Had the NPP asked the tainted first time Minister to step down and appoint a Presidential Commission to go into the coal scam, the NPP could have averted a major disaster. However, the Energy Minister and the Energy Secretary Udayanga Hemapala had to resign before the Parliament took up the NCM. Had the top NPP leadership bothered to peruse the executive summary of the NAO presented to Parliament on 7 April, the Party wouldn’t have tried to defend the minister.

Having championed a corruption-free political party system and then won both the presidential and parliamentary polls on that platform, the NPP executed the shocking move to move 323 containers out of the Colombo Port, in January 2025, without even any cursory checks. Those who perpetrated that operation used continuing port congestion as an excuse to clear red-flagged containers without mandatory physical checking. The NPP recently thwarted a bid by Opposition lawmakers, representing a parliamentary committee inquiring into the illegal release of containers, to summon President Dissanayake.

That committee, headed by Justice Minister Attorney-at-Law Harshana Nanayakkara, owed an explanation as to why President Dissanayake, in his capacity as the Finance Minister, shouldn’t appear before a House committee. President Dissanayake very often addresses Parliament on crucial issues. As the Minister in charge of Finance, the President should offer an explanation regarding the high profile container issue that tarnished the NPP’s image.

Three major issues in hand, namely the release of 323 containers, coal scam and theft at the Treasury, regardless of what various apologists say on mainstream and social media, have caused irrevocable damage to the party, let alone escapades involving the likes of Speaker Jagath Wickramaratne, Minister Lal Kantha, etc. The impact on the NPP can be ascertained only at an election. With the public increasingly aware of the growing accusations against it, the ruling party will do whatever possible to put off long delayed Provincial Council elections. Facing the electorate against deepening discontent among the public seems to be a frightening situation. It would be interesting to observe how a House committee, headed by Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath, appointed to explore ways and means to conduct Provincial Council polls, address the issue at hand.

When compared with the three major issues, the resignation of Asoka Ranwala, as the Speaker, in December, 2024, over his failure to produce the much-touted educational qualifications, seems unnecessary. Of course, Ranwala’s case attracted tremendous public attention at that time as the public really believed the NPP wouldn’t deceive them. Ranwala’s lie shocked the public. NPP theoretician Prof. Ranjith Nirmal Dewasiri had no qualms in publicly attacking Ranwala in the wake of the NPP defending the Speaker. But, subsequent NPP actions revealed massive manipulations that shamed the first post-Aragalaya government.

Having accused Ranil Wickremesinghe of squandering as much as Rs 16 mn to join his wife Prof. Maithree in the UK in September, 2023, the NPP has ended up facing far more serious accusations. The incident at the Treasury should be sufficient for the Opposition to move NCM against the government. Of course, the NPP got the numbers in Parliament to easily defeat the NCM but the consequences would be devastating. Those who still talk of recovering the missing USD 2.5 mn must be living in a dreamland. The UNP is labelled with Treasury bond scams (2015 and 2016) and the SLPP faulted with tax cuts (2019) and sugar tax scam (2020). The NPP will have to live with the coal scam and Treasury theft. The NPP will no longer be able to parade on political platforms as paragons of virtue. It would be pertinent to mention that the Presidential Commission appointed to probe the procurement of coal, since 2009, would be able to produce a report to meet the NPP’s expectations. All indications point to that and 2026 is going to be far more challenging, both in and outside Parliament, than the previous year.

NDB fraud

Examined together, the massive fraud at the National Development Bank (NDB), perpetrated during the 2024-2026 period, and the Treasury incident, they underscore the vulnerability of the entire banking system. The 13.2 bn NDB fraud and theft of USD 2.5 mn from the Treasury exposed the regulator, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, in respect of the NDB. The situation at the NDB cannot be examined without taking into consideration that Ernst & Young is the external auditors of the NDB and its Managing Partner Duminda Hulangamuwa functions as Senior Economic Adviser to President Dissanayake. People haven’t forgotten that Hulangamuwa had been mentioned as the possible successor of Mahinda Siriwardena before the NPP brought in Suriyapperuma. The Central Bank and Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) come under the purview of the Finance Ministry now embroiled in the expanding Treasury fiasco.

The Board of Directors at the NDB consists of Sriyan Cooray (Chairman), Kelum Edirisinghe (Director / Chief Executive Officer (Executive), Bernard Sinniah (Director /Non-Independent), Sujeewa Mudalige (Director /Independent), Kushan D’Alwis (Director/Independent), Kasturi Chellaraja (Director/Independent), Shweta Pandey (Director /Independent), Hasitha Premaratne (Director/Independent), Sanjaya Mohottala (Director (Non-Independent) and Shanil Fernando Director (Independent).

The issue at hand is how such a fraud went unnoticed for a considerable period of time and whether the top management simply ignored warning signs and the failure on the part of the regulator to intervene. Those who have read Mahinda Siriwardana’s ‘Sri Lanka’s Economic Revival: Reflections on the Journey from Crisis to Recovery’ would know the circumstances leading to the 2022 economic collapse. Soft spoken Siriwardana meticulously discussed how the then Central Bank leadership as well as the so-called economic leadership of the Pohottuwa party deliberately deceived President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Siriwardena’s narrative is explosive. The book, launched before his retirement, with the participation of President Dissanayake, underscored the responsibility on the part of the political leadership and those running the banking system. Obviously Siriwardena’s work had no impact on the current dispensation as well as the top banking management.

The Opposition sees an apparent opportunity to heap pressure on the NPP as it contemplates counter measures. Their challenge is how to take remedial measures without jeopardizing the government. The IMF declaration that it is closely watching the theft of USD 2.5 mn from the Treasury must have added pressure on the government, ripped apart by the situation at the Treasury. Let us hope the government and the Opposition reach consensus on ways and means to improve financial discipline. Overall, the Parliament cannot absolve itself of the responsibility for enactment of laws and ensuring financial discipline and the fact that Sri Lanka needs to start repayment of debt in 2028.

Midweek Review

Is language social or psychological phenomenon?

Published

5 days ago

2026/04/29

Sahan Weerasooriya

This essay was presented at The Philosophy Group of the University of London about 20 years ago. The thought provoking essay published in The Island on 22 April by Usvwatte-aratchi- Some languages confine you; some languages free you prompted me to try to get this essay published if possible. It may help the readers to further their ideas about the importance of usage of language.

Personally, I have firsthand experience in this subject. I was exposed to two different cultures and two languages. In my formative years I was brought up in a certain culture and spoke the language pertaining to that culture/language (Sinhalese -Sri Lanka). I spent all my studying and working life (55 years) using a different language in a different culture (English -England). I must mention that this was not recently. It was the early 1960’s. I can claim that I have enough knowledge and experience to justify this essay topic. In this essay I shall be investigating some of the social aspects of language with the aid of some opinions put forward by some philosophers. Then I shall be making an attempt to see what psychology has to offer before I draw my own conclusions. I am treating social aspects as part and parcel of the culture. In my view these are inseparable entities, unless one chooses to forget his or her cultural upbringing to suit a particular society.

Adoption of different culture

Socially, learning a different language and adopting a different culture is quite possible. In this case what dominates is one’s attitude or the circumstances. Attitude is psychological. I am convinced that circumstances may lead to a change of attitudes. Having said that, we must not forget that there are individuals who have not taken the trouble to learn the language of the culture in which they live. This has created a lot of socio-psychological problems in the community in which they live. It is obvious that the problem is one of communication. The main tool of communication is language. Philosophers and psychologists have spent many years investigating how language helps us to communicate and also how it may lead us to misunderstand our own fellow human beings. Understanding others (family members, members of the community in which we live, and the strangers we meet) is one of the most important aspects of living.

An awareness of the problem of language goes back to the early Greek philosophers. Parmenides gave us the first example of an argument from language to the world, saying that if we speak of a thing it must exist, since we speak of a thing at various times, it must continue to exist in a particular form. It is recently that language itself has come to be studied in a systematic way. The two landmarks in this respect were the development of Linguistics and the philosophy of language in the 20th century. The great philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) has admitted that until he became a middle-aged man, he did not think about language per se, but regarded it as ‘transparent’. I am sure this is true with most of us although we are not of Russell’s caliber when it comes to philosophy. And one may not have to wait until one reaches one’s middle age.

Linguistics and philosophy of language

It will help us if we understand the difference between Linguistics and philosophy of Language. What linguists discover may be applied to philosophy, sociology, psychology, anthropology or physiology. But as a discipline of study, it remains independent of them. The philosophy of language is different. One of the modern philosophers John Searle (1932-2025) thought, by contrast to linguistics, philosophy tries to solve philosophical problems by analyzing the ordinary use, meaning and relations of words in a particular language. Searle goes on to say that language is crucial to understand human experience. In my opinion this is a very valid comment. At a very practical level we spend a lot of time sharing our experiences. Verbal communication is vital in this area. According to Canadian philosopher Ian Hacking(1936-2023) the influence of language on philosophy has been profound and almost unrecognized. He indicates, if we are not to be misled by this influence, it is necessary to become conscious of it, and to ask ourselves deliberately how far it is legitimate.

It is appropriate to bring in Ludwig Wittgenstein(1889-1951) at this point. He brought in the subject predicate theory of language. For example, if we say “John is king”. Where John is the subject and king is the predicate. Here existence requires substance. For Aristotle, forms do not exist independently of things—every form is the form of something. A “substantial” form is a kind that is attributed to a thing, without which that thing would be of a different kind or would cease to exist altogether. Wittgenstein supports Saint Augustine’s view that words are names of objects and that combinations of words have the sole function of describing reality. For example, if we point at a certain object, say a table and try to say to a child “this is a table”, the child will be confused as to what we are pointing at. Is it the colour, the tabletop or one or more of its legs This is called the ostensive definition method of teaching. Ostensive definitions lead to a variety of interpretations. The child may understand a particular case of this definition but there is no guarantee that she will be able to make a transition from one case to others like it.

Plato’s theory

J G Herder (1744-1803) pointed out the object to which we make reference may be defined by numerous different terms. How then can we justify direct, one to one correspondence-either of so many to one, or of one to so many? How are we going to deal with situations where a term describes something non-existent or only possible? Plato’s “Forms” theory cannot be applied here as anything that we can speak of already exists as a Form. Critics of this theory ask the question: “how can the world be crowded with so many imaginary objects?” We use words to describe and define. Is there any room for slang language? This comes in handy in our day to day social communication. Ostensive definition raises the questions that require a constant selection of what counts as relevant. In Aldous Huxley’s novel Chrome Yellow, the character Old Rowley is confused as to: Does ‘pig’ refer to the quality of having a curly tail? Or standing in rows to eat? Or being pink skinned and fat? Or wearing no clothes? When we use the word “piggishness” is it something inherent to pigs, or simply, a matter of how we choose to describe them?

How can we relate the above ideas and theories of language to our daily living? Daily living is a psychosocial activity.

Perceptions

The nature of language reflects the nature of our perceptions, and these are far from straight forward. Franz Brentano (1838-1917) developed his theory of intentionality: that every mental phenomenon has a relation of direction to its object, i.e. perceptions, desires, imagination etc. are related to what is perceived, desired or imagined. I presume this can be applied to any language irrespective of the culture (our social conditioning). Say for instance the images of art and the writings are given the ability to represent objects by imposing the intentionality on the object. Thus, when we assert that we see or believe something, we impose, by convention and intention, (that is true if and only if it is the case) on the statement, and these conditions are not contained intrinsically in the sounds that make it up, but in our perception of belief about the fact. I begin to wonder how this can be applied to non-physical and unseen situations. Sometimes our feelings and attitudes are unknown to the observer. A person may shout because he is angry but you cannot see the anger, only its physical expression. We will not be able to see the prior event that has led to the anger and the utterance. This shows that there is a limit to how much is revealed simply by observing a word and its context; there is often more than that can be said.

How can we account for unexpected linguistic behaviour? This has both social and psychological implications.

For a long time behavioural theorists believed that every development of the human being was controlled by environmental and social factors. This is similar to an ostensive explanation of meaning. It implied that everything was learnt through training and association. But Noam Chomsky (b.1928) was not happy with this idea. He thought language is a complex phenomenon and which is not taught bit by bit or systematically to infants. It is successfully acquired by (almost) everybody. From my own experience it is true to say that the difficulty in learning a second language is a very different process from that experienced with the first language. Chomsky argued that the first language is not in fact learned, but rather acquired through exposure to a particular language. According to him all languages share the same basic structure, and he called this “deep structure”, which may be expressed as surface structures through a process called ‘transformation’. Chomsky’s theory helps us to assume a universal system of grammar, which may generate an infinite number of particular sentences within a language. This explains how we may create sentences within a language we have never encountered before from a limited set of grammatical rules and this appears to be a rational scientific approach.

Social or psychological phenomenon

The argument/discussion whether language is a social or a psychological phenomenon requires much more investigation than this essay warrants. I have briefly brought in various philosophers’ work, which are invaluable to this topic in terms of philosophy of language. In conclusion I am tempted to state my own experiences as a bi-lingual person. When it comes to my first language, which is Sinhalese I don’t think I learned it. I heard my parents speaking it and I picked up a few words and I constructed my own sentences and gradually became proficient by accumulating more words. Of course, the proper grammatical use of even my own language was taught in school and not by my parents. Learning my second language i.e. English took a different form. I was taught to speak, read, and write English at school and I had to work harder at this than my first language, because my English was confined to the classroom situation only, i. e. I learnt English in a non- English environment. First language came naturally and the second one I had to learn to fit into the social and the education structure that prevailed at that time. Compulsion can motivate us to learn!I had no choice but to adopt myself culturally and linguistically as a university student in England and then as a university teacher in England. Apart from the native English students, I have taught students from different countries. European, African and Asian. I had the opportunity to intermingle with them and learned various different cultural and linguistic aspects. After almost a half a century in England, I am back to my own culture (language, customs, food etc) where I was born and started my life. I am still proficient in my own language Sinhalese. No conscious effort needed.

After all the foregoing arguments and philosophy that I have put forward, my own conclusion is Chomsky’s theories are more plausible to me than other theories on this issue. It is difficult to be exact and say whether language is a social or psychological phenomenon. From the above arguments, we can see that culture and language of a given society are tightly bound. This leads us to psychological adjustments in order to fit into a society. Who can deny that even the philosophers mentioned above have not been subjected to their own cultural environment?

by Prof. Sampath
Anson Fernando
Formerly University of
The Arts London