Features

Travel and exploration in the jungles, coast and Kataragama

Published

3 years ago

2023/02/26

Thilina Walpola

By Douglas B. Ranasinghe

excerpted from from the authorized biography of Thilo Hoffmann

Soon after their marriage, Thilo and Mae began to make extensive journeys through the country, during weekends and holidays. Once, on one of their first, they found themselves at Arugam Bay late in the afternoon. The old resthouse on the dunes consisted of a small trellised veranda, a dining room beyond that, two bedrooms, kitchen and staff quarters. It was already occupied. However, the resthouse keeper and the occupants graciously allowed the Hoffmanns to put up for the night on the veranda.

Before dusk, they went for a drive towards Komari. On their return, a fine male leopard crossed the road just ahead of the car. It was Mae’s first. Back at the resthouse, lit by cosy kerosene lamps, she recounted the episode to their new acquaintances, who were four Sri Lankan hunters, probably planters as Thilo now surmises. After she had finished, one of them in turn, told of an experience with a leopard. During this lengthy and enthusiastic account Thilo absent-mindedly asked – so his wife used to recall – three times: “Was it a bear?”

After the third time Mae lost her temper and upbraided him severely. Since that time, throughout their lives, whenever his attention began to wane she would say: “Was it a bear?”

In their younger years Mae used to join Thilo in almost all his travels in the island. He recalls:

“She had great endurance and stamina. Despite her rather fragile physique she would outwalk me. Together we faced many hardships without any complaints from her, such as tick bites galore, and leeches in wet areas and remote jungle tanks.

He continues:

“Three times I came down with malaria and once with a nasty hepatitis attack. During a memorable three-day walk along the Kala Oya I became infected with amoebiasis, which months later confined me to hospital for one month whilst undergoing emetine treatment. With my friend Marcel Roth (who was then chef at the GFH) I did the 25 mile trek along the left bank through thick riverine jungle, never stepping on the other side of the river which was the Wilpattu National Park.

“We slept on sandy patches, one night in close proximity to a herd of elephants whom we heard throughout. The two of us scrupulously boils the water we drank except once when thirst overpowered our good sense. That is how we contracted amoebiasis. Marcel, as a result, nearly died of a cyst in the liver some time later. We found my Land Rover in an open field about two miles east of Elavankulam, where my appu Velu had it left three days earlier. This was well before the large Rajanganaya reservoir was built further up-river (or the ill-conceived Inginimitiya tank, both areas then teeming with elephants).”

Mae was not only the accountant in the family (see Chapter I) but also the photographer and movie-maker. In 1951 Thilo’s parents, on their first visit to the couple, brought them an American-made Bell and Howell movie camera as a present. Mae and Thilo’s involvement in photography is described in the next Chapter. In 1967, for his 45th birthday, she gave him a fine pair of binoculars, which she could barely afford. It thereafter accompanied him wherever he went.

Dr and Mrs Hoffmann on that visit together with their son and daughter-in-law visited the ruined cities, Kandy and Horton Plains, which was then accessible by car only via Diyagama East Estate off Agarapatana. Over the years both Thilo’s and Mae’s parents visited Ceylon, later Sri Lanka, several times.

So did their brothers and sisters and, later, nephews. They all got to know the island quite well and appreciate its attractions.Memorable incidents were many across the years. A few of these to do with nature and travel are found across this book; two others ‘off beat’ are recounted here.

One day at Kinellan Estate, Ella the Hoffmanns Jr. and Sr. were sitting down to lunch with the Superintendent and his wife in the open veranda. From the ceiling fell a thin stream of liquid on to the plate before Thilo’s father. The food on the table was ruined. The culprit was one of a family of ‘polecats’ (Indian palm civets) which had their home in the roof!

In another of Thilo’s stories, the local fauna again turned on them:

“We were on our way to Arugam Bay where in the dunes the Boyd-Mosses had a romantic abode made mostly of remnants from a demolished tea factory. At that time Durban Boyd-Moss was the superintendent of Baurs’ Chelsea Estate.

“While driving past Tirukkovil my wife spotted a bull being tormented by two men who threw chunks of road ‘metal’ (stone) at it from a heap on the roadside. The bull’s head was tied down to one of its front legs and it was lying on the ground.

“As I was supposed to do something about this, I got down from the car, shouted at the miscreants, took an open pocket-knife to cut the rope, and slowly approached the lying bull from front, making appropriate calming noises. When I touched its head the bull jumped up and charged into my lower legs. I flew up in the air and somersaulted, still holding the open knife. On coming down I lost for a moment all sense of orientation. Then I ran blindly right into a deep wide drain. Here I lay with the bull butting me continuously.

“My brother, a strong man, eventually managed to pull it off me by its loose tethering rope. It then went for the other two men. They ran across the dry paddy fields, leaping over the bunds like in a steeplechase. It was first shock, then great fun for all, except for the bruises and bleeding abrasions, and my brother’s rope burns on legs and arms which became infected and took a long time to heal.”

Milo and Mae travelled for a variety of interests. There was a total eclipse of the sun in June 1955. He took a half-day’s leave and drove with her to Tabbowa.

They waited on the bund of the tank. Around noon, as ‘night’ fell rapidly the singing of birds and the chirping of cicadas ceased. Mimosa plants folded up their leaves, birds were roosting, total silence reigned and the air became chilly. The sun had disappeared behind the moon which was outlined by faint light around its edges. The wonder did not last long, ‘dawn’ broke quickly, and soon the world around was normal again.

A similar, later incident illustrates the conditions in those decades:

“One memorable night, in March 1978, on the southern shore of the Jaffna Lagoon we witnessed the total eclipse of the full moon lying on our camp beds. As we had been en route for some days, we were unaware of the event, and wondered whether we had had one too many!

“This casual and easy way of passing a night outdoors was then possible as there were fewer people, less violence and more jungles. I never experienced the slightest apprehension of danger, be it from humans, or wild animals. I never carried a weapon on these occasions (even in the days when this was permitted). The attitude of the people, especially of the rural population, towards foreigners was then generally friendly and trusting.

“In our travels through the island, we often used to camp overnight at any suitable spot along the route, selected at random. We did not use tents, but just unfolded camp beds, made a fire for cooking and slept under the open sky — all in the dry zone where the weather is predictable. Rivers and tanks offered fine opportunities for bathing and washing. When we stayed longer in one place we used a heavy tarpaulin from one of Baurs’ open lorries. It was stretched over a rope strung between two trees. At one end it reached the ground and, with a trench dug there, gave excellent spacious shelter even in bad weather.

“Places where I remember camping are Kokkilai, Kuchchaveli, the Parangi Aru, the Modaragam Aru, Mail Villu (then in Wilpattu West Sanctuary), Kala Oya, along the road from Puttalam to Anuradhapura (then all in jungle), on the Kumbukkan Oya, Potana, off Galge, at Mullegama, Maha Oya, Inginiyagala and Koddiyar Bay.”

In the earlier decades of the twentieth century, John Still described the northern dry-zone jungles as “the great plains that are now so empty of men”. This is how Thilo first saw them. When he arrived in Ceylon the island had just over six million inhabitants; today there are more than three times that.

For half a century Thilo and Mae, and after her death then he, would continue travelling and exploring all parts of the island, unique in character and variety, including unspoilt and beautiful areas unknown to most Sri Lankans then and now. The knowledge and experience he gained of the country in this way would form the basis for his work in conservation.

Kataratgama

Thilo records his memories of a famous place, and his thoughts on its transformation:

“I remember vividly an early occasion when my wife and I decided to visit Kataragama for the first time, to watch the annual fire-walking ceremony. This was in 1949, when the event fell on a weekend. I took half-a-day’s leave, as we worked on Saturdays.

“We drove in our open MG to Tissamaharama, where we arrived shortly after noon. From there we walked because during the festival season vehicles were prohibited on the dirt track which led to the holy shrine in the jungle. This kept away idle thrill-seekers, as only genuine pilgrims and serious observers like us undertook the tough 17 km long walk in great heat.

“Only some years later was a jeep track provided via Yodawewa and Katagamuwa, opening the floodgates to sightseers. Today there is a motorable highway. Kataragama has lost its mystic charm and changed beyond recognition. We reached our destination by early evening. Across the Menik Ganga was only a narrow hanging footbridge. There were no pilgrim rests or any other places at which to stay.

“Until late in the night we watched the fascinating scenes and events, moving amongst a multitude of mostly Hindu but also many Buddhist pilgrims. The scenes at the river, the peraheras with one elephant carrying a symbol of God Kataragama (Skanda) to the Valliamma Shrine and back, the devotees with small silver spears stuck through cheeks and tongue and on breast and arms, the kavadi bearers walking on sandals of nails, people rolling on the ground around the main temple, the pujas, the offerings of flowers and fruit, the frenzy and ecstasy in the smoke-filled dimly lit temple itself, with the deafening noise of drums, conch, flute and bells, the smells of burning joss-sticks, incense, camphor and coconut oil and of sweating humanity: these are indelible in my memory, as is the image of a man and a woman who frantically tried to place burning lumps of camphor on their tongues, picking them up with bare fingers from bowls filled with holy ash. All these acts are in fulfillment of vows in penance.

“We watched and moved amongst the crowds till about midnight, when we tried to get some rest at the foot of a large tree. We had brought with us neither food nor drink, and, of course, none were on sale.

The fire-walking was said to start at 3 a.m. on Sunday morning. Hours earlier the fire had been lit, so that when the time came there was a deep bed of red hot embers, left from burning entire logs. Soon people began to assemble around the fire in a wide circle sitting on the ground. We were assigned places right in front. The heat was great and several times we had to move backwards. Preparations continued for quite a while yet, including those of the fire-walking devotees who were kept in a separate abode nearby. My wife and I were the only white people present.

“By about 4 a.m. all was ready, and the first barefoot devotee walked across the bed of embers which was about 35 feet long and six feet wide. Attendants saw to it that all proceeded in an orderly fashion and that the embers were not unduly disturbed. One after another the walkers were sent through the embers, some marching slowly and deliberately, others in a hurry, nearly running, and some quite obviously in a trance. One stumbled and embers were sprayed in all directions. There were about 20 participants and if I remember correctly one or two were women. No burns were reported, and all went well. (Some years later a misguided Christian priest tried it and burned his feet badly.)

“When it was all over daylight began tentatively to break. Exhausted as we were, we began the return walk, another 17 km to Tissa, together with hundreds of pilgrims. I remember a Tamil man who walked ahead of us for some time with his little daughter of perhaps five or six years chanting a religious verse which ended with “Haro hara”, when the girl’s clear silvery voice chimed in. For us this was an enchanting episode.

“A beautiful but hot day was coming up as we trekked along the foot of Vedahitikanda hill. We were dead tired, and my wife almost had to drag me over the last kilometres to our car, which we had left near the Tissa resthouse. For an hour or two we slept in the car, and then I drove all the way back to Colombo. That night we slept like logs, a memorable experience behind us, one of so many similar ones in our long lives ahead.”

“Kataragama was then a truly sylvan shrine with only a few ancient temples and other buildings, a mosque, the Basnayaka’s and the GA’s residences and a row of seasonal shops (’boutiques’), all in a garden of trees. During most of the year the area was left in solitude for wildlife to roam – elephants, sambhur, spotted deer, leopard and bear.

“Today we have a modern ‘Holy City’ in its place with many unnecessary concrete ’embellishments’, lamp-posts, hotels, pilgrim rests, bridges and tarred roads. The avenue between the two main temples is fringed with exotic Tabebuia trees. The whole area now is a great commercial enterprise.

In later years we used to meet Swami Gowripala (Herr Schon-feldt) there and also Kalki Swami (Mike Wilson).”

Lost to modernity

Thilo continues:

“The Ven. Bhikkhu Sumedha, a long-time friend who had grown up in Switzerland, spent his early hermit years as a Buddhist monk at Situlpauwa and at the top of Vedahitikanda. He later obtained higher ordination, and died in Kandy in 2006. On his occasional visits to Colombo, dana was regularly offered at our house.

“Situlpauwa was then a jungle-covered site with only an occasional hermit monk in residence, and wildlife roaming freely through it. Today, as a result of restoration and development, the jungle has given way to concrete, electric lights, noise and commerce.”

During his time in Sri Lanka Thilo has been dismayed to witness such change, in diverse ways, at countless holy and historical places. He adds one example:

“We may perhaps record two different alterations at the famous Koneswaram Temple, on Swami Rock at Trincomalee. The entire temple has been ‘restored’ and renovated, covering under cement and plaster and layers of glossy new paint all traces of its ancient history.

“It is also the site of an act of vandalism. There on a stone pillar was an inscription in high relief recording the death of a young Dutch woman who in the 18th century threw herself over the precipice after watching her lover’s ship sail away. This was chiselled away in the 1980s, a testimony to the prevalent politico-religious chauvinism.

(To be continued)

All News Advertisement

Features

Trump’s tariffs, AKD’s gazette and Sri Lanka’s diplomatic slumber

Published

15 hours ago

2026/07/17

Thilina Walpola

“We are rather respectable in Colombo. We go to bed fairly early, and we remain there till morning. “

According to Sri Lanka’s diplomatic folklore, the late S.W. R. D. Bandaranaike uttered these words while explaining the reasons for Sri Lanka’s abstention on the UN resolution condemning the Soviet invasion of Hungary. Apparently, SWRD’s foreign ministry officials were asleep at home when the diplomatic cable seeking instructions was received from New York. In those days, there were no cell phones, Internet, or even fax or telex machines. The diplomatic cables were sent through post offices. Decoding them was a slow and time-consuming process. Thus, the government could not provide appropriate instructions to our mission in New York in time, and the Sri Lankan delegation abstained on that sensitive UN vote.

Sri Lanka’s Absence from Section 301 Consultations

But then, how does one explain Sri Lanka’s absence from the crucial bilateral consultation held in Washington by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) during March-April on “Forced Labour” under the Section 301 of the US Trade Act of 1974? Didn’t our foreign and trade ministries send appropriate instructions to Washington in time? Even if the instructions from the foreign ministry were transmitted to our embassy in Washington by pigeon carriers, there was enough time for Sri Lanka to participate in those meetings.

In March, the USTR initiated these 301 investigations on 60 trading partners, and invited all of them for confidential consultations. Out of the 60, 46 participated in these consultations. Sri Lanka was not one of them. Other countries that didn’t participate in these consultations included China, Russia, and Venezuela! In addition to that, the Section 301 Committee conducted a public hearing with interested parties on April 28 and 29. Washington-based diplomats, representatives from few trade ministries as well as representatives from many foreign trade associations and chambers participated in these hearings. Sri Lanka was once again conspicuously absent.

As a result, when the USTR published the proposed forced labour tariffs on June 2nd, Sri Lanka ended up with a 12.5% duty. Pakistani and Indonesian diplomats participated in these consultations and took appropriate follow-up measures, and managed to enter the 10% duty category. As even a threat of a modest tariff hike could disrupt supply chains and reduce competitiveness, particularly in an industry such as garments, I discussed this issue on 15 June and underscored the importance of Sri Lanka’s participation at the next hearing, which was scheduled to be held from July 7th .

Awakening from Diplomatic Slumber and AKD’s Gazette

Fortunately, Sri Lanka finally awoke from weeks of diplomatic slumber, and Ambassador Mahinda Samarasinghe participated in the public hearing on 9 July, and promised, “…. · We have agreed to the text in our negotiations with the USTR on forced labour, …. The gazette as we speak is being printed and I’m getting the gazette tomorrow morning, and the gazette will be shared with USTR as I get it“.

As promised, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake issued a gazette on 10 July banning the imports of goods produced by forced labour. These new regulations are very similar to what Pakistan and Indonesia enacted in April, after their consultations with USTR in March. Why couldn’t we do it in April? Why did we wait till the very last minute?

Challenges ahead

“War is too important to be left to generals alone,” is a famous saying attributed to former French Premier Georges Clemenceau. Similarly, monitoring our main markets is too important to be left to diplomats alone. The United States is the largest single-country market for Sri Lanka. Therefore, Sri Lankan trade chambers and associations should become more proactive in these markets and participate in these events. For example, the chairman of the Pakistani apparel exporters association participated in the April hearings. Similarly, representatives from the Indian Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, the Confederation of Indian Industry, and Reliance Industries also participated in July hearings. At an event where each speaker is given only five minutes (strictly enforced), having a number of speakers from a country is an advantage. The presence of industry representatives in these kinds of events also help them understand the market dynamics and the future challenges. This is important, particularly because there will be many more challenges with Trump’s tariffs.

With the gazette issued on 10 July, Sri Lanka has imposed a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labour. Now, the challenge will be to effectively enforce the prohibition. And what are the goods produced with forced labour? The USTR list only focuses on aluminum, cotton, electronics, lithium-ion batteries, rice, and tobacco. However, according to the U.S. Department of Labour, the list is much longer. Hence, this list may change continuously during the next two years and tariffs may fluctuate once again.

So, this is definitely not the time to slumber.

(The writer, a retired public servant, can be reached at senadhiragomi@gmail.com)

by Gomi Senadhira ✍️

Features

Tales of Mystery and Suspense 10 Casino for Sale

Published

15 hours ago

2026/07/17

Thilina Walpola

After the overwhelming grotesquerie of J K Rowling’s latest Cormoran Strike novel (written, I should have noted, as the others were, under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith), I thought I should return to the world of fun, and also a much shorter description since this thriller moves quickly without the layers of detail that Rowling engages in.

I then move to the second comic thriller by Caryl Brahms and S J Simon. This, their second story to feature Vladimir Stroganoff and Adam Quill, was Casino for Sale, as lunatic a romp as the first, though without the emphasis on the ballet that characterized A Bullet in the Ballet.

This one begins with the impresario Stroganoff buying a casino cheap from Baron Sam de Rabinovich, only to find that it was a rundown place, not the grand casino of La Bazouche, a resort on the Frenc+h Riviera, as he had initially thought. The grand one belonged to Lord Buttonhooke, and Stroganoff could not compete, until he thought of bringing the Ballet Stroganoff to the casino – which of course leads to Buttonhooke deciding to have ballet performances in his Casino too.

Stroganoff invites Quill to visit him, which Quill decides to do since he has left Scotland Yard, having come into a legacy. No one believes this, and he has to face questions as to what he did to have been sacked, with sympathy for having been found out.

Caryl and Simon

The day he arrives in La Bazouche there is a murder, of a vitriolic critic called Citrolo, in Stroganoff’s office. He had been going to write a damning review of the opening night of the ballet and Stroganoff, when he realizes Citrolo cannot be swayed, drugs him and dictates the review himself to the papers. He leaves Citrolo sleeping and finds him shot the next morning, whereupon he decides to muddy the waters and leave a suicide note and lots of other murder weapons. So much overkill, as it were, of course ensures that he is arrested.

But the excitable French detective who makes the arrest follows up his suggestion that Buttonhooke was also involved, and so the two casino owners find themselves in cells next door to each other, with the detective Gustave quite happy to provide creature comforts for a fee.

Quill decides he must investigate, and finds Gustave most cooperative, since he has a laid back attitude to work. So it is Quill that finds a notebook which makes it clear Citrolo is an accomplished blackmailer, and that there are lots of possible murderers, including Stroganoff’s croupier, who was crooked, Rabinovich, who was now working for Buttonhooke, a confidence trickster called Kurt Kukumber, whose prospectus for a dud gold mine was found in the office and Prince Alexis Artishok who was engaged in a deal to buy diamonds from the ballerina Dyra Dyrakova.

Stroganoff had been trying to get Dyrakova to dance for him, but having done so previously she had refused. But then to Stroganoff’s chagrin she agreed to dance for Buttonhooke. The clearly crooked Artishok had told Buttonhooke’s mistress Sadie Souse, who was not very bright, that Dyrakova possessed diamonds she was willing to sell cheap, and Sadie was determined to have them.

Quill meanwhile finds out that there was a secret passage to Stroganoff’s office, the obvious solution to what had begun as a locked room mystery, and that this was known by almost everyone apart from Stroganoff himself. And then Rabinovich is murdered, just after Gustave had released his two original suspects, leading him to blame Quill for having insisted on that and thus allowing them to kill again.

Soon afterwards Dyrakova arrives, and the town is full of posters announcing that she will appear in the casinos, elaborate posters for either one, since Stroganoff is determined that she will dance for him, and if she does not come willingly, he has devised a scheme to make her do so unwillingly. So, though Buttonhooke has her taken off to his yacht immediately she arrives at the station, Quill along with Arenskaya gets her into a launch and to Stroganoff’s casino, where she performs to tumultuous applause, not knowing for whom she is dancing.

When Quill asked her about the diamonds, she said she had sold them long ago, and that gave Quill the solution to the mystery. Rabinovich had known about this, and Artishok had killed him to prevent Sadie learning it from him, he had killed Citrolo who had recognized him for an accomplished card sharper, not a Russian prince at all. But before he is arrested, he gets away in a boat, and the police launch that pursues him is on the point of catching him up when it runs out of petrol.

Again, lots of excitement, and entertaining references – Gustave grows marrows – and if not quite as brilliant as its predecessor, Casino was certainly a delightful read.

Features

The challenge of being positive about SAARC

Published

2 days ago

2026/07/16

Sahan Weerasooriya

The RCSS forum addressed by SAARC Secretary General Ambassador Md. Golam Sarwar in progress. (Pic courtesy RCSS)

It was a few years back that a former President of Sri Lanka took it on himself to pronounce SAARC ‘dead’. Since then there have been other sections of Sri Lankan opinion that have joined the critics of SAARC and taken the solemn stance that SAARC has indeed died what may be called a natural death.

Their fatalism is understandable. SAARC has failed to meet at heads of government or state level for the past several years to take the SAARC process notably forward. Regional cooperation has more or less been only an appealing idea. No substantive concrete projects have taken off to make the idea a hard reality. ‘Inner paralysis’ seems to be SAARC’s lot. Hence the fatalism in these circles.

However, being one of the worst cash-strapped regions of the world and a teemingly populated one with people virtually left to their devices, what choices do the ‘SAARC Eight’ have other than to try their best to band together and continue with their cooperation efforts, however small they may be?

There is no escaping the mounting debt trap for many of these countries and bankrupt Sri Lanka is a glaring example, but ‘throwing in the towel’ and abandoning themselves entirely to the diktats of the strongest economies and their agencies will prove a ‘living death’ for many countries in the SAARC fold.

The gains may be meagre but giving-up on SAARC cooperation in full would prove self-defeating for the organization and South Asia. Right now, the collective intention ought to be to salvage what the region could from the tenuous cooperative efforts. Moreover, such initiatives could go some distance to generate a degree of goodwill among the Eight and help in sustaining a dialogue process.

Given this backdrop it proved ‘a stich in time’ for the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies (RCSS), Colombo, to recently host the SAARC Secretary General Ambassador Md. Golam Sarwar to a round table discussion on the unifying potential of SAARC and its future possibilities, besides other related issue areas.

Held on June 24th and moderated by RCSS Executive Director and former ambassador Ravinatha Aryasinha, the forum brought together a vibrant, wide ranging audience comprising academicians, diplomats, senior public servants, civil society activists and many others. Following the presentation by Ambassador Golam Sarwar titled, ‘Reigniting SAARC: Achievements, Challenges and the Way Ahead’, a lively Q&A followed.

The above forum could be described as an act of lighting the proverbial ‘candle’ rather than ‘cursing the darkness.’ It surely is a ‘darkness’ that could be seen as daunting considering that the region’s pivotal powers, India and Pakistan, are failing to act in a spirit of accord but are engaged in bitter finger-pointing on a number of questions of vital importance to SAARC.

On the other hand, what is the rest of the region doing to bring the above sides together? It is disappointing that to date the rest of SAARC has failed to launch a major diplomatic drive to bring peace between the feuding regional heavyweights. It needs to act without delay and establish its earnestness and this effort would need to prove SAARC’s staying power in the unfolding months and even years.

In assessing SAARC’s seeming failure local opinion in particular has failed to factor in what could be described as weak leadership. Since Sheikh Mujibur Rahman of Bangladesh, the founding father of SAARC, the region has failed to produce a visionary leader who could advance the SAARC cause with charisma and drive.

Among other reasons, weak leadership accounts considerably for the faltering and stuttering status, as it were, of SAARC. Badly needed are leaders who could go the extra mile, think less of narrow national interests and work diligently towards the collective well being of the region but SAARC’s millions of ordinary people have been made to wait in vain for leaders of such stature. Instead, they have been burdened with politicians who seem to be relishing the apparently moribund state of SAARC.

Looking back, it could be said that it was the dynamic leadership factor that led to the launching of the Non-Aligned Movement and for its sustenance for a few decades. True, it could be seen in some quarters that NAM is no more, but as in the case of SAARC, the former too has been unfortunate to be burdened over the years with politicians who lack the vision and drive to unflaggingly advance the fortunes of the South. NAM and SAARC lack the dynamism and vision of leaders of the stature of Jawaharlal Nehru, for example, to give them the required guidance and intellectual depth.

The reasons are complex for there not being among us currently political leaders with the vision and the steadfast commitment to advance the legitimate interests of the South. However, it could be stated with conviction that the majority of Southern leaders have too easily caved in to the demands of the global North and its financial agencies.

These leaders have failed to see, for instance, that the largely market economy oriented Northern governments would not view with favour a centrist economic model that attaches priority to the interests of the dis-empowered publics of the South. This realization ought to have dawned on the current government in Sri Lanka, for instance, some while ago but it has no choice but to abide by IMF dictates since economic survival at present is unthinkable without the latter’s succour.

Accordingly for SAARC this should be the time for some soul-searching. Priority needs to be attached to ending the feuding between India and Pakistan since at present the material fortunes of the region hinge largely on these regional giants giving peaceful relations among them a try. This is no easy challenge to meet but some daring, visionary diplomacy needs to take hold among the rest of SAARC.

There is some sense in SAARC bringing the peoples of the region together through programs that address their best collective interests. A meeting of minds among SAARC nations could enable SAARC and its agencies to build a region-wide people’s movement for progressive political and economic change that could in turn lead to the region’s political leaders sensitizing themselves more to the neglected needs of their publics.

However, the time is ‘now’ for the initiation of these progressive changes and the voice of SAARC well wishers would need to drown out those of their critics.